Kate Novak - Lost Gods Series 1 - Finder's Bane

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Lost Gods Series
Book 1
Finder's Bane
Kate Novak and Jeff Grubb
One
The Rescue
Joel turned his horse from the paved Northride Road onto the muddy Tethyamar Trail. The bard
halted and watched with some reluctance as the caravan moved past him up the road toward
Shadowdale. A shrine built by the fol-lowers of the god Torm stood at the juncture of the road and the
trail. With its walls of stone and thatched roof the shrine doubled as a way station for travelers who
couldn't reach Shadowdale by nightfall. It was too early in the day and the weather far too fair for any of
the merchants of the caravan to halt here. They were intent on pushing on to their markets in the north.
One of the caravan guards guided his horse forward until it stood beside the bard's. The guard, a
Dalesman named Branson, was a grizzled twenty-year veteran of the road. He was always
uncomfortable watching someone ride away from the safety of his caravan, especially someone as alone
and young as Joel was.
Branson had to admit the bard wasn't exactly a boy. Joel had the muscular physique of a man
and the sober demeanor of an adult, but the caravan guard could detect the signs of youth in him. The
bard's long red hair had the sheen of a child's, and after ten days without a shave, his beard was still
sparse, though his mustache stood out well enough. More telling was the way the young man's blue eyes
widened with every new vista. He wasn't, Branson judged, a seasoned traveler.
"Change o' heart, lad?" the guard asked hopefully.
The younger man shook his head. "No. The trail through Daggerdale is the only way to the Lost
Vale, and that's where I'm determined to go."
"I didn't exaggerate the dangers, lad. The trail's rid-den with giant spiders and wolves and orcs
and bandits and Zhentish scum, and the Daggerdale folk are none too friendly neither," Branson warned.
"I'm ready for some adventure," the bard declared.
The caravan guard snorted derisively and replied, "You're young yet. You'll grow out of it."
The young bard grinned but was wise enough not to argue. He stared after the tail end of the
caravan with which he'd traveled all the way from Cormyr. "I'm going to miss your singing," he said.
Branson roared with laughter. "You're going to miss your audience, you mean," he teased.
The bard lowered his eyes self-consciously.
"Aye, bard. Nothing to be ashamed of. You're a man who likes people. That's a good thing. And
a man who likes entertaining them. That's an even better thing."
"I don't think I've ever been so entertained as I was by the verses you made up to that campfire
song—espe-cially the one about the drunken mind flayer," Joel said. "You have a gift for verse."
Branson chuckled. "No wonder the church o' Milil don't like you bards becoming Finder priests.
Encouraging an old fool like me to write songs—com-peting with the likes o' you."
"Music doesn't belong only to bards," Joel insisted. "Nor any art just to the learned. Art belongs
to every-one. People can create it or change it any way they want. . . . Promise me you'll keep making
new songs," the bard said sincerely.
"Aye. I'll do that, if you promise to come back to hear 'em, so's I know you made it through."
"Deal," Joel agreed with a nod.
"But now you've got to be moving on, haven't you?" Branson asked. "Once knew a halfling bard
who had a saying—always leave 'em wantin' more." He stuck out his hand.
Joel grasped the old man's meaty wrist with his own slender hand and smiled as the guard
reached out with his other hand and squeezed his forearm reassuringly.
"Thanks for the good company. Safe journey," Joel said.
"Safe journey yourself," Branson retorted. "You'll be needing it more than I. Be off with you,
then." He slapped Joel's mare on the rear.
The horse kicked once and trotted down the trail a few yards before slowing uncertainly.
Joel turned in his saddle to wave farewell, but the guard had already taken off after his caravan.
"Hai, Butternut!" the bard called out to his mount, urging her forward. The mare, no doubt
relieved to have finally escaped the crush of the caravan wagons and pleased to have soft dirt beneath
her hooves, took off down the trail without complaint.
The noise of the caravan quickly faded in the dis-tance. Soon the Spiderhaunt Woods began to
close in about the trail, muffling all sound. The woods were com-posed mainly of oak and evergreen
trees growing very close together, their tangled branches creaking as they rubbed against one another.
The undergrowth was dense with vines and saplings and fallen trees. Sticky cobwebs brushed at Joel's
face, but fortunately there was no sign of the giant spiders that gave the woods its name. Occasionally
some tiny creature rustled in the brush, and overhead birds chirped busily, but otherwise it was quiet on
the trail. After days of traveling with a crowd of merchants, talking deals and markets, the bard
welcomed the peace. Miles later, though, the stillness began to feel eerie to Joel.
