All Shadows Fled - Ed Greenwood [65]
"Your sword arm?" Sharantyr asked, watching Itharr wince and reach for his shoulder.
He nodded. "I've worn it out these last two days."
"And seen enough death to last several lifetimes," Belkram added quietly, handing him a goblet. Itharr took it in his good hand and hastily sipped at it to prevent a spill.
Sharantyr dug her fingers into the muscles of his shoulder, and he shuddered uncontrollably. He handed the goblet back to Belkram hastily.
"Thanks… I'll want the rest of it when this long-taloned beast here stops tearing my shoulder apart!"
Sharantyr managed a playful snarl, but then fell silent again, her face sad. She shook her head when Belkram offered the decanter to her, and asked him, "When will you get Sylune back?"
"In the morning, Storm said." Belkram poured himself a goblet and drained most of it at one gulp. "I imagine they're meeting to talk about what they must do to defend the dale now that Elminster's gone."
"That's a meeting we must have, too," Itharr said, looking up. "Whither now, for the three of us?"
"What have we to jaw about," Sharantyr asked with sudden fierceness as her fingers worked on his stiff shoulders with iron tenderness, "until we've dealt with the Malaugrym? Elminster gave us a task, and it's unfinished. Harpers-and Knights of Myth Drannor- don't walk away from their duty. Not now, not ever!"
When she caught Belkram's look of wonder, she blushed, turning her head away. "I'm sorry," Shar mumbled, her voice quavering for an instant. "I… his dying… I'm too upset to make sense."
"No, Lady," Belkram said, advancing to take one of her hands in his own. He knelt and kissed it in one smooth movement. "You make perfect sense-now, and always."
Sharantyr turned her head away again from the rising fire she saw in his eyes, and tried to blink away her sudden tears, tears that would not stop falling.
Uncaring crickets were chirping as the Bard of Shadowdale turned in at her arched gate. She brushed past its roses and stumbled in her weariness. Sylune drifted with silent grace at her shoulder.
The door ahead of them was open, and the lamps were lit. Storm sighed and reached for her blade again, wondering if she really felt up to another fight against some sinister Zhent intruder… then relaxed with a heavy sigh of relief when she saw the short and familiar figure of Lhaeo come out to greet them.
"Tea is made, Ladies," Elminster's scribe said in a small, forlorn voice.
"Oh, Lhaeo," Storm said, touched, and held out her arms to him.
A moment later, the last prince of Tethyr was weeping into her breast, clutching her as if she were his last anchor in a storm-racked sea. "El told me I'd know if he died," he gasped when he could speak again, "and yet I don't know! The touch of his mind is gone!" He burst into fresh tears, weeping uncontrollably.
Storm stood in the moonlight, holding him in silence. There was nothing she could say. Her silver hair bent over him as her own tears began to fall. They wept together, and the ghostly form of Sylune hovered over them both, her spectral hands reaching out to console… in vain.
There was nothing at all she could do.
There's Always Revenge
It was a bright morning in fair Shadowdale. The tower, the inn, and the streets were still buzzing with talk of the disappearance, a day and a night ago, of Adon and Midnight, the two prisoners convicted of the murder of Elminster of Shadowdale. Some said they'd been spirited away by agents of Zhentil Keep, lurking in the dale even now; others that they were archmages, foul fiends, or Bane and Manshoon themselves, who wore false shapes and escaped by magic as soon as they were bound in the dungeons. Shadowdale had lost its greatest protector, a wise old uncle-albeit a cantankerous and mischievous uncle-to just about everyone who'd lived in Shadowdale.
Nor was he the only man mourned in the dale. Many a family wept over sons or fathers who would come back only on a shield, to be buried