Crown of Fire

by Ed Greenwood

  Elminster of Shadowdale dusted himself off, looked around with a critical eye at the glowing tapestries, and then stared thoughtfully up at the dragon window. Scratching his beard, he grunted, “ ’Tis high time, indeed … for certain folk to set down their harps and get their hands dirty. Again. Just as it’s time old Elminster got walked all over, again. ’Tis not the first time, this tenday, the world’s needed saving.”

  3

  SWORDS GATHERED IN THE SHADOWS

  Stormy weather is always with us, somewhere in Faerûn. Beneath it, all too often, swords are out, the hand that wields one seeking to bury it in the body that wields another. Part of the way of things as the gods order, perhaps—or just the way of all of us flawed beings who walk this world. I fear I’ll never see a day when no swords will be drawn—or needed. But then, perhaps my sight fails too soon.

  Alustriel, High Lady of Silverymoon

  To Harp and to Help

  Year of the Deep Moon

  It was, as the minstrels say, a bright and beautiful morning in the forest. Birds sang and swooped in the branches as three Zhentilar warriors, whose faces and backs ran with sweat, bent to their work. Grunting under its weight, they lowered the stout frame of wooden poles into the pit where they stood. The end of each pole had been sharpened into a cruel point.

  “How’re we to know she’ll come this way? Aye?”

  “Not our worry, Guld.” The swordmaster’s voice came from above them at the lip of the pit. “We’re just swordarms. When the cover’s done, we just hide by it and wait with blades out—and that’s exactly how Lord Manshoon said it.”

  The swordmaster had meant to awe them into silence with his last words, but the three sweating men—now climbing out of the pit and struggling to drag the dirt-and-brush-covered wooden lid properly onto the greased axle-pole—were young. They still owned tongues that wagged faster than the muzzle applied by prudence would allow.

  “What makes high-an’-mighty Manshoon think we can do what he couldn’t? Him with a dragon and all his spells and wands, too!”

  “He obviously knows your true worth better than I do, Alorth.” The swordmaster’s tone was biting.

  Guld bent to slide the thin twigs into the sockets provided for them, taking care. The branches would hold the trap-cover up until this Shandril’s weight was on it. Giving the last one an extra tap, he looked up, wiping sweat and hair out of his eyes. “Seriously, Sir: what leads Lord Manshoon to send swords against this lass, where spells fail?”

  Swordmaster Bluth bent his critical gaze on the finished pit trap, watching as Alorth spread a basketful of earth and leaves over its edges, kicking them into place with a practiced boot.

  Then Bluth shrugged and looked up. “We’re only intended to wear this Shandril down so she’s tired and hurt and has used most of her spellfire before the magelings attack her. I’d like to surprise a few wizards, though, by capturing her ourselves.”

  “Ourselves being those of us who’re still alive, you mean.” Alorth’s voice was hard. “Why attack her at all if we’re just going to our deaths? Why not leave her for the wizards—tell them she’s slipped past us somehow?”

  The swordmaster walked all around the pit trap and nodded his acceptance; it was well-concealed. He stepped back to look at the trees around, searching for any signs they might have left of their presence, then replied, “Duty, lad. Duty to orders. It’s what we live for—and die for.”

  “So lords can sit safe in their towers,” Alorth replied bitterly.

  Bluth turned a cold eye on him. “Dangerous talk, Alorth. Taking the venomed dagger of your tongue to the plans and deeds of your betters is a sport that was old—and deadly—long before you were born.”

  He looked around one last time, and then drew his sword and said to the other men briskly, “Best we get dressed again and ready. If the other lads do their work as well as we have, they’ll be here soon.”

  “I’m done, Shan.” Narm shut his spellbook with a snap. “Mighty magic once more up my sleeves.”

  “At least you’re not as overblown about it as most mages,” Delg said, looking up at him. “Though you’re not much better than most of ’em at walking, or cooking, or digging latrines … or anything else much useful.…”

  “Delg!” Shandril and Narm protested together. The dwarf laughed and settled his bulging pack on his shoulders. As usual, he carried far more than his larger companions.

  “We’d best be off before some more Zhents find us,” he said merrily. “North as before, then?”

