Elfshadow

Three

The merchant caravan made camp for the night, but underlying the usual bustle of activity was a deep spirit of unease. On route from Waterdeep to Cormyr, the caravan was camping in the shadow of Darkhold.

It was not unheard of for lawful merchant trains to stop at the Zhentarim stronghold; after all, business was business. Openly trading with the Dark Network was vastly preferable to defending a caravan against it. Since raiding was a random business and supplies had to be maintained, the outpost fortress routinely traded for whatever items they could not steal.

The merchants had been given every assurance of safety and fair trade, but no one in the caravan would rest easily that night. Peace of mind was impossible; surrounded on all sides by sheer rock cliffs and a heavily fortified wall, they were effectively trapped inside the Vale of Darkhold with the thousand or so members of the Zhentarim-sponsored contingent. The caravan’s watch had been tripled, but so apparently had the guard on the perimeter wall above them.

Members of the merchant caravan who did not draw watch also stayed awake long into the night. Tensions were channeled into games of chance, hard drinking punctuated by loudly told tales of bravado, and furtive, frantic trysts.

In a small tent at the very edge of the camp, a lone figure waited impatiently for the others to sleep. Hours of noisy revelry passed, and after a time she could delay no longer. Arilyn Moonblade gathered her supplies and slipped away into the night.

Years of practice and an innate elven grace enabled Arilyn to move without sound, and the moonless night cloaked her in darkness. The half-elf slowly made her way toward the fortress, using the route she had painstakingly mapped. Except for a few acres of trees, the valley floor had little natural cover. Arilyn used whatever was available, darting between heaps of boulders and crawling through scrubby brush. Finally she reached the copse of trees just west of the Postern Gate Tower. Before her lay a moat, and beyond that the massive outer wall of the fortress.

The old Zhentish informant had told her most emphatically that she should not attempt to swim the moat. It was full of dangerous creatures, including small fish with razor-sharp teeth. A school of these fish could strip the flesh from a horse in a matter of minutes. Across the deceptively still waters of the moat, the fortress loomed against the starless night, its black towers thrusting upward. Crouched in the shadow of the trees, Arilyn took several items from her bag and prepared to enter Darkhold.

Several weeks of hectic planning had gone into this assignment. By now Arilyn knew so much about the fortress that she felt somehow sullied by the knowledge. Built by evil giants centuries before, the castle had in turn housed dragons and an undead mage before being conquered and inhabited by the Zhentarim. Evil seemed to permeate the very structure, as if it had been mixed into the mortar.

Arilyn assembled a small crossbow, then fitted to it a most unusual arrow. Specially designed for this assignment, the arrow was very much like a child’s toy, ending in a cup rather than a point. Filling the cup was spider-sap, a powerful adhesive alchemically derived from the coating of giant spider webs. She took careful aim at the Visitors’ Tower. Her arrow flew, trailing behind it a length of gossamer rope, and found its mark just below the roof of the tower. Arilyn pulled hard on the rope, a lightweight but unbreakable cord spun from silk. Satisfied that it would hold, she swung over the moat, released the rope, and landed lightly at the base of the wall.

The Visitors’ Tower was part of the outer wall and often was used, as it was tonight, to house guests considered too dangerous to allow in the castle proper. There were guards, of course, but they were stationed inside the fortress and were concerned with monitoring the visitors’ passage between the tower and the courtyard. Arilyn again grasped the rope and began to climb the tower, hauling herself up hand over hand.

Near the third and top level of the tower was her goal: a window covered with rusted iron bars. Arilyn reached it, pulled herself up onto the stone sill, and took out a small flask. Working carefully, she daubed a bit of distilled black dragon venom on the tops and bottoms of two of the bars. A faint, corrosive hiss filled the air as the powerful acid ate away the rusted metal. Arilyn wiggled the bars free and carefully wiped the remaining acid from the edges, then she squeezed in through the window. She stuck a bit of acada tree gum on each end of the bars and replaced them in the window.

As she had anticipated, she was in a narrow corridor that circled the entire tower. This level housed the dining quarters, and at this hour the only sounds were a few random clangs from the kitchen. With a shudder of distaste, Arilyn shrugged on her disguise: the dark purple clerical robes belonging to devotees of the evil god, Cyric. She pulled up the cowl of the robe to obscure her face and headed for the tower’s spiral staircase that led down and out to the courtyard.