He started humming softly to himself. A short while later he was singing "Market Day," a song
he'd written as an apprentice and had earned his former master a fat purse from a delighted merchants'
guild. He began soft-ly, but soon, pleased with his own skill and determined to fill the void of sound all
about him, his voice swelled.
He was just belting out the final repeat of the refrain when his mare slowed and then halted in her
tracks, her ears pricked up high, her nostrils flaring, the skin on her neck quivering. Joel stood up in the
stirrups and peered down the trail, but saw nothing out of the ordi-nary. He nudged the beast's flanks,
but she responded by turning away, heading back the way they'd come.
"What's got into you, girl?" the bard muttered as he pulled up on her reins.
Butternut stopped and stood still.
Joel pulled hard on her left rein, but she stubbornly shook her head and whinnied with
annoyance.
Remembering Branson's warning about wolves, the bard realized the mare might have reason to
balk. He dismounted and pulled Butternut's bridle toward him until he stood eye to eye with the mare. He
stroked her muzzle and sang a lullaby softly into her ear: "Courage will wash away your fear, whatever
evil may be near." Joel repeated the verse over and over until a sense of safety and well-being swept
through him; then Butternut snorted and her muscles relaxed. Holding the mare's bridle, the bard led her
back up the trail a few paces. She followed obediently, without qualms.
Joel snapped a lead rope on the bridle and walked beside his mount. The trail began to climb
upward, and the woods began to take on a different appearance. The trees grew farther apart, and the
undergrowth was more sparse. The ground was rockier, strewn with moss-covered boulders of great
size, some larger than a man.
The bard tried to remain alert to any sign of what had spooked Butternut, but his thoughts were
distracted by memories that made him uneasy.
He'd learned the courage verse on the day he had agreed to become a priest of Finder. It was
one of many spells the priest Jedidiah had taught him after anoint-ing him. Joel knew he was lucky to
have found Jedidiah; priests of Finder were almost unheard of. Finder was a new god, a force for
renewal and change in all things, but especially in art. Steeped from birth in the tradi-tions of lore and
music, Joel yearned for a rebirth in his art.
Yet the calling to Finder's priesthood had not come easily. It had angered Joel's masters,
annoyed his friends, and embarrassed his family. More importantly, it frightened him. With joy and pride,
he'd trained as a bard from childhood and attained his master's ring at a remarkably young age. Now it
was hard to let go of the title.
Jedidiah had somehow understood Joel's fear of start-ing all over again, of trading the security
and honor of his position for the role of a priest. "For now, you can call yourself the Rebel Bard," the old
priest had told him, chuckling at the title. Finder had been known as the Nameless Bard in the days
before he'd become a god.
"You're going to have to face it, Joel," he muttered to himself. "You've been casting priest spells.
You're a priest now."
Butternut nickered softly and stopped. Joel halted beside her. Now he could hear what her more
sensitive ears must have heard earlier—the clash of steel against steel. Somewhere in the woods to the
east someone— several someones—were battling with swords. Joel spied a narrow path leading in the
direction of the noise.
The young priest pulled his mare off the trail and tied her to a low branch. Magically reassured,
the beast commenced to graze on the undergrowth. The bard pulled up the hood of his green cloak and
drew his sword before he began moving stealthily down the path toward the sounds of battle.
The trees on either side of the path grew more sparse, and Joel could make out figures in a
clearing up ahead. The bard ducked behind a tree and peered around the trunk to assess the situation.
In the center of the clearing stood a granite boulder over eight feet high and thirty feet around.
Five armed men had cornered a lone swordswoman up against the rock. From the black and yellow
badges sewn on their leather jerkins, Joel could tell that the men were Zhentilar, soldiers of the
Zhentarim, the Black Network.
Branson had warned Joel about them. The Zhentarim shipped their honest goods down the
Northride Road through Shadowdale, but there were certain goods that Shadowdale's lord, its wizard,
and its people would not stomach. These included mercenaries, arms, and slaves, which the Zhentarim
was forced to bring through Daggerdale. To protect this illicit trade, the Black Network sent soldiers to
patrol Daggerdale by leave of the puppet rulers it had set up in the town of Dagger Falls. The Zhentilar,
Branson had explained, were a men-ace to any goods not belonging to their masters and harassed
travelers on principle. The Zhentilar in the clearing weren't much older than Joel, but they were all armed
with swords, and their eyes were cold and pitiless.
