by Ed Greenwood
“No! No, you won’t take me!” Shandril screamed, lashing out with her hands. She was somewhere warm and bright, sitting—at a table at the inn. With her friends. Shandril blinked and stared about wildly, breathing hard.
“Easy, Shan, easy,” Narm said, holding her. “It was only a dream.”
Shandril nodded—but her gaze had settled on a hard-faced man approaching their table. He looked like a warrior, and he strode slowly at the head of four others of similar cut. Mirt turned in his seat to face these strangers, but did not rise.
Delg leaned across the table and hissed, “No spellfire unless you have to, Shan. Let us handle this, aye?”
Shandril had no time to reply. The newcomer’s voice was already raised in anger. “You’re the ones who stole my little girl! Thieves! Slavers! You won’t get away this time! Innkeeper! Bring your crossbows!” He waved a hand and stepped aside. The warriors behind him, all armed, started menacingly forward.
Mirt rose ponderously from his chair to meet the foremost man, who held a naked scimitar ready.
“You’re first, fat one,” the man sneered, drawing up his blade for a slash.
Mirt ducked suddenly beneath its bright edge and slammed into the man’s midriff. The man flew backward, crashing into another brigand in a confusion of clattering blades, hard knees, and helplessly flailing hands. Mirt continued his lunge, grabbed the belt of yet another man, and flung him sideways into the man who’d first accused them. “The landing!” he bellowed as he fell amid a growing hubbub.
Narm and Delg were already looking up. Two more warriors were hurrying down the stairs to the landing, cocked crossbows in their hands. Delg’s axe flashed across the room, whirling as it flew. Men shouted in fear, and the tables all around emptied in haste. The axe sailed true, and the next moment one of the archers was slumped on the stairs, whimpering and clutching at the red ruin of his shoulder, where the bright dwarven axe was buried deeply amid the spreading blood.
Narm stood up coolly, shielding Shandril with his body, and raised his hands to cast a spell. Before he could, Delg slapped his leg. Narm looked down—and the dwarf thrust a small, loaded hand-crossbow into his hands. Narm stared at it for a moment, and then took it, aimed it carefully, holding it in both hands, and fired. An arrow thrummed into the floor as the bow from which it had come crashed over the railing. Its owner clutched at Narm’s quarrel in his throat, made strangling noises, and followed his weaponry to the floor below.
Without pause, Delg snatched a handful of quarrels from his belt, thrust them into Narm’s hands, and scrambled up onto the table, drawing a long knife from his boot.
Men shouted out in the lobby, and the thunder of running feet answered the call. Blades had been drawn all over the taproom. Some sort of alarm gong rang behind the bar, and there was a momentary lull in its wake—so everyone heard the grisly cracking sound as Mirt calmly broke a man’s neck. The attacker’s body slumped to the floor like a heavy sack of coal as the old merchant’s hairy hands released him. Wheezing, Mirt snatched up a chair and met the charge of the last swordsman, sweeping aside the slashing blade.
All the while, Narm’s trembling hands fumbled at reloading the unfamiliar weapon. He wished he knew some better battle spells and cursed himself for not having enough magical strength to protect his lady. The bolt slipped once again from its groove. Narm cursed and looked up in frustration. Over his shoulder, he glimpsed the man who’d accused them all, drawing back his hand and snarling. A dagger glittered in it, a dagger meant for Shandril. Narm roared a warning.
Shandril twisted desperately sideways in her seat to get below the table. The knife came down, leaping through the air at her with frightening speed, twinkling as it came. A straining body leapt to intercept it in midair over the table, shielding her for a crucial instant before crashing heavily down amid the scattered remains of their dinner.
Narm landed with a ragged gasp and lay still.
Shandril stared at him in horror. Fear and anger coiled in her throat with the rising spellfire. Trembling with rage, she stood to lash out at the man—but the warrior no longer stood there.
Delg had leapt from the table where he had been fighting and struck the man squarely in the face—knife first and with all the dwarf’s bearded and booted weight behind it. The man was falling with Delg still wrapped around his head, both of them covered in blood that did not belong to the dwarf.
Off to one side, Mirt had just broken his chair over the disarmed swordsman, who was falling now in a strangely boneless, flopping way to the floor.