  Shandril shrugged. “You know better than I. Lead on.”

  Without further words, the dwarf set off into the waiting woods.

  “How do you feel today, love?” Narm’s voice was low.

  Shandril gave him a smile. “Better than I have since we left Shadowdale. About time, too—it’s a long way to Silverymoon. From what Storm said, if we walk and have to avoid Zhents more than once or twice, winter could well find us before we’re halfway there.”

  “See Faerûn,” Narm said, gesturing at the trees around them. “Know high adventure. Meet strange and fearsome beasts, the like few folk have ever seen—”

  “And slay them.” Shandril’s voice was wry. She seemed to be looking at something far away. “I never dreamt, back at the Moon, that when I finally got my taste of adventure, it would mean I went around burning powerful wizards and veteran warriors to ash—and that the Cult of the Dragon, the Zhentarim, and just about everyone else I met would attack me.”

  Narm hastened to head off her darkening mood. “Who else your age, though, has fought dragons—undead dragons, even—and lived?”

  He caught his lady by the shoulders, eyes dancing, and went on jovially, “Has been rude to Elminster the Sage—and lived? Blasted Manshoon of Zhentil Keep and the dragon he rode out of the sky, and sent them fleeing for home? Blown up entire castles? Made friends with the Harpers, with Elminster, and with the Knights of Myth Drannor? Walked the ruined streets of Myth Drannor, that folk all over Faerûn talk of?”

  Shandril smiled ruefully. “Yes, and hasn’t had a spare moment to draw breath, yet alone enjoy any of it.”

  “You married me—and seemed to enjoy that,” Narm protested in mock hurt.

  “She must have been deaf, then,” Delg put in, ahead of them. “The way you babble day and night through.”

  Narm favored the dwarf with a certain rude sputtering noise made by small children throughout Faerûn.

  “You’ll have to be a little closer to kiss me, lad,” the dwarf replied, eyes twinkling. Then his face grew more grave. “Shan—are you having thoughts against this journey?”

  Shandril shook her head. “No—whatever I do, danger waits for me or comes looking. At least if I’m going somewhere, I have the feeling I’m doing something rather than just running from the latest attack.” She looked at them both and spread her hands. “If I wasn’t trying to get to Silverymoon—even if it doesn’t turn out to be a friendly haven—I’d be dead by now. I’d have surrendered, just to be free of always running and worrying and fighting. I’m so sick of it all—I could scream!”

  Fire danced in Shandril’s eyes for a moment, and then died away, leaving her expression empty, her eyes like two dark, despairing pits. “I do scream,” she added, voice unsteady, “when I have to use spellfire—cursing the gods for playing this jest on me.”

  Delg squinted up at her. “Others have cursed the humor of the gods, lass, even among the dwarves—but I’ve heard elders tell them the gods jest with us all, and we are measured by how we deal with what befalls. Of course you want to be free of all who harry you. Who in Faerûn wouldn’t?”

  He shifted his heavy pack on his shoulders and added, “More than that: I’d be sad if one so young and inexperienced as you had already decided exactly what she’d do her entire life through … because she’d have to be a fool to be so certain about so little.”

  “My thanks, Delg—I think,” Shandril told him a little stiffly.

&
nbsp; And then she shrieked. Out of nowhere, something slim and dark tore through the air, leaping past her breast to crash into the leaves beyond.

  Delg put his head down and charged bruisingly into Shandril. As they crashed into the damp, dead leaves together, the dwarf snarled, “Down!” in Narm’s direction.

  With the hum of an angry hornet, another bolt tore through the air close overhead, and then another. Narm rolled amid dead leaves nearby, cursing.

  Shandril fought for breath as Delg wriggled and grunted beside her, shucking his pack, tearing his shield free, and getting his arm into the straps. His axe flashed past her nose as he hefted it.

  “The Zhents again!” the dwarf hissed, peering into the trees. “There!”

  He pointed. Shandril rolled onto hands and knees and came up beside his hairy hand, looking along the pointing finger—and into the eyes of a Zhent who was loading a cocked crossbow.

  From the leaves beside them, Narm muttered something. Two pulses of light leapt from his hand, streaking through the trees. The man grunted as they hit, staggering and dropping his bow.

