"Easy," Mhegras muttered back, baring his teeth in an unlovely smile. "I've just the spell to-"
"No," Sabran said flatly, "no spells. I don't want magic touching her. How do we know it won't make her spellfire boil up and snatch her awake, furious and looking for whoever awakened her?"
The Zhentarim wizard scowled, flexed his fingers as if he wanted to hurl a dozen fireballs, and hissed, "So?"
"You brought your dagger, didn't you?"
"And cast the protections you ordered on us both. What're you going to-"
"Drug our little lady of flame so she doesn't waken and make fire-char of both of us. Now save your brawn and bluster. We'll be wanting to carry her far enough away from here that we can find a stream and go wading in it a good long way, to keep from being tracked come morning."
"Think of everything, don't you?"
"Just keep on learning, lad, and hold that temper down with both hands, and someday you'll think of things just as fast as I do. Possibly faster." The priest held up a hand for silence and crept forward on hands and knees. Another dozen feet or so would bring him around the last rocks, to a clear crawl downslope to where the spellfire-wench and her so-called wizard lay.
Mhegras watched Sabran go and marveled once more at the man's uncanny silence. He'd have to remember that when it came time to kill him.
Shandril suddenly moaned, twisted, gasped something unintelligible, and thrust herself violently upward under Narm. "No," she gasped, panting as if she'd sprinted a long way, "No!"
"What is it, Shan?" Narm cried, hastily sitting back to let her rise, as she clawed at him and her voice rose almost into a shriek of terror. "Don't-don't you-"
Drenched with sweat, she stared around wild-eyed, not seeing Narm, and flung out her hands. Spellfire spat from her fingers into the night, and a sudden wash of it rolled down her shoulders and arms and away across the ground, eerie flames racing away over moss and rotting leaves and crisscrossing roots, to fade into drifting wisps of smoke.
Her gaze found him then, and she murmured, "Oh, Narm" Shaking her head, she held up her hands. Spellfire burst from her fingertips, flaring up in tiny jets. She watched them blaze for a moment, frowned, and they all sank down in unison and died.
Nodding her head, she said grimly, "It obeys me again." She drew in a deep, ragged sigh and added despairingly,
"But look how swiftly it's come back! I was drained, and now-so strong, and still building!" Unshed tears were glimmering in her eyes.
"Oh, Narm," she asked, voice quavering, "what am I going to do?"
"Bane for fend, priest-what now?"
"We creep right back to our wagon again," Sabran replied coolly, "and wait for a better chance. Unless you want to find as swift and warm a grave as all the others along on this caravan who didn't wait."
Mhegras cast a quick look back at the awakened lass through black fingers of spellfire-scorched branches that were wreathed in little plumes of smoke, and hissed, "No. Creeping back home seems very wise about now."
Sabran nodded silently and led the way, as stealthy as ever. Still shaken, Mhegras did strictly as he'd been told earlier, keeping only a hand-length behind Sabran's boots and putting his own hands and feet just where the priest had, without complaint. On hands and knees like slinking dogs they went, down a little gully and back up its far side, over a wooded ridge where the path burned by spellfire was clearly visible amid a sharp stink of woodsmoke, and across bright, moonlit rocks to another dark gully.
The way was tricky, through many vines and branches, and not even Sabran saw two dark figures rise up behind them like shadows.
Fingers fell like steel claws on two Zhent necks, heralded by a little, terrified chirp from Mhegras.
"Oh, no, you don't-either of you. Zhent dogs."
"Who-?" Sabran choked, as fingers closed inexorably around his throat, and went on closing.
"Our names are unimportant," said a soft, rough-edged, and somehow familiar voice, from behind the gargling, squalling Mhegras.
"Aye," the man throttling Sabran agreed, and the frantically twisting priest saw the glint of teeth catching moonlight in a grin. "In fact, you can call us Arauntar an' Beldimarr"
The priest spent precious air. He had to know "Wh- why?"
"Let's just say we've been known to harp," Arauntar murmured and broke the wizard's neck.
Ruled by a Madman
Many a spoiled whim-driven tyrant is deemed mad, but he who listens to his dreams of "might have been" and "should have been me" is truly ruled by a madman. Let such whispers whirl away like a cap plucked off by the wind, and ride on happier. There'll be time for regrets soon enough; when they're lowering you into your grave, if not earlier.
Narm eyed the ropes Arauntar and Beldimarr had bound around the untidy stack of wagon wheels and shook his head. He knew how valuable they and the axles heaped beside them were to any caravan. He might be a novice wizard who knew even less about road-travel than about magic, but to him they still looked like hazards waiting impatiently to topple and crush a certain Narm and Shandril.
The alternative was for them both to sit out all day on the perch where arrows could readily find them as they bounced and rumbled along through the Blackrocks, while everyone in the caravan watched Shan struggling to hold back her spellfire. Voldovan had curtly installed them in a wagon so crammed with cargo and gear salvaged from wagons now gone-the roster of the vanished had grown frightening- that there was barely space inside for two to sit touching knee to knee, let alone lie down or try to get away from things they might set afire.
"Easy, Narm," Shandril murmured. "Stop fretting. Whatever happens will happen, without a single word or lifted finger from us."
Narm sighed." 'Tis just that I can see these crashing down and bouncing all over the place, right out onto the perch to sweep you under our wheels-and the hooves of all the beasts pulling the wagons behind!"
"Try to see less," she suggested innocently, from where she sat cross-legged at his heels, "and finish your dawnfry. Voldovan doesn't sound like he'll wait for us or anybody, angry gods included."
Narm snorted. "Does he ever sound any different? He should have been a warmaster somewhere or the tyrant of his own warrior kingdom!"
"Don't," Shandril said severely, "give him any ideas. That man can hear flies crawling on horses at the far end of the caravan!"
Narm snorted again. "A pity he hasn't the tact of a typical biting fly. I wish he did. I wish-"
He sighed, turned until their knees touched, and put his hands on her shoulders. "I wish a lot of things. I wish I was a strong, calm war-leader like Florin and an archmage as mighty as Elminster, but with Jhessail's cheerful openness. I wish neither of us had ever heard of spellfire. I wish-"
"I wish, I wish," Shandril reproved him teasingly, "does nothing but get one in trouble if the gods hear and waste the lives of those doing the wishing. Up, lord and master of my heart. Let's have our horses ready when the raging flame that's Voldovan comes snarling past."
As they rose, Narm said quietly into her ear, "Speaking of raging flame…"
"I'm still weak," she murmured back, "and we'd probably both be dead now if Arauntar hadn't carried me back here. Prowling leucrotta and wolves don't really care what powers I might have, if I'm too asleep to keep them from tearing out my throat."
Narm winced. "You're the swaggering hero of us two, and I more the shy maid. I'm… I'm just not made for this! I feel so-"