All Shadows Fled - Ed Greenwood [54]
"I cannot understand the thinking of Yinthrim, to throw life and all the unfolding chances of this world away just to try to avenge kin who may well have plotted his own death, had they lived."
"Atari, yes," Lorgyn agreed, "would always plunge into battle, given the slightest of excuses, but such folly is unusual for Yinthrim." He looked at the site of the tent where the two Malaugrym had perished the night before-now a trampled sward strewn with sprawled bodies. He shrugged. "I guess battle hunger overtook them."
"Battle hunger? Attacking three sleeping humans is something done out of 'battle hunger1?" Bralatar had a fine, showy grasp of sarcastic incredulity when something aroused him to it. He shifted on the branch, fluttering his feathers in irritation. "Admit they liked to slay folk, and fatally misjudged the fervor of these mortals, and have done with it. Two fewer fools to breed will make our house that much the stronger."
"A phrase fit for a speech of any Shadowmaster High," Lorgyn acknowledged, bowing his head. "So when, in your judgment, would it be best that we make our strike against the three who dared to intrude into Shadowhome, and slay so many Malaugrym?''
"When those three rangers are much older, and we've seen far more of this world-or at least, not now," Bralatar replied with his usual sharp humor. "Those two maids over there-Jhessail and Illistyl, if I heard aright-still have spells left. And who knows how many of those Harpers are mages? I'm not descending into the midst of a battlefield where one old man called down a god not long ago!"
"And the Lord of Battles at that," Lorgyn agreed. "Now is not a good time."
"Now is never a good time," Bralatar said dryly.
"At first light," Florin ordered, looking around the map-strewn room, "we ride north to Shadowdale, where our swords are sorely needed."
Kuthe nodded grimly. "Haste must be our course, yes." He looked at the cot where Nelyssa lay, nodding weakly.
"I shall ride to Shadowdale on the morrow," she said firmly, "and any man who shouts at me not to go will serve me as a replacement mount!"
Kuthe closed his open mouth stiffly, and turned his head away, then swung it around again, opened his mouth to speak, caught her eye-and closed his jaws once more.
Torm and Rathan, scratching at their rough, stiff bandages, sputtered with mirth and went out hastily.
"Ah, 'twas worth all that jabber to see Lord High-and-Mighty's face!" Torm chuckled. "Now, let's be finding that drink I was talking of…"
"I'll go with ye," Rathan said grimly. "Too many friends fell this day. I want to feel a small fire in my belly this night."
Torm raised his eyebrows. "And why not? You do that every other night; why change things now?"
Rathan favored him with both a weary look and an unpriestly gesture.
*****
Just after the two Knights had wearily passed around a corner of the street, a door swung open, and Illistyl hurried, white-faced, out into the waiting night. Her mind yet burned with the sight of a Rider's crushed leg being amputated, the grim faces of sawing surgeon and patient, the Rider's rolling eyes. Illistyl shook her head as she stumbled along in the darkness, but could not shake the images away…
Suddenly something was rising within her. She fell heavily to her knees and vomited into the dark grass.
A weary Rider turned his head at the sound, watched her sobbing out the contents of her stomach, and turned back to sewing up a comrade's slashed arm.
"Hmm," he said thoughtfully, "it seems great adventurers are human after all."
His older companion winced as the needle went in again. "Oh, they're human, lad… all too human. That's where most of the trouble begins."
The Castle of Shadows, Shadowhome,
Flamerule 18
The mists of morning were still drifting off the river as the Knights of Myth Drannor and the Riders of Mistledale rode north together, leather creaking loudly among the riverbank trees. They pressed on, stiff and sore from