Their chosen prey of the moment was barely more than a girl, barefoot and dressed in a long
skirt and a tunic, both woven from brown wool. A small leather backpack hung from her left arm, serving
as a shield. If not for the cutlass she wielded in her right hand, Joel might have taken her for a Dalelands
shepherdess. Considering her dark skin and short bushy hair and the curved blade, Joel wondered if
perhaps she was an askara, a fighting woman from one of the southern empires. Whatever her origins,
she was certainly no stranger to combat.
Two Zhentilar already lay on the ground. One was a soldier with a fatal gash across his throat,
while the other was a spellcaster with a dagger in his chest. Despite having felled two of her seven
attackers, the swordswoman was hard pressed now. With her back against the boulder, she couldn't be
surrounded easily, but neither could she escape. Although three of the five surviving Zhentilar hung back,
they made an effective fence of steel behind the other two soldiers, who harried her like dogs who had
cornered a fox. Blood seeped from several small cuts on her arms, and she appeared to be tiring. From
time to time, she let the point of her sword droop carelessly. It was only a matter of time before she
would make some fatal error.
There was no question in the bard's mind that he would help the young woman. He would have
liked to ponder until he could come up with a foolproof plan, but there wasn't time. Certainly the odds
weren't favorable for a bold assault. That left deceit. Joel grinned as a wild scheme took shape in his
head. According to Branson, the Zhentilar were used to tak-ing orders from their mages. With its mage
captain felled, this patrol was obviously in need of new leader-ship. Joel waved his fingers about his
body, chanting a simple illusion spell to mimic the outfit of the dead Zhentarim wizard. The fabric of his
cloak shimmered until he appeared to be wearing black and yellow robes emblazoned with a Zhentarim
badge. With the same spell, he covered his face with the illusion of a long gray beard and cloaked his
sword with the shape of an oaken staff.
Taking a deep breath, Joel stepped into the clearing. One of the Zhentilar had climbed up the
back of the boulder and now teetered precariously near the edge, intending to drop a large rock onto the
swordswoman's head. Before the situation got any messier, Joel barked, "What's going on here? Soldier,
report!"The two soldiers battling the swordswoman kept their attention fixed on their foe, but the two in
the rear whirled about, leveling their swords at Joel. The Zhentilar atop the boulder lost his footing and
tumbled backward with a startled cry. It took all Joel's self-control to keep from laughing.
Reacting to the sight of a Zhentilar mage-captain, one soldier before Joel lowered his sword and
snapped back, "Sir, we were interrogating this civilian when she mur-dered our captain and lieutenant,
sir!" "I can see that," Joel replied coldly. "I could feel the death of my brother mage." The bard strode
solemnly over to the dead mage's body and bent over to assure himself the mage was indeed dead. From
the corpse's belt, he retrieved a small wand.
As he stood, Joel pointed the wand at the swordswoman. The two Zhentilar facing him backed
away hurriedly. Apparently the wand's magic wasn't something to trifle with. Too bad I don't have a clue
what it does, Joel thought.
"Back away from your prisoner, men," the bard ordered the Zhentilar guarding the woman.
The two remaining guards backed away with more calm. From the smug look on their faces, Joel
could tell they were looking forward to watching their prey become the target of whatever foul magic the
wand released. The color drained from the young woman's face, and her lips moved in what Joel guessed
must be a prayer to her gods.
"Sheathe your sword," he ordered her.
Like a sleepwalker, the prisoner obeyed.
Joel stepped closer.
"Careful, sir," one soldier muttered. "That's how our captain got skewered, thinkin' she was
pacified. Best flame her and be done with it."
"Did it occur to you, soldier," Joel asked with a sneer, "that if she went to all this trouble to avoid
answering your questions, she must know something important? We need to question her."
The bard strode up to the swordswoman, the wand pointed at her belly. She was nearly as tall as
he was, but standing this close, the bard could see she was even younger than he'd thought. She was
really just a girl. A brave girl, though—she met his look with a defiant glare. In another instant, Joel
sensed, she would attack him.
Joel winked. The girl's eyes widened momentarily, but she said nothing. Joel slipped the wand in
his belt, grabbed the girl's arm, and yanked her away from the rock. Noting the soldiers' curious stares,
he jerked his head in the direction of the corpses and ordered, "Do something with those bodies!"
"Yes, sir," one of the soldiers answered. "Moonteeth, get the shovel. Kurlens, fetch the captain a
piece of rope for the prisoner."
"That won't be necessary," Joel replied, steering the girl toward the path. "I'm sure I can handle
her." "Where are you taking her, sir?" the soldier giving orders asked suspiciously.
"My patrol is waiting at the end of the path," the bard lied. "I'll interrogate her there. Join us when
you're fin-ished cleaning up here." He continued to guide the girl down the path, careful not to look back.
