The Temptation of Elminster

Two: Doom Rides A Dapple Gray

When chill ruled mornings, mists lay heavy among the trees. Few folk of the Starn ever ventured this far into Howling Ghost Wood, so the pickings were plentiful…and Immeira had never seen any howling ghosts. Her sack was already half-full of nuts, berries, and alphran leaves. Soon the moontouch blooms would sprout in handfuls among the trees, followed by fiddle-heads and butter cones … and to think some folk…even some Starneir…claimed that only a hunter who could bring down a stag a tenday could live off the woods.

Immeira rubbed an itch on her cheek thoughtfully, and looked back to where the trees thinned. Over the fields beyond them, down in the vale where Gar's Road crossed the Larrauden, stood Buckralam's Starn.

"Forty cottages full of nosy old women who weave cloaks all day while their sheep wander untended," the bard Talost had once described it. Longtime Starneir were still angry over those words and could be counted on to provide a few new and even more colorfully twisted misfortunes the gods could…and should…visit on the over-critical bard, forthwith. As far as Immeira could tell, Talost had got it about right, but she had already learned, and learned well, that truth wasn't necessarily highly prized around the Starn.

Her father had disappeared while adventuring. He was part of a proper chartered adventuring band who called themselves Taver's Talons after the brawling, always guffawing old warrior Taver who led them with the sun shining back off his bald pate. In Immeira's memory Taver still sat his saddle, bright and bluff, but folk said he was bones and dust these eight years gone. None could tell his bones from those of the next six…her father among them…who'd fallen to the dragon's jaws that day.

The Starn had talked of Taver's Talons for eight winters now, and some of them swore the Talons were fiends in human form, hiding here to better corrupt the women of passing caravans and spread their dark seed over all Faerun. Others were just as insistent that the Talons had been bandits all along, just lurking hereabouts until they could learn all about Starneir and the forest trails so as to found a bandit realm back in the real woods, not so far off. Some called this kingdom Talontar…to others it was Darkride…but no one knew just where its borders started or who dwelt there or why they'd never come down on the Starn with ready bows and hungry knives in the years since the Talons had fallen or stolen away or committed whatever great crime kept them now in hiding.

Yes, truth was something a wagging tongue or two could change overnight in the Starn. The only exception to that, so far as Immeira could see, was the truth that lurked in the sharp and ready blades of the Iron Fox and his men.

They'd come out of the east on Gar's Road some six springs ago. A handful of hardened mercenaries with cold steel in their hands and a world-weary, merciless set to their colder eyes. The leader was a tall, fat man whose helm peaked with an iron fox head, even his men called him only "the Iron Fox." He rode into the courtyard of the little Shrine of the Sheaf, ordered the feeble old priest Rarendon out into the spring snows at sword point, and taken the place as his home.

Henceforth, he told the silent villagers at the Trough and Plough that evening, services to Chauntea would be held out in the open fields, as was proper. Former keeps were better suited to the purpose they'd been built for: housing men of action such as he and his men, who henceforth would dwell in the Starn and defend it, to the betterment of all.

A little after highsun the next day, a crudely lettered scroll of laws was tacked upon the door of the Trough, It was distressingly short, proclaiming the Iron Fox the sole judge, lawmaker, and authority in Fox's Starn. That very night, a few who'd dared disagree with specific laws, or disapprove of the entire affair, were left sprawled in their blood on the road or on their own steps…or simply disappeared. A few of the best-looking young Starneir ladies were taken from their homes to Fox Tower and installed in scanty gowns there, a cart of stonemasons arrived a tenday later to rebuild it into a fortress, and talk about the hidden evil of the Starn's only heroes, Taver's Talons, began.

Kindly, confused old Rarendon was taken into the old stables behind the mill, where the dwarven millwright allowed orphans of the Starn…including Immeira…to live. In the month that followed, several able-bodied farmers whose lands lay close about Fox Tower died right after planting was done, when their farmhouses mysteriously caught fire by night, their doors were propped shut from outside, and their windows overlooked by hitherto undetected brigands equipped with crossbows of the same sort used by the Fox's men. Two gossipy old Starneir women and blind old Adreim the Carver were flogged in the Market for minor transgressions against the laws. The folk of the Starn started to get used to ever-present patrols of hard-eyed swordsmen, the seizure of not quite half of all the harvests they brought in, and living in fear.

