"God or no god," Femter muttered, "anyone who can withstand all we hurled down on his head…and swallow fireballs, for Shar's sake!..is someone I don't want to stand and face in battle."
"For Shar's sake, indeed, Dread Brother," someone said almost pleasantly from the far side of the hollow, where the ferns grew tall and they hadn't been yet. Five heads snapped around, eyes widening in alarm…
…and five jaws dropped, the throats beneath them swallowed noisily, and the eyes above them acquired a look of trapped fear.
The masked and cloaked lady floating in the air just above their reach, reclining at her ease on nothing, was all too familiar. "For there is a Black Flame in the Darkness," the cruel Overmistress of the Acolytes purred, in formal greeting.
"And it warms us, and its holy name is Shar," the five priests murmured in a reluctant, despairing chorus.
"You are far from the House of Holy Night, Dread Brothers, and unused to the ways of wizards…all too apt to stray, and in sore need of guidance," Dread Sister Klalaera observed, her voice a gentle honey of menace. "Wherefore our most caring and thoughtful Darklady Avroana has sent the House of Holy Night … to you."
"Hail, Dread Sister," Dreadspell Elryn said then, managing to keep his voice noncommittal. "What news?"
"News of the Darklady's deep displeasure at your leadership, most bold Elryn," the Overmistress said almost jovially, her eyes two spark-adorned flints. "And of her wilclass="underline" that you cease wandering Faerun at your pleasure and return to the place from whence you so lately fled. Immense power lies there…and Shar means for us to have it. I know you'd not want to fail Most Holy Shar… or disappoint Darklady Avroana. So turn about and return thence, to serve Shar as capably as I know you can. I shall accompany you, to impart the Dark-lady's unfolding will as you return to the mission you were sent here for. Now rise, all of you!"
"Return?" Femter snarled, his hand darting to one of the wands still at his belt. "To duel with a god? Are you mad, Klalaera?"
The other Dreadspells watched silently, neither rising nor snarling defiance, as something unseen flashed between the Overmistress, at her ease with her head propped on her hand, and Femter Deldrannus, the wand still on its way out of his belt and not yet turned outward to menace anyone.
The priest shrieked and clutched at his head with both hands, hurling the wand away and staggering forward, his limbs trembling.
They watched him spasm and convulse and babble for what seemed like a very long time before Klalaera raised one languid hand and closed it in a casual gesture…and Femter collapsed in mid-word, falling in a sprawled and boneless heap like a dangle-puppet whose string had been cut.
"I can do the same to any of you…and all of you, at once," the Overmistress drawled. "Now rise, and return. You fear death at the hands of this 'god' you babble of…well, I can deliver you sure and certain death to set against one that may happen … or may not. Would any of you care to kneel and die here and now…in agony, and in the disfavor of Shar? Or will you show the Flame of Darkness just a little of the obedience she expects from those who profess to worship her?"
As Dread Sister Klalaera uttered these biting words, she descended smoothly to the ground, drawing from her belt the infamous barbed lash with which she disciplined the acolytes in her charge. The Dreadspells turned their faces reluctantly back toward the ruins they'd left so precipitously and began to trudge up out of the hollow…to the serenade of her whip crashing down on the defenseless back of the motionless Femter.
At the lip of the hollow, they turned in unspoken accord to look back…in time to see Femter, head lolling and eyes glazed, rise to his feet in the grip of fell magic and stagger after them, his back mere ribbons of flesh among an insect-buzzing welter of gore, his boots leaving bloody prints at every step. Klalaera shook drops of his dark blood from her saturated lash and gave them a soft smile. "Keep going," she said silkily. "I'll be right behind you."
Despite the floating menace of the Overmistress behind them, the five Dreadspells slowed cautiously as they climbed the last wooded ridge before the ruins. Blundering ahead blindly could mean swift doom … and a delay could well bring them to a shaft now empty of dangerous mages, leaving the ruins free for scavenging.
"Careful," Elryn murmured, the moment he heard the creak of leather that marked Dread Sister Klalaera bending forward to bring her lash down hard on someone's shoulders… probably his. "There's no need for anyone to strike alone in the fray, if we work together, and…"
"Avoid making pretty little speeches," Klalaera snapped. "Elryn, shut your mouth and lead the way! There's nothing between us and the ruins save a couple of stumps, a lot of waste lumber, your own fears, and…"
"Us," a musical voice murmured, an elven voice. Its owner rose up from the other side of the ridge, a scab-bardless sword made of wood held in both his hands. "A walk in the woods these days holds so many dangers," Starsunder added. "My friend here, for instance."
The human mage Umbregard rose up from behind the ridge on cue and favored the Sharrans with a brief smile. He held a wand ready in either hand.
The Overmistress snapped, "Slay them!"
"Oh, well," Starsunder sighed theatrically, "if you insist." Magic roared out of him then in a roaring tide that swept aside wand-bolts, simple conjurations, and the lives of struggling Hrelgrath and dumbfounded Vaelam alike.
Femter screamed and fled blindly back into the trees…until Klalaera's unseen magic jerked him to a halt as if a noose had settled about his neck, and spun him around, thrashing and moaning, for the slow stagger back into the fray.
Beams of light were stabbing forth and wrestling in the roiling air as Elryn and a snarling Daluth sought to strike down the elf mage, and Umbregard used his own wands to disrupt and strike aside their attacks.
Daluth shouted in pain as an errant beam laid bare the bone of his shoulder, flesh, sinews, and clothing all boiling away in an instant. He staggered back a pace or two, at about the same time as Umbregard went over backward in a grunt and a shower of sparks, leaving the elf standing alone against the Sharrans.
The Overmistress of the Acolytes found her coldest, cruel smile and put it on. It widened slowly as Starsunder's shielding spell darkened, flickered, and began to shrink under the bolts and bursts streaming from the wands of the Dreadspells.
"I don't know who you are, elf," Klalaera remarked, almost pleasantly, "or why you chose to get in our way… but it's quite likely to be a fatal decision. I can slay you right now with a spell, but I'd rather have some answers. What is this place? What magic lies here that makes it worth you losing your life over?"
"The only thing that amazes me more about humans than their habit of splitting up fair Faerun into separate 'places,' one seemingly having no connection to the next," Starsunder replied, as casually as if he'd been idly conversing with an old friend over a glass of moon-wine, "is their need to gloat, threaten, and bluster in battle. If you can slay me, do so, and spare my ears. Otherwise…"
He sprang into the air as he spoke, leaving Sharran wand-blasts to ravage elfless stumps and ferns, and collapsed his shield into a net of deadly force that clawed at the Overmistress.
She writhed in the air, sobbing and snarling, until her desperate mental goading dragged the wild-eyed Femter over to stand beneath her. Then she collapsed her own defenses…and Starsunder's attack, still gnawing at them…down into the helpless Dreadspell, in a deadly flood that left him a tottering, blinded mass of blood and exposed bone.