Ed Greenwood - Hand of Fire

Sharantyr moaned beneath him, a despairing bleat of hopeless pain, and he dug hastily in another of his belt-pouches, seeking one of his most precious items of booty: a steel vial that never left him.

Her teeth were clenched, but with brutal strength he forced fingers into the corners of her jaws and got them apart enough to pour the contents of the vial between. Then he clapped a hand over her mouth and held her jaws together during the brief frenzy of convulsions that followed.

When she lay unmoving under him and her breath seemed to be coming in deep, regular gasps, Tornar let go and hastily drew back.

Only Sharantyr's eyes moved to follow him. They regarded each other for a moment in the moonlight before her lips moved.

"Thank you for healing me, Tornar," she told him. "I–I know not how I came here. Was it by your hand? Are you taking me back to the Master of Shadows?"

"I was ordered to slay you," he replied slowly, "but I'll not do it-or go back to Scornubel. I've no idea how you came to fall out of the sky onto me… but Lady, I do know one thing: I've never seen your like before or ever thought to." He hesitated, and then asked, "Could you learn to trust me?"

"I could," Sharantyr replied, her eyes on his. "Why do you ask this?"

"I–I'd like to part with you as a friend," he told her, eyes steady on hers.

She reached out one weak arm and squeezed his hand. "I think we can manage that."

Her reaching was the last insult to her much-slashed leathers, and they fell away from her shoulder and bodice.

Wordlessly Tornar plucked up her ruined garments and held the scraps back up in position. "The night's cold," he said simply.

She looked at him, smiled, and then glanced up at the tree. "Is there room on your branch for two?"

The man from Scornubel made a horrible wheezing sound, then, and doubled over. It was three anxious breaths later, when the crawling lady ranger of Shadowdale reached his side to see what was wrong, that she realized Tornar the Eye was laughing.

Campfires flared up in hungry threads of flame to join the leaping, everchanging web of spellfire above them. Its roar was almost deafening, and it stabbed out with arc after arc of fire that made wagons explode in fury at a touch.

"Gods above!" Mirt said, his merchant's soul shocked at the waste all around him, trade-goods and the wagons that held Asper nodded her head, seeming almost dazed by the sheer outpouring of howling force. It was like facing an angrily erupting volcano. Mirt shook his head to banish that brief, long-ago memory, set his teeth, and dragged his slender lady away from where the air itself was crackling and complaining.

Behind them, the bright figure hurled more spellfire, and in answer the High Lady's silver fire flared up into a shield. Spellfire and silver fire wrestled, and rushing streams of spellflame melted apart into a wild webwork of many holes-but still roared with frightening speed, streaming over the silver fire as a river rushes over rocks, and hurled Alustriel back.

Mirt had one glimpse of the High Lady's grim face before she sank down into a raging whorl of flames, and could be seen no more at the heart of their snarling, behind fires that reared up castle-high in their bright battling.

He became aware of a sudden sharp pain in his ear, and shook his head, bewildered. Asper had twisted in his arms to bite him, and he dimly became aware that she'd been shouting at him for some time, trying to gain his attention. "Aye, what?" he roared, and she pointed with her blade. "Look!"

Mirt looked, and saw a man behind Shandril-a slender, darkly handsome man with a wand in his hand. He'd just fired it, seen its magic race at Shandril's back and be swept toward the stars by billowing spellfire, shaken his head in disgust, and crouched low to crawl closer.

Mirt cast a glance at the maid from Highmoon. She was out of control, to be sure, but even if taking her down became needful, a wand-blast that might send miles of Faerun skyward wasn't the way to do it.

"I'll take him, leaving yon merry blades in yer hands," he growled in Asper's ear, and pointed to the handful of warriors struggling against the flames on Shandril's other side. She clapped him on the arm, whirled to give him a fierce, hot kiss, and then raced away.

Mirt watched her go with a smile-gods, what a beauty! What spirit! Gods keep her safe! — then turned and began his own sprint around the flames, toward the man with the wand.

He'd hoped to cut in close around the lass. The night was growing darker, so her flames must be fading a bit… yet they seemed to be raging as furiously as ever. Off to one side the silver fire that hid Alustriel from view flared up, but it, too, seemed dimmer.

Mirt glanced up as his boots skidded on something wet, and saw that the stars were blotted out. The dark thing, whatever it was, loomed over most of the camp, now, and seemed-by Mirt's familiar feeling of being under scrutiny-to be watching events below.

He shook his head and ran on. The gods certainly seemed to enjoy piling one misfortune atop another, enthusiastically providing three perils where one would do, and curse all the men-twisting bunch of them if that dog with the wand wasn't standing up behind Shandril to try sending death again!

The Old Wolf put his head down and ran, cutting in closer to Shandril than he'd yet dared, dodging hungry tongues of spellfire to get to this newest peril, and knowing he hadn't a blessed hope of reaching the man in time.

Yet Shandril was no fool. The curtain of spellfire cloaking her back was thicker than it raged anywhere else, and twice the man with the wand had to duck down as spellflames suddenly spat at him. The second time he ended up on his chin on the scorched turf, flattened out as low as he could, while an arm of silver fire wrestled with spellfire uncomfortably close above his head.

Mirt tried not to think about the fact that he was hurling himself at that particular snarling conflagration much too swiftly to stop or even veer with any hopes of putting himself where he wanted to be-out of the way of a swiftly raised blade, for instance.

He ducked back out of the way of flame, his racing feet skidding out from under him, and all time for thinking was past.

He crashed down hard on his back and bounced, slithering on, and saw the wand-wielder give him a startled look and rise again, as a drift of silver fire swept spellfire away like a hand clawing aside a tapestry, leaving the way to Shandril's back momentarily clear.

Marlel grinned savagely as he triggered his wand, and then swiftly ducked down again in case the wench should explode.

His magic sped as swift as any arrow, straight at the maid's unprotected back. Nothing could stop it now! He was going to be the one who laid low this Sh The great gasping walrus of a man who'd come running out of nowhere flung himself up into the air with a roar that made Shandril whirl around. The wand-bolt struck him squarely in the chest.

Mirt was flung away as an angry child throws a rag doll, and the last, fading traces of wand-fire reached Shandril.

She shuddered, spellfire already racing up and down in her limbs in a fresh halo, and the Dark Blade of Doom heard her cry out in pain.

His grin widened as he fired again, and he was still grinning when spellfire sped back along the path of his bolt, snatching up and reversing the racing wand-fire to stab back and make all Faerun a single blinding-bright roar.