Shadows of Doom

15

Elminster of Shadowdale sat against the parapet, staring down disgustedly at the quarrel in his chest. A dark, spreading stain had already reached his lap. With trembling fingers, Sharantyr snatched the healing ring off her own finger and jammed it onto one of his.

He chuckled weakly and patted her shoulder. "Here," he said, pressing the wand into her hand. "Ye try." He nodded his head to indicate the parapet walk behind her, and Sharantyr turned angrily to see another four Wolves coming toward them.

She drew back her lip in a low-throated snarl, locked eyes with the nearest Wolf, who was raising his bow clumsily, and spat out the word she'd heard Elminster use: "Baulgoss."

The smooth, unadorned stick of wood in her hand pulsed with force, and two white bolts, trailing tails as if they were tiny falling stars, leapt from it. They struck the man before he could do more than open his mouth to cry out.

He groaned, shuddered, and dropped his heavy weapon, its bolt smacking against the parapet and glancing off over the forecourt.

Sharantyr crouched low as the other Wolves stopped and hastily raised their bows. Then she dropped the wand into Elminster's lap and dragged him bodily along the walk and around the corner, shielding him with her own body. One quarrel flashed just over her shoulder, tearing her leathers and leaving blood and burning pain in its wake, and another cracked hard off the parapet to the right. They were safely around the corner when the third quarrel struck stone somewhere.

Elminster was shaking in pain, teeth clenched. Sharantyr had time only to pat him on the shoulder before she sprang up and ran, bent double, along the parapet walk to the nearest fallen Wolves. There had been one or two with shields… ah!

She tore a shield from an unfeeling, limp arm, donned it, and hurried back to the fallen Sage of Shadowdale. Snatching up the wand, she held the shield ready and ran back around the corner.

She heard a shout, and the shield shuddered under a heavy blow. The head of a quarrel appeared beside her arm. Had she not been holding the shield well in front of her, it might have pierced her breast. Sharantyr snarled and dodged against the parapet, risking a lowered shield for an instant, to look.

At least one other crossbow was ready, but she'd have no time to worry about it. The three Wolves whose quarrels had just missed her had crouched down to winch their bows into readiness again. Interrupted, they were rising with drawn blades, perhaps two paces away. Sharantyr snarled and hissed the wand's command word again, staring at one Wolf under the edge of her shield.

This time the wand brought her pulsing, purplish light and an intense feeling of icy cold. No missiles of force appeared, and her opponents did not slow or seem to feel anything. Sharantyr slipped the wand into her shield hand and backed hastily away, snatching out her own sword.

They came at her in a rush. Sharantyr waited until they were between her and the ready bow she'd seen, then went to one knee, pretending to wobble and groaning in pain. The Wolves almost got in each other's way trying to be the first to carve her.

Sharantyr took the first blow on her shield and leapt up, moving forward against the body of its wielder. Hip to hip, she turned the Wolf to one side, driving him off-balance into one of his fellows while she parried the thrust of the other Wolf.

Then she spun away and was behind them all, tying up the blade she'd parried with her own. She forced it down and drove the edge of the shield into the Wolf's face as hard as she could. He fell, spitting blood, as she ducked low.

As she'd expected, a quarrel thrummed past her, low and well aimed, thirsty for her blood. Instead, it found the knee of the Wolf turning beyond her. He screamed and fell. Sharantyr fired the wand at the one who was left.

This time it launched a shower of sparks, but out of them a single magic missile coalesced, wavered, and streaked to its target.

The Zhentilar snarled in pain and came at her, thrusting viciously with his sword. The lady ranger struck his blade aside with her own, drove her hip hard into his armor-clad middle, and shoved him back against the parapet. Another crossbow bolt hissed past, close by. The Wolf straggled, hurling her back, and charged.

Sharantyr went suddenly to her knees again, bringing her shield up. It took his blade with a thunderous crash. She drove the shield up and kicked out under it as she rolled onto her shoulders.

