Hand of Fire - Ed Greenwood [120]
He aimed the wand at his wounded audience and triggered it again.
*******
"Well, now!" Korthauvar Hammantle said, as the scrying magic faded and he sat back to grin at his fellow Zhentarim.
"This is rich!"
"Yes," Hlael agreed, shaking his head, "but how did Marlel get yon magic? And stay alive to make an agreement with anyone!"
"Ah," said a soft voice from the shadows behind them. "That would be my doing."
Korthauvar and Hlael froze, suddenly ice-cold and dry-mouthed. They knew that voice even before the old man in the dusty maroon robes and the longpointed shoes shuffled forward into the light:
Hesperdan!
Korthauvar was still trying to swallow as the old wizard smiled and added, "Now, I think, it's time for you to stop watching and to go and fetch me spellfire. There's no need to farspeak Drauthtar or delay any longer. Just go and do it." He raised a bony, green-veined hand in which a strange scepter glowed and flickered, and whispered, "Now."
It was bright and cloudless as they left Triel, but the Trade Way seemed deserted. As the creaking, groaning wagons rolled on, Voldovan eyed every bush and nearby crag suspiciously – as Narm and Shandril knew all too well, for they sat on the perch beside him, guiding the beasts of his wagon. As the hours passed without incident, the caravan master grew more tense and wary rather than less so. When they stopped to water the beasts and refill skins at a roadside stream, he was almost dancing with tension.
Yet no crossbow quarrels came humming out of the Blackrocks, and no beasts pounced, called, or even showed themselves on the heights. Once a merchant thought he saw the tiny shape of a dragon aloft, flying very high, but when he shouted and pointed, no one else caught sight of it. "Dragons," Orthil Voldovan growled, caressing the already glassysmooth bone hilt of his handy belt-dagger with white-knuckled hands. "That's all I need!"
Just after the sun had started its long descent, they passed another caravan heading the other way – a fast-moving group of uniform wagons guarded by hard-eyed men in chainmail, all in matching hats and surcoats. Voldovan raised a hand in salute as they thundered past and growled, "Costers!" into the dustcloud they left in their wake, as if it was the dirtiest oath imaginable.
The dust got into everything. Shandril's hair felt like the gnarled roots of some dead, dried-out plant. It left everyone coughing and spitting, but when they rumbled clear of it the road was as deserted as before, and Arauntar blew a horn-call announcing his intention to pick up the pace. Voldovan merely nodded, and slowly, wagon after wagon, drovers using their whips, reins, and voices got their beasts up to a near-gallop.
Once more they bounced and thundered along, rocking dangerously, until Shandril shouted to the caravan master, "Is this prudent? You remember what happened last time!"
"If we're attacked, lass, 'twon't matter how fast we're going… might even make a few brigands think twice about daring to dispute with us," was the reply.
As the day wore on, the wheels turned, no misfortune fell, and it seemed as if Arauntar had been wise… for as the shadows grew long and the sun glimmered low behind distant crags, the veteran guard blew another, triumphant horn-blast, signaling all to slow, and turned his wagon up a side-trail onto a large, tilted plateau.
"This'll be where that coster run broke camp, this morn," Voldovan growled in satisfaction. "We've made good time!"
Narm and Shandril exchanged glances and smiles – wry grins that told each other wordlessly that they were both expecting more trouble in the night to come. The wagons' around them seemed to hold an endless supply of bold men seeking spellfire.
Voldovan evidently thought so too. His first words as he swung down from the perch to see to the horses, before