  Shandril saw others behind him, and rose to her feet, pointing. Spellfire roared down her arm, shaking her, and white flames shot out through the trees like the breath of a furious red dragon. Leaves blazed and then were gone. Halfway to the Zhents a tree was burned through by the roaring flames. It toppled slowly, and crashed ponderously among the dead leaves.

  Shandril snarled and raised her other hand.

  Delg caught her arm from behind. “No, Shan!” Then he cursed and shrank back from her, clutching at his hand. Shandril stared at him in shock. Smoke was rising in wisps from the dwarf’s fingers; he shook his hand, roared out his pain, and looked up at her, eyes bright with tears.

  “Remind me not to do that again soon,” he growled, flexing his burned fingers. Then he nodded at where she’d aimed. “You daren’t do that in these heavy woods, lass—look.”

  A burnt scar stretched away through the trees from where she stood, to where a tangle of trees had fallen. Shandril stared along her path of destruction, face bleak, and saw dark-armored figures moving amid the trees beyond it.

  The dwarf hesitated, then reluctantly reached out and caught at her arm again. This time no ready spellfire burned him. “Too many. We must run from them, lass—if you use your fire freely, all these woods’ll soon be ablaze around us.”

  They could see Zhent warriors, blades drawn, in the trees to their right and ahead of them. The Zhents were advancing cautiously, moving in as a group so as to arrive together, their blades a deadly wall of steel.

  Delg couldn’t see any foes to their left. He heaved his pack back onto his shoulders, hung his shield on it, commanded, “Come!” and broke into a lumbering run, heading to the left.

  Narm and Shandril followed, hurrying through the trees. They heard shouts behind them and broke into a panting run. Narm skidded to a halt, waved his hands hurriedly, and then scrambled to catch up with his lady.

  Close behind him—too close—Zhentilar soldiers cursed and struggled in the invisible spellweb the young mage had left for them to blunder into.

  Shandril looked anxiously back every time her route through the thick-standing trees turned to one side or the other. Narm grinned at her between gasps for air as he closed the distance between them, sprinting and leaping as he’d done as a small boy—and never since, until now.

  That invisible web Elminster had taught him had come in very handy. A few Zhents must have gotten around its ends, though—and soon it would melt away, freeing them all. By then, a certain trio of fools had better be long gone.

  Narm reached Shandril’s side. They crashed wildly through leaves and tangles, leaping over rocks and fallen branches and slipping on mud and wet leaves underfoot while the dwarf huffed along ahead of them, completely hidden under his pack. The bulging rucksack looked like it was running away by itself, leaping and scuttling through the leaves.

  With aching lungs and pounding hearts, Narm and Shandril followed, plunging down a slope of old leaves and soft mosses that gave way and slid under their feet. Soon they reached the bottom of a leaf-choked gully, and ran along it, gathering speed with the easier footing. Their route looked like an old, sunken road hidden below the overhanging trees, cutting through a ridge ahead and then dropping out of sight.

  The pack that hid Delg bobbed and wiggled as it fairly flew along ahead of Narm and Shandril, but their longer legs were beginning to close the distance to the huffing dwarf. Now he was only thirty paces or so in front of them. Narm growled and put on a determined burst of speed.

  Twenty paces ahead.

  Ten.

  There was a sharp cracking sound—and then another. The ground in front of Delg rose suddenly, like the drawbridge of a keep, and the two puffing humans saw the bulky pack slip back down its slope. Delg’s axe flashed for a moment as he waved it—and then the dwarf and his pack fell out of sight.

  Narm and Shandril came to a shocked halt on the very edge of the pit Delg had fallen into, and they clutched at each other for balance. Delg lay helpless like an upended turtle atop a forest of wooden spikes that had pierced the pack he wore. Shandril looked over her shoulder to find a vine to drag Delg out, but just then, four Zhentarim soldiers with drawn swords rose from behind the trees, atop the banks of the gully.

  “Surrender to us,” one said heavily, “or—”

  Shandril didn’t want to hear the choice, it seemed. With a scream very like the angry shriek of a harpy, she hurled spellfire in a fury. White flames leapt forth, roaring; when they died away, the Zhents around saw that the warrior’s upper body had been blasted away.

