Hand of Fire - Ed Greenwood [141]
Storm turned and looked along Alustriel's pointing arm, to where the dwindling form of Arauntar was striding along in the moonlight.
"My thanks," she murmured, squeezing the High Lady's shoulder, and rose to follow the man walking alone into the night.
As she went, she cast a spell with a few swift, sure gestures, and tiny star-motes were born out of the darkness around her, shaping themselves into a harp in her hands. Its high, clear notes rose in her wake and went before her. Alustriel saw the Harper slow, then turn to see the source of the music.
He stopped and waited as the tall woman in leathers came striding toward him. Together, walking hip to hip like old friends, they went slowly down into the trees, walking on into the darkness until the harping could be heard no more.
Epilogue
"Shan! Shan!"
The wild cry arose in the cold dawn as if from great depths. Asper, blind and still half-asleep, had to lean over the man writhing under blankets she'd laid over him the night before to make sure the shout that had awakened her had come from his throat.
She stayed to soothe, but Narm Tamaraith sprang to his feet, hurling her aside without even noticing her, to stare wildly around into the mists cloaking the tilted, scorched campground.
The blackened skeletons of wagons leaned crazily here and there. Off in the distance, at the far corner of the camp, stood two intact wagons and a shifting, snorting group of close-hobbled horses, flanked by sleepy-eyed men who gripped drawn swords and stared back at him.
Narm's gaze went reluctantly to where there were no mists, above the rocks, to where a ball of white flame still spun in midair.
"No," he whimpered, staring at it, as warm and shapely arms embraced him from behind.
"She's gone to Mystra," Asper said into his ear. "She … spoke of you, ere she died."
"No!" Narm screamed. "Noooo!" He burst into tears and wrenched free, running wildly toward the whirling ball of flame.
"Too high to hurl yourself into," Asper murmured, pursuing him, "but a nasty fall from those rocks, if you hurl yourself!"
The young mage promptly stumbled and fell, and she toppled over him. Narm did not rise but lay on his face in a daze.
He did not know how long it was ere he found his feet again, and cared less, but as Narm sobbed and reached again for the softly spinning flames, a fat, unlovely, and unshaven figure wrapped in a blanket trudged up beside him and laid an iron hand on his shoulder.
"Nay, lad," Mirt growled, "don't. That's not the way of a hero. Heroes get up and go on, and endure.
Heroes remember fallen comrades and try to carry on with what they were striving for, ere they died.
Heroes keep at it."
Narm stared at him and screamed, "I suppose heroes don't cry, either?" Tears rose to choke him again, and he doubled over, weeping.
Mirt plucked Narm off his feet, swaying and staggering a little from the pain and stiffness of his wounds, and hugged him like a bear. "Ah, nay, lad, there you have it wrong again. 'Tis villains who feel no remorse. Heroes cry. Ah, yes."
In a tower far from where white flames spun in midair, a Red Wizard passed a weary hand over his eyes and let his scrying-crystal go dark. "So passes the spellfire-witch. Her fate surprises me not – but that she lasted this long does."
The dark-robed cleric across the table nodded. "This Year of the Prince has proved eventful indeed for all Faerun. Let us hope that relative peace will prevail next year. Our prayers seem to indicate thus."
"Oh?" the mage asked politely. Privately he thought that priests' prayers always indicated whatever the priests wanted them to, but he might need the support of this fool Indrel in time to come, so…
"The signs Lady Shar has sent her holy faithful match what Lord Bane indicates to us," Indrel of Bane said a trifle