Crown of Fire

by Ed Greenwood

  Narm pushed the cloth back through the holes. Between gulps for air, he said brightly, “That could’ve been … far worse … aye?”

  Delg rolled a severe eye around to meet his. “Many men spend their lives trying to get out of one hole or another. Just take care, Narm, that yours doesn’t wind up being a pit with sharpened spikes at the bottom of it.”

  Shandril managed a weak chuckle, and then got to her feet. “We’d best go on while we can,” she sighed. “Or they’ll be on us again—and those crossbows can’t miss forever.”

  Narm was muttering something and passing a hand over Delg’s pack. Where he touched it, the worst rents and holes shrank and closed, the fabric smoothing out as if new. Narm, finished, probed at his work, and looked up at her. “How are you feeling, Shan?”

  “Tired. When I said I was sick of endless battle,” Shandril told him grimly, “I meant it.”

  The glow from the pool lit the face of the Zhentarim priest who stared into it, watching them from afar. He smiled a slow, cruel smile and said, “Oh, maid, if you’re sick of battle now, you’ll be at the doors of death over it, before long—I can promise that.” The warriors standing with him all laughed. It was not a pretty chorus.

  As they struggled through the endless green depths of Hullack Forest, and the day wore on, Delg felt the constant weight of watching eyes on them. More than once, he called a halt to peer around suspiciously, looking at the dim legions of tree trunks on all sides. “We’re being watched,” he said. “I can feel it.”

  “Magic?” Narm asked.

  “Of course magic, stumblehead,” the dwarf replied grumpily. “If a beast—or even a Zhent sneak-thief—was stalking along behind us, I’d have seen it by now.”

  “As you say, oh tall and mighty one,” Narm replied, eyes dancing.

  Shandril flicked a warning look at her husband as the dwarf growled something under his breath, and Narm raised his hands. “Peace! Peace, oh giant among dwarves!”

  “A bit less tongue, youngling,” Delg replied, “and we’d best be on our way again—unless Elminster taught you any clever spells that can ward off scrying magic.”

  The mage frowned. “No, no … but I’m trying to remember something Storm said, back in Shadowdale, about the goddess Tymora.”

  “Tymora?”

  “Aye … Rathan gave us a luck medallion blessed by Tymora, and Gorstag gave us another. Storm said something about how such things can be used, but I can’t recall—”

  The dwarf snorted. “Of course not. You’re a mage, and mages can’t even remember their own names or ages. Let me look at these medallions.”

  Shandril obediently pulled on the chain around her neck, drawing her medallion out of the breast of her tunic. Narm brought his out of his robes. The dwarf squinted at them both and sighed.

  “By the gods, you two innocents’ll be the death of me yet! With these, we can be cloaked from magic, twice—each use will burn away one medallion.”

  “What?”

  “Aye.” The dwarf fairly danced in impatience. “There’s a charm on these things.” He swung around to fix Narm with eager eyes. “You can cast an invisibility spell, can’t you, lad?”

  Narm nodded. “Y-yes.”

  “Well, if you cast it on one of these medallions, the spell will last until the next morn, so long as the medallion isn’t touched by a living being, or moved. The spell covers everyone within ten paces—or whatever, I forget exactly how far—and nothing can see, hear, or smell them from outside that space. Even sniffing beasts and wizard spells miss you. All the spells that detect things find all sorts of traces, aye—in the wrong places, and moving in the wrong directions.”

  “You speak truth?” Narm’s astonishment overrode his manners.

  “Nay, lad—I want to die under a dozen Zhentarim blades,” the dwarf snarled, “after all we’ve been through thus far. So I’m lying to you both so Manshoon can walk right up to us while you think us safe. Of course I speak truth! One of these saved my life, once, when our company was too badly wounded to go on; with it, we bought time for healing.”

  “If that’s so,” Shandril said quietly, “I could use a rest from all this running—and time to practice a bit with my spellfire. I’m still burning things to ashes when I mean only to cook them gently, or send spellflame past them at something else. I’ve no wish to burn most of this forest down, or slay things I have no quarrel with.”

  “Let’s go on until we find another clearing, then,” Narm said. “And some water to drink.”