  The legs tottered for a moment and then fell. The two men beside the ash heap screamed in terror and ran.

  Narm dropped to his belly beside the pit. Its lid was held open by Delg’s booted feet; the red-faced, furious dwarf lay below, just beyond his reach, spitting curses Narm was glad he couldn’t understand.

  Shouts came from the trees behind them. The warriors they’d run from—who’d herded them here, Shandril realized—were following up their trail. Fast.

  One man remained atop the other bank, sword drawn. He looked down at them uncertainly, his face gray with fear, his eyes wide.

  “Drop your sword, or die!” Shandril told him. “Now!”

  Alorth licked bloodless lips and looked across at what was left of the swordmaster. He threw his blade down, raising his hands to plead. “Please—”

  “Get down here!” Shandril hurled spellfire back down the gully behind her without looking; a cry of despair, abruptly stilled, answered her. She glared at the Zhentilar. “Come down—or die!”

  Almost weeping with terror, Alorth slithered down. Those burning eyes stared up at him from only a few feet away. They might belong to a young, frightened girl—but they held his death, and Alorth knew it. He trembled, sudden sweat running down his nose.

  “Touch no weapons,” Shandril said, biting off her words. “Reach down and get him out of the pit. If he’s hurt, or if you leave the pack behind, you die.”

  Alorth stared at her for a moment, and at the young mage who rose up from the dirt to glare at him. A crossbow bolt whistled past them.

  “Move, or die!” Shandril hissed, eyes flaming. Spellfire lanced out. The Zhentilar cried out at the burning pain her gaze brought him, and fell heavily on his knees. Behind him, he heard screams and a roar like rolling thunder. He looked around—to find the forest lit by hungry flames, Zhentilar warriors shrieking and staggering in the conflagration. The young lass stood defiantly facing them, fire dancing in her hands.

  Then something gleamed, very near, as it slid down into his view: the point of his own sword, not a finger’s length from his eyes, the angry face of the young mage behind it.

  Sobbing in fear, Alorth turned and reached for the dwarf. Too far. He’d never reach that far, without—he frantically scrabbled at the edge of the pit, but harsh hands were suddenly at his ribs and belt, heaving and s
hoving.

  With a cry of terror, Alorth Bloodshoulder toppled headlong toward the spikes, those cruel points leaping up at his face, and—there was a sudden pain in his knees as he came to a wrenching halt. Alorth groaned. Sweat fell past his eyes—and spattered on the sharpened wood only inches below. The mage must be sitting on his lower legs.

  The dwarf, still snarling dwarven curses, swarmed up his arms, digging in fingers with cruel force. Then the weight and the pain were both gone, and Alorth was roughly hauled up onto the ground. Freed, he slumped into the dirt, moaning softly.

  The noise like thunder came again. Alorth looked up with tear-blurred eyes, and saw a stream of white, roaring flames rolling down the already blackened gully away from him, the girl silhouetted against its brightness.

  Crossbow bolts leapt from the trees to either side, caught fire as Shandril looked at them, and crashed down in smoke and ashes. The dwarf, axe in hand, glared at Alorth from a foot or so away, and the Zhentilar fearfully snatched the dagger from his belt.

  Shandril heard his grunt of effort and spun around. Spellfire roared, and Alorth found himself staring at the bare bones of his arm. The smoking remnants of the dagger fell from them an instant before they collapsed, pattering to the ground in a grisly shower. Alorth found breath enough to whimper for a moment before the world spun, and he crashed down into darkness.…

  “Are there any left?” Narm was peering back through the trees as they stood gasping for breath in a little hollow deeper in the forest. They had run from the gully of smoking Zhentilar corpses for what seemed like an hour. The pursuing shouts and crossbow bolts seemed to have stopped—and far behind them, they heard barking calls that probably meant wolves had discovered waiting cooked meals.

  “There’re always more Zhents, lad,” Delg puffed. “They’re like stinging flies.” The dwarf was glumly looking at his torn and punctured pack. Shredded clothing protruded from the rents the spikes had made.