According to her maps, the floor below held the visitors’ quarters. Arilyn made her way downward as swiftly as she dared, hoping to avoid confrontation with any of her “fellow clerics.” Her luck held until she reached the lowest level. A short, stubby man stood at the foot of the stairs, scowling up at her. His purple cowl was thrown back, and on his forehead was painted a dark sun with a glowering skull in the center.

“Simeon! It’s about time. Hurry up or we’ll miss the procession,” he snapped.

Arilyn only nodded, keeping her head low as she motioned for him to proceed her into the courtyard. The cleric’s eyes narrowed.

“Simeon?” A note of suspicion had crept into his voice, and one hand inched toward the clerical symbol that rested over his heart. Arilyn recognized the beginning of a spell. She leaped down the last few steps, kicking out with one booted foot.

Her foot connected hard with the man’s midsection, and they both fell to the floor in a tangle of purple robes. Arilyn rose to her feet, but the cleric stayed down, bent double and completely winded. She delivered a second well-placed kick to the side of his neck, and the cleric went completely limp.

With a sigh of frustration, Arilyn considered her situation. She could hardly leave the unconscious man there for others to trip over, yet, as he had said, she would be late for the procession if she tarried long. Three wooden doors led out of the stairwell; quickly she cracked one open. Beyond lay a storage chamber Sled with large traveling chests. Arilyn slipped inside, and with the tip of a knife she broke open the lock on the nearest chest. It was full of robes, and she tossed some out to make room for the cleric. She returned to the stairwell and, grabbing the fallen man under the arms, dragged him into the storage room. She dumped him into the chest and lowered the heavy lid. Readjusting her cowl low over her face, she returned to the stairwell and opened the door to the courtyard.

The rhythm of a dark and unholy chant greeted her. Just beyond the door, a vast column of priests passed by the tower on their way to the castle’s main entrance. Arilyn folded her hands into her sleeves and lowered her head, assuming the posture of a novitiate and falling in behind the chanting, swaying company.

The clerics gathered to celebrate the Sacrifice of Moondark, a ceremony honoring Cyric, God of Death, Destruction, and Assassination. A powerful new deity, Cyric had been an evil and ambitious mortal. He’d received godhood, taking the place of Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul, three foul gods who were destroyed during the Time of Troubles. Although he was not universally worshiped by the followers of the three defunct gods, Cyric worship was rapidly gaining ground among the Zhentarim and their allied priesthoods. Since Cyric had few supporters outside the Zhentarim, his priests had elected to meet within the protection of Darkhold. A large gathering of such clerics in any other setting would have been about as welcome as a barbarian invasion.

Arilyn had learned of the Moondark Ceremony months earlier, and it provided her the ideal time and method for infiltrating Darkhold. Most people—even the Zhentarim—feared the priesthood of Cyric and tended to give the priests a wide berth.

The half-elf had worn many disguises and she had become reconciled to appearing to be what she was not, but her skin crawled under the dark purple robes of an unholy priesthood. Nevertheless she moved smoothly along with the formation, pretending to join in the chanting that signaled the beginning of the profane service.

Through the front gate they marched, into the vast entrance hall and toward an ancient shrine. Caught up in the chant and overawed by their first glimpse of the famous temple, the clerics did not notice that one figure broke away from the formation and slipped toward the basement stairway.

Captain Cherbill Nimmt considered himself a reasonable man, but there were limits to his patience. “You came here expecting to just walk away with this treasure?” he growled, brandishing the large leather sack he clutched in one fist.

The “priest” raised an eyebrow, a gesture that was barely perceptible under the deep cowl of the dark purple robe. “Hardly. You set a price on these items; I agreed to meet it,” Arilyn said in a husky whisper, doing her best to make herself sound like a young man. She reached into a pocket of her robe for a small bag, which she tossed onto the stone floor.

It landed in front of Cherbill Nimmt with a satisfying chink, and he licked his lips in anticipation of his long-awaited reward. Several months earlier he had been heading a patrol in the Sunrise Mountains north of Darkhold when he’d acquired the goods he now hoped to sell: sacred vessels encrusted with gems, a perfect rose that could not die, and a crystal figurine that greeted every dawn with songs of praise to Sune, goddess of beauty. The last item was, to say the least, a damned nuisance.

“That’s filled with gold coins, I hope,” Cherbill said. He nudged the sack with his foot and let out a studied yawn of boredom.

