"That's quite far enough, young man!"
CHAPTER TWENTY
29 Uktar, the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR)
Raegar knew the voice of the Blackstaff without even looking.
Khelben's shout boomed over all the noise, including the keening shrieks of the sharn. One thing at a time, Raegar, the thief said to himself. Your only foe right now is the little winged tomcat. Nothing else. The tressym growled deeply and launched toward him, all claws extended. Raegar couldn't backhand the creature aside, as that would throw his balance and grip off, causing him to fall. The black-furred creature lunged for his eyes and face, but his hand held the creature off, getting a good clutch of fur around the tressym's chest. The lich's control over him made him more brutal than Raegar might normally have been, and his right arm slammed the tressym hard against the statue. Raegar expected it to be stunned at least, but the winged cat all but roared as it slashed its wings at Raegar's face. Some feathers jabbed hard into the thief's eyes, and Raegar felt his arm fling the creature hard away from him. The tressym recovered almost instantly, even avoiding the black-robed mage floating a few feet off the floor. The mage looked up at him, splitting his attention between Raegar and the sharn. Raegar watched Khelben's eyes dart to the thief's hands, the lightning bolts, the scroll, the tressym, back over to the sharn, and back to his eyes at long last. "Tsarra," he said to someone out of Raegar's eyesight, "stay back, but get him off the statue. Once the lightning is quelled, we have a chance to calm this sharn down enough to talk." Raegar heard her say, "Done," followed by the sound of a bowstring. Pain lanced through Raegar's left arm, and he let go. A small fountain of blood gushed from his forearm onto his face, and the arrowhead jutted from where his wrist and forearm met.
His legs squeezed hard, and even Raegar was surprised to find himself hanging fully upside-down, lightning crackling between his left hand and the scroll. Khelben hovered almost directly below him, but Raegar could not hear or see the tressym. Tsarra also remained out of sight behind him. Raegar smiled ruefully as he heard her say, "Very manly and stoic, not making a sound. Guess I'll need another arrow." Raegar liked her sense of humor, despite the circumstances. "Tsarra! You're not a tressym playing with your prey. End this now!" Khelben growled at her then uttered a stream of arcane syllables to summon a globe around the sharn, muffling its harsh cries. Raegar found that instead of falling or remaining still, his body rocked back and forth. He screamed, "Hrast!" without sound as he realized what his body was trying to do. His torso snapped backward hard as his legs released, and Raegar swore loud and long inside his head as he back-flipped through open air, his left hand aching toward its goal of the scroll.
The thief blanched even whiter when his flip revealed the tressym's location directly behind him. Raegar wasn't sure what he felt more at that moment-stunned pride in his body for having executed such a bold move, the sharp sting as the tressym's foreclaws slashed into his neck and face, the harsh pain as one claw hit the arrow embedded in his forearm, or the shock and shudder as his hands successfully grabbed one edge of the metal scroll and red sparks of magic coruscated all over his left arm and the scroll. After the initial contact, however, Raegar lost his grip with his left hand as blood gushed from his arm and covered the glove and parts of the scroll. The red sparks increased to a radiance that spread across the scroll and built in strength, rendering the blue lightning bolts purple within it. Raegar noticed they were arcing in a different direction-toward the woman below him, her bow drawn and ready. The blue sparks erupted around her midsection, and she said, "Khelben?" a moment too late. The sparks grew, as did the red glow around the gloves and scroll. Tsarra threw herself backward and away from the statue, but Raegar could only grit his teeth as he felt the lightning bolts build. At the same time, he felt a different tingling around his hands from the magical gloves.
From below him, Khelben yelled, "No!" and launched himself up into the air just as the lightning bolts grew into one massive bolt focused through Raegar's left hand. The massive bolt-the bluish magic leeched out to more brilliant white-thundered out and slammed into the Blackstaff with staggering force, blasting Khelben down to the floor.
Raegar noticed that the sharn also crackled within its globe, and it keened in pain. Raegar's attention returned to his own precarious perch. He didn't know what magic the gauntlets worked, but his left arm was totally numb, and his right hand was freezing cold as the red magic began pulsing. With the first pulse, all eyes not blinded by the earlier blast looked upward to see the red energies start to contract with each pulse. The energies also rendered the golden scroll in Oghma's marble hand smaller. The second pulse pulled the energy into both gauntlets while rendering them and the scroll translucent, almost invisible save for the red luminescence. Raegar sensed what was coming and prepared to fall as the third pulse contracted the radiance to pinpoints on his hands, and the scroll and gauntlets disappeared.
Raegar fell backward toward the cold marble. He lashed out at the last second, hoping to spin himself around so he might land better, but he only managed to kick empty air. The tressym zipped around Raegar and almost seemed to laugh at his predicament, mocking him with the very flap of its wings. Raegar struck the floor with his left shoulder, his head bounced off the marble, and he fell unconscious.
26 Mirtul, the Year of the Normiir (611 DR) The man without a name flew fast and silent. It mattered little to him most days, but some days brought up raw emotions decades old and saw him rage at the burdens namelessness placed on a child. That day, he raged for other reasons, and his anger fueled his speed. His swiftness also came from a new spell that rendered him incorporeal while in flight to allow no winds to hinder him. He had spent the past two days in constant flight. A recent vow to his Lady of Mysteries barred him from using gates, portals, or other methods of instantaneous travel. Flying across the North forced him to see the Everhorde's devastations firsthand. He saw the ogre war bands, the orc legions, and the giant patrols ravaging many places dear to him. His dreams and connections to her bade him press on and rein in his fury and his will to slow the Everhorde's onslaught. Not until he approached the mountains scant miles north of Deepwater Bay did he find an unavoidable battle. The creatures sounded like orcs, attacked as orcs did, but they had scaled skin of black and red, spat fire and acid, and flew on scalloped wings. The nameless one had never seen their like before until he suffered their mid-air ambush when he flew through Peryton Gap. His spell, which prevented interference by the winds, did not protect him from their physical assault. In his youth, the man had learned to fight in treetops and defend against foes coming from every side. As a mage, his spells placed him in many arenas stranger than the air amid a mountain pass. Magic protected him as he took their measure. He swept a flare of silver flame, an expanding aura of fire that blasted to cinders the two who grappled him. The other four he dispatched within minutes, using spells to break or ensnare their wings and doom them to deaths by long falls.