Elminster_ The Making of a Mage - Ed Greenwood [61]
"Hold, damn ye!" Minter reached for a fleeing foot, missed, and got hold of an ankle. He pulled. A vainly struggling Peeryst clawed at the sheets and managed to drag them off his wife, who knelt on the bed and screamed again, piercingly. Across the room, a glass figurine shattered, causing the black-gloved hand that had been reaching up from behind the lounge for it to withdraw, with a hasty curse.
Peeryst Trumpettower was hauled from the bed to bounce and then sprawl on the carpet at Minter's feet, gibbering in fear.
Minter flipped him over, reflecting briefly on how ridiculous other naked men look, and snarled, "Where'd she go?" He waved his dagger under the man's nose for effect.
"Wh-Who?" Peeryst shrieked.
Minter pointed with his blade at the whirlwind that was his partner Isparla, who was plucking gem-coffers and silken underthings from the floor and tables around, and tossing them all onto one of the sheets on the floor. As they watched, she scooped up the stag, grunted in surprise under its weight, staggered off-balance, slipped on the carpet, and fell on both elbows atop the piled loot. She moaned in pain-and the stag in her grasp slipped free and thumped down sideways onto one of her hands. She grunted again, louder.
"Another like her, who came in before us!" Minter growled, indicating his partner.
"U-Under the wardrobe," Peeryst panted, pointing. "It fell on her."
Minter turned and saw a ribbon of dark blood running from under the wardrobe, which was as large-and probably as heavy-as a long-haul wagon. He shuddered. He kept on shuddering, all the way to the floor, as a figure rose from under the bed and brought a perfume-bottle down on his head.
Isparla clambered to her feet, saw the figure with the shards of the perfume bottle in his hand, obligingly spat, "Velvets! Again!" and threw her dagger. The figure obediently dived back behind the bed, and the dagger flashed harmlessly across the room. A titanic sneeze came from behind the bed.
Nanue screamed again-and the woman in black leathers slapped her across the face, backhanded, as she leapt past, grabbing for the elusive sneezing figure. She tripped over the stag in her haste, hopped, and moaned in pain. The stag thumped over onto its other side, and a shard of diamond broke off it.
The mysterious person behind the bed was curled up and shaking in the throes of uncontrollable sneezing, but managed to drive the broken perfume bottle into the Moonclaws woman's face, which she had just stuck around behind the bed. Isparla recoiled, rearing up on the bed, and Nanue slapped her back, hard.
Her masked head whipped around. She snarled, leaned forward, and there was a meaty smack as her face met the brass chamberpot that Peeryst's shaking hands had just swept upward.
Isparla collapsed silently across the bed. Nanue, kneeling beside her, saw blood flowing from the masked woman's mouth onto the silken sheets, and helpfully screamed again.
Peeryst saw what he'd done, threw the chamberpot down in horror-there was a sharp crack as it struck the stag and then a hollow metallic gonging when it skipped across the room and rolled to a stop-and fled across the room, howling. A dark figure burst up from behind the lounge and sprinted to intercept him.
Peeryst was two running paces from the safety of the bedchamber door when the figure caught up with him. They crashed into the door together; it boomed, burst open from the impact, and was instantly smashed shut again by their falling bodies.
*****
Downstairs, the befurred and bejeweled elders of both families heard the crash, raised their eyebrows at each other, and poured another toast.
"Well," Janatha Glarmeir said brightly, staring around as color rose prettily into her cheeks, "they certainly seem to be… hitting it off, don't they?"
"Hitting sounds like it would be about right," Darrigo Trumpettower agreed with a guffaw, leering at her. "I remember my second wife was like that…"