The Sword Never Sleeps Read online

  The Knights of Myth Drannor, Book III

  THE SWORD NEVER SLEEPS

  ©2009 Wizards of the Coast LLC

  All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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  Published by Wizards of the Coast LLC.

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  Cover art by: Matt Stewart

  Map by: Todd Gamble

  eISBN: 978-0-7869-6169-6

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  www.DungeonsandDragons.com

  v3.1

  Ed Greenwood

  Shandril’s Saga

  Spellfire

  Crown of Fire

  Hand of Fire

  The Shadow of the Avatar Trilogy

  Shadows of Doom

  Cloak of Shadows

  All Shadows Fled

  The Elminster Series

  Elminster: The Making of a Mage

  Elminster in Myth Drannor

  The Temptation of Elminster

  Elminster in Hell

  Elminster’s Daughter

  The Cormyr Saga

  Cormyr: A Novel (with Jeff Grubb)

  Death of the Dragon (with Troy Denning)

  The Knights of Myth Drannor

  Swords of Eveningstar

  Swords of Dragonfire

  The Sword Never Sleeps

  Stormlight

  Silverfall: Stories of the Seven Sisters

  The City of Splendors: A Waterdeep Novel

  (with Elaine Cunningham)

  The Best of the Realms, Book II

  The Stories of Ed Greenwood

  Edited by Susan J. Morris

  tempore felici multi numerantur amici

  To my loving lady, Jenny, who puts up with so much from me.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Other Books by This Author

  Dedication

  Map

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: For the Good of Cormyr

  Chapter 2: What Traitors Are Up To

  Chapter 3: Arrows and Tapestries

  Chapter 4: Just Such a Task

  Chapter 5: Hiding Behind Our Lady

  Chapter 6: Great Murdering Battle

  Chapter 7: Whirlwinds Come A-Reaping

  Chapter 8: Doors, Disputes, and Sudden Downfalls

  Chapter 9: The Lost Palace

  Chapter 10: Tasks, Travels, and Life-Altering Choices

  Chapter 11: Deliverance from Tumult and Fire

  Chapter 12: The Fire Answers Back

  Chapter 13: Drowning and Dismembering Curses

  Chapter 14: Into Our Laps

  Chapter 15: Swords Among the Walking Dead

  Chapter 16: Orders, Strict and Otherwise

  Chapter 17: Another Crown Secret, or Seven

  Chapter 18: No Realm Can Confine Me

  Chapter 19: Drawn Daggers Haunting Me

  Chapter 20: Talons in the Night

  Chapter 21: Alone I Faced the Dragon

  Chapter 22: If You Skulk Out in the Trees This Night

  Chapter 23: All the Nine Hells Break Loose

  Chapter 24: Anger a Wizard, and Die

  Epilogue

  From The Knights Who Came To Shadowdale

  by Ornstel Maurimm of Selgaunt:

  Although they had beyond dispute saved the life of the wizard Vangerdahast, many lives, the loyalty of the Wizards of War, and the peace and stability of fair Cormyr, Vangerdahast’s reward to these brave six was a hasty expulsion from the realm, for the Royal Magician suffered Cormyr to be beholden to none but himself.

  Forth then they rode for Shadowdale once more, these six Knights of Myth Drannor.

  They were led by Florin Falconhand, a handsome ranger, famed for saving the life of King Azoun Obarskyr. Noble and kingly of spirit was Florin, but as yet young and unsure.

  The strongest blade among the Knights was swung by Islif Lurelake, a sturdy fighting lass of Espar, who like many a farm girl was quiet, level headed, unlovely, and large.

  Among these adventuring companions, the Art was wielded by sleek Jhessail Silvertree, the smallest of the Knights, flame haired and beautiful.

  The quieter of the two holy Knights was Doust Sulwood, priest of Tymora, destined to become Lord of Shadowdale. Like many wise holy ones, he watched and pondered more than he spoke.

  The other holy Knight wielded a swifter, sharper tongue and was hight Semoor Wolftooth. As was customary among priests of Lathander, he would later take another name, Jelde Asturien, as he rose in service to the Morninglord.

  The most lawless and experienced of the Knights was the only one among them who had not been reared in Espar: the shapely, sharp-eyed, and sharper-tongued thief who preferred to be known only as Pennae. Her wits delivered her younger companions from trouble almost as often as her shady deeds plunged them into it.

  Six bumbling adventurers, notorious in Cormyr but unknown outside it—and heading out of the Realm of the Purple Dragon as fast as Vangerdahast could urge them along.

  Prologue

  It all began with the gruesome murder of Ondel the Archwizard, whose various pieces were found on many stoops, porches, and thresholds up and down Shadowdale.

  Or perhaps it began with the finding of the legendary, long-hidden hoard of Sundraer the She-dragon.

  Or then again, mayhap it started the night Indarr Andemar’s barn exploded in stabbing lightnings and balls of green flame that soared up to try to touch the stars.

  Or the morning the best woodcarver in Shadowdale, Craunor Askelo, discovered his wife was not his wife and that for years he’d been sleeping with something that had scales and claws when it wanted to.