The Wolf went over her, cursing helplessly. He had time for one throat-stripping shriek as he plunged headfirst into the forecourt below. Sharantyr let go her shield and rolled over. The Wolf who'd taken a bolt through the knee was crawling her way, face dark with pain, sword ready in his hand. She scrambled toward him, keeping low as she held off his lashing blade with her own, and reached his feet.

The wounded foot trailed uselessly; he kicked at her with the other. Sharantyr grimly laid hold of the trailing boot, twisted it, and set her teeth against his scream of agony. When the Wolf went limp, she dragged him up and pitched him over the battlements, looking wearily for the three surviving Wolves as she did so.

One was watching her, a loaded crossbow ready on a crenellation. Another had just started to climb down the rope. The third was holding the rope steady where it went over the wall.

The lady ranger fired the wand again. The man with the bow staggered back, clutching his shoulder, and cried out.

Sharantyr charged, sobbing, fear and anger slowly rising to choke her. Had these black-helmed bastards slain the man she'd gone through so much to protect, the one man Shadowdale needed in the face of Zhentarim evil? The legendary mage half the Realms feared and the rest whispered glad tales about?

"Mother Mystra," she prayed aloud, "aid him now, for I cannot!" Then she flung herself aside desperately as the injured man, face twisted with hatred and pain, aimed his bow and triggered it.

The bolt slammed into her left shoulder and hurled her back along the wall. Sharantyr screamed as the trip along the rough stones twisted the quarrel, its point grating along her bones. She should have worn the shield again. She should have-oh, gods, the pain!

Using her sword as a prop, Sharantyr dragged herself up. Her left arm burned and felt dripping wet all at once, and the world seemed to be slowly turning around her. She found her feet, somehow, and ran dizzily toward the man with the bow.

His face was grim and white, but he drew his blade and came to meet the woman in bloodstained leathers. Her eyes met his like two daggers, but she swayed, and her left arm hung limp, his quarrel standing out of her shoulder.

"Just what," he snarled, "brings you here, maid?" His blade leapt at her throat. Long hair parted at its passing.

"Death," she said softly, parrying. Their blades met fingerwidths away from her throat. Steel snarled on steel, but her blade held and his was forced away. "Yours."

She triggered the wand still clutched in her nerveless left hand, whispering the word that awakened its greater power.

There was a burst of white light, and the warrior screamed. Sharantyr saw him reel back. A startled Wolf's face gaped at them both from outside the wall, at the head of the rope. She leapt forward with the last of her strength and brought her blade down on that tight-stretched cord.

Strands parted and flew, and frantic scramblings came from just below her. Then the rope was gone, and two throats were crying vainly to the passing air. Their songs of fear ended very suddenly in thudding sounds.

Sharantyr sank to her knees there by the turret door and looked about with dull eyes, fighting waves of pain. The Wolf she'd struck with the wand lay fallen beside her. She made sure of his death with her blade, then her gaze fell on his belt.

A metal vial shone there amid the blood. With sudden urgency she tugged it free, snarling. On hands and knees, she set off on the long crawl back along the battlements.

The vial bore a rune she knew. The magical drink it held would heal, if it could be trusted with magic going wild. Gods, but she needed it!

The old man needed it more, the man whose life was more important than any other in the Realms, the man she'd come here to protect.

Sharantyr crawled grimly back along the battlements, using her blade where life yet lurked amid her fallen foes, and tearing free six more vials as she went.

She was half blind from helpless tears of pain when she turned the corner, crawling feebly to where Elminster sat in his blood. "Tymora," she sobbed aloud, "let me be in time."

Then Tymora, or someone else listening with dark humor, rolled darkness over her like a great black cloak, and she sank into it and was gone.

"We've the gods to thank that they aren't still raining quarrels down on us!" an exhausted Itharr said, leaning wearily against a heap of corpses, notched and battered blade in hand.