They made their silent, feeble protests. "Fox's Starn" remained Buckralam's Starn in the mouths of one and all, and the Fox's men seemed to ride about in a perpetually silent, nearly deserted valley. Wherever they went, children and goodwives melted away into the woods, leaving toys discarded and pots unwatched, whilst the farmers of the Starn were always in the farthest, muddiest back hollows of their fields, too hard at work to even look up when a plate-armored shadow fell across them.

Like many girls of the Starn on the budding verge of womanhood, Immeira became another sort of shadow…one that lurked in drab old men's clothes and kept to the woods by day, sleeping in barn lofts and on low roofs by night. They'd seen into the eyes of their gowned older sisters, seen their scars and manacles too, and had no desire to join a dance of warmth, good food and ready drink that cost them their freedom and handed them brutality, servility, and pain. Immeira had a figure to equal many of the Fox's "playpretties" now and took care to wear bulky old leather vests and shapeless tunics, keep her hair wild and unkempt…and keep herself hidden in forest gloom or night dark. Even more than the sullen boys of the valley, the she-shadows of the Starn dreamed of the Talons riding up the road someday soon, with bright, bared swords at the ready, to carve the Iron Fox into flight.

Once or twice a tenday Immeira stole through the pheasant-haunted eastern ridges of Howling Ghost Wood to where the Gar's Road topped Hurtle Tor and descended into the Realm of the Iron Fox. The Fox's cruel warriors kept a patrol there to keep watch over who came to the Starn and to exact a toll from peddlers and wagon trains too weary or undermanned to refuse to pay.

Sometimes Immeira kept them occupied by making animal crashings in the underbrush and stealing any crossbow quarrels they were foolish enough to loose into the trees, but more often she simply hunkered down in silence and watched the antics on the road. Word must be getting around the lands beyond the valley. Fewer and fewer peddlers were taking Gar's Road. The Starn hadn't seen anything that could be called a caravan since the season after the coming of the Iron Fox.

This morning there had been a rime of ice along the banks of the Larrauden and frost had touched white sparkles onto many a fallen leaf. Immeira had to keep rubbing her bare fingertips to keep warm, knowing her lips must be blue, but the damp of the slow-warming day kept her footsteps in the forest near-silent, so she was thankful. Once she'd startled a hare into full crashing flight through the trees, but for the most part she moved through the mists like a drifting shadow, dipping gentle fingers to pluck up what food she needed. A little hollow she'd used before afforded her a dirt couch from which to watch the Foxling road patrol with ease. Propped up against a mossy bank with the comforting weight of the tree limb she kept ready there, in case she ever needed a club, ready in her hands, she'd even begun to doze when it happened.

There was a sudden stir among the six black-armored men, a jingling of mail that marked swords sliding out and their owners hurrying back into the roadside trees, to crouch ready while fellow Foxlings swung into their saddles to block the road.

Someone was coming…someone they expected to have either trouble or a bit of fun with. Immeira rubbed her eyes and sat up with quickening interest.

A moment later, a lone man on a dapple gray horse topped the rise, a long sword swaying at his hip as his mount walked unhurriedly down into the valley. He was young and somehow both gentle and hard of face, with a hawklike nose, and black hair pulled back into a shoulder tail. He saw the waiting men, swords and all, but neither hesitated nor checked his mount. Unconcernedly it plodded onward with its rider empty-handed and almost jaunty, humming a tune Immeira did not know.

"Halt!" one of the Foxlings barked. "You stand upon the very threshold of the Realm of the Iron Fox!"

"Wherefore I must…what?" the newcomer inquired with a raised eyebrow, reaching to take up a rolled cloak from his saddle. "Abandon hope? Yield up some toll? Join the local nunnery?"

"Show a lot less smart-jaws first!" the Foxling snarled. "Oh, you'll pay a toll, too…after you're done begging our forgiveness … and mewling over the loss of your sword hand."

The newcomer raised his brows and brought his mount to a halt. "A rather steep price to cross a threshold," he said. "Don't we get to fight each other first?"

Immeira rubbed her eyes again, in wonder. There was a general roar of rage from the Foxlings, and they surged forward, those afoot springing from the trees. The newcomer backed his horse, and a small knife flashed in his hand. He threw the cloak he'd taken from his saddle into the faces of the oncoming riders, turned the dapple gray, and rode down one of the men on foot, the horse kicking viciously. Its rider kicked at another Foxling to keep him clear, snatched something from his saddle, slashed at it, and threw it at the man. A spurt of sand marked where it burst in the Foxling's face.

