“Never,” said Algorind, risking the safety of his voice to speak what he saw as truth.
The priest sent him a look of purest hatred. “You know nothing. Your kind is known to me—your mind is empty of everything but Tyr. It should be an easy matter, therefore, for you to remember this: I will find you and kill you, in the most painful manner I can devise.”
Dag Zoreth took a long breath and chanted the words to a spell. He held one hand poised in an unfinished gesture and looked to his daughter. “Good-bye, Cara,” Dag said softly. “We will meet again soon.”
His gaze sought Bronwyn, and this time his eyes were hard. “As will we.”
And then he was gone, leaving behind a small wisp of purple smoke.
Bronwyn caught Cara’s eye, jerked her head toward the still-fighting dwarves, and mouthed the word, run!
Then she took her knife away from Algorind’s throat and danced back a step. Still holding her grip on his hair, she kicked with all her strength at the back of his knee. His leg buckled. At the same moment, she yanked back hard. The paladin fell backward and landed in a painfully twisted heap. Bronwyn resisted the urge to kick him while he was down, and took off running madly after Cara.
A small knot of dwarves had run out of opponents and seemed to be quarreling among themselves. Cara ran straight at them.
“Good girl,” Bronwyn panted as she pounded along behind. The dwarves looked up as Cara approached and parted to let first her and then Bronwyn past. Bronwyn glanced back to see that they had closed ranks, forming a wall of dwarven resolve against the paladin.
For once again, Algorind was fervently pursuing his quest.
Bronwyn groaned. “Stop him,” she shouted back.
She snatched up Cara and all but threw the girl over her shoulder. There was an open door before them. The chapel. Bronwyn remembered the steps that ran up the back of the chapel into the towers. She dashed into the low building.
The sight before her stopped her in mid stride. Hanging over the altar was an enormous black skull, behind which burned a lurid purple sun. Malevolence emanated from the manifestation, washing over her with a wave of hatred and evil that was fully as debilitating as the lich’s touch.
Algorind clattered in after her, barely noticing the dwarf who clung doggedly to one of his legs. He stopped, as Bronwyn had done, and raised his eyes to the unholy fira. But there was no fear on his face, and his eyes held calm certainty. For a moment, Bronwyn envied him the simple beauty of his faith.
Again he began to sing, the same chant that had banished the purple fire from Dag Zoreth’s sword. Such was the power of his prayer that the dwarf—who had given up his hold and was now attempting repeatedly to bash at the paladin with a battle hammer—could not even get close. After several moments of this, the dwarf shrugged and took off in search of something he could actually hit.
The manifestation of Cyric was more difficult to banish than the sword’s enchantment, and it resisted Algorind’s prayers with a hideous crackling and hissing. The sunburst’s rays fairly danced with rage.
Bronwyn did not stay to see the outcome. She put Cara down and took her hand. They edged around the chapel, hugging the walls and keeping as much distance as possible between themselves and the angry evil fire in the midst of the room. Once, a spray of purple sparks showered them. The skirt of Cara’s dress began to smolder. Bronwyn dropped to her knees and beat out the tiny flames with her hands. To her relief, the child was not burned—only a few empty, brown-ringed holes marred the pink silk.
To her astonishment, this loss brought a tremble to the girl’s lip. This, after all Cara had endured. “I will get you another,” Bronwyn told her as she pulled her into a run.
The fire was dying now, and Algorind would not be far behind them. They dashed up the winding stone steps, and out onto the walkway that ringed the interior of the wall. Their way was clear, for all the Zhentarim had flooded down into the bailey to meet the dwarf invaders.
They ran toward the front gate tower, hoping to get to the horses. The dwarves had shut the door and barred it. There were but two horses outside the gate. If they could get to the horses, they could outrun the paladin.
But swift footsteps closed in and a heavy hand dropped on Bronwyn’s shoulder. She huried her elbow back in a sharp jab and whirled after it. Stiffening her fingers, she went for his eyes.
The paladin was quick, and he dodged her jabbing attack. Her hand stabbed into his temple, and she changed tactics— spreading her fingers into raking claws and slashing down over his face.
