Hand of Fire - Ed Greenwood [33]
He shook his head and turned, hard-eyed, to glare at Shandril, then at Narm. He said bluntly, "Don't be a curse on me, now. This run's hard enough without deaths at every stop. Though I know what ye can do if 'tis needful, I also know what the lads'll do to ye if there're more slayings with no slayers before us… or if the killings go on."
They were almost at the wagons when a drover came running out of the camp to meet them, eyes a little wild. "Spells in one of the wagons, Orthil! Two dead, at least, and 'tis still burning – folk in the wagons around all shouting that they saw this man run off into the woods or that one, or five come in, or a dozen devils dancing about with tails awaving!"
Voldovan quickened his pace into a run. Narm and Shandril, with all the other guards, stayed with him.
As they came out into the sunlight and a sea of frightened faces, the caravan master looked back at Narm and Shandril again. "Don't curse me," he said in a voice of dark promise. "I'm warning ye."
"Orthil," one of the guards snarled from right behind Narm. "What shall we do with these two?"
Voldovan waved a dismissive hand the size of a shovel. "Nothing," he snapped, "for now."
6: Wild Rides
After the bear and the behir we come to the brigand.
Vermin, the lot of them! Almost as black and strangling a plague upon honest trade as marauding ores in summer, or wolves in winter – or caravanmasters any day of the year.
Srusstakur Thond, Master Mapmaker
Know and Vanquish Thy Foe
Year of the Saddle
"One wizard I know about," Orthil Voldovan snapped, "but he was with me – with all of us, and plenty of us watching him suspiciously, too. I ask all of my clients if anyone knows spells or has a wand along, and they all stare at me like so many moonfaced, innocent sheep, and I know three or four of them at least are lying. Mayhap a dozen – or all of them! We've no time to spare for searches and hot words and beating truth out of anyone, but if this goes on, we'll make time. Right now, we must be at Face Crag by nightfall, or the dark'll catch us strung out along the road in the Blackrocks, and it won't matter who slaughtered who in a wagon, because we'll have ores and goblins and probably ghouls, too, clawing and hacking and stabbing at us as they please, up and down the wagon line! Move, you motherless jacks! Whip the beasts, and if any wagon lags, pass it by and keep on!"
The caravan master waved at the road ahead, his gesture vicious with anger, and guards spurred away obediently. Voldovan raised his eyes to Shandril and said grimly, "I didn't gather the lads here because ye needed to hear, but because I wanted them all to know ye heard. Take great care, for thy own safety, that this wagon slows not and that nothing ill befalls Thorst here."
"Voldovan," Shandril said with a sigh, "I want to go on living as much as you do. I mean no one in the world any ill, so long as they leave me alone. I get so tired of folk not believing that."
"Tired enough to cook them where they stand, hey?
Well, we may need ye to do just that to someone ere we make Waterdeep – but mind ye warn me first, and don't go blasting folk down whenever I'm looking elsewhere." The caravan master turned his own horse away, and Shandril sighed, felt the weight of someone else's cold gaze, and looked down – right into the eyes of Thorst.
"The Master told us you were some sort of firemage," he whispered, his glare dark with anger, "and you look like a little lass who should be in a kitchen somewhere, or washing out chambers in an inn.
You've no spellbooks along, no wand I've seen, so what are you, really?"
He shifted his hand on the reins so the cloak on his lap fell away