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  "Adon!" Midnight shouted. "We're leaving."

  Footsteps sounded behind the mage and the fighter. Then they heard the clang of steel falling against steel and turned to see Adon gathering up the pile of weapons he had dropped.

  "Hold it!" Kelemvor snapped. "Let's just take what we need." The fighter already wore his two-handed sword, but he grabbed an axe, a spare bow, and a cache of arrows to add to his arsenal. Midnight found a pair of daggers that suited her. Adon stared down at the collection, trying to find some weapon that was suitable. He was well trained with a war hammer and a flail, but sharp-edged weapons were frowned upon by his order. All the weapons that remained were edged.

  "Take something and carry it for us," Kelemvor said at last, his patience reaching its end. The heroes quickly left the end of the bridge and entered the forest. After a few minutes, Kelemvor had led his companions to the spot where the huntsmen had secured their mounts. The horses were gone.

  "Are you sure this is the right place?" Adon asked as he looked around.

  "The evidence is all about you, cleric. Open your eyes!" Kelemvor snapped. Adon shrank away from the fighter, and Midnight frowned. Kelemvor cleared his throat. "What I mean to say is that you can see the tracks that the horses, and whoever took them, left behind — the broken branches and the footprints." The fighter pounded his fist against a tree and swore. "It was probably Yarbro. Now he's got the gold that Mourngrym paid me, and we'll have to walk to Scardale."

  Adon was struggling with two heavy swords he had found as the heroes prepared to leave the forest. Concern crossed Midnight's features. "Adon, where did you leave my spellbook and the items Lhaeo gave us?"

  The cleric dropped the swords and the shield and backed away in terror. "I… I left them on the bridge," he gasped.

  "Sorry…"

  Kelemvor's shoulders drooped, and he opened his mouth to spew out a tirade of angry condemnations. When he saw the cleric's frightened, childlike expression, he fought back his anger. "Go get them," Kelemvor said softly, his deep voice trembling with barely controlled rage.

  As Adon ran back toward the bridge, the fighter set his bow down beside the swords that Adon had dropped and walked back to the bridge with Midnight. "He is trying, you know," the mage purred as she put her arms around Kelemvor's waist.

  "No doubt," Kelemvor grumbled and tried not to smile.

  "And you're trying, too," Midnight said. "I appreciate that."

  The fighter and the mage broke from the forest and saw Adon near the middle of the bridge, crouching over the canvas sack he had rescued from the river. He seemed to be rifling through the sack, checking its contents.

  Standing near the north entrance to the bridge, the fighter called out to Adon. "Come on, cleric! We don't have all day!" Midnight started slightly at Kelemvor's sudden outburst.

  On the bridge, Adon suddenly stood up, the bag firmly in his hand. The cleric stared at the eastern horizon, pointing toward the sky. The sun was behind the cleric, so he could dearly see the three figures floating in the eastern sky, becoming larger as they approached.

  "Riders!" Adon exclaimed. "Riders to the east!"

  At the northern end of the bridge, Kelemvor shook his head. "What is he — "

  Then the fighter saw what had captured Adon's attention. Three darkly clad soldiers were flying toward the bridge. They were following the course of the river and riding huge ebon horses that struck a trail of fire as they galloped across the sky.

  On the bridge, Adon stood rooted to the spot. As the riders drew close, he was able to see them even more clearly. The armor of the riders was completely black and lined with razor-sharp ridges. Spikes the size of daggers jutted out from various parts of the armor. The riders' faces were hidden by helmets. Far more frightening than the terrible armor the mysterious riders wore were the mounts they rode. The creatures that carried them across the sky were nightmares — powerful and deadly monster horses from another plane.

  As they came even closer, the heroes could see the weapons each of the riders carried. One was armed with a huge scythe, which he tested in the air as he approached Blackfeather Bridge. Another favored bolos, with a cutting silver wire laced between the heavy spheres. But the man in the lead, an imposing specimen who seemed best-suited for his horrible mount, carried a heavy, two-handed broadsword that was stained black and charged with blood-red runes.

  From the north entrance to the bridge, Midnight cried out. "Run, Adon! Get off the bridge!"

