6 Kythorn
We walked leisurely back into Nashkel in late afternoon, exactly as planned. Branwen waited for us, her voice carrying far from the bridge on which she stood:
"Hire me to kill a helpless woman? How cowardly, blaggard! Tempus should strike you down for your dishonourable ways!"
"I care not for your barbaric god, northwoman," the red-robed man with whom she was arguing replied. "If you will insult me with your refusal of my generous offer, begone!"
"Not so fast!" Garrick interjected. "This woman, near a gnoll stronghold? Could it be..."
"Do not tell me you have had past dealings with this witch! (It is most unfortunate. Surely she cannot have allies already.)"
"We might, and we might not," Garrick said. "Perhaps you could explain your tale, good sir?"
"We need no explanations from cowards!" Branwen wielded Bassilus' old hammer; lightning crackled ominously about its head.
"Oh please cease your prattle, undereducated barbarian. (Fools, they know not the danger of the witches.)"
I looked across at Dynaheir; she smiled, whispered to Minsc to secure Sendai's horse to a tree, and calmly and quietly crept forward.
"You are a coward and a fool, wizard!" Branwen lectured. "Is the staff you bear for the purpose of resting legs as crippled as your soul?"
"The harbinger of your own destruction. (No, I should not use such syllable-intensive words about these simians.) Me Edwin, me powerful wizard! Dynaheir bad, you kill! Stomp once for yes, twice for no."
"Base villain! Such Lokispawn shame by their mere existence."
"Lackey, prepare to pay for your insolen--er, what?"
Dynaheir tapped him gently on the shoulder. I swear he jumped several feet up in the air, quivering in shock and revealing skinny legs under his red robes.
"W--witch! (Allies. All is precisely as I, renowned wizard Edwin Odesseiron, deduced.) I-I'll not suffer your depravity! Dynaheir is not to be trusted. I urge you to cast her from your party immediately!"
"Crawl back to Thay and refine thy manners, Red Wizard. Thou hast assuredly no place here." She held a dagger Minsc had from the evil slime-controlling wizard; her spells were far deadlier.
"Excuse me," a black-clad man called to them, striding from the rough direction of the town proper. I didn't think we'd seen him before.
"You dare insult me? You only sign your own death warrant, witch!"
"Excuse me." The man in black sighed, glaring at me across Edwin and Dynaheir's locked horns. He was rather fashionably dressed; I liked his look. "Why NIMBUL has been hired to deal with the likes of you I'll never know."
"My power is no less than thine. Dare thou to show it, Thayvian?"
"Heed my words!" The man stamped a foot. "I am NIMBUL. I am Death come for thee."
"Wychlaran, step out from behind your excuses and we shall end this here!"
"I said, I am Death come for thee! Surrender, and thy end shall be...quicker!"
"An unfortunate decision, wizard! Pardon me while I put up a fight!"
"Death?" I asked. NIMBUL flung back his black sleeves theatrically and began incanting something. I did the sensible thing and screamed for the town guards. "Help! Murder! Help!"
"Hold; I see that thou must await my response, Red Wizard," Dynaheir said. She too chanted something; Edwin, distracted, turned to face NIMBUL.
"Now before you kill all these simians, allow me to remind you I am not in the least concerned with any of them!" Edwin said. "Help! Let these fools lose their own lives! I am done! Help!"
"Tempus forgive my cowardice!"
"Brave, brave, Sir Garrick, Sir Garrick ran away!"
A pink burst fizzled briefly from Dynaheir's hands. "These odds are idiocy! Retreat!"
A Horror spell, I knew from Daddy's stories. Since the guards didn't seem to be coming yet, I aimed my bow; Imoen liked to remind me that the one thing to distract a mage was often a well-placed arrow. Beside me, Imoen cast a spell of her own, the Magic Missile. Her favoured pink hit NIMBUL as he muttered. I missed; his feet took him out of the way quickly.
