Hand of Fire

Sharantyr sighed as she watched sharp steel blaze its way back and forth through her leather-clad breast-after all, this magic wouldn't last forever, and… ah, well. The old ways were old because they so often worked.

Buckles could hold leather very well, but the enchantment made her fingers pass through them. Though she couldn't undo them, she could unlace leathern thongs, enough to lay bare most of the curving flesh The brigand's eyes widened, his sword-swings slowed- and Sharantyr bent, snatched up her maiden, and struck him hard across the face with its trailing stone. With a roar of pain, he staggered away, and this time, the whirling cords took his ankles from under him with brutal speed. There were rocks jutting from the ground beneath his head where he bounced, and it was a loosely lolling, groaning brigand from whom she retrieved her weapon, ere she glanced all around and decided there were no more foes to fell.

Sharantyr shook her head. Brigands, these days…

She recovered her fallen sword by looping the cords of her maiden around it until she could carry it as a trussed-up bundle and strolled on her way.

Her partially unlaced state won her a seat on a heavily guarded wagon crammed with gigantic "sow-bottles" (so named for their hoglike girth) each stoutly girded in its own wooden cage. The bottles all contained mordants, which would be used to etch armor in Waterdeep-if the deadly acids ever reached the City of Splendors.

Mordants had a way of disappearing in Scornubel, and her charms notwithstanding, Sharantyr was firmly urged to wait for the next ferry when the wagon reached the Chionthar. She caused some alarm when the small forest of swordpoints so urging her passed harmlessly through one of her hands-and she underscored that surprise by calmly walking through them, so that it was with close to a dozen blades apparently plunged deep into her breast that the Knight of Myth Dra

When he returned, the boatman-who had seen all of this-was very respectful, and Sharantyr floated up to the Scornubel docks lounging against him and humming a merry tune.

She was looking forward to seeing this lawless den of thieves and, following Lhaeo's directions, to meeting one of its law-breaking inhabitants in particular: Belgon Bradraskor. Master of the Shadows, indeed.

"Mystra and Tymora preserve me!" Shandril snarled, clawing at the nearest rail desperately as the ready-wagon struck a particularly large pothole so violently that she was sure the racing wheels not so far beneath her would either shatter or fly off.

They did not, though the entire wagon bounced with deafening clatters of landing cargo and several sickening moments of plunging through air, as one wheel after another crashed into the unyielding earth, spitting stones in all directions like angry crossbow bolts, and made its own shrieking, rebounding leap. Shandril's untidy collection of old armor plates clanged and clashed in her face for the six-hundredth-and-something time, leaving her with yet another cut on her jaw, then fell bruisingly back again- only to rise up once more even before they all had time to swing down. She swung her head to one side with a softly but deliberately snapped curse, scrunching one eye closed, and let them batter her cheek and neck.

Even Thorst was snarling oaths and groaning in pain as the wagon raced along. The shadows were growing ever longer around them, as the sun sank no more slowly for all their haste, but Voldovan was like a bellowing madman, storming up and down the hurtling line of wagons with his whip cracking like a never-sleeping thunderbolt.

They had to make Face Crag by nightfall, camp in the defensible, stream-split cleft in its eastern face, and get their torches lit in the outer ring of braziers-massive tripods of blackened iron erected there decades ago by a coster now gone yet still praised almost daily-so brigands and beasts alike would be left trying to stare at the unknown strength of the camped caravan past a wall of flickering flames.

Any brigands who hadn't already thrown a rope or a few tree trunks across the road as a barrier, that is. If the racing wagons struck any real obstacle now, the carnage of splintered wood and crashings and screaming beasts would be "The crag!" a big, ragged-bearded lout, Duramagar, shouted from ahead, standing in his stirrups exultantly and waving a war-axe dangerously in one hand. "The crag!"

Shandril's wagon rumbled up over a rise and swept around a bend with its wheels shrieking and a snapped rein slashing across her face like a burning brand. In front of her, what could only be Face Crag loomed up out of the gathering dusk like a castle wall.

"hi there!" Shandril heard Orthil Voldovan roaring, from somewhere in the dust and racing wagons up ahead. "Get in there!"

From the fore, there were screams, wails, and crashings- the very things she'd been expecting since this ride had become a wild rout.

Someone had hit something, a wheel had collapsed, an axle had shattered-or a beast had simply stumbled and fallen, dragging its wagon over or down… but no! Crossbow bolts were humming out of the dust in an angry storm, and unfamiliar riders with thrusting lances and stabbing blades were wheeling and darting in the chaos ahead, too. They were under attack by foes who'd been waiting in the cleft!

"Thorst!" Shandril shouted, bending low over the drover. "Shall I-?"

"No!" he roared, thrusting an unloaded but still eloquent bowgun up at her face, his eyes wild. "No! I'll yell to ye, if-"

A wagon sideswiped their own in a sickening squealing of rending wood, as its wheels spun their way to torn and clawing oblivion along the ready-wagon's old and battered sides, shedding daggerlike splinters in all directions, and fell away behind, lurching over onto its side. A horse reared, hooves lashing the air. Another wagon smashed into it with a thud that made Shandril's jaw rattle, spraying the air with reins, tumbling men, and more splinters.

Their foes were racing past-those who weren't skewered or swept from their saddles by flying splinters-and a hostile lance missed Shandril but tore open Thorst's shoulder, spi

Shandril snatched at them, grabbing her rail again just in time to avoid being plucked from her perch by the one rein she had managed to snag-then realized it was futile. The horses were screaming and plunging in terror, and she'd have to be stronger and heavier than they to haul back their heads and be noticed at all. They were on a wild ride that wouldn't end until they smashed into something, tipped over, or the horses calmed, fell, or faltered in exhaustion.

"Shandril!" Thorst shouted. "Help me!"

Ruined shoulder, jouncing ride, and all, the guard was still trying to get his bowgun loaded and aimed at something- and something else was banging against his knee: a full-sized crossbow that he'd unstrapped from its stowage but now lacked the strength to do anything with. Its windlass was clinking wildly in his lap as he struggled with his bowgun, teeth clenched in pain.

Shandril bent to help him and nearly pitched facefirst onto the churning hooves of the horses. Clawing at the perch and the rails and Thorst for support, she sat down hastily beside the drover.

There were shoulder-straps, she saw now-and not surprisingly, Thorst, like every other drover Shandril could remember seeing, disdained their use. Getting one arm through a strap, she threw her other around Thorst's shoulders and cradled him, steadying him as he gasped and whimpered and fought with the bow. Sweat was ru

A lancetip bit into wood right beside Thorst's head, and Shandril glimpsed the rider who'd put it there reeling in his saddle, letting go of his weapon to avoid being dragged from his mount as the snorting horse plunged past, tossing its head in fear.