There was no foe left to smite. Shandril stood there, hands smoldering, facing a frightened innkeeper and two red-faced but rapidly paling cooks with cleavers and crossbows in their hands. Other patrons stood farther back, swords and daggers and eating-forks held outs, fear on their faces. Silence came again to the taproom of The Wanton Wyvern.
“No, lass,” Mirt rapped out at her, pointing to where Narm lay on the table. The bloody dagger stood out of the young mage’s side, just below his left shoulder. “Delg, take his feet, will ye? We’ve no time to lose!”
Delg got up, dripping his victim’s gore and panting. “Anyone else hurt?”
Not pausing to answer, Mirt raised his voice in a bellow addressed to everyone in the taproom. “All of ye—stand aside! I’ve no quarrel with any of ye, but any who bar our way will end as these did, by Tempus! And any who raise blade against us will answer for it to King Azoun!”
In the shocked silence that followed, the frightened onlookers silently parted to make way for them, and Mirt hurried them out to the doors.
“Delg, scout!” he barked, and the dwarf lowered Narm’s legs to the ground and hurried past them into the night outside. “Shandril,” the stout merchant added, holding Narm by the shoulders, “take his feet, gently—but haste matters more than handling, now.… Good, good … hurry, now.…”
Delg was waving them on. They hurried out into the night and across the dark and muddy inn yard. Narm’s eyes were closed, and he was breathing raggedly, breath rasping and wet.
“Where are we going?” Narm asked. Mirt’s shaggy, lionlike head was looking this way and that. “To the gate,” he roared and trotted on. In a few jolting seconds they were there, and the old merchant thrust Narm into Delg’s arms.
“Hold him,” he panted, “and don’t let him fall.” And he whirled away from the staggering dwarf to attack the props and bars of the gate like an angry bear, snatching and grunting and clawing.
Wooden spars bounced and crashed aside, and before they’d stopped bouncing, he had the gate open. Out into the road he stumbled, looking this way and that.
“Baergasra? There ye are! Quickly, we’ve need of thy healing.” Mirt said in a voice halfway between a snarl and a sob. A breath later, the old derelict in tattered rags appeared out of the night, running hard. An astonished Shandril realized she was watching a healthy and fast-moving woman, not a drunken cripple. Mirt waved her in through the open gate and came after, straight to Narm.
“Delg?” Mirt snapped. “All safe?”
“Looks clear,” the dwarf replied grimly as he shifted Narm’s limp body across his shoulders. Shandril had been holding her man’s head tenderly, but she let go in haste as Mirt plucked him from Delg’s shoulders and laid him against the base of the high fence. Then the Old Wolf snatched out his dagger.
By the glow from its blade, Shandril saw the stout, filthy beggar woman kneeling beside Narm. The knife stood out of Narm’s narrow chest, just forward of the armpit. Baergasra’s grimy fingers plucked the blade deftly out, and Mirt’s hand was there to press hard against the blood that followed. The woman waggled the bloody dagger so that its blade caught the light. She stared at it a moment, flung it aside, and spit after it.
Baergasra then laid her hands on Narm and murmured something. Her fingers glowed briefly. When the light died, she slowly sat back, sighed, and rested her hands on her thighs. With careful fingers, Mirt began to unlace and draw off Narm’s r
obes.
The beggar woman helped him. Shandril could hear her talking to the old merchant now. “It went deep, indeed, but it carries only sleep venom, not the usual Zhentarim killing blackslime. He’d have lived, but it’s good I was close by … so how are you, Old Wolf? It’s been awhile, it has.…”
Behind her, Shandril heard a sharply indrawn breath. She turned.
“Who let her in here?” demanded a furious voice. The tall, battered doorguard of the inn stood facing them, staff in hand. Barring his way with drawn knife, Delg squinted up at the man fearlessly.
“I did,” Shandril said hotly. “She can heal, and it was needed.”
The man strode forward and, with a sweep of his staff, thrust Delg aside into a helpless sprawl. “But she’s a leper! She’s—”
“—Always wanted to pay you back for belting me, Thomd,” said the woman in rags, rising with smooth, agile speed to thrust the reaching staff aside and embrace its wielder. They went over together with a splash into the mud, and the filthy lips met his sputtering ones firmly. Then the beggar woman rose atop him and laughed heartily.
