by Ed Greenwood
“ ’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 Faerûn 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 trembled 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, and 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 man’s 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 gaze 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.
