Элейн Каннингем - Thornhold

So she took the scroll Hronulf handed her and the small leather book that he bid her read in order to learn more of the family’s creed and purpose. Bronwyn still had a thousand questions, but the answers seemed finally within her grasp. The answers, that is, to all questions but one:

Why was the knowledge of her past, this fulfillment of her dreams, not nearly enough?

Elsewhere in Thornhold the dinner hour was ending and the Knights of Samular scattered, each to his preferred rest and ease. One aging paladin, once known throughout eastern Faerûn as Randolar the Bear, made his way up a narrow stair to his chamber. He retrieved a book from his modest bedchamber, a fine tome brimming with exciting tales told with admirable brevity, and betook himself to an even smaller room—a tidy latrine set into the thick wall of the keep. There he ascended the throne of the common man and happily settled down to read.

So engrossed did he become in the tale that, at first, the muted curses seemed nothing but echoes of the vanquished villain’s ire. It came to him, slowly, that the voices were real, and that they were coming from the midden shoot below him. After a puzzled moment, Randolar realized that someone was climbing up the interior of the keep wall, an invader determined enough to risk the sort of unpleasant reception he had just received. It also occurred to him that since this was not the only privy in the keep, there might be other, similarly determined invaders.

The old paladin leaped to his feet and dragged in air to fuel a shout of alarm. Before he could utter a sound, the privy’s wooden seat flew up and slammed against the wall with furious force. Randolar spun just as the head and shoulders of a black-bearded man, grim-faced and covered with the leavings that coated the midden, emerged from the shoot.

Propping himself on one elbow, the invader lifted a small, loaded crossbow. His grimy finger jerked at the trigger. The bolt tore into Randolar’s chest, and he slid slowly down the wall onto the cold, stone floor. His last thought was deep mortification that a knight of Tyr should die so, his last alarm unsounded and his breeches tangled about his ankles.

On a hilltop not far away, Dag Zoreth stood on the watch-tower of a conquered outpost, his eyes fixed on the fortress. All was in readiness. His minions had done well. Even Sir Gareth had delivered above expectations. According to Dag’s scouts, a young woman had entered the fortress several hours ago. His reunion with his lost family promised to be more complex and fulfilling than he’d dared to hope.

And it would happen soon. By now, his advance soldiers should have made their way up the unprotected midden chutes. They were handpicked men, among them some of the most skilled and silent assassins known to the Zhentarim, and the best archers. It was their task to quietly slip into the fortress. Three assassins would work their way up to the winch room, a small upper-floor chamber where the machinery that lifted the portcullis was housed. The others would take out the men who walked the walls and watched from the high turrets, and work their way to the gate.

Dag was suddenly distracted by the sensation of cold fire that stabbed at his left side—painful, yet not entirely unpleasant. He slipped his hand into the leather bag that hung at his belt and removed from it the source of his discomfort, a small globe like the one he had given Sir Gareth.

The face in it was dusky gray, vaguely elven in appearance, and seamed with scars earned over long decades of service to evil. The half-drow assassin gave a single, curt nod.

Dag smiled and slipped the globe back into his bag.

“They have secured the winch room and are ready to raise the portcullis,” he said to his captain, a bald, black-bearded man who was more than a head taller than Dag and nearly twice his breadth. What Captain Yemid lacked in strategic innovation, he made up in sheer brute force and the corresponding ability to pass along orders and make them stick. “Sound the charge,” Dag commanded.

Yemid thrust a ham-sized fist into the air. Instantly one of the men lifted a curved horn to his lips and winded the signal for attack. A score of heavy cavalry thundered toward the fortress, huge war-horses, barded with plate armor and bearing fully armored warriors. Behind them came the next wave, another twenty mounted soldiers who would chase down and slay any who managed to escape. Finally came the infantry, fifty men, well armed and well trained, fortified with the battle frenzy that came in the wake of Dag Zoreth’s Cyric-granted spells.

It was not a large force, but it would more than suffice. Thirteen men were already in the fortress, killers as silent and deadly as ferrets hunting aging roosters and nesting doves. Dag only hoped there would be enough killing for his men to sate their bloodlust; if not, some of them were likely to turn on each other, seizing the opportunities of battle confusion to settle some old insult or petty rivalry. It was not an uncommon occurrence among the Zhentarim.

A senseless waste, Dag mused as he kicked his horse into a run. It was better to hoard anger like treasure, building and nurturing it until it became a weapon, one that could be unleashed to good effect.

Nearby, one of the soldiers fell from his horse, an arrow protruding from his chest. Good. There was still some fight in the paladins. To minimize his own risk, Dag leaned low over his horse’s neck as the steed galloped past the infantry. He kept his eyes fixed on the great wooden door in the fortress wall.

The portcullis rose in a series of quick, sharps jerks as the assassins winched it up. The knights of Darkhold swept toward the wooden door, long spears leveled before them.

Four of them struck the gate at nearly the same instant. The two halves of the wooden door burst inward, a gratifying testament to the invaders’ success in throwing the bars. Zhentarim fighters poured into the breached wall. Dag spurred his horse on viciously, determined to enter the fortress before the fighting was done.

In Hronulf’s tower chamber, Bronwyn was the first to hear the alarm. She poised, her hand on the door, and then spun back to face her father. “That horn. I know that signal,” she said grimly.

Hronulf nodded and strode for the door. “Zhentarim. You stay here—I must go to the walls.”

Bronwyn seized his arm, all thoughts of anger forgotten. “It’s too late for that. Listen.”

The faint sound of battle seeped through the thick stone and stout oak. Hronulf’s eyes widened. “They are inside the fortress!”

She nodded. Her mind raced as she tried and discarded possible plans. “Is there a back way out of here?”

The paladin smiled grimly and drew his sword. “Not for me. Thornhold is my command. I will defend it or die.”

Before Bronwyn could respond, the first crashing assault struck the chamber door. The oak panels buckled, and even the iron bands that bound them bulged inward.

Hronulf thrust his sword back into its sheath and took a richly carved band of gold from his hand. He seized Bronwyn’s left hand and slipped the ring onto her index finger. Though it had fit the paladin’s large hand just a moment before, it slid into place on her slim finger and stayed there, comfortably snug.

“Listen well,” he said, “for the door will not hold much longer. This ring is a family heirloom of great power. It cannot fall into the hands of the Zhentarim. You must protect it at all cost.”

“But—”

“There is no time to explain,” he said, taking her shoulders and pushing her firmly toward the wall. He reached around her and pressed hard on one of the tightly fitted stones. A passage opened in the seemingly solid wall, a rounded, dark hole just above the floor. He gestured to the opening. “You must go,” he insisted.