“Ah, but it’s a good thing I’ve not got the wasting disease, Thomd, or you’d be sharing it now.” She rolled off the panting, frantic man in the mud and winked at Shandril with cool gray eyes. Pulling open the filthy lacings of her bodice for an instant, she revealed a tiny silver harp pendant nestling in the filthy folds of a gargantuan bosom.
Then she turned back to Mirt, shook her head resignedly, and said, “Well, now that you’ve let the world know I’m not as I seem, perhaps you’ll let me use your bath, Mirt, while I watch over the healing of your young man, here. Give me your cloak, Thomd.”
The struggling man in the mud looked at Delg’s dagger, inches from his nose, and with a helpless grunt unpinned the cloak and rolled out of it.
“Hand it here,” Baergasra said merrily, “and don’t mind the mud—I’m used to it, gods know.” Delicately she began to strip off rag after rag, dropping them all into the trampled mud at her feet.
“One more thing, Thomd,” she added, nudging the tall man with her foot as he slowly sat up, “burn these for me, will you? I never want to see any of them again.”
Delg and Thomd watched in identical amazement as the barrel-shaped woman stripped off rag after rag, and stood at last clad only in grime. Lots of grime and mud, caked thickly in places. She scratched some of those places, grinned at them both and held out an imperious hand for the cloak.
Delg bowed low and presented it to her as one would to a great lady. She swirled it about her shoulders and reached for the pin. Thomd handed it to Delg with a sigh, and Delg handed it on with a low whistle of appreciation.
The filthy woman stuck her tongue out at him as she pinned the cloak close about her, grinned again, and said to Thomd, “Did you see any leprous bits? Well?”
Thomd shook his head. “N-No,” he managed through his teeth. “But the smell …”
Baergasra sighed. “You know,” she said slowly, “one gets used to it?” She scratched again and said, “Well—get up, man, and get going! I want that bath.”
Mirt looked up from Narm. Shandril could see an ugly purple scar just forward of his armpit, but the skin was whole again, and the blood had stopped. He still slept, presumably from the venom.
Venom. The dagger. Shandril looked in the direction the Harper had thrown it, and saw its glint in the shadows. Carefully she picked it up and stuck it in her belt. You never know.…
“Ah, Thomd?” Mirt said. “If ye go in and fill the bath, I’ll bar the gate again. Delg, go in and tell them to calm down, hey? We’ll clean up, I give my promise.… If anyone gives ye trouble, mention my, er, close friendship with King Azoun. Shandril, as much as I hate to ask ye to do it, will ye guard us, until we’re in and settled?”
“Of course, Mirt. It’s a pleasure,” Shandril said happily, and meant it.
8
SOAP, STEAM, AND SOFT CURSES
It’s usually around bath time that the tithe collectors come to call. Besieging warriors, on the other hand—now they generally have consideration enough to come early so you know how best to plan your day.
Estimyra of High Horn
Twenty Winters a War Wizard
Year of the Dragon
“Allow me, Lady,” the dwarf said gruffly, handing a brush and a hand-bucket of soap around the edge of the ragged curtain. Steam rose from the other side of it, accompanied by splashing noises and a few groans of pure pleasure. Baergasra the Harper, priestess of Eldath, was joyfully scrubbing away half a year’s sweat and dirt.
“My thanks, Sir Dwarf. Well met!”
“Our thanks, Baera,” Mirt said feelingly. They were gathered in the inn’s largest and best bedroom. Shandril was feeling very sleepy again, but beside her, Narm felt much better—and was hungrily devouring a second serving of the dinner the innkeeper had brought up to them.
From the other side of the curtain, Baergasra chuckled. “Ah, but it was a little thing I did, and in return for it you’ve given me this. It feels good to be clean again!” There was a rueful pause, and she added despairingly, “But my hair!”
“What about yer hair?” Mirt asked carefully. “I’ve seen far worse, proudly sailing along the streets of Waterdeep, assured of a display of the highest fashion.”
The reply was mournful. “Most of this’ll have to be cut off to get rid of the worst that’s really stuck in the tangles.”
