Captain Nelyssa's gray-green eyes met his, and her thin lips relaxed into a rueful smile. "I fret still, Florin. I know what we must do, and yet, to ride away and leave Ashabenford with not a sword to defend it… What if a dozen of them-nay, three of them, with ready blades-sneak past us through the woods? Who will defend the old men and maids then?"
"Harpers, Lady of Chauntea," Florin told her gravely. "Almost twenty of them, come to us from Twilight Hall in Berdusk with all the magic Lady Cylyria can spare. They will fight to hold Ashabenford even if we fall-and they carry the means to farspeak Twilight Hall and call on swift spell aid."
"Aye." The lady paladin looked troubled. "And spells themselves have become chancy things of late."
"Not all spells," Sylune put in as she rode on Florin's other side, "else I'd not be here now."
"And you are very much here," Torm purred from the saddle beside her.
"Stow it, clever tongue," growled the fat priest Rathan, who rode on the thief's other side, saddle creaking under his weight. "Ye're worse than a boar in heat!"
Torm favored his best friend with a complicated gesture that had nothing to do with casting spells.
"Tymora forgive ye," the priest said heavily, crossing his arms disapprovingly across his ample girth, "but I do not. Seven nights of abstinence shall be thy penance, I vow!"
"You'll have to chain me somewhere to manage that-and, of course, catch me first," Torm told him mockingly, ducking his horse smoothly around behind Sylune's mount.
Rathan sighed and waved at him in mock dismissal.
The captain of the Riders watched with interest. "Can yon thief run at any speed?" she asked Florin.
"Watch him during the battle," Florin told her dryly. "There're few folk-even winged things-that can keep up with his retreat."
In reply to this, Torm treated the ranger to an even more intricate gesture. Nelyssa's eyebrows rose. "Droll fellow… did he succeed at thieving by outrunning guards?"
"No," Florin told her, not quite smiling. "Just by staying alive this long. And he did that by outrunning husbands."
Nelyssa rolled her eyes. "I can see we're going to have to watch ourselves," she said sarcastically.
Torm turned in his saddle, winked at her, and then leered at the Shield of Chauntea until she curtly ordered to him to scout ahead.
Laughing, Torm waved and galloped away.
"I'd best go after him to keep him out of trouble," Sharantyr said to Belkram and Itharr. "Come with me?"
"Of course, Shar," they said together, and the three horses leapt ahead as one.
Sylune watched the three rangers pull away and sighed. "I've grown used to them," she told Florin. "See you at the battle." She urged her mount into a canter.
"We're only going to Swords Creek!" Florin said in amused protest. "Torm's probably reached it by now!"
"All the more reason for my being there in haste," Sylune told him severely. "The less time I give him on his own, the less I'll have to patch or set right!" And she was gone, galloping hard through the black-armored ranks of the Riders. Some of them amusedly watched her go; others cast appreciative glances at the silver hair that streamed out behind her as she crouched low over her horse's neck.
"Are your Knights always this pranksome?" Captain Nelyssa Shendean asked Florin quietly, visions of chaos on the battlefield rising before her eyes… chaos that could kill them all.
Florin gave the Shield of Chauntea a smile that had cold steel in it. "Usually far worse than this," he told her. "They're taking it gently so as not to upset you, I'd say."
Nelyssa sighed-and then her eyes widened in horror as she realized he wasn't jesting. Her hand went to the electrum earth pendant around her neck and brought it to her lips. "Mother Chauntea, preserve and shield us," she murmured feelingly.
An instant later, the ground rumbled under the hooves of the hurrying horses, rocking them all. As startled men cursed and hauled at their reins around her, Nelyssa looked around at Mistledale with a sudden, dazzling smile. Then she stood up in her stirrups, whooped, drew her sword, swung it in a wild, flashing salute to the sun overhead, and galloped off toward Swords Creek in tearing haste, scattering astonished Riders in all directions.
Florin met Rathan's gaze. He took in the priest's eloquently raised eyebrows, and shrugged. "We seem to have that effect on folks," he observed. "Tymora should be happy."
"Oh, she is," Rathan told him. "Wherever we go, the entire Realms around seems to be plunged into taking wild chances."
"I've noticed that," Florin said in dry tones. "It's not a state of affairs to everyone's taste."
The stout priest of Tymora shrugged in his turn. "Their loss," he said piously, "and Faerun's gain. May Tymora smile upon ye in the battle, Florin."
"And upon thee, stout heart," Florin told him. Rathan looked sharply at the ranger's innocent smile, and found it not quite innocent enough. He snorted and spurred away, leaving Florin alone with the Riders of Mistledale.
The ranger caught a few questioning looks from the black-armored armsmen around him, and smiled. "Easy, lads. There's no need to rush into our graves. The gods wait for us all."
"There're going to be gods at this battle?" one of the Riders asked fearfully.
"Now, lad, let's not get our hopes up," an older Rider said with a grin. "You've got to save some excitement for your next battle!"
The younger Rider swallowed. "If I live to see another one," he whispered, "I'll begin to worry about such things, Ostyn."
"That's the spirit!" the older Rider told him. "Cast your worries aside, and ride on into battle!"
The young Rider looked at him with a very white face and said nothing.
"Keep track of kills, shall we, lad?" Ostyn proposed. "See which of us can slay the most Zhents?"
The younger Rider stared at him for a moment-and then fainted dead away, his eyes rolling up as he slid limply from his saddle.
Florin made a grab for the falling Rider's shoulder, caught him, and snapped, "Get the reins, Ostyn!"
The older Rider did so, deftly, and they guided the mount to an ungainly halt.
The rearguard Riders caught them up. "One down already?" a fat, cheerful woman asked, looking at the limp form across Florin's lap. "We'll have to ask the Zhents to hold a thousand or so swords in reserve."
"You're volunteering to ask them?" Florin chuckled as they righted the young Rider in his saddle and shook him gently back to his senses.
"Never volunteer," Ostyn warned her.
"Actually," she said, indicating the reviving Rider with her sword, "I was going to nominate him."
The young Rider's eyes snapped open. He stared at her for a moment, face as white as a priest's vestment-and then, still staring, slid out of his saddle again.
They let him fall to the ground this time, stared at each other, and sighed.
4
"Hold up, there!"
One moment the road ahead was empty, but the next, a stern-looking, ragged crone with the largest, wartiest nose Torm had ever seen was standing calmly in front of his cantering horse, hand raised, bidding him halt.
Startled, the thief hauled hard on the reins. The war horse under him skidded in the dust as it reared, bugling, and came to a halt, lashing out with steel-shod hooves.
The woman regarded it calmly. "An excitable animal-and you must be the illustrious Torm that the ladies of Twilight Hall have told me so much about." She turned away, hands on hips, and then turned back to him and asked curiously, "Did you really get a certain part of your anatomy caught in a closet door in Zhentil Keep, or was that just a fireside tale?"
Torm sputtered. He'd just noticed that the woman, in her kerchief and ragged dress, was standing in midair, her muddy, ill-fitting boots a good three feet off the ground. A merry gale of laughter came from Sharantyr, Belkram, and Sylune as they reined their mounts in around him. Itharr merely shook his head in smiling silence.