"NIMBUL will taste hamster justice tonight!" Minsc rushed up to the well-dressed wizard, swinging his large sword. I shot again at NIMBUL.
Behind me, a woman's voice spoke. "Be your name Sky?"
"I'm Skie," I said, not paying particular attention. Minsc yelled; NIMBUL's spell had hit him.
"Then it may be a touch unladylike--but I'm going to split your skull, I will!"
I couldn't move, even though a strand of my hair had come loose. Imoen stood frozen the same way.
"Now if you'd been a good girl and come into the Inn, we could have had this over a long time ago!" the woman lectured me. "Seeing as you're all nice and still, let's have a little fun, right?" A glowing hammer appeared in her hands. I'd seen Branwen use them against ghasts and kobold commandos; I knew how much damage it could do. When I just wanted to go home, and have a hot meal and a bath, and...
"Who dares to steal the kills of NIMBUL?" The magician came striding down to us. I'd rather die at the hands of someone with fashion sense any day.
"Ah, Nimbul is it dearie? I am Neira, servant of Mask, and you should see how much I'm getting paid for this job!"
But Daddy could pay you more! I'd have told her if I could speak. Anything to stay alive.
"My name is NIMBUL, N-I-M-B-U-L, private assassin, all contractual offers and proposals of marriage to be directed to the Red Sheaf in Beregost. At least have the decency to speak my name properly."
The hammer hit--it hurt a little less than I'd expected on the scale of blinding, bone-shattering pain. I would have reeled and collapsed but for her hold on me.
"Oh, yes, dearie. Oh yes!"
In the corner of my eye, Xan, safely behind Garrick, moved his hands. Neira attacked NIMBUL; he was graceful, though, and avoided her well enough to cast another blasting spell. She screamed, but recovered in time to hit him--I cringed inwardly at the impact--and then he stabbed her in the back with a shining sword. She fell.
NIMBUL smiled at me and, all businesslike, prepared his spell.
"Thine evil shalt not go unpunished!" Fire lanced from between Dynaheir's hands; the Horror spell had concluded, and she had her revenge.
"Cloud the mind of Edwin Odesseiron? This outrage has not gone without notice." Edwin's own missiles hit NIMBUL; Garrick, too, fired crossbow bolts in the mage's direction with more desperation than accuracy. He was a spellcaster more powerful than any of us (and with great hair and robes!); how could we win?
"GO FOR THE EYES BOO, GO FOR THE EYES!"
Minsc. I won't describe how he ran from where he had fallen, ramming NIMBUL with all his considerable strength; suffice it to say--NIMBUL was gone.
"I need aid, lest...my hamster...become an orphan..." Minsc sat on the ground; Branwen went over to him.
"You're at the end of your rope I'll wager."
I tasted mud and blood beneath me. Frozen, dying; I would not even know the killer's face. I would have cried and sniffled if not for the hold upon me and Imoen.
Suddenly, the power stopped--I squirmed aside just before the new fighter's blade hit the ground. He was a dwarf; short and grubby.
"Why? Why are you doing this?" I pleaded.
"Dunno. Don't care," he said. "A price is a price and a head is a head, and here's old Karlat makin' his living. Damn whore Silke threw me out of her tavern and here I am now."
He swung at me again; I only narrowly dodged it.
"I can pay you more! Whatever you're getting from his rivals, my father can pay you much more!"
"And I can't think of anything that shortens the assassin's career faster 'n turning on clients."
It hurt. I--wanted to live; I felt adrenaline that's supposed to happen in these situations, the pain from my grievous wounds lessening. Ducking and weaving, I didn't try to fight; Imoen, nearby, aimed her sling and spells.
"Skie! Hold on!"
Garrick sang. It was something about daring heroes avoiding a vast stone golem; it even helped, a little. Then I tripped over Branwen and Minsc, who were fixed in place, unmoving.
The chant which bound them--there were four women behind the dwarf, all of them staring at Imoen and me!
