Эд Гринвуд - Crown of Fire

“Her name is Magusta, and she’s one of a powerful clan who walk many worlds, shifting their forms to whatever best aids them in seizing all the power they can. We are very old enemies, they and I.”

“If these folk are so old and powerful, how is it that we’ve heard nothing of them before?” Torm demanded, eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Are you sure this isn’t another of your little plots?”

Rathan turned his head patiently to look at his longtime friend. “Would ye like me to tell ye what an idiot ye are, or shall I save the breath?”

At the same time, Elminster said with a dry smile, “Of course this is one of my little plots.” He snorted. “Thy mastery of diplomacy forbids me from involving ye in any of my big ones.”

Where she sat in the dimness against one wall of the chamber, Storm Silverhand smiled and spoke up for the first time. “It is another ‘little plot,’ to be sure—but these Malaugrym are old indeed, Torm. Most folk in the Heartlands, if they’ve heard of them at all, know them as ‘the Shadowmasters.’ Individually, their mastery of magic is about as powerful as that of an experienced mage. They are ruled by venom and pride, and practice at magic—or anything else—is foreign to their nature.” She stretched, and added soberly, “It may be your only advantage against them.”

Rathan had nodded in recognition at the name ‘Shadowmaster.’ Now he rumbled, “We two are poor weapons indeed to use against such a foe. I know that Those Who Harp are even busier than the Knights of Myth Drannor … but will we have no aid from thee?”

Storm spread her hands. “The Malaugrym—for there may be others in Faerûn, mind—know us, whatever guise we take; someone not known to them will fare better, seeking to strike at them unexpectedly.”

Elminster nodded. “Look into the eyes of any creature ye meet, from squirrel to horse, and every man. If ye see a golden light there—or the blue glow of my spell—ye’re facing a Malaugrym. Strike then to slay, speedily, and stop not until all has been burned away.” He waved his hands, and an oval of flickering blue light appeared in the air before the two knights—a magical gate that would transport them to the region where Shandril Shessair toiled on.

Torm sighed. “You make it sound simple enough … but simple orders have found their ways onto tombstone carvings often enough before. What if it happens that we really need you—will you come?”

“Soon enough to save thy life, if ye are beset?” Elminster’s eyes were sad. “Ye’re old enough to know that no answer I give ye will serve as a sure shield. Death watches always, waiting, and has a swifter hand than I.”

The slim, handsome thief waved a hand with a theatrical flourish. “Granting all that—are we on our own in this?”

Elminster looked up at the ceiling of the spell chamber, where an old enchantment made the stars wink and glitter as they drifted across an illusory night sky. “The gods above know I am a busy man,” he told the stars innocently, pretending not to hear the resulting snorts of the knights, “and am beset at present with matters even weightier than spellfire—but I should not be overmuch surprised if I find myself sparing time for a charge over the hill or two, when my business takes me that way. What say ye, Storm?”

The bard inclined her head and patted the hilt of the well-used long sword scabbarded at her hip. “I, too, will do what I can—and there are my fellow Harpers along the way. One of them does nothing but wait for Shandril and Narm. To say nothing of Delg the dwarf; I’ll be surprised if he has not caught up to them already. We will all of us do what we can.”

As the knights nodded and started toward the gate, checking their weapons, Elminster added quietly to Rathan, “Ye might pray to Tymora that our efforts will be enough.”

Torm rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me,” he said, putting the back of his hand to his brow in a mock swoon. “The future of all Toril hangs in the balance. Again.”

Elminster raised one of his own eyebrows in a parody of the thief’s own manner. “Of course.”

Their last glimpse of Thunder Gap, far behind, was blocked by dark, sinister winged shapes in the sky. Narm watched them flapping out of the mountains, found his mouth suddenly dry, and swallowed with some difficulty.

“Delg,” he managed to croak. The dwarf did not even turn to see where he was pointing.

“I’ve been ignoring them,” Delg told him sourly. “It’s easiest.”

“Ignoring them? That’s all? ” Shandril asked incredulously, looking back at the dark, hunting shapes as they grew ever larger, ever closer.

“You’ve a bright scheme of some sort, lass?” The dwarf’s tone was sharp as he hastened on, an errant skillet banging on metal somewhere inside his pack.

“Well, we’ve got to hide,” Shandril said hotly. “I haven’t spellfire enough to—”

“That’s why I’ve been saving my breath and not stopping to look back,” the dwarf said in dry tones. “It brings the trees closer, as fast as I can make them move …. See the little dip ahead there? It’s a ravine: the branches’ll be thick, and there’ll be a stream to hide our own noises—arguing with wise dwarves, for instance ….”

Narm and Shandril exchanged glances, then hurried after the dwarf toward the ravine he’d indicated. Only after they had reached cover did any of them speak again.

“What are they?” Narm’s voice was low. He’d never seen such ugly things before—huge, fat, scaled things with bat wings, claws, and horselike heads that ended in two probing, twisting snouts. Each snout held sharp jaws; even down here Narm could smell the rotting reek of their breath.

“Foulwings,” Delg said. “Well named, aye?”

Narm watched the heavy, ungainly things flap over them, wheel, and dart this way and that, searching along the road and the edges of the forest for signs of a maid, her man, and a dwarf. He shivered as a foulwing turned overhead, and the head of the robed and hooded rider pivoted, scanning the forest. For a moment it seemed that the foulwing rider looked right at him. Fear rose in Narm. Frantically he searched his mind for some spell that wouldn’t reveal their location to the foes above.

And then the foulwing wheeled in the air, belching and snorting angrily as its rider struck it cruelly with a metal goad. In the man’s other hand, a wand glinted for a moment before he flew onward, out of sight. His companions, some ten or twelve others, followed afterward.

“Who rides foulwings?” he asked, trying to sound calm.

“Evil folk,” Delg said brightly. When Narm looked at him in disgust, the dwarf added a savage grin. Narm folded his arms and waited for further explanation.

Delg rumbled, “If you must know, lad: the Zhents; the Cult of the Dragon; I’ve heard the Red Wizards of Thay do, too; I saw the private army of a lich riding ’em once, in the Vilhon—and the tavern-talk in Suzail, when last I was there, had some lord or other of Westgate using them, in league with a pirate. For all I know, half the rich merchants in Sembia keep ’em as pets.”

“If they’re as common as all that, why’ve I never heard of them before?” Narm protested.

Delg rolled his eyes. “D’you know how many folk I’ve heard say that down the years, lad? Most of ’em had been adventuring longer than you have, too—and the things they hadn’t met with before killed ’em just as dead as if they’d been old friends. Had you seen or heard of spellfire before you met with your lady? D’you think I could stand in the midst of it, protesting I’d never heard of it before, and thereby escape being burned?”