Swords of Eveningstar

Chapter 23

Oh, so ’tis time for the old swords-out and shouting, hey? How many do I get to kill this time?

The character Veldin the Valiant, the third act of Old King Dragon

A play by Thelva “the Maid” Dunstel published in the Year of the Sword and Stars

H oraundoon scowled into his scrying orb. A tight-lipped, crestfallen Florin striding through the streets with the two loudest Sword wenches at his shoulders, heading back to the Lion. There-and there-and there, too-behind them, the watch spies, following. Last, the Martess lass, following the watch agents.

Enough to make this Zhentarim smirk, yon little parade. If he hadn’t been so hrasted annoyed, that is. The lad had seemed to throw off much of the influence of the mindworm, even before Myrmeen Lhal had spurned him! But how?

Florin peered around the busy taproom, fire rising in his eyes. There was the table, right enough, with the tavernmaster’s apron spread across it to “Tavernmaster!” he called, letting some of his anger show. “Where are my friends, who were here with us? Did the watch-?”

“Nay, lord,” Aviathus assured him, bustling up to them. “The way of it is: they conferred, heads together-your friends, I mean-then the hard-faced woman-ah, forgive me…”

“Forgiven,” Pennae said. “Out with it, man!”

“I, uh, yes, well, she led them out, all but the two war-swords, who sat right here for a time-long enough to empty a talljack of firewine between them, and eat a skewer of roast bustard each, too-ere they went behind yon curtains, and out, with Kestra and Taeriana.”

“Who,” Jhessail asked flatly, “are Kestra and Taeriana? As if I can’t guess.”

The tavernmaster’s head bobbed eagerly. “Coinlasses, right enough, and the best and cleanest in the business, let me tell you! Six seasons a-working here, and never a-”

“Out where? ” Pennae snapped.

“Ah. Well, ’tis my way of speech more than truly ‘outside,’ really,” Aviathus said hastily, pointing at the ceiling. “Faster than saying ‘up the back stairs.’ ”

Jhessail rolled her eyes, Florin growled, and Martess and Pennae both gave Florin “See? Someone else besides you” looks.

Pennae told Florin firmly, “ We’ll go and look for them. A woman looking gives less offense, but can deliver more scorn to shame them back down here, when they’re found.”

Horaundoon gasped, reeled, and shuddered, sweat streaming down his face and dripping off his chin. Four minds, now, two of them strong-willed and wayward…

Riches, he promised Agannor and Bey, showing them chests of gleaming coins and coffers a-glitter with gems. Women, splashing through their minds ivory curves, dark and mysterious eyes, alluring smiles, and languid beckonings. Power, and each of the two Swords saw himself striding, a great-cloak streaming from his shoulders, through palatial rooms, hurling open doors by which servants hastily knelt, and emerging into courtyards where white stallions in gold-plate-bedecked harness awaited, and riding forth through portcullis after arch after tunnel, out of a soaring castle, as folk thundered acclaim from balconies…

All theirs, the sweating Zhentarim mind-promised, if they but willingly served him.

More splendors he conjured, and thrust upon their minds, burying them in banners and glittering courts, impossibly beautiful courtesans writhing in welcome on beds made of thousands of coins… and he saw their mistrust, reluctance, and wary fears crumbling and fading, loose black earth swept away before his cleansing flood, an onslaught that laid bare eagerness, leaping up bright with desire, daring hope Agannor, he mind-spoke. Bey. Are you with me?

Their roars of assent were like raging flame in his mind, searing him even as his delight grew, sending the hargaunt into wild, clashing chimings of alarm and excitement.

Horaundoon shuddered in pain, slumped over a table with his fingers trying to pierce its edge as if they were claws, and smiled.

Then show me your loyalty. Step onto the great way to glory I’ve shown you. Slay these two wenches-who are in truth foul witches seeking to enslave you!

He spun an illusion of leering fanged fiend-faces, revealed dark and gloating behind the slipping masks of Kestra’s and Taeriana’s ardent smiles-and was still strengthening and improving that imagining when Agannor snarled, snatched his dagger out of its sheath, and drove it hilt-deep up under Taeriana’s chin.

Pennae frowned. The bedchambers in the Lion stood dark and empty, doors ajar, awaiting brief use by coinlasses and their clients.

From the landing where she stood, the stair went on up to the roof, and a narrow, gloomy hall stretched away from her a surprisingly long way. Martess was already going from door to door on the left.

