She was silent for a long time before she added in a whisper, “I am glad of that, because I don’t feel like holding trials at all … I want to go out and kill things.”
* * * * *
“Your sword arm?” Sharantyr asked, watching Itharr wince and reach for his shoulder.
He nodded. “I’ve worn it out these last two days.”
“And seen enough death to last several lifetimes,” Belkram added quietly, handing him a goblet. Itharr took it in his good hand and hastily sipped at it to prevent a spill.
Sharantyr dug her fingers into the muscles of his shoulder, and he shuddered uncontrollably. He handed the goblet back to Belkram hastily.
“Thanks … I’ll want the rest of it when this long-taloned beast here stops tearing my shoulder apart!”
Sharantyr managed a playful snarl, but then fell silent again, her face sad. She shook her head when Belkram offered the decanter to her, and asked him, “When will you get Syluné back?”
“In the morning, Storm said.” Belkram poured himself a goblet and drained most of it at one gulp. “I imagine they’re meeting to talk about what they must do to defend the dale now that Elminster’s gone.”
“That’s a meeting we must have, too,” Itharr said, looking up. “Whither now, for the three of us?”
“What have we to jaw about,” Sharantyr asked with sudden fierceness as her fingers worked on his stiff shoulders with iron tenderness, “until we’ve dealt with the Malaugrym? Elminster gave us a task, and it’s unfinished. Harpers—and Knights of Myth Drannor—don’t walk away from their duty. Not now, not ever!”
When she caught Belkram’s look of wonder, she blushed, turning her head away. “I’m sorry,” Shar mumbled, her voice quavering for an instant. “I … his dying … I’m too upset to make sense.”
“No, Lady,” Belkram said, advancing to take one of her hands in his own. He knelt and kissed it in one smooth movement. “You make perfect sense—now, and always.”
Sharantyr turned her head away again from the rising fire she saw in his eyes, and tried to blink away her sudden tears, tears that would not stop falling.
* * * * *
Uncaring crickets were chirping as the Bard of Shadowdale turned in at her arched gate. She brushed past its roses and stumbled in her weariness. Syluné drifted with silent grace at her shoulder.
The door ahead of them was open, and the lamps were lit. Storm sighed and reached for her blade again, wondering if she really felt up to another fight against some sinister Zhent intruder … then relaxed with a heavy sigh of relief when she saw the short and familiar figure of Lhaeo come out to greet them.
“Tea is made, Ladies,” Elminster’s scribe said in a small, forlorn voice.
“Oh, Lhaeo,” Storm said, touched, and held out her arms to him.
A moment later, the last prince of Tethyr was weeping into her breast, clutching her as if she were his last anchor in a storm-racked sea. “El told me I’d know if he died,” he gasped when he could speak again, “and yet I don’t know! The touch of his mind is gone!” He burst into fresh tears, weeping uncontrollably.
Storm stood in the moonlight, holding him in silence. There was nothing she could say. Her silver hair bent over him as her own tears began to fall. They wept together, and the ghostly form of Syluné hovered over them both, her spectral hands reaching out to console … in vain.
There was nothing at all she could do.
11
There’s Always Revenge
It was a bright morning in fair Shadowdale. The tower, the inn, and the streets were still buzzing with talk of the disappearance, a day and a night ago, of Adon and Midnight, the two prisoners convicted of the murder of Elminster of Shadowdale. Some said they’d been spirited away by agents of Zhentil Keep, lurking in the dale even now; others that they were archmages, foul fiends, or Bane and Manshoon themselves, who wore false shapes and escaped by magic as soon as they were bound in the dungeons. Shadowdale had lost its greatest protector, a wise old uncle—albeit a cantankerous and mischievous uncle—to just about everyone who’d lived in Shadowdale.
Nor was he the only man mourned in the dale. Many a family wept over sons or fathers who would come back only on a shield, to be buried by an honor guard led by the grim-faced lord of Shadowdale. No one could spare the time for full mourning rites or long nights of grieving, however; there was too much that had to be done.
