The Sword Never Sleeps

Chapter 7

Jhessail backed away, breathing hard. Her dagger was gone, hurled at the thing the Purple Dragon had thrown at her. It had stuck into that missile and had probably been blasted to dust in the explosion that had followed after the thing had skipped aloft, spinning end over end to crash down among the horses.

Her ears were ringing, and she was drenched in horse gore. More of it was splattered everywhere around her, leaving her slipping and sliding at every step as she retreated, trembling. She circled to the right as she went, not wanting to go into unknown forest where she might well get tangled among trees and trapped with no way to flee.

Wearing the grim beginnings of a sly and cruel smile, the bullyblade leader stalked after her, drawn sword in hand.

"Don't make me use my spells," she warned, raising a hand. The man sneered. "A little cantrip thar will make rhe end of your nose glow, perhaps? Or banish the rust from my dagger? Or perhaps you'd like me to stop and watch you light a candle with your fingertip?"

"Oh, I can light more than candles," Jhessail told him, smiling with a confidence she was very far from feeling. They were back amid the fighting now, curling around behind bodies and frays still raging.

"Then why don't you, Lady Silvertree? Mage so mighty of the Knights of Myth Drannor? Little lying slut."

"Oh," Jhessail said, still backing away. "Is there something wrong with your sword? Is that why you're trying to insult me to death?"

The man stalked forward. "Lady, I am Eerikarr Steldurth. I served a great and noble lord of Cormyr long and well. I feel no need to insult a landless, lowborn, backcountry hedge mage. I can merely say 'lawbreaker' or 'murderer of lords.' When I speak thus of you, I utter truths, not insults."

Then he was upon her, dropping into a lunge that brought his blade thrusting in so close to Jhessail that it whispered between her right arm and her body, slicing garment and skin alike.

She gave a little shriek, flung up her arm, and ducked away to the left as he rose back into balance and slashed at her, backhanded.

He was an instant too late. She was just out of reach and bounding back to the right as his blade swept by. Steldurth sprang after her, hacking, and caught one of his own men in the shoulder as that bullyblade hastily backed away from Florin's flashing sword.

The man yelled, lashed out blindly, and kept on turning and retreating, blindly jostling Jhessail and sending her staggering.

Steldurth sidestepped the bullyblade's wild slash then ran right ar Jhessail. She ducked away, diving between two bullyblades, and then dodged around a third-and almost into the waiting arms of Steldurth, who'd guessed her tactic correctly.

She spun away, leaving a great torn-out handful of her hair in his hand, and plunged past a bullyblade. Or tried to.

That outlaw was in full retreat from Florin, and she tripped over one of his swiftly moving boots. Jhessail sprawled, clawing at the ground to try to get up and run. She almost made it, rising but being turned over in midair by a boot deftly hooked around her ankle.

She fell again, face up this time, and found that it had been Eerikarr Steldurth who'd tripped her. Looming over her, he grinned-and drew his sword back to plunge down into her breast.

A slender arm clad in dark leathers and fresh blood rose up under his sword arm, blocking his thrust. Pennae's head came into view over Steldurth's shoulder as she finished swarming up him from behind. Grinning through teeth clenched in pain, she plunged the dagger in her other hand into Steldurth's throat.

Blade Hanstel Harrow was a fairly skilled warrior, but there were five bullyblades around him. Five cruel swords sliding in at his face and hands and every seam and chink of his armor, darting past his parries to spread ice in their wake, ice and the sticky wetness of his spilling blood. He was going to die here.

He threw all caution to the winds and hurled himself wildly at one foe and then another, taking foolish chances as he lunged, slashed, charged forward where no sensible swordsman would dare-and managed to slay an astonished bullyblade.

He didn't get even a moment to exult at his daring before the rest cut him down, slashing at the backs of his knees and leaving him crumpled at their feet ere their blades came plunging at him.