Pennae sighed, shrugged, and started down the doors on the right.

In the other bed, Bey backhanded Kestra so viciously across her face that her head boomed against the wall. Dazed, she had time neither to draw breath nor scream before she was choking on her own blood, slumped over the edge of the bed, dripping and dying…

The partition walls between the Lion’s bedchambers were but a single panel thick, and Agannor’s snarl had been unmistakable.

Pressed against the wall in one corner of the dark and vacant next room, Martess listened, shuddering.

Plink. Plosh. Plink. Life-blood, dripping. They’d just killed the two coinlasses.

Mother Mystra, preserve us all…

Agannor blinked at Bey. “The master-he’s gone from my mind!”

“Mine too,” Bey muttered, “but I can still feel his regard. He’s watching us. Seeing if we stand strong, I think.”

He rose from the bed, looking down at what he’d done. “Naed,” he added, turning to the washstand and plunging his bloody dagger and hand into the full ewer of water. “We can’t let the watch see this. ”

Agannor nodded and tugged forth his own fang, looking away as Taeriana’s jaw fell open in its wake, sliced tongue dangling.

Wincing, he went to wash up, too, glancing at the closed but boltless door. “What’ll we-?”

“The roof,” Bey said. “That stair went on up. Bundle them into the bed-linens, get them up there for the carrion crows, and use the wash-water to get rid of the blood. We’ll be long gone from Arabel before rats start gnawing off fingers and dropping them around for folks to find.”

Agannor nodded. “The master should be pleased. Gods, such power he has! None of this fighting orcs for a few coppers, winter after winter, while Purple Dragons give us suspicious glares. We’re going to be lords! ” He grinned at Bey. “Any regrets?”

“Having to break from the Swords this swift and sharp. I’d sort of hoped to bed our own Flamehair, sooner or later.”

“Gods, yes, little Jhessail-though in truth I’d want Pennae. Now, there’s a wench!”

“Aye, if she was safely tied down so you’d live through it,” Bey said wryly. “Perhaps the master…”

Agannor grinned. “If we plead prettily enough?”

Pressed against the cold, hard panel, Martess shuddered. Dared she stay still and silent, to keep safe? Or run like nightwind out of here, to warn Pennae before they came for her?

If they caught her, ’twould be her blood dripping onto the floor-and all her friends would be doomed. These two would blame the Swords for any killings they did, falsely reporting to the watch or arranging matters so folk would think the Swords of Eveningstar were guilty…

My head full of spells, yet I’m so helpless.

“There’s another mind very close to them,” Horaundoon muttered, frowning. Surely a mere coinlass can’t be under magic to bring her back from a slaying?

Unless she’s not a mere coinlass…

A Harper? One of Vangerdahast’s spies?

Ignoring the hargaunt’s curious queries-chiming so rapid and shrill it sounded like a tree-cat chittering-Horaundoon closed his eyes and felt for that errant mind with his spell, putting a hand on the scrying orb to call on its energies, to make his seeking more powerful…

There! In the chamber next door, a mind dark with fear and despair, the glows of feeble spells riding it-one of the Sword magelings!

Charging into her mind would burn his own; even those feeble spells would burst, blaze, and sear, wrecking her mind but doing him harm he neither wanted nor dared suffer.

Horaundoon snarled and thrust himself back at the two handy mindworms, bringing Agannor and Bey out of their room in a snarling rush. Sometimes a sharp sword is enough.

Martess heard the thunder of boots through the wall and thrust herself up and away from it, feeling sick. Against those two she was nothing, less than nothing. She must The door behind her burst open. She whirled, gasping in alarm-and managed the beginnings of a shriek before Agannor’s sword, his teeth furiously bared behind it, burst into and through her, plunging like ice, driving her stumbling back.

Bey Freemantle, wearing the same wide and friendly grin on his face she’d seen so many times before, rushed in from the side.

His steel slid into her like fire, so hot against the cold of Agannor’s blade that Martess couldn’t breathe.

So the spell she might have lashed them with, that she not perish without at least dealing pain to her slayers, faded unleashed as Martess Ilmra sank down into soft and endless darkness, fire and ice fading around her.

Pennae knew what that sliced-off scream meant.

Martess was dead or dying-and if the gods willed it, she’d see that Agannor and Bey followed her!

