• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

The Wolves saw a young maid rising to meet them, bloody blade in hand. One of them cursed, spun about, and ran. The others watched him go and then followed, breaking into frantic flight, as Ylyndaera's astonished laughter rang out down the passage.

"For the dale!" she called after them. "For the High Dale, free again!"

Beside her, Ulraea burst into tears.

* * * * *

Not far away, lightning reached the old man.

Sharantyr, struggling to her knees in pain, found the breath to scream, "No!" but as is the way with most despairing screams, the gods did not hear her.

Or perhaps they did. The blue-white bolt of death did not strike, but coiled in the air around Elminster's hand where a ring glowed suddenly blue-white in answer. The lightning coiled, gathering speed like an aroused serpent, then lashed back out, arrow-straight, across the great hall.

The wizard on the table stiffened as the lightning found a home.

The Lord of the High Dale shrieked, dancing involuntarily. Smoke curled out from his robes. Then the lightning was gone, leaving him staggering in the midst of a faint haze of smoke.

He turned a face of clenched hatred and pain to Elminster and gasped only one word as his hand darted into his robes, came out with something dark and round and metal, and hurled it.

"Die!"

The sphere flew through the air, expanding into an opening latticework of metal bands as it approached the Old Mage. In the instant before the sphere struck, Sharantyr recognized it as another set of iron bands of Bilarro.

The Old Mage stood quite still. The bands flared wide to go around him, pulsed with a brief flash of light, and then shrank with horrible speed, drawing down around the old man.

The two Harpers battled the councillors with frantic haste. One of the councillors fell with a ragged cry, but there were still many blades between them and the wizard atop the table.

Stormcloak crouched and drained a flask from his belt-a healing potion, Sharantyr had no doubt-and straightened, wiping his lips. As she struggled to find strength, biting her lip and whimpering against stabbing pain, the Zhentarim wizard calmly drew forth a glass bead from his robes, smiled a brittle smile down on her, and cast a spell that brought a shimmering sphere into being about him.

She'd seen one before: a globe of invulnerability or one of its variants. No ball of fire or bolt of lightning could touch Angruin now. The Lord of the High Dale drew himself up and sneered down at Elminster, who stood wrapped in tightening bands of iron.

"Toothless old men seem to have haunted me of late, hurling proud, empty memories of power against me- until I destroy them. If you had any wits left, graybeard, you'd stay at home, dreaming and grumbling by the fire, and leave mages of real power well alone."

Elminster whispered something, and the iron bands shuddered and fell away from him, clattering about his feet like so many hoops stripped from a barrel.

Stormcloak stared at him in astonishment. Elminster strolled forward, wand in hand, as if he were in a hurry to get to the other side of a peaceful garden, and observed mildly, "Talk grows no more expensive as the years pass, does it?"

The wand in his hand pulsed, and spat two magic missiles. Two councillors stiffened, and one hadn't even time to groan before Gedaern of the dale hewed him to the floor.

Councillor Xanther watched from the darkness under a table. So this was the Old Mage of Shadowdale, one old man who'd done nothing so far beyond the powers of the wand he held and a ring he wore. His magic must be gone, or failing. The Brotherhood could yet win this day.

How, though, with Stormcloak hurling death in all directions? Stormcloak must prevail, if Elminster was to be defeated at all. Could the Old Mage be compelled to surrender the knowledge of where some hoard lay hidden, how a particular spellbook was guarded, and what words governed a certain staff or rod or wand? That old man's head must be stuffed with