“ ‘Make,’ ” the younger Farideh corrects.
“You will be fine,” Mehen says. “You’ll have your sister with you. A blade at your side.” He pauses and his great nostrils flare. “Hmmph. But keep her from running off. She needs you to be her. . voice of reason.”
Farideh looks away. “She doesn’t listen to me.”
“She does,” Mehen says. “She doesn’t listen to everyone, but she listens to you, Fari. Even when it doesn’t look like it.”
He looks her over once, then hugs her tight. “Remember: keep your wrist firm and your grip gentle. And don’t worry about the day patrol.”
Two fat tears send a series of ripples over the scene. Farideh wants to ask if Havilar would have listened this time, if it would have been wiser to tell her the truth about Bryseis Kakistos, the collector devils, and the Toril Thirteen. But the waters don’t know the answer any more than she does, and Farideh is running short of time.
Though not as short as the people she’s doomed, she reminds herself. She steels herself and looks up at the apprentices, who watch her back, appraising. Whatever it is she’s done, their opinion of her is shifting, and it doesn’t soothe her at all.
Chapter Twelve
23 Ches, the Year of the Nether Mountain Scrolls (1486 DR) The High Forest
Mehen crouched behind a moss-covered hump of stone, peering past at the moonlit clearing. The Thayan party had stopped, lowering the palanquin carried between two hulking zombies so that the two necromancers inside could exchange places with two more of their fellows. The remaining two clutched the leads of eight ghouls between them, as the creatures pulled like errant hounds, scenting the air wildly. The Harpers had moved carefully, staying downwind of the pack. The smell was thick, and every time Mehen nervously tasted the air, he fought not to gag.
Eight ghouls, six necromancers of unknown skill, two zombies, one towering creature with fingers like sharpened stakes that one of the scouts had identified as a boneclaw. And a Red Wizard.
“She’s sleeping in the palanquin,” Ebros had reported back. “The other wizards swapped in about half an-” He caught himself at Daranna’s furrowed brow. “Eight songs ago.”
“Now’s the time, then,” Vescaras said. “Let’s move.”
“Send your scouts around,” Mehen said. “Fire arrows from behind.”
“I know how to stage an ambush, goodman,” Daranna said. She had nodded at the scouts, gestured quickly in a rough circle, and they’d sped off into the forest.
Now, crouched and ready to attack, Mehen could just mark Ebros in the rustle of a tall oak tree. Daranna peered into the dark, checking for a sign of each.
“Ready?” Khochen murmured.
By way of answer, Daranna gave a nightjar’s looping trill, summoning the scout’s arrows as surely as she might a trained hawk. Two hit ghouls-one straight through the eye, one with a thud and a screech in the meaty part of its back. Their keepers turned toward the source of the arrows, loosing the ghouls. The two wizards who’d just woken pulled globes of light into being. More arrows struck more ghouls in the dark. Then a wizard dropped, clutching an arrow in the gut. The ghouls found the scent of the hidden Harper scouts, scrabbling at the bark of the trees.
The curtains of the palanquin twitched.
“Go,” Daranna said.
The arrows kept coming, but now the wizards aimed their spells at the scouts’ hiding places, splashing the trees with dark magic. Branches withered, leaves dropped. One scout yelped and fell to the brush as Mehen swung his falchion and took the wizard who’d brought her down across the chest. The wizard fell, a look of shock on his features, and Khochen’s dagger froze them that way with one sharp motion. A ghoul leaped on her, but Khochen turned it aside, and toward its former master’s body as she rolled under. The ghoul took the offering, and Khochen took the opportunity to run it through.
The Red Wizard burst from her palanquin, all fury and fiery light, and turned against the scouts and the Harpers that harried her undead and her apprentices. No taller than Khochen, but thicker, her skin was ghostly in the moonlight. Her inky hair stood out in a plume down the center of her shaven head and ran down her back in a thick queue.
Mehen shoved aside another ghoul and slammed against the zombie that had broken free of its harness and come at him, claws raised.
The Red Wizard cast a splatter of flames at the battle beyond, catching Vescaras’s sleeve and sending Daranna scuttling back from the boneclaw she’d been harrying. The scouts aimed their arrows at the boneclaw, and as they hit, they burst with a vibrant green light that made the boneclaw scream. It threw a hand up and the tapered blades of its middle fingers stretched impossibly far, up into the trees. Mehen heard Ebros cry out, and Daranna threw herself at the boneclaw again.
The Red Wizard started shouting orders to her remaining apprentices- only three now-to fall back, to pull in toward the palanquin.
But before she could finish, Mehen had reached her and her dangling braid.
He grabbed hold of it and yanked hard. With a yelp, the Red Wizard toppled backward, off the palanquin and to the ground.
Mehen set one clawed foot on her forehead and pressed the edge of his falchion against the woman’s throat. “Call them off,” he hissed. “Unless you can raise things when you’re the one beyond the grave?”
The woman’s dark eyes flicked down to the blade, shocked and fearful. Hesitantly, she raised a hand to the amulet she wore. Shadows twined around her hand.
The undead all froze and looked to the necromancer. Vescaras ran another ghoul through-the creature died with an inhuman screech-before he realized something had changed. The last three apprentices held their spells, dancing in their palms, and watched their leader.
The amulet still clutched in her hand, the Red Wizard looked up at Mehen. She was younger than he’d guessed-younger than his girls. “We surrender.”
“No need,” Daranna said, advancing with her blade out.
“Hold,” Vescaras said. He sheathed his rapier, eyeing the boneclaw, swaying in place, its skinless face impassive. “My friend doesn’t like trespassers in her forest, Lady Red. You might make her mood improve if you tell her what you’re doing here.”
The wizard’s eyes never left Mehen’s. “We have a mission. One you might be interested in for your own sakes. Parley?” Daranna snorted.
“You’ll forgive us,” Khochen said, “but parleying with zombies breathing down our necks is hardly appealing.”
“One zombie,” the wizard corrected. “One boneclaw. Four ghouls. Three necromancers. All held at bay. And myself. You have-I must admit-the advantage. In more than one fashion-I am Zahnya, of the Red Wizards of Thay. Who are you?”
“Your doom,” Daranna said. Vescaras sighed.
“Would you happen to be enemies of Netheril?” she asked. Her first fear at Mehen’s sudden presence had slipped behind a facade, but Mehen could see it, lurking behind her eyes. Not a lunatic, not a bluff-someone’s daughter, he thought. He kept the sword where it was, though.
“Because I might have information to trade,” Zahnya went on. “A partnership to offer, perhaps.”
“In trade for what?” Vescaras asked.
“Not killing me?” Zahnya squeezed the amulet more tightly, her eyes still on Mehen. “There’s a fortress, in the mountains. A wizard of Shade has a prison camp there. That is our mission: find it, destroy it, claim what weapons we can.”
The Harpers did not speak. Mehen felt as if every eye were on him in that moment-as if the Harpers and the undead knew that Mehen would be the one to decide the fate of this unlikely party. She can find Farideh, he thought. “What wizard?” he growled.