Elminster_ The Making of a Mage - Ed Greenwood [16]
"Horse," a second voice asked sourly, "or chopped armsman?"
They exchanged chuckles before proceeding down another passage, through a cavern where daggers of rock jutted from floor and ceiling like the frozen jaws of some great monster, to a shaft in which vivid red light glowed. A stout ladder led down the hole into a large cavern always wreathed in steam. The light and the vapor came from rocky clefts at its far end, where folk sat huddled in blankets or lay snoring. With each step, the dank air grew warmer until the weary warriors stood beside the scalding waters of the hot spring and welcoming hands reached up to pat or clasp theirs. They were home, in the place proudly called Lawless Castle.
It was a good place, furnished with heaped blankets and old cloaks. Dwarves had shown it to Helm Stoneblade long ago, and from time to time the outlaws still found firewood, prepared torches, or cases of quarrels left in the deeper side-passages, next to the privies the outlaws used. The wrinkled old outlaw woman Mauri had told El once that they'd never seen the dwarves, "But they want us here. The Stout Folk like anything that weakens the wizards, for they see their doom in men growing overstrong… We already outbreed them like rabbits, an' if ever we o'ermatch elven magic, they'll be staring at their graves…"
Now she looked up through her warts and bristles at the arriving band, grinned toothlessly at them, and said, "Food, valiant warriors?"
"Aye," Engarl joked, "and when we've feasted, we'll give ye some to replace it." He chuckled at his jest, but the dozen or so ragged outlaws awake around them only snorted sourly in reply; they'd no food left but four shriveled potatoes Mauri had kept safe in the filthy folds of her gargantuan bosom for the last two days, and had taken to chewing on the bitter glow-fungi to still aching stomachs while they waited for one of the bands to bring back meat.
Now they hustled to get a fire going and drag out the cooking frame of rusting sword blades woven together in a rough square. The band stamped the last snows from their boots and unwrapped their bloody bundles. Mauri leaned forward, slapping outlaw hands away to see what had been brought to her table.
Sargeth's band was the best; all of them knew that. El, the worst blade in it but the fastest on his feet, was glad to be a part of it and kept silent when his fellows fought or blustered. They were too cold and exhausted most of the winters to afford dispute among themselves. Once a wizard had found Wind Cavern and died in a hail of crossbow quarrels-but otherwise, Elminster had seen the hated mages of Athalantar little in the passing years; the outlaws struck at patrols of armsmen so often that the magelings had stopped riding with them.
A smiling, red-bearded rogue they all knew as Javal blew to make the fire catch and said with satisfaction, "We caught another two coming from Daera's earlier this night."
"That'd best be enough for a time," Sargeth grunted in reply as he and his companions shed gauntlets, headgear, and the heaviest of the furs and scraps of scavenged leather they wore, "or they'll think her night-comfort lasses are working with us an' burn them out, or lie ready with a mage to work our own trap on us."
Javal's smile went away. He made a face and nodded slowly. "Ye see the right road as usual, Sar."
Sargeth merely grunted and held his hands to the growing warmth of the kindling fire. Armsmen from Heldreth's Horn, the outermost fortress of Athalantar, had gone out to buy the favors of village lasses for as long as the keep had stood. A dozen summers back, some maids had converted an old farm into a house of pleasure and sold their guests wildflower wine besides; the outlaws had slain more than a few armsmen riding home from there drunken and alone. "Aye, 'tis best we leave the lustlorn alone for a time, an' catch 'em again in spring."
*****
"What, and leave them to slay and pillage until spring? How many more warriors can you afford to lose?"
The wizard's voice was