“The last time I looked, there weren’t any Zhentish outposts in those lands,” the first lord said. “I do not have to justify myself to you, Fzoul!”
“If you intend to build yourself an empire in the Dalelands, you certainly do,” Fzoul said. “Why should I stand aside and let you seize for yourself a prize that I have long desired?”
“Do you think you can take those lands from me?” Maalthiir demanded.
“Whether I can or I can’t, I am fairly certain that I can make sure you don’t get them, Maalthiir. If I can’t have them, you and your friends in Sembia can’t either.”
The lord of Hillsfar gave Fzoul a look so black that Scyllua took half a step forward, prepared to draw her blade in Fzoul’s defense. But Maalthiir controlled his anger with a visible effort.
“The Dales are incidental to my first purpose, Fzoul. I intend to drive the elven army out of Cormanthor. Neither you nor I will benefit from the return of elven power to the forest.”
The lord of Zhentil Keep nodded. “On that point I do not disagree. Do you really believe you have the strength to beat an elven army in Cormanthor?”
“I have acquired some useful allies lately.” Maalthiir shrugged. “They have a long and bitter quarrel with the elves.”
Fzoul measured the first lord, and he grinned fiercely. “Why, you have struck a deal with those fiendish sorcerers who have appeared in Myth Drannor! That is why you think you can risk a battle against the elves.”
“And you, if need be,” Maalthiir said.
“Do not threaten the Chosen of Bane!” Scyllua snapped, stepping close to Maalthiir.
The pale, silent swordsmen who stood beside the first lord fixed their cold gazes on her, hands dropping to sword hilts as one.
“Enough, Scyllua,” Fzoul said. “I must consider this.”
“As I said, Fzoul, I do not need your approval to act in Hillsfar’s best interests.” Maalthiir sketched a small bow, and without any other cue or command, his swordsmen gathered close around him. “I agreed to a parley because you have never troubled me with such a request before. Do not expect me to come at your beck and call in the future.”
“A moment, Maalthiir,” the high priest of Bane said. Fzoul raised a hand, palm outward. “If Hillsfar and Sembia insist on fighting Evermeet’s army to seize Cormanthor and the Dales, then I will have no choice but to make sure you fail. If I must choose Hillsfar or an elf coronal to be master of the Dales, I will choose the elves.”
The first lord glared at Fzoul. “Then I suppose it is a good thing that I have not put the choice in your hands,” he grated. “If that is all…?”
Fzoul swept an arm at the ruins around them and said, “Consider these ruins, Maalthiir. Is the lesson of this place lost on you? Two factions vying for rule over this city accomplished nothing but their own destruction, and neither side won.”
“Make your point swiftly, if you have one!”
“I will not let you have Cormanthor and the Dales to yourself. But I am willing to collaborate with you and your newfound friends in return for a share of the prize.” Fzoul stepped forward, and allowed ambition to creep into his voice. “For thirty years we’ve been waiting to carve up the Dales, but no one has made a move because of the threat posed by the other powers. Now Cormyr’s attention has been drawn westward by the Shadovar of Anauroch, and you have reached an understanding with Sembia. The two of us are now in the position to apportion these lands as we see fit, are we not?”
“Perhaps,” the first lord admitted. “Your proposal?”
“You take the eastern Dales, I’ll take the western, and Sembia can have the southern Dales. The great human powers of this land acting in concert present a threat that the elf army cannot hope to overcome. None of us gets all of what we want, because the others would not stand for it. But we could all wind up with significant gains, and more importantly we’d send the elves back to Evermeet empty-handed.”
Maalthiir hesitated, studying Fzoul. “Even if events fall out as you suggest, I think we will have a difficult time in sharing the Dales.”
“That is a problem for some other day.” The Chosen of Bane grinned again, his red mustache framing a predatory smile. “But that is a problem for the two of us to decide between us. We do not need any elven armies to complicate the question.”
The first lord nodded slowly and said, “Very well. I must confer with my allies, Fzoul, but in principle I agree to what you suggest. If you wish to help in our campaign, you should plan on marching against Shadowdale and Daggerdale as soon as possible. Your armies on the western flank of the Dales will draw crucial strength away from the center, where the decisive blow must fall.”
“Excellent. High Captain Darkhope and her army can march with a day’s warning. I am eager to know more about your plan for the campaign, and what Zhentil Keep can do to help.” Fzoul motioned to the guards who stood nearby, and two of the soldiers brought up a folding camp table and a couple of large chairs. “Now, why don’t we see if we can agree on which Dales clearly fall in whose sphere of influence, and how we can bring them under civilized rule?”
As promised, Jorin Kell Harthan met Araevin and his friends at the Greenhaven an hour after sunup. The half-elf had replaced his well-tailored tunic with leather armor studded with copper rivets and a long gray-green cloak he wore thrown over his shoulder. He had his long, dark hair tied back in a simple ponytail, and he carried a curved bow and a quiver-full of green-feathered arrows on his back. Jorin took one glance at Araevin and his friends, arrayed by the inn’s courtyard, and nodded.
“I see you’re no stranger to travel,” he observed. “Good. The Yuirwood can be difficult.”
The half-elf looked over to Donnor Kerth, and frowned. The Lathanderian wore his mail shirt over his thick arming-coat, keeping his heavier plate armor on a pack horse.
“Are you sure you want to wear all that iron?” Jorin asked. “You’ll be swimming in sweat within an hour. Once we enter the forest, you won’t have the sea breeze to cool you off.”
The Lathanderian shrugged. “I grew up in Tethyr,” he said. “I’m accustomed to wearing armor in warm weather.”
“Suit yourself,” Jorin said. “We may have to set free your pack horse before we cross to Sildeyuir, though. Do you want to leave the rest of your armor here?”
“If I have to, I’ll wear it,” Donnor said.
Araevin opened his own tunic another handspan, thankful that the mail shirt he wore was made of elf-wrought mithral, so light and fine that he hardly noticed its weight or its warmth. In bright sunlight it sometimes grew hot, but he did not expect much of that within the Yuirwood’s bounds. Ilsevele’s armor was somewhat heavier than his, since she wore a more complete suit, but it was also made of elven mail, and she was more accustomed to the weight of her armor than he was to his.
They followed the coastal road south and west out of Velprintalar, marching for an hour before they reached the River Vel. There they turned aside onto a dusty cart-track that followed the river south, toward its headwaters in the forest beyond. In a long, hard day of marching, they reached the small town of Halendos, hard under the eaves of the Yuirwood, and stayed the night in a comfortable roadside inn.
In the morning, they resumed their march, but Jorin soon led them away from the Vel, turning eastward on a narrow footpath that soon vanished into the warm green gloom of the Yuirwood. It was hot and still in the great forest, and Araevin was surprised to find that the undergrowth was exceedingly dense and difficult. It embarrassed him to admit it, but he would quickly have become lost without a track to follow or Jorin Kell Harthan as a guide.
For all its difficulty, the forest possessed a green and wild beauty. Colorful birds soared and chattered in the higher branches, and from time to time the trail wandered into sun-dappled clearings free of the thickets and underbrush, or stone-bounded forest pools of cool, inviting water. The old forests of the North that Araevin knew were distant, in some ways reserved, majestic but deeply asleep. The Yuirwood’s slumber was not deep at all, and Araevin could feel its watchfulness, its wild wariness, lurking as close as the brambles that scratched their faces and the vines that seemed eager to trap their footsteps.