Elminster's Daughter - Ed Greenwood [105]
He was trying to frame the word "run" with his mouth and call it out to Surth, somewhere behind him, but…
The War Wizard hit the ground with a grunt and bounced hard, rod flying away into the shrubs. His body settled and lay still, limp and silent, eyes closed.
Trembling with fear, Malakar Surth could see that much of the man through the slit of his almost-shut eyelids. Bezrar was still screaming through the trees, his cries echoing weirdly, and only the deaf could hope to avoid noticing the sound Bez was making. "No more wizards, ever! No more dealings with spellhurlers, oh no! I told Surth, I told him! No! No magic, not for any price! No no no NO!"
Surth grimaced. With that racket this "Brorm" and probably some other wizards couldn't fail to be here soon, all right-probably a lot of other wizards. He had to leave. He had to leave now.
The fallen War Wizard groaned and moved one hand, eyelids flickering. In sudden terror Surth burst to his feet and ran right over the man.
He might have made it cleanly over the Cormyrean, but the gray-haired wizard flung up one hand blindly, clawing the air for balance. Surth tripped on it and went sprawling.
Clawing at moss and dirt, never slowing, he found his feet again with a frantic mew of fear and ran on, pelting down the trail Bezrar was still shouting his distant way along.
Pheldemar of the Fireballs groaned again, shook his numbed hand, and rolled over. In the distance a head bobbed briefly in his field of view ere its fleeing owner raced around a bend in the trees and was gone behind a confusion of old, gnarled trunks.
Something gleamed on the trail in the mysterious man's wake, something that was winking back sunlight as it spun around and around, obviously just fallen.
Pheldemar got to his knees then up, took two unsteady steps, and saw his rod. He retrieved it, wincing at the new aches he'd acquired-gods, that man had hit him harder that the pony that had run over him when he was but a lad!-and plucked up the gewgaw from the trail.
It more than filled his hand: an oval of shiny-smooth, polished silver metal, with an shine of blue where it caught reflections. Thick in the middle and thinning to its edges like a dainty-pastry, and graven with… runes of power, yes, but not ones he'd seen before. This looked like Eastern script.
His eyes narrowed. He turned it over in his fingers, finding nothing illuminating on the obverse, and-the light dimmed behind him.
Pheldemar of the Fireballs made sure he turned around fast enough this time, in a crouch and with his rod ready-
Two helmed horrors were floating along the trail toward him. They came to smooth halts, their enchantments recognizing him as a commander rather than a foe. Pheldemar frowned down at the gewgaw in his hand, lifted his gaze to the nearest helmed horror-and on an impulse tossed the oval lazily at the chest of the armored sentinel.
The singing of his shielding, still in place around him, flared into a high shriek as the helmed horror blew apart, tumbling its still-intact fellow end-over-end through the air for an impressive distance. Shards of twisted silver-blue battle armor crashed and rattled off branches in all directions, pattering down through dancing leaves. Several pieces sped into his shield and were slowed to a snail-drift by it. Pheldemar stepped out of the way of the only one of these that was proceeding into a collision with him and peered at it with interest as it ghosted past.
The surviving helmed horror was upright again, flying impassively back toward the trail with its sword raised. Pheldemar looked at it then down at the wreckage at his feet, and lifted both of his eyebrows aloft in earnest.
"Well, now," he said thoughtfully, hand straying to the alarm-horn at his belt. "Well, now…"
* * * * *
Ah, Great Mystra? Goddess? Are you here, in my mind?
If so, what should I do?
Narnra smiled wryly. And if you're there, WHY are you lurking in my mind, without telling me? Are you a Cormyrean, perhaps?
She expected nothing but silence in reply to that.
Silence