His coolness didn't fool the soldiers. Two Zhentilar followed Joel, and although he couldn't see
them, the bard was acutely aware that their blades were pointed at his back.
"Begging your pardon, sir," the soldier who'd taken charge said craftily, "but I can't relinquish the
prisoner without you giving me the password."
Password. That's just great, Joel thought with annoyance.
The bard released his grip on the girl's arm. He gave her a quick shove forward, making room for
him to whirl about with his staff raised. The first soldier, unaware that the staff was merely an illusion
covering a sharpened sword, grabbed at the weapon with his bare hand. Blood spurted from what was
left of the man's fingers as he shrieked in pain.
Joel stepped back, parrying the second soldier's blade with his own. The force of steel smashing
into steel dis-pelled the illusion of the mage staff.
“You're no mage!" the second soldier growled. He slammed his blade at the bard's sword with
enough force to knock it from Joel's hand. Joel retreated sever-al hasty steps backward. The soldier
advanced on him with an evil grin. From behind him, Joel heard a twang. A moment later the grin
disappeared from the soldier's face as a crossbow bolt buried itself in his throat.
Joel spun about. His "prisoner" was already sliding a second bolt into a one-handed drow
crossbow. The bard snatched his sword up from the ground and retreated to the girl's side.
The girl stepped forward, leveling her cutlass at the soldier with the injured hand. Joel grabbed
her arm. "Come on. Let's go!" he ordered.
"We should finish them off," she argued.
"Don't push your luck," the bard growled, tugging hard on her arm.
The girl dashed down the path at Joel's side. There was no sound of pursuit behind them, but
they didn't stop until they reached Joel's mare.
Butternut nickered nervously as Joel untied her lead rope.
"Who are you?" the girl asked.
"The Rebel Bard," Joel said, making a courtly, albeit hurried, bow. "At your service, my lady."
The girl laughed, though Joel couldn't tell exactly why. "I'm Holly," she replied as she sheathed
her cut-lass. "Holly Harrowslough. Your service is much appre-ciated." Her accent marked her as a
native of the north-ern dales, and she held her hand out in dales fashion.
Joel grasped the girl's wrist as she grasped his. Her brief grip was strong and sure, and her smile
quite pret-ty, but there was something about the way her dark eyes held his that made the bard feel
awkward, as if he'd just confessed to some crime and was being judged.
"We'd better keep moving," Joel insisted. He turned away hastily, making a show of tightening
the strap on Butternut's saddle.
"You don't have to escort me," Holly said. "The Zhents don't usually bother me. It's just that this
patrol's cap-tain spotted me in Shadowdale last week, so he was overly suspicious. The other patrols
won't suspect me. And you'll be safer if you aren't seen cavorting with the natives."
Joel's forehead furrowed with concern. "Look, I know we're perfect strangers, but I can't just
leave you here alone. I'm sure there must be a rule that forbids it. Thou shalt not abandon maidens in
distress' or some such."
Holly laughed.
"Besides," Joel continued hurriedly, "I could use some-one who's familiar with the area. I'm going
north, and if it's not out of your way, I'd appreciate your guidance."
"Well, then, Rebel Bard, you've got yourself a guide," the girl agreed with a grin.
Joel swung up into the saddle and offered Holly a hand. She swung up behind him easily.
Butternut snort-ed with annoyance at the extra weight. "It's just till we put some distance between us and
them, girl," the bard assured the horse, urging her forward with a nudge.
They had traveled all of a hundred yards when they heard the sound of horses on the trail behind
them. Someone shouted something about spies. Joel kicked Butternut into a trot.
"Blast!" Holly muttered as she looked back.
"What is it?" Joel asked, his rear view blocked by the girl.
"A fresh Zhent patrol, mounted. And one of the ones we left behind in the clearing is waving them
in our direction."
Joel bit his lip, trying to formulate a plan. Butternut, he realized, could never outrun the Zhentilar
loaded down as she was.
"I'm going to dismount and hold them off," Joel said, kicking his foot out of the stirrup. "You keep
going." "You can't—" Holly started to protest, but Joel had already swung his leg over the mare's neck
and fallen to the ground.
Joel rolled out of the way of the mare's hind legs and leapt to his feet. Drawing his sword, he
prepared to make a heroic last stand, but Holly had other ideas. She had turned Butternut about and
ridden back to the bard's side.
"You know," Joel growled with exasperation, "there's not much point in my trying to save your
life if you insist on being killed with me," he said.
"What kind of guide would I be if I lost you to the Zhents?" Holly retorted grimly as she loaded a
bolt into her crossbow.
