The magic-user dug her heels into the dirt and pulled away from Kelemvor. "They've seen Adon!" Midnight snapped. "We can't leave him."
"It's stupid to sacrifice ourselves, too. Let Adon come to us, to safety, instead of our running into danger with him," Kelemvor snapped. The fighter knew that they faced a trio of deadly foes. His enhanced vision — one of the only positive effects of his curse — had already revealed the crimson stains of the symbol of Bane over the hearts of the riders. "You haven't changed at all, have you?" Midnight screamed as she ran from Kelemvor and stepped onto the bridge. "All you care about is yourself!"
The riders were no more than fifty feet from Adon and closing fast. Midnight approached from the north end of the bridge, yelling for Adon to move. The scarred cleric stood motionless, the bag containing the amber sphere from Elminster's tower and Midnight's spellbook clutched in his hands. All expression had drained from his face, and Adon stood as if he were a statue in the center of the bridge.
Before Midnight could reach Adon's side, the riders swooped in. The rider in the lead, the swordsman, aimed his nightmare directly at the cleric and held his sword thrust out before him. Seconds before the sword would rip through Adon's body, the rider drew up suddenly, and his mount veered up and over Adon's head as the other two riders sailed around the cleric on either side. The wind buffeted Adon, but he stood his ground. As the rider flew past, though, the canvas bag fell from Adon's hands, and the young cleric grabbed one of the hind legs of the monstrous horse.
"Adon, no!" Midnight cried, but it was too late to stop him. The cleric's body was yanked into the air above the bridge, twisting as he flew off into the sky.
The nightmare that Adon had grabbed let out an ear-piercing shriek and tried to shake the cleric off its leg. Flames from the creature's hooves danced around Adon's hands, singeing them, but still the cleric didn't let go.
At the north end of the bridge, Kelemvor stood alone, struck dumb by Adon's unexpected actions. The fighter watched as the cleric not only held on to the monstrous beast, but also began to climb upward, ignoring the horse's wildly flailing legs and flaming hooves.
The fetid smell of the nightmare's hide had almost caused Adon to release his hold on the mount when he first became airborne, but he had ignored the stench and settled his attention on more important matters, such as helping his friends — and perhaps redeeming himself in their eyes. He started to climb toward the rider, in the hope of deposing the assassin and taking control of the mount.
In the air, Varro, the assassin with the scythe, laughed at the spectacle. "Shake him loose, Durrock!" Varro cried. "His life is of no consequence as long as we capture the woman!"
The other assassin reigned his nightmare in and dashed past his scythe-wielding friend. "Leave him to his sport, Varro!" Sejanus said as he stopped swinging his bolos. "Besides, Durrock may want to keep the scarred one alive. They have something in common!"
Riding the mount that Adon was holding desperately to, Durrock ignored the comments of his fellow assassins. He had no need to gloat; his unexpected passenger was completely at his mercy. And if the reports that the Zhentarim spies had sent to him as he flew toward Blackfeather Bridge were correct, the cleric had already handed the assassins the day. Guiding his mount in an arc that would take him back to the bridge, Durrock marveled at the simplicity of the task ahead of him.
Finding the mage and her companions had been child's play. The path the travelers were taking was known. All the assassins had to do was follow the Ashaba until they spotted their prey. Better still, the heroes were not hiding along the river's edge, but standing on a bridge, in the open, when Durrock and his partners spotted them. It was as simple as shooting arrows at a prisoner in a pit.
On the ground, Kelemvor rushed to Midnight's side, but not for any altruistic reason. The assassins would never let him live if they captured or killed Midnight and Adon. The fighter was simply protecting his own life. As he considered his options, the fighter cursed. They might have stood a fighting chance against the assassins under cover of the woods, but Adon and Midnight had taken that option from him, and now Kelemvor was sure that they would all be as dead as the dalesmen very soon.
Next to Kelemvor, Midnight was lost in the spell that she was about to cast. As the riders drew near, Midnight knew that she could not risk harming Adon, so she took aim at the rider with the bolos, the one at the back of the charging formation, and released a fireball spell. A crackling, blue-white pattern of energy formed before the mage's trembling hands, then collapsed. Nothing else seemed to happen.
In the air, sailing toward the bridge, Sejanus had felt a moment of panic when he saw the mage on the bridge and realized she was attempting to cast a spell in his direction. When she completed the complex gestures and the spell seemed to fail, the assassin laughed and raised his bolos above his head. He prepared to throw the weapon and bind the woman's arms before she could try such foolishness again.
On the bridge, Midnight stared in shock at the flaming scimitar that hung poised over the head of her intended victim. No one else sees it, she realized as she watched the magical sword — the result of a spell called Shaeroon's Scimitar, if she guessed correctly — follow Sejanus. Midnight's spell had gone awry and had brought this force into existence by mistake. But the mage knew that she could profit from the error, and her eyes narrowed as she spoke. "Take him!" she whispered, and the scimitar descended.
A hundred feet above the Ashaba, with only a dozen yards between himself and the mage, Sejanus felt a searing pain begin at the base of his skull and race downward, through his spine, like a fire out of control. The agony flowed out from his spine, piercing every nerve in his body. He began to convulse, and his mount, confused by his motions, veered off at a right angle and raced upward toward the clouds.
As Midnight's errant spell struck Sejanus, Kelemvor stepped aside from the raven-haired magic-user and readied himself to face Varro, the scythe-bearing assassin. With his sword drawn, the green-eyed fighter prepared himself for the fury of the nightmare rider's descent. As the night-black horse came within twenty feet of Kelemvor, it opened its fanged mouth and belched out a foul-smelling cloud.
Now only a dozen feet away from the fighter, Varro gripped his scythe and prepared to match its steel against that of his prey's sword. The assassin leaned over the left flank of his nightmare as the creature arced upward, toward the right. The fighter's sword gleamed as it reflected the harsh sunlight at the assassin's back. Only a few feet from slicing his prey neatly in half, Varro was shocked as the fighter leaped forward, brought his sword down in a crashing blow against the assassin's weapon, then rolled to the bridge and out of Varro's view. As his mount rose to the east, over the bridge, the assassin looked at his weapon in shock.
"You'll pay for this, dog!" Varro screamed in disbelief, dropping the shattered scythe into the river. The assassin reined in the nightmare and drew a sword. The monstrous horse beneath him turned as sharply as it could, but as he turned back to the west, into the sun, Varro was shocked to see Durrock hovering over the bridge, not attacking, just hanging in the air. The image was both beautiful and terrible, a majestic silhouette in black against the blazing orb of the sun. The body of the cleric dangled from Durrock's hand, and the assassin's sword was raised high over his head.
"This game is over!" Durrock cried. "Varro, stay where you are!"
Varro dug his heels into the sides of his mount, and the nightmare reared once but held its position. On the ground, Kelemvor stood, his heart racing, as Midnight moved toward the center of Blackfeather Bridge.
Durrock's nightmare exhaled a cloud of smoke and snorted. The assassin brandished his sword and yelled, "Surrender now or your friend dies! Decide!"