"Now, now, my good gentle...ladies; please note that I am utterly detached from this bedraggled group. (Perhaps they will kill the witch first? I can only live in hope.)"
Green vines sprouted to trap his legs. He groaned. Dynaheir, her hands glowing, reached for them.
"You see, Telka? I told you that speeding redhead was interesting," one of the women commented. "And now see! Hurry up and answer me truly, girl, for your life depends upon it," she said in my direction. I was busy stumbling away from the axe-wielding dwarf. "Is your name Sky?"
"Help me!" I pleaded.
"That doesn't precisely answer the question," she said.
"I know who they are!" Xzar came out from hiding behind Xan and pointed dramatically. "You're in league with the rabbits! Die!" I saw a flash of white build between him and the woman to the left of the speaker.
"Maneira, kill all the wizards! Zeela, Telka, make ready! As for you, good dwarf, step away if you wish to live. You have weakened our prey enough for our tastes."
Karlat paid attention to them; I ran. "Stealing my kill?" he said. "Why, I'll end you all f'r it..."
A flaming arrow landed in his chest and came out the other side. Imoen and I scrambled away from his burning body.
"Do you know them?" I called to Imoen. 'Speeding redhead' indeed.
"Yeah! They were up above the mine exit. I yelled to 'em to look us up in Nashkel when they hailed me!"
Mental note: familiarize Imoen with concept of stranger danger.
'Maneira' unscrewed the tip of a yellow bottle she held.
"Run you fools run! Oil of Fiery Burning!" Edwin shouted. A wall of flame appeared where the wizards and Garrick had been. We were cut off.
Minsc and Branwen, held. Imoen, who'd already cast some of her spells. Me, wounded.
The two women in heavy armour advanced toward us. "Nowhere to run. You've managed to annoy..."
It went green. Imoen pulled me back; I reeled in nausea at the smell of the cloud of vapours, like the stench of cabbages multiplied hundredfold. Moments later, Dynaheir's pink missiles whistled through its depths.
"Fair ladies!" Garrick, his eyebrows scorched off and face blackened, held up a mage's scroll. "I shall assist you!"
Within the smoke, it looked like three of them were unconscious--and the fourth getting up. I took a deep breath, paused over NIMBUL's horrible corpse, and ran. Dynaheir'd given me back the sneaky boots; I circled around, stabbed blindly at the woman with NIMBUL's shiny sword without daring to breathe, and fell back out of the cloud. She was coming at us; ugly black stuff grew under her feet from Garrick.
"A most incompetently cast Conjuration," Edwin said. "(I could have done far better myself, but my spells are not for wasting--) Eugh!" He'd been hit; Garrick's spell did nothing to slow the long-range weaponry, and the other three had started to wake up.
"A Dart of Wounding. A healing potion for the Red Wizard is urgently required--though of course it is ultimately pointless, since we are all likely to die within the next several minutes," Xan ordered. "Should, of course, we last even that long."
I ran up the bank from the heavy-armoured woman. Moving out of the black field, she came after me; Garrick hit her a couple of times, but she seemed unstoppable. Imoen held out a wand she thieved from Tethtoril, and used it to shoot pink at her. It gave me time enough to...jump up a nearby pine tree. (Like climbing over the estate walls. Very much like climbing the nice trees at home.) A flaming arrow buried itself in the trunk next to my head. Sendai's horse screamed; pulling itself loose, it ran in the direction of the archers, knocking one down.
"Help! Murder!" I called again. There were town guards not far from us; they were bound in vines thanks to the other heavy-armoured woman.
"Zeela, fling me that potion! We'll get you down right enough one way or another," she said. I just kept hiding behind branches.
It's a dance. It's a dance set in the woodlands with pretty fairies and cute gnomes, and all I have to do is spin around that tree! Then Madam Irene won't be sarcastic after all... I could tell myself things were happening that way. Ah, the wychlaran is firing pretty pink missiles! I like pink! Oh, the big lady playing a big ogre has drunk the brown potion! She is grabbing at the tree, and oh!