“Better,” Arilyn answered. “The bag is half full of gold coins, half of Dragonsmere amber.”

Surprise and greed washed over the soldier’s florid face. He snatched up the bag and dumped the contents onto a large wooden packing crate. Bright coins skittered across the wood, some spilling unheeded onto the floor of the basement chamber. Cherbill dropped the sack of artifacts and gathered up the five pieces of amber, cradling them in his meaty fingers. They were large pieces, the rare dark color of sandflower honey, and artfully cut. Alone, each piece would ransom a Cormyrian lord.

Cherbill slipped the gems into his pocket and stooped to pick up the leather sack that lay beside him. A crafty smile split the soldier’s face, and he jerked his head toward the heavy oak door. “Thank you very much. Now get out,” he ordered.

“Not until I get what I came for.”

“Like all priests, you’re a fool,” Cherbill said scornfully. “You should have gone when I gave you the chance. What’s to stop me from killing you and keeping everything?”

Arilyn reached into a slit in the side of her purple robe and drew out the moonblade. “This?”

A hoot of derisive laughter broke from the man, and his own sword hissed from its scabbard. Wearing a confident sneer, he attacked.

Arilyn sidestepped Cherbill’s lunge with contemptuous ease and parried the next several attacks. The soldier changed his strategy. At least five inches taller and one hundred pounds heavier than his opponent, Cherbill tried to overwhelm his slender foe with sheer physical strength. His heaviest blows were turned aside, and soon the soldier’s face began to betray exhaustion as well as the first icy touches of doubt.

“Who are you?” he gasped.

“Arilyn Moonblade,” the half-elf declared firmly, abandoning the dry whisper of the cleric for her own clear, resonant alto. She pushed back the purple cowl and let Cherbill Nimmt see the battle gleam in her elven eyes.

“I was sent to recover the stolen artifacts. I was to barter for them,” she said in a contemptuous voice. “Or do you prefer battle?” Using the two-handed grip that five years of study at the Academy of Arms had not changed, Arilyn raised the moonblade in challenge.

Cherbill seemed to recognize the name. He gulped audibly and let his sword clatter to the floor. “I have no interest in dying.” He held up his hands in surrender, then nodded at the bag of artifacts. “Take what you came for and leave.”

Arilyn studied him for a moment, her expression dubious. Honor prevented her from attacking an unarmed man, but neither did she trust him to let her go.

“Go ahead,” he urged.

She slid her sword into its scabbard, then turned to pick up the bag. Cherbill Nimmt apparently did not know about an elf’s peripheral vision, for he grinned in triumph and pulled a long, slender dagger from his belt. His expression said clearer than words that, yes, perhaps the stupid elf-wench could fight, but she was still no match for him. He lunged for her back.

Arilyn whirled and knocked the dagger out of Cherbill’s hand in a lightning-quick movement. His jaw hung slack for an astonished moment, then firmed as he closed his eyes and prepared himself to receive the killing stroke.

“Arm yourself.”

Her command stunned Cherbill into compliance. He stooped to retrieve his sword, then faced her warily.

“Why?” he asked simply. “If you’re going to kill me, why not have done with it?”

“Why not indeed?” Arilyn said dryly. For a moment she wished that the Harpers were not quite so picky about certain matters. As her Zhentish informer had observed, if ever a man needed killing, it was this one. The Harpers were willing to discount her past adventures, but they’d made it clear that assassins—however noble their causes or honorable their methods—were frowned upon. For the most part, Arilyn honored the Harpers’ wishes, but at the moment she did not regret that circumstances had again cast her in the role of honorable assassin.

“I did not choose to fight this battle,” she told him. “But know this, Cherbill Nimmt of Darkhold: I intend to kill you in honor-bound combat. It is more than you deserve.” She raised her sword to her forehead in a gesture of challenge.

Her words held the chilling quality of ritual. Trying to summon a defiant sneer, the soldier returned the salute and assumed a defensive position.

Her first attack was low. Cherbill parried it easily, and his confident grin returned. He beat at her blade, trying to back her against the wall, but Arilyn held her ground and turned aside his blows.

So intent was the soldier upon the battle that he did not see the faint blue light lining his opponent’s sword. Arilyn, however, recognized the moonblade’s danger warning and knew that she must end the fight. With her next stroke the sword opened Cherbill Nimmt’s throat, and the man fell heavily to the floor.

