“Aye,” the dwarf replied, “most of them lie dead. Tell me where Shandril is!”
“A moment.” Gorstag read the parchment. Lureene brought the horse to his shoulder, and he moved so that she could read what was written, too:
To Gorstag, of Highmoon, By these words, well met! The bearer of this note is the dwarf Delg, once a swordmate of Shandril in the Company of the Bright Spear, just after she left your house. He serves no evil master and bears Shandril no ill will; trust us in this-he has submitted to all our tests of art in this regard, and it is true. The Cult of the Dragon destroyed the. company, and it was thought only Shandril survived. This Delg, left for dead in Oversember Vale, made his way to the shores of the Sember, where he was found by elves and taken to priests of Tempus. While they were healing his wounds and praying to the god for guidance as to what task they should set him in return, a messenger of Tempus appeared and said that Delg’s task was to defend the girl who wielded spellfire against seeking swords; and so he has come to you for word. Our part in defending Shandril is done, valiant Gorstag; we tend Dammasae’s place of rest and remember. Aid this one as best you can, and you will be honored greatly. Him shall have then in your debt, Elminster of Shadowdale and Storm Silverhand of Shadowdale.
Gorstag read it, frowning a little, and then looked up at Delg. “You’ve missed them,” he said simply. “They rode west from here some short time ago, now. A mage hostile to them follows them, close indeed.”
“I’ve missed them? Then there’s no time left to wait about!” the dwarf said, and hobbled back to his mule. “Up!” he commanded it, “and ride like the wind… or she’ll be in trouble again, and in need of old Delg, before we get there!”
“Will you not take a faster mount?” Gorstag asked, waving at the horse Lureene held. Delg shook his head.
“My thanks, but how fast would I travel if I fell off it at the first bend in the road? Nay, I’ll stick to what I know, and make haste in my own way. Fare thee well, Gorstag. Stay by your lady. It is the greatest adventure you can have.” And he grinned then, and rode away, raising his arm in a warrior’s salute. Gorstag returned it, watching him go, and Lureene stroked his arm thoughtfully and said nothing.
After a time Gorstag looked away from the road and said gruffly, “Well, you can put the animal away. We shan’t be needing it.”
Lureene nodded. “Of course,” she said, turning, “and there’s a little matter of corpses lying about, too…”
Gorstag growled and went to put away his axe and find a shovel. He carried the letter very carefully in his hand, and looked at it again as he went.
Shargrailar the Dark circled high above the Thunder Gap, cold winds whistling through the spread, bony fingers that were all that was left of its wings. Shargrailar was the mightiest dracolich in Faerun known to the cult, perhaps the most powerful bone dragon there had ever been. Its eyes were two white lamps in the empty sockets of a long, cruel skull. It looked down with the cold patience of a being who has passed beyond the tomb and yet can fly, and it flew lower, watching and waiting.
So a human female dared to destroy dracoliches? Death must find her. Lucky she must have been, and her victims young fools, but still, she must die. She was headed toward Shargrailar’s lair. Armed with spellfire, they said. Interesting. Shargrailar glided among the clouds like a silent shadow, peering at the tiny road men called the East Way, far below. It had been a very long time since Shargrailar had been interested in anything.
There below, on the road. Two human riders, with mules… one was female. Silently Shargrailar descended, skeletal head peering. Yes… yes… this must be her. If not, what matter? What pair of humans could hurt Shargrailar? The great dracolich dove down out of the sky like a gigantic arrow of death, for that is the way of dracoliches. As it descended, Shargrailar could see that the she-human was beautiful… it opened bony jaws to give her death, silently, patiently…
Thiszult rode hard, hauling upon the reins savagely. He had to pass the maid and mage and get ahead of them, to have to time to call up his special magic-or find a height or their camp, to have some time with them in view to do it. It would not do to miss them now-or to get too close and warn them, without his swordsmen to chase them and bring them to a stand.