  Kelemvor grabbed the mage and dragged her a few steps toward the woods. "We have to take to the forest," the fighter growled. "They might not have seen us yet."

  The magic-user dug her heels into the dirt and pulled away from Kelemvor. "They've seen Adon!" Midnight snapped. "We can't leave him."

  "It's stupid to sacrifice ourselves, too. Let Adon come to us, to safety, instead of our running into danger with him," Kelemvor snapped. The fighter knew that they faced a trio of deadly foes. His enhanced vision — one of the only positive effects of his curse — had already revealed the crimson stains of the symbol of Bane over the hearts of the riders. "You haven't changed at all, have you?" Midnight screamed as she ran from Kelemvor and stepped onto the bridge. "All you care about is yourself!"

  The riders were no more than fifty feet from Adon and closing fast. Midnight approached from the north end of the bridge, yelling for Adon to move. The scarred cleric stood motionless, the bag containing the amber sphere from Elminster's tower and Midnight's spellbook clutched in his hands. All expression had drained from his face, and Adon stood as if he were a statue in the center of the bridge.

  Before Midnight could reach Adon's side, the riders swooped in. The rider in the lead, the swordsman, aimed his nightmare directly at the cleric and held his sword thrust out before him. Seconds before the sword would rip through Adon's body, the rider drew up suddenly, and his mount veered up and over Adon's head as the other two riders sailed around the cleric on either side. The wind buffeted Adon, but he stood his ground. As the rider flew past, though, the canvas bag fell from Adon's hands, and the young cleric grabbed one of the hind legs of the monstrous horse.

  "Adon, no!" Midnight cried, but it was too late to stop him. The cleric's body was yanked into the air above the bridge, twisting as he flew off into the sky.

  The nightmare that Adon had grabbed let out an ear-piercing shriek and tried to shake the cleric off its leg. Flames from the creature's hooves danced around Adon's hands, singeing them, but still the cleric didn't let go.

  At the north end of the bridge, Kelemvor stood alone, struck dumb by Adon's unexpected actions. The fighter watched as the cleric not only held on to the monstrous beast, but also began to climb upward, ignoring the horse's wildly flailing legs and flaming hooves.

  The fetid smell of the nightmare's hide had almost caused Adon to release his hold on the mount when he first became airborne, but he had ignored the stench and settled his attention on more important matters, such as helping his friends — and perhaps redeeming himself in their eyes. He started to climb toward the rider, in the hope of deposing the assassin and taking control of the mount.

  In the air, Varro, the assassin with the scythe, laughed at the spectacle. "Shake him loose, Durrock!" Varro cried. "His life is of no consequence as long as we capture the woman!"

  The other assassin reigned his nightmare in and dashed past his scythe-wielding friend. "Leave him to his sport, Varro!" Sejanus said as he stopped swinging his bolos. "Besides, Durrock may want to keep the scarred one alive. They have something in common!"

  Riding the mount that Adon was holding desperately to, Durrock ignored the comments of his fellow assassins. He had no need to gloat; his unexpected passenger was completely at his mercy. And if the reports that the Zhentarim spies had sent to him as he flew toward Blackfeather Bridge were correct, the cleric had already handed the assassins the day. Guiding his mount in an arc that would take him back to the bridge, Durrock marveled at the simplicity of the task ahead of hi
m.

  Finding the mage and her companions had been child's play. The path the travelers were taking was known. All the assassins had to do was follow the Ashaba until they spotted their prey. Better still, the heroes were not hiding along the river's edge, but standing on a bridge, in the open, when Durrock and his partners spotted them. It was as simple as shooting arrows at a prisoner in a pit.

  On the ground, Kelemvor rushed to Midnight's side, but not for any altruistic reason. The assassins would never let him live if they captured or killed Midnight and Adon. The fighter was simply protecting his own life. As he considered his options, the fighter cursed. They might have stood a fighting chance against the assassins under cover of the woods, but Adon and Midnight had taken that option from him, and now Kelemvor was sure that they would all be as dead as the dalesmen very soon.

