Elminster used his wand on them from afar, cast a look to his right-there were no bowmen atop the inner wall or anywhere else that he could see, and judging by the sounds from below, the dalefolk had reached the forecourt-and started running along the wall, swinging his sword to gain speed.
Sharantyr twisted aside too slowly and took a cut across the back of her raised left arm above the elbow. Elminster heard her sob and then snarl, and fired his wand at the man attacking Shar.
Sharantyr was tiring and in pain. Her long hair spun wildly about her as she panted and danced, the heavy ringing of steel loud in her ears as she traded blows with a Wolf who would not fall. They had no shields. Each blow and counterblow was taken on their blades with leaden, numbing force. Sharantyr reeled back, fighting for breath, and her opponent pressed forward, daring to grin for the first time.
Elminster's wand spat magic again, stars leaping to strike two Wolves. The man fighting Shar staggered, and behind him, one of the Wolves with bows fell heavily onto his face and lay still.
Sharantyr lunged wearily in to slash the face of the staggering Wolf, then shoved him aside. He fell into the forecourt with a strangled cry of protest, waving his blade as if it could catch hold of something and save him. It could not.
The lady ranger reached the last bowman. Desperately he brought up his heavy, half-winched weapon to block a thrust at his throat, then dropped it and ran.
Sharantyr took two running steps after him, then shook her head and collapsed against a crenellation, gasping for breath. Elminster watched the man cast a look back to see that he was not pursued. The Wolf went to a nook in the wall where another stair descended. The Old Mage's eyes narrowed. He was doing something in there… loading another crossbow?
Elminster fished under the body of the bowman he'd felled with his wand, dragged out the loaded, ready bow, and struggled to raise it. He was still puffing and staggering when Sharantyr's hand touched his shoulder.
"El," she panted, "what are you-oh." She dragged the bow out of his hands, staggered for a moment under its weight, and fired at the nook just as the Wolf cast an anxious look back at them.
Blood blossomed in the man's face. His head grew larger for an instant, then disappeared from sight. Sharantyr went to an embrasure in the parapet and shoved the bow out into space.
She turned back to Elminster, breast heaving, covered with blood and sweat, and said, "Next time… if you live… to pull a next time on me… choose someplace to go for a walk… that doesn't… have any gates… hey?"
Elminster chuckled and kissed her cheek tenderly. Then, his arm around her, he wiped the sweat from her brow with his sleeve and fumbled under his robes.
Sharantyr raised an eyebrow. Elminster pushed at her shoulder impatiently. "Sit ye down a moment," he ordered.
The ranger shook her head. "No," she panted. "Do that, and I'm finished. My arms… tighten up, everything'll hurt… I must…"
Her words died away as she saw him heft the sphere of iron bands in his hand. "Ye will sit down," he said, smiling crookedly, "one way or another."
Sharantyr rolled her eyes at him, sighed heavily, and with a lopsided grin sat down against the parapet. Elminster knelt beside her and triumphantly drew out a ring, which he slipped onto her finger. It was still warm from the heat of his body.
"Lie still," he ordered, "for a time, while I look below and see what befalls. There's been a strange scarcity of Zhent wizards since that one fled from the market. It worries me."
Sharantyr started to laugh weakly, staring around at the heaped bodies. "Worried? Now why should you be worried? Not so long ago, you were attacking this castle alone!"
"Alone? I had a horse," Elminster reminded her dryly. Her helpless laughter grew and grew until it became a bit wild.
Elminster laid a comforting hand on her shoulder as he looked around-along the battlements and at all of the High Castle's turrets, down into the forecourt and at what he could see of the main courtyard beyond without leaving Sharantyr. Then he glanced over the battlements at the shops and cottages below.
Of the Wolves who'd galloped forth into the marketplace, not one remained alive except the handful who'd managed to get back inside the walls-unless, perhaps, one or two of the sprawled bodies yet held a grim grip on life, or a Wolf or two had fled down the streets or found somewhere to hide.
Outside the walls, the folk of the dale ruled, though they'd paid a heavy price in blood for their victory. On the battlements not a living Wolf stood. The Sage of Shadowdale and the lady Knight of Myth Drannor were alone with the dead.
In the forecourt below, weary men and women hacked and staggered. The dalefolk had determined not to let a Wolf live, and the Zhentilar were as adamant that they'd hold the castle and rally to crush this uprising later.
Or rather, most of them were adamant. As Elminster stood looking, Sharantyr's shoulder rising and falling under his hand with her still-heavy breathing, a door opened in the nearest turret.
It was a little way along the rampart, past several nooks. Elminster began to lower himself into a crouch and then shrugged. It was too late. He and a tired-looking Zhentilar in scratched and muddy armor were staring into each other's eyes across an easy bow-flight of empty air.
The man stepped forward but made no charge or threatening gesture. Behind him, other men pushed through the door: half a dozen or more Wolves, two carrying large and heavy coils of rope. The others had-Elminster's heart sank-heavy crossbows and large armory boxes of quarrels.
Elminster watched them as they all in turn looked his way. They got to work with windlasses to ready and load their bows. The pair with the rope spent some time fashioning a long, heavy knot to join the two coils, then threw the first coil out over the battlements to plummet down, pulling most of the rope behind it.
The sounds of battle grew louder below. More Zhents had emerged to defend the forecourt, or more dalefolk had found the courage to ascend the road into the castle. Elminster did not move to find out which.
The Wolves were looking down the rope, now, and tossing handlengths more of it over the wall. They planned an escape, their bows ready to shoot down any who saw them and moved to imperil their descent.
Elminster uttered a silent curse at the loss of his Art as he raised his wand. A Wolf who'd been watching him all this while was steadying a loaded crossbow on a crenellation, turning it Elminster's way.
Elminster unleashed the wand's powers with his will and the more powerful of the item's two words. Blue smoke curled up from its tip, and three pink flowers appeared in the air flying in a line heading toward the Wolves, grew rapidly in size and splendor. Then they were gone in little bursts of rosy light.
Mystra smile upon us all. Elminster watched the crossbow swivel around as he sank down against the wall beside Sharantyr.
She regarded him calmly. "What befalls?"
Elminster shrugged. "This failed," he said, waving the wand. "Unfortunately, I don't feel up to defeating the six or seven Zhentilar warriors who are up here with us." Sharantyr made as if to rise, but he held her down with a surprisingly strong hand. "They have loaded crossbows," he added nonchalantly.
Sharantyr looked at him and sighed. "Well," she asked quietly, "shall we crawl back along the wall as fast as we can, then?"
"It might be prudent," Elminster agreed. "Yet it claws at my craw to do so. They'll be over the wall, on a rope, and be gone, probably to raise the rest of the Zhents in the dale at our backs."
"I did not charge the gates of this place alongside a naked man in chains," Sharantyr told him with a smile that touched her lips for the briefest of moments, "to start being prudent now."