Hand of Fire

Letting his shield slide and hang from its straps, Narm scrambled to obey her. Shandril stood up on the perch, flung her arms wide, and gathered spellfire around herself in a great snarling cloak of rushing flames.

Crossbow bolts leaped into those flames and hissed away to ashes, one of them crumbling and falling away inches from Narm's nose. He yelped but clung grimly to his lady's thighs, hooking his feet around the edges of the wagon-perch door, trying as best he could to brace her against the jarring and bouncing. The horses reared and tossed their heads and snorted, reins swung slack like wild ribbons in the air… and Shandril's spellfire roared out over their heads, lashing the rocks on either side of the road with leaping, scorching flame.

The firing was becoming more ragged as Thoadrin's men ran out of cocked and loaded crossbows to snatch up and aim, but Orthil Voldovan's run seemed ruined indeed. A wagon had crashed onto its side, ahead, dead horses were dragging in harness everywhere, and there were more guards sprawled lifeless on the ground under maddened hooves than were still ru

Shandril saw Arauntar grimly scrambling up the rocks, sword in hand. Above him were the helmed heads of gri

Men were hurled away as broken, boneless things amid those shards of rock. More fled headlong from behind other rocks before her flames could reach them, so she turned and served the rocks on the far side of the road the same way.

About half of that second line of rocks were gone when the fires surging inside Shandril faltered for the first time. She shuddered and held back her spellfire, crouching down into Narm's embrace.

A head popped up around the side of an unscathed rock almost immediately, lowering a loaded crossbow to aim right at her. Shandril blasted the stone and all into nothingness ere the bolt could be fired. Beside her, Narm wrestled with the reins as their wagon slowed almost to a stop. One horse dragged limply in harness, and the others, for all their snorting terror, seeing nowhere to flee in the tangle ahead, turned in opposite directions, rocking the wagon wildly.

"They're fleeing for their lives!" someone shouted excitedly from behind Shandril-a moment before a splintering crash a

A crossbow quarrel promptly hummed right past both their noses and cracked off the side of the wagon, showering them with slivers of wood. "Enough adventure for you?" Narm grunted, as he tried to drag them both back inside while still flat on his back with Shandril twisted atop him. He failed miserably.

"No," she gasped back, with a short, choked-off laugh as her breath gave way, a single wisp of spellfire darting from her mouth, "there's never enough!"

"That's what I was afraid of," Narm muttered, trying again to worm his way back into the wagon. Another crossbow bolt tore through someone's canvas nearby with a vicious zip.

The horses all around them fell away into heaps of bone, and dark whirlwinds roared up from where their bodies had been to form a snarling, darkening cloud overhead.

"Oh, bloody Mystra!" Narm gasped, awe suddenly warring with dread in him.

Shandril nodded numbly. As the cloud grew larger and darker, men shouted in fear all around them… and the towering darkness seemed to lean forward as if it wanted to fall on her.

"Theldarace Norlaund, Finecarver" said the sign on the side of the wagon, and the slender, swift-to-smile man who rode inside answered to that name. Neat, trim travel racks sharing the wagon with him securely held the wares he sold, which bore out his claim to be a seller and carver of long, curving pipes for the dedicated smoker of aromatic blends and both longhorns and songhorns for minstrels and musicians. Beautiful things, glossy-polished and as delightful to the eye as elven-work. No one had seen Norlaund do any carving during the run, but the road through the Black-rocks was hardly conducive to any exacting work-least of all tasks done with sharp knives that didn't involve savage letting of blood.

Orthil Voldovan had his suspicions about the carver and his two close-mouthed, armed-to-the-teeth servants, who doubled as Norlaund's drovers-but then, Orthil Voldovan had his suspicions about everybody.

In this case, however, the long-honed Voldovan instincts had been right to rise warily to the alert. Theldarace Norlaund also had another name, though few outside the Zhentarim knew it. He was one of their most capable and trusted-so much as any member of the Brotherhood is trusted, by fellow Zhents-ambitious young magelings and was proud to hear the name "Aumlar Chaunthoun" uttered with grudging respect by no less a personage than Sememmon, the Lord of Darkhold.

Thrice he'd been sent out on difficult missions, tasks he'd been expected to die trying to carry out, Aumlar had no doubt. Thrice he'd come back triumphant. His hand had falsified wills and trade treaties alike. He'd slain certain persons so there were no witnesses and naught was left of them but ashes and impersonated them thereafter for short but crucial times-such as guild meetings. As a result, no less than three Sembian merchant companies and one old-coin Sembian family were now Zhentarim-con-trolled… and knew it not. Moreover, several influential traders in Amn and Tethyr now took orders from the Brotherhood and knew it not. A Waterdhavian guildmaster knew all too well who held the leash about his neck, but he loved that neck too much to dare try to slip that leash and so bowed to the Brotherhood's covert will. All these things were the work of Aumlar Chaunthoun.

His latest orders had been to find and keep watch over one Shandril Shessair, the lass who wielded spellfire, to see exactly where she went, what she did, and whom she consorted with-no more.

Aumlar was no fool. He lusted after spellfire but knew he'd never live to master it, even if he somehow wrested it from the maid out in the wilderlands. This caravan was a-crawl with Zhentarim, Dragon Cult, and other covert agents, all of them waiting to savage each other once any of them moved openly against Shandril.

It was time to start that bloodletting, to thin the ranks of his rivals. Perhaps he could learn some secrets of spellfire he wouldn't have to share-or at the very least, uncover the girl's limitations.

It was time. Tarry any longer, and Waterdeep would be too close-near enough to flee to, and close enough that ambitious Waterdhavians could ride out and launch their own snares and ploys and outright attacks. Now was the time.

If he did it deftly, no one would know who'd launched the spell that started it. She'd rend it, of course, so all it had to be was large, overblown, and spectacular.

The second spell slicing in behind it was the one he wanted to reach her-the one that might give him a whisper-link to Shandril's mind, or failing that to the thoughts of her husband, the weakling Narm. A way to hear and see snatches of what they were thinking, and murmur the occasional suggestion into their dreams. A hook in the mouth of the most prized fish in Faerun, a hook the fish hopefully wouldn't even know was there.

Now! Bane above, the lass had just stopped hurling spell-fire and fallen. If it hadn't been for her man, she'd have gone right off that wagon and been trampled! She must be drained or wounded! Now!