One of her frantic movements turned her enough to catch sight of a familiar face.
"Doust!" she called despairingly-and the priest of Tymora sighed, took hold of one of the ornrion's boots, and twisted, flipping Dauntless over.
In a flash Jhessail jerked free and was gone into the night in a tangle of tossed red hair and a last snarled curse. Dauntless glared at Doust.
The priest had carefully positioned himself so as to block the ornrion's way off the ledge to pursue Jhessail. He smiled, folded his hands in prayer, and offered, "May the Lady of Luck be with you."
"You may need her more," the ornrion glowered, drawing back his fist to punch Doust in the face.
At that moment, a passable imitation of his own voice bellowed-out of the night: "Ho, Knights of Myth Drannor! 'Tis Ornrion Taltar Dahauntul of the Purple Dragons, Dauntless to most, come to render you all aid in your time of need. Aye, I'm your friend now! Orders have changed!"
Doust, looking at Dauntless, lifted his eyebrows in a silent question.
Staring back at Doust, Dauntless snarled, "Caztul! Blood of the Lady! Arntarmar and Alavaerthus! Some tluining wizard or sneak-thief is pretending to be me! Gelkor! Talandor! Obey Vangerdahast for one hrasted breath, get plunged into a naeding murdering battle, and some motherless, harcrimmiting teskyre-head is witlessing-well using my name! We'll tluining well see about that! Let me at the bastard! Harcrimmitor!"
Doust grinned. "You want me to do all of that? At once? Shouldn't you be talking to Semoor?"
There it was again. A small, stealthy sound in the bushes very close by. To the right.
Drathar turned and blasted.
The momentary flare of his strike showed him he'd torn apart defenseless bushes-and the reason why. The thief-wench of the Knights was leaning out from behind a tree with a palm-sized stone in her hand. She'd obviously made those sounds by tossing stones into the bushes and was just as obviously intending to hurl the next one at him.
She was giving him a malicious gtin tight now and drawing back her arm for a throw.
As the glow died away, Drathar flung himself a few steps to the right and crouched down to avoid being hit. His next spell blasted the tree she'd been sheltering behind.
There was a brief crashing sound, as of thornbushes being crushed, nearby on his left, but he ignored it. She'd obviously thrown her stone there to divert him, rather than hurling it at him. What of it?
The riven shards of the tree burned fitfully in the wake of his spell. Drathar stood watching them, smirking in satisfaction. Anger a wizard, and die.
An old, old saying, but perhaps thieves were too busy pilfering things to learn the wise lessons that kept most folk in Faerun alive.
Bushes rustled again, very near, on his left. Drathat whirled, cursing, to hurl a swift battlestrike.
Florin's thrown sword took him in the face, and Florin was right behind ir, punching hard and brutally, battering the breath right out of Drathar Haeromel's lungs even before Drathar hit the littered forest floor.
The Zhentarim took a hard punch in his throat and had no means left even to scream as the ranger's dagger plunged into his breast once, twice, and thrice.
Drathar had time to think that he was dying and to see a few stars through his welling teats.
Then the dagger came down again, and it all ended.
"So you sent my champion-my champion, Vangerdahast, one man out of an army of thousands you could have chosen from, to say nothing of all the Wizards of War under your personal command, who would seem to be far more useful in aiding the Knights against foes who are hurling spells at them! And now he bids fair to get slain while we watch, I helpless because I can do nothing to aid him but scream at you, and you’re helpless because you stlarning you well want you be!"
Vangerdahast glowered at her, tight-lipped, but he made no reply.
"Well?" Alusair pressed him. "Are you going to do nothing? While we all watch? Very well, I order you to protect Ornrion Taltar Dahauntul of the Purple Dragons-to say nothing of my mother Queen FilfaeriPs personal Knights! Do something! Work some magic! Or shall I just order all of these loyal, upstanding noble sirs to draw their swords and reward your treason fittingly?"
"Thereby dooming them all," the Royal Magician said. "I am not without defenses of my own, Highness. Pray think before you speak so rashly."
"Think before I speak? Think before I speak?" Alusair's voice rose like a trumpet. "I have seen barely more than a dozen winters, sirrah. I am a willful, spoiled brat-by your own description, don't think I haven't heard it-and I am an Obarskyr! Being born royal was not my choice, nor have I been much of a credit to my blood thus far, but I do know that one thing royalty do not have to do is think before they speak! They have Royal Magicians to do that for them-and speak for them behind their backs, all too often, too!"
Silence fell as Alusair panted to draw breath for the test of her tirade. Into the gap burst a small, explosive sound that froze everyone in the chamber.
Laspeera, the demure and motherly second-most-powerful Wizard of War in the realm, was snorting in suppressed mirth.
"Hand me your sword," Pennae said. "It'll take me forever to saw his head off with this little dagger."
Florin winced. "You're going to decapitate him?"
"Just to make sure. He doesn't seem to have had any of those blast-the-countryside contingencies tied to his death, but perhaps he has a slow healing and will come after us after he's lain here long enough."
Florin winced again. "Someday soon I'll be wanting to hear more about when and where you heard of such things."
"Someday soon," she agreed. "If you tie me to the bed, you may even get some answers."
Florin was too busy blushing to reply as she rose, patted him on the arm, thrust his sword into his hand, and said, "Let's get back to the others. The Watching Gods alone know what trouble they'll have gotten into."
As they came out into the trampled and burned area in front of the cliff, Pennae said, "Well, well. Seems the gods guide my tongue."
Dauntless was charging across the corpse-strewn ground at… himself. Or rather, at someone else who wore the face of Dauntless and a ragged, dirty peasant's dress. Roaring, waving his sword wildly, Dauntless lumbered closer and closer to his foe.
After a shout of "I am the real Dauntless! Knights of Myth Drannor, strike down this impostor! Stop him!" the Dauntless in the dress seemed to realize his deception was hopeless. He raised his arms and started to cast a spell.
"Hrast, that's a stlarning srrong war spell!" Pennae said as she and Florin sprinted forward. "Dauntless is doomed-or we are!"
The wizard wearing the face of Dauntless raised his voice to end his incantation-and noticed the running pair for the first time.
"Naed!" Pennae gasped, swerving to take herself wide and away from Florin.
The wizard hastened to finish the spell, eyes fixed on her.
Light bloomed around him as Doust cast the only thing he could think of to distract the foe.
Dauntless, running hard and fast, stumbled.
Florin ran faster, drawing back his sword for a desperate throw.
A long, slender sword raced out of the night, into the light, and plunged righr rhrough the wizard.
Black fire burst from the man's chest, some magic of the sword melting its way right through his body. Arms flung wide, incantation lost in an agonized scream, Onsler Ruldroun toppled, dying.
White fire boiled up from his limbs, setting afire something black and amorphous that had sprung off his face. Blazing, it fell beside Pennae, and she turned to pursue it, dagger out.
Fire raced out from rhe mage's boots, in a brush-crackling expanding ring that sent saplings sagging down and Florin swerving to snatch up Dauntless and haul him back and away. Just behind them, a running Jhessail was hurled back by a wind only she could feel.