All Shadows Fled - Ed Greenwood [73]
"Oh, be silentr Lorgyn snarled in exasperation, snapping out a tentacle to wrap around the man's jaws.
The fat merchant suddenly grew a mouth as wide as a horse and caught the tentacle; an extra mouth appeared in his forehead and hissed, "Get your own plaything!"
Lorgyn recoiled in amazement. "Who-?"
The grotesque mouth spat the tentacle back at Lorgyn and shrank away to nothingness, dwindling into features the Malaugrym at the window recognized. "Lunquar!"
"The same," the older Shadowmaster replied, ignoring the sudden terrified scream from the bedclothes beneath him. He pinned the woman down without sparing her a glance, and said, "I've been watching you two break necks and hurl bodies about for days now; why such a bold rampage?"
"Fun, Lunquar, fun!" Lorgyn said exultantly, using one long tentacle to snatch up the man whose neck he'd just broken and shake him as a trophy. "See?" There was a scream from the window below.
"That's just what I mean," the Shadowmaster on the bed said. "You left that one dangling half out of a window! Hear the screaming now!"
"So?"
"So why rouse half of Faerun when a little subtlety could win you thrones?"
"What fun is that?" the voice of Bralatar came floating up to them. "You can rule just as well through fear… in fact, whenever we've the time to spare, we should spread a little more fear!"
"Your style, perhaps; not mine," the older Shadow-master replied. "I'm saving my fury for when I meet up with one of Mystra's Chosen!"
"Aye," Lorgyn agreed, his voice menacingly soft. His eyes glowed a sudden emerald green in the gloom. "If you want reasons for rampaging, there's always… revenge."
Whistling, the Wizard Met His End
Sembia, Flamemle 23
Birds called and fluttered in a wood where moss grew green on old, proud trees, untouched by a woodsman's axe for three hundred years. A stone wall as high as six men kept errant axes out, for the wood was part of a private estate in the fair uplands of Sembia-an estate that saw few visitors, and even fewer uninvited ones.
Yet one can never be too careful, and trolls may lurk anywhere. So it was that the war dogs Warhorn and Bolder wandered the grounds diligently, carrying two hundred pounds of taut muscle each behind their spiked war collars. Their jaws closed often on squirrels, and they suffered nothing larger than that to live-except men they knew.
No man they knew smelled quite like the peculiar odor now in Warhorn's nostrils. The mighty war dog growled a deep warning to Bolder and advanced cautiously toward the smell, questing from side to side like a soldier.
Bolder caught up to him, stiffened, and rubbed his flank alongside Warhorn to signify he'd smelled the scent, too. They went forward soundlessly together on stiff, alert legs, lips drawn back to bare huge teeth.
The smell grew strong indeed, prickling in their throats. Of a sudden, they broke apart and rushed around either side of a great shadowtop tree, a forest giant big enough to hide four dogs behind. They went with eyes aflame and jaws agape, feet scrabbling on the mossy turf-and vanished.
All that the listening birds heard was two wet snapping sounds, then a brief thudding, and shortly afterward, a rustling of leaves as something large climbed the forest giant.
"Never fear, never fear,
For my smiles are all for thee."
A man in a bloodied apron sang ere he struck the brass gong that hung by the door.
"So come away, lady fair, And we will married be!"
He set down the metal basin of meat scraps, wiped his hands on his hips, and waited-but the expected hungry canines did not come.
The man struck the gong again. "Warhorn? Bolder? Gone deaf, have ye?"
The words had just left his lips when the two war dogs raced into view, running hard… and yet without their usual fluid grace… almost as if they weren't used to loping. The man stared hard at them for a moment. He crouched down and asked merrily, "So what have ye been into, my hearties? Highsummer mushrooms again?"
He leaned forward to pat Warhorn,