All Shadows Fled

by Greenwood, Ed

  “I … ah, I came to do your hair,” Torm said, bringing a fistful of combs and a tiny scent bottle into view. All four folk in the tent stared at him, and his face grew pinker. Looking down at his hands, he said, “I seem to have grown used to it.” He looked up at Syluné. “If you don’t mind?”

  The smile that the Witch of Shadowdale gave him then took his heart away. Torm swallowed as she stretched forth her hands to him. “Mind? I am honored. Please!”

  As Torm stepped forward, eyes shining, Belkram said kindly, “Haul your tongue in, there’s a good boy. We’ve done the tent floor already, and you’ll look more sensible with it safely stowed away.”

  Sharantyr shot her comrade a sharp look, but Torm did not even turn around.

  “I know it’s been said before,” he said calmly, “but if you go around giving folk a piece of your clever mind, Belkram, soon enough you’ll have none left for yourself.”

  Belkram spread his hands in apology. “Aye, it’s the real Torm. Sorry for shattering your gesture, sir. With all these shapeshifters around, one can’t be too careful.”

  Torm rounded on him then. “ ‘Too careful’?” he asked, incredulously. “You folk make berserkers look like timid moles! When you discover what the word ‘careful’ means, come and tell me! You certainly haven’t displayed any great store of it thus far! I doubt Elminster’d dare to do what you have … let alone this thief!”

  “He’s right, you know,” Sharantyr said with a chuckle.

  “Of course he’s right,” Itharr told her. “We’ve just been charging ahead as fast as we could into peril after peril, hoping the gods, our foes, and ourselves alike wouldn’t notice what reckless fools we’re being, and pay us off for it! And now he’s gone and spoiled it, and on the eve of battle, too! Bad thief! Naughty, naughty bad thief!”

  The tent erupted in helpless laughter. In the night outside, two Rider sentries exchanged wondering glances, and shook their heads.

  “Harpers and adventurers … crazed wits, if you ask me,” one said feelingly.

  “No argument here,” his fellow replied, watching the darkness around warily. Something glided past—and he tensed to shout and hurl his spear—until he saw that it was only an owl. Another owl flapped along in its wake. Now that was something rarely seen.

  The guard frowned at the two birds as the night swallowed them again. He shrugged. As long as they weren’t arrows, dragons, or flying wizards, things in the sky were no concern of his. He yawned and peered all around again, seeking real danger.

  * * * * *

  Galath’s Roost, Mistledale, Flamerule 17

  “The wizard said it was deserted, and safe,” the Zhentilar swordcaptain grunted, “but we know all about wizards, don’t we, lads? Swords out, watch wary, and be ready for the worst!” He glared around at the Zhentilar soldiers and told them, “I don’t want to lose one of you because someone wasn’t looking, or was thinking about his mistress back at the Keep, or how many coins this or that jack owed him. So take yer time, and let’s do this the right way. Torches and mage lights to the fore.”

  There was a creaking and rattling, and the men moved as one. Then the only sound was the soft whisper and rustle of disturbed foliage. The first scouts of the Sword of the South advanced up the steep, thickly forested slope toward the ruin of Galath’s Roost.

  When the foremost man was an easy ten paces from the overgrown stones of a wall, he turned and shrieked like an owl, thrice. In response, the mage lights drifted silently forward, over the helmed heads of the soldiers, into the dark and hollow places of stone ahead.

  Nothing moved. There was no sound that could not be put down to small things that flap or scuttle in a forest by night. Cautiously the Zhentilar moved forward, swords out, probing the ferns and brambles ahead for spring bows, trip cords, and pits. They found nothing.

  From here and there along the edges of the ruin, double owl hoots rang out as scout after scout signalled his safe entry into the keep. Files of men bearing torches began to work their way through the trees in answer to the calls.

  A scout halted in a dark chamber, hearing the stony scrape of something moving to his right, through an archway thick with vines and mottled moss. “Be that you, Baeremuth?” The whisper was cautious, and the reply was quick and low.

  “Aye. Fflarast?”

  “Me,” Fflarast confirmed, turning his loaded hand crossbow aside to prevent any accidents. “Anything of interest?”