From a pocket of his tunic, Joel pulled out a tiny vial of holy water. Not even the urgency of the
situation overcame the awkwardness he felt praying aloud. With his head bowed with embarrassment, he
whispered his prayer. "Finder, help us through this peril." He splashed the holy water first in Holly's
direction, then on his own feet. When he'd pocketed the empty vial, he raised his sword again. Even with
the blessing, the sword felt uncomfortably heavy in his hand. He had only the most rudimentary training in
its use in Berdusk. Since then he'd had little inclination to practice and few reasons to use it.
The Zhentilar were closing fast when Holly shouted, "Hey!"
Joel looked up at the girl. She was trying to bat away a bird that fluttered about her shoulder.
The bird land-ed on Butternut's head. Joel could see that it was a jack-daw, its purplish black wings
glittering even in the shadow of the trees.
Joel froze with anticipation. Among the advice Jedidiah had given him before they had parted
was to listen to the birds.
The bird looked straight at Joel and cocked its head. Turn the peril back at them," the bird
croaked. "Use the wand of their mage. With Lady Luck's blessing, you cannot fail."
Holly's eyes widened with surprise, but she didn't for-get the approaching enemy. "Can you really
use the wand?" she asked excitedly.
From his belt, Joel drew the wand he'd stolen from the Zhentilar mage's corpse. It was fashioned
from mahogany and polished smooth all around, save for a symbol engraved at the tip and inlaid with
mother-of-pearl. The symbol was an ancient rune signifying chaos. That could be the word that activated
it, but what the wand did the bard couldn't even guess. It was also entirely possible the wand wouldn't
respond to someone who lacked formal training and only dabbled in magic. He looked up questioningly
at the jackdaw. The bird cawed loudly and fluttered off into the trees above.
"I don't know if I can get it to work," Joel whispered up to Holly, "but I can always bluff." He
took up a posi-tion in the center of the trail and held the wand out at arm's length. The Zhentilar
thundered down the trail single file.
"Halt!" he shouted, aiming the wand at the lead rider of the patrol. "Halt, or I'll use the wand!"
The rider did not halt, and Joel thought he could see the man smiling.
"Fine. You asked for it," the bard muttered. "Chaos!" he shouted.
A pulse of blue light issued from the tip of the wand and struck the Zhentilar's sword. The
weapon began to glow with a vivid blue light as the soldier closed on Joel. With a yell, the Zhentarim
swung his blade downward. The bard raised his own sword to fend off the blow, but the blow never
struck. The Zhentilar's blade passed right through the bard's weapon like a ghost. In the next instant, the
enemy's sword vanished entirely.
With unerring aim, Holly put a crossbow bolt through the rider's chest. As his horse passed by,
she grabbed the beast's reins and pushed the soldier from the saddle.
Undeterred by the fate of their comrade, the other Zhentilar continued charging toward the bard
and the girl.
"Some people never learn," Joel said with a sigh. Once more he pointed the wand at the
approaching foe and called out the command word.
A sphere of light, buttery yellow like bright sunshine, bubbled from the tip of the wand. When the
sphere of light had grown as large as a pumpkin, a large butter-fly fluttered forth. The insect was
beautifully marked with orange and black spots and was as large as Joel's hand. A second butterfly
emerged, then a dozen, then hundreds of butterflies swarmed out of the sphere of light. The mass of
beating wings blinded the bard and startled Butternut and the dead soldier's horse into flight down the
trail. Holly shouted as Butternut car-ried her away.
The Zhentilar patrol's horses must have been equally startled, for Joel could hear them neighing in
panic, and none of them came bursting through the cloud of orange and black. Joel backed away from
the colorful swarm. The butterflies began spiraling upward toward the tree-tops, and Joel could see
beyond their fluttering wings. The Zhentarim soldiers were getting their mounts back under control and
moving in his direction.
Joel realized now the meaning of the command word etched on the wand. The wand's magic was
determined by chaos, completely random. He understood now what the jackdaw had meant about Lady
Luck's favor. To tip the odds in his favor, he needed luck.
"Tymora," he whispered, invoking the goddess of luck, who had always been a friend to his own
god, Finder. "Smile on this fool." He aimed the wand for a third time and called out, "Chaos!"
Either the third use was truly charmed or the bard's request of Lady Luck had fallen on
sympathetic ears.
The wand spat out a glowing red sphere no bigger than a pea that streaked down the trail into the
midst of the Zhentilar patrol. Then the pea burst into a fireball so powerful the force of the blast knocked
Joel off his feet.