Harrow died with one last name on his lips, but cold steel had pinned his tongue to the back of his mouth and was keeping his teeth apart. He gurgled helplessly, face twisting in disappointment.

The grinning faces above him did not look one little bit like the faraway lasses he was temembering.

Harrow was down. Dead. Dauntless didn't waste any breath cursing. Dahauntul was the last Dtagon left, and there weren't all that many of Yellander's rabble, either. He had to get away.

Vangerdahast had been quite clear on that. He must survive ro watch over these accursed Knights of Myth Drannor and make quite sure they departed the tealm. He was to report back everything they did and said and everyone they met with, to the Royal Magician. While somehow letting Old Thunderspells know that silencing a certain ornrion forever was neither desirable nor prudent.

He wasn't sure how he was going to manage that last bit.

On the other hand, he hadn't accomplished the first part-the surviving-yet, either.

Parrying a bullyblade sword hard enough to send its wielder staggering back with a startled curse, Ornrion Taltar Dahauntul spun around and sprinted for the trees, aiming for a spot where they stood thinly, in hopes he'd be able to see a way through them and back out to the Ride.

He was more than tired of this particulat battle. On the other hand, the five Dragons who'd ridden in here with him were beyond being tired of anything.

Brorn Hallomond stopped and lowered his sword. Beside him, the tall, red-bearded pillar that was Kraskus noticed and stopped too, turning to look at Brorn and awaiting orders.

After Lord Yellander's most trusted bodyguard stopped and looked around, there were always orders.

Brorn watched the last Purple Dragon-the ornrion-sprint into the trees. Scratching his chin thoughtfully, Brorn peered here and there around the clearing, noticing Steldurth s body with its slit throat and still-spreading blood. The battles were very much going against his side.

He looked up at his bodyguard, Kraskus, and then pointed across the clearing at whete the last few bullyblades were busy dying, and at the adventurers causing those deaths. "Kraskus, I need you to kill all the Knights for me. I'm afraid I can't be with you while you do it. There's something I must go and do. Something very important."

Without another word he turned and hasrened off into the trees on the other side of the clearing from where the ornrion had disappeared.

For a long time Kraskus frowned and stared at Brorn's dwindling back.

Then the big man shrugged, turned, and launched himself into a charge across the corpse-strewn clearing, heading for those last few battles.

"Kill all the Knights," he growled, to make sure he kept it straight. "Kill all the Knights."

He was almost within reach of them now. With a roar, he waved his sword over his head and plunged into the nearest fray. "Kill the Knights!"

Then he corrected himself. "All the Knights." He repeated those words several times more as he thrust out with his sword and was parried. This was important, and he didn't want to forget it.

"And you attacked us why?" Islif snapped, smashing aside Halmur's sword as if the arm that held it were a mere twig.

Bones splintered, and the Turmishan screamed and staggered back, eyes wide with astonishment.

She strode after him. "I really want to know."

The dusky-skinned bullyblade dodged aside from her sword. He hissed in pain and, clutching his stricken arm, gave her a glare. "You really are a farm lass, aren't you?"

Islif nodded. "Yes. One who wants to know why you set upon us. We had our swords out and were disputing with Purple Dragons! Surely outlaws can be patient or sensible enough to seek easier prey than that!"

"We're not outlaws," Halmut snarled, his useless arm dangling in his wake as he hurried to a fallen fellow. The sprawled body- Yarlen, who still owed him three lions from their last dice game, curse it all-wore two sheathed daggers he could use about now. "Or weren't. Until you Knights slew Lord Yellander and lost us our livelihoods! We weren't here after 'easier prey,' you stone-witted slut! We were after you'. "

"And now?" Islif asked, still striding after him.

"And now," the Turmishan snapped triumphantly, ducking down, snatching out a dagger, and whirling to fling it in her face, "we still are!"

He was whirling back to the body to pluck up the second dagger and spring at her with it when the first one, in the wake of a ringing clang, came spinning past his head to bounce to a stop amid the crushed remnants of a shrub.

