All Shadows Fled - Ed Greenwood [28]
Mourngrym smiled and put out a hand-the one without the gauntlet-to the side of her face, tilting her jaw up so that he could kiss her.
His wife, the fiery temper of her noble Rowanmantle upbringing lurking not far behind her eyes, kissed him with ardent passion, locking her fingers in his hair to ensure that this wouldn't be a brief brush of lips.
"Try not to get carved up this time," she chided him when she released him at last. "I don't want to spend another night like yestereve."
"As the dancer said to the high priest," Mourngrym murmured. Shaerl sighed at this, her lord's habit of lame Waterdhavian humor, and handed him his helm, sword, and remaining gauntlet.
Nodding in acknowledgment, the lord of Shadowdale said, "Now I really must get to horse." He strode away-but before he'd taken three paces, she'd slipped around to bar his path, a slim but imperious hand slapped hard against the Amcathra arms emblazoned on his breastplate.
"Sword and gauntlet on and in place before you go out that door-and the helm before you set foot outside the tower. I don't want to be married to a headless man. They're not quite talkative enough."
Mourngrym sighed, smiled, and did as he was bid. It was easiest to comply, as always, and his sharp-tongued mate was right-as always. Who was to say a Zhent agent, or merely someone in need of the coins they'd pay, wasn't lurking a bowshot away from the tower, or in a balcony above the courtyard, awaiting his chance?
These past two rides Zhent raiders had kept Shadow-dale's defenders busy fighting off several attempts to burn the dale's smithy and granaries. There had also been the setting of several fires along the roads into the dale, no doubt to widen them and rob defenders of any cover; the attempt to taint the River Ashaba upstream by dumping carrion into it; and the poison dumped into the well of the Old Skull Inn-which had forced Lhaeo to call on the Simbul and endure her acidic lecture on placing a guard over basic necessities. The problem was that Mourngrym had too few competent guards to do that, let alone hold' Shadowdale against thousands of well-equipped Zhentilar troops led by gods-knew-how-many Zhent priests and mages.
"Wouldn't it be nice," he asked Shaerl as he settled the sword on his hip and she surveyed the result critically, "if some mad god or other would just crush Zhen-til Keep to rubble for us?"
" Ill see to it," she told him briskly, "but I'd take it more kindly if they'd settle for simply crushing the hosts on their way here to slaughter us… and if I knew where Elminster was just now."
"Boo!" breathed an all-too-familiar voice on the back of her neck.
Shaerl shrieked as she leapt forward into Mourn-grym's arms. The lord of Shadowdale began to laugh helplessly, shaking his lady-and she broke free and spun like a dancer on one small bare foot to confront the Old Mage, her eyes snapping with anger.
"Must you always creep up on folks invisibly and then try to startle them with grand entrances?"
"Everyone needs a hobby, look ye," Elminster said, regarding her with eyes that sparkled in amusement, "and that's one of mine."
"Well, find another! Gods! My heart's still-feel it! It's-"
"No, love," Mourngrym said hastily as the gleam in Elminster's eye grew brighter, "you don't want to make that sort of offer! Not with Elminster!"
Shaerl turned on him. "And you! Laughing at my discomfort, like a boy playing in the street! You ought to be-"
"Somewhere quieter," Mourngrym said sarcastically, striding past her, "like the heart of a battle with the entire Zhent army!"
Shaerl made a gesture in his direction. Mourngrym waggled one steel-clad finger at her in mock admonishment, and went out.
The lady of Shadowdale sighed away her exasperation and turned back to Elminster. "Be welcome, Old Mage," she said softly. "I'd appreciate a chance to talk about what lies ahead for us, if you've the time."
" Tis why I came," Elminster rumbled, "now that my work at the Standing Stone is done: three arrow swarms, and a little something extra." He went straight to Mourngrym's