All Shadows Fled - Ed Greenwood [19]
"Don't be daft! You want to die screaming, with half a dozen Zhent blackhelms laughing over you?"
"Nay, but the gods don't seem to care what I want- an' I don't even know the road to Cormyr. This is as good a place to die as any."
"A thousand warriors, and a thousand more, and many more besides, that merchant said," another villager said softly. "The Riders'11 all be slain, sure. Yet hear them laugh!"
"Fools," the first villager grunted. "I'm off to pack. Who's with me?"
"I'll ride to Cormyr with you," said another. "Even if the gods themselves took the field with our Riders an' these Knights of Myth Drannor, there's no hope they'll win against so many."
There were many silent nods at these words, and the villagers sighed and turned away from the road. In the distance, the riders were little more than tiny moving dots now.
The war band left Ashabenford behind in a few breaths, riding easily east down the dale. The morning was chilly but clear, and as Florin looked around at his battle companions and the tranquil, sun-splashed farms on either side, he was happy. Much blood lay ahead-perhaps the ending of all their bright days- and yet he was doing what needed to be done, and folk needed him to do it. What more can anyone ask than to be needed and wanted and free to answer the call?
The captain was guiding her mount closer to his; Florin sidestepped his charger to meet her. "Aye, Lady?"
Captain Nelyssa's gray-green eyes met his, and her thin lips relaxed into a rueful smile. "I fret still, Florin. I know what we must do, and yet, to ride away and leave Ashabenford with not a sword to defend it… What if a dozen of them-nay, three of them, with ready blades-sneak past us through the woods? Who will defend the old men and maids then?"
"Harpers, Lady of Chauntea," Florin told her gravely. "Almost twenty of them, come to us from Twilight Hall in Berdusk with all the magic Lady Cylyria can spare. They will fight to hold Ashabenford even if we fall-and they carry the means to farspeak Twilight Hall and call on swift spell aid."
"Aye." The lady paladin looked troubled. "And spells themselves have become chancy things of late."
"Not all spells," Sylune put in as she rode on Florin 's other side, "else I'd not be here now."
"And you are very much here," Torm purred from the saddle beside her.
"Stow it, clever tongue," growled the fat priest Rathan, who rode on the thief's other side, saddle creaking under his weight. "Ye're worse than a boar in heat!"
Torm favored his best friend with a complicated gesture that had nothing to do with casting spells.
"Tymora forgive ye," the priest said heavily, crossing his arms disapprovingly across his ample girth, "but I do not. Seven nights of abstinence shall be thy penance, I vow!"
"You'll have to chain me somewhere to manage that-and, of course, catch me first," Torm told him mockingly, ducking his horse smoothly around behind Sylune's mount.
Rathan sighed and waved at him in mock dismissal.
The captain of the Riders watched with interest. "Can yon thief run at any speed?" she asked Florin.
"Watch him during the battle," Florin told her dryly. There're few folk-even winged things-that can keep up with his retreat."
In reply to this, Torm treated the ranger to an even more intricate gesture. Nelyssa's eyebrows rose. "Droll fellow… did he succeed at thieving by outrunning guards?"
"No," Florin told her, not quite smiling. "Just by staying alive this long. And he did that by outrunning husbands."
Nelyssa rolled her eyes. "I can see we're going to have to watch ourselves," she said sarcastically.
Torm turned in his saddle, winked at her, and then leered at the Shield of Chauntea until she curtly ordered to him to scout ahead.
Laughing, Torm waved and galloped away.
"I'd best go after him to keep him out of trouble," Sharantyr said to Belkram and Itharr. "Come with me?"
"Of course, Shar," they said together, and the three horses leapt ahead as one.
Sylune watched the three rangers pull away and sighed. Tve grown used to them," she told