If she carved up this Zhent wizard, she'd have no time to hold back all the swords coming for her. And who would protect Elminster then?
Sharantyr sprang up, too busy to curse, and leapt to meet the first warrior. From behind her, a magic missile streaked into one of the faces at the door, quelling the shout it was widening to utter. The other missile must have struck the new lord of the dale. Behind her she heard him gasp, curse, and roll frantically away.
Then she was fighting for her life and had no time to watch Angruin Stormcloak frantically teleport away.
Harpies curse the woman, whoever she was, were his parting thoughts. He'd snatched the time to take that spell back into his mind as battle raged at the very gates of the castle. Now it was used and gone, with dangerous fools still lurking about.
Red butterflies suddenly swirled all around Sharantyr, and with them came a drift of snow.
She heard Elminster sigh and murmur, "Wands!" in exasperation. Then the first warrior slipped on something and fell heavily at her feet, nearly taking her with him. She caught the second blade reaching for her life at the last possible instant.
The first man was struggling and heaving beneath her, reaching for a dagger or trying for room enough to get his sword into her, no doubt. The second man was snarling and using all his strength to force into her face the broadsword she'd parried a finger or so in front of her nose. Sharantyr set her teeth and resisted, knowing he was stronger and that the struggles beneath her were forcing her up into the waiting blade.
"Lady, aid me," Sharantyr cried, calling on Mielikki, the goddess of the forest. "Tymora and Tempus, attend," she added for good measure, seeing death very close to her and reaching dark fingers her way.
Then the man above her grunted and was spitting blood and teeth as a tattered, dirty, and familiar boot took him in the face. Elminster had joined the fight. He stepped on her with a muttered, "Sorry, lass," as he bent to drive his dagger into the neck of the man beneath her. Then he sprang up, robes swirling, to stamp on the sword hand of the man he'd kicked. There was a cracking sound and a roar of pain, and Elminster had the sword in his own hands and was bringing it up to parry the rushing attack of the third man.
"Shar," the Old Mage suggested calmly as a flurry of ringing blows drove him back across her toward the stair, "cut the legs out from under this fellow for me, will ye?"
Sharantyr grinned savagely. "I'll do better," she replied, and snaked an arm out from under the tangle of limbs to drive her sword up into the breeches under his armor skirt.
The man screamed, gave an awkward hop, and fell to the floor, writhing in agony. Elminster dropped the sword and went to the table.
Men were thundering back up into the room, hastily donning helms and drawing swords. Elminster picked up the heaviest chair he could find, and with a sudden rippling of muscles threw it across the room to crash into the foremost man.
The startled Wolf went down, and the man behind him tripped and went sprawling. Elminster hurled the iron sphere he was carrying at the next man and charged forward, snatching out his dagger again.
He used it twice with brutal haste before he reached the pinioned man. With a bleak smile he struck the sword out of the man's hand and shoved the man hard with his shoulder.
The man was wrapped in metal bands, like a cage that has tightened around its prisoner until the bars press into the skin all around and movement is impossible. Elminster drove the helpless man backward into the door frame, where he lodged amid cracking noises of wood and bone, and a scream of pain.
"Noisy, these Zhents," he commented as the man screamed again. Men behind him in the corridor outside the room began to curse, trying and failing to push the pinioned Wolf out of their way. "How do ye, Shar?"
Sharantyr came to join him, blade wiped clean. "I'm still alive," she replied grimly, eyeing the man, "but I like little the thought of hacking my way through that lot. What say we go back up again and seek another way down?"
Elminster frowned for a breath or two as unseen men shoved and cursed, doing something that made the caged man scream again. Then he nodded. "I don't like to leave magic behind, with things as they are," he said, eyeing the iron bands, "but there's no easy way to get that back without fighting all of them. I suppose I should thank Mystra and Tymora both for it merely working when I needed it."
Sharantyr nodded and took his arm. "Come, El. Let's be out of here before someone else finds magic that works and fills this room with fire-or worse."
Elminster looked again at the now-unconscious man, head bouncing and lolling from the force of blows he was taking from behind as impatient warriors tried to force their way into the room. He sighed, drew up his robes in both hands for faster climbing, and made for the stairs. Sharantyr glided just behind him, sword ready, watching their rear as they ascended. It was turning into a very long day.
17
"Is the high constable still alive?" Sharantyr asked as they came cautiously out of the turret and looked around. A quiet had fallen over the High Castle as the afternoon sun lit up its every nook and crevice. In the courtyard below, a few dalefolk could be seen cautiously probing bodies and piles of rubble and tumbled gear. Doors were closed, and turret windows shuttered. Save for a thin wisp of smoke rising from the castle kitchens, the fortress seemed deserted, as if no one lurked within, plotting victory and gathering swords and magic.
Elminster spread empty hands. "Mulmar? I barely recognized him, ye know, with the chains an' all. He headed for the battlements by one stair while we ascended by the other. I lost sight of him after that. I seem to recall hearing him cry out when they were firing all those quarrels at us." He winced. "If he fell there, in the forecourt, I may have sent him to the gods myself a little later when I hit the Zhent's globes."
At the memory, he drew the wand from his belt, looked at it quizzically, and sighed. "I can't remember what Art is left in this. It's gone wild so many times now, who can tell?" He shrugged. "Let us seek Irreph, whate'er befalls now. Thy thought is a good one."
Sharantyr smiled at him. "Of course. They always are." She handed her sword to him. "Here, hold this."
"The eternal saying of a woman to a man," Elminster observed wryly. "But why to me, and now?"
Sharantyr grunted under the dead, dangling weight of the corpse she'd picked up. "Because I need both hands… for this." She staggered back along the walk, the dead man on her shoulders, and dumped the carrion through the turret window.
"Drag a few over here, will you?" she called. "Before we look for the high constable, we'd best guard our rear."
Elminster dragged obediently. The lady ranger tossed the bodies down the stairs, Haragh first.
"They'll carve or crush their way past the one you trapped down there soon enough," Sharantyr said. "If they have to get past all of these to come after us-well, at least they'll be slowed down. Or if they use magic to shift them, we'll be warned." She puffed, heaved, and sweated until cold, heavy bodies choked the stair and covered the turret room floor. Then she squinted at Elminster, pulling hair out of her eyes, and said, "I'll be glad when this day's done, Old Mage. I'm beginning to feel old."
Elminster raised an eyebrow. "A thousand and more years old am I, and d'ye hear me groaning and limping and feebly protesting my age? Surely ye can manage the weight of a mere twenty-odd winters, lass!"
He grinned at her expression and added innocently, "Or is it thirty-odd?"
The Old Mage of Shadowdale then demonstrated the light weight of his years for all the Realms to see by running off as fast and nimbly as any naughty child at play. Sharantyr aided him by amply demonstrating his immediate need to do so.