Элейн Каннингем: Silver Shadows

To Marilyn and Henk,

just because.

Night fell quickly in the Forest of Tethir, and the caravan guards cast wary glances into the tall, dense foliage that walled either side of the trade route. The sounds of the forest seemed to grow louder, more ominous, as the darkness closed in around them. Overhead, the ancient trees met in a canopy too thick for the waning moon to penetrate, but the merchants pressed on, lighting torches and lanterns when their horses began to stumble.

The dim circle of firelight did little to push back the darkness or to assuage the merchants’ unease. Their own torch-cast shadows seemed to taunt them, flickering capriciously and appearing as if they might at any moment break away and slip off into the trees.

There was an eeriness to this forest that made such things seem possible. All of the travelers had heard stories of the Watchers of Tethir, and there wasn’t a man or woman in the caravan who did not feel the unseen eyes.

Chadson Herrick, a grizzled sell-sword who’d made the road his home for more years than Elminster had pipes, raised a hand to rub away the tingle at the back of his neck. “My hackles are up. I feel like a cornered wolf,” he muttered to the man who rode beside him.

His companion responded with a terse nod. Chadson noted that his friend—a too-thin, nervous youth who at the best of times seemed as taut as a drawn bowstring—was clutching a holy symbol of Tymora, goddess of luck, in one white-knuckled hand. Chadson, for once, was not inclined to tease the lad for his superstitions.

“Just a few more miles,” the young man said in a soft, singsong tone that suggested he’d been silently repeating those very words over and over, as if the phrase were a charm that could ward off danger.

Their whispered conversation earned them dark looks from several of the other guards, even though there was no real need to keep silent. The Watchers already knew of the caravan and had probably followed it all the way from Mosstone, the last human settlement on the trade route that cut through the forest. If anything, the travelers’ tense silence seemed only to deepen the impending cloud that hung over the caravan.

A sudden wild impulse came upon Chadson. He was tempted to leap from his horse and dance upon the path, all the while hooting and cursing and thumbing his nose at their unseen escort. He imagined the reaction such an act would elicit from the unnerved merchants, and the mental image brought a wry grin to his face.

He was still smiling when the arrow took him through the heart.

Chadson’s body tilted slowly to one side and fell to the path. For a moment the men nearest him merely stared, their faces registering horrified recognition of the slender, ebony-hued staff protruding from the dead man’s chest. It was the dark-hued arrow of a wild elf, a bolt aptly known as “black lightning” to the humans.

The silence exploded into frenzied action. Following the shouted instructions of the guards, the merchants scrambled down from their wagons and, heedless of their precious cargo, overturned several of the wagons to form a makeshift shield wall. There was no time to cut the traces, and some of the draft horses went over with the wagons, falling heavily into piles of writhing, kicking horseflesh. The animals’ shrieks of terror and pain mingled with the screams of dying men as the black arrows descended upon them like stooping falcons.

From behind the scant cover of the wagons, archers returned fire, but they were shooting blind into the heavy foliage and had little hope of actually finding a mark. Some of the more intrepid—and less experienced—of the caravan guards drew swords and crashed into the forest to take the offensive. These were sent reeling back onto the path, unarmed, their eyes wide with shock and their hands clutching at mortal wounds.

The fighting was over in minutes. Many of the men on horseback had fled at the first sign of battle, and a few of the merchant wagons had escaped as well, careening wildly along the path in the wake of the panicked horses. From the north came the sound of fading hoofbeats, and a muffled crash as one wagon tilted over.

When all was silent, several shadowy figures broke free of the forest and crept onto the path. They fell upon the ruined wagons, cursing and bickering as they pawed through the spoils. One of them, taller and broader than most and clad in a dark, flowing cape, strode from the forest with a slight, limp figure slung over one shoulder. This he tossed onto the path to lie among the bodies of several of the slain merchants.

“A torch!” he commanded in a deep voice. “Get some light on this mess!”

One of the forest fighters hastened to obey, fumbling with flint and steel until a spark took hold. The sudden flare of torchlight fell upon the faces of the dead, one of which was an angular, elven face painted in elaborate patterns of greens and browns. A gaping wound slashed across the dead elf’s throat and chest, tracing a deep, diagonal line that started behind one ear and angled down across his ribs. It had long since bled dry. The dark-cloaked leader frowned and glanced at the fallen men that surrounded the elf.

His eyes settled on a young man whose hand had been pinned to his side by an arrow, apparently while he was in the act of reaching for his sword. Tangled among the ruined fingers was a leather thong from which hung the symbol of Tymora. Oddly enough, the arrow had struck the metal disk, skidding along its length and leaving a deep score before sinking into softer flesh. A silent sermon, the killer observed with a bit of dark humor, on the capricious nature of Lady Luck.

“That one,” he said with a wolfish smile as he pointed to the youth whose luck had run out. “Take his sword and reopen the elf’s wound—make it look as if he killed the elf in hand-to-hand combat. If necessary, splash a bit of the lad’s blood around to make the kill look reasonably fresh. There’s a caravan due to pass through tomorrow.”

But as his assistant reached for the sword, the wounded fighter’s eyes flickered open, and his good hand closed around the grip of a wicked hunting knife. Startled, the attacker fell back a step and reached for the bow on his shoulder.

Smoothly, swiftly, he sent an arrow hurtling into the young man’s chest. This time no lucky medallion deflected the arrow. The youth fell back, instantly dead.

The leader, however, did not look at all pleased by this quick response. He tore the arrow free and brandished it under the archer’s nose.

“And what in the Nine bloody Hells do you call this?”

The man shrugged, his face apprehensive as he noted the branded shaft and elaborate blue-and-white fletching that marked it as an arrow of his own making. “Musta run out of elf arrows,” he muttered.

“Damn you for a stinking ghast,” the leader swore in a low, ominous voice. “If you weren’t the best archer this side of Zhentil Keep, I’d push this arrow into your left ear and pull it out your right! Search them,” he ordered in louder tones, whirling toward the looters and holding the bloody arrow aloft so that all could see the error. “Make sure there are no more mistakes like this one. All of these men died at the hands of wild elves. See to it!”

To the casual observer, Blackstaff Tower appeared to be little more than an enormous, tapering cylinder of black granite, a tower some fifty feet tall and surrounded by a curtain wall nearly half that height. Stark and simple, the keep lacked the displays of magic—either fearsome or fanciful—that were so beloved by the wealthy and powerful citizens of Waterdeep. No watchful gargoyles peered down from the tower’s flat roof; no animated statues stood guard; no cryptic runes marred the smooth black surface of wall or tower. Yet everyone who knew of the archmage Khelben “Blackstaff” Arunsun—and in Waterdeep, indeed, in all the Northlands, there were few who did not—regarded the simple keep with a mixture of pride and awe. Here, rumor suggested, lay the true power behind the City of Splendors. Here was a gateway to magical wonders beyond the imagination of most mortals.