Complete silence fell over the woods as every living creature, seen and unseen, took a moment
to wonder at the blast. Then the silence broke as the charred corpses of the Zhentilar patrol and their
horses thudded to the ground. Birds in the trees overhead began twittering loudly, as if mistaking the
fireball for a second sunrise.
Joel picked himself off the ground. He took a few steps toward his vanquished foes, but the sight
of the carnage and the stench of burning flesh was too terrible to bear. He turned about and loped down
the trail after Holly.
Two
The Pilgrims
Still mounted on Butternut, the girl came riding back toward him with the first Zhentilar's horse in
tow. "I heard an explosion," she said, "What happened?"
"They're dead," Joel whispered.
"All of them?" Holly asked. "All the ones who were chasing us," Joel replied. He patted the side
of the Zhentarim horse for a few moments, making sure the beast was steady, then swung himself into the
beast's saddle. "Are you all right?" Holly asked. "You're not injured?" Joel shook his head from side to
side, then studied the girl for a moment. Her arms and tunic were splattered with the blood of the last
Zhentilar she'd killed and from the wounds she'd received from the first Zhent patrol, but she didn't seem
the least bit unnerved.
"I suppose this is all business as usual for you Daggerdale folk," the bard commented dryly.
"If by business as usual, you mean, do we defy invaders to our lands whenever we can, then the
answer is yes," Holly replied coolly. "To do anything less would be invit-ing the fate of Teshendale,
conquered by the Black
Network and now only an empty chair at the Dales Council. As it is, the Zhent soldiers harass
our citizens, their orc mercenaries raid our herds, and their puppet rulers force our lord into exile. If you
plan to travel through Daggerdale, you had best get used to our "busi-ness as usual.' " Having said her
piece, the girl clucked her tongue at Butternut and rode off down the trail.
Joel sat still for a moment, stunned by the girl's tirade, but after some reflection, he convinced
himself he hadn't really said anything that could give offense. There was more than the reputed
Daggerdale unfriend-liness behind Holly's outburst. Her words had a defen-sive and rehearsed sound, as
if Holly had said it before or had wanted to say it to someone else for a long time.
Joel dug his heels into the ribs of the Zhentilar horse and soon caught up with his guide.
"Correct me if I'm wrong," the bard said as his horse drew up alongside Holly's, "but I sense I've
just caught an arrow meant for someone else."
The girl lowered her eyes, and Joel knew he'd hit the mark, but he also knew that wouldn't
necessarily gain him any points with her. It would be up to him to bring some civility back to the
conversation.
"I didn't mean to imply you or your people had no right to defend yourselves," he insisted.
Holly looked up at him. "I know that. You're right about my speech being meant for someone
else. Someone I met said something that really made me angry, but I couldn't think what to reply until the
next day. I've been thinking about what I said to you for days now, repeating it over and over, wishing I
could go back in the past and answer the person who made me angry. Pretty foolish, huh?"
Joel laughed. "Not really," he replied. "We've all done that before. So who was this scoundrel
who slandered the honor of the Daggerdale folk?"
"Some stupid Cormyte serving as an envoy to Shadowdale. He said we were a ruthless,
mean-spirited people. Elminster and Lord Mourngrym didn't pay any attention to him, but he made me
terribly angry. I wasn't sure how much respect he warranted, so I didn't reply, Then I felt stupid because
I'd lost the chance to show Shadowdale how loyal Daggerfolk are to their dale."
"Elminster and Lord Mourngrym probably admired you all the more for your self-discipline," Joel
assured her
"Do you really think so?" Holly asked with surprise.
"Well, having never met the gentlemen, I can only guess based on what I've heard about them.
Sharp words are never wielded so skillfully as silence. So what business did one so young have with such
powerful men?" the bard asked curiously.
Holly grinned at him but said nothing.
Joel laughed. "Well, now that you've demonstrated your mastery of silence, perhaps you will
deign to move on to the art of small talk. I'll try another question. Where'd you get that curved blade of
yours?" "It was my father's blade," Holly explained. "He was from Zhakara. That's far to the south."
Joel nodded.
"When he was a young man, he put on a cursed ring and was teleported to the north, where the
Zhents captured him. He was a slave of the Zhents for years. So was my mom's brother, Burl. My dad
helped Uncle Burl escape, so Uncle Burl brought dad to Daggerdale and introduced him to my mother."
Holly looked away into the woods and added, "They all died in an orc raid last year—my mom, my dad,
my Uncle Burl, my grandma Harrowslough."
"I'm very sorry," Joel said.
"Me, too," Holly whispered.
