Elminster_ The Making of a Mage - Ed Greenwood [21]
At the mouth of the ravine was a large trampled area trailing off into tracks of horses coming and leaving. The armsmen must have given their fellows up for dead. Elminster's shoulders sagged. He couldn't outrun horses in this deep snow. He and the other survivors were doomed… unless he gathered all the bows and blades he could, took them to the last outlaws waiting in the darkness, and made the caves a death-trap for the armsmen. Still, some would survive to identify the lair for later forays, and besides, what if they began by hurling a fire-spell into the caves? No.
Elminster flopped down onto a boulder to think. His sudden descent saved his life; a crossbow quarrel hummed just over his head to vanish into a snowbank close by. The youngest prince of Athalantar-perhaps the last prince of Athalantar-dived hastily off his boulder into the snow, face first, and floundered about in the chilly stuff until he was huddled behind the rock. He peered up whence the bolt had come.
Sure enough. High on the shoulder of the ridge, overlooking the ravine, was one armsman. They'd left one behind to pin the outlaws in their lair-or track them if they burst out in numbers. Of course-that was why so many of the outlaws wore crossbow quarrels!
Elminster sighed. Some crafty woods-warrior he was. Well, this armsman's horse would be somewhere just below him, around the other side of the ridge. If he could get to it and ride out of bowshot, in time…
Aye, and frogs might fly, too… Elminster frowned and tried to recall where the crossbows had fallen. That last armsman, who'd almost slain him… yes! He'd had three bows, and dropped them all after firing-in that thicket, there! El sighed once, and then started to crawl on his belly in the snow. A quarrel hissed past him again-close, but hopefully there'd be no time for a second shot.
"Tempus and Tyche aid me; I feel the need of both of ye," Elminster muttered, hurrying in the cold powdery snow. And then he was in the thicket, crouching low as a third crossbow bolt rattled snow off the trunks around him, cracked against a sapling, and fell broken into the snow somewhere off to the left. How different battle was from what the traveling minstrels sang about!
That thought brought him to the first and second bows, lying in deep snow. They were wet-but if the gods smiled would still fire true until they dried; they'd doubtless twist a bit then. A belt-box and the scattered quarrels it had held were strewn beside the bows.
Elminster calmly worked the dead man's windlass. From the ridge above, he could hear the faint clatter of the living armsman's own bow-winch. The third bow lay fallen a few paces in front of the thicket; Elminster didn't dare go out to get it. When both bows were loaded and full-ready, Elminster started to worm his way sideways in the thicket.
A quarrel dusted snow from a tree back where he'd been. Elminster grinned tightly and stepped forward for a good look. The armsman had just bobbed down to get his second bow. El set down one of his own and raised the other, aimed at where the man had sunk out of view.
The moment he saw movement there, he fired.
Tyche was with him. The man rose right into the path of the quarrel; Elminster heard his startled gasp, saw him throw his hands up, and watched the man's crossbow crash and cartwheel down the snow-clad slope into the ravine. A moment later, thudding heavily, the body of the armsman followed it.
Elminster unloaded his second bow, fired it empty to leave its workings loose, then snatched up all three bows and the belt-box of quarrels and hurried around the ridge.
There was the horse-alone and unguarded, thank the gods! In a few breaths, Elminster had tied his gear to a seemingly endless collection of saddle-straps and thongs, and was in the saddle, urging