Ed Greenwood: Swords of Eveningstar

“Hold, I say!” the lich snapped, raising his hands.

Florin and Islif were already moving. Hurling themselves against unseen magic that made them grimace with the effort of fighting their ways forward, they thrust their swords… right through the lich.

Its mouth gaped in pain, but no scream came forth. Instead, a teardrop of fell glow shot out of that withered maw, flying wraith-stuff that swooped, darted, and circled around the Swords-Doust missing it with a twisting swing of his mace from where he lay-as it grew.

The lich stood unmoving until Islif’s mighty slash sent it toppling to the floor, where it lay still. The flying thing, however, ducked under Florin’s fierce attack, shooting under his arms as he swung and swung again, only to soar up above them all long enough for Jhessail to set herself in a stance and raise her hands to lash it with a spell.

They could see through its glow a bearded, severe-browed human male head trailing away into a tail like a falling star. It glared at them, swerved suddenly to avoid Islif’s reaching blade, then plunged down at Jhessail.

Who gabbled her spell desperately, and never knew if she’d cast the magic properly or not as the racing head plunged into her.

She gasped. There was no crashing impact, but merely a chill that stabbed up past her heart into her head, and left her breathlessly staring at inward darkness in something of a daze.

Behind her, Semoor shouted in alarm more than pain, and stiffened. The head tore right through him as it had through Jhessail-and as she watched, it did the same to Doust.

The wizard who answered to the name Amanthan raised his head sharply, as if sniffing the air. He’d been hearing the boots of running Dragons, short horncalls, and shouted orders, this last little while, over the wall that kept all Arabel out of his garden, but this-this was something more.

Strong magic. Strange magic. Mother Mystra, what now?

In this city of folk who could smell as well as see, the lich was best abandoned anyhail. It had served his needs, and a living body would make a better host for several reasons.

Old Ghost soared down the alley, well pleased. He’d passed through all of the Swords, and worked two things on each of them in doing so: left their minds open to his return, no matter what shieldings might then exist, and-until that future visit-enabled them to perceive any nearby portal they gazed upon as a glowing “door.”

A bearded head of translucent radiance, touches of white hair at his temples but with dark and scowling brows above storm-gray eyes, Old Ghost raced on, turning onto one street then another. He turned a corner where Lionar Dauntless was running along, shouting orders to the Dragons trotting behind him-and darted into that shouting mouth.

The lionar’s eyes glowed eerily, just for a moment. Then Dauntless grew a crooked smile and ran on.

“This way!” Pennae panted, sprinting down another street. The far end of the cellars had been full of Purple Dragons searching for wayward Swords of Eveningstar. The Swords had been forced to flee up old and sagging stairs and through a bakeshop full of fat, shrieking cooks, out into streets where more Dragons were closing in from all sides. Arabel was roused against them.

“Shouldn’t we?” Doust gasped, stumbling after her, “Be trying to get to a city gate, to get out?”

“No,” Pennae shouted back. “Those three sharp hornblasts, same note in a row? That was them telling each other, gate by gate, that all was secured. There’ll be no getting out that way!”

“Back to the wizard’s underground lair?” Semoor suggested slyly.

“Go tluin yourself,” Pennae told him crisply. “With a shovel.”

Another horncall rang out, close at hand, and she erupted in swiftly hissed curses as she looked up at the tall, unbroken stone wall of a mansion compound beside her, a flood of invective that ended, “Mercy of Mask, if I but had one of those horns!”

“False calls?” Florin panted.

She nodded as they pelted around a corner-then pointed at a high-heaped cart groaning slowly along the street toward them. “Stop that one for us! Ask the driver if he knows Oddjack and can tell us where to find him!”

Florin frowned at her, but sheathed his sword and flung up his hands, stepping into the path of the slow cart. “Hoy!”

Running the length of the cart, Pennae didn’t wait for the puzzled drover to haul on his reins. “Follow me,” she hissed, and swarmed up the back of the lashed sacks of the cart’s load, where the man couldn’t possibly see her. From the height of that load she sprang over the frowning stone mansion wall-and through a mansion window beyond, with a horrific tinkling crash.

Jhessail stared up at that gaping window, her mouth open-then grinned, clawed her way up the sacks of the slowing, creaking cart beside a puffing Doust and Semoor, and plunged through the window in turn.

She found herself in a grand room of tapestries and pleated, neatly arranged draperies, its floor covered with fur rugs and a litter of broken glass.

Pennae stood in the doorway, listening to distant, fading shrieks. “The wealthy widow and all her maids, fleeing to the other side of doors they can slam and lock,” she said with a wry smile. “Are the others coming?”

Doust came through the window, caught his heels on a rug, and sat down with a crash, skidding halfway across the chamber-which was fortunate, given that Semoor then landed like a full grainsack on the floor where Doust had just been.

“Gods above, our very own jesters,” Islif observed, her boots slamming down on either side of Wolftooth’s cringing body. She bent, plucked him up-more like a grainsack than ever-and sprang out of the way.

It was, however, a few breaths more before Florin came in over the sill to trample the same spot of floor. “Gods above, can yon drover curse!” he said admiringly. “So, whose grand house is this? Not a Dragon commander’s, I hope?”

“Your sense of humor is even more twisted than mine,” Pennae told him. “No, this belongs to a merchant’s widow I robbed a tenday back. No place to hide here, even if they weren’t all shrieking like banshees. I’m heading for the next mansion over; a reclusive wizard lives there.”

“A wizard. Splendid, ” Islif said cuttingly. “Oh, joy, even!”

“Your better alternative?” Pennae snapped. “No? Then come!”

And she led them on another run, this one down sweeping staircases and through grand rooms dripping with opulence, heading west. Dragon horncalls sounded again outside, close by, and Pennae answered them with curses as she plunged through a door, out into a garden of little fishponds, moss-covered modest mermaid statues, and artfully pruned shrubberies.

The Swords pelted after her, out of the gardens, past a stables where a startled horse awakened and tossed its head, and up an ivy-cloaked wall that had trees beyond it. As the last Sword-Semoor-scaled it, armored men burst around the corner of the mansion they’d just left, shouted, and started sprinting through the garden. There were splashes as the foremost runners precipitously explored the fishponds. Twisting silverfin flew into the air.

Grinning, Semoor turned away, clawed his way up the last torn ivy, and crested the wall, slipping once-which turned out to be a good thing.

The lightning bolt that greeted him raced past his shoulder, lifting every hair on that side of his body, and clawed harmlessly at the sky.

In the light of the scrying orb Horaundoon smiled and sat back, ignoring the hargaunt’s squirmings. This was becoming a superb show. Amanthan had once been an apprentice of the Blackstaff, hadn’t he?

“Get out of here!” The tall young mage was so angry he was trembling. “I’m not afraid of kidnappers and thieves! I’ll-”