Elminster in hell - Ed Greenwood [53]
Mirt grunted, and then chuckled reluctantly. "Aye. Aye, I recall. But hush, now, as we prowl a bit. If any buck's going to try and gut me, I want to hear him coming!"
They stood together in the dim, cluttered parlor of Resengar called the Whitebeard (and, by some of his apprentices, Old Baldpate), a lord of Waterdeep and one of Mirt's friends. Or rather, he had been.
Not the width of a hand from Mirt's battered, flapping old boots lay Resengar, eyes gleaming sightlessly up at the star-decorated ceiling above. The old wizard's hands were drawn up as if to ward off a foe. His mouth was open in disbelief. Just beneath it, someone had opened another mouth in his throat, a red sword slash that still leaked blood onto the dark furs underfoot.
Looking down at him, Asper almost expected Resengar to cough his dry little cough, look all about with beard bobbing, as he always did, and apologize for having nodded off. But as silent moments followed, one after the other, he did not move. Those staring, sightless eyes grew dull. Resengar would never cough again.
Mirt had liked the shy, fussy old wizard perhaps best of all his fellow lords, after Durnan. He'd been looking forward to swapping ancient tales over even older wine tonight with the aging fusspot, watching Resengar stare longingly at Asper as he treated her with elaborate courtesy-until the wine took him and he began to snore, whereupon they'd quietly leave. As usual.
Now someone had cut Resengar the Whitebeard down in the middle of his cozy-room, his most private chamber, amid all his wards and defenses of Art. Someone who had left a silver Harper's pin behind on the breast of the wizard's robes. Resengar-who had never worn his own rune, let alone any other insignia-did not even own such a thing.
Someone was going to pay. Pay in blood, if Mirt the Merciless had anything to say about it. He hadn't realize he'd snarled that aloud until he heard Asper's soft but firm, "Yes, Lord. I am with you and will stand with you in this."
Mirt turned to smile at her, and Asper saw tears glistening in his angry old eyes. He met her understanding gaze, saw her expression, and tossed his head, turning away quickly. "Well, then," he said gruffly, "let's be looking about, then! We won't be finding anyone while we stand here, growing old!"
Asper only smiled and nodded as her lord turned and stomped away into the dim corners of the chamber, weapons raised. He had been a lion of a man once, Iron shoulders swung axe and long sword from the saddle on many a battlefield in those days, with force enough to cleave armor and bone. Or so the old warriors' tales told, in the taverns.
Men had called him Mirt the Merciless, and when he rode, fear rode before him. The Wolf, lie was, and his men the Company of the Wolf. They looted and slew with grim efficiency. Butchery was never their mark, except against those who did not pay the Wolf his promised fee, or dealt him treachery. Those he hunted down and slew-mercilessly.
No man can stop the seasons, it is said, or escape their slow but certain claws. Winters pass, uncaring, and with them strength seeps away. The Wolf became the Old Wolf; Mirt grew old and gray-and rich. Men no longer feared his name. He rode no longer to war. The coin he had won by the hire of his sword lie lent out, at fair rates, in the city of Waterdeep. Those who tried to cheat him learned that his sword had not grown so slow as all that, and that over the years he had learned a trick or two and picked up a useful magical bauble or three.
When honest debtors could not repay loans, he lent them more in return for a share of this and a share of that. In such a way he saw many old war companions to comfortable graves, who would otherwise have starved or frozen, homeless, in winter gales. Min said prayers over their failing foreheads or unhearing remains, paid for the burials, and turned over what they had left to their descendants. What he owned a share of-hovels, shops, or ships-he bought outright and took as his own.
In this patient way Mirt the Moneylender grew richer