Then the newcomer was behind the line of Foxlings. One horse had bolted, throwing its rider. The other two were tangled amid the reason for its flight: the length of barbed chain that had been inside the cloak.

The newcomer leaned back with a matching length of chain in his hand to lash one of the mounted Foxlings across the throat. The man toppled from his saddle without a sound, and the Foxling next to him suddenly sprouted the newcomer's little knife in his eye.

Suddenly riderless, one mount reared and the other jostled it, trampling two fallen Foxlings under its hooves. Another knife flashed into the throat of the Foxling who'd taken the sand in his face. As he fell, another bag of sand wobbled harmlessly past the shoulder of one of the two Foxlings who were left.

Used to bullying frightened men, their faces were white and their steps uncertain. As they advanced slowly on the hawk-nosed man, he plucked another knife from a saddle side sheath and gave them a welcoming smile.

At that, one of the Foxlings moaned in terror and fled. The other listened to booted feet crashing away into the trees, looked into the blue-gray eyes of the man who'd so swiftly and easily slain his fellows, then hurled his sword at that coldly smiling face, wheeled round, and ran.

A bag of sand took the Foxling on the side of the head after he'd managed only a few scrambling strides, and he fell heavily on the road. The dapple gray surged forward to dance on his fallen form, as its owner turned in his saddle, sighed, and leaped for the trees, abandoning Gar's Road to the dead and dying.

The hawk-nosed man ran lightly, another knife in his hand, on the trail of the Foxling who'd fled. It wouldn't be wise to let one foe go free to warn others of his arrival…not if a fifth of what he'd heard of these vicious warriors of the Fox was true.

It wasn't hard to mark where the fleeing man had gone, panting and crashing in plenty were going on among the dancing tree branches up ahead, as the dark-mailed man struggled up a ridge.

A moment later the running man slipped into some sort of hole or gully with a startled yell.

Immeira's scream matched it, as the Foxling warrior suddenly plunged down into her hiding place. She snatched up her tree limb as the sweating man crashed down atop her, struck the side of his helm so hard the wood broke, and somehow got out from under his trembling weight.

She needed only a moment to plant the battered toe of her boot on a projecting tree root and boost herself out, but desperately strong fingers grabbed her before she got that moment, and dragged her back down. She kicked out with her feet and flailed about with her elbows as the man beneath her grunted and snarled half-coherent curses. Then she swung around to claw at his face. Immeira got a momentary glimpse of one furious eye amid grizzled cheeks before a fist out of nowhere crashed into her temple, sending her reeling back against the forest dirt with sun glare and shadows swirling in her eyes.

Immeira was dimly aware of an armored bulk moving toward her. She kicked out and in the same motion rolled over to claw at roots and moss and try to get out of the pit again. One surge, another, and she was on her knees in the forest moss at the lip of the hollow, rising. She came to a quivering halt, with a grip as crushing and cruel as iron around her ankle, dragging her back.

Steel flashed past her head, and the grip was suddenly gone.

Immeira sprawled on her face in damp dead leaves, as a wet gurgling sound slid back down into the hollow behind her. A long sword dark with fresh blood was wiped on the moss to one side of her, and a surprisingly gentle voice said, "Good lady, will ye tarry here by yon duskwood? I have need of thy aid, but urgent battle yet to attend to."

"I…I…yes," Immeira managed to say, shuddering, and a moment later gentle but firm fingers were opening her moss-smeared right hand, laying the hilt of a dagger in her palm, and closing her fingers around it Immeira stared down at it, a little dazed, as sudden silence descended on this corner of the forest again.

The hawk-nosed man was gone, trotting lightly back through the trees toward the road. Immeira stared after him, licked suddenly dry lips, and could not help but glance back into the hollow.

The Foxling was a huddled heap, his throat drenched crimson with blood, and she suddenly felt very sick.

Retching into the leaves and ferns, Immeira never saw the newcomer busily rolling over bodies, making sure of death and plucking forth weapons. She was waiting by the duskwood when he came back through the trees bearing a large bundle whose innards clashed steel upon steel from time to time as he moved. The stranger gave her a grin. "Well met," he said politely, sketching a courtly bow.

Immeira stared at him, then snorted with sudden, helpless mirth. She found herself trying to manage a low curtsy in return, despite her old breeches and flopping boots, and fell over in the moss. They hooted with laughter together, and a strong arm righted Immeira, leaving her staring into the eyes of the hawk-nosed warrior.

"I…" Immeira began hesitantly.