"More likely we've Elminster to thank," Belkram replied, looking back across the forecourt. Quarrels stood up from fallen, silent men, wooden doors and framing, and cracks in the flagstones like a thicket of leaning weeds. "They left off rather suddenly, and there's been no rush from above."

Itharr squinted up at what he could see of the battlements-not much from here. Then he shot another long look at the slit windows around the courtyard, expecting quarrels to leap out of them at any moment.

The two winded Harpers lay resting with half a dozen men of the dale, all who could still stand and swing a sword after the bloodbath desperate Wolves had made of the forecourt. Many dalefolk had crawled or been dragged away out of the keep. Those still able to fight had no good idea of how many Wolves were left in the castle. They agreed that no members of Longspear's council had been seen elsewhere in the dale. Most or all were probably within these walls.

There was also at least one mage of power, Hcarla Bellwind, as well as the hated Angruin Stormcloak, who'd hurled death in the marketplace and then fled. The dale-folk couldn't think of any place but here, his seat of power, that he could have gone when his magic took him away.

Unless Wolves were roaming the battlements above, none remained alive outside the stone walls of the High Castle. Itharr and Belkram had led the men of the dale doggedly through a hail of death to hack down the line of Wolves defending the courtyard. None of them still stood, but the castle servants had loosed the war-horses, milk cows, and goats to mill about the courtyards, making charging or even staying together impossible.

The two Harpers and the men they led were too weary to do more than watch the roaming animals for a while. They lay, moving only their eyes, amid the bodies of those they'd slain. Their roving gazes kept watch for any emerging foes, but also searched out water, good weapons, and-

"Hey!" Belkram leaned forward. "Over there." He slid down the flank of the still-warm dead horse he'd been propped against, rolled onto his knees, and clambered over bodies until he reached a certain belt. He tugged, worked at leather thongs for a moment, and came back to them with a metal vial in his hand.

"Healing quaff?" Itharr asked.

Belkram nodded and held it out to Gedaern, the most badly hurt daleman. "Just a swallow, now," he cautioned.

The white-faced, sweating man drank carefully, holding the vial in both hands. Then he closed his eyes and let his hands fall slowly into his lap as the liquid worked its way down.

When the old shopkeeper opened his eyes a deep breath later, he looked at Belkram. "Let's be at them again," he said with a wolfish grin. "I want to see all of them dead or driven out by nightfall."

He passed the vial on as similar bloodthirsty smiles answered him.

"Well," Itharr said, looking around, "what's the best way to get in without getting ourselves quickly killed? They'll be waiting."

The oldest man laughed suddenly, a short bark hoarse from long disuse. "I know the best place! Aye-the bolt hole!"

"Bolt hole?"

"Aye," the old man said. "I helped old Lhassar fill it in with stones, when I was a lad. It's where the jakes all drained out before they dug the deep cesspool."

Belkram rolled his eyes. "I might have known we'd end up climbing through dung before this was over." He waited until hearty, rather wild laughter had risen and died, and then asked, "So where is this?"

The old man pointed at an inner corner of the courtyard. "Over there."

Itharr raised his eyebrows. "The jakes drained into the-ne'er mind. I'm just right glad I didn't dwell here then." He rose, amid answering laughter, and swung his arms about to loosen his stiffening shoulders. "Let's to war again, then," he said quietly.

Belkram got up. "Aye. For the dale, men, and freedom!"

"For the dale, and freedom!" they roared back, and plunged grandly in amid the cows.

Itharr rolled his eyes. "I hope Storm has no magic to be watching us now," he murmured as he and Belkram dodged and trotted amid anxious, milling animals.

"Why not?" Belkram replied. "This is going to look splendid, in a breath or two, when we chase all these horses out of here so the Wolves can't flee on them!"

In reply, Itharr rolled his eyes again.