  Or a handful of days after Vangerdahast, the Royal Magician of Cormyr, had stood inside a dank stone castle sally chamber, seen the Knights of Myth Drannor provided with new mounts, armor, weapons, and much spending-coin by his command, gestured in the direction of the rising portcullis, and given them a firm order of his own: “Tarry within Cormyr no longer!”

  Days that had been spent riding and discovering just how hard new saddles can be—and, despite what they looked like on maps, how astonishingly large the wilderlands of northeastern Cormyr were.

  Not for the first time, Semoor rolled his eyes and asked, “Gods, will these trees never end?”

  “Picture each of them as a willing wench, arms and lips opening to welcome you,” Islif told him, her saddle creaking under her as she turned to smile. “And the ride will seem less endless.”

  Semoor closed his eyes, growled appreciatively a time or two, then opened them again to favor her with a sour look. He shook his head. “My aching shanks remind me that this
is not the sort of ride I’d prefer to be endless.”

  “You fail to surprise me,” Jhessail said in acid-laced tones of mock disapproval, running fingers through her red hair to rid it of some of the clinging road dust. A small cloud obligingly swirled away in her wake, causing Doust—who was riding there—to wince even more than she did.

  Islif shrugged. Dirt had been their constant companion growing up in Espar—dust when dry, and mud when wet. Grime bothered her not at all. Little crawling insects, now, itching in intimate places …

  Under the hooves of their patient mounts, the Moonsea Ride ran tirelessly on northeast, rising and then falling away again over gentle hill after gentle hill. Around it, as they rode, steadings grew fewer and fewer, and the scrub of abandoned fields and forests ravaged by woodcutters gave way to darker, deeper woods. Cormyr this might still be on maps, but much of it seemed unbroken wilderland, the road spawning small campsites at every trickling stream, but the trees otherwise standing dark and unbroken.

  Pennae and Florin rode at the head of their band of six, peering watchfully into the forest shadows on either side. Florin’s searching gazes were almost hungry.

  Yet Vangerdahast’s order had been both curt and clear. “Tarry within Cormyr no longer!” The Royal Magician wanted them gone out of the realm before anything else befell them and hurled trouble across Cormyr—or as Pennae had put it, “Gave us a chance to save the Forest Kingdom from itself, while nobles and war wizards dither, again.”

  That sentiment had earned her one of the wizard’s coldest, darkest looks and a slowly rising, menacingly silent finger pointing at the doorway beneath the risen portcullis—not to mention Purple Dragon patrols following them along the road, so far back as to be just clearly visible, for the first few days.

  “Subtle, isn’t he?” Semoor had asked everyone then. Several aching days in the saddle later, he stirred himself to ask, “So, are we fated to spend the rest of our lives riding out of fair Cormyr and not making it?”

  “Avoid all inns,” Doust said darkly, in the same grand portentous tones favored by priests of Tempus and of Torm, who often visited Espar.

  Islif gave that feeble jest the sour smile it deserved, then turned and asked Semoor, “If I answer you, will you say nothing more about our journeying and progress until the morrow?”

  The priest of Lathander winced. “Well,” he said carefully, “I’ll certainly try.”

  Pennae turned in her saddle to fling a single word back at him: “Harder.”

  That smoothly twisting motion made the arrow that sped suddenly out of the trees burn past her cheek without striking anyone.

  The second arrow, however, hissed to catch her squarely in the ribs. Sinking in deep, it smashed her, sobbing, right out of her saddle.

  Chapter 1

  FOR THE GOOD OF CORMYR

  Why, down the passing years, have so many Purple Dragons died?

  Why, every day, do courtiers in Suzail lie so energetically?

  And why have war wizards and Highknights alike

  Slain so many, stolen so much, and destroyed so much more?

  Why, for the good of Cormyr, of course.

  The character Ornbriar the Old Merchant

  In the play Karnoth’s Homecoming

  by Chanathra Festryl, Lady Bard of Yhaunn

  First performed in the Year of the Bloodbird

  Wizard of War Lorbryn Deltalon sat alone in the small, windowless stone room, staring silently at the carefully written notes spread out on the desk before him. He was no longer seeing what he’d penned these last few months. He was staring past his neat jottings and beholding memories.

  Recent memories. A succession of pain-wracked, sweating faces belonging to a lot of tormented nobles. Every one of them staring back at him in wild, mouth-quivering terror.

  All too often, the sharp-eyed, faintly smiling visage of the Royal Magician of Cormyr loomed up amongst them. Looking back at him mockingly, Vangerdahast’s unreadable gaze seemed a silent challenge. No frightened nobleman, he.

  Deltalon sighed and shook his head, seeking to banish the piercing stare of the great mage he served. Yet the weight of Vangerdahast’s menacing regard refused to fade.

  The veteran war wizard sighed again, passed a hand over his eyes, and tried to stare at the all-too-familiar curves and swashes of his writing. He did a lot of silent staring these days.

  Ever since Vangey had set him this task. The slow and distasteful work of spell-slaying all the mindworms Narantha Crownsilver had put into the minds of nobles. Hopefully without killing said nobles or leaving them more furious foes of the war wizards than they were already.

