Elminster in Myth Drannor - Ed Greenwood [90]
"You hairy barbarians think yourselves clever," he remarked, eyes glittering, "and you are-too clever. Unfortunately, in the half-witted, cleverness breeds insolence. You've certainly shown us ample supplies of that, being insolent enough to think you can slaughter the heirs of no less than ten Houses of Cormanthor- eleven, if we count Alastrarra, whose lore-gem you wore when you came trotting into our midst; who's to say you didn't murder Iymbryl to get it?-and pay no price. Some who hold the rank of armathor serve Cormanthor diligently all their lives and slay fewer foes than you have already."
With exaggerated apparent surprise, Ivran Selorn looked around at his companions, and then back to Elminster. "See? There are many more, here. What a splendid opportunity to add to your score! Why do you not attack? Are you scared, perhaps?"
Elminster lifted his lips in a half-smile. "Violence has never been Mystra's way."
"Oh, so?" Ivran said, his voice high and incredulous. "What then was that blast by the pool? A natural occurrence, perhaps?"
With a tight, wolfish smile, he motioned the other elves to encircle Elminster; keeping a safe distance, they did so, silently and smiling. Then the leader of these blood hunters turned back to his quarry and said, "Let me tell you the heirs you've slain, oh most mighty of armathors: Waelvor, and a bloody harvest by the pool: Yeschant, Amarthen, Ibryiil, Gwaelon, Tassarion, Ortaure, Bellas, and, I hear from our mages, Echorn and Auglamyr, too!"
Ivran advanced again, slowly, tossing his long, slim blade into the air and catching it in a fluid, restless juggling that El knew meant he'd throw it soon. "Just one of those heirs-to say nothing of the dozen or so servants and house blades you've felled, along the way-would be more than enough to buy your death, human. Just one! So now we have you at last, and face the difficult problem of how to fittingly slay you ten times over… or should it be eleven?"
Ivran came still closer. "Two of the gallants you slew were close friends of mine. And all of us here are saddened by the loss of the Lady Symrustar, whose promise has warmed us all for three seasons now. You took these from us, human worm. Have you anything futile to say on your own behalf? Something to entertain us as we hack you down?!"
As he screamed these last words, Ivran charged, hurling his blade in a silvery blur. It was meant to slash El's hand and ruin any spellcasting, before the other elves-leaping in from all sides now-reached him.
Smiling grimly, Elminster worked the spell, and became a rising, roiling column of white sparks. Charging elves crashed through him and into each other, blades biting deep. Elves arched in agony, and screamed, or coughed around the hilts of deeply driven blades, and poured out their blood upon the stones.
The whirling column of sparks began to drift away, heading for the passage El had entered by. Snarling and panting, with two blades that were not his standing out of his body, Ivran cried, "Slay the human! Use the swordpoint spell!"
His last word was choked off by blood bubbling forth, and an elf who streamed blood from a slash on his forehead-the one who'd been so fearful, earlier- hastened to the staggering Ivran, his hands glowing with healing magic.
Tlannatar Wrathtree followed his leader's bidding, shouting, "I have the spell! Throw your blades up/"
Obediently those elves who still could hurled swords and daggers into the air above their heads. The spell, which was making blue-white stars of force flare and twinkle around Tlannatar's hands, snared those hurled blades and sent them across the chamber in a deadly stream, point-first.
The whirling white column of sparks and light paused at the entrance to the passage, and the hurled blades swerved in their flight to go around it, picking up speed, and then spray out back across the room like a deadly hail of darts, flung in random directions. Tlannatar cried out as one took him in the ear, and toppled over with his mouth still open; it would gape, now, forever. Ivran,