Which was why he was stepping out of a noble lord's hunring lodge at this darksome time of night, between two spell-frozen guard dogs, to pick his way around twoscore guards who were now snoring their ways through service ro four different masters.
Behind them, those four masters sat slumped and silent, in no need of bodyguards nor any other sort of servant ever again.
They were the lord's second son, a Sembian trader, a merchant of Zhentil Keep, and a Dragon Cultist poisoner. All sitting dead around a table behind Omgryn, with the fire that would consume the poisons they'd been trading, their bodies, and rhe lodge, too, magically kindling among their unseeing faces.
Omgryn had to hurry. Deltalon and the others would be waiting, and it was risky to keep a porral open for long in this country, with that pulsing glow that drew wild beasts like nothing else. TheyThe flying sword that swooped out of the night almost slashed Hendran Omgryn's head righr off his shoulders. His head bobbled loosely, gore spraying in all directions from benearh it, as its jaw wagged up and down in a vain, dying frenzy that failed to frame the words Omgryn's darkening mind was so desperately trying to shout.
"The Sword That Never Sleeps!" he wanted to cry. "Beware! It's real! It's here in Cormyr! All Wizards of War, beware!"
All he could manage was a wet, energetic gurgling. Until the racing sword severed what was left of his neck and sent his head spinning off into the darkness. His body flopped down into brittle shrubs with a crash, and the head bounced twice, amid much smaller crashes, then rolled.
Almost to the boots of Lorbryn Deltalon, as he hastened forward in a crouch, a wand ready in his hand and two younger war wizards at his back.
"Is it-?" one of them gasped.
"It is," Deltalon said, backing away as the first flames started to lick up out of the lodge windows. "Back to Tsantress, and through the portal. I saw what did this."
He worked a shielding spell faster than the two younger war wizards had ever seen one cast before. "Move!"
They turned and ran. As he pelted along in their wake, hoping his shielding would fend off a long, deadly sword swooping point- first at his back out of the night, Deltalon wondered what he dared tell them.
Best discuss this with Vangerdahast first. Word of these slayings was spreading among the Wizards of War but was being kept as sectet as possible from the general populace. Not that Cormyreans were fools. The whispers were flying about the realm already.
About as energetically as that deadly sword. Deltalon shivered as the glow of the portal loomed up, the anxious face of Tsantress beside it.
"Get through, lass!" he panted. "Unless you'd prefer a brief new career as a pincushion!"
Then he launched himself into the air, hoping he could move faster than the sword.
"Tluin!" Semoor shouted in horror, really coming awake for the first time. Gleaming amber eyes were staring right at him as the fanged jaws beneath them opened wide. It was blue-black and six-legged, this beast, with two tentacles thrusting up into the air from its shoulders, long whip-like things that swirled overhead. It was large and sinuously graceful, like an emaciated panther, andIt lunged at him.
He clenched his teeth and swung his mace-and a flaring-ended tentacle slapped out of the night to smash it away, arm and all, snatching him aside from those jaws and flinging him into Islif. They crashed and rolled into the scree.
Behind him, a spell-glow bloomed-and then flashed. Jhessail shrieked, Florin cursed, and Pennae shouted, "No spells, holynoses!"
Semoor devoted himself to frantic praying and even more frantic clawing his way back to his feet, so he could whirl around and watchDoust get raked with huge talons that tore away his breastplate with a shriek of metal that drowned out the Tymoran's own frightened cry. Then Doust was slammed to the ground by those two great tentacles that struck and struck and struck again.
Florin sprang in to cut at the tentacles, swotd in one hand and dagger in the other, and the beast rounded on him with frightening speed. The ranger's blades seemed to hack at the monster yet slice only empty air, again and again.
" 'Tis a dirlagraun!" Islif shouted from nearby. She charged past Semoor, heading for the beast's rump. "Wide slashes, Florin! Swing wide!"
A tentacle came at her as the great catlike thing tutned its head and snarled.Semoor stopped staring and ran forward. Anger was rising in him, red and warm, as he rushed along, a good four running strides behind Islif. Her slash drove the tentacle away behind her, letting her run right in and spring onto the thing's bony back-dagger first.
It was a small fang, but it bit deep. The dirlagraun roared and arched, bellowing its pain at the stars, and Florin hacked at its throat and forelegs.
Its roar became a wild shriek as it backed hastily away from the ranger, shaking a gory limb that bore a paw no longer-and Islif clung to its neck, drawing daggers from all over herself and driving them in as she went, hurrying to the head, thrust after thrust.
The displacer beast shuddered and thrashed under her in obvious pain, arching its tentacles up to flail at her as hard as it could, battering her.
It kicked at Florin with its talons and snapped at him, too. He ducked under its belly to slash at it from beneath; crouching between its legs, he could hardly miss.
Semoor reached the dirlagraun and struck aside its ratlike tail with his mace. Rushing to its nearest hind leg, he planted himself, took his mace in both hands, and swung.
Part way through it, his mace smashed into something hard that gave slightly as the dirlagraun squalled and hopped, its numbed rear leg threatening to buckle under it.
Semoor found himself tumbling face-first into the stones, dumped aside in the frantic thrashings of a beast that was simply trying to get away. The beast slid and flailed its way back down the scree slope. Riding it, Islif drove her dagger into one amber eye- and was flung off as the thing reared, bucked, shrieked, and tried to roll, all at once.
The dirlagraun landed heavily, rolled, and bounced to its feet, only to stagger sideways-with Florin racing along amid wildly spraying stones to stay with it, slashing again and again at its throat.
Stabbing tentacles finally sent him sprawling, but the dirlagraun behind them was doing no more fighting.
It was scrambling wildly away, dying and in pain.
Leaving Doust and Jhessail down and Pennae-where was Pennae?
As if in reply to Semoor's silent question, a man cursed somewhere out in the night, and Pennae called, "Like it? The next one'll find your heart!"
She grinned down at Semoor, a dagger glittering in her hand, and he decided it was a good time to faint. So he did.
To become the new Lord Yellander or at least get a farm or house or something that had been Yellander s from a grateful Crown, he'd have to ptesent King Azoun-or Vangerdahast, more likely-with some great and loyal deed.
That wasn't going to be easy, and it had just become harder. Much harder.
For the four hundredth time, Brorn ran his fingers across his left cheek to feel the smooth, bare bone there. It was spreading. The eyebrow on that side was gone, and much of his forehead was bone, now, too. Tluin.
When he drew back his hand, he saw that it had begun to appear on his fingertips. They, too, were bone. For a moment he rubbed them frantically along the rough stone edge of the casket lid, where one of the cracks was, but that wore it off not in the slightest. Nor caused any pain. There was no bleeding.
He held his fingers up, the better to peer at them curiously. It wasn't that his flesh and skin were withering away. No, the bone was growing over him, cloaking his flesh with an outer armor. He could still move and flex his body, just as before, but there was a heaviness, a shell atop the left side of his face and the ends of all the fingers of his left hand now. It deadened sensation. He could feel things he touched or held, but at a little distance, as if through a gauntlet.