The newcomer gave her an easy grin, patted her arm reassuringly, and said, "Call me Wanlorn. I've come hunting foxes … Iron Foxes. What's thy name?"

"Immeira," she replied, looking down at the dagger he'd given her, then back up at him, scarcely able to believe that the salvation she'd watched for all these years had come to the Starn so quickly and so capably deadly.

"Is it safe to tarry here…not long…and talk?" he asked.

"It is," Immeira granted, then summoned up her wits and will enough to ask a question of her own.

"Are you alone?" she asked, studying the man's face. It was not so young as it had first appeared, and "Wanlorn" was an old folk name for "wanderer searching for something." How could one man…even one so skilled at arms as this one…defeat, or even escape alive, from all the men who raised blades for the Fox?

As if he'd read her mind, the hawk-nosed man took Immeira gently by her upper arms and said urgently, "I am indeed alone…wherefore I need thy help, lass. Not to fight Foxlings with tree limbs … or even daggers, but to tell me: do the folk of the Starn wish to be rid of the Iron Fox?"

"Yes," Immeira said, a little bewildered by how fast Faerun had been turned upside down in front of her eyes. "By the gods, yes."

"And how many blades answer the Fox's call? Both ready-armed, like these, and others who may hurl spells or be able to fire a crossbow or hold loyal in some other wise … tell me, please."

Immeira found herself spilling out all she knew and could remember or guess about the Iron Fox and his forces. The newcomer's dancing eyes and ready grin never failed, even when she told him that those who wore the dark mail and the fox head badge numbered a dozen more than the six he'd slain, and that no man remained in the Starn with brawn or courage enough to back a lone newcomer against the Iron Fox. Nor could she trust anyone beyond herself to aid him, for fear of tales being carried back by those among the she-shadows who might well, after a hard winter, want to win warmth and fine clothes and good food enough to betray someone they scarcely knew.

His grin broadened when she told him that as far as she'd heard no sorcerer or even priest dwelt in Fox Tower or anywhere near the Starn and that the Fox commanded no magic himself.

Immeira told Wanlorn, or whatever his name truly was, where the guards were posted and how soon the six men would be missed. The half dozen Foxlings were lying in the trees with their helms tossed into the Larrauden and their mounts…plus one unfamiliar dapple gray horse…tethered nearby. She told him as much as she knew…of how the Iron Fox spent his evenings, where his four hunting dogs and the crossbows, lanterns, and horses at Fox Tower were kept, and of life in the Starn both these days and before the fall of the Talons…until she was quite weary of answering questions.

Wanlorn asked her if there were any haystacks in the Starn that could be approached unseen from these woods and that would escape being disturbed by farmers in the next day or two. She told him of three such, and he asked her to guide him to the best of them as stealthily as possible, to hide his bundle of seized weapons.

"What then?" she asked quietly.

"'Twould be safest, Immeira," Wanlorn said directly, his eyes very steady on hers, "if ye then went to wherever ye're supposed to dwell…not out in the woods where angry armed men with hunting dogs may search…and never went near this hollow or the haystack again until the Fox is gone from the Starn, whatever befalls me."

"And if I refuse?" she almost whispered.

He smiled thinly and said, "I'm no tyrant. In the Faerun I want to see, lads and lasses should be free to walk and speak as they please. Yet, if ye follow me or step forth to aid me, I cannot protect thee … for I am alone in this, with no god to work miracles when battle turns against me."

"Oh, no?" Immeira asked, lifting a hand that trem bled rather less than she'd feared it would, to indicate where the Foxling patrol had barred the road. "Was that not a miracle?"

"No," Wanlorn replied, smiling. "Miracles mostly grow when deeds are told of, through years of retelling. If ye speak too freely, it may become a miracle yet"

Who was this man, and why had he come here?

Immeira met those calm blue-gray eyes for a moment…just now, they seemed rather more blue than her mind told her they were…and asked simply, "Who are you, really? And why … why do you want to face death here? What does the Starn matter to you? Or seek you revenge on the Iron Fox?"

Wanlorn shook his head slightly. "I first heard of him less than a tenday ago. I do as my heart leads me to do, wherefore I am here. I wander to learn and to make the Realms be more as I desire them to be. Unless the Starn proves to be my grave, I cannot stay here but must needs wander onward. I am a man, thrust onto this road by my birth and … choices I have made." He fell silent, and as her brows rose and she parted her lips to ask or say more he raised a hand as if to still her and added, "Take me as ye find me."