She came out of the room she’d been peering into like a dark cloak hurled along in a gale, cursing herself for leaving her sleep-dosed daggers back at their rooms this night. Well, she’d just have to make this a little more personal.

She was still four doors away from the one Agannor and Bey were ducking out of, running hard with daggers raised to hurl, when something like a fog with fists descended on her mind.

Rolling and shaking Pennae like thunder, it struck her head from the inside, thrice and a dozen times and more, sending her stumbling.

Agannor grinned from ear to ear, a light like madness in his eyes, and raised his sword. “Yes, my beauty!” he hissed. “Come and play!”

His blade lashed out, flashing.

Fetching up bruisingly against the wall as the floor seemed to heave under her, Pennae clenched her teeth and fought for balance. Bey’s sword was coming at her, too “Alura Durshavin, you’re one strong little tigress,” Horaundoon of the Zhentarim murmured, hurling his mind against hers again.

The scrying orb in front of him was flickering, enfeebled by his drainings. Yet even as it drifted lower, he could see in its darkening depths the thief fling herself into a blackflip, as supple as any eel he’d ever watched eluding the nets of eel-cooks back in the keep.

His two warriors thrust and hacked at her again-and both missed. Again.

Dazedly, Pennae got herself turned around and fled.

Horaundoon bore down hard. If she got to the taproom, or managed to shout an alarm down the stairwell, he’d likely soon lose both of his Sword minions. She was worth ten of them, but she was fighting him even now; taming her would take all his power and attention, day and night.

Hah! Horaundoon thrust into, shook, and tumbled Pennae’s mind, watching her moan and stagger. Bey was right behind her, now, blade raised to In the orb he watched the thief thrust herself back and down, rolling into an erupting, kicking ball that had Bey toppling over her, and her spinning on one hip to scissor her legs around the ankles of the onrushing Agannor, sending him helplessly crashing down onto Bey, sword stabbing air and shouting in fear.

Pennae sprang over them, or tried to, but the battering, snarling weight of Horaundoon in her mind drove her aside into a wall. She fell hard atop the two tangled, vigorously cursing warriors, rolling and kicking.

Agannor grabbed at her, tearing her leathers, and she sliced and stabbed viciously, managing to catch his palm briefly with the point of her blade. He shrieked in pain and snatched his hand back and away-just as Bey’s sword thrust across her stomach, slicing leather with swift ease.

Pennae twisted, heaved, and managed to win free, her sprint down the hall becoming a whimpering crawl that had her clawing her way to her feet, leaning hard on a wall to keep from falling. Staggering on, she slid along it, trailing smears of blood, as Horaundoon hammered in her head and Bey came pounding along the hall behind her, Agannor right behind him.

The stair had a rail, and Pennae caught hold of it just in time, swinging herself up and aside as a sword bit deep into the floorboards she’d just been standing on.

Bey hacked at her again, and again, hewing air hard enough to smash ribs and limbs if ever he hit leather-clad thief.

Pennae ducked, kicked his knee hard to send him staggering back into Agannor, and raced up the stairs, hoping the trapdoor at its top wasn’t locked.

The gods were with her. A simple through-two-straps longbar kept anyone lifting it open from above. Pennae plucked out the metal bar and smashed aside Bey’s seeking blade with it, leaving the sword ringing like a bell and him shouting at the eerie pain of a numbed sword hand.

And Pennae was across the roof, the slammed trapdoor bouncing in her wake, and running hard for the next roof along. ’Twas the first of seven in the block, if she remembered rightly, and at least two of those shops had wooden stairs descending from their rooftops to balconies.

She jumped, landed awry and bruisingly as the foe in her mind slammed into her wits, hard and sudden, just as she was launching herself, and staggered sidewise until she fetched up against a crumbling fieldstone chimney, brittle old birdnests crunching underfoot. Pennae winced; if these head-splitting, nigh-blinding attacks continued, she’d best get down to street level, where at least she couldn’t die just from falling over!

Agannor shouted, behind her, and Pennae hissed a curse and ran on, heading for the next roof-and the next stab inside her head.

Horaundoon frowned. Out in the open, the wench would swiftly best his two lumbering minions. He ached to finish her, to burst her mind like a new-laid egg flung against a wall… but-whiteblood! — he’d been trying to do just that for how long now? And still she fought him.