Halmur sprang forward after it, seeking to get away from the sword he knew would already be thrusting at his backside.

Islif sighed and slashed instead at his hindmost ankle, lifting her blade and tripping the fleeing bullyblade into a crashing fall into another nearby bush. He rolled amid crackling branches and found his feet-more agile eel than the wallowing warrior she'd expected him to be-to stand panting at her.

"Think you're clever," he gasped, "don't you? Playthings of Queen Filfaeril, above us all, daring to cross Vangerdahast himself!" He spat at her. "Tymora-kissed bitch! How sheer blind luck has kept you alive thus far, I don't-urrrk!"

The hurled warhammer crushed Halmur's throat and bounced away from him, leaving the stricken bullyblade to clutch his neck, stare wild-eyed at Islif, and topple.

Semoor strolled forward, dusting his hands in evident satisfaction. "See that? One throat, dead-on! Not many priests of Lathander could land that, I tell you! And the result? One far too sardonic Turmishan, silenced forever!"

Islif regarded her fellow Knight with something approaching contempt. "Does Lathander approve of his holynoses crowing about a slaying they've done?"

"Cerrainly hope so." Semoor grinned at her, chastened not in the slightest. "Because, look you, that's my fifth in a row! Four just back there-one got away, and I let him go because one must be merciful from rime to time, just to allow some sort of balance to prevail in the world-and now this little dancing toad. I'd not waste tears on him, were I you. He was the only one of them I've heard about, in all our visits to revels and Court functions. Seems he liked treating ladies rather cruelly. I can provide details if you'd like."

"Spare me," Islif said. "And what're you wearing that sword belt for? That sheath makes you look ridiculous. Like a-a-" She blushed, unexpectedly, and turned her head away.

"An extra nightblade sticking out of my forehead?" Semoor asked cheerfully. "Hadn't thought of that, but I quite like the notion."

He struck a pose and strutted a few steps, making the empty dagger sheath bounce off his nose, before glancing idly across the clearing, stopping in mid-bounce, and adding, "Huh. Looks like we're done. Florin's just felled that great red-bearded brute. So unless there're still some arrows about to come whistling out at us-"

"Stoop," Doust growled as he came up to them, bedraggled and bleeding, "I wish you hadn't said that."

Semoor shrugged. "I believe I'm safe enough in doing so. I don't think there's anyone left in hiding who could take it as a cue. What happened to you?"

"Imminent death, deliverance from same by Florin," Doust said grimly. "I don't think Tymora intended me to wage war."

"I know Lathander didn't want me to," Semoor said brightly. "He meant me to intone soft prayers and bathe in the offering coins gently bestowed upon me by an adoring populace, and I've been practicing my intonings, too, but people who want to kill us keep interrupting, by-"

"Perhaps they're critics," Florin said in a dry voice, joining them with Jhessail at his side. "Where's Pennae?"

All of the Knights peered across the clearing, looking this way and that, afraid they'd catch a glimpse of Pennae's dark leathers among the sprawled fallen. It was Semoor who saw her first.

"There," he said, pointing.

Something that had been feebly rolling in the creek rose up rather wearily and gave rhem all a bleak look.

It was Pennae, looking rather the worse for wear. She had been wounded in several places, caked in foul-smelling mud, and mosr of her hair was gone, her scalp blackened and scorched. Doust and Jhessail both looked at the threads of blood curling lazily in the slow waters of the stream sliding past their boors, and then back along that winding water to the thief.

"She's hurt," Doust announced to no one in particular, and he started across the clearing.

"Doust!" Islif snapped, hastening to catch up with him. "There could be a score of foes in these trees!"

Doust shrugged. "Tymora, remember? The bolder I dare, the safer I'll be."

Islif frowned. "I'm not sure that's quite how the luckpriests put it."

He waved her words away, still hastening on to where Pennae was now standing, wincing a little as she settled herself into a pose against a handy tree trunk.