Immeira held his gaze in silence for a handful of very long moments, then replied, "So then I shall, crazy man…and feel honored to have met you. Come, the haystack awaits."

She turned her back on him…she trusted no other man to so turn her gaze from him, especially one who stood close and armed behind her…and led the way along trails only she and the beasts who'd made them knew. He followed, clanking slightly.

It would be so easy to clear the feast hall of Fox Tower with a fireball and strike down the few stray Foxling armsmen with lesser magics, but that was just the temptation Elminster was here to resist. It had been a long summer since he'd talked with a god on a hilltop, but the habit of calling on spells to answer every need or whim. without thinking, was slowly crumbling. Slowly.

The cruelty and butchery of these men of the fox head were so freely and so often practiced that he need not worry about slaying them out of hand. If he could.

One man, fighting fairly and in the open, would have little chance against such dark battle dogs as these.

Hmmm, yes, he thought, those dogs …

It was a little shy of highsun now, and the lass Immeira was still at his shoulder. She was a skulking shadow with no less than a dozen daggers strapped and laced all about her and his heavy chain in her hands. Surely the men he'd slain this morn would be found in a very short time, and warning horns would blow. At just about that time a trio of Foxlings would arrive from Fox Tower to relieve this guard post, here at the opposite end of the valley from where he'd met with such a warm and bloody morning reception.

"Relieve" … an apt choice of word, that. One of the bored Foxlings who'd been sitting in the roadside shade across the way was now up on his feet, unlacing his codpiece as he headed across the hot, dusty road to this side to answer a call of nature.

This time nature was going to have a little extra to say to him.

Elminster rose out of the shrubbery with unhurried grace and threw one of his knives the moment the man stopped and took up a stance. He cursed soundlessly and hauled out another blade, knowing he'd misjudged his throw. The Foxling lifted his head in sudden alarm as the first knife flashed past…and the second missed the eye it had been meant for, sinking hilt-deep in the man's cheek instead.

As a thick, wet scream arose, El snatched the chain out of Immeira's grasp and sprinted at the man, knowing he hadn't enough time to manage this but had no choice but to try it anyway.

The man was flailing his way blindly back toward the road that both of his fellow Foxlings were crossing now, heading in the direction of the sounds of his distress with drawn swords and wary frowns.

They slowed as they moved out of the bright sun into the dappled shade of the trees, not wanting to be struck down by a ready foe. The two stopped as their fellow Foxling staggered into view. El, running hard, came up right behind him, using his lurching body as a shield as he swung the chain out over it, hard, smashing a sword arm down, then rushing to close with its stunned owner and drive a knife at the man's face.

The man sprang away before El could strike, shaking his numbed arm and shattered fingers. The last prince of Athalantar saw the angry face of the other Foxling glaring at him across the man he'd first wounded, so he threw his knife hard into it.

The man went down with a yell, more startled than hurt, arid El brought the chain up to smash the man he'd disarmed across the face. Blood flew, a head lolled loosely, and the man went down…followed by Elminster, who had to hurl himself into the dirt to avoid the desperate swings of a broadsword wielded by the man he'd first injured at this guard post.

The man had torn El's dagger free and was spitting blood, half-blinded by the tears of pain streaming down his face, but he could see enough to know his danger and mark his foe.

El rolled, trying to get away from the sword that kept slashing at him. As he wallowed in the dust with his assailant staggering and hacking after him, he wondered when the third Foxling would reach him. He knew he'd have to use one of his spells then, Mystra or no Mystra, or die.

The man overbalanced after a particularly vicious swing and stumbled. El put his shoulder into the dirt and spun around, kicking out with both feet. That cursedly persistent sword clanged and bounced by his ear as its owner fell heavily, grunting as the wind was driven from him. El kept spinning, bringing his feet under him and running four paces away before he dared turn to look at his foes. Where was that third Foxling?

Lying still and silent on the road, it seemed, with a white-faced, panting Immeira rising from beside him, bloody dagger in hand. Her eyes met El's through the dust, and she tried to smile … not very successfully.

El gave her a wave, then pounced on the man who had chased him with the sword. He stabbed down thrice with his own dagger, and when he looked up again, El saw that both he and Immeira were dusty, sweating, panting, and alive. They traded true smiles this time.

"Lass, lass," El chided her, as they swung each other into an exultant embrace, "I can't protect ye!"

Immeira kissed his cheek, then pushed him away making a face at him through her wild-tangled hair and the Foxling blood spattered across her face. "That's fair enough," she told him. "I can't protect you, either!"

