Curse of the Shadowmage - Mark Anthony [57]
Even from a distance, Beris thought there was something strange about the fellow, a man clad all in black riding a mist-gray horse. Beris shivered inside his beaten-steel breastplate, chalking it up to the clammy air as he gripped his spear tightly. An unsettling thought drifted through his mind. Didn't one Lord Elvar's priests say that sometimes the King of the Dead appeared in the guise of a dark man riding pale horse? Like all soldiers, Beris was a superstitious man. Under his breath, he muttered a charm against evil spirits.
"What are you mumbling about now, Beris?" asked the grizzled soldier who stood with him before the open gate.
"I was just wondering who that rider is, Sarig," Beris answered hastily. Beris was the youngest of the twenty mercenaries Lord Elvar paid to guard Triel, and he took enough abuse from the older men as it was. He didn't want Sarig to think he was afraid of a lone horseman. Which he wasn't, of course. "Who do you suppose it is?"
"Looks like some beggar to me," Sarig grunted in. disgust.
Beris nodded. "I suppose he'll be seeking hospitality, then."
Sarig gave a harsh snort of laughter. "Lord Elvar isn't very hospitable!"
While the lord was not an evil man, his distrust of strangers was nearly as legendary as his propensity for switching religions. Elvar ruled a small district, of which Triel was the center. Triel itself was more of a fort than a proper town. Here the Dusk Road met up with the larger Trade Way, which continued on all the way to the great city of Waterdeep to the west. Triel served mostly as a way station for traveling merchants. Its small cluster of cottages and storehouses was surrounded by a sturdy stockade of stone and wood.
When the rider finally came to a halt before the gates, Beris breathed a relieved sigh. The man's skin was mushroom pale, and dark half-moons hung beneath his faded green eyes, but he looked far more like a sick beggar than an incarnation of Death. His midnight blue cloak was spattered with mud. Despite the wanderer's ragged appearance, the gray mare he rode was an exceptional animal.
"State your business!" Sarig barked, brandishing his spear.
The wanderer blinked, as if he had just waked from a deep slumber and was surprised to find himself in some new time and place. "Can you help me?" he asked hoarsely. "I'm so tired. And hungry."
Sarig gave a derisive snort. "I told you, Beris-a beggar."
Beris ignored him. There was something about the man-perhaps the deep sorrow in his eyes-that made Beris think he was more than a simple vagabond seeking alms. I'd best take you to Lord Elvar," he told the wanderer. "If you'll dismount, I'll lead your horse for you." He reached out to grip the gray mare's bridle, but she bared her big yellow teeth menacingly. Beris was forced to snatch his hand back quickly. The ghost of a smile touched the wanderer's lips. "I'd better lead her," he said quietly. "She bites."
"So I noticed," Beris said dryly.
The wanderer dismounted. Beris gestured for him to follow, and they entered the stockade to seek out Lord Elvar They soon found him standing before the open door of the stockade's large stone granary. Elvar was having a fit. Again.
"Look at that!" he shouted, jowls waggling. Elvar was an overlarge man with beady eyes and an upturned nose that gave him a distinctly piggish look. His expansive gut was stuffed into a too-tight waistcoat of food-stained green velvet. He thrust a torch into the darkened doorway of the granary. A squealing gray form scurried out, vanishing down a nearby drainpipe. "There's another!" Elvar raged. "Rats-they're everywhere!"
A small group of townsfolk, merchants, and soldiers had gathered around the irate lord. "The rats will eat all the grain." he continued his tirade. "And with winter coming, we're all going to starve!" Elvar looked like a man who had never wanted for food in his life, but his eyes were wide with fear all the same. He bore down on a thin-faced man clad in the drab brown robe of a priest.
"You!" Elvar