Troy Denning - The Sentinel

He caught her first dart on a shield of shadow, which dissolved instantly into magical flame. Unfazed, Yder pivoted aside, allowing the next pair to thunk into the door behind him. He smiled and extended a hand.

Joelle tensed her legs, gathering herself to spring away, but it was Malik who cried out in alarm.

“Help me!” He began to lurch forward, fighting to keep the satchel clutched to his chest. “The Eye! He has the Eye!”

Joelle drew her slender sword and, praying for Sune’s help, stepped between Malik and Yder. Instantly, her long red hair began to emit a faint aura of fiery light. All eyes swung in her direction, and the panic in the courtyard waned as refugees stopped to gape at her divinely enhanced beauty. When she smiled, gasps of awe rippled through the crowd.

Only Yder seemed immune. He emerged from the doorway, hissing and cursing, his hand spraying a beam of shadow in her direction. Joelle spun away and dived into a forward roll, then heard a cold sizzle as the shadow beam grazed the statue behind her. An instant later, the entire courtyard shook as the stone wyvern crashed down and shattered against the cobblestones.

The shadow beam reached the gate and crackled through the heavy oak planks. Cries of alarm and anger echoed across the courtyard. The refugees whirled on Yder in a rage, their hands filled with daggers or clubs or anything else they could use as a weapon. By the time Joelle had returned to her feet, the shadow prince had been swallowed by a screaming mob.

Malik was gone, too, of course. His god, Myrkul, had bestowed on him the ability to vanish like a ghost, and he practiced it often-especially when danger threatened. That left Joelle to handle Yder alone, and when she looked toward the courtyard entrance, she found several of his shadow warriors already climbing through the shattered remains of the gate.

Knowing that Malik would try to conceal his odor by hiding in the worst-smelling place possible, she turned toward the carriage house annex and raced inside. At the near end, a trio of expensive coaches sat side by side. A line of open stalls stood along the back wall, still lined with hay and manure, but otherwise empty. A ladder between two stalls led up into the hayloft. At the end closest to the main house were two large doors, one marked “Tack Room” and the other “Clean Shoes Only.”

Joelle glanced back into the courtyard and found the Shadovar still busy trying to fight off the enraged mob. She felt genuine remorse to see so many felled by the glassy black blades, but their sacrifice was necessary. If she and Malik did not survive to complete their mission, those same people would suffer a fate much worse than death-as would all of Toril.

She barred the carriage house doors, then turned to look for her companion.

“Malik?” She grabbed a pitchfork and began to stir the piles of hay and manure in the stalls. “Malik, we have to hurry!”

Joelle was on her third stall when she heard a soft clunking from the far end of the annex. Her companion emerged from the tack room, one hand holding his curved short sword, the other clutching the gray satchel hung over his shoulder.

“Is it safe?”

“For the moment,” Joelle said. “But we need to move, and quickly.”

Malik frowned. “I have only been waiting on you ,” he said. “Next time, I will not be so gallant.”

Malik left the tack room, then led the way through the adjacent door into a long service corridor that ran along the back side of the mansion. The passage had limestone floors and iron candle sconces on the walls, and it was littered down its entire length with abandoned furniture and trunks of discarded clothing. Ahead, several exhausted servants stood in the mouths of intersecting hallways, leaning against doorframes and eyeing the cast-off goods with expressions of shock and resentment.

Malik closed the door to the stable and pressed his palm to it, calling upon the god of the dead to hold it fast. Then he turned and led the way into the house. If any of the servants raised a brow, Malik returned their gaze with a bulging-eyed glare that made most recipients blanch and turn away.

The strategy worked until they had advanced roughly halfway through the house. There, an imperious looking man in velvet robes stepped out to block their path. He had an arched nose and close-set eyes, and his velvet robes bore the same wyvern sigil as the guards’ tabards. He was obviously a high-ranking member of the household staff-probably the majordomo himself. The man eyed them up and down, then spoke in a plummy voice.

“Do I know you?”

“No, and you are safer for it,” Malik answered. He brandished the gray satchel slung over his shoulder. “But have no worries. We are not here to take your master’s cast-off belongings, only to deliver to him a most marvelous gift that has been sent by the gods themselves.”

The man stared down at Malik’s soiled clothes and the grimy satchel, then wrinkled his nose and turned to call over his shoulder.

“Kegwell, come here,” he said. “And bring your men. I have a job for you.”

The clamor of steel and boots echoed down the hallway. Joelle silently cursed Malik’s love of the lie. Sometimes, it seemed that he would rather invent an implausible story than tell a convincing truth. She grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back, then stepped into his place.

“Please accept my apologies, my good man.” Joelle smiled, and the majordomo’s expression quickly softened. “My traveling companion can be quite inventive when he’s frightened.”

Malik huffed in indignation, but the man ignored him and turned to Joelle. “I don’t believe I know you, either, my lady.”

“Lady Emmeline, of Berdusk.” Joelle did not present her hand, aware that no noblewoman of Cormyr would grant such liberties to a mere servant. “I do hope you’ll be good enough to let us pass. The fighting in the streets is quite ferocious.”

As Joelle spoke, five men in white tabards over chain mail emerged from the hallway behind the proud-looking man. She smiled at them, and their countenances immediately changed from bellicose to friendly. Her smile almost always had that effect on people. The lead guard, a grim-faced man with a drooping mustache, allowed his gaze to linger on Joelle as he spoke to the man who had summoned his team.

“You called for us, Master Greymace?”

“Yes, Kegwell, I did.”

Greymace frowned at Joelle and Malik, his gaze sliding back and forth between the two as he tried to make sense of the apparent differences in their social rank. Finally, his gaze settled on Malik.

“The rabble is beginning to make its way into the house,” he said. “Escort these two from-”

Greymace was interrupted when a muffled boom reverberated from the carriage house annex. Malik glanced back, then removed the satchel from his shoulder and astonished Joelle by shoving it into Kegwell’s arms.

“You must take that to your master’s ship!” His voice had assumed a commanding urgency. “It will protect him from the shadow fiends!”

“Shadow fiends?” Kegwell looked up the corridor toward the boom. “Here?”

“Who do you think that was ?” Joelle asked, starting to see where Malik was going with this particular lie. She turned to Greymace and shooed him down the corridor. “We must hurry. I think your master has been their target all along!”

Greymace studied the satchel and frowned doubtfully-until another boom rumbled from inside the carriage house. Eyes lighting in alarm, he motioned for Kegwell and the guards to follow, then started down the corridor at a brisk pace.

“The duke cannot wait for his daughter any longer,” he said. “The Wyvern must depart at once .”