El grinned at her and shook his head. He strode to the shade where the three Foxlings had been sitting and chuckled in satisfaction.

"What, Wanlorn?" Immeira asked. "What is it?"

Elminster held up a crossbow and said, "I'd hoped they'd have one of these. Light armor, no lances or horses… it stands to reason they'd have something to use against, say, three armsmen guarding a caravan. Here, lass…help me with the windlass. We mayn't have much time."

Immeira ducked past him to scoop up a sling bag bulging with crossbow quarrels. "We don't," she said shortly. "Their relief is riding out here. I just saw them top the last rise … the one by Thaermon's farm. They'll be on us in…"

"Then get my chain and take it back the other side of the road," El hissed, cranking the windlass for all he was worth. "Haste, now!"

The Starneir lass showed a little haste, moving with speed and grace despite the heavy, awkward weight of the bloody chain. El crossed the road in a half-crouch right behind her, the bow just about ready.

He had one hand in the sling bag for a quarrel, with Immeira coming to an awkward halt to let him get one out, when the first rider bobbed up over a crest in the road and saw the bodies. The man shouted and hauled on the reins, bringing his horse to a snorting, almost rearing halt. His two companions drew up beside him, and they gaped in unison at the sprawled Foxlings and the trees so close and so innocent on either side of them.

"Drop the chain and run," El murmured in Immeira's ear. "Drop this bag soon and go anywhere to avoid being caught. If we lose sight of each other, look for me in that grove west of the haystack. Go!"

Without waiting for her reply, Elminster stepped calmly into the road and shot the most capable-looking Foxling through the throat. Then he sprinted back to the trees, tossing down the bow, and snatched up the chain from where Immeira had let it fall. There was no sign of her but branches dancing in the dim forest distance.

He took two running strides into the woods, then crouched down to listen. He heard the expected curses, but also fear in the furious voices, and hooves pawing as horses were turned.

A moment later, the horn calls Immeira had told him to expect rang out over the valley, fast and strident. The other dead patrol had been discovered. The bugling went on for a long time, and El used the din to cover a quick sprint through the trees beside the road, heading back the way these two horsemen would have to come. Any hopes of felling another on the way past were dashed, however, when they burst past him at a gallop, eager to return to Fox Tower before any more crossbow quarrels came calling.

The riderless mount followed them, depriving El of any chance to rummage in its saddlebag. He stared after it, shrugged, and scurried to retrieve the quarrel from the dead Foxling's throat, then the mans weapons, the crossbow, and its bag of quarrels. Luckily this man's fall had swept his night cloak from its perch on his saddle, it served admirably to bundle everything up in. El's chain, hooked to itself wrapped the bundle as if it had been made to do so.

The bundle was heavy, but Immeira was waiting for him several trees away to take the crossbow and gaa at him as if he was some great hero.

Elminster hoped she was wrong. In his experience, all the great heroes very soon became dead heroes.

The feast hall in Fox Tower had been in an uproar but frightened and angry men cannot snap and snarl at each other endlessly without breaking into a brawl or falling into tense, waiting silence.

The silence now hung as heavy as a cloak under the flickering candle wheels. Their hanging chains cast long shadows down the stone walls as the Iron Fox…a great bulk of a man, more like a rotund bear than a fox…and his eight remaining warriors hunkered down over a roast that seemed suddenly tasteless, and drank wine as if they all wanted to drown in it. Servants hardly dared approach the table for fear of being run through, and many a sudden glance was shot up at the dark, empty minstrels' gallery. The ladies waited behind closed doors in the bedchambers beyond, dismissed from the board at the first news. They were all dreading the humor that might govern their men when those who wore the fox head at last came to bed.

Nine men brooded over the long table as the candles guttered lower. The possible identity and allegiance of the lone, briefly glimpsed crossbowman had been endlessly debated, the decision long since made to lock the tower gates, maintain vigilant watch, and sally forth in armed force in the morning. Doors were barred from within, locks checked, and keys retrieved onto this very table. Now all that was left was the waiting, the wondering who this unseen foe was, and the rising fear.

An elbow toppled a goblet, and half a dozen men sprang up shouting, blades half drawn, before the disgusted Iron Fox shouted them to a halt. Men glared around at each other, black murder in their eyes, then slowly sat down again.

Fearful heads drew back from the kitchen doors before someone might see them and go for a whip. The kitchen had grown cold and quiet, but the three serving maids dared not leave.