  Next to Kelemvor, Midnight was lost in the spell that she was about to cast. As the riders drew near, Midnight knew that she could not risk harming Adon, so she took aim at the rider with the bolos, the one at the back of the charging formation, and released a fireball spell. A crackling, blue-white pattern of energy formed before the mage's trembling hands, then collapsed. Nothing else seemed to happen.

  In the air, sailing toward the bridge, Sejanus had felt a moment of panic when he saw the mage on the bridge and realized she was attempting to cast a spell in his direction. When she completed the complex gestures and the spell seemed to fail, the assassin laughed and raised his bolos above his head. He prepared to throw the weapon and bind the woman's arms before she could try such foolishness again.

  On the bridge, Midnight stared in shock at the flaming scimitar that hung poised over the head of her intended victim. No one else sees it, she realized as she watched the magical sword — the result of a spell called Shaeroon's Scimitar, if she guessed correctly — follow Sejanus. Midnight's spell had gone awry and had brought this force into existence by mistake. But the mage knew that she could profit from the error, and her eyes narrowed as she spoke. "Take him!" she whispered, and the scimitar descended.

  A hundred feet above the Ashaba, with only a dozen yards between himself and the mage, Sejanus felt a searing pain begin at the base of his skull and race downward, through his spine, like a fire out of control. The agony flowed out from his spine, piercing every nerve in his body. He began to convulse, and his mount, confused by his motions, veered off at a right angle and raced upward toward the clouds.

  As Midnight's errant spell struck Sejanus, Kelemvor stepped aside from the raven-haired magic-user and readied himself to face Varro, the scythe-bearing assassin. With his sword drawn, the green-eyed fighter prepared himself for the fury of the nightmare rider's descent. As the night-black horse came within twenty feet of Kelemvor, it opened its fanged mouth and belched out a foul-smelling cloud.

  Now only a dozen feet away from the fighter, Varro gripped his scythe and prepared to match its steel against that of his prey's sword. The assassin leaned over the left flank of his nightmare as the creature arced upward, toward the right. The fighter's sword gleamed as it reflected the harsh sunlight at the assassin's back. Only a few feet from slicing his prey neatly in half, Varro was shocked as the fighter leaped forward, brought his sword down in a crashing blow against the assassin's weapon, then rolled to the bridge and out of Varro's view. As his mount rose to the east, over the bridge, the assassin looked at his weapon in shock.

  "You'll pay for this, dog!" Varro screamed in disbelief, dropping the shattered scythe into the river. The assassin reined in the nightmare and drew a sword. The monstrous horse beneath him turned as sharply as it could, but as he turned back to the west, into the sun, Varro was shocked to see Durrock hovering over the bridge, not attacking, just hanging in the air. The image was both beautiful and terrible, a majestic silhouette in black against the blazing orb of the sun. The body of the cleric dangled from Durrock's hand, and the assassin's sword was raised high over his head.

  "This game is over!" Durrock cried. "Varro, stay where you are!"

  Varro dug his heels into the sides of his mount, and the nightmare reared once but held its position. On the ground, Kelemvor stood, his heart racing, as Midnight moved toward the center of Blackfeather Bridge.

  Durrock's nightmare exhaled a cloud of smoke and snorted. The assassin brandished his sword and yelled, "Surrender now or your friend dies! Decide!"

  Kelemvor heard a scream behind him and turned. In the sky to the east, the third rider, Sejanus, was slowly making his way back to the bridge. "What do you want with us?" the green-eyed fighter yelled.

  Durrock's nightmare reared, and Adon twisted precariously in the air. "I'm not here to answer your questions," the assassin cried. "Lord Bane, the God of Strife, has sent us to deliver a summons. We are here to escort you to an audience with the Black Lord in Scardale."

  "Oh, is that all?" Kelemvor snapped. His grip on the sword tightened. "Thank you, but we'll pass. You'll have to carry my regrets to Bane."

  Durrock loosened his grasp on Adon, and the cleric slipped slightly toward the ground. The assassin grabbed the scarred cleric again before he could fall. "Do not tempt fate, fools. You have no choice!"

  "We'll come with you," Midnight cried. The mage held her hands, their fingers laced together, above her head so the assassins would know she was not casting a spell. "You've won."