"Hail, fellow conquering heroes," she greeted them as they came up to her. Her face-even her lips-were pale, but her grin was as sardonic as ever.

"You're hurt," Doust said without greeting. "Sit down."

"No, you can paw me just as well if I stay right where I am," Pennae replied a little wearily. "Sit down would probably turn into fall down, and I've bled quite enough already."

Doust shook his head, threw up a hand to his fellow Knights to keep clear, and started to murmur a healing prayer.

"Heed me," Pennae told the rest of the Knights, over his shoulder. "Up this hill behind me, in the trees, there's a little hollow, and it's full of what's left of an old stone mansion. Ruined, overgrown- trees right up through it-but someone's still-"

She gasped as Doust's glowing fingertips touched the worst of her cuts. She closed her eyes and trembled for a moment as he moved his hands gingerly over her, and then she opened them, smiled, and said, "I do so love a man's hands on me. When he's doing me good, at least."

Semoor rolled his eyes. "You were saying? Someone's still…"

"Using it for something," Pennae said. "I got caught in a spell that had been cast across its doorway. Some sort of fire rrap."

Semoor rubbed his hands and grinned. "Treasure!"

"Is that allyou think of?" Florin and Islif asked disapprovingly, in almost perfect unison.

"No, but it'll do to think about until more important things arise," Semoor said. "Such as matters of the Morninglord. and… well, more matters of the Morninglord!"

"Indeed," Islif said. "This ruined mansion will be a good place to get well away from."

As if her words had been a cue, a crossbow quarrel came humming out of the woods and smashed her off her feet.

"Down!" Florin roared, flinging Jhessail to the turf as he spun down into a crouch to reach out a hand to Islif.

Who was clutching her ribs and groaning, her armor dented deeply on one flank.

"Are you-?" he snapped.

"Alive? Aye," she gasped. "More than that, I'm not willing to venture."

"Come on, "Semoor snarled at them all. "Stone walls are about all I know that can stop arrows!"

Pennae had already dropped from leaning against the tree to crouching in its lee, beckoning them.

The Knights scrambled after her. "I told you not to mention arrows," Doust told Semoor, "and now look-"

"Luckiest of Holynoses," Pennae said over her shoulder, "please accept my thanks for healing me, and forthwith shut up. Are you unaware rhat a bowman can loose at where he hears our voices coming from?"

Doust shut up.

Pennae beckoned them again, crouching low. Bent over and scuttling through the underbrush, she led them up through thickly standing trees, in more branch-snapping hasre rhan stealth, and into the hollow.

The mansion loomed before them, low and dark in the gloomy shade of the trees that had grown up through it and flung out boughs to overhang it. Its scorched and empty doorway yawned like an open, waiting mouth, the air still sharp with the smell of the fire that had recently raged in it, but Pennae hurried past, keeping low. Ducking around a corner, she plunged without pause through a dark, gaping opening that had once held a window.

The other Knights hesitated, listening. All of them half-expected flames to roar up or to be near-deafened by the sudden snarl of some fearsome beast, followed by Pennae's raw scream.

They heard only silence. They had all traded doubrful glances.

Florin shrugged, put his hands in the exact same places on the lip of the window opening that Pennae had touched, and vaulted through it into unknown darkness. They heard the light thumps of his boots landing on what sounded like wood.

A moment later, he reappeared at the window, a warning finger to his lips. He beckoned them, wordlessly gesturing that they should each move to one side once they landed inside the window.

Jhessail stepped forward, waving at Doust to give her a boost, and went over and in-unexpectedly aided by Semoor's uninvited hand under her trim behind.

One by one, the other Knights followed to find themselves standing in near darkness, the only light filtering in through the shadowed window.

They could hear each other breathing but nothing more. Until one of them took a cautious stride forward.