The last time a lass had dared slip away early she'd been hunted up and down the tower and whipped until long after her clothes had fallen away and the bloody skin beneath was in danger of following it. The Iron Fox had ordered that her bloody footprints not be scrubbed away from the passage floors, so as to serve as ever-present reminders of the reward awaiting laxity and disobedience.

The serving maids cowered sleepily on a bench just inside the kitchen door, more terrified than the men in the hall. The warriors feared the unknown and what might be lurking nearby in night-shrouded Starn, but the servants knew exactly what danger awaited them in the next room and knew they were locked in with it. There'd be a lot of slapping and screaming behind those bedchamber doors soon, if they were any judge, and…

With a sudden loud rattle of chain, one of the candle wheels plunged from its customary height toward the table below. Foxlings boiled up, shouting, their swords flashing into their hands. One of them sprinted across the room with a curse, followed by another. They were through an archway and gone before the Iron Fox's shouted commands could be heard.

The ruler of the Starn had a huge, rough slab of a face, decorated with stubble, a thick and bristling mustache, and eyes as cold and cruel as all bleak midwinter. The body below it, sweating in full armor even to gorget and gauntlets, was no smaller or more dainty. The curved metal plates held in the quivering breasts and belly that would otherwise have shaken and rippled like a pale and obscene sea of flesh as their host rose to his feet and leveled a long and ruthless finger at the rest of the Foxlings. "The next man to leave this room without my leave had best keep going, right off my land and into exile! D'you know how stupid it is to rush off like that, whe…"

He jerked his head around at the high, shrill scream that interrupted him from the passage whence the two men had gone. That hall led to pantries and the back rooms of the tower … including Beldrum's Room, a name left over from a long-dead Chauntean priest where tables were stored and the chains that held the candle wheels were spiked. A room, it seemed, that was suddenly held by foes. The Iron Fox snatched up his helm from the table before him and jammed it down onto his head.

His men followed suit and clustered in close about him to hear his orders. "Durlim and Aawlynson…to the gallery. Shout down that it's clear when you get there. Gondeglus, Tarthane, and Rhen…stand here with me. One of you look under the table, then we'll turn our backs to it and keep watch. Llander, guard yon passage door. When the gallery is secure, all four of us will join you, and we five will scour Beldrum's Room."

The Iron Fox fell silent, and silence followed his orders. His men seemed to be waiting to hear more. Sudden rage almost choked him. Was he leading sheep'

"Move, you whoresons!" he thundered. "Get gone about it! Movemovemove, move!"

Silence held for a fleeting moment after the echo of his shout died away. Then everyone moved at once.

Gondeglus groaned and reeled backward, followed by Aawlynson, the hissing of the crossbow bolts that had slain them loud in the echoing room. Then it was Rhen's turn to sprout a quarrel in the face and fall. None of them had helms with snout-visors in the southern style. The Iron Fox was wise enough to raise his old and heavy broadsword up in front of his face before he scuttled sideways, turned, and peered up at the gallery.

He was in time to get a glimpse of a black-haired, hawk-nosed man bobbing up from behind the gallery rail with a loaded and ready crossbow in his hands. This time his target was Durlim, but the tall veteran ducked and slapped at the air with his gauntlet, and the quarrel rang off his rerebrace and shattered harmlessly against the far wall.

There were screams of fear from the kitchen, but the Fox didn't have time to see if they heralded an intruder there or just fear at what was happening out here. No matter, the gallery held a known foe, who must have run out of ready-loaded crossbows and be scuttling for cover by now.

"Llander! Tarthane! Up those stairs," the Iron Fox bellowed, brandishing his blade. "Now!"

His most loyal warriors were both noticeably hesitant to obey, but they mounted the stairs as instructed. The Fox took care to back himself in under the edge of the gallery as he watched them ascend, under the guise of ordering Durlim to get down the passage to the bottom of the back stairs to the gallery, in real haste.

He lumbered after Durlim as far as the archway that led into the passage, and crouched there, peering up at the gallery.

Llander and Tarthane were up there, moving cautiously forward.

"Well?" he bellowed. "What news?"

It was then that the tapestry fell on Llander. Tarthane stumbled back to avoid his friend's wild sword thrusts, then lunged, striking past the chaos of heavy cloth with his black war blade, hoping to stab whoever was beyond it and swarming all over the shrouded Llander.

That someone was already flat on the floor, tugging at the runner-rug under all their feet. Tarthane, already off-balance, flailed about, made a grab for the railing to keep upright missed his hold, and toppled over with a crash. The hawk-nosed man bounced up from behind the rolled tapestry and drove a dagger into Tarthane's face.