  Work that, time and again, left him sitting alone, brooding.

  He had now only two nobles left to cleanse: Malasko Erdusking and Ardoon Creth. Young, handsome fools both, who would be improved by a little healthy fear.

  Yet Deltalon had something else, now, too: grave misgivings about the whole matter.

  At first, Vangerdahast had commanded several senior war wizards to visit the nobles the ill-fated Lady Narantha had infected and to use magic to slay the mindworms. When some nobles had been left witless or damaged in their wits and bitterly aware of it and one young lord had died along with the mindworm riding him, the Royal Magician had ordered the work to cease.

  Yet that hadn’t meant dealing with the mindworms was abandoned or unfinished. Rather, Vangerdahast himself had without warning taken over the task of “fixing nobles,” abruptly and imperiously whisking himself to mansions and country castles all over the realm.

  Vangey’s visitations had gone on for most of a month before he’d just as abruptly summoned Lorbryn Deltalon and ordered him to use “all slow, deft care possible” to kill the mindworms still in the heads of a handful of remaining nobles.

  Lorbryn Deltalon was a careful, loyal Wizard of War, and several other things besides, but he had never been a fool.

  Vangerdahast, he strongly suspected, hadn’t killed a single worm. Instead, the Royal Magician had altered their spell-bindings to make them obey him rather than the fell and vanished wizard who’d compelled Narantha to spread the little horrors. And, no doubt, he had commanded them not to gnaw away any more of the brains in which they dwelt.

  In other words, Vangey had spent a little less than three tendays crafting a small army of nobles whose minds he could control whenever he desired—for the good of the realm, of course.

  The few nobles he’d deemed the least useful—or perhaps judged any meddling with them would be suspected and sought after by wizards hired by their noble kin—he’d assigned to Lorbryn Deltalon for curing.

  Deltalon knew he should be flattered. The Royal Magician absolutely trusted the loyalty of rather less than a handful of his Wizards of War—or anyone else. Laspeera, yes, and … well, perhaps no one else but Lorbryn Deltalon.

  Yet therein lay the problem. For some time Deltalon had harbored growing misgivings about Vangerdahast’s mental stability and loyalties.

  The Royal Magician grew ever more glib and self-satisfied as bodies fell and rotted, years passed, and the realm endured.

  A realm shaped more and more to Vangerdahast’s liking. In the humble opinion of Lorbryn Deltalon—an opinion held only within the deep mind-shielding spell he’d found in a tomb all those years ago and ever since had kept secret from the Royal Magician and everyone else—Vangerdahast was increasingly likely to convince himself that only he was capable of ruling Cormyr for the good of all.

  He might already have reached that conclusion. Wherefore Lorbryn Deltalon watched the royal family of Cormyr very carefully.

  Sooner or later, if Vangerdahast was so deeply corrupted, he would work spells to make the Obarskyrs mere puppets, or have them eliminated—by “enemies of the realm” of course—so he could “reluctantly” take the throne.

  Others held similar suspicions. Several of the elder nobles did so openly, daring Vangerdahast to confront them. The Wizards of War watched and listened to such noble
s even more attentively than they spied on the other highborn of the realm—wherefore Deltalon and most other war wizards knew that many who suspected Vangerdahast of seeking the throne had found reassurance in the rebelliousness of the young Princess Alusair and Vangey’s seeming tolerance for her willful nature.

  Privately, Deltalon held a much darker view. In his opinion, Vangey was encouraging the tantrums and defiant escapades of the younger princess—and thereby happily allowing his grounds for a future argument (that the Obarskyrs had become unfit to continue ruling) to grow ever stronger.

  “For the good of Cormyr,” Deltalon murmured, staring unseeingly through the notes on the table before him.

  He didn’t want to think such thoughts.

  He didn’t want to do this.

  Yet, for the good of Cormyr …

  His lips twisted at that irony, but he found himself nodding and bringing one of his hands, clenched into a fist, down—slowly and softly—to strike the table. Deep reluctance would claw him with tireless talons, but he could stride on.

  He, Lorbryn Deltalon, must make these last two nobles his own mind-slaves. Just in case. And he must do it deftly enough that Vangerdahast must not suspect the worms were in stasis rather than dead, and the nobles would have no inkling of what he’d done. Until the day came—and by the Dragon Throne, let it never come!—when he found it needful to awaken the worms and enthrall the two. Just two, not the dozen-some the Royal Magician commanded.

  Of course. Hadn’t Vangerdahast had years upon years longer than he to become truly evil and self-serving? Able villainy takes practice.…

  He was strong enough to do this now. For the good of Cormyr.

  No longer would he have to trust in a deep shielding spell that faded over time and needed to be cast anew. Now, he had the elfstone.

  Small, pale, egg-smooth, and far more ancient than Cormyr. Deltalon had found the gem hidden beneath stones under poor old Ondel’s rain barrel, when sent to investigate that archwizard’s murder.

  Deltalon had carefully neglected to mention it in his report to Vangerdahast, and he’d swallowed it that same night. It remained safely inside him, magically nudged out of his stomach into adjacent tissue, to lodge there behind rehealed skin, hopefully forever.