All Shadows Fled - Ed Greenwood [41]
"Good. We're going to throw you another. Pitch it out into this large hall of yours and tell us what you see."
Fflarast did so. The chamber rivalled the main hall of the Black Altar back in Zhentil Keep. He'd stood honor guard in that dark temple more than once, and knew this hall was fully as large. He told them so.
"Can you say anything of interest?"
"No… broken tiles… heaved and stained flooring, but open. The torchlight doesn't show it all. Nothing moving or alive that I can see."
"Good man. Stay where you are. We're coming to join you."
Fflarast sighed heavily and stood as still as he could, watching the slow and cautious advance of a long file of black-armored men.
It seemed half the Sword of the South was in the passage. Someone had cut a long, bent sapling and lashed a torch to it, and was lighting the high ceiling as they came, finding holes and old rockfalls. There were also two shafts that presumably let light and air down into the keep, but as the soldiers of Zhentil Keep cautiously passed beneath them, nothing swooped down or fell from above. Soon the Zhentilar reached Fflarast, and a swordcaptain-another officious one-curtly ordered him to stand aside.
A torch was tossed on down the passage. Its flickering light revealed that the corridor was blocked completely not far beyond where Fflarast had entered it. An entire room seemed to have fallen from the floor above, pouring a high mound of broken stone across the passage from wall to wall, and almost to the ceiling. Fflar looked at it and shuddered.
"This great hall it is, then," the swordcaptain ordered, turning away. The man at his elbow-the swordcaptain who'd thrown the torch to Fflarast-peered into the vast chamber and murmured, "I have a bad feeling about this room."
"I think we all do!" the other officer snarled, fear lacing his blustering voice. "So let's just get on with it! Men-out swords and advance, the first dozen of you! Stop and report if you see anything of import-especially moving bones! I want to get that mage in here fast… and then maybe we'll all get some sleep!"
Men moved reluctantly into the chamber. Fflarast stood silent, glad he wasn't among them, expecting to hear another heavy crash at any moment.
Minutes passed, and the men standing still and tense in the passage could hear each other breathing, hoarse and fast. But no cries or falls of stone came, and soon a man whose armor bore the red shoulder emblem of a sword came back to the archway and reported crisply, "No danger, sir. Molds and rubbish down one end, where a lot of water's come in, but there's nothing else in the place except two stairs up to the floor above and a high seat-of bare stone, nothing in it-on a raised bit at the far end. The place is huge; there's room for a good two thousand blades to bunk down, though I'd not want to be close in under some of the balconies; they look none too safe."
"Well done, sword. Set men to guard all doors and archways into the place; we'll move in. Swordcaptain Aezel, go out and tell the swordlord. Request that the spellmaster be brought in, forthwith-and if the wizard objects, request it again."
There were a few dry chuckles in the safe anonymity of the gloom, and then men were on the move. Fflarast Blackriver came to a sudden decision. He handed his torch to a passing armsman and took up the straight, back-to-the-wall stance of a man on guard duty. He wasn't going into that great hall unless directly ordered to.
Thankfully, the officious swordcaptain passed on into the great hall, and the bulk of the soldiery followed, leaving a few wary veterans standing in the passage with Fflarast. "Neatly done, lad," one of them hissed, and grinned. Fflarast gave him a grin back, and they waited in the darkness together until a bright blaze of torches and the shuffling of many booted feet told them the main body of the Sword had arrived.
Men in black armor seemed to file past forever, until at last the