Hand of Fire - Ed Greenwood [122]
One promptly bolted, and that set them all off, Sharantyr using her utmost strength to get the head of her chosen mount around the way she wanted it to go.
By the time the brigands inside the wagon had finished shouting profane queries and emerged from their plundering, Sharantyr of Shadowdale was riding hard along the road. North, in pursuit of Shandril Shessair – and spellfire.
It had evidently been years since this large thunderhooves had felt a rider on its back, and though she undoubtedly weighed less than the wagons it pulled, she was less than welcome. It tossed its head and tried to reach around and bite her almost ceaselessly as the hills rose and fell beneath its hooves. Its ungainly gait started out weary and progressed through plodding to staggering until eventually Sharantyr tired of its plaintive snorting and tottering progress and swung herself down from its back.
She patted its flank as it tried a half-hearted kick in her direction and told it, "Sorry, old bones. Take your ease… until the wolves find you, I guess. Still, you'd soon be – roasting over a brigand fire if you weren't free now."
She ran a few steps to get clear of its hooves and teeth, then resumed walking.
When the ranger glanced back at it, the wagon-horse gave her a choice look and started plodding along after her. Sharantyr smiled, grinned, and led the way.
North, toward spellfire – and trouble, if she knew anything about Shandril.
The horse sighed heavily, saving her the trouble.
*******
The merchant who was really a Red Wizard knew he was working alone now, and the farther he got from Triel, the less aid he could call on. The time was as right as it would ever be. He also knew just which of the guards hired in Triel could be relied upon to see nothing when he emerged from his wagon at night to cast a spell, such as the one he was weaving now.
The plateau resembled a gigantic tilted coin, high side nigh the road and low side to the west, so all he'd had to do was get himself to the row of rocks overlooking the road and the slumber-gas created by his spell would drift down over the entire camp.
Sleeping men stop few wizards, and men unable to awaken stop even fewer. Put a dagger through the right throats, and spellfire might be his very soon.
"Asarandu? he said carefully, ending the incantation, and spread his arms wide. From them flowed a greenish, purplish gas, billowing like smoke from a quickening fire, but heavy, tumbling to the ground in front of him. It built back up to above his head before it started to drift west, downslope, toward the wagons.
Now, if the wind would just hold off and none of the guards not already in his purse raised the alarm too soon…
He strolled back to his wagon as if nothing was amiss – and indeed, to his lungs there was no spellspun gas at all – and waited there, drawn dagger hidden in his sleeve. No one cried out, no errant breeze arose. This was going to work!
A guard took two bored steps away from a wagon, then crumpled and fell headlong to the ground. Over yonder, another.
Yes. Soon, now…
Two guards turned their heads, hearing the thump of another hitting the ground. They peered, shrugged and sagged in unison, muttered banter forgotten.
The wizard stepped cautiously to where he could look across the camp. The spellfire wench was in Voldovan's wagon, and it sported four guards at its corners, one of them taking Red Wizard coins.
There was no point in slitting throats here, there, and everywhere across the caravan. The two head guards and Voldovan himself should be his first victims, then anyone not asleep or trying to cast a spell – Shandril's mate last, in case he should be needed as a hostage to her good behavior.
One of the guards by the wagon fell over, then another. The third asked them sharply what was wrong before falling