Crown of Fire - Ed Greenwood [23]
Then his face grew more grave. "Shan-are you having thoughts against this journey?"
Shandril shook her head. "No-whatever I do, danger waits for me or comes looking. At least if I'm going somewhere, I have the feeling I'm doing something rather than just running from the latest attack." She looked at them both and spread her hands. "If 1 wasn't trying to get to Silverymoon-even if it doesn't turn out to be a friendly haven-I'd be dead by now. I'd have surrendered, just to be free of always running and worrying and fighting. I'm so sick of it all-I could scream!"
Fire danced in Shandril's eyes for a moment, and then died away, leaving her expression empty, her eyes like two dark, despairing pits. "I do scream," she added, voice unsteady, "when I have to use spellfire-cursing the gods for playing this jest on me."
Delg squinted up at her. "Others have cursed the humor of the gods, lass, even among the dwarves-but I've heard elders tell them the gods jest with us all, and we are measured by how we deal with what befalls. Of course, you want to be free of all who harry you. Who in Faerun wouldn't?"
He shifted his heavy pack on his shoulders and added, "More than that: I'd be sad if one so young and inexperienced as you had already decided exactly what she'd do her entire life through… because she'd have to be a fool to be so certain about so little."
"My thanks, Delg-I think," Shandril told him a little stiffly.
And then she shrieked. Out of nowhere, something slim and dark tore through the air, leaping past her breast to crash into the leaves beyond.
Delg put his head down and charged bruisingly into Shandril_ As they crashed into the damp, dead leaves together, the dwarf snarled, "Down!" in Narm's direction.
With the hum of an angry hornet, another bolt tore through the air close overhead, and then another.
Narm rolled amid dead leaves nearby, cursing.
Shandril fought for breath as Delg wriggled and grunted beside her, shucking his pack, tearing his shield free, and getting his arm into the straps. His axe flashed past her nose as he hefted it.
"The Zhents again!" the dwarf hissed, peering into the trees. "There!"
He pointed. Shandril rolled onto hands and knees and came up beside his hairy hand, looking along the pointing finger-and into the eyes of a Zbent who was loading a cocked crossbow.
From the leaves beside them, Narm muttered something. Two pulses of light leapt from his hand, streaking through the trees. The man grunted as they hit, staggering and dropping his bow.
Shandril saw others behind him, and rose to her feet, pointing. Spellfire roared down her arm, shaking her, and white flames shot out through the trees like the breath of a furious red dragon. Leaves blazed and then were gone. Halfway to the Zhents a tree was burned through by the roaring flames. It toppled slowly, and crashed ponderously among the dead leaves.
Sbandril snarled and raised her other hand.
Delg caught her arm from behind. "No, Shan!" Then he cursed and shrank back from her, clutching at his hand. Shandril stared at him in shock. Smoke was rising in wisps from the dwarf's fingers; he shook his hand, roared out his pain, and looked up at her, eyes bright with tears.
"Remind me not to do that again soon," he growled, flexing his burned fingers. Then he nodded at where she'd aimed. "You daren't do that in these heavy woods, lass-look."
A burnt scar stretched away through the trees from where she stood, to where a tangle of trees had fallen. Shandril stared along her path of destruction, face bleak, and saw dark-armored figures moving amid the trees beyond it.
The dwarf hesitated, then reluctantly reached out and caught at her arm again. This time no ready spellfire burned him. "Too many. We must run from them, lass-if you use your fire freely, all these woods'll soon be ablaze around us."
They could see Zhent warriors, blades drawn, in the trees to their right and ahead of them. The Zhents were advancing cautiously,