Llander's sword burst blindly out of the tapestry to stab at the man, who jabbed his dagger through the fabric in response, then vaulted over the railing to land lightly in the feast hall, give the Iron Fox a cheery wave, and race away toward the front of the tower.

Enraged, the Iron Fox gave roaring chase, then stopped two strides short of leaving the hall and put up his blade. No … he'd be running alone into a part of the keep he'd sent his men away from, an area offering all too many places where a man with a knife could get above an armored foe and leap down. No, it was time to see if Llander was still alive and go find Durlim, and the three of them could find some defensible room to hold against leaping madmen with knives.

He lumbered back across the feast hall, slashing backhanded behind him twice on the way, and mounted the stairs where Tarthane lay crumpled and the tapestry was rippling slowly and wearily.

"Llander?" he called, hoping not to get a sword thrust in the face. "Llander?"

He heard a small sound behind him and lashed out viciously with his blade, hacking so hard that the steel rang off the stone wall with numbing force, shedding a few tinkling shards of metal in its wake.

He was rewarded with a gasp. When he turned to see who it was, the Iron Fox found himself face to face not with a hawk-nosed man or a bleeding corpse but with a young lass he'd seen a time or two before about the Starn. She was three safe steps down the stair, beyond his sword tip, and looked very stern, a hand at her throat. As the Fox gazed at her, still startled to see this wench here in his locked and barred tower, she brought her hand slowly and deliberately down, and the front of her gown open with it.

His eyes followed her movement until the halberd smashing into his ankles from above sent him cannoning helplessly down the stairs. He screamed out a curse as he swung his blade around to hack away this latest attack. The Fox found himself once more nose to nose with the grinning, hawk-nosed man. A slim dagger driven by a slender but firm arm plunged into the Iron Fox's right eye, and Faerun whirled away from him forever.

Breathing heavily, Immeira sprang away from the huge armored carcass and let it clang and slither a little way down the stair, gauntlets clutching vainly at empty air.

Then she looked quickly away and up at the man who was smiling down at her. "Wanlorn," she moaned, and found herself trembling…a moment before she burst into tears. "Wanlorn, we've done it!"

"Nay, lass," said the soothing voice that went with the arms that held her then. "We've but done the easiest part. Now the hard and true work begins. Ye've slain a few rats, is all… the house they infested must still be set in order."

He plucked the fouled and dripping dagger from her hands and tossed it away, she heard it ring against the floor tiles below.

"The Realm of the Iron Fox is broken, but Buckralam's Starn must be made to live again."

"How?" she moaned into his chest. "Guide me. You said you would not stay…."

"I cannot, lass…not more than a season. 'Twould be better for thee if I left this night."

Her arms tightened around him like a vise.

"No!"

"Easy, lass," he said. "I'll stay long enough to see you take old Rarendon…and whichever of the orphans and farmers ye can trust as an escort on the road — to Saern Hill. I'll write ye a note to give to a man there, a horse breeder named Nantlin, ask him if his harp sounds as sweet as ever, and he'll know who the note is really from. He'll bring folk to dwell here and women and men of honor and ready blades to keep laws all Starneir approve of, to make the Starn strong again. There is a doom laid upon me though, lass… I must be gone before he or any of his folk come into the valley."

Immeira stared up at him, her face drenched with tears. She could see plain sorrow in his eyes and tight-set lips, reaching up two timid fingers to trace the set of his jaw.

"Will you tell me your true name, before you go?" "Immeira," he said solemnly, "I will." "Good," she said almost fiercely, reaching up her hands to his neck, "for I'll not give myself to a nameless man."

A smile that did not belong to Immeira swam through his dreams and sent Elminster into sudden, coldly sweating wakefulness. "Mystra," he breathed into the darkness, staring up at the cracked stone ceiling of the best bedchamber in Fox Tower. "Lady, have I pleased thee at last?"

Only silence followed…but in it, sudden fire appeared, racing across the ceiling, shaping letters that read: "Serve the one called Dasumia."

Then they were gone, and Elminster was blinking up at darkness. He felt very alone…until he heard the soft whisper against his throat.

"Elminster?" Immeira asked, sounding awed and frightened. "What was that? Do you serve the gods?

Elminster reached up his hand to touch her face feeling suddenly close to tears. "We all do, lass, he said huskily. "We all do, if we but know it."