Elminster Must Die_ The Sage of Shadowdale - Ed Greenwood [56]
As Marlin came to an expressionless halt, the chalice in one hand and his drawn sword in the other, his two hirelings with their sacks of severed heads flanking him, Marlazander put one large hand on Verrin’s shoulder, sneered at Marlin, and said gloatingly, “The problem with trusting in hirelings is keeping them bought. Or rather, your problem. Once more it seems Rothglar Illance is more than a little less miserly than Marlin Stormserpent.”
Marlin sighed. “If no more noble.”
He sent Thirsty flying forth again, making the little trill that told his pet to fell all strangers. It swooped through the bars while Verrin and Marlazander were still staring.
The bodyguard hurriedly stepped back, shoving Verrin away to give himself room, and drew steel.
His swing, despite being aided with his startled curse, missed the stirge entirely. Yet Thirsty wasn’t heading for him. It zigged, zagged—and struck, deftly lancing Verrin’s throat.
The man started to topple, clutching at his throat in a vain and stiffening-fingered attempt to stop his lifeblood jetting everywhere. Thirsty was already whirling away, darting between two casks where Marlazander couldn’t hope to reach or follow.
The bodyguard was still cursing and turning, trying to see where the stirge would swoop, when a tall, slender figure stepped out from between another two casks to confront him.
It was female—or had been, when it was alive. The remains of a woman clad in black leather war-harness, bareheaded, her face white with death in some places and fetchingly streaked with mold in others. She held a sword almost carelessly in her hand.
“Another swaggering, foolishly arrogant noble’s pawn,” she murmured, surveying Marlazander the Mighty and letting him feel the weight of a sneer. “They’re almost as annoying as their noble masters. Almost.”
Marlazander sprang at her, slashing at her viciously in one of the best attacks he’d ever learned. It was parried and turned aside with a flick of her blade—as was his next and his next. She danced around him, toying with him like an armsmaster—and when his first fury of increasingly frantic attacks started to falter along with his wind, she disarmed him with casual ease.
And slid her blade past his frantically snatched-out daggers and into his throat, an unruffled moment later.
Before he was finished falling and dying, she’d strolled to the limp, gory mess that was Verrin and had cut a ring of keys from his belt. Wiping her sword clean on a dry part of his breeches, she tossed the ring of keys through its bars to Marlin, saluted him with her blade—as he and his hirelings gaped at her, aghast—and stepped back between the casks again.
Who—who was that? The Silent Shadow? Some long-dead agent controlled by another noble House?
“I’ll be long gone by the time you get that gate up,” Targrael told the young noble mockingly as she continued to retreat into the shadows. “Waste no time hunting me, for you’ll not find me. Nor is there really any need to hunt me. As you can see, I’m dead already.”
It took Marlin some time to manage to swallow, find his voice, and dare to ask, “W-who are you?”
He was answered from deep darkness far away across the cellar by coldly mocking laughter.
Manshoon chuckled despite himself. Gods, but she was evil. He should be able to resist this sort of behavior, all this mocking, prancing villainy, when his mind was riding and commanding hers, but … somehow …
She enjoyed it so and made him enjoy it. More than he had in centuries.
Centuries … too many passing years, drifting past darker and darker, too many friends and lovers and useful allies gone with them …
Enough reverie. To work again.
To this little minx Targrael …
Still smiling, he bent his mind once more upon hers, in firm command, and felt her heed and obey.
Back to your tomb, Lady Dark Armor. Until just the right moment to take care of the Lords Ganrahast and Vainrence.
It would not be long in coming.
In the meantime, there were two other minds