  Kelemvor stared at the mage, then looked away and slowly lowered his sword. "This is insane!" the fighter hissed. "They will simply kill us in Scardale, once Bane is done with us."

  Midnight sighed and turned to the fighter. "Perhaps. But we can't let them kill Adon now," she said. "We may have a chance to escape later."

  "Ah, of course!" Kelemvor snapped. "It will be better if we try to escape. Then they can have the pleasure of hunting us down again before they kill all three of us!" The fighter reached down and picked up the heavy canvas bag containing Midnight's spellbook.

  Midnight didn't answer the fighter. Instead, she looked up at Durrock, still hanging against the sun, and nodded. "We're ready," the mage said. The riders began to descend.

  VI

  Scorpions

  Cyric crawled through a tangle of heavy branches on the north shore of the Ashaba. The underbrush served to camouflage his quaking, half-drowned body as the thief heard the sound of the nightmares racing across the sky above the bridge, then watched as Kelemvor, Midnight, and Adon were taken away by the assassins.

  I'm lucky I'm not with them, the thief thought. In fact, I'm lucky to be alive at all!

  After the dalesman's arrow had caused him to lose his grip on the tree in the river, Cyric had been dragged beneath the surface by a powerful undertow. Only by grabbing for handholds and footholds along the sleek, slimy wall of the riverbank had the thief been able to save himself. When he finally broke the surface of the water, he was past the bridge.

  Cyric had remained hidden beneath an overhang in tin-hank and watched the events on the bridge unfold. He saw Midnight's protective sphere burst and Kelemvor become a panther and savage the dalesmen. Two men had escaped the creature's fury — the young, blond guard they had met in Shadowdale, and a shirtless, red-skinned, bald man. Cyric was uncertain of either man's whereabouts.

  The hawk-nosed thief had seen Midnight and Adon resurface, then drag themselves up the bank opposite him to the woods at the southern end of Blackfeather Bridge. There had been a brief moment of relief as Cyric watched Midnight move toward the shore, but that feeling faded as he realized that Adon had survived, too. The very thought of the weak-willed Sunite infuriated the thief. Worse, he simply couldn't understand why Midnight protected him. It was that kind of foolish behavior from both Midnight and Adon that made me realize I'd be better off without them, the thief decided as he crawled up the bank. And from Kelemvor's lame performance in the non-battle with the assassins. He gave himself up! Cyric cursed silently — the thief had added the fighter to his list of people too sentimental to be trusted.

  Still, Cyric did feel some remorse
over the fact that he couldn't help Midnight escape from Bane's assassins. She would be disappointed in me, the thief suddenly realized, then grew angry at himself for being concerned about the mage's feelings at all. Anyway, he concluded, wherever she's been taken, she probably believes that I'm dead.

  Perhaps it was best that way. There had been a strong bond of friendship between the thief and the mage — at least there was before the trip down the Ashaba — and Cyric knew that that type of bond could easily get in the way of his plans. Although he didn't care if Adon's blood might have to he spilled in his pursuit of the Tablets of Fate, Cyric did not relish the idea of harming Midnight. She knew things about him that no one else alive would ever know. Still, he realized that he could trust her, that she would not betray him. Were situations reversed, Cyric was sure that his friendship would not prove as unshakable as the mage's.

  As the thief moved some branches out of his way, careful not to allow them to snap and reveal his position, he pulled himself up the embankment. The small expanse of woods Cyric faced had to be an unnatural growth, a product of the physical and mystical chaos that was infecting the Realms. That was the only explanation the thief could think of to reconcile the presence of a grove of trees in an area that had appeared barren on all his maps. Although there had been no sounds that would accompany unusual activity in the woods — or signal the presence of the two remaining dalesmen — he was quite nervous about being discovered while he was still unarmed.

  Making his way to the top of the embankment, Cyric found himself staring into the eyes of the blond guardsman, Yarbro. The younger man's armor had been discarded, probably to help him avoid drowning. He still had his sword, though, and that sword was now raised against Cyric, its point grazing the thief's throat.

  "It seems there is going to be some justice served here after all," Yarbro hissed as be grabbed the thief by the arm and tossed him to the ground.