Magic still spun wild in Faerûn, and news of strife and god-caused devastation came to Shadowdale with every new, heavily armed caravan. The Zhentarim could strike again at any time, and Daggerdale was an open battlefield roamed by hungry wolves, orcs, and worse. To keep such perils at bay, the few warriors still able to fight were standing guard on all four roads out of the dale, fervently hoping not to see blackhelms in the distance.
In the dale, dead Zhents and horses lay everywhere, some half devoured by bold night scavengers. The returned priests of Lathander were busily blessing the dead to ensure that they would not rise undead to stalk Shadowdale in the years to come. The old women of the dale were stripping the bodies of anything that could be used again, and the foresters surveyed the burnt woods with an eye to replanting.
Yestereve, six full carts piled high with weapons and helms had groaned up the road to the tower. The clangor of their being stockpiled had gone on all night, wherefore this morning Lord Mourngrym had a headache that felt as if someone were repeatedly stabbing a dagger through the top of his head.
“Why must I get up?” he asked Shaerl. “I’m lord of this dale. Can’t I lie abed just once in a year?”
“You did,” she replied sweetly, “three months back. We were trying for a daughter, remember?”
Mourngrym growled something wordless about her cheerfulness and rolled up to a sitting position on the edge of their bed. His arms and ribs were gold and purple with bruises, and two raw scars marked his forearm where Zhent blades had split through his best armor.
Shaerl hissed in sympathy as she traced one of those scars with a slim finger. She handed her lord a tankard of steaming bitterroot tea.
Mourngrym sipped it, made the same disgusted face he always did, and rose, handing the tankard back to her. “Here—you drink the stuff. It should cure your confounded cheerfulness!”
He took from its peg the silken robe she’d made for him. As always, he admired the blazons she’d sewn so carefully. The arms of the dale shone on one breast, his own arms on the other, and a target prominently on the back—their private joke: he’d been her target when Cormyr sent her to Shadowdale to gain influence here.
Mourngrym smiled at the robe in his arms, leaned against the smooth-carved corner post of the bed, and mouthed a silent prayer to Tymora. Swinging the robe around his shoulders, he made his way across the bedchamber.
He winced as each step made his head pound—he hadn’t had that much to drink last night, surely—but doggedly pursued his goal: the curtained archway that led into the morning room. There he would break his fast on the great table whose glass top covered gloriously hued maps of the dales. He loved those maps, a wedding gift from the Rowanmantles, and peering at their exquisite details never failed to cheer him.
He shouldered through the curtains, sniffing the welcome aroma of sausages and melted cheese and eggs on bread, and froze midstride.
“Storm! Well met and welcome, but what are you doing sitting in the middle of the table?—Oh, war council time again, is it?”
The Bard of Shadowdale smiled at him and tossed her head in greeting; her silver hair cascaded down one shoulder, and Mourngrym swallowed at her beauty, remembering the last time she’d sat on the table, wearing rather less, and the wild war council that had followed then. It was too early in the morning for all this.…
Eyeing the sausages on the platter beside Storm’s boots, the lord of Shadowdale went to the long sideboard, took up a flask of firewine, and drained it at a single gulp.
When his eyes came back into focus, Storm was shaking he
r head. “You’ll regret that, you know.”
“My head already feels like a blacksmith’s anvil,” Mourngrym told her. “Is there any more of this stuff about, do you know?”
“End drawer down the window end,” Storm and Shaerl said together, then broke into chuckles (Storm) and giggles (Shaerl) of mirth. Mourngrym gave them both a look of long-suffering disgust and went to the drawer indicated.
“It’s too much,” he told the Realms at large. “No man should have to deal with such cheery females. Haven’t either of you heard of respectful silence?”
There was no reply. Mourngrym had taken the decanter back to the table, sipped from it without bothering with a flagon, and lifted his fork to deal with the sausages before the silence registered. He looked up—into Storm’s impish eyes, dancing with mirth as she regarded him, lips pressed tightly together. He shot a look along the table to Shaerl, who had seated herself with dignity and was regarding him, chin on hand, in equally amused silence.