Ylyndaera Mulmar turned, eyes flashing. "Well, watch over me, then! You'll have to do it on the run, though, because I'm going after my father! He needs me. I know it. I… I can feel it."

She looked toward the castle, unseen through a solid wall of Ulraea's shop, and spun fiercely back to face the shop mistress, eyes flaming, hair whirling about her shoulders. "Are you with me, Ulraea?" The dagger gleamed in her hand as she mounted to the window, where the shutters still hung in ruins from Irreph's handling.

Ulraea spread her hands helplessly and sighed. She went to a nearby table, took up a new, gleaming cleaver, and tugged the price tag from it with sudden impatience. She slashed the air with it a few times, her ample bosom shaking, and sighed again.

"At least, child," she said reprovingly, beckoning with the gleaming steel in her hand, "if you must die a hero, let us leave by the door, hey, and not my window."

Daera's sudden smile was dazzling.

"What? Where?" The words were out of Sharantyr's mouth before she knew she was saying them. Gentle hands were cradling her head and stroking her hair.

She lay on something hard but warmer than stone. She ached, here and there, and her shoulder throbbed, but the rending, blinding pain was gone. Wondering, she fought her eyes open and looked around.

Elminster's anxious face looked down at her. A soft breeze was blowing his beard caressingly across her forehead. "Shar?" he asked, voice rough. "Are ye all right?"

Sharantyr put a hand down and rolled to her side. "I… I think so." She looked around. She was lying on Elminster's robe, on the parapet walk. Dead Wolves littered the battlements around them. A few crows had found the bodies and were fluttering about and pecking experimentally.

The Old Mage was sitting unconcernedly in his clout and boots, the ring of regeneration gleaming on his finger. Sharantyr's gaze leapt to where the quarrel had struck him.

All she saw was a dark, angry-looking patch. Elminster smiled and held up the quarrel, dark with his own blood.

Sharantyr shuddered, and then dared a glance at her own shoulder. It had been clumsily bandaged with what looked like strips torn from Elminster's clout: cotton now stiff with dried blood. Her shoulder, unseen beneath-she wriggled it experimentally-felt whole. She raised questioning eyes to Elminster.

"The healing potions ye brought back," Elminster said. "Ye had all of them." He scratched at his beard and poked at her bandaged shoulder. "How d'ye feel?"

Sharantyr sat up, feeling light-headed. Under her torn leathers she was sticky and ached, her stiff and bruised muscles complaining, but her probing fingers encountered none of the fresh blood and deep wounds she had feared to find.

"Weak as a weaned kitten, Old Mage," she said with a smile, "but I'll live. Give me a few breaths more and I'll be up and swinging a sword again."

Elminster looked at the carnage around them. "I'll stand clear of thy way when ye do," he told her dryly.

Sharantyr answered his smile, briefly, but her eyes grew somber when she saw the dead. "I like this killing little," she whispered with sudden urgency, turning to him. "Believe me, won't you?"

Elminster put a swift, lean arm around her. "I do, Shar. I know ye well enough, now." He looked around them and added, "Mind, we need ye to try thy hand at it a little time longer." He held up the magic missile wand. "Ye seem far more effective than this, I must say."

Daera came out into the street like a silent shadow. There was at least one man outside, in armor. A Wolf!

The man was grinning, one armored hand clutching a twisted handful of long hair. The woman he held grimaced in pain but dared not even whimper; the long curve of his sword was hard against her throat. Another woman watched from a nearby door, mouth agape, frozen in fear.

"A good horse your man has," the Wolf said, almost conversationally. "I've seen it." His hand yanked her back into the hard embrace of his armor, then came around to her breast.

Deliberately, he tore the worn cloth of her bodice away. "Almost as good as his taste in women," the Wolf said, caressing her with cruel, bruising fingers. The sword brushed up and down her throat, reminding her not to scream.

"You're going to take me to that good horse," the Wolf said grimly as he forced her steadily along the street. "Silence! You, too," he added to the watching woman in the doorway, "or I'll slit both your throats and forego the pleasure of your company."