  “We’re past highsun,” Delg said. “We’d best be getting on.”

  It had grown late, the sun sinking low amid the trees, before they found another clearing. “Here,” Shandril said, giving her medallion to Delg.

  The dwarf set it on a stone near the center of the open, grassy space, and sat himself on an old stump nearby. “Your spell, lad,” he directed. Narm carefully worked his magic and touched the shining silver disc. It flashed and then briefly sparkled, but nothing else seemed to happen.

  “Is it working?” Shandril asked. The young man and the dwarf traded looks and shrugged in unison.

  “I don’t feel we’re being watched anymore,” Delg said. He turned to Narm. “Best study your spells, lad, while I get a meal ready.”

  Shandril sighed, relaxing, and then walked a few paces away. She found some bushes and a comfortable moss-covered stone, and sank down thankfully. Yawning, she rubbed at her shoulders and aching feet. Then she stiffened. There was a tiny fluttering inside her; spellfire tingling faintly … building again.

  She bent her will to calling the inner fire up, feeling it surge and roil about within her. When Shandril felt ready, she stood and hurled a tongue of flame between the two trunks of a forked duskwood tree. They smoked and creaked in the heat, but neither burst into flame.

  Pleased, she threw spellfire again. This time her target was a small cluster of leaves: could she burn them off their branch without disturbing other leaves nearby? The cluster flared and was gone; a few flames flickered and then died in their wake. Shandril frowned; she’d burned more leaves than she’d meant to.

  None of the three travelers saw the medallion begin to smolder. When the next burst of spellfire lashed out at a small patch of toadstools, the medallion pulsed with momentary fire. Drifting smoke showed that only a blackened patch remained where the toadstools had been; the medallion melted into a tiny remnant that crumbled and fell apart, unseen.

  When next spellfire licked out—in a curving arc this time, reaching around behind a stout tree—malevolent eyes were watching, as before.…

  “Watch well,” Gathlarue said softly, looking into the glowing crystal, “and remember—this is not a fire spell. The maid’s fire cleaves all spell barriers we know of and will scatter any wall of fire you or I might raise.”

  Mairara lifted an eyebrow. “I find it hard to credit that wench with wits enough to stand up to any mage of skill.”

  “She is said to have forced Lord Manshoon himself to flee,” Tespril whispered. Her eyes were large and very dark; Gathlarue was pleased to see that at least one of her apprentices was smart enough to be scared.

  She stretched, then favored them both with a smile. “We shall watch and learn much more before we move against Shandril ourselves.”

  She ran her fingers idly through a lock of Mairara’s long, glossy black hair, and as its owner smiled at her, sat back from the crystal and told Tespril, “Order our evenfeast brought to us, here. Tonight we’ll have rare entertainment to watch; the main troop of Zhentilar are to try their luck at capturing Shandril. The idiot sword-swingers are such crude fumblers they’ve been assigned one of Fzoul’s best priests in case they should kill Shandril by mischance.”

  The apprentices laughed merrily, and Tespril bowed and hastened away to give the orders.

  “Lady,” Mairara whispered, bending over her mistress, “is this spellfire really so much more powerful than the spells of, say, a pair of capable archmages?” />
  “Watch,” Gathlarue murmured at her senior apprentice. “Watch what befalls tonight, in my crystal … and govern your own mind in the matter.”

  Mairara nodded, somber eyes on her, and then looked up swiftly as Tespril returned.

  “The men are taking bets on how this night’s battle will turn out,” the younger apprentice said, chuckling. “They want to know who commands the Zhentilar.”

  Gathlarue smiled. “Karkul Memrimmon leads,” she said. “A great beast of a man who fights with spiked gauntlets, and never stays out of the fray.”

  “You’ve met him, Lady?” Tespril’s tone was teasing, her eyes bright.

  “I kept well out of his reach,” Gathlarue told her. “He’s the sort who’d get thrown out of taverns I wouldn’t go into.…”

  Spellfire crackled satisfyingly around the stump. Shandril watched a small thread of smoke curl up from the bark, and she nodded, satisfied. She could strike exactly the spot she aimed for—and high time, too, as Delg would say.

