All Shadows Fled - Ed Greenwood [5]
He'd spoken a trifle too loudly. The Old Mage's eyebrows rose, and Belkram gulped,
"Patience certainly seems to be the provision ye used up most in the shadows," El observed mildly as his pipe glided in to find its way to his lips. He blew a slow, spreading smoke ring and then banished his pipe again. Teleportation is one thing that still seems reliable among all this chaos of Art, so I spent the better part of the highsun hours yesterday transporting a dozen monsters-hydras, firedrakes, wyverns, behirs, death kisses, and the like-into the camp of the second, central force, north of the Flaming Tower."
Belkram chuckled, but Shar looked troubled. "What's to stop their using spells to drive those beasts before them, south into the heart of Shadowdale?"
"Me," the Old Mage told her impishly. "I took care of their mages first." He watched another smoke ring drift away on the wind and added, "Some of the beasts I sent into their midst were rather hungry, too."
"Can't Bane teleport just as easily as you can?" Itharr asked quietly.
Elminster nodded his approval at such tactical thought. "Of course. Hell have to come to the aid of his Central Blade or lose the lot of them… but the doing will keep him occupied for a time, too busy to work other mischief." He ran fingers through his beard. "The same consideration governed my treatment of the smallest force. Fzoul's leading four hundred or so mounted men-at-arms past us right now, through Daggerdale."
"Four hundred Zhentilar?" Belkram asked, holding up his daggers. "You want us to take down four hundred warriors? Shouldn't we get horses to ride on, just to make it a little fairer?"
Shar and Itharr snorted together. Sylune reclined gracefully on thin air, as if sprawled on a couch, and awaited Elminster's answer.
The Old Mage shook his head and asked softly, "Bold today, aren't we, friend Harper?"
Lesser men might have quailed before that tone, but Belkram merely shrugged, smiled, and waved at Elminster to continue.
Inclining his head in a mock bow of thanks, Elminster said, "That task is not yours." He lifted his lips in a mirthless grin. "I suspect a few ores can do it better."
"A few ores?" Sharantyr roared, her voice rising from deep and ragged tones, for all the world as if she were a burly male and not a lithe lady. "Elminster!" That last squeaked word of reproach sounded more like a lady's pique, and goaded Sylune into peals of tinkling laughter.
"Yestereve," Elminster told them in tones of injured innocence, "I approached several ore bands foraging in Daggerdale, and undertook to alert them that a well-provisioned Zhent force was entering the territory. That should make things a little warmer for Fzoul than he anticipated, and rob him of most opportunities to reach Shadowdale ahead of the other Zhent forces, hole up in the woods around Grimstead, and amuse himself by using his spells to harass the good folk of the dale."
"All right, El. You've been both clever and busy," Sylun6 reassured him, her voice soothing. Her next words, however, came out as sharp as the crack of a whip: "But so have we. My friends here grow stiff and tired and hungry. Armies march on Shadowdale from all sides, you said, and have told us of three, so what attack is coming from the south-and what is our duty in dealing with it?"
Elminster bowed his head again to hide a grin, cleared his throat in apparent embarrassment, and said, "I need ye four to deal with the fourth Zhent attack: the Sword of the South. It's a band of Sembian mercenaries and the covert Zhentarim agents who hired them. They've been assembling in Battledale for a month and more, drawn from all over Sembia and the eastern dales."
"They're going to try to march through the Elven Court woods?" Shar asked, one shapely eyebrow raised. That's not a wise tactic for any armed band."
The Old Mage shook his head. "Their orders are to take and subdue Mistledale, and without