They rode in silence for nearly a mile. Joel thought of his own mother and father. It would
probably be years before he saw them again. He hoped his reunion with them would be more pleasant
than his departure had been. His parents couldn't understand his decision to leave the barding college in
Berdusk to join Finder priesthood and go on a pilgrimage. Joel began humming a tune his mother and
father often sang together.
The trail left the woods finally and headed out into rolling meadowlands covered with high
grasses and wildflowers.
"Something's coming," Holly hissed in an urgent whisper. She slid down from Butternut's back.
The bard dismounted beside her. "What is it?" he asked. "More Zhentilar?"
"I'm not sure," the girl replied. Her brow was fur-rowed, and she looked more anxious than she
had when she was surrounded by the Zhentilar. Holly pointed to a line of trees to the west. "We need to
take cover," she insisted.
Joel followed the girl into the tall meadow grass, tug-ging the confused horses behind him. Young
saplings lined the edge of a shallow gully; Holly slid down the gully and Joel followed. Butternut balked
until Holly splashed a stone in the small stream at the bottom of the wash. Eager for water, the mare
picked its way to the bottom and began to drink thirstily. The Zhentarim mount soon followed. Joel could
just pick out the trail they'd left behind, but for the most part, the grass had closed back up after they
passed through.
Joel trusted the girl's instincts, but he was unable to squelch his curiosity. Leaving the horses and
Holly behind, the bard crawled back the way they'd come until he could peer through the tall grass at the
trail beyond.
Whatever was coming had frightened more than just Holly. The woods that he and Holly had just
exited erupted with an alarmed chatter. A moment later flocks of birds soared out of the trees and flew
overhead. Five deer bounded down the trail and into the grass, the lead buck settling only a few feet from
the ravine where Holly and the horses were hidden.
A minute later a great procession of people emerged from the woods. There had to be a hundred
at least, peasants mostly, their heads bowed down, mumbling incoherently, their feet shuffling in the dirt,
kicking up clouds of dust. Four young men and two young women in poorly tailored acolytes robes of
red and black carried banners of crimson, emblazoned with a black hand They chanted, louder and more
clearly than the peas-ants, so that Joel could make out their words.
"Lord Bane conies. Fear him always. To defy him is to die. Lord Bane comes. Fear him always.
To defy him is to die."
Joel buried his head in his arms and worked hard to stifle his laughter. It was a group of Banites,
still wor-shiping their dead god. Their capacity for self-deceit was unbelievable. The black lord of hatred
and tyrann had perished nearly a decade ago, yet he still had wor-shipers who refused to accept the fact.
With their god's death, even Bane's priests were magically impotent, yd here they were, parading about
and declaring their god's power.
It was then that Joel noticed the ground was rum-bling. He peered down the road, guessing the
rumbling might be caused by elephants, or perhaps a captured dragon.
It was no living thing that shook the earth, however, but something far more diabolical. Floating
along the trail, its keel hovering inches from the ground, was the strangest-looking ship Joel had ever
seen. The hull was fashioned of gigantic tree trunks, bound together with iron bands. Engraved in the iron
bands was a script Joel was sure did not originate in the Realms. The hull was nearly a hundred feet long,
with a fifteen-foot beam. Charred bits of wood on the lower deck led Joel to guess the upper decks had
been destroyed by fire. Three of the bound tree trunks thrust outward from the lower deck, entwined
together to form a three-pronged ram. ship's broken rudder plowed through the earth, creating a great
furrow in the trail and making the ground shake.
Bound to the ship's bow, looking as if it were standing on the ram, was a giant ebon figurehead of
a creature Joel had never seen before. It looked like a great pig or a small elephant with a mushed-in
snout, only it stood upright like a human. Its arms were bound to either side of the bow. The statue wore
no clothing, and its black skin had a sheen as if it were highly polished.
Behind the figurehead, on the lower deck, stood a small, slender woman in black plate armor,
with a black cape. She held a silver goad, its spiked point honed to a needlelike sharpness. Her long,
silky black hair was fas-tened in a single plait that reached her waist. It was her face, though, that
captured Joel's attention. On her cheeks and her chin were diamond-shaped tattoos the color of fresh
blood, and set into her forehead was a huge ruby, worth a king's ransom—the telltale mark-ings of one
of Bane's chosen priests. Her features might have been attractive, but now they were frozen into a stern,
bored expression. She looked no older than Joel, but the bard knew such priests often used their powers
to appear youthful.
