Elminster's Daughter - Ed Greenwood [82]
No one watched its next journey. The remaining pair of slayers burst forward from the table, racing to the attack. The Lady Ambrur's only reaction was to take another sip of wine.
One of her attackers plucked blades from all over his clothing as he came, snatching and hurling a storm of steel. Daggers bit at empty air, spinning over the bed to clatter and slide on the floor of the great hall-for the Lady Ambrur all of a sudden wasn't there.
She appeared by the table, glass still raised to her lips, and coolly triggered her wand. Its silvery beam lashed out to become a crimson blast of exploding head and brains where it touched the slayer who hadn't yet lightened his load of weaponry.
Headless and staggering, that black-garbed corpse wobbled forward to a loose-limbed collapse onto the floor.
The surviving slayer whirled with a snarl-and sprang aside as the wand fired again, leaping and rolling free of harm.
Swift and agile, he launched himself into an attack that dodged this way and that, avoiding another wand-blast. Like the wind he raced forward, to bring himself within reach of the noblewoman-
–Who blinked away once more. The black-hooded slayer did not freeze but kept running and dodging as he looked for her, and that saved him from the next bite of her wand, which blew apart a large wyrmtongue-leaf plant with its urn as he darted aside.
The wand spat again, striking aside a dagger he'd hurled in a flash of sparks. Tasmurand the Slayer put his entire shoulder and balance into another swift throw, right behind that first fang.
His reward was a burst of silver sparks. Lady Ambrur gave him a nod and a smile as she let the ruined wand tumble from her hand. She saluted him with her nearly empty tallglass and… blinked into nothingness again.
She reappeared on a landing of the ornate stair that swept up from beside the high table, linking the vast floor of the hall with-he glanced up-a promenade balcony that encircled the entire chamber high above where he stood.
"Shall we dance?" she asked archly, for all Faerun as if she was the hunter and not the hunted. With a snarl Tasmurand leaped for the steps, still dodging and darting in case she snatched out another wand and sprayed the stair.
Lady Ambrur worked a spell instead, performing the gestures with flourishes like a cat at play. It bathed her slayer in purple flame when he was still four running strides from putting his blade through her.
Tasmurand roared in fear and frantic effort-but no pain came, and nothing seemed to happen except… she vanished again, leaving him rushing onto an empty landing. He slashed furiously at the empty air anyway, cleaving nothing with raging speed.
"I'm up here," she called pleasantly, as if guiding a guest who was a long-established friend, and the slayer looked up again to see the noblewoman smiling down at him over the balcony rail. He set his teeth and sprinted up the second flight of steps because it was all he could do, really. Tasmurand gasped for air as he sped upward, wondering fearfully what that purple glow magic had been and when he'd feel its effects.
The Lady of Haelithtorntowers watched his approach calmly, relaxing so far as to cross her arms on the balcony rail and lean forward to watch, like a Marsemban lass appraising the sweaty brawn of stripped-to-the-waist dockloaders at work.
To Joysil's eyes, her last spell had worked just fine. Right now it was telling her that her visitor bore precisely three enchantments upon his person: two on daggers-one at belt, one in right boot-and a third within a metal vial inside his left boot. Almost certainly a potion of healing.
Fair enough. Unhurriedly Joysil Ambrur twisted one of the rings she wore and let its power sing out to enshroud her in a protective shield that could be heard-as the faint, high-pitched singing continued-more than it could be seen. She shifted around to sit at ease on and along the rail, bringing a shapely leg up and lounging back on one arm like an avid lass seeking to lure suitors, tossing her head