He thought furiously as he rode. He wore no insignia, and rode alone. There was nothing to say that he was a mage, nor that he wished anyone ill. Yet, he was riding in brutal haste-dangerous, as the road climbed toward the Peaks, and a warning to anyone that all was not right-especially to a couple no doubt wary indeed, by now, of attacks He slowed his mount, cudgeling his brains for a plan. In darkness they could too easily evade him. Yet, one had to sleep, and they would halt, to camp. Perhaps then would be the best time to attack, but only if he had their close trail by then and remained unseen. There was no other way.
With a sigh, he brought the horse to a shuddering haft, leaped clear and then tied its reins to a sapling before the winded horse could move away. He checked what he carried with him. It was all secure. Well and good. A quick glance up and down the road-empty, as far as he could see from here-and he quickly cast spells of invisibility and flight upon himself, and leaped into the sky.
He was gone before Delg found the exhausted horse and wasted several breaths in puzzlement, as he looked about for traces of anyone leaving the road nearby or continuing on foot, but found nothing. The dwarf shook his head and rode on, thinking of Burlane and Ferostil and Rymel, all dead now, all never to laugh with him again… well, perhaps he’d join them soon, if there were hostile mages about. He kicked his mule into reluctant hurry, and watched the road ahead narrowly, his axe ready in his hand.
“Someone follows us,” Narm said, peering back over his shoulder as they rode.
“Some one?” Shandril asked him. “One? Alone?”
“Yes… a child, or one of the short races, on a mule,” Narm said doubtfully. “Seems an odd traveler, to ride alone through the wilderness.”
“Well, it is an open road,” Shandril replied. “It cannot be untraveled, by any means.” She turned in her saddle. Behind them, the land fell away in gentle hills to the dark woods and Deepingdale, and she thought she could see The Rising Moon, or where it must be. Tears touched her eyes for a moment, again-and then she saw bony death gliding coldly down out of the sky behind them.
“Narm!” she screamed, as she kicked heels to her mount and climbed forward onto its neck in sudden, wild urgency. “Get down!”
Narm looked, and saw. In frantic haste, he tore Torm’s gift from his neck and threw it away. Shandril had one glimpse of his white face before the world exploded around them. What in the name of the Soul Forger was that? Delg stood in his stirrups, open-mouthed, as the great skeletal bulk arrowed down out of the sky ahead of him. It was like a dragon, but it was a skeleton! It was… oh, by the lode-luck of the dwarves, it must be one of those dracoliches Elminster had told him about! Delg swallowed and sat down in his saddle again. He was getting too old for this sort of thing…
No dwarf stood a chance against that! Nor, he thought grimly, did little Shandril, even if she had married a boy who could cast a handful of spells and gained some fire magic of her own. The mule beneath him had slowed to a walk as he had sat thinking.
Delg booted it mercilessly in the ribs then, waving his axe so that it flashed in the sunlight. “Get you going!” he snarled into the mule’s ears. “I’m late for a battle, and they’ll be needing me, never fear!”
Thiszult flew low over the trees to one side of the road, the wind of his flight whipping past his ears in his haste. He had to find them, and get ahead of them. Soon, now…
There was a flash and roar of flame ahead. Startled, Thiszult veered off to one side, rising in the air for a better look. Were they in a fight? This might prove even easier than he had thought!
A vast, dark skeleton wheeled in the air, and Thiszult gasped in astonishment. A Sacred One! But how did it come to be here? And-who was it? He had never seen one so large and terrible before! As he stared at the dracolich, its cold orbs met his gaze, and it rose toward him. Its skeletal jaws looking somehow amused.
But I’m invisible! Thiszult thought in amazement. How can it see me? Or is that a power of the Sacred Ones?
From the great dracolich’s maw, a blue-white bolt of lightning leaped and crackled. Thiszult did not have time to protest that he was a friend before it struck him. All his limbs convulsed at once, and he was dead, mouth open to speak, even before Shargrailar’s bony claws struck his body and tore it apart. Thiszult’s secret, powerful magic fell to earth. It was lost in the trees below.
Far away, Salvarad of the cult sighed and turned from his scrying font. Thiszult would never take the Purple now.