Arilyn cleaned the glowing moonblade on the empty money sack, then sheathed it. Looking down at the dead soldier, she shook her head and muttered, “That’s the way it should have been handled in the first place.”

Her keen ears caught the ominous chink of armor in the hallway. Moving swiftly, Arilyn gathered up the fallen coins and retrieved the gemstones from the dead man’s pockets. It did not occur to her to steal the money and jewels; since they were not needed to complete the deal, she would simply return them to the priesthood of Sune. Tying the heavy sack of magical items around her waist, she began to search for the secret door.

She and Cherbill Nimmt had agreed in advance to meet in this small storage chamber in the most remote corner of Darkhold’s basement. Arilyn had suggested it because it boasted the little-known escape tunnel revealed to her by the retired Zhentish soldier. Cherbill had agreed to the location because it was as far from the guard post as possible.

“Over there! I heard something over this way,” a guttural voice called. The heavy footsteps—ten men, Arilyn guessed—were very close.

Although Arilyn was half-elven, she had in full measure the elven ability to locate hidden doors. A faint outline surrounded several of the large moldy stones that formed the chamber wall. Falling to her knees, Arilyn ran her fingers around the irregularly shaped door. She found a minuscule latch in the cranny of a rock and pressed it. The door slid open.

Arilyn slipped into the darkness of the tunnel, pushing the stone door back into place. Behind her, she heard the puzzled oaths of the guard as they burst into the room and stumbled upon the body of Cherbill Nimmt. Turning her back on Darkhold, Arilyn started down the tunnel.

For several hundred feet, the grade sloped sharply down. It became so dark that even Arilyn’s exceptional night vision could not penetrate the gloom. Aware that her infravision could discern only heat patterns, not the strange traps that her informant had promised, she reluctantly removed a small torch from her belt and struck tinder to it. As she’d expected, a flurry of tiny wings and high-pitched squeaks greeted the light.

“Bats,” she muttered, waving the torch around her head to ward off the spooked creatures. Arilyn hated bats, but she would count herself fortunate if they were the only creatures with which she had to contend. The Zhentish informer had gleefully warned her to watch out for carrion crawlers. Twice the length of a man, these monsters looked like overgrown green cutworms. They generally fed upon carrion, but if food were scarce—and in this tunnel it probably would be—the crawler would attack live prey. Its armored body, clawed feet, and poisonous tentacles made it a fearsome foe. Come to think of it, Arilyn thought, bats really weren’t all that bad.

She pressed on, brushing aside thick cobwebs as she went. The foul odors of mold and bat droppings surrounded her, and her feet crunched along on a moving carpet of small, hard-shelled creatures. Holding the torch high, Arilyn quickened her pace. She did not care to investigate the floor too closely.

Finally the grade began to slant upward. The tunnel curved sharply to the right, and Arilyn stopped short. Before her was a peculiar, vaguely familiar gate. The gate was shaped like a cone lying on its side with the wide end toward her, formed of many long strips of metal, each of which ended in a sharp point. Arilyn ran an experimental finger over the edge of one strip. When she drew her hand away, her finger dripped blood. So sharp was the edge that the cut had been completely painless.

Tentatively she put a foot on the bottommost strip. It bent under her weight, but sprang back into place the moment she removed her foot. Suddenly Arilyn understood the nature of the gate. It was a one-way door, functioning like one of the lobster traps she’d seen used off the coast of Neverwinter. That would explain why the only creatures in the tunnel were bats and insects. Nothing else could get through that lethal portal.

As she again tested the cone with her foot, Arilyn felt a flash of admiration for the simple effectiveness of the design. It kept intruders out of Darkhold, while providing an escape route for those careful enough to avoid being sliced into strings.

Holding the torch carefully to one side, she stepped into the oversized lobster trap, moving sideways with her feet set apart to depress enough razor-sharp strips to ensure safe passage. The trap bent with her as she inched carefully forward. Finally she ducked her head to avoid the tip of the cone and leaped free. The trap sprang back into place behind her with a vicious metallic snap.

From that point on the tunnel sloped upward. Arilyn encountered two more such gates, then the tunnel ended abruptly with a stone door of massive proportions. From the old informer’s maps, Arilyn knew that the tunnel was part of the ancient stone quarry that lay to the southeast of Darkhold. From here giants had mined the original stone for the castle, and a few giants still inhabited parts of the quarry. The door before Arilyn was giant-built and giant-sized, far beyond her strength.

