All Shadows Fled - Ed Greenwood [22]
Torm shook his head. "There's not a man alive who could hide under my nose between here and that creek."
As the words left his lips, the thief felt a solid tap on his left boot-and his war horse reared again. Cursing, Torm wrestled to keep it from leaping forward; he was struggling to head the snorting beast around, away from the creek, when Captain Nelyssa's strong arm caught hold of the bridle. The paladin pulled and whistled, and Term's mount quieted immediately-allowing the thief to cleverly fall off.
As he bounced on his belly in the dust, Torm found himself staring eyeball to eyeball with the grinning cause of his upset: a dust-covered man buried neck-deep in the earth, who held a sword, hilt uppermost, in one hand. It must have been what had tapped his boot. In his other gauntleted hand, the man held a shield that had been so thickly covered with turf and grass that it had served to entirely conceal the hole he was crouching in.
"Ye gods!" Torm gasped.
"No, even being one god'd be a promotion, I think," the Harper replied cheerfully. "Fine morning to be out on the grass, 'taint it, Lord?"
The riders all around them roared with laughter at Term's expression-until the thief buried his nose in the grass and laughed along with them. He nodded to the Harper, rolled to a sitting position, and squinted up at Margrueth. "Right, then, I'll grant you the victory. So tell me how many more of these little holes have you scattered around Mistledale?"
Margrueth shook her head soberly. "That, I'll tell no one. Spying spells that listen to speech from afar aren't easily blocked out in the open."
Her words made them all look around-but aside from the two Harpers in the distance and Florin arriving with the Rider rearguard (one of them looking decidedly green), they could see no man or beast.
"But there's no one!" Torm said, waving a hand.
Margrueth shrugged. "There could be a small army of those mages using invisibility, young man. Think before you speak, and you'll not feel so often chastened."
Torm gave her a dark look, and then shook his head and grinned. "I begin to wish I'd had you as my mother."
"So do I, lad," Margrueth replied, "So do I. Your backside would've seen a lot more heat, and valuables belonging to others and good-looking ladies a lot less, in the years since."
"Hmmm," Torm replied with rueful eloquence, and there was more laughter.
"Oh, bloody bats! It's gone wrong again-and they're all laughing.
"Not at ye," the older man said, watching the young man fling down the tangled trip wire in fury, his fingers trembling in agitated excitement. "Easy, lad," the gray-haired Harper ranger added. "Time for all that falling and dancing about an' all later-when ye've a sword in yer hand an' several hundred Zhents taking their turn at ye."
"How can you be so calm about it?" his younger companion protested. "We're going to die!"
Level brown eyes stared into his. "Aye, so? We all have to, lad, but there's nothing as says we have to behave like craven cattle first." The old man deftly disentangled the thread and held it out. "An' another thing," he continued, "I've been in about forty o' these little affrays before, an' them as came to kill me haven't quite managed the job yet. It might well take 'em as many tries afore they get ye, too! I've seen it all before, lad… take heart, and be easy, I say."
The young man stared into those level brown eyes, took a deep breath, and then bent and tied the trip wire-quickly and surely. Then he stepped back with a flourish, smiled tightly at the gray-haired Harper, and said, "Done. I hope you remember where our hide is."
"Here, under my boot," the older man said with a smile. "Another trick you'd do well to remember."
"Bloody bats to you, too," the younger Harper said almost affectionately, scrambling down into the pit they'd dug. The old man followed, waving to Margrueth as he reached for the turf-covered shield that would hide them from the world.
But Margrueth wasn't looking at him. She was looking up, frowning at a raven circling in the bright morning sky high