The tree was a club; I'd fallen awkwardly to the ground as it was ripped up from its roots. She swung it, knocking Imoen off her feet, poor frozen Minsc and Branwen as well. I ran again; Garrick's crossbow bolts and sling bullets from the mages whistled in the direction of the other heavily armoured woman, who had been chanting something. Sendai's horse made a horrible, high-pitched noise, which stopped suddenly.
Dodge the tree. Dodge, dodge the tree, I reminded myself. It was large; it wasn't hard to see it coming and move. I hadn't survived years of dance classes and Bran Gangric for nothing. How long before the enraged, heavily armoured woman lifting trees got sick of this business of dodging? Maybe long enough to--
"Aaargh!" Finally, the second armoured woman fell. Her projectile-wielding companions most certainly had not. I heard Imoen crying out, and Xan chanting something. Was Imoen okay? I couldn't see beyond the tree being waved in my face.
"Yes! Sleep spell!...gimme a healing potion!" Imoen called. It distracted me, and a branch hit me in the side of the head. Blackness danced in front of my face. I fell.
"Wake, wake--the valiant heroes' daybreak--the urgent swing of battle--"
Garrick's singing brought me back to the circumstances. The tree was on top of me so that I could scarcely breathe, my ankle hurt badly, and the assassin's boots were coming rapidly closer. NIMBUL's shiny sword that I'd abstracted was somewhere I couldn't reach.
"Help! I don't want to die!" I'd already attacked her once. Why wouldn't she stop? I could reach my quiver; I stabbed up at her with an arrow. She easily deflected that, pinning my wrist to the ground.
She collapsed.
"For Tempus!"
Branwen reached down for me. "My healing spells must be reserved for the berserker warrior," she said, dragging me out from under the branches. She, like me, was bruised and bleeding, especially from where the tree had hit both her and Minsc. "You are likely to live. We received Tempus' favour that she was wounded in the back already."
I didn't want to try and stand; it hurt so much. I only wanted to curl up someplace and cry. I looked across and saw that Sendai's horse was dead next to the two sleeping assassins.
Edwin, pale-faced, forcibly stopped himself from leaning upon Dynaheir. "All that remains for us to do is slit the throats of our drowsing assailants. I recommend the pink-clad stray for the deed. (Really, these lackeys should not require so much dictation.)" I wasn't going to object; but Dynaheir did.
"It is not appropriate to slay the vulnerable. They may be..."
"Turned over to the custody of the town." A guard made his way over to us. Some help they had been. "Come forward, men. Take this fine pair to the garrison."
"Ha! Turned over into a paper-walled prison," Edwin argued. "They will clearly escape only to threaten my life again. (For I may be the most important of these rabble, though I must admit they proved an equal threat to the simians and may not have attempted my life with knowledge of my identity.)"
"All right. Word is that you lot are the Heroes of Nashkel--or at least, the blondes with the hammer and the harp are the ones who turned up for the reward. Young Harman here--" the guard commander gestured to one of his men, a beardless youth--"says the ladies up and attacked you, no reason given. That right? Yep. Brigands after your reward, I suspect. We'll let you know what they say in interrogation."
Our assassins had been hauled away; Edwin looked miserable, but raised no further complaints.
"C'mon, Skie." Imoen dragged me up. I cried out when my weight rested on my left ankle. Imoen herself didn't look good, bruised and with blood on her face; I remembered her screaming during the battle. "Broken, huh?"
I couldn't answer her. It was all too much. Nearby, Branwen was healing Minsc of the worst of his wounds.
"Okay, let's head down to the inn and Branwen can heal the rest of us tomorrow!" Imoen said cheerfully. "Who wants to help me with Skie?"