The awkward procession continued down the street, the captive woman feebly pointing at an alleyway. With a face dark as a hailstorm, Daera waved Ulraea to silence and went after them on silent feet, dagger ready.

She knew he'd look around before entering the alley, and hurried. She had to get his sword away, but how?

The armored back was very close in front of her, the smell of sweat and oiled metal strong. Ylyndaera Mulmar looked at it, knowing she had only a breath more to act, and inspiration came.

She stepped to his blind side as the Wolf's head started to turn, and slipped her dagger delicately up into the armpit of his sword arm, where armor plate ended and old, sweat-weakened leather began.

The man stiffened, roared in pain, and nearly dropped his blade. He whirled, snatching at it with his other hand, as three women screamed.

Ylyndaera snarled amid the shrieks and stabbed at the man's eyes from behind.

He shrieked, too, as blood fountained up from the wound in his armpit, and broke into an agonized, stumbling run. She watched him go, goaded by pain, as his bright blood ran down the dagger in her hand, and felt her gorge rise. No. She could not slay him that way, by finding an eye from behind, and feeling the blade go in… ohhh…

As her spew splattered on the stones in front of her, a thought came. She reached for a stone she knew was loose, from long-gone days when she'd played up this alley and down others.

The stone was large, flat, and very heavy. She caught up to the staggering Wolf, roughly tore off his helm from behind, and with both hands brought the stone down hard on his head.

He shuddered, started to curse, and fell. She did it again. Again. And again before something gave. His body jerked under her knees before it fell still.

As she rose, she looked into the great, dark eyes of the horse owner's wife, who stood watching, the marks of cruel fingers dark on her flesh. Daera managed a smile as she took up the man's sword, hefted it, and said, "Come with me, Jharina. I'm for the castle. We're going to kill us some Wolves."

From behind her, Daera heard a shocked gasp. Without turning she said, "Ulraea? Bring along Tanshlee, too. She'll catch a chill, standing gawping in that doorway all day."

Her eyes looked deep into Jharina's. The older, prouder lady looked back at the gangling girl with the sword and the bloody dagger, and drew in a deep, shuddering breath.

"Well?" Ylyndaera asked softly. "Are you with me?"

Jharina smiled. "Yes," she said, her voice almost steady. "Yes, I am." She stepped forward and embraced the high constable's daughter, treading on the fallen Wolf uncaringly.

"Lead us, lass," she said, "as your father does. Lead us."

Daera kissed her cheek, handed her the dagger, and started back out of the alley. "Hurry, then," she said. "The men may need us. All's gone quiet up there, and when magic's about, that means ill."

The bloodstained and mud-smeared Wolf who came stumbling out of an alley just then, to make a run for the castle, was unlucky indeed. The angry howls and screams of the women warned him before they reached him, but not in time for him to outrun them on a wounded leg. He swung his blade twice, jarring Ylyndaera with two hard parries, before his leg gave way and they had him. He did not scream long.

They paused for a moment to let Tanshlee be sick all over the body, then hastened up the road to the open castle gates. Men were hurrying about inside, halberds and swords gleaming in their hands. Wolves.

"Tymora," Daera breathed, "let us not be too late."

The words had scarcely left her lips when there was a great flash and booming sound from within the walls. A man's head, still wearing a helm and a shocked expression, flew past them amid a shower of stones, dirt, and other things best not examined too closely.

"Oh, gods," Daera cursed, and broke into a run. "Come on!"

They were almost at the gate before they heard the growing thunder of hooves clattering and pounding toward them. Frantically they flung themselves aside, diving to the turf, as the world exploded in racing horses.

"Daera," Ulraea quavered as they hugged the ground together amid rolling dust, "could you stop praying, d'you think? Every time you call on a divine one, something happens!"

"Oh," Daera replied, clutching her sword. "All right."