Mourngrym opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again and shrugged. “That’s certainly more peaceful,” he told the first sausage as he raised it.
“Unhand that sausage!” a voice bellowed from somewhere very near.
Mourngrym choked, tried to spring up, arms flailing, and toppled sideways, gabbling for breath.
He and the chair met the flagstone floor with a solid, head-ringing crash amid an explosion of laughter. Mourngrym found himself then face to face with Rathan Thentraver.
The stout priest was crawling out from under the table. He winked, deftly plucked the sausage off Mourngrym’s fork, bit into it, and said, “Umm. Very good! Thank you for offering me this excellent viand!”
“I am going to kill someone,” Mourngrym announced calmly to the ceiling, “and probably soon. How long have you been under here?”
“Not long,” Rathan rumbled cheerfully. He emerged. “How long do you plan to sleep in every morning? Not turning into a vampire, are you?”
“No,” Mourngrym told him shortly, and rolled to his feet. “No fangs to you.”
“Ah,” Storm said, “that’s better. I was afraid you were going to play the grim stone-headed tyrant all day.” As she spoke, the wall gong chimed.
Mourngrym looked at it sourly and sat down again. “And what does that signify?”
“ ‘Tis the signal that you’ve finished your morning feast, my lord,” Shaerl said sweetly, “and that yet another Realms-shaking war council is about to begin.”
“But I haven’t fin—” Mourngrym began. He snatched his platter to his chest just before Storm plucked it away. He brandished his fork at her. “Keep back, woman!”
There was laughter from the doorway. Belkram and Itharr of the Harpers stood there, staring delightedly into the room. “Now that’s a sight worth walking here from Berdusk to see! We battle the Bard of Shadowdale with blades … but great lords use sausage forks on her!”
Mourngrym sighed, backed away to the sideboard, and set his plate down. Picking up a sausage, he pointed at the chairs ranged around the table and said, “Pray enter, Lords, Ladies, and Gentles, and be seated. There, there, and there … ah, and I believe that seat’s available too … very good.” He glanced at the gathering: Knights, Storm, a swirling radiance by her shoulder that must be Syluné, the two Harper rangers, Shaerl, and—who was missing?
Elminster, of course, and Lhaeo … not surprising. He bit into the sausage thoughtfully. Ah!
“This room’s too quiet by far,” he announced grandly. “Where’s Torm?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” the smooth voice of the thief replied from the doorway. “While you’ve been snoring, I’ve been working. Pretty soft being lord of a dale, isn’t it?”
“You?” Mourngrym snorted, making a rude gesture with what was left of his sausage. “Working?”
“Indeed,” Torm replied with dignity, “I have just returned from a dawn foray—a bold and brazen foray, let me say, fraught with peril and shining bravery—into the road camp just south of Voonlar, looking for certain things our departed Zhentish friends may have left behind!”
“More women?” Merith asked slyly. “Torm, how many can one man have?”
“The answer, Sir Elf, would surprise you,” Torm said loftily, “but that is a matter for converse at some more relaxed time. I speak of the Central Blade’s pack train … sixteen wagons of it, at any rate.”
“Thieving still?” Shaerl sighed. “Torm, in case you haven’t noticed, there’s a war on! Must you indulge in petty thievery?”
Torm’s eyebrows rose. “ ‘Petty thievery,’ Lady? You wound me to the quick! What did you think your surviving troops would eat? And be paid with? Starving men”—a dagger spun from his hand to transfix one of Mourngrym’s sausages, and the thief jerked on the silken cord affixed to the hilt and snatched the food away from Mourngrym’s hasty grab—“who feel they’ve been cheated tend to make unsafe guardians, particularly when they’re also well-trained warriors.”
“Belt up, well-trained warrior,” Florin suggested kindly as Torm reeled in a dusty sausage and bit into it with satisfaction. The ranger looked around the table to address them. “We’re here to talk some things out and decide how best to proceed, given the perils abroad in the land and … our lack of Elminster.” In the silence that followed, he added, “In the absence of the Old Mage, Syluné is the eldest here, and should speak first.”