I had Minsc to one side and Imoen the other, hopping on my undamaged leg; I can't remember thinking much of anything. Please, rest at last. Too many fighters. Poor Sendai's horse. Would the killing never end?
Imoen counted heads. "Room for Skie 'n me, room for Branwen and Dynaheir, room for the guy mages--Mr Red Wizard, this is the bit where you chip in--room for Minsc and Garrick. I guess Xzar can be with us, or go with the other guy mages...er, complicated..." She rummaged in her pocket for change.
At last we would rest.
A brown-haired man tapped me on the shoulder. "Pardon me, friend. You have the look of travellers worn." It was true; Garrick and Minsc had been badly burned by magic, Imoen hurt, each of us wounded. At the end of our rope. Truly.
"Worn certainly, but Boo instructs patience before evil has its next butt-kicking! The nice priestess of Tempus will aid us all!" Minsc said.
"I wasn't talking to you. Might you pair of young ladies have been told to look for friends...after travelling from Candlekeep?"
"We...uh, kinda sorta didn't," Imoen said. "Not us, no siree! Didn't have any foster uncles giving us directions we kinda ignored, no way no how! So, if you wanna go away now, sort of busy here..."
"There were others besides me in the Friendly Arm Inn," the man said. "Quite the fighting couple, her with the temper and he with the heavy armour. I had hoped to meet you at the gates, but finding you here may be better for me. You see, I believe you travelled from Candlekeep."
Suddenly there were four of him weaving through the inn. I blinked.
"EVIL! MORE EVIL WIZARDS TO KILL--"
Minsc dropped me. Our attacker fired a spell, hurting him. Branwen and Imoen tried to fight the real assassin, hacking at false images. Xzar and Garrick hid under the bar.
I don't remember reaching for my bow, but I remember it being in my hands afterwards. I think I tried to shoot from the ground. I don't think it did much good, but Branwen and Imoen made some of the images disappear. Dynaheir fired a spell, Edwin used his staff, and Xan helped out with a sling. Then Bassilus' hammer went into the wizard's real neck.
I do remember hobbling to my foot and letting my bow go slack. The person trying to kill us was dead. We were going to rest, but he'd even attacked in here. How horrible. Branwen was bent over Minsc again, bandaging his wounds.
Edwin flung back his sleeves, in a similar dramatic gesture to NIMBUL. He overacts. "Is there anyone else who desires the opportunity of dying messily (or being taken captive by those incompetent soldiers)?" he called to the tavern at large. "Well, simians, I invite any further attention of that sort to have it over with! (At least, I admit, all these assassins have done us the benefit of publicly announcing their intentions.) Anyone?" I do not think there were many remaining patrons after the disturbance. "This shall be your last chance, bestowed by Edwin Odesseiron himself. The opportunity is disappearing...disappearing...disappeared!"
Edwin turned sharply to face Dynaheir, his robes whipping about his ankles.
"Now it's our long-interrupted turn, witch. I note I have been far more miserly in my spells than you during this battle, and you have no ability to cheat with that hulking though incapable so-called protector; let us have it out--that is to say, allow me to kill you in the most humiliating manner I can design! (Ah, sweet, sweet taste of bat guano and victory.)"
"Wizard, I wouldst duel thee at any..."
Imoen is the person who told me what happened next. I remember only white, blank light.
"Nooooo! No more people trying to kill us!" Edwin was the nearest person to me. I fell over his robes and started crying on his shoulder. "It's enough! I c-can't take any more! I broke nails!"
He sat down with me. Imoen has it on record that she and Branwen glared at him quite forcefully, in a 'You broke it you can jolly well fix it' manner. "Now...now. (Oh, she stains my robes. How dreadfully disappointing.) There...there. (Loviatar's lash administered before the eight Zulkirs would be less humiliating.) The bad people are gone now, chi...young woman. (Will someone make her cease her noise?) Hush now. Please hush now. (Sigh. Many sighs both long-suffering and injured.)"