The Knights ran.
"Is this the being brave adventurers part?" Doust panted in the rear of the line. "Fleeing like children?"
"Who's fleeing?" Pennae called back. "Have you no appreciation fot battlefield strategy? We're not retreating. We're strategically withdrawing to seek better ground!"
"Ah hah,"Xyouit said in open disbelief. "Better ground where?"
They pelted past the cross passage where the first lich was still loudly threatening the wall. They ran down a slight ramp or slope through another passage crossing to reach… a dead end.
"Doors, anyone?" Florin called, slowing. "No one digs out a passage to a dead end and then goes to the trouble of paneling the walls!"
" 'Digs'? How can we be sure we're underground?" Pennae said. "Holynoses, your glowstones! I need to get a good look at the walls, to see it-"
" 'Ware, all!" Doust shouted, fear making his voice high and wild again. "We're trapped!" "Trapped?" Pennae asked.
The Knights whirled around again to stare at the priest and where he was pointing.
Out of that second ctoss passage had stepped a third lich, this one taller than the other two and wearing a gold circlet around its brow. It carried a black staff surmounted by a bulbous head, inset with gems and graven with glowing copper and silver runes. The lich did not seem to be calling forth any magic from the staff. Instead, it held the staff in the crook of one arm and raised both hands to cast a spell-hands whose skeletal fingers were adorned with many glowing rings.
"Naed," Semoor muttered. "Jhess, is there anything left that you can cast to get us out of this?"
"N-no," Jhessail replied from beside his elbow.
A moment later, Islif and Florin both drew in breath in loud, startled hisses.
As the other Knights looked at them and saw where they were staring and pointing, they realized why.
Standing among them were two Jhessail Silvertrees, not just one.
The cave was deserted. Tsantress sighed with relief as she reached its mouth and peered out into the forest. There was no sign of any lurking creature and no spoor suggesting anything had even come close to her little hidehold.
"Tsantress Ironchylde," she murmured as she stepped past the little teethlike knobs of stone jutting up through the tangled grasses that marked where she'd cast her wards. Saying her name would prevent her passage from ending the ward spell she'd cast seasons ago.
She needed to think-think hard and not stlarn her conclusions, because for once her life really would depend on that-and knew she did that best while wandering the woods near the cave, not crouching in its dark depths.
What should she do? Where should she go?
And, stlarn it, was there any way Vangerdahast could trace her?
Tsantress was a good six paces out into the tall grass, with bird-song starting to die away at her presence, when it struck her that she should probably pray to Azuth and Mystra for guidance-and an answer to that last question.
She returned to the cave and sought out its deepest, darkest back crevice and in the cool, damp darkness knelt down. Her knees knew the right spot, even if she could see nothing in the gloom. She cast a spell into the darkness in front of her. A small working, a light-kindling.
The altar she'd made swallowed the magic silently, giving her back a brief glow all around its edges. A very good sign. It was intact, still holy, and she was being heard.
Which meant she was still worthy of attention.
"Lord Azuth, Guide and Wise One," she prayed, "and Great and Most Holy Lady Mystra, Yourself the Greatest of Mysteries, hear me now, I plead. Unworthy I am, unworthy I remain, yet strive to know and obey you both better. Hear my prayer, as I seek to kiss the Weave."
She kissed her own fingertips, reached out into the darkness, and started to pray as she always had, as if addressing an affectionate mother who was somewhere very close by, just beyond her reach.
As a war wizard, Tsantress had been afraid from time to time and uneasy more times than she could count-but it had been a long time since she'd been as bewildered and at a loss as to what to do. She prayed from the heart, respectful and yet blunt, speaking candidly rather than resorring to the flowery phrases of praise so many Mystran and Azuthan clergy excelled at or even used exclusively before altars.
"Come what may, I remain your servant, Wise One and Mysterious Mother," she finished, "and I pray that your own time be bright until next we speak."
Letting her hands fall into her lap, she sat back, awaiting any sign that might come. She expected none, but it would have been the height of disrespect to assume no response would manifest and rush to rise and depart and go on with mundane things, as if the prayer had been rote duty and not something truly meant.
The altar remained dark, though she sat there for a breath longer than usual. Tsantress sighed, rose to her feet-and became aware that the faint light from behind her, the dim radiance from the forest outside that reached this deep into the cave, had just been blotted out.
"Well, well," came a cold and familiar voice from behind her. Light blossomed from a torch. "You're one of the war wizards who helped slay my Jalassa! I remember. Kill her!"
She turned swiftly. Lord Maniol Crownsilver was standing with his arms folded across his chest and a triumphant smile upon his face-and there were three robed wizards standing behind him. Sembian hirelings, by the looks of them.
The three looked reluctant. One of them leaned his head forward and said in the noble's ear, "Yon's an altar to Azuth and Mystra both. 'Twere-"
The noble whirled around as if they'd slapped him. "Who's paying you?" he spat. "Two deaf deities of magic? Or me? Strike her down! "
The harmless spell Tsantress had cast into the altar erupted back out of it, arcing over her head with an angry rumbling that was more felt than heard. It lashed out at the three mages, startling them with its flash of light. Behind them, an ornrion of the Putple Dragons rose up with a stout tree bough in his hands. Tsantress knew him and tried ro keep astonishment at his appearance off her face to avoid aletting the wizards.
Crownsilver saw Dauntless, of course, but so incoherent were his first gabblings of outrage that he warned his three wizards not in the slightest.
Dauntless brought his bough sweeping down, braining one Sembian solidly. That mage toppled silently, out cold. By the time the wizard standing beside him saw his fellow fall and turned, mouth dropping open, to see its cause, Dauntless had his club ready to smash him across the face-and did so.
That mage collapsed into the third wizard, who was already springing back. The last Sembian lifted one hand like a claw, and blue bolts streaked from all his fingertips, lancing into the ornrion and sending him sraggering back, grunting in pain.
Which gave Tsantress more than time enough to hurl herself cm y-rnrnwooa backward until she stumbled into the altar and sat down hard on it, and from that undignified perch unleashed blue bolts of het own.
True to what she'd been told, long ago, the altar she'd so recently made offering and prayer at doubled the strength of her spell, sending a swarm of bright blue missiles racing into the last Sembian mage.
The mage crumpled in silent senselessness, leaving Lord Maniol Crownsilver alone, facing Tsantress and Dauntless.
The noble paled-and darted past Dauntless, seeking to flee the cavern.
The ornrion pounced, dashing Crownsilver to the ground with one blow of his battered tree bough. The nobleman's head lolled loosely, and he joined his three hired wizards in the land of dreams.
Dauntless looked at Tsantress and gravely bowed his head to her. "Much as I dislike slaying lords of the realm," he growled, "this one has brought grief to many. Should I-?"