“My thanks, Florin—I think,” the ghostly Witch of Shadowdale said dryly. “For my part, I have unfinished business Elminster set me to. Sister, will you hand my stone to Itharr of the Harpers? He is the only one of our Rangers Three who hasn’t borne me yet.”
“I will,” Storm said gravely, drawing the chain from her neck and rising to carry the stone around the table.
“The Rangers Three? Sounds like a chartered adventuring band,” Torm commented. Itharr took the stone carefully, a little awed. The thief added, “Or a traveling minstrel show.”
“Torm, dearest,” Sharantyr said sweetly, “Tell me: do these idiocies just tumble out whenever you open your mouth—or do you actually sit there and think them up?”
“Thinking?” Torm frowned at her. “Who said anything about thinking? Kill first, then loot … and the thinking part is that unpleasant shouting business at the end when it all has to be divided. It makes brains hurt.”
“Mine certainly does,” Mourngrym said with feeling, “but I believe Syluné still has the high tongue in this round of converse.”
“For my part,” Syluné responded, “there is no more to say. I am a thing of ghosts and shadows. My will is bound to duty.”
“Yes, but what would you like to do?”
“Find my sister the Simbul and beseech her to do as Elminster did,” the Witch of Shadowdale said very quietly. “That is, make me a new body.”
There was an embarrassed silence at the raw longing in her voice. Florin stepped into it by saying, “Next senior among us is my lady, Dove. What say you?”
Dove smiled at him and looked around the table. “My first duty—our first duty—must be to defend the folk of the Dales against brigands, Zhents, roving monsters, and the like. Otherwise, there’ll be no crops, and starvation come winter. Time of Troubles or no, the work of daily life must go on. We have to find all the Zhents scrambling around the woods and deal with them, discover who or what else is lurking about to prey on our people, find and tend all the wounded, and rebuild what was ruined in the fighting.”
“Well, that takes care of the council,” Torm said lightly. “Let’s be getting on with it. Mourngrym can make us all more sausages—I’m certainly hungry enough—and we can meet again when the snows fall.”
“Rathan? Gag him, will you?” Illistyl snapped scornfully. “To think that I once bedded that!”
“Once? From what I recall, twi—”
“Enough, Torm,” Dove said firmly, “or have you forgotten the fish bucket?”
“The fish bucket?” Mourngrym asked, leaning forward with
interest. “Is this some sort of torture device fine upstanding noble lords can use on annoying thieves?”
“After he made a particularly crude remark,” Jhessail explained, “Dove held Torm’s head under water in the bucket of live fish she was bringing to the tower for evenfeast … until he ran out of bubbles.”
“Ah, that explains what happened to his wits,” Merith said delightedly. “They got soaked through and grew mildew.…”
“Gods in their palaces,” Belkram said to Itharr in low tones, “are all their council meetings like this?”
“Oh, no, no,” Storm assured him cheerfully. “Best manners this morn … because of you. Usually we just shout Torm down and get on, and no one speaks in turn.”
“Strange you should mention that,” Florin said with a smile, “as seniority brings us now to you.”
“Aye, indeed,” Storm said with a smile. “I concur with my sister Dove, but be aware that aside from Shar, Syluné, and my two Harpers here”—Belkram and Itharr smiled around the table and swept mock bows—“this assembly is just going to have to abandon chasing Malaugrym for the time being.”
“Malaugrym?”
“The shapeshifters who attacked us in the tent, the night before the battle in Mistledale,” Sharantyr explained.
“Those weren’t doppelgangers?”
“No, something far worse.”
“Oh … one of Mourngrym’s speeches?”
“Stow it,” Florin ordered with a grin and a sigh.
“Because some among us can’t resist the urges to be clever, these little get-togethers are always so much fun.”
“Hold hard,” Shaerl said, leaning over the table with a frown. “Do I hear you rightly? Chasing Malaugrym? Are there a band of them?”
“A family, actually,” Storm explained softly. “An ancient clan who kill those who know about them—so guard your lips. For centuries Elminster has slain any of them who dared to enter the Realms.”
All Shadows Fled Page 16
