Shadows of Doom

14

Elminster of Shadowdale, once an archmage of Myth Drannor and now and forever one of Mystra's Chosen, clung to the reins as the horse moved powerfully under him, its neck strong and warm in front of his nose, its mane whipping at his face. He had time to wonder what in Mystra's name he was doing here, with quarrels whipping and humming like angry wasps through the air all around him. He also found time to shrug and grin; this was not a new thought.

A breath later, as the horse carried him away from the clash of steel and the cries of men, he found time to answer himself. He was here simply because he was who he was. This was the way he took life, making of it what best pleased him: a tapestry as rich and deep and colorful as he could manage, much longer than most ever have the chance to weave. His tapestry, whose great weight of years all too often hung by a single thread. Because he dared it so and would not have it otherwise.

As it hung right now. Elminster crouched low as a quarrel flashed by very close on his right, and saw the set, grim faces of angry guards growing rapidly larger ahead. Thinking on his recent conclusions about life, he told himself aloud, "My, aren't we high and mighty today, hmmm?"

Another quarrel hummed past close by his ear, and Elminster realized suddenly that he very much wanted to go on living, even if all magic was lost to him forever.

There was so much still to see, to read, to write, to do… and what a great way he was going about trying to cling to life, plunging himself into the thick of a battle between Zhentarim and desperate dalefolk-and, without his spells, advancing alone on a castle held against him!

He laughed so hard at that thought, he lost his grip on one rein and had to grab almost blindly for the horse's mane. Just then the hooves of his galloping mount struck a pocket of loose stones and slid, just a little. The horse bobbed and leapt on, straight at the guards, and the old man in tattered robes on its back made a hurried, ungraceful journey to the trodden turf beside the road.

The landing drove the breath from Elminster's lungs. He had only enough strength left to turn the violence of his fall into a roll, forward and to the right, down slope. He kept on rolling, hoping no sword would come seeking him before he could stand.

As the world turned over and over, Elminster felt for the wand that hurled magic missiles. From somewhere above, he heard the ringing protest of a horse, heavy hooves striking metal. After a short, broken-off cry, the dull thudding became the beat of hooves at speed, moving onward into the castle.

Well, at least his horse had attacked the castle.

Elminster came to his feet slowly, gulping air and holding the wand ready. The gates were still open-he could see the raised log portcullis from where he stood-and his horse had vanished within.

Guards still stood there, aye, but fewer than before. To his left as he'd ridden up, they'd been facing Sharantyr and the naked giant with the chains, engaged but keeping them at bay, standing as a human wall across the open entrance to the High Castle. These experienced, trained Zhentilar, cold-eyed and wary, were surprised at seeing war brought to them and ragtag dalefolk doing well against their sword brothers, but they weren't in any panic, or hurt or weary. In their own minds, the Zhentilar were easily a match for a woman with a sword and a naked man swinging his slave chains.

Now two Wolves at least were down, and the survivors were fighting in earnest to hold the gate. As Elminster climbed back up through the grass as fast as he could, a Wolf slowly went down, flailing chains beating a bell-like chorus on his battered helm. An arm hung useless-broken, no doubt-and blood made a sightless mask of the face as it turned, aware of nothing but darkening pain.

Elminster spoke gently over his wand. The sinking Wolf jerked rapidly and collapsed. One of his fellows turned, saw Elminster, and raised his blade with a yell, only to stiffen as Sharantyr's blade flashed like a striking snake into his neck from the side.

It swung on to parry another blow, before the incredulous Wolf spat blood at the climbing mage and started to fall.

Elminster watched him topple and wondered briefly why it is that men find it necessary to spill each other's blood so often and for so many reasons. More than a thousand years after he'd first asked himself that question, he asked it now and found no new answer.

An old conclusion still seemed the only answer he could see: It was, and is, the nature of the beast.

He glanced back at the marketplace, with its turmoil of jostling men, swinging weapons, and sprawled bodies, and then at the castle, where men in armor were hurrying to positions, scrambling to bring more horse-lances to serve as a bristling wall against attack. Aye, the nature of the beast. He shivered for a moment, sickened by all the butchery. Then he shrugged, looked around again, and tried to grin. Oh, well. Once committed, one must see it all through to the end.

Or, to quote an even older saying that was undoubtedly closer to the truth, he told himself as he darted over bodies of fallen gate guards into the High Castle, "Once a fool, always a fool."

He grinned ruefully at that, even as his feet (beginning to ache, now; was he finally becoming too old for this? A fine time to realize that) carried him across smooth-worn flagstones puddled with old rainwater, into a forecourt. Ahead, at the other end of this open space, a line of Wolves was beginning to form across the archway that led into the main courtyard of the castle. They were battling his rearing, terrified mount in a confused, shouting mass of men, but there were plenty of weapons out and no safe way through them for one old man with a little magic.

