Hand of Fire

"Leave him for now," Thoadrin said. "There'll be plenty of time for a slaying to befall him later, if his next attempt to capture the lass fails. Enough of losses; what gains?"

"Three guards, and as many fat, shrieking merchants, or more."

"I slew one, and four merchants. One of them crashed his wagon," another Cult warrior said eagerly.

"I wounded a guard and two merchants-one should die soon," put in a third.

The reports continued, brief and unboasting. Thoadrin smiled in the darkness, well pleased.

He said as much to his men before asking if any of them were hurt. This had been a good harrying. He'd called them off the moment things started to turn against the Cult blades, when most of their lances and bolts were gone and the caravan guards had gotten over their shock and were seeking to strike back.

Let them wait, and lose sleep for another night where no attack would come. Untrammeled by wagons, Thoadrin's band could take the Two Pools overland trail, probably buy more bolts from the traders at Dowan Pool, and be waiting for Voldovan's caravan two nights hence to do it all again. Yes, it had been a good harrying.

There was plenty of time yet for the caravan to be stripped down to one spellfire-wielding wench, frightened and alone, trying to race a wagon to Waterdeep ere her wounded man, lying in the back, died of his wounds.

Thoadrin's smile broadened. Yes, his men were good enough to bring things to that.

The first needle broke, but Marlel wasted no time on curses. His left boot always carried three needles and goodly lengths of thread and stout waxed cord. The latter would do for this quick stitching, to gather the gaping lips of the slashed false belly together under a hastily do

Marlel turned, blinking, as the curtain was roughly plucked back and the brute Beldimarr thrust a lantern inside, with the tip of his drawn sword glimmering beside it. A second grizzled veteran guard-Arauntar, that was the name, as much a lout as his sword-companion-brandished another ready blade a pace back, his eyes leaping here and there across the interior of Haransau Olimer's Best Blandreths wagon.

"How fare ye?" Arauntar asked bluntly. "Hurts? Goods damage? We've orders to search every wagon."

Haransau Olimer waved an airy hand. "I live, unscathed by the grace of Tymora, and so am at peace with Faerun-so long as ye guard me well when I must sleep, as must soon befall. Wherefore search away, my bold protectors-search diligently, and the watching gods shrewdly guide thee!"

"All right, all right," Beldimarr muttered. "Yer enthusiasm ' grates nigh as much as it overwhelms. Just stand aside for a trice, and we'll-anything, Raunt?"

Arauntar was wading gingerly among hoop-topped open chests of cargo. "Blandreths look all too much like crouching men in armor," he growled back. "Good merchant, tell me: Why d'ye carry these pots uncovered? Strikes me they'll rust!" Warily he thrust his blade close to one suspicious-looking heap and stirred it with his hand.

Haransau Olimer smiled. "Ah, good warrior, 'tis precisely 'gainst rust that my best pots travel bared to the world-when the air can reach them, they rust not! A good blandreth, know you, must be special, lest the coals or fires its three feet stand in scorch it and ruin what cooks within it!"

"I thought blandreths hung above fires on chains-from tripods, like we see in camps," Beldimarr rumbled, his eyes never leaving the cautiously stalking figure of Arauntar.

"Ah, good warrior, those cauldrons of the tripods are 'great blandreths.' My beauties stand right in thy coals or thy fire but are raised on their legs above the burning!" The merchant spread his hands. "Would you like to buy one? They're just the thing for warriors who must dine by night over fires and move on again with the new day! Why, I believe-"

"I believe there're no lurking brigands here, and we've more than a score of other wagons still to check," Arauntar growled. "Another time, perhaps, Olimer. Oh, mind out: The three pots in that corner are a-crawl with rust. I'd cover these chests at dewfall, if yer wagonflaps are open."

The blandreth-dealer gave him a sickly smile. "I thank you," he said with a little bow. "I-I'll bear that in mind."

Arauntar gave him a cheery wave and swung down from the wagon. The other guard straightened slowly with the lantern in his hand, his eyes never leaving the face of the merchant.

"Call out if you see or hear anything suspicious," Beldimarr added, as he turned to follow Arauntar. "Anything at all."

"I shall, yes," the merchant assured him, clasping his hands as men who are well satisfied-or very nervous-do. The guard nodded and strode away.

Haransau Olimer lifted both of his eyebrows and looked up at the starry sky. "And that, O watching gods," he murmured in a voice so soft that even a man standing right -behind him would have struggled to hear it, "is all I know about blandreths, so the special oils wilt stay stoppered and those pots will simply have to rust. I'd best separate them into a chest of their own ere our eagle-eyed friend next inspects my wares."

It had taken only one spell from his ring to set two wagons afire and immolate the real Haransau Olimer and his assistant in one of them. It had taken Marlel's natural guile and but a few moments of pretty speech to lure the two men into one of those wagons in search of some very good deals-and he was back in Olimer's wagon hastily do

That passenger, paying a wagon-owner for riding-in-shelter passage from Scornubel to Waterdeep, had been a young, slender man of few words and a face hidden in a cowl. Earlier Olimer had confided a few suspicions regarding him to one of the guards-but the merchant's customary cheerful disposition soon returned after the disaster, and he dismissed suggestions that his passenger had been involved in fell magic with the news that he'd gathered by roundabout queries that the lad was on something of a pilgrimage to a Waterdhavian temple and considered himself both unworthy to serve his god and unable to work holy magics. Just which god, the youngling had declined to say.

Now, of course, he was beyond questioning. Marlel looked around his wagon of clanking pots and smiled. The fat merchant had terrible taste in clothes-but oh, the food and wine the man enjoyed! None of your usual overbrewed thrusk and handfuls of stale nuts but pickled rock beetles from the Tashalar, spiced firestorm wine from Elturel, and keg after keg of roast bustard marinated in zzar!

'Twas a good thing Waterdeep wasn't all that far off, or Olimer's wardrobe of voluminous robes would soon be all Marlel would be able to fit into!

There was just time for a skewer of fried arnhake and jellied eel ere he tied the bell-cords across the wagon-flaps and took his rest for the night. Being searched was such hungry work.

"Lady," said the softly menacing voice behind the knife that gleamed in front of her throat, "am I glad to see you!"

"Not half so much," Sharantyr replied with a smile, seizing the thief's wrist and jerking hard down and toward her, so that his deadly blade plunged hilt-deep into her breast-without sound or resistance, as if she was a ghost, or a woman made of smoke-and slipping a noose of her stonemaiden around his neck, "as I am gladdened, sirrah, to see you".