Arclath whirled back to the fray and saw the death knight at his feet and snarlingly clawing at him, wildly hacking at the cobbles beneath and behind her with her blade and striking many sparks-yet failing to do more than make slices in Mirt’s already-ragged boots, as he spun deftly around on one shoulder on the cobbles, away from her.
Arclath drew back his sword to stab her, then turned its edge so its point could seek her neck and throat as he brought it down-just how does one slay a death knight, anyhail?
Then he faltered, his blade slowing and drifting aside in the air as something burst into his head.
No, some one. Elminster. Ashes were sliding itchingly over his collar…
Targrael was up again, an unlovely smile growing on her face as she swung her sword in a vicious slash that couldn’t miss.
Damn you, Elminster! Your brain-riding has slain me! You ruthless Storm’s sword struck aside Targrael’s with a shriek of straining steel, and the charging ranger’s shoulder slammed into the death knight and sent her staggering helplessly back. Whereupon, Mirt hooked Targrael’s planted hind foot out from under her and sent her toppling again.
“Back!” he roared, waving both arms wildly. “Keep ye back!”
Storm flung herself away from the bouncing, wallowing death knight, and as Targrael twisted around as swiftly as any angry eel, Mirt drew something from one of the many bulging pouches at his belt-and tossed it right in her face.
Arclath had time to see that it was a palm-sized sphere of rusty iron-and that the lady Highknight looked momentarily bewildered, ere her expression slid into dawning rage. Then the sphere glowed the purple-white of an awakening lesser enchantment of elder palace magics, and expanded with astonishing speed into a widening web of iron hoops, like the bands around an iron barrel. Still holding the shape of a sphere, they fell around the scrambling-to-her-feet Targrael in a cage.
Then they snapped tight again, trapping her, so that Mirt faced a much larger iron sphere from which jutted Targrael’s head, her empty hand, the tip of her glowing blade, and one foot, with the rest of her hidden within its widening, now overlapping bands.
“Stlarn it,” Mirt growled, weaving to his feet and huffing heavily for breath, “that’s not going to hold her for long! Not with yon fancy magic blade of hers.”
“It doesn’t have to,” Storm gasped, “if we can reach the palace before she’s free! Hurry!”
“But, but- Rune!” Arclath protested, even as Storm dragged Amarune to her feet and started to run.
He could see that Amarune was stumbling along blindly, the Harper holding her up and guiding her. Her back and side were drenched with fresh blood, but she moved like someone unhurt, just dazed and unable to see.
Small wonder, that last: her head was still encased in a helm far too large for her, whose flames were fainter and dwindling still more as Arclath stared. Flames that could be clearly seen out the open front of the helm, which had wobbled around to show him the back of Amarune’s head.
Was the blackened shell of metal healing her? It was certainly losing the fire that had raged in it in the wake of Elminster’s horror-rending spell.
Arclath shook his head. He would never understand magic… and what scared him was the strengthening suspicion that even archmages understood only scraps of it.
“Come on!” Storm snapped over her shoulder, running faster. Mirt wheezed, then groaned like a sick walrus, barreling forward in a pell-mell lurching.
Arclath looked at the spitting-with-rage death knight in her iron prison-in time to see her overbalance in her struggles and fall to the cobbles to roll helplessly, snarling curses-then started to sprint after everyone. Catching up to the odd parade all running toward the palace.
As the last of the wagons rumbled away from Sraunter’s alley door, Manshoon helped the alchemist slam and bar it, then ran for the cellar stairs.
He had to move fast; the wizards of war wouldn’t refrain from prying forever.
Not with their suspicions aroused, the city full of scheming nobles, and the sort of temper the Lady Glathra had.
A temper he would show her a match for, if it came to that. He was getting a headache already, what with having to dominate and control Sraunter and no fewer than six carters and drovers on three wagons. So soon after promising to limit himself, too. He’d picked the first three teams who’d stopped by the alchemist’s shop with supplies in closed wagons that were large enough, not the carters and drovers Manshoon might have chosen at his own leisure.
“Leisure” being something he entirely lacked, just then.
That headache was why Crownrood spellslept in his locked cellar room, and some streets away Dardulkyn was hidden in a closet in his mansion, deep in similar enspelled slumber, while Manshoon trusted — had to trust-in the explicit and detailed orders he’d given the helmed horrors to keep all intruders at bay. Including zealous Purple Dragons, war wizards, and for that matter, any Highknights who might be lurking in Suzail and aching to demonstrate their prowess.
Aching mind or not, this darkly handsome human body was strong and supple; he could descend the cellar stairs in three long strides without fear of falling or skidding into an unyielding wall.
Coming to a deft stop by the chair, he turned on his heel and sat, wasting not a moment in his haste to get to where he could stare at his scrying eyes. Three of them could be turned to cover most of the wagons’ route without need of going out and casting new scrying spells, and he’d either have to accompany a wagon himself to add the missing dogleg of streets, or risk doing without it. The beholderkin body he’d ridden back here could cast only spells worked by force of will or very simple utterances.
He stared into those three scrying eyes as he bent his will to making them leave the current array and drift to new positions, in a row floating together right in front of him, at the same time as he turned and refocused what they could see in Suzail.
Manshoon’s head throbbed with sharper pain. He clenched his teeth, pressed hard fingers against his temples, and glared at the moving scenes of the dark Suzailan night streets as they swam, drifted sideways… and then settled into the views he wanted.
He was in time to see the first of the wagons carrying his precious cargo rumble into view from beneath, and on down the street away from his scrying eye’s vantage point. It was followed by the second wagon.
It would have been subtler to send the wagons on different routes and approach the still-ringed-by-Dragons mansion singly, in something that was a little less obviously a convoy. It was proving hard enough to keep Sraunter, here at hand, and six other mens’ minds at a distance, as those six guided carthorses and steered wagons in a normal-seeming fashion, all firmly in thrall.
Hard, but necessary.
It would be less than wise to have drooling, vacantly-staring, oddly leaning men visible when the wagons approached Dardulkyn’s mansion-considering that under the tarps and behind the swing-gates of each wagon lurked the floating body of an undead beholder, bound for his new lair in Dardulkyn’s mansion.
Manshoon was trying not to think of what would have to happen when they arrived. He’d just have to put Sraunter to sleep, hope no one came banging at the doors of the closed-up shop-yes, alchemists tended to do business at all hours, but it was the darkest, coldest time of deep night-and awaken the distant Dardulkyn to cast concealing magics before he sent his will into the distant death tyrants, one after another, and made each of them move. He dared not trust even the thickest sea fog to hide something so distinctive as a larger-than-man-sized beholder from prying war wizards.