Hand of Fire - Ed Greenwood [32]
Arauntar came creaking along through the brush with a wickedly curved sword in one hand and a handbow-gun in the other, all grim business now, moving up and down the widening ring of guards.
He gave Narm and Shandril a nod of approval because they'd heeded his earlier order to stay close together ("So pr'haps two dolts can serve as one fumbling guardsword") and passed on into the treegloom – to be followed, a few moments later, by Beldimarr.
Narm nearly choked in fear at the sudden, silent appearance of the second Harper, but Beldimarr gave him a calm nod, stepped around Shandril without saying anything, and stooped to duck under the fronds of a huge fern.
Then he froze as a low, blatting horn-call rose out of the woods ahead. "Trouble," he snapped, whirling back to Narm and Shandril. "Fall back straight that way, until you can see the wagons, an' then hold there until Orthil or one of us tells you different – or something you need to fight comes right at you!"
Without another word Beldimarr whirled back under the fern again and was gone. Narm and Shandril exchanged glances, then did as they'd been told, casting fearful glances around at the forest as they went. It seemed alive with snapping sounds and rustlings, now, but that could just be all the guards on the move, and not a foe.
Or it could be a lot of foes moving in as one.
After what seemed like a very long time, Orthil Voldovan came striding through' the trees to Narm and Shandril. "Either of ye driven horses harnessed to a wagon before?" he barked. He didn't wait for them to shake their heads but whirled around again, waving at them curtly to accompany him.
They had to run to keep up with the caravan master as he strode along through underbrush and through branches, obviously not caring if he was heard a hundred miles off or broke every bough that dared to hang in his path. They climbed a little tree-cloaked ridge and plunged down into a wooded hollow beyond it, where a grim ring of guards was standing looking down at something in their midst.
Someone was dead.
The guards parted as Voldovan stamped up to them, and he whirled to glare at Shandril and take her by the arm, to point down and ask, "Ye didn't have anything to do with this, now, did ye?"
Storstil would never grimace at Narbuth's babblings again. The drover lay huddled over a long, gnarled tree root where he'd obviously sat down to relieve himself, a smokeweed pouch and a broken clay pipe beside him, his distinctive red-trimmed, dun-hued tunic strewn with spilled smokeweed. His head was missing – burnt right away to a scattering of ash.
Narm swallowed and turned swiftly away, to walk a few blind steps through the trees. Shandril went white, swayed in Orthil's grip, then managed to say faintly, "No. No, Orthil, I did not."
The caravan master sighed. "So Arauntar said – good it was for ye that he went from the two of ye on to Pelgryn and then Thorst before finding… this. Better for ye that Pel and Thorst were always between here and where ye were sent – and saw ye not." He turned away, and said over his shoulder, "Leave him for the wolves – after ye search him, Beldimarr, to make sure our Storstil wasn't carrying any secrets that might have made someone slay him. Bring boots, belt, all pouches and weapons, as usual.
Thorst, ye're a drover now."
Thorst looked up at Shandril sharply, as if measuring her as a foe in a rocking, pitching wagon, then spat into the dead leaves and nodded without saying anything, "With me," Voldovan ordered Narm and Shandril, as he turned to stamp back toward the wagons.
Other guards fell in around them, and they'd