Hand of Fire

Death and Dark Surprises

Life holds moments of joy and glee and glory. Try to brand them into your memories, to take out and clutch close and comfort in when life serves up its far more abundant harvests: of fear, cold, loneliness, rage, death and dark surprises.

Tessaril Winter, Lady Lord of Eveningstar

No Greater Honor: My Service To the Dragon

Year of the Crown

The wagons were rolling along the Trade Way into the bright morning of another day. Arauntar and the other guards spurred their horses up and down the rumbling line with renewed vigor after an uneventful night. The Black-rocks looked as wild and windswept and empty of beasts as ever on all sides of Voldovan's caravan, as Narm sat on the wagon-perch beside Shandril and gave her his four hundred and sixth anxious sidelong look since awakening.

This time, Shandril looked back at him and snapped, "Are you going to do that all the way to Waterdeep? Tis me! Shan, not some crawling, shiny-scaled monster!"

"What's wrong?" he asked quietly, by way of reply.

Shandril abruptly looked away, saying nothing, and they sat side by side in silence for a time as the wagon bounced and rumbled on.

There came an especially violent crash and lurch, and Narm flung his arm around his lady as he always did. This time Shandril clung to him when the rocking of the wagon subsided and murmured into his chest, "The spellfire: I'm starting to dream of it, now, just blazing away endlessly. It boils up in me, making me hot, and drives me awake… and when I waken, I find it leaking out of my fingers, as little flames."

"I know," Narm replied, even more quietly. "That's why yon blanket was wet this morn. It started to smolder and woke me. I dunked it in the fire-bucket."

"Without waking me? The bucket must've been right beside you!"

"That's where it's been these last few nights… ever since you scorched me."

Shandril gasped and stared up into his face. "I-you never told me!"

Narm gave her a thin smile. "Why? To keep you awake worrying about it, or have you insist on sleeping outside the wagon or somewhere else where I couldn't touch you or guard you? How would that help either of us?"

They stared at each other for what seemed like a very long time, as the wagon rocked and rumbled, before Shandril asked pleadingly, "Narm, what am I going to do?”

Narm opened his mouth twice, then closed it again before uttering a word. They both knew he had no answer to give her.

"Patience," Korthauvar Hammantle murmured, leaning forward over a crystal ball that mirrored the whirling glow of his still-forming farscrying spell. "The Cult warriors lie in wait, and the caravan has almost reached them. Whatever. befalls, our tarrying is almost at an end. It won't be long now."

Hlael Toraunt threw up his hands with a loud sigh. "Cult warriors!" he echoed. "Swordheads who serve the Dragon-worshipers, not us! Drauthtar's not going to like this!"

"Pray let me be the judge of what Drauthtar does and does not like," a voice said crisply and coldly out of the tall, half-empty decanter hard by Korthauvar's elbow. The two Zhentarim wizards stiffened in unison, knowing all too well who they were hearing.

"D-drauthtar?" Hlael asked faintly. "You-you approve, then? Or desire us to act differently?"

"I've desired the two of you to act differently for years," was the curt reply, "but I entertain similar desires for most lesser mages of the Brotherhood. I see far too much wild, ruthless ambition and far too little obedience to orders and diligence to decreed strategies-too much treachery and too little teamwork. Yet my patience outstrips Korthauvar's as the sun outshines a candle. Manshoon himself-dragonriding, no less-went boldly after spellfire and was forced into flight. Many, many more Brotherhood mages after him made their own reckless snatches at spellfire and paid with their lives. If you have more success than they did, I'll overlook the time you took."

"And if we don't?" Hlael managed to ask through a very dry throat.

"The time for overlooking will then be past," the decanter replied. "Both on the part of your superiors in the Brotherhood and of this Shandril who hurls spellfire at a

Hlael Toraunt started to tremble so violently that the decanter rattled on its tray, but the voice came no more. Even after Korthauvar let his spell collapse to snatch up the decanter and hurl it into bursting shards and wet-spraying wine against the nearest wall, neither mage felt any the less watched.

Zhentarim wizards seldom do.

"They've moved swiftly," Thoadrin said approvingly. "Better light for us to shoot and scramble in, and even more weariness for their beasts!" He looked up and down the men ranged along the rocks, and growled, "Remember: no man looses a quarrel until my signal!"

Not waiting for their nods and muttered replies, he peered across the gulf of air to the rocks that rose on the far side of the Trade Way-straight into the eyes of Laranthan, who gave him a reassuring nod and the fist-on-chest gesture that warriors use to mean "All is ready, and I await your signal."

Good. He wanted no one to have time to turn and flee or rush off out of bowshot and then scramble up into the rocks to come creeping along after his men. Let them all rumble right into his trap. If his men downed enough beasts of the first few wagons, they'd doubtless crash or stop in disarray, forming a barricade for the rest to crowd up behind. The road would become a shooting-gallery-hopefully long enough to reduce Voldovan's guards to nigh-none.

The Cult of the Dragon might not have the fell reputation of all these high and mighty wizards, these Zhents and Thayans and Arcane Brotherhoods, but their claws were real enough-and one of them, now smiling grimly at the approaching dust-cloud and thunder of wagons, was named Thoadrin.

Soon it would be blood time, and they'd send their bolts hissing down. Thoadrin crouched behind his rock smiling in satisfaction. A near-perfect ambush; slaughtering Voldovan's men would be a trifling amount of trouble.

"In fact," he said aloud to the heedless air, "no trouble at all." He raised his hand, making sure both Laranthan and his own line of men could see it, and held it high as the first caravan guards trotted past below him. Tense, he awaited just the right moment to bring it down and unleash hissing death.

"I don't like the look of this," Narm said suddenly, snatching up the shield from its hooks. "Look at Beldimarr-and Arauntar, too! They're-"

"I can see," Shandril said harshly, eyes dark and hair stirring around her shoulders. Narm looked at her, opening his mouth to tell her to raise her own shield, and saw spellfire rising from her arms and flickering out of her face. He shuddered, said nothing, and lifted the old shield, leaning as close to her as he dared. The air itself crackled and howled past his ear and cheek as spellfire rose. Someone shouted ahead, someone screamed, Beldimarr cursed horribly, and the air came alive with the sound of a dozen crossbow bolts.

The guard beside Voldovan took one in the throat, threw up his arms, and pitched over backward, falling from his saddle like a felled tree.

The caravan master snarled out an oath and grabbed at the shield bouncing on its hooks on the dead man's saddle, trying to get it free. The next quarrel took him through the arm and sent the frightened horse with the empty saddle leaping away from his roar of pain. Quarrels were thudding into Narm's shield and piercing half through it, burning into his ribs, and he was too busy scrambling and flinching away and gasping out curses of his own to see more.

Shandril took one look at the chaos of archery and dying horses and men and shouted, "Take my legs! Hold me up!"