All Shadows Fled - Ed Greenwood [25]
The breezes died away to the softest of stirrings, what the folk of the dale called a ghost's kiss. By the banks of the creek, a tall, broad-shouldered man in gleaming plate armor looked around the palisade of wooden fangs and saw that it was now almost a full circle. He nodded in satisfaction and turned to where a farmer stood by his laden wagon.
"Bring the tents," Florin Falconhand said to the man. "We'd best get started."
Kuthe frowned at the tall ranger. "This soon?"
"I doubt they'll attack before dark," the Knight of Myth Drannor replied. "Before they could get here, it'll be sundown; they'd have to charge with the setting sun in their eyes."
Kuthe grunted his agreement and turned away. "No cooking fires until the tents are up!" he bellowed, "and don't drop those barrels of beer or I'll leave you to face the men who have to go thirsty!"
"Noisy, isn't he?" Torm muttered, critically inspecting the wicked-looking point he'd whittled on the end of one stake.
"A paragon of authority," Rathan grunted, taking a swig from his belt flask. "I've no quarrel if he's as much in evidence when we start hacking at each other in the mud and the blood." He took another pull at the flask, which gurgled.
Torm looked up at the sound. "Hey! Give that here," he suggested, extending a hand.
"What's this?" Kuthe growled, striding past. "Drinking?" His eyes flashed.
"He sees the flask and instantly knows what we're doing!" Torm gasped in mock fear. "Can no man stand against this tower of perception?"
"I fear not," Rathan growled. "He makes my boots quake, and me in them. Wits as keen as a sword blade-and tongue sharper, too!" Both Knights threw up their hands as if in awe and cowered, wailing.
"Bah!" the Rider officer snarled, and turned away. "Adventurers!"
"Bah!" Torm called after him, his mimicry perfect. "Stiff-necked local constabulary!"
Kuthe stiffened as more than one of the Riders around them chuckled, but did not turn around. After a moment, he strode on.
"Hind end of a blind boar," Torm muttered conversationally as they moved to the next stake.
"Torm's entertaining himself as usual, I see," Sharantyr observed to Sylune as they worked on their own stakes not far away.
The Witch of Shadowdale grinned. "He doesn't know it yet, but I volunteered him for digging the privies."
Sharantyr sighed. "You use the ladies' first, then. I've no wish to be the one who tries out his latest collection of 'humorous' traps."
"Does he do that to the pit for the men, too?" Itharr asked, looking up from the fire pit he and Belkram were digging. Sharantyr looked over at him and nodded. "Ah, thanks for the warning," the Harper grunted, and knelt to begin lining the pit with stones.
A pair of men in black armor emblazoned with the white horse of Mistledale approached with two large, rope-wrapped canvas bundles. "Your tent," the Riders told Itharr, "and one for the ladies."
"One is all well need," Sharantyr said serenely, moving to the last unsharpened stake. "I'm used to the snores of these two by now."
The Rider raised his eyebrows and looked her up and down. Sharantyr raised her own eyebrows in reply, and said coolly, "I'm an adventurer, remember?"
The man rolled his eyes and turned away, face expressionless behind his bristling mustache. His companion growled "Lucky dogs" quite distinctly as they went on down the line of stakes.
"If you knew," Belkram said to the Riders' backs. "If you only knew."
"I heard that," Sylune said warningly, and both Harpers looked up at her with such looks of bewildered innocence that she giggled.
Sharantyr puzzled out how the ropes were tangled, and got the tent unrolled. She hummed a merry tune as she laid it out, shaking her head to clear her nostrils of the strong-and expected-reek