She lay on something hard but warmer than stone. She ached, here and there, and her shoulder throbbed, but the rending, blinding pain was gone. Wondering, she fought her eyes open and looked around.
Elminster's anxious face looked down at her. A soft breeze was blowing his beard caressingly across her forehead. "Shar?" he asked, voice rough. "Are ye all right?"
Sharantyr put a hand down and rolled to her side. "I… I think so." She looked around. She was lying on Elminster's robe, on the parapet walk. Dead Wolves littered the battlements around them. A few crows had found the bodies and were fluttering about and pecking experimentally.
The Old Mage was sitting unconcernedly in his clout and boots, the ring of regeneration gleaming on his finger. Sharantyr's gaze leapt to where the quarrel had struck him.
All she saw was a dark, angry-looking patch. Elminster smiled and held up the quarrel, dark with his own blood.
Sharantyr shuddered, and then dared a glance at her own shoulder. It had been clumsily bandaged with what looked like strips torn from Elminster's clout: cotton now stiff with dried blood. Her shoulder, unseen beneath-she wriggled it experimentally-felt whole. She raised questioning eyes to Elminster.
"The healing potions ye brought back," Elminster said. "Ye had all of them." He scratched at his beard and poked at her bandaged shoulder. "How d'ye feel?"
Sharantyr sat up, feeling light-headed. Under her torn leathers she was sticky and ached, her stiff and bruised muscles complaining, but her probing fingers encountered none of the fresh blood and deep wounds she had feared to find.
"Weak as a weaned kitten, Old Mage," she said with a smile, "but I'll live. Give me a few breaths more and I'll be up and swinging a sword again."
Elminster looked at the carnage around them. "I'll stand clear of thy way when ye do," he told her dryly.
Sharantyr answered his smile, briefly, but her eyes grew somber when she saw the dead. "I like this killing little," she whispered with sudden urgency, turning to him. "Believe me, won't you?"
Elminster put a swift, lean arm around her. "I do, Shar. I know ye well enough, now." He looked around them and added, "Mind, we need ye to try thy hand at it a little time longer." He held up the magic missile wand. "Ye seem far more effective than this, I must say."
Daera came out into the street like a silent shadow. There was at least one man outside, in armor. A Wolf!
The man was grinning, one armored hand clutching a twisted handful of long hair. The woman he held grimaced in pain but dared not even whimper; the long curve of his sword was hard against her throat. Another woman watched from a nearby door, mouth agape, frozen in fear.
"A good horse your man has," the Wolf said, almost conversationally. "I've seen it." His hand yanked her back into the hard embrace of his armor, then came around to her breast.
Deliberately, he tore the worn cloth of her bodice away. "Almost as good as his taste in women," the Wolf said, caressing her with cruel, bruising fingers. The sword brushed up and down her throat, reminding her not to scream.
"You're going to take me to that good horse," the Wolf said grimly as he forced her steadily along the street. "Silence! You, too," he added to the watching woman in the doorway, "or I'll slit both your throats and forego the pleasure of your company."
The awkward procession continued down the street, the captive woman feebly pointing at an alleyway. With a face dark as a hailstorm, Daera waved Ulraea to silence and went after them on silent feet, dagger ready.
She knew he'd look around before entering the alley, and hurried. She had to get his sword away, but how?
The armored back was very close in front of her, the smell of sweat and oiled metal strong. Ylyndaera Mulmar looked at it, knowing she had only a breath more to act, and inspiration came.
She stepped to his blind side as the Wolf's head started to turn, and slipped her dagger delicately up into the armpit of his sword arm, where armor plate ended and old, sweat-weakened leather began.
The man stiffened, roared in pain, and nearly dropped his blade. He whirled, snatching at it with his other hand, as three women screamed.
Ylyndaera snarled amid the shrieks and stabbed at the man's eyes from behind.
He shrieked, too, as blood fountained up from the wound in his armpit, and broke into an agonized, stumbling run. She watched him go, goaded by pain, as his bright blood ran down the dagger in her hand, and felt her gorge rise. No. She could not slay him that way, by finding an eye from behind, and feeling the blade go in… ohhh…
As her spew splattered on the stones in front of her, a thought came. She reached for a stone she knew was loose, from long-gone days when she'd played up this alley and down others.
The stone was large, flat, and very heavy. She caught up to the staggering Wolf, roughly tore off his helm from behind, and with both hands brought the stone down hard on his head.
He shuddered, started to curse, and fell. She did it again. Again. And again before something gave. His body jerked under her knees before it fell still.
As she rose, she looked into the great, dark eyes of the horse owner's wife, who stood watching, the marks of cruel fingers dark on her flesh. Daera managed a smile as she took up the man's sword, hefted it, and said, "Come with me, Jharina. I'm for the castle. We're going to kill us some Wolves."
From behind her, Daera heard a shocked gasp. Without turning she said, "Ulraea? Bring along Tanshlee, too. She'll catch a chill, standing gawping in that doorway all day."
Her eyes looked deep into Jharina's. The older, prouder lady looked back at the gangling girl with the sword and the bloody dagger, and drew in a deep, shuddering breath.
"Well?" Ylyndaera asked softly. "Are you with me?"
Jharina smiled. "Yes," she said, her voice almost steady. "Yes, I am." She stepped forward and embraced the high constable's daughter, treading on the fallen Wolf uncaringly.
"Lead us, lass," she said, "as your father does. Lead us."
Daera kissed her cheek, handed her the dagger, and started back out of the alley. "Hurry, then," she said. "The men may need us. All's gone quiet up there, and when magic's about, that means ill."
The bloodstained and mud-smeared Wolf who came stumbling out of an alley just then, to make a run for the castle, was unlucky indeed. The angry howls and screams of the women warned him before they reached him, but not in time for him to outrun them on a wounded leg. He swung his blade twice, jarring Ylyndaera with two hard parries, before his leg gave way and they had him. He did not scream long.
They paused for a moment to let Tanshlee be sick all over the body, then hastened up the road to the open castle gates. Men were hurrying about inside, halberds and swords gleaming in their hands. Wolves.
"Tymora," Daera breathed, "let us not be too late."
The words had scarcely left her lips when there was a great flash and booming sound from within the walls. A man's head, still wearing a helm and a shocked expression, flew past them amid a shower of stones, dirt, and other things best not examined too closely.
"Oh, gods," Daera cursed, and broke into a run. "Come on!"
They were almost at the gate before they heard the growing thunder of hooves clattering and pounding toward them. Frantically they flung themselves aside, diving to the turf, as the world exploded in racing horses.
"Daera," Ulraea quavered as they hugged the ground together amid rolling dust, "could you stop praying, d'you think? Every time you call on a divine one, something happens!"
"Oh," Daera replied, clutching her sword. "All right."
16
Elminster coughed. "If ye feel up to standing," he said, "I'd best be putting my robe back on now. Thy reputation, ye know. Besides, 'tis cold when one is old and thin and not used to drafty battlements."