  “Lots of rubble, and something’s nest … vole bones an’ the like. I think this place really is deserted.”

  “Good. Crazed orders, hacking through the woods in the dark just to camp in a ruin, but …”

  “Better’n trying to fight our way into Mistledale down that bow-shot throat, if we’d taken the road. They must have at least a dozen archers—an’ a dozen’s all they’d need, Fflar, to take down four hundred or more of us, for sure. This way, we can strike out of the woods all along the south side of the dale. Those farmers’ll run themselves crazed trying to be everywhere at once to stop us.”

  “You plot like a swordlord,” Fflarast muttered. “We’d better get on, or Dellyn’ll be running his blade up our backsides and bellowing at us for being a pair of craven laggards or spies for the enemy.”

  “Huh. He sees spies under every stone, that one,” Baeremuth replied, and suited actions to words by turning over a rock that was suspiciously damp among dry, dusty ones.

  There was a sudden rush of rubble and a crash that shook the room. Fflarast cursed and staggered back, trying to keep his feet, but ended up sitting down hard on rubble. When he’d scrambled up and could see again through the rising dust, his mouth went suddenly dry.

  Baeremuth Asanter lay under a fallen block of stone nearly as large as a pack mule. Thin rivers of blood were running out from beneath it—and Fflar could just see the tips of the fingers of one hand, reaching vainly for aid. It would reach forever now.

  7

  Death Grows Impatient

  Fflarast Blackriver peered again at his comrade’s remains and then backed away very carefully. The rockfall hadn’t been accidental.

  Someone had gone to a lot of trouble with wooden wedges and spars and balanced stones—and even flung dust around afterward to hide their work. The wedges were the bright hue of newly cut wood; this had been done within the last day or so.

  “Oh, Bane preserve us,” Fflarast whispered, backing out of the chamber. At that moment, a heavy booming off to the right marked the discovery of another trap. It was followed by a faint, raw screaming that went on for a long time before ending suddenly in a gurgle. Fflarast knew those sounds. Someone had put a half-crushed man out of his agony with a quick sword thrust to the throat.

  “Ye gods and small creeping things hear my plea,” the Zhentilar warrior whispered, invoking the old, old prayer of desperate warriors. He wasn’t facing half a hundred ores alone on a crag, like the legendary Borthin had been when he roared out the invocation, but dead is dead, and Fflarast Blackriver had only one life to lose. Moreover, he valued it just as much as Borthin had his own.

  There came another rushing of stone off to the left, and startled cursing. Ah—one trap had missed. Good; that meant they were probably all clever feats, and not magic. Maybe—just maybe—Fflar would see the end of this day.

  There came a ringing of steel from behind him. “What’s ahead, scout?” a self-important swordcaptain snapped. Pelaeron himself, scourge of lazy soldiers. Oh, joy.

  “Traps, sir,” Fflarast said, indicating the fallen block and Baeremuth’s arm. “I’m deciding how best to safely proceed.”

  “Well, hurry up about it,” the officer snapped, prodding Fflar’s mail-covered backside with his sword tip. “We haven’t got all night, you know.” A file of warriors was crowding into the room behind the swordcaptain. Fflarast looked at them—and at Pelaeron’s steely eye—and then swallowed, shrugged, and carefully climbed over the rubble to the left of Baeremuth, on into the darkness.

 
Darkness where there should have been light. The torch had been with Baeremuth, and no mage lights were near. “Torch,” Fflarast rapped out, keeping his voice as laconic as possible, and reached back.

  The swordcaptain curtly waved an armsman with a blazing torch forward. The man reached to hand the torch to Fflarast, shuffled amid loose stones, tripped, and measured his length on the rubble. Stones shifted—and Fflar flung himself backward into unknown darkness as hard and fast as he could.

  An instant later, armsman, torch, Pelaeron, and all vanished in a roaring and tumbling of stone as two carefully balanced blocks collapsed sideways, and the floor of the chamber above came down.

  Fflarast landed hard on his tailbone on rough-edged rocks and lay there groaning. The chamber he’d come through was now a new-sealed tomb in front of him. He was lying in a cross passage—and listening to fresh crashings off to the left as heavy stones dropped and rolled. Tortured metal shrieked briefly as it crumpled, a man screamed for an instant, and then there were only echoes. Echoes that faded slowly into silence.

