Paul Kemp - Realms of War

Gods, the pain!

He found himself on his knees, screaming, waving his hands violently to try to dash the pain away-and failing.

"You should tend 'your' wizards better, Vizier," the silver-haired woman sneered. "Just now, they're entranced by the Weave, and their fates depend on what I find in their thoughts. As for me. . most folk know me as the Simbul. I serve Mystra, and the land of Aglarond. I've been watching you for a long time, Harlo Ongalor, and am quite happy to be your doom."

"My-? What did I ever do to you?" the vizier sobbed, trying to struggle to his feet and reach the wand at his belt with the bleeding ruin of his right hand.

"When I wore the guise of Alathe, you had me flogged to the bone for disputing your trade dishonesties with you in Athkatla."

The Simbul took a step closer and added calmly, "When the prettiest of the bedchamber-lasses you rented out in Murann died of her treatment at your hands-glass shards thrust into someone will do that, Ongalor-I took her place, and you promptly had me fed to your dogs."

The wand at the vizier's belt slid itself up, past his desperately grabbing hand, and turned in the air, just out of his reach, to menace him.

"And in Crimmor," the silver-haired woman continued, "when I posed as that trade envoy from Sembia and refused to be threatened into signing the deal you wanted, you had me felled in the street with a slung stone to the back of my head, and drove your wagon over me-three times, Ongalor, just to make sure you'd broken as many bones as you could. Then you laughed in my face and snatched my purse."

The Simbul bent closer and added, "Your life is so full of such cruelties that you may not recall just three slain women out of so many, yet I'm sure if I bother to give you time enough, you'll remember at least one of those slayings. Even if, just now, you can't put a.. finger on it."

And she smiled at Harlo Ongalor as the wand began to glow.

It was a soft smile that held all the mercy of the grin on the face of a hungry wolf.

As the Just Blades rode down the hill, those standing ready inside the gates of Ombreir were shocked to see a dead herald hanging limply in the air at their fore, head lolling, spitted on a trio of lances.

"A herald! There'll be trouble over that," Mirt muttered.

"There will, indeed," Ralaerond Galespear said softly at his shoulder. Something in the heir's drawl made Mirt look at him-in time to see the horse breeder's handsome good looks melt away into taller, broader-shouldered, feminine beauty.

A silver-haired woman who looked somehow familiar snatched Mirt's sword out of his hand, handing him Galespear's rapier with the words, "Here. Sorry it's such a toy."

A moment later, he was missing his best dagger, too, and she was striding away through the gates.

"No one should follow me past the gatehouse," she snapped, silver hair swirling. "The barrier stands."

It shimmered around her as she spoke, but she walked through it unharmed to meet the advancing army.

"We come to parley!" one of the younger Gauntyl knights shouted. "See you not the herald?"

"There will be no parley with you, who dared to treat a herald so," the lone woman told him. "I'll grant you only one gift: swift death."

The knight sneered. "How generous! Just you, against us all?"

She shrugged. "If some of you would like to be gallant and retire while I butcher the rest, be assured I'll get to you all eventually."

"You're mad!" barked a Gralhund warrior, stalking to meet her.

"That's true enough," the woman agreed. "So, shall we?"

Reluctantly, shaking his head, the Gralhund warrior swung his axe at her-and she danced aside, sprang behind his swing to thrust steel into his armpit, and spun to slice open the throat of another warrior with her dagger.

"Doomed," Loraun murmured-but stared, jaw dropping, as the stranger with the silver hair slashed, thrust, leaped, and slew, a tireless butchery that took her into the heart of the Just Blades.

Everyone in Ombreir watched in deepening awe, waiting for her inevitable fall… a fall that did not come.

"Twenty or more, already," Mirt mumbled, shaking his head. He could see some sort of warding magic was turning aside hurled lances and fired arrows from the woman, but still. .

Sheer weariness should drag her arms down soon, and they'd overwhelm her.

"I weary of this," they heard her say, through some trick of her magic-in the instant before beams of silver fire lashed out from her eyes, to blast to ashes Prince Uldrako and the senior Gauntyl and Gralhund knights riding with him. "Now begone, or I'll slay you all!"

She buried her steel in another two warriors-and the rest of the Just Blades shouted, turned, and fled, leaving more than sixty fallen on the hill.

The woman watched them go, then turned and walked back to the gates, drenched in blood not her own and leaking silver flames here and there where she'd been wounded.

"The barrier still stands," she warned those gaping at her.

"I'd not seek to depart, were I you."

She handed back Mirt's bloody sword and dagger, and told him, "I need a bath, and trust your cooking best. Make me some of that shieldfry of yours. There's still enough of Ambror left for a good meal, I think."

Mirt gave her a hard look, as men gagged or winced around him, and decided she was jesting. He hoped.

"Cook for me up in South Tower," she ordered. Then she commanded everyone else, "Where not one of you will go, until Mirt and I come down out of there."

The fire quickened. Mirt set two pans to warming over it. No need to weaken a shield when he had cookware. He laid Ombreir's best leg of lamb on the cutting board, hefted the cleaver, and set to work.

Silver hair swirled in the doorway, shedding a fine mist of water. Her bath was done already. "You know who I am, don't you?"

He nodded. That night, years ago, had just come back to him. "Dove, of the Seven," he growled. "Saw you once, dancing at the Bright Bared Battlelass, in Waterdeep."

Dove grinned. "Couldn't resist the name of that place. Pity 'tis gone. So you've seen all of me."

Mirt nodded. "Thews and thighs to out-muscle mine," he said. "So what brings a Chosen of Mystra into the endless war that is Amn?"

"Serving the goddess. In this case, hunting down Red Wizards who repeatedly offend against her wishes."

"Tell me," Mirt said, cutting up garlic. "Please."

"Klellyn, a Thayan agent. Silver fire-put my tongue in his mouth, left no mark. He cast a wildfire spell you were close enough to feel."

Mirt nodded. "Wildfire's bad?"

"He was trying to forever make magic 'go dead' in one tower here, as a trap for other mages. Lured there, a simple dagger thrust could end them. That sort of deliberate damaging of the Weave is something we Chosen are sworn to try to prevent."

Mirt set the lamb to sizzling, turned to face Dove, and asked simply, "Are you going to let me live?"

"Of course. You, I like and trust. You're no misuser of the Art."

"Was the vizier?"

"Small, puny. . Ongalor is a vindictive fool, about half the astute schemer he thinks he is. The five wizards who work with him, though… Orauth is formidable, and Maundark's deadly enough."

"Why the doubles, for all of us? Why didn't he just blast us?"

"He wanted the Just Blades to slaughter all of you. The doubles obey him and can be used in many swindles. Later, he'll let others capture those doubles. When those others put forward the doubles or their remains, the five wizards will end the magical disguises on the doubles, and Ongalor's rivals will be discredited, not to be trusted by anyone in Amn."

Mirt nodded, then frowned. "Five. . three gone with Ongalor, Klellyn dead-did you kill Ambror, too?"

"Yes. Another Thayan I was after. He'd just cast a life-draining magic that would have withered away two folk here and used their life force to allow him to mind control others at will. You're penned in with more serpents than Loraun. The fifth wizard is still here in Ombreir."