Unconcerned, Arilyn placed her flickering torch into a holder on the wall and ran her fingers over the stone door until she found what she sought. According to her sources, a series of coded runes was carved into the stone, giving the location of the hidden lock. The runes yielded a combination of numbers: four down, two to the right, three down, seven left. Arilyn’s nimble fingers found a pattern of tiny holes on the doorjamb. Carefully counting to the correct one, she inserted a long, slender pick. The door swung open with the grating shriek of stone upon stone.

Arilyn stepped out, relieved to feel once again the open sky above her. She blinked several times to help her eyes adjust to the light. Although the night was moonless and overcast, it seemed bright after the blackness of the tunnel. She slipped her pick into a second hidden lock, and the massive door swung shut. So well constructed was the door that it blended perfectly with the rough granite cliffs surrounding the vale. Even with her elven ability to locate hidden doors, Arilyn was not sure she could find it again. With luck, she’d never have to try.

Content with her victory she headed back to her camp. She had no fear of pursuit from within the fortress, for the Zhentarim’s mercenaries would surely assume that Cherbill Nimmt had fallen victim to some internal power struggle. It would probably not occur to them to look outside the fortress for the cause of the soldier’s death.

Arilyn slipped into her tent shortly before daybreak, undetected by the restless watch. She barely managed to crawl into her bedroll before she fell into a dream-haunted slumber.

In another part of the merchant camp, Rafe Silverspur stirred in his sleep. A half-elven ranger and a fearless adventurer, Rafe had been hired to scout and to help protect the caravan. At his side slept a buxom woman, a smile still lighting her sleeping face and an empty mead jug lying on its side near her bedroll. Despite the prior evening’s indulgences, the young ranger slept lightly, and Darkhold’s unholy chanting echoed through his dreams.

Rafe muttered in his sleep and turned over. As he did, a slender figure entered the tent, moving silently as a shadow. Removing something from the depths of a dark cloak, the intruder took up the sleeping ranger’s left hand, turned it, and pressed the small object into the palm.

A faint hiss filled the tent. Rafe’s body stiffened, and his eyes flew open. The ranger’s gaze fastened on his assailant. Even through the pain his eyes registered recognition. His lips moved as if to frame a desperate question, but no sound emerged.

The shadowy assailant held Rafe Silverspur fast as his body jerked convulsively. Finally Rafe’s eyes rolled upward and he lay still. Amazingly the woman next to him slept undisturbed. Sparing her no more than a glance, the killer raised a hand to the victim’s throat seeking a pulse. Satisfied that there was none, the dark figure checked one last detail of its handiwork.

In the palm of the dead ranger’s hand, a brand glowed with faint blue light. Worked into the intricate design of the brand was a small harp and a crescent moon.

The symbol of the Harpers.

Night had fallen some time ago, and only the stars and an adventurer’s finely honed sense of direction guided the solitary rider toward Evereska. The moon was high when the rider finally paused, dismounting at the bank of the River Reaching.

Arilyn Moonblade would have preferred to keep moving, but there was no question of fording the rapids at night. Since the morning of the previous day, the half-elf had put many miles between herself and the fortress of Darkhold. At this rate she could reach Evereska in a matter of days. In her eagerness to be home, she had pressed both herself and her horse, a gray mare of great speed and stamina, to the border of exhaustion.

Feeling a surge of guilt, Arilyn led her horse to the river for a drink. She spent a long time rubbing down the animal, then tethered it in the best grazing spot she could find.

Once the mare was comfortably settled, Arilyn built a fire and sat crosslegged in front of it. She had ridden like a demon throughout the day, as much to escape her own thoughts as to elude possible pursuit. Now, in the quiet of the starlit night, she could no longer avoid thinking about Rafe Silverspur’s death.

After the ranger’s body had been discovered, the merchant captain agreed with Arilyn that she and the caravan should part company. Since the half-elf was a known Harper agent, she was considered a target for the mysterious assassin and therefore a risk to the entire company. No one questioned her innocence. She and Rafe had spent much time together during the trip, and it was widely assumed that the two half-elves were lovers.

Sighing, Arilyn poked restlessly at the fire. She had done nothing to squelch those rumors, for they tended to discourage unwanted advances from other members of the merchant caravan. In truth, she and Rafe had shared only friendship. To the solitary half-elf, friendship was a rare gift indeed.