  She sighed ruefully and looked at the dark, deep woods around her. A branch snapped somewhere off to her left, not far away. Shandril’s eyes narrowed, and she backed up to a tree, calling “Narm? Delg?” as loudly as she dared.

  Her answer came swiftly—something large and hairy emerged from behind a nearby tree, lumbering along like a grotesque parody of a man. A cruel beak larger than Shandril’s head protruded from the dusty, matted feathers on its face. Hungry, red-rimmed eyes glittered at her, and it began a crashing charge through the leaves.

  Shandril screamed and hurled spellfire at it in a frantic spray. Sputtering spellflames raced out of her and wreathed the huge monster—and it screamed. Shandril sent a bolt of fire right into its face and backed hastily away around the tree, as it roared and flailed blindly with its bearlike claws.

  Her flames hit it again, and its cries grew weaker. There were other crashing sounds behind her, now, coming closer. Shandril looked up. Delg and Narm were bounding through the undergrowth. She sighed thankfully—and the wounded beast charged toward the sound. Anxiously Shandril hurled spellfire into that reaching beak—and the thing recoiled, roaring again.

  There was a sudden flash of light in front of Shandril. It lit Narm’s stern face as he guided his conjured blade of force straight into one of the beast’s eyes.

  Light flashed again inside that monstrous head, and with a rough, despairing cry, the thing crashed to the damp leaves at her feet. Smoke rose from its mouth and then drifted away. The beast thrashed about briefly and lay still, its eyes growing dull.

  “An owlbear!” Delg’s voice was rough with worry. “You seem to run into the most interesting folk, wherever we go.”

  Shandril looked down at the smoking thing at her feet, her eyes empty. She suddenly shuddered and turned away with a sob, starting to bolt. A moment later, she ran straight and bruisingly into something large and hard—Delg’s shield. The dwarf stepped out from behind it, letting it fall, and caught Shandril by the arm. “You can’t run from it, lass—sooner or later, you’ve got to face it. As long as other folk in Faerûn want what you’ve got, you must kill to live—so, these days, killing’s what you do.”

  Shandril stared at him. “And what if it’s not what I want to do?” she asked very quietly.

  The dwarf squinted up at her and then shrugged. “Then you’d best lie down and die the next time someone attacks. You’ll save a lot of trouble—for yourself, not for the rest of the Realms.”

  Shandril looked back at the smoking corpse, and then fixed tired eyes on his. “I don’t like killing. I’ll never like killing.”

  Delg nodded. “If that proves true, ’tis good, very good, for us all.”

  Shandril frowned. “What do you mean, ‘proves true’?”

  The dwarf leaned on his axe. “Slaying’s never easy, lass. When you’re young, it’s a shock—the smell, the blood and all.…”

  Narm added quietly, “And when you’re old, you see your own death in each killing … a part of you dies each time.”

  The dwarf looked at Narm in surprise. “Wise words for one so young; right you are, indeed.” He stared off into memory for a moment, and added softly, “Much too right, lad.”

  “And between youth and old age?” Shandril asked quietly. “What then?”

  Delg squinted at her. “Ah,” he rumbled, “that’s the time when one who must kill is most dangerous. They get good at the task—very good, some of them—and they also get so they just don’t care about the lives they take.”

  Shandril looked at him. “And if that happens to me?”

  Delg looked into her eyes and then turned away. “I’ll try to kill you. So will Elminster, and the Knights—and, of course, the Zhents and everyone else in Faerûn who’s been hunting you all this time.”

  “Tell me,” Narm said to the dwarf, his voice like a quietly drawn sword, “what you’d say if I stood by Shandril then, even if—gods forfend—she did come to love killing … what then?”

  Delg looked at him. “Before you died,” he said gruffly, hefting his axe meaningfully, “I’d be very proud of you.” Then he walked away over the edge of the ridge, axe in hand, looking very old and very alone.

  Narm and Shandril peered at each other. “I hope I’m never that sad,” Narm said quietly as he put his arms around her.

  “I hope I’m never that short,” Shandril said with a sudden smile. The mood broken, they laughed uneasily—and then heartily when they heard Delg snap the words, “I heard that!” from the other side of the ridge.