“If it’s not too personal,” Delg asked carefully, sitting down again on his stool beside the curtain, “just why did you choose to wander about in rags, anyway? Is begging so profitable hereabouts?”
“Little man,” Baergasra darkly replied, a nasty insult to any dwarf, “I do what I must, whether it’s harping or begging, and don’t snarl overmuch about it. Orders are orders, and a noble cause is, as they say, a noble cause. But that doesn’t mean I enjoy it.”
“Ah,” said the dwarf, cocking his head at the word harping. “Of course. Forgive me, big woman.”
There was a sputtering laugh from the other side of the curtain, and it suddenly bulged beside Delg’s head as the brush came swiftly back to him—or at least to a momentary embrace with the side of his brow.
“Ooohhh,” he commented from the floor a moment later, lying beside the stool. “This one bites.”
“As I recall,” Mirt rumbled jovially, “yes. It—”
“A gentle reminder, Mirt,” the Harper called from her side of the curtain. “I still have the soap bucket to return to someone.”
“Ahh, aye—’hem! Ahem,” Mirt replied hastily. “To be sure, to be sure.… Are ye hungry perchance, Baera? We’ve food here, and—”
“Thank you, I will. It’s been awhile since I’ve had something properly cooked, and with sauces, to boot. And Narm may need another spell or two; I’d best remain here to be certain. I’ll stay the night, if you’ve room. If he falls asleep, don’t try to wake him without me, mind; that venom can’t be hurried.”
“Yer bed is ready when ye are. How are things in the Hullack wilds, then?”
“Not so bad, yet,” was the reply, punctuated by sounds of a scalp being vigorously scrubbed. “But getting worse. Zhentarim and bandits both are multiplying in the Stonelands and raiding farther. That one who called you out, downstairs? He’s one of the local Zhentarim rats—a thief by the name of Osber. He was probably so eager to take all the credit for capturing Shandril of the Spellfire that he didn’t bother to call on any nearby magelings. Tymora smiled on you there; the Zhentarim spell-hurlers hereabouts lie low and aren’t all that strong, but they can lay hands on powerful wands and the like if they’ve a mind to.”
“But he did manage to round up six men-at-arms,” Narm protested.
Baergasra chuckled. “Those were his ‘fist,’ his own little band of bully-boys. They’re never far away from him, and tonight three of them were enjoying a quiet evening’s entertainment here with several of the local night girls.”
“What
’s that?” Mirt asked, alert. “Shouldn’t we—?”
The Harper chuckled again. “No fears there. The girls aren’t Zhentarim; two, in fact, like to …”
“Harp?” Delg offered, back on his stool again.
“Indeed they do, Sir Dwarf.” Her voice changed again. “But there’s darker news than that.” She coughed briefly and went on. “The real reason I want to see Narm safely back on his feet myself, in fact, is that all across the Realms, these last three rides or so, spells have been going wrong. Going wild, sometimes.”
She paused, but no one said anything. Narm stared at the curtain in growing horror. If that was true, what in the name of all the gods was he going to defend Shandril with? And what, a small voice whispered chillingly inside him, will befall if Shandril’s spellfire itself becomes unreliable?
“Magic is no longer the sure thing it once was,” Baergasra said quietly. “A—A certain friend of mine reminded me of Alaundo the Seer, and his prophecies. Something about ‘chaos of Art.’ Remember, Mirt?”
“Aye. Aye.” The old merchant’s voice was rough. “That’s part of the one about the gods walking the world and making war, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Baergasra said in a near whisper from behind the curtain. She was silent for a long time, and then added, “I knew you’d remember, Old Wolf. It’s good to see you again, if Realmsdoom is really upon us. That’s another reason I’d like to stay until morn.”
Mirt nodded and rose quietly, wheezing only a little. He walked around the curtain and replied, “It’s good to see ye again too, Baera. Hmmm—the rags did add a certain something, didn’t theeeeaaHHH!”
He reeled back into view again, doubled over. Mirt, sometimes the Merciless, had ducked too slowly. The soap bucket looked most fetching on his head.
Delg convulsed in silent laughter. Narm and Shandril could not keep so quiet. The dwarf rose amid their mirth and solemnly handed Mirt the brush, pointing meaningfully at the curtain.
