Hand of Fire

One stunted tree tore itself up by the roots and spiraled up into the sky every bit as enthusiastically as the vanished spell-blades had been coming down. Another turned to ice and promptly began to shed branches in singing, bouncing clatterings. A third became water, crashing to the ground in a foaming flood that spat short-lived, licking flames at the air as it drained away. A wagon turned bright green and glowed. The trader on its perch stared down at his green-glowing hands in disbelief, then fled in howling terror.

Like a frantic wind he raced past a merchant frozen forever in mid-stumble, a motionless body turned to something akin to sparkling stone. It changed again as Shandril scrambled up to stare at it, becoming a man-shape made of coiled and hissing groundsnakes.

The pillar of writhing, thankfully harmless creatures promptly collapsed into slithering chaos, causing several guards to snarl fearful, astonished oaths and flee from the wriggling, hurriedly dissipating groundcarpet of snakes.

"Down, Shan!" Narm snapped, catching hold of Shandril's arms, hurling himself to the floorboards and swinging her up and over him as he fell. With a startled mew she tumbled into the depths of the ready-wagon as the perch exploded into deadly splinters and sight-searing brightness. Narm bounced down the wagon on his back and elbows, lacking the breath to even hiss curses, as the spell that had sought their lives died away-and the wagon was rocked by another blast that was very loud and very near.

Something bloody that had been alive a moment ago tore through the fabric above the wooden wagon-sides and on out through the cloth on the other side of the ready-wagon, slowing not a whit.

"What-?" Shandril demanded a little dazedly, as she slithered down a collapsing heap of tarpaulins and small kegs of axle grease, to join Narm on the littered floor. "Who's trying to kill us now?"

"Nay, nay-who's not trying to kill us now?" Narm snapped, cradling her in his arms. "They've all gone battle-crazed out there! I don't know who tried that spell of blades or who broke it with that cloud of lightnings that went all wild, but every last merchant with a wand and every hiddencloak wizard in this caravan is trying to deal death this very Mystra-blessed moment!"

A weird high singing sound was rising over his words, pierced by many screams and shouts, and through the gaping hole where the perch had been Shandril saw an entire wagon whirling up into the sky. Vicious cracklings and flashes of light marked the unleashings of other magics all around them, and the thuds of ru

"Narm," Shandril said, struggling free of her husband's grasp, "I've got to see." She rolled over beneath him to crawl to where the perch had been.

"Nay, lady love," Narm protested, catching her by the elbows and throwing his full weight onto her back, to pin her to the floorboards again, "stay down, and quiet-and mayhap alive, hey?"

Shandril sighed, growled at him, shook her head to get a tangle of hair out of her eyes, and said firmly, "Look, every last masked Zhent wizard along on this run knows exactly which wagon we're in, and-"

The world erupted just outside to their right, and the ready-wagon was suddenly turning over around them, raining down rope-ends and hand-kegs and any number of small, hard, pointed things on Narm and Shandril as they shouted, tried to catch hold of each other, and Another blast drove away all vision for a moment, brightness flaring blindingly before their eyes. Shandril's ears rang. Narm was shouting something, but she couldn't tell what.

She shook her head, still seeing nothing but brightness as the ready-wagon landed with a bone-shaking crash, bounced, bounced again to the sounds of things breaking, and rocked to a halt on its side. Every last loose thing inside the wagon crashed teeth-numbingly down to its own resting-place, Narm and Shandril included.

Resting places that would last only until the next spell-blast. Bursts of magic and shouts were still raging outside as Shandril blinked her way back to seeing things… she hoped. She shifted gingerly amid the heap of tumbled and broken gear and couldn't help but moan in pain. Were her left shoulder and right thigh shattered or did they just feel that way?

From somewhere lower down Narm hissed, "Shan, are you all right? Keep low-voiced, and lie still!"

"Lying still," Shandril gasped into the blurred, darkening world around her, "is something I could probably master about now. I… I think nothing's broken." She moved her arm with some difficulty, shifting several coils of rope that were lying atop it, and started to laboriously walk her fingers down her own flank, toward her thigh.

Halfway there her fingertips encountered something wet and sticky. The smell told her it was her own blood even before she found the tangle of torn garment and ruined skin beneath. She hissed in pain, set her teeth, and called up spellfire.

Amid its tingling she felt other places on her body that were wet and somehow… cold, even as the spellfire rose to warm the rest of her.

Narm groaned, deep in his throat, and she asked swiftly, "Are you hurt?"

"Ughh. My bruises have bruises of their own, as Torm once said," he muttered, "but nothing bad. Lie quiet!'

"'She died quietly'? Is that what you want to carve on my headstone?" Shandril gasped in amused protest, as spellfire washed through her, soothing and healing.

"Nay, I was hoping your remembrance would be something more like, 'Beloved of the gods, she saw two centuries, and her twenty children gave her seven-score grandchildren, who in turn-"'

"Twenty children? Narm, you rutting boar!"

"A man can hope," came the reply, in a voice of morose self-pity Shandril snorted. "If it's to be Candlekeep platitudes, here's an appropriate one: 'Keep your hopes to a size you can carry/ Are we finished lying still and silent yet?"

A spell-blast outside promptly rocked the wagon, and something inside with them broke and collapsed into small, clattering fragments. "Nay," Narm replied brightly, "I think not."

A thump outside was followed by a creaking of torn wood, and then a rough voice said, "This was the spellfire-wench's wagon. Quick, now!"

A dark form shouldered forward, scraping leather-clad shoulders on the side of the wagon now serving as a ceiling. It was followed by another, who spoke again in that rough voice. "D'ye see her?"

The man in leathers leaned forward, looming over the tangle of ropes where Shandril lay. Reflected daylight gleamed along the edge of a long, cruelly curved dagger. The man plucked aside the shattered ribs of a keg-and stared right into the eyes of the maid from Highmoon.

"Aww," Shandril complained, blinding him with a short gout of spellfire, "and I was lying so quietly, too!"

The man staggered back with a roar and fell over as Narm hamstrung him neatly from below.

"Why, you little vixen”, the rough-voiced man snarled, raising hands upon which rings flashed with awakened magic. "I'll-"

"You'll die, that's what you'll do!" another voice said calmly from just outside the wagon. A burst of green flames outlined the rough-voiced man in sudden, convulsed agony. Burning, he fell forward on his face without a sound, revealing to Shandril a sudden scorched vista of daylight where wagon-timbers had melted away before those green flames.

A man in robes was standing outside, his hand still raised from hurling his spell. Three grim-looking men in leather armor were clustered around him, looking nervously in all directions and clutching swords in whitening, helpless fists. No blade could defend them against the restless spells warring on all sides.

Warriors and merchants alike had swords and daggers and even stools in their hands as they ran. Some hacked at everyone within reach, and others aimed wands or fists that winked with rings.