Hand of Fire - Ed Greenwood [18]
Narm sighed. "So what would you have me do? Let you faint of hunger?"
"Narm," Shandril said in a low whisper, "I don't know. I haven't known 'the wise thing to do' since I first left Highmoon… and I don't seem to be getting any better at it. I – "
There was a sharp rapping at the door. Narm clapped a hand over Shandril's mouth for a moment and slid aside the little window shutter, asking in Thaerla of Chauntea's sniffiest voice, "Yes? You disturb us at prayer for a good reason?"
"You ordered evenfeast for two," a flat, unimpressed voice replied, "and I've brought it. Still interested?"
"Ah, now. That's different," Thaerla replied, unbolting the door again.
A hard-eyed guard entered, a loaded hand crossbow aimed at the ceiling and his other hand hovering above the hilt of his blade. Behind him came two chambermen in the maroon-and-gold uniform of the inn, bearing steaming dome-covered platters on their shoulders, followed by another guard. The foremost guard pulled on a carved knob on the wall beside the door that Narm had thought was mere decorative molding atop a pillar – and the whole affair came out of the wall as a table on edge.
Expertly he kicked it up and open, and stood back to let the servants set down their platters.
As they did so, the other guard came into the room, drew the door closed, and leveled another hand crossbow at Shandril – as the first guard brought his crossbow down to menace Narm, and the two chambermen lifted the domes away from their platters to reveal small plates of roast boar on skewers – and cocked hand crossbows of their own.
With swift deftness they removed wooden safety catches, laid darts into tracks, ready to fire, and pointed their weapons at the two priestesses.
"W-what is the meaning of this?" Thaerla of Chauntea quavered in outrage.
"It means," the first guard said pleasantly, "you're both going to get down on your faces on the floor in front of us, with no hurlings of spellfire or anything else – or well see if someone can wield spellfire with two crossbow darts in her throat. Or eyes, perhaps,"
"Down!" one of the chambermen snarled, gesturing with his crossbow. "On the floor now!"
"Which one of them is the spellfire wench, do you think?" the other guard muttered. "We could kill the other one and – "
Slowly the hooded, penitent priestess wavered uncertainly to her knees, and then down. After a swift glance at her, Thaerla followed, murmuring,
"ChaunteadeliverusChaunteasaveusChaunteakeepandpreserveusyourf aithful servants – "
"Silence! She's a god, so she's heard you. Now, enough!" the second guard snarled, stepping forward to aim his crossbow at Shandril's hooded head from only a few feet away. One of the chambermen did the same. The other two thrust their bows almost into Thaerla's face, and the priestess ended her supplication with a sort of peeping sound and sank floorward.
The spellfire came without warning, roaring forth with enough fury to snatch all four men off their feet and drive them, shattered to pulp, into the wall behind them – in the scant instants before that wall disappeared, and startled faces gaped at Shandril from the room beyond.
The owners of those faces promptly screamed, clawed aside their prop and bolts, and fled. Shandril rose with her face white and set but her eyes dark and terrible with rage.
From the window came a burst of fire and flame that flung iron bars like kindling into the room, to crash and bounce and roll. Shandril caught a glimpse of two faces outside, glaring in at her with expressions that were less than friendly – and as they aimed wands in through the roiling smoke and crumbling hole that had been the window, she gave them spellfire, blasting much of that wall away. u S-shan, easy" Narm hissed, still on his knees. "This building might come down on us if y – "
"So get us out of here," she said in a voice that trembled with rage. "Right now I just want to lash out at anyone in this Nine Hells of a city!"
Narm