To his left and right, railless flights of stone steps climbed the inside of the castle's outer wall, leading to battlements above. The Old Mage looked around, saw no ready crossbows, and without hesitation mounted the stair on his right.

He strode up as if he belonged in this place, calm and even arrogant of tread, only his tattered robes making him look any different from a hundred other haughty wizards in the Realms. No doubt a few such Zhentarim magelings held sway here. He'd face spellwork of real power before the day was out.

Elminster had almost reached the battlements, where men were looking anxiously down into the marketplace and cranking their windlasses with whirring speed to reload the heavy crossbows propped or cradled in arms everywhere, when a great commotion arose from below.

Everyone ran or craned necks to look, in time to see Irreph Mulmar fell the last staggering gate guard with a brutal, crushing sweep of his chains.

Wolves shouted and ran to aim their crossbows down into the forecourt. The heavy weapons had to be supported on the stone parapet to fire steadily, and when so placed could not be tilted down steeply enough to menace the high constable below. One overenthusiastic Wolf lost his weapon trying to aim straight down the wall. The crossbow slid off the stone, eluding his grab, and pitched to the courtyard below, its shattering a crashing chord amid the shouting and running feet.

A moment later some Wolves reached the stairs. Cradling their bows on their knees, standing bent over, they fired. Bows jerked and quarrels shot wildly down. Sharantyr sprinted in through their fire and spun hard to the right, to race up the same stairs Elminster had taken. She found herself looking up into the eyes of two Wolves hurriedly reloading their bows at the top of the stair.

Elminster had gained the battlements moments before Irreph's dramatic entry and stood haughtily among Wolves who from long practice did not look directly at a wizard; the Zhentarim were quick indeed to take offense. He glided up behind the guards at the head of the stair, waited until they were in the frantic midst of reloading, then kicked hard at the backs of their knees.

They fell in a clatter of armor and a riot of startled curses. Sharantyr boiled up the last few steps, and her blade found their throats before they could rise.

Men on the battlements all around them shouted in astonished fury. Elminster turned to face them, wand in hand, wondering just whom to strike at first in the forest of angry Wolves. Many of the more distant warriors hadn't seen or heard the struggle on the stairs at all and were still leaning down into the forecourt, crossbows ready now, as Irreph mounted the stairs on the far side of the entry gate.

Bows thrummed and spat. A rain of quarrels found the high constable before he'd taken four bounding strides. One ran through his upper arm and came out across his chest. Another pierced deep into his thigh, where it stood quivering. Irreph struggled on for two strides more, shuddering in pain, then fell onto the stairs, cursing.

Elminster cast a glance over the walls and saw perhaps seven Wolves, no more, fleeing up the road to the gates, hotly pursued by a bleeding, pitchfork-waving rabble-all that was left of the folk of the dale.

"Shar!" the Old Mage cried, as the lady ranger reached him and coolly ran her blade through the body of the nearest Wolf. The Zhentilar was still cursing, juggling a loaded bow and trying to draw steel, as he went down. "Clear this height if ye can. Throw their bows away, or stamp on them, or kick them down! They'll be the death of us if we don't!"

Suiting action to his words, Elminster snatched up a nearby crossbow, triggered it-the quarrel ran into the flagstones a handspan in front of an onrushing Wolf, causing him to stumble and fall heavily with a startled oath-and tipped it over the battlements to be lost below.

Sharantyr overwhelmed the Wolf beside her with three quick slashes. The man reeled against the crenellations, clutching at his cut face and arm. Sharantyr snatched up his bow and fired it along the battlements into the chest of a guard who was just raising his own weapon. That crossbow in turn went off into the back of another Wolf, who screamed, staggered against the parapet, and was gone an instant later, leaving only a fading scream behind. The lady ranger flung her bow out over the parapet without looking and caught up her blade again to leap at the next Wolf.

"Use your dagger, Old Mage!" she snarled over her shoulder. Elminster looked at her and then down at the dagger at his belt. Drawing it forth with some distaste, he buried it in the still-writhing warrior Sharantyr had slashed. The Wolf stiffened, groaned, and went on moaning and clutching his wounds. Hmmm. Not so good.

Elminster looked behind him. There were few Wolves on this side of the gate. Below the walls, the ground fell away steeply in a tumble of rocks and scrub trees where no ragged band of farmers and merchants would mount an attack. Only two guards were running along the battlements toward him.

Elminster used his wand again on the foremost one, then turned back to the still-writhing Wolf. As he struggled to heave the blindly flailing man over the parapet, the Wolf's scabbarded sword bobbed and waved under his nose.

