Hand of Fire

Then the blue light was gone, and the paler light of normal day was around her. The woman in leathers whom Torm was pleased to call "our lady ranger" was standing in wild, trampled grass on an unfamiliar hilltop.

A height crowded with tall, dark standing stones. She swiftly drew close to one and froze to listen and peer intently, letting a long time pass as she made sure of her surroundings.

Then Sharantyr glided softly forward to where she could look around her sheltering stone, and froze again, only her eyes moving. This shadow, and that… no. Nothing.

Thankfully-unless someone or something was managing to keep very quiet and still amid this faintest ghost of a breeze-the hilltop seemed free of lurking folk or beasts. Save for one, of course: one Knight of Myth Dra

Sharantyr stowed the carving in a belt-pouch, but kept her war-steel ready as she looked about, studying the ground now, for tracks. This might be Tsarn Tombs, if she was nigh Scornubel… or then again, it might be some place she'd never heard of, north of that lawless caravan city.

Probably Tsarn, though; it seemed right. On all sides rose wilderland hills beyond number, those to the north-she always knew when she was looking north-crowned by trees. Mountains rose in the far distance, most to the northeast but a few peaks even farther off to the northwest. A wagon road ran close by her hilltop, on the west, ru

Small rocks and pebbles underfoot had been scuffed by boots recently. There was much trampling in the grass around the larger stones, some of it fresh, and… she peered about at old, broken tombs that lay open in the tall grass, and smiled thinly at the painted message borne by one tall, leaning marker stone: "Beware: The Dead Walk."

They do, indeed, all too often… ah!

She'd found what she'd been seeking: the trail of two humans afoot, walking side by side and passing this way recently. They'd departed the hilltop northward, down into a little valley carved by a brook… and unless her land-reading had quite departed her, that brook probably found its way down to the road.

If anything was hunting lone lady rangers in these back-lands, it'd probably seen her on the heights for more than long enough to decide how best to stalk her. Sharantyr kept her blade out and her other hand hovering above the little pouch of spell-gems Lhaeo had given her as she went.

The Scribe of Shadowdale had given her something else, too. He'd evidently spent his time well over tea with Tessaril, during her rare visits to acquaint Shaerl and Mourngrym of Cormyrean news and policies. His instructions on whom to speak with in Scornubel and how to contact them had been quite specific.

His warnings about the dangers of the City on the Chionthar had been just as blunt and exhaustive-and far, far more numerous. Sharantyr was almost looking forward to viewing a city-sized den of energetic thieves and trying to figure out why they hadn't erupted with knives in alleys some night and all slain each other, years ago Up from behind a boulder ahead of her a figure rose. A crossbow cracked, and the figure ducked down again-just as a second man sprouted from behind another rock, farther off, and did the same thing. Sharantyr let fall her blade and put her finger through the slit in the outside of Lhaeo's little pouch to awaken the lone gem that rode in the outer compartment there.

She was just in time. The first hasty bolt burned past her upper arm, ripping away leather as it went, but the second whistled straight into her throat-and harmlessly on through it, as if she'd been made of smoke. Sharantyr unwound the cord from around her midriff and shook it out into a loose coil, letting one stone-weighted end hang from her hand. A deadly little obsidian knife rode in a gorget-sheath down the back of her neck, under her hair, but this little throwing-maiden seemed more useful now. Almost as useful as a personal ironguard enchantment.

Sharantyr strode on toward the first boulder without breaking stride, hoping there weren't too many brigands- and that their ranks didn't sport anyone who could work magic. Not that it was likely that a mage of power would be starving over travel-scraps out in the wilderlands when cities were full of folk who'd pay well for castings of minor magics, but…

She was perhaps three long strides away from the rock when the brigand rose up again and hurled a dagger into her face. There was a momentary, feathering blur as it sliced deep into her eye-or rather, whirled through her head as if she weren't there, after its point found no eye nor socket. Her ears rang with his curses as he hastily drew a rather rusty curved sword and commenced hacking at her.

Sharantyr dropped her stonemaiden to the ground, letting only a small length of it trail from one hand held out as far as she could behind her-with his blade passing freely through her body, he could sever the cord all too easily, and then she'd be reduced to punching, kicking, gouging, and hair-pulling.

That curved blade sliced through her breast-forth and back, forth and back, veering up to cleave her nose and jaw on the third swing, and taking out her throat on the fourth. Sharantyr smiled sweetly and kept coming.

"A ghost!" her assailant wailed, going pale. "A haunt!" He whirled to flee-and Sharantyr swung the stonemaiden as hard as she could, almost throwing it. Along the cord she felt the solid jar of the blow-and the sickening yielding of his head that followed, ere he toppled silently to the grass, and bounced. Her stonemaiden sent a spattering of blood and brains on toward the second rock, and the ranger followed them, still smiling.

"Helve, you idiot!" the brigand there was roaring, as he rose and his crossbow cracked again. "Never turn your back in a fray-not even on a lone wench!"

He was a good shot. The bolt blinded her momentarily as it flashed through her right eye-and kept on going.

"Mask preserve me, Tymora save me-Shar defend me!" the second brigand swore, forced to believe what he'd been able to dismiss as clumsiness on the part of his fellow outlaw up until now. He gaped at Sharantyr as her smile widened and she sauntered toward him, hiding her trailing stonemaiden once more.

True to his own advice, this brigand backed away, never turning his eyes from her for an instant as he snatched his sword and dagger out-and tripped over some loose stones behind him, to fall headlong with a ragged cry. Sharantyr was over his rock in a bound, stonemaiden up in both hands to strike in either direction, depending on who else might be lurking.

There was a third brigand, and a fourth, but they were far enough away that she managed to strike the frantically rolling and kicking second brigand senseless before they reached her. A blade she didn't feel tore through her, but the fists holding its hilt drove up under her ribs as hard as the thrust itself. If she hadn't leaped into the air to rob their impact of its smashing force, some of those ribs might well have broken.

From the height of her leap Sharantyr dashed the maiden's stones across the man's snarling face, and he ceased to be a concern-at about the same time as the fourth brigand reached her, slicing the air like a madman as he came with a sword almost as long as her legs. Snarling and sweating he hacked at her-back and forth and back, his slaying steel a blur.

Sharantyr was forced to drop her maiden to avoid having its cords severed a dozen times over. Then she sat down and kicked out, seeking to drive his own legs from under him and send him crashing down-but he was too large and strong to do more than hop awkwardly aside and regain his balance, still hacking furiously.