  After their laughter was done, they walked back together and found the dwarf gloomily surveying a scorched stone in the center of the clearing where the medallion had been. Delg sighed, lifted his eyes to Shandril’s, and said gruffly, “Just keep your fires away from my axe, lass. Oh, aye—and the seat of my breeches.”

  Narm chuckled to rob those words of their sting, but Shandril did not manage a smile.

  Not far away, men in black armor crept through the forest, their drawn blades blackened with soot. Their progress was marked by muffled curses and stumbling noises from time to time as rocks and tree roots disputed passage with the soldiers.

  A swordmaster near the rear muttered, “A little more care and quiet, there!” Silence answered him, and after a few cautious breaths the officer turned his head and added, “Keep a good watch out behind, Simron—or you’ll wind up owlbear-meat.”

  “Aye, sir,” Simron replied, low-voiced, and laid a restraining hand on the shoulder of the man beside him. They knelt unmoving until they heard the swordmaster scramble away.

  Simron turned and surveyed the night in all directions behind them. After being satisfied that they weren’t followed, he turned back to his companion and said, “I’m in no hurry to move on yet and get cooked like an ox on a feast night. Have ye heard the one about the six dancing girls and the glow-worm? No? Well, then …”

  “Enough, lass. It’s too dark to keep hurling flames about, even down in this vale. Your fires’ll draw the eyes of beasts—and worse—all around in these woods.” Delg put a cautious hand on her elbow, which was about as high as he could reach.

  Shandril let the smoldering spellfire in her hands die away and then stood trembling, drenched with sweat. Managing a weary smile, she said, “Thanks, Delg. I suppose I got carried away—I even forgot about evenfeast.”

  “It’s waiting,” the dwarf said, leading her briskly back to where Narm lay against their packs, dozing. “If the flies haven’t had it all by now—”

  Whatever else he’d been going to say was lost forever in the sudden crack of a whip, very near in the darkness. A startled, tired Shandril watched light blossom here and there among the trees as lanterns were unhooded. More than one lamp was sent streaking through the air, borne by hurled spears—and in the light they shed, the horrified dwarf saw dark, sinuous shapes leaping at them.

  “War dogs!” Delg swore. “Narm, ’ware! Narm!” He was running as he bellowed, axe flashing out.


  In eerie silence the dogs bounded toward him. Their tongues must have been cut out, Shandril thought in horror, as she raised weary arms and sent killing spellfire into the night.

  Gods, but they were fast! Dogs dodged and leapt, bared fangs flashing as they came. She struck again, and blazing hounds writhed in soundless agony, rolling over and over, smoke rising from their flanks.

  She saw Narm’s hands fall, a spell done—and a dozen or so dogs came to an abrupt, brutal stop, falling and thrashing about together in a confused mass. He must have conjured another spellweb. But many more dogs streamed around the fallen ones and toward them. Shandril hurled spellfire again, and in the midst of it, one dark form rose up, pawed the air for a moment, and then fell over on its back, dead. By the light of her spellflames she saw a score of leaping dogs still coming, snapping and snarling as they came.

  Delg stood among them, axe rising and falling. The light grew stronger as torches were lit. Shandril saw the gleam of armor all around them in the trees as Narm, his dagger in hand, reached her—just in time to be bowled over by a leaping war dog.

  Shandril screamed as fangs snapped at her throat. Frantic spellfire flared as she was struck by the beast, and the heavy, cooked dog bore her to the ground with the force of its leap. It left the stink of its charred, headless body all over her.

  Shandril screamed again, rolling free, as a hurled spear hummed past her ear.

  Amid the hissing torches, the Zhentilar warcaptain watched her crawling as fast as she could for the cover of a tree. He grinned cruelly and said to one of his officers, “Now.”

  The swordmaster whistled, and the air was suddenly alive with hissing crossbow bolts.

  4

  GREAT MURDERING BATTLES—AND WORSE

  It is one thing to face a rival with your blade in hand and make a bloody end to all rivalry between you. It is quite another to wage war with coins in the shadows and softly striking words in hidden chambers. The second way can kill just as surely—but no one who follows it is lauded as a hero, or grudgingly granted as brave even by one’s enemies. There is something in us all that admires those who stand tall and bold in the bright light of day—even when they pay for this boldness with their lives.