Elminster looked at the weapon, shrugged, and drew it out. He turned. The first rushing Wolf had slowed to a stagger, but the second was shouldering past the first to charge. Elminster fired the wand of magic missiles into the man's face. As the Zhent cried out and clutched at his eyes, Elminster leapt toward him and drove the point of his blade into the man's throat.

It slid in with such hideous ease. He'd forgotten that. Elminster looked down in disgust at the blade he held, feeling ill. He remembered to look up, though, in time to meet the other Wolf's charge.

Steel met steel. The man was strong, and in a fury of pain, and very good. Elminster managed two frantic parries before firing the wand into the man's open, snarling mouth.

Blood spattered the Old Mage's hair and beard. Sickened, he turned away from what was left of the Wolf, a headless body still jerking its blade about in a grotesque dance, and strode back to the one he'd taken the sword from. The man was twitching more feebly now. Elminster sighed, caught hold of his legs, and tipped him up and over the battlements.

Then he looked along the wall anxiously. Sharantyr was only one lass in leather armor, and he'd left her to fight alone for far too long.

His jaw dropped. Dead Wolves lay sprawled everywhere, heaped on the parapet walk. More were draped along the parapets themselves. Far around the curve of the ramparts, Sharantyr was fencing with two frightened-looking Wolves. Behind them, another pair of Zhents were hastily working their windlasses to ready quarrels for her death.

Elminster used his wand on them from afar, cast a look to his right-there were no bowmen atop the inner wall or anywhere else that he could see, and judging by the sounds from below, the dalefolk had reached the forecourt-and started running along the wall, swinging his sword to gain speed.

Sharantyr twisted aside too slowly and took a cut across the back of her raised left arm above the elbow. Elminster heard her sob and then snarl, and fired his wand at the man attacking Shar.

Sharantyr was tiring and in pain. Her long hair spun wildly about her as she panted and danced, the heavy ringing of steel loud in her ears as she traded blows with a Wolf who would not fall. They had no shields. Each blow and counterblow was taken on their blades with leaden, numbing force. Sharantyr reeled back, fighting for breath, and her opponent pressed forward, daring to grin for the first time.

Elminster's wand spat magic again, stars leaping to strike two Wolves. The man fighting Shar staggered, and behind him, one of the Wolves with bows fell heavily onto his face and lay still.

Sharantyr lunged wearily in to slash the face of the staggering Wolf, then shoved him aside. He fell into the forecourt with a strangled cry of protest, waving his blade as if it could catch hold of something and save him. It could not.

The lady ranger reached the last bowman. Desperately he brought up his heavy, half-winched weapon to block a thrust at his throat, then dropped it and ran.

Sharantyr took two running steps after him, then shook her head and collapsed against a crenellation, gasping for breath. Elminster watched the man cast a look back to see that he was not pursued. The Wolf went to a nook in the wall where another stair descended. The Old Mage's eyes narrowed. He was doing something in there… loading another crossbow?

Elminster fished under the body of the bowman he'd felled with his wand, dragged out the loaded, ready bow, and struggled to raise it. He was still puffing and staggering when Sharantyr's hand touched his shoulder.

"El," she panted, "what are you-oh." She dragged the bow out of his hands, staggered for a moment under its weight, and fired at the nook just as the Wolf cast an anxious look back at them.

Blood blossomed in the man's face. His head grew larger for an instant, then disappeared from sight. Sharantyr went to an embrasure in the parapet and shoved the bow out into space.

She turned back to Elminster, breast heaving, covered with blood and sweat, and said, "Next time… if you live… to pull a next time on me… choose someplace to go for a walk… that doesn't… have any gates… hey?"

Elminster chuckled and kissed her cheek tenderly. Then, his arm around her, he wiped the sweat from her brow with his sleeve and fumbled under his robes.

Sharantyr raised an eyebrow. Elminster pushed at her shoulder impatiently. "Sit ye down a moment," he ordered.

The ranger shook her head. "No," she panted. "Do that, and I'm finished. My arms… tighten up, everything'll hurt… I must…"

Her words died away as she saw him heft the sphere of iron bands in his hand. "Ye will sit down," he said, smiling crookedly, "one way or another."

Sharantyr rolled her eyes at him, sighed heavily, and with a lopsided grin sat down against the parapet. Elminster knelt beside her and triumphantly drew out a ring, which he slipped onto her finger. It was still warm from the heat of his body.

"Lie still," he ordered, "for a time, while I look below and see what befalls. There's been a strange scarcity of Zhent wizards since that one fled from the market. It worries me."

Sharantyr started to laugh weakly, staring around at the heaped bodies. "Worried? Now why should you be worried? Not so long ago, you were attacking this castle alone!"