For a moment the priestess seemed to look right at the spot where Joel hid in the grass. Her lips
curled into the slightest hint of a smile. Joel could have sworn he'd been detected, that in the next minute
she'd order her minions to flush him out like a bird. Then the bow of the boat reached the trail just in front
of where he lay in hiding, and the bard lost sight of the priestess. The boat rumbled past and continued
on. A few more peasants straggled behind the floating ship, but they did not stop.
Joel rolled on his back and breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn't seen him. If she hadn't seen him,
though, why had she smiled? the bard asked himself. Perhaps she had seen him, but in her pride, she had
ignored him, smiling at the way he cowered. Joel felt annoyance churn in his gut. As priestess to a dead
god, she was unable to cast even a simple healing spell, yet there she stood, proud of her power and
position, and here he lay, priest to a living god, lying low like a snake in the grass.
Healing. He'd forgotten about that. He was so self-conscious about revealing his priesthood he
hadn't even offered to heal the wounds on Holly's arms. She was a tough little thing, but the gashes from
the Zhentarim swords must hurt badly.
Joel crawled back through the grass to the wash where Holly and the horses were hidden. He
was rehearsing what he would say—"I'm not just a bard. I'm a priest, too. Of Finder. I don't expect
you've heard of him"—when he spied Holly by the wash. The bard froze in place and stared.
Holly sat cross-legged in the grass, her arms raised over her head, softly singing a chant to
Lathander Morninglord, god of the dawn. Her singing was off-key, but apparently that was no
impediment to her prayer being answered. An aura as rosy as the dawn sky gath-ered about her head
and upraised arms. She lowered her arms and wrapped them about herself. The aura contracted about
her as if it were sinking into her flesh, then vanished. The cuts on her arms were now nothing more than
pale lines scarring her dark brown skin.
So much for my usefulness as a priest, Joel thought Now, though, he understood this girl who
wielded a sword with the skill of a veteran mercenary, who sensed Banites approaching, who could heal
her wounds with a prayer.
"You're a paladin, aren't you?" he asked Holly, though he was quite sure of it already.
Holly looked up at him and nodded. "Order of the Aster," she explained, "protectors of
Lathander’s church."
It felt odd meeting someone with such great respon-sibilities and so skilled who was even
younger than he, For a moment Joel had the unpleasant sensation that he was growing old at twenty.
"Um, I hadn't mentioned it, but I'm a priest of Finder.”
"I know," Holly replied.
"My real name's Joel. Joel of Finder," the bard admit-ted, then realized what Holly had just said.
"How did you know?" he asked with surprise.
“That you were a priest? I watched you cast a bless-ing on us before we fought the second
patrol of Zhents."
"Oh. Right. I only mentioned it because I wasn't sure if there was any problem with you helping a
priest of a different god."
Holly shook her head. "Not with Finder's folk."
"Finder's folk?" Joel asked. "You know some of his fol-lowers in Daggerdale?"
"Not in Daggerdale, no. But some of the creatures in Tarkhaldale are supposed to follow him.
There's a priestess and a temple there."
"Tarkhaldale?" Joel asked. He'd never heard of the place. Jedidiah had certainly never mentioned
it. Tarkhaldale. It's up in the mountains on the edge of the Great Desert."
"You mean the Lost Vale?" Joel asked.
"Well, I guess that's what outsiders call it. We've always called it Tarkhaldale. You can hardly go
on call-ing it the Lost Vale now that its been found and people live there and all," the girl pointed out.
"I suppose not. That's where I'm headed, actually, to the Lost—uh, Tarkhaldale."
"How are you going to get there? There's no path into the mountains. They say Alias the
sellsword only gets in and out with the magic of a wizard that lives there."
"I have a map a friend gave me. How do you know so much about the people of Tarkhaldale?"
"Elminster talks about them," Holly explained. "Elminster talks about everything, actually. He's so
interesting. I could sit and listen to him for hours."
"I've heard he has quite a reputation with the ladies," Joel noted.
Holly snorted. "Honestly! You sound just like Brother Robin. That's the priest who teaches me.
Elminster is old enough to be my grandfather."
"Elminster is old enough to be the grandfather of quite a few women—probably is, for that
matter," Joel replied. "Well, he's always treated me like a lady," Holly said, defending the wizard's honor.
"That's his secret, is it?" Joel teased.
摘要：

LostGodsSeriesBook1Finder'sBaneKateNovakandJeffGrubbOneTheRescueJoelturnedhishorsefromthepavedNorthrideRoadontothemuddyTethyamarTrail.ThebardhaltedandwatchedwithsomereluctanceasthecaravanmovedpasthimuptheroadtowardShadowdale.Ashrinebuiltbythefol­lowersofthegodTormstoodatthejunctureoftheroadandthetra...

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