Algorind had not expected his, and for one instant he fell back on his heels. Bronwyn looked around frantically for an escape.
The only way was down. The roofs of the small interior buildings were neatly thatched, and they slanted sharply down. It was the best she could do.
“Jump,” she told Cara, then hurled herself onto the roof, never once doubting that the girl would follow.
They slid on their backsides down the low-hanging eaves and leaped out into the bailey. Bronwyn ran for the gate-house stairs, pulling Cara after her. She shot a look over her shoulder and stopped dead.
A young dwarf had stepped into Algorind’s path, his axe raised and his beardless face set in determination. The paladin never slowed. He cut the lad down with a swift, terrible blow and kept coming.
Bronwyn squeezed her eyes shut to force back the wave of pain and indecision. She could not leave the dwarves here to deal with this man. He was too skilled, too determined. The dwarves were just as stubborn, and they wouldn’t give up until Algorind lay dead.
Inspiration struck. She reversed direction, zigzagging across the bailey toward the siege tower. On the way, she cuffed Ebenezer’s head. He glanced at her, which earned him a thudding blow from the staff of the man he was fighting.
“Bar the door behind!” she shouted, and then she dragged Cara through the open door of the Fenrisbane.
Bronwyn looked around the siege tower. The inside was vast and equipped with many weapons: piles of spears, swords, barrels full of quarrels. None of these, not in her hands at least, would be sufficient to stop the determined paladin from fulfilling his quest.
She looked up. The interior was a maze of scaffolding, leading up to a second floor and beyond. She hoisted Cara up onto a crate. “Can you climb?”
“Like a squirrel,” the girl said somberly. She kilted up her ruined skirt and then proceeded to prove her claim.
Bronwyn came after her, hauling herself up from one timber to another. She knew with absolute certainty the moment when they were no longer alone in the tower.
“Faster,” she urged Cara. “He’s still coming.”
The girl scampered up with an agility that Bronwyn duplicated only through sheer force of will. Algorind came after them, slowly gaining.
But they were almost to the top. Almost cleat Bronwyn put her shoulder to the hatch and pushed.
Nothing.
She tried again, hurling herself at the door and almost losing her balance. “It’s barred,” she said in despair.
Cara, however, was not listening. The little girl stared intently at the wooden door, on the side opposite the hinges. The wood began to smolder and then burst into flame.
“Try again,” she advised, her voice pale from the effort of holding the casting.
But Bronwyn could not get close enough without setting herself afire. She backed off a foot or two and got a firm grip on one of the crossbeams. She let her feet drop and rocked back and forth as she hung over the rapidly advancing paladin. Mustering all her strength, she swung up both feet high over her head and kicked at the burning door.
The hatch flew open. Instantly, Cara released the enchantment and the flames disappeared. Bronwyn worked her way back, hand over hand, and pushed the girl up to the platform, then rolled out herself
She slammed the ruined door down and looked for something to bar it. Cara snatched up a ballista bolt, staggering under its weight. Together, they worked it through the iron latch handles.
The door bounced and heaved as the paladin tried to fight his way through. Bronwyn doubted that the charred boards would hold for long. She snatched the three rings from their slots and thrust them onto her hands.
“Come on!” she said, and took off down the ramp at a run. The tower shrank swiftly, sending the ground hurtling up to meet them. The crossbars that gave footing on the ramp were compressed, moving together. Bronwyn misjudged the distance and caught her toe in one of the bars.
She fell forward and went into an uncontrollable roll. The fall was mercifully brief; the landing, less merciful. Bronwyn slammed into the ground, rolled, and came to a stop with a clank of metal. When her vision cleared, she found herself looking into the fixed, staring eyes of a slain Zhentilar soldier. The plate armor that covered his chest had been deeply dented by a dwarven axe.
Bronwyn shuddered and shrank back. Strong hands seized her and dragged her to her feet, held her until her world stopped whirling.
Her eyes settled upon Ebenezer’s broadly grinning face. “That was good thinking on your part,” he said, nodding to the tiny siege tower standing in the courtyard. “Though I don’t envy that human much, getting shrunk like that. Makes magical travel feel like a foot massage, I’m telling you that for free.”