"Alone? I had a horse," Elminster reminded her dryly. Her helpless laughter grew and grew until it became a bit wild.

Elminster laid a comforting hand on her shoulder as he looked around-along the battlements and at all of the High Castle's turrets, down into the forecourt and at what he could see of the main courtyard beyond without leaving Sharantyr. Then he glanced over the battlements at the shops and cottages below.

Of the Wolves who'd galloped forth into the marketplace, not one remained alive except the handful who'd managed to get back inside the walls-unless, perhaps, one or two of the sprawled bodies yet held a grim grip on life, or a Wolf or two had fled down the streets or found somewhere to hide.

Outside the walls, the folk of the dale ruled, though they'd paid a heavy price in blood for their victory. On the battlements not a living Wolf stood. The Sage of Shadowdale and the lady Knight of Myth Drannor were alone with the dead.

In the forecourt below, weary men and women hacked and staggered. The dalefolk had determined not to let a Wolf live, and the Zhentilar were as adamant that they'd hold the castle and rally to crush this uprising later.

Or rather, most of them were adamant. As Elminster stood looking, Sharantyr's shoulder rising and falling under his hand with her still-heavy breathing, a door opened in the nearest turret.

It was a little way along the rampart, past several nooks. Elminster began to lower himself into a crouch and then shrugged. It was too late. He and a tired-looking Zhentilar in scratched and muddy armor were staring into each other's eyes across an easy bow-flight of empty air.

The man stepped forward but made no charge or threatening gesture. Behind him, other men pushed through the door: half a dozen or more Wolves, two carrying large and heavy coils of rope. The others had-Elminster's heart sank-heavy crossbows and large armory boxes of quarrels.

Elminster watched them as they all in turn looked his way. They got to work with windlasses to ready and load their bows. The pair with the rope spent some time fashioning a long, heavy knot to join the two coils, then threw the first coil out over the battlements to plummet down, pulling most of the rope behind it.

The sounds of battle grew louder below. More Zhents had emerged to defend the forecourt, or more dalefolk had found the courage to ascend the road into the castle. Elminster did not move to find out which.

The Wolves were looking down the rope, now, and tossing handlengths more of it over the wall. They planned an escape, their bows ready to shoot down any who saw them and moved to imperil their descent.

Elminster uttered a silent curse at the loss of his Art as he raised his wand. A Wolf who'd been watching him all this while was steadying a loaded crossbow on a crenellation, turning it Elminster's way.

Elminster unleashed the wand's powers with his will and the more powerful of the item's two words. Blue smoke curled up from its tip, and three pink flowers appeared in the air flying in a line heading toward the Wolves, grew rapidly in size and splendor. Then they were gone in little bursts of rosy light.

Mystra smile upon us all. Elminster watched the crossbow swivel around as he sank down against the wall beside Sharantyr.

She regarded him calmly. "What befalls?"

Elminster shrugged. "This failed," he said, waving the wand. "Unfortunately, I don't feel up to defeating the six or seven Zhentilar warriors who are up here with us." Sharantyr made as if to rise, but he held her down with a surprisingly strong hand. "They have loaded crossbows," he added nonchalantly.

Sharantyr looked at him and sighed. "Well," she asked quietly, "shall we crawl back along the wall as fast as we can, then?"

"It might be prudent," Elminster agreed. "Yet it claws at my craw to do so. They'll be over the wall, on a rope, and be gone, probably to raise the rest of the Zhents in the dale at our backs."

"I did not charge the gates of this place alongside a naked man in chains," Sharantyr told him with a smile that touched her lips for the briefest of moments, "to start being prudent now."

Elminster spread his hands in silent acknowledgement. An instant later they both heard the scrape of a boot on stone very close by. Elminster's hand plunged into his robes and came out with the iron sphere. Sharantyr was out from under his other hand like a striking serpent, crouching with her blade ready and a dagger poised to throw. She waited against one side of their nook.

The Wolves had decided to mount a sudden rush, the heavy crossbows cradled in their hands. There were two of them, and at such close range they could hardly miss.

Sharantyr flung a dagger into the face of the first as his bolt plunged into Elminster's ribs, and followed it with her sword, driven by all her strength.

As she struck, she shoved against the Wolf's bow, swinging his body between her and the second Wolf's weapon. It went off too late, the quarrel whistling past her and out into air beyond the wall.

The other Wolves were watching along the rampart. Sharantyr did not entertain them for long. She put a hand on the shoulder of the first Wolf, who was falling with a disbelieving look, his throat cut open, and vaulted over him to crash down atop the second. She hammered him brutally with elbows and knees, then used her blade before his hastily snatched dagger could find her.

Then she spun about, keeping low, to race back to Elminster. Sharantyr only hoped she'd be in time.