Elminster in hell - Ed Greenwood [43]
Mirt ran a hand along her ribs. "Naught else to spare, have you?"
Nalitheen chuckled. "Borold used to say that. I have always eaten little."
"I've no complaints," Mirt assured her, and they chuckled together. He fell silent then, and soon after began to snore. Nalitheen lay still in his arms, looking into the night-and surprised herself by falling asleep almost immediately.
You humans certainly rut a lot. If you wasted less time talking your way into each other's arms, you'd have more time for killing and plundering.
My thanks, Nergal, but some in Faerun, as it happens, have noticed that already.
[snort] Reveal more, wizard. My patience is a shorter thing than it was when i first captured you.
And as it happens, I've noticed that. [diabolic chuckle, images flying by]
When Mirt awoke and rolled over, it was gray dawn. Beside him, the bed was empty. He looked first for his sword and laid it by long habit close within reach. Then he dressed quickly and quietly, as was his wont, stretching once or twice as cats do.
Nalitheen came into the room before he was done, with two steaming tankards of what smelled like bull-tongue broth. She stopped suddenly at the sight of him fully dressed.
She was barefoot, and as a warming-robe wore a once-fine, patched gown, open down the front but loosely belted at the waist. She handed him one tankard with what might have been a smile and sat down on the edge of the bed, pulling what she wore more tightly around her.
"You'll be leaving, then?" she asked, raising her eyes to his. There was something strange in them.
Mirt nodded slowly. "I must. The company rides again, this afternoon, after we've bought food enough to ride on." He sipped, and nodded appreciatively. "My thanks- this is welcome, indeed."
Nalitheen looked at him. "So was your kindness last night," she said. Mirt met her gaze steadily, and then deliberately drained his tankard and rose. A gold piece fell from his hand to clatter inside it as he set it down.
"One more thing, if you will," he said slowly. Nalitheen raised her eyebrows over her tankard, as she sipped her still-steaming broth.
"Show me your daughters," Mitt said softly, almost pleading.
Nalitheen looked at him for a moment, the tankard suddenly forgotten in her hand, and then nodded and led him to a curtain in one corner of the room.
The door behind it was locked. Expressionlessly, Nalitheen put one end of the curtain into Mirt's hand'. Then she bent and took a slim key from beneath a floorboard in a corner nearby, fitted it to the lock, and swung the door wide. A ladder led upward into soft gloom.
Nalitheen waved him forward. Mirt nodded and climbed the ladder slowly and carefully. The rungs creaked under his weight. The ladder ended in a little room under the eaves of the house, rosy now with the first true light of dawn. Great, wondering dark eyes waited for him there, as two sleepy, tousle-headed lasses stared at him from their shared bed.
"Naleetha and Boroldira," Nalitheen introduced them from behind him. Mirt turned at the harshness of her tone and saw her knuckles white around a dagger she clutched, its wickedly sharp point toward him. "Borold's," she added, flatly, nodding down at it.
Mirt met her burning eyes for a long, silent moment, then deliberately turned his back, to face the girls in the bed. "Ladies." he greeted them gravely, bowing as if they were high ladies of a court, "I am Mirt the Wolf. Pray accept my apologies for disturbing your slumber. Naleetha, Boroldira; I am pleased to have met you."
He smiled and turned back to Nalitheen, the smile still on his lips. "Thank you," he said simply. He stepped past her blade as though