As if that had been a signal, they heard a sudden roar and crackle of flame in the distance, from the far end of the mansion-a toat that was promprly joined by a scream.

An unknown someone had triggered another fire trap.

"Pennae?" Florin whispered. "You're still here, right?"

"Idiot," she teplied, even more quietly. "Now you've done it."

And it seemed he had.

They heard the sound of a rope groaning as it stretched, then a squealing of wood sliding on wood-and the floor fell away under the boots of Doust and Semoor as if it were a door swinging open, pitching them down into unseen depths.

They landed hard on smooth, flat stone, yells dying as they clashed teeth, bit their tongues-and were driven flat and breathless under the sudden weights of their fellow Knights tumbling down on top of them.

Small squeaking things fled in all directions, Florin rolled off a squirming Semoor, and Jhessail muttered, "Well, at least the cellar wasn't too far down."

"Jhess?" Islif called softly from above them. "Is everyone-?"

"We're fine," Semoor said sourly. "Just fine. Flatter than we were a moment ago, mind you, but-hold! Where are you?"

"Up here. I'm holding onto the window, inside the house. My boots dangling into nothing."

"I'm getting out of the way," Semoor told her, rolling and groaning as he did so. "Just give me a moment!"

The hum of something approaching very swifrly filled the air. Before Islif recognized it for what it was, a crossbow quarrel came scudding through the trees straight into her arm, punching through armor and hurling her away from the window to crash down atop someone.

"Sorry," she gasped, and then she sobbed at the sickening pain her movements dealt to her arm.

"Islif?" Florin said nearby, concern in his voice. "Are you hurt?"

"Am I ever anything else?" she asked wearily, rolling off the unseen body and hearing it groan. Her landing bumped the end of the quarrel on the floor, leaving her gasping and shuddering in pain. "Gods!" she hissed. "Where are you, priests?"

"I'm over here," Semoor told her, from her left. "Trying to remember a prayer for calling up some holy light. As for Doust, you're probably sitting on him. Or whatever's left of him."

"Doust?" Islif asked doubtfully, before she lowered her voice and muttered a few more curses to herself..

The reply was some panting, and then the weak words, "Pray to… Tymora for me… someone? No breath to do it… m'self."

"I can still manage a glow," Jhessail said. "I think."

"Don't think," Semoor told her. "We're adventurers. Things always get worse when we think."

Someone snorted, not all that far away.

"Florin?" Jhessail asked. "Is that you?"

"Does anyone know what this place is?" Doust asked, his voice a little stronger.

"Yes," a cold voice answered out of the darkness.

"Hoy," one door guard whispered. "Whirlwind, come a-reaping!"

He and his fellow guard snapped to rigid attention. Old Myarlin Handaerback, the grandly uniformed doorjack standing between them, stepped smartly away from the door and then spun to open it for the swift-striding younger Princess of Cormyr. He stood ready to announce her.

Princess Alusair darted at that doorjack so swiftly that one guard snatched at his sword out of sheer habit. The princess took a firm hold of the elbow of Myarlin's gaudily trimmed jacket and dragged him bodily back from the door to stagger awkwardly to a halt beside her simmering gaze.

"Thank you," she told Myarlin, "but I do not wish to be announced. Bide you here, saer. Close the door behind me, and kindly refrain from trying to listen through the keyhole. For once."

Myarlin blinked and then bowed in acknowledgment. The other door guard snorted, but he was a veteran-as were all the sentinels in the royal wing of the Palace-and managed to keep his face as straight as that of the nearest statue.

The young princess gave him a warning look, opened the door, and slipped inside.

There were fresh furs down on the floor of the Helmed Lady's Room, and someone had cast rose petals into the lamp sconces to pleasantly scent the dimly lit chamber. From around the polished black bulk of the Helmed Lady statue that shielded Alusair's view of much of the chamber came a familiar voice. It made Alusair check her furious stride for a moment-and then shrug and hasten on.

Tana or no haughty Tana, this could not wait.