No, ’twas time to leave off trying to fry her wits, and cast a spell that would send his orders thundering into the minds of a score of Zhent agents all over Arabel. Telling them it was high time to load their crossbows and go Pennae-hunting.

In the wake of the shrieks, shouts, and the ringing clang of swords, there came the thunder of boots on the stairs, and the booming thunder of something heavy falling, twice.

“I’m going up there!” Florin snarled, struggling in the grip of the four grim, plainly clad Purple Dragons who’d risen from a nearby table to drag him down when he’d first drawn sword.

“ No, outlander,” one of them snarled into his face, as they twisted and strained together in a sweating, grunting heap on the floor, “you’ll not. Our orders-”

“Unhand Florin Falconhand, and get back, all of you! ” Jhessail shouted, her high, usually gentle voice ringing out across the taproom of the Lion and bringing down a hush of tensely staring drinkers. There was a dagger in her hand, and bright flames raced up and down its blade. “Or I’ll cast the strongest spell I know, and bring down this tavern on us all!”

The attacks-thank Mask! — had ceased, but her head still throbbed as if she’d taken a solid mace-blow. Worse than that, other men seemed to have joined the chase: men with swords and daggers and no hesitation in using them. So where were the lady lord’s oh-so-efficient, thrice-accursed watch now?

Agannor was stumbling along well in her wake, obviously winded, and Bey was ever further back, but- naed!

This unwashed, stubble-faced man, stepping out of an alley right in front of Pennae, had a cocked and loaded crossbow in his hands. It cracked even as she flung herself aside and brought her daggers up.

A moment later, she was wringing a numbed and bleeding hand, the dagger that had been in it was gone, and she heard the crossbow bolt bouncing and splintering on cobbles far behind her left shoulder.

“Naed! Hrasting bitch, ” the man cursed, staring at her over his fired crossbow. “How the tluin did you step aside from that? ”

Pennae wasted no breath in a reply, but hurried toward him, hefting the dagger in her right hand. The man cursed again and flung the crossbow full in her face to buy himself time to drag out a rather rusty short sword.

Pennae launched herself up the wall, caught hold of a stone window-sill under a crudely boarded-over back window, and swung hard, boots first, catching the man in the throat at about the same time as he got his sword free.

He went over in a heap, arms twitching in spasms, and Pennae landed hard, heels first, on his ribs.

Just who was chasing her now was A crossbow bolt sang past her ear with the high, thrumming whine that meant it had only just missed her, and Pennae snarled and darted into the alley.

A moment later, she came out of it again-sobbing as she flew helplessly back through the air, snatched off her feet and spinning in midair, with a crossbow bolt right through her shattered shoulder.

Myrmeen Lhal looked up from the stack of decrees and dispensations she was rather wearily signing. That was the third alarm gong.

Three patrols called in as reinforcements? What by all the Nine Hells was going on?

Boots thundered in the passage, and she called out, “Asgarth? What’s all the tumult?”

“Those stlar-ahem, those Swords adventurers! Men’re firing crossbows all over Palaceside!” the lionar shouted, adding in his next breath, “Beg pardon, Lady Lord!”

“Granted,” Myrmeen called, deep and loud. And shook her head in wry amusement. She’d expected the Swords of Eveningstar to get up to something after this day’s gentle tonguelashing, but this quickly? And three patrols-worth of trouble?

“Gods Above, Azoun,” she muttered, “you certainly can pick them.”

Myrmeen turned back to the piles of papers. Her war was here, on this desk. As usual. Now where-? Oh, yes, the third request for an escort to Candlekeep…

Yet if that gong rang again, the Dragons would discover the Lady Lord of Arabel charging out of here at the head of the answering patrol. Oh, yes.

Myrmeen glanced down the desk at her helm, currently serving paperweight duty on the ‘not yet seen’ pile.

The look she gave it was a longing look.

Weeping freely- gods, it hurt, and she felt weak and sick inside, and kept falling, oblivion lurking like eager dark shadows to claim her-Pennae stumbled on.

Perhaps her foe had given up on cudgeling her brains from the outside, and was now riding the minds of this small army of men with crossbows who kept walking stlarned-near into her, acquiring looks of recognition on their faces though she knew she’d never seen them before, and firing at her.

If they’d been better shots, she’d have a belly bristling with bolts by now, or a hole through her middle large enough even for clumsy Purple Dragons to thrust their helmed heads through.

