“Y-yes,” Rune managed, matching her glare for glare. “Don’t think I’m ungrateful-”
“Oh, I don’t,” Storm replied, trading two swift parries with a mountain of a mercenary before dispatching him with a leaping thrust up through his mouth into his brain. “I think you’re being stupid. Just as I was stupid to bring you here.”
She spun around and slashed another mercenary across his eyes, letting the force of her swing bring her back around to face them-and another mercenary, who stumbled back in alarm at her speed. “A mistake-”
She sprang to meet that stumbling mercenary, and at the last instant sidestepped and surprised the one beside him with a thrust through the man’s leather-gloved sword hand. He shrieked, she twisted her steel free and fed it back to the stumbling man-right through his neck, just as Arclath had been wounded, something he winced at the sight of-and turned to add, “-I’ll now-”
She spun around again, to strike aside a hurled spear, then pluck up a fallen mercenary with her hair and fling him at the ankles of a trio of advancing besiegers, forcing them into cursing falls, and added over her shoulder, “-rectify.”
And without any warning at all she spun around again with her arms spread, and gathered Arclath and Amarune into a fierce hug.
Which became a tingling shroud of silver-blue fire, magic that snarled up into a rushing wind that flung all three of them aloft, soaring up in a great arc that tore through leaves and small branches to hurtle up into the sky, far above the countless helms and shoulders of the mercenary army below.
And on through air that was surprisingly chilly, high and far before it started to descend, the huge trunk of a gigantic shadowtop looming up to meet them-
Storm hissed something that snatched all three of them abruptly aside, to the left, to miss crashing into that huge tree.
Instead, they smashed into the bough of another tree with enough force to wind and daze all three of them, and break Storm’s hug-so the three of them tumbled on through a bruising, buffeting, deafening chicane of torn and whirling leaves, shattering twigs, and dancing branches, plummeting down, down, and-
Through a tangle of vines and snapping, collapsing dead trees those vines had strangled, to crash at last to earth.
Or rather, several soft and mushy feet of dead leaves, to rebound out of muck that had a decidedly skunky smell, and roll to a painful stop in a thorn bush.
It was quite some time before Arclath had breath enough to groan. He rolled over, still moaning, and grunted, “Rune? Rune?”
“I’m fine,” his beloved replied sourly. “More or less.”
Arclath peered rather blearily in the direction Amarune’s voice was coming from, and beheld a wincing Storm rolling over to her knees, his Rune tangled in the bard’s long silver hair-and sliding off her back.
“While I,” the bard informed Arclath gingerly, “have been better. Thank you for asking.”
She got to her feet with a wince and a hiss of pain, her tresses setting Amarune upright with gentle care, and peered all around.
Distant mercenaries shouted, and they heard crashing as heavy-booted men hurried closer.
“Time,” Storm announced, “to fly.” And she reached out and hugged them again.
“Not like last time, I hope,” Arclath managed, as magic swept them aloft again.
“No,” Storm agreed firmly. “A moment ago I was making us all look like a catapult load, because some of yon hireswords will be itching to use the bows, which Myth Drannor’s wards have been foiling, on something. This time, we’ll be flying properly-with about as much control as a heavy, ungainly bird.”
An arrow shivered off the nearby spreading branches of a duskwood, and Storm sighed and announced, “Change of plan. If arrows can fly, we’re far enough from the wards to translocate.”
“Translocate?” Arclath asked suspiciously.
“Teleport,” Storm informed him-and blue light rose like a mist all around them, and fell over them like a cloak in the next instant.
Then they were falling through a soft blue void, all sounds of the forest gone, and … standing on a flagstone floor.
“My kitchen,” Storm announced. “In my farmhouse, in Shadowdale.”
Arclath and Amarune looked at each other, then with one accord started slowly turning as they gazed all around.
They were in a low-raftered room with fieldstone walls and wooden countertops inset with marble tiles and sinks, furnished in sturdy stools and thick plank-topped tables. Diamond-paned windows looked out into a choked garden, overhung with trees so that dappled sunlight lanced down through them to the flagstones.
“What a beautiful place,” Rune said aloud.
“Good,” Storm agreed briskly, “then you won’t mind tarrying here a bit. Without me.”
Arclath gave her a frown. “While you-?”
Storm held up one hand to silence him, and with the other reached to a nearby pillar-and tore it open, a concealed panel swinging open. She plucked out a tiny metal box that was tarnished black with age, flipped it open-and the room flooded with almost blinding light.
Wincing, Amarune tried to peer past it. She saw Storm’s long fingers silhouetted against that brilliance for a moment as the bard plucked whatever was glowing so brightly up out of the box and into her mouth.
And then the light was gone, and Storm turned toward them a face that was young and unlined again. As she opened her mouth to speak, an echo of the blinding radiance winked inside her, just for a moment.
Rune gaped. What had she just seen? It looked like Storm had swallowed a tiny star. Some sort of ancient healing magic, or a spark of silver fire, or-?
“Later,” Storm told her with a wry smile, “when the time is right. Full explanations, I promise.”
“But-” Arclath started to protest.
She waved a flamboyant arm at him like a furious high priestess silencing a blasphemer.
“Later,” she repeated sternly, and added, “Now stay here,” she said, that order afire with a fierceness born of new vigor, then turned to Amarune, seeming somehow taller. Stronger. Renewed.
“If El and I and the rest fall,” she said, “you are the future-the last Chosen of Mystra. She’ll need you desperately. So stay. Please. The future of the Realms may depend on your obedience.”
She spun to face Arclath, and commanded him as imperiously if she was the Queen of Cormyr. “See to it that she stays here-and defend her with your life.”
“Lady,” he replied, “that’s not something you ever need to order me to do.”
As he uttered the last two words, Arclath found that he was speaking to empty air.
Storm had whirled away from him to pluck a stone out of the nearest wall to reveal a niche, plucked a glowing blade from out of hiding there, blown them a kiss, and-winked into nothingness.
Arclath looked at the revealed niche, then looked away.
And then, as sudden silence stretched and deepened, and Amarune regarded him with a knowing smile, found he couldn’t resist going to see what else might be hidden within it.
CHAPTER 13
There was a loud clatter as Mattick’s scabbard rapped against the door of the audience chamber of Thultanthar in his breathless haste.
Then he and his twin, Vattick, had burst through the doors and were sprinting across the room to where the High Prince of Thultanthar stood addressing a half moon of nine silently standing, dark-robed men. Arcanists. Their brother Aglarel stood like a watchful stone statue behind their father, hand on sword, as he watched their undignified arrival.
Then Telamont Tanthul turned to regard them, and his face was as friendly as frost-touched iron.
“W-we came as quickly as we could, Most High,” Mattick gasped. Vattick was too winded to manage words, and could only nod.