Hand of Fire - Ed Greenwood [12]
"W-what?" Narm quavered, trying to sound like a middle-aged, fat, and thoroughly frightened woman – and succeeding far too well. One of the problems with acting scared was that you found, even after a few moments, that you really were.
"W-we have nothing," he added, letting his hand drift nearer to his belt-dagger – but steel flashed, his fingertips burned and then went cool… and when he moved his hand, it trailed blood from two of his fingers.
"Don't try that again," the third brigand said bluntly.
"Just stand still, and we'll take what we want."
They stepped forward in unison, and Narm feigned mewing terror and trembled his way back from them.
"Don't trouble about your virtue," the second brigand said, the shortest one. "You're not exactly… handsome, hey? Just stay still – we can rob your corpse with far less trouble than it takes to run after you, or listen to you screaming."
The tallest brigand was looming over Shandril.
Narm cast a quick glance at him and saw that a sword had long ago left a long, disfiguring white scar across the man's face. From brow to cheek it ran and had turned the eye it crossed much larger and darker than the man's other eye – which was cold, steady, and a deep brown in hue.
Shandril went to her knees – in reverence, it seemed, rather than fear, and stared up into those mismatched eyes with an expression of awe on her fat and weathered face. "The man with different eyes!" she gasped. "At last!" The brigands frowned at her in unison. "What foolery's this?" the second one snapped.
"You are the one foretold," Shandril said, in a voice that trembled with excitement. "I must aid you in any way I can!" She fumbled with the thin purse at her belt, got it undone, and thrust it up at him. "Take all I have, Exalted One!" she pleaded, reaching up for him with trembling fingers – as Narm hastily went to his knees beside her. "Take me!"
"Exalted One, eh?" the brigand growled slowly, and then his teeth flashed in a wondering grin. "Well, then." He pointed at Shandril's bodice, and the fat priestess hastily started to tear it open, tugging at its laces. The brigand went to his own knees, reaching for her.
Narm hesitantly reached out for the man, too – only to earn the curt command, "See to my fellows.
Surrender yourself to them!"
Grinning, the other two brigands loomed over Narm.
"Turn around, you ugly sow," the third one said. "On your knees, mind! I don't want to have t – "
Shandril judged them close enough. At last – she smiled up into the face of the brigand with the mismatched eyes – and blasted him to scorched, tumbling bones. The other two brigands barely had time to snarl out startled oaths before they lacked heads to say anything with at all. Smoking, the headless corpses reeled back and toppled away from Narm.
"Shan," the young wizard murmured urgently, as he shrank away from loosely bouncing brigand boot heels. "Your seeming… 'tis gone. I can see… the real you."
"I know," Shandril sighed, "but it couldn't be helped.
These damned robes'll fall right off me now, too."
Narm frowned. "The ferry's only a hill or so away, and Tess – Lord Tessaril warned us how lawless Scornubel was."
"I'm not walking in there barefoot and naked,"
Shandril told him, "and priestesses of Chauntea don't keep slaves."
Narm frowned again, trying to hunt down memories.
Shandril watched them pass like shadows across his face and kept silent.
"But," her husband said slowly, remembering, "they do penances. I've seen them and asked why. For acts of waste and carelessness, like campfires that they let get out of control to scorch plants and trees and all."
"Meaning?"
"Your spare tunic – you can see through it if it's pulled over your head, yes?"
"So I go hooded, forbidden to speak, and you carry a switch to strike me if I do," Shandril said slowly. "I saw a priest of the Mother punished like that, once.
His hands were tied to his body, the rope crossed around and around him, with flowers and seed-heads stuck through