Spellfire - Ed Greenwood [77]
More and more slowly they struck the next tree, and the next, and Manshoon crouched low and fended off flailing branches grimly as the great wyrm came down to earth. Orlgaun did not even grunt; perhaps its spirit had fled its torn and battered body in the air while still above the trees. Certainly this would be its last flight. Manshoon saw one wing smashed limply backward by a gigantic phandar that itself broke asunder, the trunk groaning as it parted, and then the dragon struck a stand of shadowtops head-on and the world itself seemed to shake and split asunder.
Manshoon found himself, when he could see straight again, hanging head-down in a tangled ruin of shadowtop branches and leaves, Orlgaun's scaled back above him. The dragon lay belly uppermost among smashed and splintered wood, impaled and twisted horribly. The mage crawled and slipped about until he fell out of the branches to the leaf-strewn ground beneath, and moved out from under the vast carcass as soon as he gained his feet.
He had lost the wand, though he still carried other items of power aplenty. Ahead, in the direction Orlgaun had been flying, the trees thinned into some sort of clearing. All about lay green dimness, still echoing with the last rustlings of Orlgaun's fall.
Manshoon took a step forward, and another, and then stared in shock at a bat-winged, horned, and tusked creature that had appeared out of the trees in front of him. A malebranche! Beyond it he could see another, and quick glances about told him that others were approaching. The devils of Myth Drannor!
The High Lord of Zhentil Keep cast a spell in grim haste, backing away, and then cursed loudly and feelingly as his lightnings struck down the nearest devil. He turned away from the clearing and fled as fast as his legs could go. The trees here grew too thickly even to flyl As he ran, Manshoon drew a wand of paralyzation from its holder at his belt and thought on how best to use the magics he had left. It had not been a good day.
10: Fall Flagons
I have known high honor, proud fame, and great riches, and have drunk deep of good wine at feasts where my mouth watered and my belly was filled with delightful viands amid good fellowship and conversation… and I tell you that all these pale and drift away as idle dreams before the gentle touch of my Lady.
Mirt 'the Moneylender' of Waterdeep
In a letter to Khelben 'Blackstaff Arunsun in proclamation of his lover Asper as his lawful heir
Year of the Harp
The knights had traveled swiftly into the woods, moving northward, after the retreat of Manshoon.
The Thunder Peaks marched north on their left with them as they went, leaving Rauglothgor's shattered lair behind. They walked until night fell, rose with the dawn, and went on again until another nightfall.
In Mistledale, the knights purchased mules.
Elminster let lapse the last of a succession of floating discs he had conjured up to carry Shandril, despite her protests. The others had walked.
A footsore Narm clambered up onto his mule, which favored him with an unfriendly look, and glanced enviously at the knights who still sprang about and vaulted up into their saddles and traded jests with unflagging enthusiasm. They were obviously all used to walking miles at a stretch, from aged Elminster to the Lady Jhessail. Narm's thighs were achingly stiff. He grinned as Rathan, who had begun a ballad that told of the glories of Tymora's favor, gave up helplessly