Shandril got up, grimly. The stink of cooked horseflesh was strong in her nostrils. Faithful Shield had lived up to her name all too well. The dracolich’s flames had poured strength into Shandril, not harmed her. She only hoped Narm had survived.
Lightning cracked overhead as Shandril ran across the smoking road. She did not look up; she had eyes only for her man. A heart-twisting, blackened tangle of horse’s legs met her gaze. Where once she would have turned away, sick, she now ran forward without hesitation, peering anxiously into the smoking slaughter. Narm! Oh, Narm!
He had no protection against dragonfire. He could well be dead. Their child would never know its father… Shandril snarled at herself. None of that! Find him, first!
There he was, moving weakly, half-buried under scorched baggage. He was alive! Oh, gods be praised!
Tears ran down Shandril’s face as she knelt beside him, tearing aside smoldering straps and canvas with frantic haste. Narm moaned. His hair smoked; the left side of his face was black and blistered.
“Oh, Narm! Beloved!” Shandril wept. Cracked lips moved; lids that no longer had lashes flickered open. Watery eyes met hers, lovingly-and then looked beyond, and widened.
“Look out, love!” he hissed, painfully. “The dracolich comes!” Shandril followed his gaze.
The great Shargrailar wheeled directly above them, vast and dark and terrible. For all that it was only empty, hollow bones, the undead creature was awesome. Shandril shivered as she gazed up at its fell might. It turned and dove silently down the sky at them again.
“Run, Shan!” Narm croaked from beneath her. “Get you hence! I love you! Shandril, go!”
“No,” Shandril said, in tears. “No, lord, I will not!” As the great bony Jaws opened, she carefully climbed forward until she lay gently atop Narm’s blackened body, shielding him as much as she could. Narm groaned in pain. She braced herself to lift her weight off him, and said softly, “f love you.”
As the roar of the dracolich’s approaching flame grew in the air about them, Shandril put her lips to Narm’s and gathered her will. Then blasting flame swallowed them again.
“Clanggedin aid me!” Delg muttered, as the mule bucked beneath him. The road before him was one great smoking ruin. A roaring cone of fire had just raked it again. In a moment the swooping dracolich would be above him. The mule bucked again. “Oh, blast!” Delg burst out, as he found himself somersaulting forward in the air. His frantic grab for the saddle-horn missed. Well, at least he still had hold of his axe. He tucked it close against him so that it would not be chipped in the hard landing to come.
So the mule’s saddle was empty when the raking claws of Shargrailar swept the poor beast skyward, rending and tearing. The dracolich let out the first sound it had uttered in many long years as it rose into the air-a long, loud hiss of anger and frustration. It shredded the mule as if it were a rotten rag, and wheeled again. Destroying an enemy had never taken this long before.
Shandril desperately drew in all the flame that struck her, and strained to reach the dragonfire that ravaged Narm’s helpless body and draw it into her, too. Through their joined lips she felt the fierce energy flowing; sluggishly at first, then faster and faster. Gods, the pain! Her lips were seared as if by hot metal; tears blinded her. Her body shuddered at the pain, but she held fast to her Narm as the last of the flames swept over them and were gone.
Still energy flowed into her. She realized with a start that Narm’s own energy was stealing into her now; she was killing him, draining him to death! Hastily she broke their kiss and stared anxiously down at the slack, silent face. Oh, Narm! She had no art to heal him! What had she done?
Bitterly, Shandril felt the swelling energy burning within her. Her veins were afire; she was bloated with more than she could hold for long. The pain…
Into her mind then came Gorstag’s voice, telling of her mother: “… to heal or harm…!” Heal! Could she heal as well as burn? She gathered her shaking limbs to lie tenderly upon Narm again, and set her lips to his. Closing her eyes, Shandril willed energy to flow out of her gently, slowly, like a cooling flow of water, through her lips. It did.
Through their kiss she could feel her released energies flowing into Narm. She willed it so, fiercely, and felt his feeble heart grow stronger, and his body began to rally. He moved beneath her, struggling to speak.