Cloak of Shadows - Ed Greenwood [19]
The bat-thing abruptly broke out of its tumbling and seemed to leap across the air between them, directly at the Old Mage.
Sharantyr swallowed and rose up into its path, face set and blade extended. The bat-thing rushed forward as she held out her bright sword firmly in both hands. With a helpless, howling whimper, it impaled itself on her steel.
Shar staggered at the impact, icy blood drenching her hands, and stared in sudden alarm as the darkness and weight faded away from around her blade, taken to some other place by magic that flickered and tore at her, leaving her with a confused impression of shadows, watching malevolence, and a cold, dark somewhere filled with strange monstrous beings.
Someone said coldly, "Now do you see, Taernil?" but the reply, if there was one, was whirled away in a rising whistling, the noise of mournful, misty shadows streaming around and past her.
Sharantyr felt the magic that had taken the bat-thing trembling through her. She stared at her bare blade and unmarked hands for a dazed moment before a firm hand encircled her arm above the elbow and an all-too-familiar voice rasped, "Did ye or did ye not hear me to tell thee to put thy blade away, lass?"
Sharantyr shook her head to clear the whirling shadows from it and gasped, "Who… what was that?"
" What' is right, Shar. A Malaugrym mage, young and careless with his power." Then the voice sharpened. "A fine useful pair the two of ye are! Puffing up here just a breath or six too late, as usual."
Belkram and Itharr plunged to a halt, breathing hard, and exchanged an exasperated look. "That's… our job," Itharr gasped. "Rushing in… we're Harpers, remember?"
Elminster snorted once more. "So am /, young and brainless one," he reminded them all none too gently. "And d'ye see me running about the landscape like a scared hare, trampling the crops and looking generally ridiculous?"
"No," Belkram replied bravely, "but I'm sure if we were a thousand years or so older than we are, we'd have seen you doing just that… probably with a maid or two fleeing in front of you and an angry father or two in hot pursuit at your heels."
The snorts of suppressed laughter that answered this sally didn't come from Elminster, who looked dangerously around at them all but spoke not a word.
None of them saw a figure watching from atop one of the ruined towers, a crooked smile on its face. "Laugh while you can," Issaran told the four standing far below him, and faded away.
A moment later, an oak leaf spun lazily down from that height, which was odd, for there were no oak trees near.
* * * * *
The Castle of Shadows, Kythorn 15
"Issaran goes to ground, would you say?" A goat-headed Shadowmaster chuckled, looking into the scrying portal.
"At least he's wiser than this flamebrain," rumbled a giant whose head resembled a warrior's helm, rising from his shoulders without pause for a neck. He was looking down at the smoking form of Taernil, shifting in slow pain from a puddle of black leather to something that had lizardlike legs. "By the Doomstars!" they heard him gasp. "It hurts!"
"I can send you back there, if you'd prefer," Kostil said calmly, watching the young Malaugrym shuddering at his feet.
"If any of you truly cared, you'd do something about this pain! Gods on their thrones!" Taernil spat, shifting slowly into something that had teeth to clench and eyes to glare around.
"Care, youngling?" The goat-headed Malaugrym sounded amused. "We do take care, which is why we watch and think before we rush in, trusting to a few spells that our foe learned to cast an age ago!"
"Clever, Yabrant… you're so clever, all of you," Taernil gasped, swaying upright and seeing Huerbara watching him mutely from the shadows not far away. He redoubled his efforts to quell the trembling in his limbs and look grim, calm, and strong.
The goat-headed Shadowmaster bowed his head sardonically. "At least you have progressed far enough to recognize cleverness, youngling.