Cloak of Shadows - Ed Greenwood [56]
Shar gave him a smile, a twinkle in her gray-green eyes, and sang steadily, "For I crave a bank by a stream running softly, where ye'll lay me down and make love to me!"
"Oh, no!" Itharr said in shocked tones. "You were right, bold Belkram. Not a suitable ballad at all!"
"Belt up and stow it," Belkram told him dryly. "Well, what say you? Does anyone know what that place might be?"
"It's a little hard to see from inside this pocket," Sylune said sweetly. "Perhaps if we get closer and you dismount, I could tell something about it. We'd best poke about a bit first, to see if that's a prudent course of action."
Itharr and Sharantyr both spread eloquent empty hands in answer to Belkram's query. "We're out of the bits of Daggerdale I know," Shar added. "It looks more like a manor on a hill than a keep, but just as far past its proud days as Irythkeep. We'll be lucky to find any part of it still with a roof."
"Well, we've been very lucky in avoiding rain thus far," Itharr observed brightly.
"Hush!" both of the other riders said severely.
"Do you want to bring it on?" Sharantyr demanded, scowling. "I've heard of lump-headed idiots before, but-"
"You weren't prepared for what a couple of Harpers can do," Sylune said loudly enough for them all to hear, startling Belkram into nearly falling out of his saddle.
"Stead)' on, there," Itharr commented. "The bit of the horse that snorts and has ears is the front. Now, all you have to do is keep a leg either side of the beast and that front bit pointed-"
"You can belt up any time, friend," Belkram said easily. 'Your tongue runs on almost as much as Elminster's!"
The stone in his pocket laughed heartily.
"Enough," Sharantyr said, her eye on the lowering sun. Trap or no, let's look at this place before darkness leaves us no choices at all."
The ruin they were fast approaching stood on a grassy hill whose steep slopes fell away into thick, tangled woods to the east and south. Broken land, all hills and copses, lay beyond it to the north, and there seemed to be a patchwork of woodlots and meadows-the former manor farmlands, no doubt-to the west. An overgrown road of sorts crossed the rolling country before them, leading down into the woods and thence up that oddly bare hill to the ruin. Why had no saplings sprung up on the hillsides?
"I don't like the look of it," Itharr said.
"Nor do I," Belkram said, "but I must remind you that I've heard those same words from you about seventy times since we began faring together."
"And how often was my concern justified?"
"Umm… twenty times or so."
"Well?"
"But if we strike out the times we were looking at known Zhentarim holds, brigand camps, and undead holds, Itharr… four times."
"Perhaps this'll be five," Itharr offered, almost hopefully.
"You don't really have too much doubt, do you?"
"No. The backs of my hands itch," the burly Harper said, as if that explained everything.
"The backs of his hands itch," Belkram told the sky. "Shar, you're closer. Scratch them for him, will you?"
"I go out riding with a pair of hairily handsome men," Shar told her horse conversationally, "and what do they want me to do? Scratch the backs of their hands. You certainly meet some crazed-wits in the ranks of the Harpers, don't you?"
"Enough levity," Itharr said in quite a different voice, and drew his sword. A moment later he was riding down a green tunnel beneath the interlaced branches of the trees, slowing his mount abruptly and looking warily at the trees ahead. "Lady of the Forest, be with us," he breathed, knowing an arrow could take him in the face or throat before he even saw it.
He glanced back once. Sharantyr was catching up to him swiftly, her beautiful brown hair flowing free around her shoulders and her blade naked in her hand. Far behind he could see Belkram, head turning from side to side and then twisting to look back the way they'd come, in a steady, watchful cycle.
Knowing just what reckless fools they were, Itharr sighed as he faced the woods and rode on. Ahead, the road dipped to ford a small