  Fflar shuddered. He snarled wordlessly. Gods take all wizards! Save my bruised behind! Grunting, he rolled slowly and carefully to the left, to his knees, and felt for his sword.

  There was another rolling crash in the distance, and shouts. Fflarast found his sword and clutched it, not moving as he fought down fear. He was alone in chill darkness with death waiting all around him. For the greater glory of Zhentil Keep, whose proud lords would not even know that Fflarast Blackriver had died in the service. Or care one whit, if someone told them.

  “Hungry beasts take them all,” Fflar told the darkness softly, and stayed on his knees, wondering how long it would be until dawn … and if he’d dare try to find his way out of the ruin even then.

  Far down the passage, many torches glimmered and danced, and a voice said, “There—that’s armor!”

  “I serve Zhentil Keep!” Fflar shouted desperately, flinging up his arms in case someone was very eager to fire his crossbow. No quarrels answered. The voice came again. “Who are you, soldier?”

  “Fflarast Blackriver, of Pelaeron’s Mace.” He cleared his throat and added, “I’m alone. Pelaeron and most of his swords lie under stone beside me. We’ve struck two traps already.”

  “It seems a contagious habit,” the voice responded dryly. “Stay where you are. I’m going to throw you a torch.”

  A moment later, fire whup-whup-whupped end over end through the darkness, trailing sparks, and fell amid rubble, showing Fflar a row of archways on one side of the passage, and doors or fallen walls on the side he’d come in by. A boot—still twitching feebly—could be seen in the fall of rubble beside him. Fflarast swallowed and turned his back on it, looking through the nearest arch.

  “What can you see, soldier?” the voice asked.

  “A huge chamber—probably a great hall,” Fflarast answered. “It has balconies around its inside walls, and the roof’s gone somewhere. There’s moonlight at one end.”

  “Off to your left—my right?”

  “Aye,” Fflarast called. “It looks open—big empty stretches.”

  Voices murmured down the corridor. The officer called, “Can you get to the torch?”

  Fflarast struggled over rubble for a few sweating moments, half-expecting the ceiling to fall on him, but reached the guttering torch safely. “I have it,” he called, and swung it high.

  “Good. We’re going to throw you another. Pitch it out into this large hall of yours and tell us what you see.”

  Fflarast did so. The chamber rivalled the main hall of the Black Altar back in Zhentil Keep. He’d stood honor guard in that dark temple more than once, and knew this hall was fully as large. He told them so.

  “Can you say anything of interest?”

  “No … broken tiles … heaved and stained flooring, but open. The torchlight doesn’t show it all. Nothing moving or alive that I can see.”

  “Good man. Stay where you are. We’re coming to join you.”

  Fflarast sighed heavily and stood as still as he could, watching the slow and cautious advance of a long file of black-armored men.

  It seemed half the Sword of the South was in the passage. Someone had cut a long, bent sapling and lashed a torch to it, and was lighting the high ceiling as they came, finding holes and old rockfalls. There were also two shafts that presumably let light and air down into the keep, but as the soldiers of Zhentil Keep cautiously passed beneath them, nothing swooped down or fell from above. Soon the Zhentilar reached Fflarast, and a swordcaptain—another officious one—curtly ordered him to stand aside.

  A torch was tossed on down the passage. Its flickering light revealed that the corridor was blocked completely not far beyond where Fflarast had entered it. An entire room seemed to have fallen from the floor above, pouring a high mound of broken stone across the passage from wall to wall, and almost to the ceiling. Fflar looked at it and shuddered.

  “This great hall it is, then,” the swordcaptain ordered, turning away. The man at his elbow—the swordcaptain who’d thrown the torch to Fflarast—peered into the vast chamber and murmured, “I have a bad feeling about this room.”

  “I think we all do!” the other officer snarled, fear lacing his blustering voice. “So let’s just get on with it! Men—out swords and advance, the first dozen of you! Stop and report if you see anything of import—especially moving bones! I want to get that mage in here fast … and then maybe we’ll all get some sleep!”

