All Shadows Fled - Ed Greenwood [66]
Magic still spun wild in Faerun, and news of strife and god-caused devastation came to Shadowdale with every new, heavily armed caravan. The Zhentarim could strike again at any time, and Daggerdale was an open battlefield roamed by hungry wolves, ores, and worse. To keep such perils at bay, the few warriors still able to fight were standing guard on all four roads out of the dale, fervently hoping not to see blackhelms in the distance.
In the dale, dead Zhents and horses lay everywhere, some half devoured by bold night scavengers. The returned priests of Lathander were busily blessing the dead to ensure that they would not rise undead to stalk Shadowdale in the years to come. The old women of the dale were stripping the bodies of anything that could be used again, and the foresters surveyed the burnt woods with an eye to replanting.
Yestereve, six full carts piled high with weapons and helms had groaned up the road to the tower. The clangor of their being stockpiled had gone on all night, wherefore this morning Lord Mourngrym had a headache that felt as if someone were repeatedly stabbing a dagger through the top of his head.
"Why must I get up?" he asked Shaerl. "I'm lord of this dale. Can't I lie abed just once in a year?"
"You did," she replied sweetly, "three months back. We were trying for a daughter, remember?"
Mourngrym growled something wordless about her cheerfulness and rolled up to a sitting position on the edge of their bed. His arms and ribs were gold and purple with bruises, and two raw scars marked his forearm where Zhent blades had split through his best armor.
Shaerl hissed in sympathy as she traced one of those scars with a slim finger. She handed her lord a tankard of steaming bitterroot tea.
Mourngrym sipped it, made the same disgusted face he always did, and rose, handing the tankard back to her. "Here-you drink the stuff. It should cure your confounded cheerfulness!"
He took from its peg the silken robe she'd made for him. As always, he admired the blazons she'd sewn so carefully. The arms of the dale shone on one breast, his own arms on the other, and a target prominently on the back-their private joke: he'd been her target when Cormyr sent her to Shadowdale to gain influence here.
Mourngrym smiled at the robe in his arms, leaned against the smooth-carved corner post of the bed, and mouthed a silent prayer to Tymora. Swinging the robe around his shoulders, he made his way across the bedchamber.
He winced as each step made his head pound-he hadn't had that much to drink last night, surely-but doggedly pursued his goal: the curtained archway that led into the morning room. There he would break his fast on the great table whose glass top covered gloriously hued maps of the dales. He loved those maps, a wedding gift from the Rowanmantles, and peering at their exquisite details never failed to cheer him.
He shouldered through the curtains, sniffing the welcome aroma of sausages and melted cheese and eggs on bread, and froze midstride.
"Storm! Well met and welcome, but what are you doing sitting in the middle of the table?-Oh, war council time again, is it?"
The Bard of Shadowdale smiled at him and tossed her head in greeting; her silver hair cascaded down one shoulder, and Mourngrym swallowed at her beauty, remembering the last time she'd sat on the table, wearing rather less, and the wild war council that had followed then. It was too early in the morning for all this…
Eyeing the sausages on the platter beside Storm's boots, the lord of Shadowdale went to the long sideboard, took up a flask of firewine, and drained it at a single gulp.
When his eyes came back into focus, Storm was shaking her head. "You'll regret that, you know."
"My head already feels like a blacksmith's anvil," Mourngrym told her. "Is there any more of this stuff about, do you know?"
"End drawer down the window end," Storm and Shaerl