Arilyn glanced down at the only ring on her left hand. It gleamed faintly in the firelight, and she spread her fingers to look at it more closely. It was a simple ring, just a silver band engraved with the unicorn symbol of the goddess Mielikki, patron of rangers. She’d won the ring from Rafe in a game of dice, and she wore it now in his honor. It was symbolic of the friendship they’d shared, a camaraderie born of a shared road and the good-natured competition of a worthy opponent.

Dismayed at the unaccustomed sense of loneliness that plagued her, Arilyn busied herself with the tasks of setting up her simple camp. She unrolled her blanket and spread it before the fire, then took some dried fruit and travel biscuits from her bag and settled down to eat. As much as she disliked cooking, Arilyn usually ended a day of travel with a hot meal. Tonight, cooking for just one person didn’t seem worth the trouble.

For almost a quarter of a century Arilyn had walked alone, well aware that an adventurer should have few ties. It had always seemed unfair to her to encourage someone to care, only to expose them to the dangers and potential heartache inherent in the life she had chosen. Even her friendships were few and cautious.

As Arilyn settled into her bedroll, she considered swearing an oath of solitude and chastity at the foot of Hannali Celanil’s statue in Evereska. Or would such an oath be an affront to the elven goddess of beauty and romantic love? In her case, Arilyn noted with a wry grimace, the oath would be redundant. Perhaps she had no business at all being a devotee of that particular goddess.

Arilyn rolled over onto her back, lacing her fingers beneath her head as she pondered the matter.

Close relationships of any kind did not come easily to the half-elven. Their life cycles were out of sync with both humans and elves. Arilyn was nearing her fortieth winter. If she were human, she’d be approaching midlife. A moon elf her age would be barely out of childhood. It seemed to Arilyn that she’d spent her life being neither one thing nor the other, and even her alliance with the Harpers bore this out. Her services were valued, but her past as an “honorable assassin” had kept the secret organization from accepting her as a full-fledged member.

It would seem, however, that the Harper Assassin was not concerned with her lack of credentials. For some time Arilyn had suspected that she was a target. Wherever she turned, she felt unseen eyes upon her. She was skilled in tracking, but she had not been able to discern a trace of her foe. The Harper Assassin constantly dogged her path, and for months she had steeled herself for the confrontation that was sure to come.

As time went on, she’d changed her mind about the assassin’s purpose. There had been so many deaths, each one coming closer to her. Arilyn had often expected that the assassin was deliberately and cruelly taunting her. The death of her friend Rafe left no doubt in her mind.

Gritting her teeth, Arilyn let out a long, hissing breath. She’d spent her life settling matters with a sword, and she hated to wait for this invisible assassin to play out his hand. Months of enforced inactivity had left her perpetually on edge. Whoever her foe was, he knew her well.

But who could this assassin be? She’d crossed swords with many over the past twenty-five years, and she had made her share of enemies. Those who had openly come out against her were dead, and although Arilyn racked her brain, she could not think of a live adversary who had the wit or skill to carry out such a drawn-out and devious revenge.

The night passed, and the moon sank toward the horizon, yet no answers came to the weary half-elf. In an effort to court sleep, Arilyn edged her thoughts toward more pleasant things. Soon she would reach Evereska, and home. There she could rest. Rest she needed badly, and not just from the rigors of travel. She was truly exhausted from grief, from the knowledge that a shadowy trail of death lay behind her, from the hidden eyes that watched her every move.

Even now she felt them upon her. There was no sound, no shadow, no indication that someone was watching her camp, but Arilyn felt a presence lurking beyond the reach of the campfire’s embers. Her eyes flashed to her moonblade that lay beside her like a constant, vigilant companion. It gave her no sign of warning.

Arilyn had learned early in her career that the magic sword could alert her to danger. Working with her teacher, Kymil Nimesin, she had discovered that the moonblade could warn her in three different ways. It glowed with blue light when danger approached, and when danger was close-at-hand it hummed with a silent energy only she could sense. Even as she slept the sword kept guard. Many times she had awakened from a dream about approaching orcs or trolls to find her dream made reality. The dreamwarning was particularly handy, since she so often traveled alone.

Tonight, however, the sword was dark and silent. There was no danger on the riverbanks. Why, then, did she have such a persistent feeling of eyes upon her?