Cloak of Shadows - Ed Greenwood [17]
The shadows were beginning to grow long when Elminster pointed at a pair of fingerlike stone pillars ahead. "Unless a dragon, lich, or something similarly energetic has decided to dwell there, that's our camp for the night."
"That's Irythkeep?" Itharr asked, peering through the trees. "There's not much left of it, is there?"
"A Harper needs no roof nor servants," Elminster told the sky overhead innocently, "but is happy to sleep under the stars, where the air is fresh, the living earth is closer, and the body has no chance to become pampered and weak."
Belkram and Itharr chuckled together. "Trust you to know that passage from the Code of the Harpers," said the taller of the two rangers, his eyes on the ruins ahead.
"Know it? Who d'ye think wrote it?" Elminster replied in aggrieved tones. Behind him, Sharantyr sighed theatrically, but when the Old Mage shot her a coldly meaningful glance, he found her staring skyward with a look of innocence surpassed only by his own recent performance. Elminster snorted and spurred his mount on, ignoring the cautious, weapons-out advances of the Harpers.
In the dust raised by the old wizard's hurrying horse, Belkram, Itharr, and Sharantyr exchanged glances, shrugged, and urged their own mounts on toward the ruins.
Irythkeep may once have been grand, but the winds and winters of passing time had not been kind to it since a besieging orc band had battered its walls from without, and the Zhentarim mage with them had summoned and let loose a fire-spitting hydra within.
All that was left now, amid fast-growing duskwood, pine, and shadowtop saplings, was a ragged stone ring outlining the outer walls, a few overgrown outbuildings and stables still clinging here and there to their roofs, and those fingerlike remnants of towers. Birds roosted on the stony pillars, and the crows that took wing as the four riders approached cried their anger at the intrusion loudly enough to alert ears anywhere near. Belkram cursed and then shrugged. What point stealth now? Several small furry brown shapes darted away from rocks where they'd been catching the last of the sun, and hurried off into the woods. Elminster watched them go, then rounded on Itharr.
"Well? Ye got that grand blade out and waved it about, lad. Aren't ye going to chase yonder scuttlers and do some carving to show thy manhood and deadly prowess?"
"No," Itharr replied brightly, and urged his mount ahead into the ruins. He tossed his grand blade into the air as he went, let it flash end over end up into the sunset, and then deftly caught it and sheathed it without slowing in his saddle or looking back.
Elminster's sniff was both loud and eloquent. Sharantyr hid a smile behind her own raised blade as Belkram and Itharr dismounted, tossed their reins over branches to serve as tethers for a few breaths, and jogged ahead into the shadows amid the stones.
The Old Mage watched them scramble and peer alertly about for a breath or two, then he turned in his saddle to fix Sharantyr with one clear blue eye. "Well, lass?"
Sharantyr raised an eyebrow. "As pouting maidens are wont to say," she replied, "'Well, what?'"
The wizard's stare became more forbidding. "What foolishness are ye going to favor us all with?"
Sharantyr smiled broadly. "Ah. Yes. Guarding you, actually." She waggled her drawn sword so the sun glimmered on one edge and then the other.
Elminster snorted. "Unnecessary folly, indeed. Why not put that steel away before ye hurt thyself with it?"
Sharantyr shrugged, more laughter in her eyes than in her face. "When Belk and Ith say the keep's safe, perhaps. We can talk about it again then… after I've told you how to cast a few spells."
"All right, all right, lass," Elminster said gruffly. "Point taken. Lash me with that pretty tongue o' thine later, eh? And put the sword away for