Hand of Fire - Ed Greenwood [10]
"Both," she murmured, leaning forward. "If my Lord Khelben gets wind of this and goes rushing to her with risen magic raging around him, there can be no other outcome but spell-battle. Shandril will have no choice but to hurl spellfire or perish. In that sort of storm, who knows what will happen to her spellfire?"
Asper stared at her. “You mean it might go wild, and grow to something dragons and archwizards alike would flee from?"
Laeral nodded. "In that case we three – and Alustriel and all the other Harpers and Chosen we could muster – would be facing a new foe who might even overmatch our combined strength: Shandril Shessair."
*******
"If you stand still, Torm, just once, I'll mark you, I will!" Panting, Sharantyr swung away from the leaping thief's kick, flung her practice sword into the air before her, thrust her freed right hand to the ground in a spread-fingered claw, and on that pivot swept her body around. Her left hand caught her blade and stabbed it around ahead of her wheeling body, up and back. Torm was forced to fling himself over backward with an appreciative, "Woooa-i-" to avoid a broken nose. The blunt steel blade whistled past his throat as he went over, and the lithe ranger let her swing carry her up and around with it to land facing him in a ready crouch.
Torm's back flip carried him into a similar pose, facing her from seven feet or so away. They grinned at each other, panting and glistening with sweat, while Rathan deftly uncorked a bottle, held it up to catch the sparkling sunlight reflected from the breeze-stirred waters of the Tower Pool, and commented, "She almost had ye that time, Sir Clevertongue. Ye got her angry, and that's never a wise thing."
"Oh? See how beautiful she is when fury rides her?"
Torm returned airily, grinning and gesturing with his own blade. "How unwise can it be, for me to gaze upon – hah!"
He met Sharantyr's rush with a leap to one side, a deft parry, and a shrewd, perfectly timed thrust that only just grazed the ranger's breast as she ducked away, Sharantyr hissed something unladylike and gave ground, rubbing at where Torm's blade had struck home. Chuckling, the thief circled her, waving his own practice blade – unsharpened but as tempered and as heavy as his favorite long sword – tauntingly. "Who'll mark who, again, Lady Temper?"
With a tight smile she lunged, blade thrusting hard at his crotch. The moment his dancing parry struck her blade aside she leaped with it, coming around almost behind him and stabbing thrice. His blade caught the first two jabs – but the third reached just past him, and as Sharantyr sprawled into the grass, her blade was planted solidly amid the thief's ribs, hurling him over into a groaning fall beside her.
"Thy wine," Rathan told them both in an approving tone, "awaits – and I must say ye've earned it."
Gasping, the two slightly wounded, barefoot Knights rolled over to smile at each other. The dark, tightfitting homespun tunics and breeches they both wore were plastered to them with sweat, and with one accord they rose, sprinted across the trodden grass – and hurled themselves into the pool on their backs, sending a sheet of water over the stout priest of Tymora.
Rathan roared out a startled oath and arched himself over the goblets of wine protectively. The water was just crashing down over him when the door of the little leaning stone tower that Elminster of Shadowdale was pleased to call home swung open.
The Old Mage was elsewhere, as usual, but his scribe Lhaeo came out blinking into the sunlight, pursued by a wonderful kitchen smell, and sighed at the sight of the drenched, sputtering priest and the two hooting and chuckling heads bobbing in the pond beyond.
"My message," Lhaeo announced softly, arriving at the edge of the pool, "is for the Lady Sharantyr. Get me wet, and you don't eat."
There was a brief tumult in the water at his feet as Torm snatched Sharantyr's tunic up over her head – and then wrestled the lady ranger over backward, underwater.
Water roiled,