“Well done, Bron,” he said. “You hold him, and I’ll finish this.”
“No.”
Dag looked puzzled, and more than a little angry. “No?”
“If I let go, he will kill you. If you try to kill him, I will let go. You have to leave. Now.”
Comprehension swept over Dag’s face. “So that is your game. You made one mistake—one that could be fatal,” he said in a coldly controlled voice. “Why would you let me go, why would you bother to save my life at all, when you know you may well have cause to regret it someday?”
“I’ll take my chances." She lifted the knife at Algorind’s throat just a little, just enough to suggest the threat. “Just go.”
“Very well.” His eyes quickly swept the fortress as he took a last look at what he had lost, and then they settled on the little girl. “Come, Cara.”
Bronwyn squeezed her eyes tight for a moment, trying to damp down the sudden, searing pain. This is what Cara wanted, she told herself. She belonged with her family, her father.
“No,” the child said, clearly and firmly.
Dag Zoreth looked astonished. “What do you mean?”
“I want to stay with Bronwyn,” Cara stated.
“But I want you with me!”
The child’s smile was sad and old far beyond her years. “Yes, father. So you have often said.”
The silence stretched between them, and in it Bronwyn could hear broken promises, just as surely as her ears rang with the sounds of battle.
Dag looked stricken, but he managed a small, rueful smile. “This is a strange end, indeed,” he said in a strangled voice. “After all this, I find that I am more like Hronulf than I would have thought possible.”
“Never,” said Algorind, risking the safety of his voice to speak what he saw as truth.
The priest sent him a look of purest hatred. “You know nothing. Your kind is known to me—your mind is empty of everything but Tyr. It should be an easy matter, therefore, for you to remember this: I will find you and kill you, in the most painful manner I can devise.”
Dag Zoreth took a long breath and chanted the words to a spell. He held one hand poised in an unfinished gesture and looked to his daughter. “Good-bye, Cara,” Dag said softly. “We will meet again soon.”
His gaze sought Bronwyn, and this time his eyes were hard. “As will we.”
And then he was gone, leaving behind a small wisp of purple smoke.
Bronwyn caught Cara’s eye, jerked her head toward the still-fighting dwarves, and mouthed the word, run!
Then she took her knife away from Algorind’s throat and danced back a step. Still holding her grip on his hair, she kicked with all her strength at the back of his knee. His leg buckled. At the same moment, she yanked back hard. The paladin fell backward and landed in a painfully twisted heap. Bronwyn resisted the urge to kick him while he was down, and took off running madly after Cara.
A small knot of dwarves had run out of opponents and seemed to be quarreling among themselves. Cara ran straight at them.
“Good girl,” Bronwyn panted as she pounded along behind. The dwarves looked up as Cara approached and parted to let first her and then Bronwyn past. Bronwyn glanced back to see that they had closed ranks, forming a wall of dwarven resolve against the paladin.
For once again, Algorind was fervently pursuing his quest.
Bronwyn groaned. “Stop him,” she shouted back.
She snatched up Cara and all but threw the girl over her shoulder. There was an open door before them. The chapel. Bronwyn remembered the steps that ran up the back of the chapel into the towers. She dashed into the low building.
The sight before her stopped her in mid stride. Hanging over the altar was an enormous black skull, behind which burned a lurid purple sun. Malevolence emanated from the manifestation, washing over her with a wave of hatred and evil that was fully as debilitating as the lich’s touch.
Algorind clattered in after her, barely noticing the dwarf who clung doggedly to one of his legs. He stopped, as Bronwyn had done, and raised his eyes to the unholy fira. But there was no fear on his face, and his eyes held calm certainty. For a moment, Bronwyn envied him the simple beauty of his faith.
Again he began to sing, the same chant that had banished the purple fire from Dag Zoreth’s sword. Such was the power of his prayer that the dwarf—who had given up his hold and was now attempting repeatedly to bash at the paladin with a battle hammer—could not even get close. After several moments of this, the dwarf shrugged and took off in search of something he could actually hit.
The manifestation of Cyric was more difficult to banish than the sword’s enchantment, and it resisted Algorind’s prayers with a hideous crackling and hissing. The sunburst’s rays fairly danced with rage.
Bronwyn did not stay to see the outcome. She put Cara down and took her hand. They edged around the chapel, hugging the walls and keeping as much distance as possible between themselves and the angry evil fire in the midst of the room. Once, a spray of purple sparks showered them. The skirt of Cara’s dress began to smolder. Bronwyn dropped to her knees and beat out the tiny flames with her hands. To her relief, the child was not burned—only a few empty, brown-ringed holes marred the pink silk.
To her astonishment, this loss brought a tremble to the girl’s lip. This, after all Cara had endured. “I will get you another,” Bronwyn told her as she pulled her into a run.
The fire was dying now, and Algorind would not be far behind them. They dashed up the winding stone steps, and out onto the walkway that ringed the interior of the wall. Their way was clear, for all the Zhentarim had flooded down into the bailey to meet the dwarf invaders.
They ran toward the front gate tower, hoping to get to the horses. The dwarves had shut the door and barred it. There were but two horses outside the gate. If they could get to the horses, they could outrun the paladin.
But swift footsteps closed in and a heavy hand dropped on Bronwyn’s shoulder. She huried her elbow back in a sharp jab and whirled after it. Stiffening her fingers, she went for his eyes.
The paladin was quick, and he dodged her jabbing attack. Her hand stabbed into his temple, and she changed tactics— spreading her fingers into raking claws and slashing down over his face.
Algorind had not expected his, and for one instant he fell back on his heels. Bronwyn looked around frantically for an escape.
The only way was down. The roofs of the small interior buildings were neatly thatched, and they slanted sharply down. It was the best she could do.
“Jump,” she told Cara, then hurled herself onto the roof, never once doubting that the girl would follow.
They slid on their backsides down the low-hanging eaves and leaped out into the bailey. Bronwyn ran for the gate-house stairs, pulling Cara after her. She shot a look over her shoulder and stopped dead.
A young dwarf had stepped into Algorind’s path, his axe raised and his beardless face set in determination. The paladin never slowed. He cut the lad down with a swift, terrible blow and kept coming.
Bronwyn squeezed her eyes shut to force back the wave of pain and indecision. She could not leave the dwarves here to deal with this man. He was too skilled, too determined. The dwarves were just as stubborn, and they wouldn’t give up until Algorind lay dead.
Inspiration struck. She reversed direction, zigzagging across the bailey toward the siege tower. On the way, she cuffed Ebenezer’s head. He glanced at her, which earned him a thudding blow from the staff of the man he was fighting.
“Bar the door behind!” she shouted, and then she dragged Cara through the open door of the Fenrisbane.
Bronwyn looked around the siege tower. The inside was vast and equipped with many weapons: piles of spears, swords, barrels full of quarrels. None of these, not in her hands at least, would be sufficient to stop the determined paladin from fulfilling his quest.