Instead, Pennae just felt like she had a hole like that in her, at about shoulder level. She’d spewed her guts out all over the cobbles twice now, and had nothing left inside her to heave.

Another stride… another…

Pennae wanted so much to lie down on her face on the cobbles and just rest-but that would mean swift death for her, with Agannor, Bey, and at least two myserious foemen in leathers now following her.

She was leaving a bloody trail as she trudged, and probably a solid line of tears, too. She’d given up clinging spiderlike to walls, because she’d kept falling from her perches aloft, tumbling helplessly back to the cobbles.

Yes, she was beginning to hate cobbles. Very solid things, cobbles… keep walking, Pennae.

“Hoy!” The face belonged to a bristle-mustached Purple Dragon, with a watch badge pinned to the baldric across his breast. Others, similarly garbed, were gaping at her from behind him.

“Evening, lads,” Pennae gasped. “Never seen a lass with a crossbow bolt through her before?”

Strong hands caught her as she stumbled, and the Dragon attached to them growled, “So, maid, what befell ye, exactly? How came you to have a-”

“Florin!” someone distant called; it sounded like Islif.

“Hey, Florin!” someone-Semoor, for a handful of gold-even more distant chimed in.

“Pennae!” That nearby shout rang out like a war horn, cutting through a sudden hubbub of Purple Dragons calling “Ho!” to each other.

Sinking into the darkness that had been clawing at her for so long, now-the warm, welcoming darkness-Pennae smiled.

Florin Falconhand had come for her at last.

Horaundoon shook his head in weary exasperation. So many minds, fighting his.

He wiped his sweat-slick brow with a hand that trembled, sighed, and sat back. He dared not to stay linked-not with the very real risk that someone whose mind he was in would die, violently.

No, he’d dismiss the two Swords warriors as lost, and just watch things unfold through the orb. At the very least, it should be a good show.

“Lathander loves thee,” Semoor’s voice intoned, through the gurgling waterfall of cool, blessed release that was sweeping through her.

Pennae blinked, tried to cough-and gentle fingers stroked her throat as tenderly as any lover, quelling her gagging.

“Tymora loves you, too,” Doust added, from above those fingers. “And-hrast it-I do too.”

“And Florin really does,” Semoor said slyly.

“ Thank you, Stoop,” Florin said firmly, from somewhere above them. “That’s two potions, now?”

“We holy prefer to call them ‘healing quaffs,’ forester,” Semoor said haughtily, and then grunted in startled pain.

“Ah,” Islif said pleasantly, “just as we unwashed prefer to call that ‘the toe of my boot, put right where it will do a pompous holynose the most good.’ Clumsum, d’you think your healing spell worked?”

“Shrug,” Doust said aloud, and there were several chuckles from above Pennae.

“Purple Dragons stand all around us, Pennae,” Florin said, his voice drawing nearer. Pennae blinked through what seemed to be tears, and could make out that he’d hunkered down on his haunches to lean over her. “They want to know what befell you. So do we.”

“Martess,” Pennae gasped. “Murdered. By Agannor and Bey. Chased me here. Other men with crossbows… also chasing. Beware someone-wizard? — attacking you, inside your head. Made me… fall over.”

“Blood of Alathan!” Doust gasped, at about the same time as Islif snarled, “Caztul!”

Then Florin said, “Swordcaptain, I must ask you to turn a blind eye to what we may do next. I am enraged, and am like to do my own murdering in your streets.”

“Man,” a gruff and unfamiliar voice replied, “three good men are down with bolts through them. An’ that’s just my Dragons; I hear there’re shopkeepers dead, an’ a little lad who was out playing in the wrong alley, too. Go do your murders!”

Departing boots thundered, and a surprised voice-Doust’s-asked, “Jhessail?”

“Let her go,” Semoor murmured. “As if you or I or anyone could stop her.”

“Help-help me up,” Pennae gasped. “I’m going, too.”

“You, lass, are staying right here,” the swordcaptain growled. “There’s blood all over you, your leathers’re sliced half off you, an’-”

“And my task stands unfinished,” Pennae hissed, clawing her way up the man’s arm until she could stand. “ My task. I’m a Sword of Eveningstar, Swordcaptain. Mayhap you’ve heard of us.”

“Trumpet fanfare,” Doust announced helpfully. There was a moment of tense silence before Purple Dragons started to guffaw, all around them. When the swordcaptain she was clinging to started to shake with laughter, Pennae almost fell over again.