  Men moved reluctantly into the chamber. Fflarast stood silent, glad he wasn’t among them, expecting to hear another heavy crash at any moment.

  Minutes passed, and the men standing still and tense in the passage could hear each other breathing, hoarse and fast. But no cries or falls of stone came, and soon a man whose armor bore the red shoulder emblem of a sword came back to the archway and reported crisply, “No danger, sir. Molds and rubbish down one end, where a lot of water’s come in, but there’s nothing else in the place except two stairs up to the floor above and a high seat—of bare stone, nothing in it—on a raised bit at the far end. The place is huge; there’s room for a good two thousand blades to bunk down, though I’d not want to be close in under some of the balconies; they look none too safe.”

  “Well done, sword. Set men to guard all doors and archways into the place; we’ll move in. Swordcaptain Aezel, go out and tell the swordlord. Request that the spellmaster be brought in, forthwith—and if the wizard objects, request it again.”

  There were a few dry chuckles in the safe anonymity of the gloom, and then men were on the move. Fflarast Blackriver came to a sudden decision. He handed his torch to a passing armsman and took up the straight, back-to-the-wall stance of a man on guard duty. He wasn’t going into that great hall unless directly ordered to.

  Thankfully, the officious swordcaptain passed on into the great hall, and the bulk of the soldiery followed, leaving a few wary veterans standing in the passage with Fflarast. “Neatly done, lad,” one of them hissed, and grinned. Fflarast gave him a grin back, and they waited in the darkness together until a bright blaze of torches and the shuffling of many booted feet told them the main body of the Sword had arrived.

  Men in black armor seemed to file past forever, until at last the black battle robes of the spellmaster could be seen sweeping majestically down the passage. He was escorted by two swordcaptains and the swordlord himself.

  The supreme commander of the Sword of the South halted close enough to Fflarast to touch him, and said to the wizard, “The men want you to look around and set them at their ease that there’s no magic or hidden, lurking things about. Do that, but we haven’t time for you to send them haring down every passage in the place in hopes of finding magic treasure that was likely taken away long ago. I’ll be outside, supervising the perimeter watch; send Swordcaptain Tschender here out to me if you want anything.”

  The spellmaster nodded impatiently, seeming eager to get into the room, and the swordlord stepped back, rolled hi
s eyes behind the wizard’s back, and strode off back down the corridor, leaving behind at least six veterans struggling not to chuckle as the Zhentarim stepped grandly through the nearest arch.

  By unspoken, common accord the men in the passage all moved to stand where they could look through archways, and watch what befell in the great hall. Wizards of the Black Network were not loved—but they were always a source of entertainment, if one could keep safely out of the way.

  Spellmaster Thuldoum strode grandly across the vast chamber, head high, looking slowly from left to right and back again. When he caught sight of the throne, he bent forward in eagerness, and his pace quickened.

  “Gods spit down on ‘im,” one of the soldiers muttered. “He’s going to sit on the throne!”

  For a moment it appeared that the wizard was going to do just that—but prudence came to him at the last moment, and they saw him ordering a reluctant armsman into the seat instead.

  Gingerly the soldier sat down—and from the ceiling above, a ring of boulders on chains crashed down, smashing the vainly leaping man to bloody ruin on the stones. One stone, rebounding from the impact on its chain, nearly beheaded the startled wizard, who staggered backward, arms flailing, as armsmen watched in horror. The soldier who’d been a shade too slow in vacating the throne lay where he had fallen, a broken figure in a pool of blood.

  “What did I tell ye?” a soldier said, who hadn’t in fact spoken before, all that long night. “Stupid buttocks-brain.”

  It seemed the wizard wasn’t done. He’d caught sight of something behind or beyond the throne that only he could see, and was casting a spell. With all eyes upon him, he made a show of it, gesturing dramatically as he brought the invocation to a ringing climax—and a door slowly appeared in the blank wall behind the high seat. Magical radiance shone blue and silver, brightening to a soft white glow, and spread slowly along an arched frame to outline a large door.

  As Zhentilar stared at it and Spellmaster Thuldoum grinned in triumph, Fflarast felt the tense prickling of hairs rising on the back of his neck. Oh, no …