Darkwell - Douglas Niles [106]
"I t-told you things have ch-changed! Oh, I g-give up! I – I don't th-think I'll ever find them – find them!"
"What that?" asked Honkah, cocking his head to the side and listening.
"Wh-what's what? I didn't hear -"
"Shhh!" The troll lifted a warty finger to his mouth, still listening. Yazilliclick, too, concentrated, and then he heard the sound from the gate.
"Something's howling! Wh-what can it be – it be?"
"Honkah look." The troll stood up and leaned through the gate. It looked to the sprite as if the top half of the troll was buried in a hole in the ground, and only his lower torso and legs remained visible. Then Honkah reappeared, clutching a squirming shape in his broad arms.
The newcomer sprang free and leaped to the ground. In the same instant that Yazilliclick recognized him, he shook his body from head to tail, spraying both of them with cold water.
"Canthus! How are you – are you? Wh-what were you d-doing in the water? Wh-where're Robyn and Tristan and N-Newt? Are they all right – all right?" He stopped suddenly, feeling a little foolish as he realized that the dog could not understand him.
The dog greeted him with a slurping lick across his face that knocked him down, then turned to regard Honkah suspiciously. Yazilliclick stood and patted the dog's head, meanwhile taking Honkah's large hand. This apparently convinced the moorhound that the troll was no threat, and he began to sniff the air and look around curiously.
"C-Canthus, welcome to Faerie!"
* * * * *
Shantu raised its blood-spatlered head as the distant call came to its upraised ears. The displacer beast spread its lips in a snarl of challenge, returning once again to tear at the bloody form of its victim. The sharp, driving fangs tore into the unicorn's flesh to rip away another chunk of meat.
The wound in Shantu's flank still caused the beast searing pain. The snapped horn of the unicorn remained wedged at the base of the monster's tentacle, and all of its efforts to knock it free had only succeeding in driving it deeper.
The deathbringer crouched possessively at the side of the kill. It growled at the surrounding woods, a rumbling challenge to any who dared dispute the beast's claim. Shantu was king of the vale! King of death! And the king would tear the life from any usurper.
But even the king has a master, and now the summons from that master came once again into Shantu's black head. The beast growled and backed away from the bloody corpse, raising its head once again to snarl its challenge at the heavens and the earth.
With a last lingering look at the torn, mangled carcass, Shantu the displacer beast turned back to the woods and disappeared. Its gait was slow and awkward, since the biting pain of its wound raged anew every time the beast's right forepaw touched the ground. The horn stuck out from the shoulder, wedged between two bones. Limping, Shantu started the long trek commanded by its master.
It ran to the north, for it had been ordered back to the Darkwell.
* * * * *
The massive lodge of Grunnarch the Red had been specially adorned for the Council of Winternight. The plunder of a lifetime of raiding was hauled from cellars and sheds, from storage and from use, to decorate the rough-hewn log walls of the great council house.
Now the lords of Norland entered and took their seats at long tables, heavily laden with food and drink, amid splendor such as rarely seen by the men of the north. From the ceiling hung three crystal chandeliers from the master craftsmen of Amn. Tapestries and silkworm rugs of exquisite workmanship, the plunder of many raids along the coast of Calimshan, decorated the walls.
The tables themselves were covered with golden and silver finery – plates, platters, and goblets of precious metal from as far as Waterdeep and other ports along the Sword Coast. Candles perched gracefully in the chandeliers, and several massive fires set in huge fireplaces cast a golden light across the gathering that was only partially obscured by the growing haze of smoke in the air.
For a long time, the feasting proceeded with