Hand of Fire - Ed Greenwood [40]
"Tie his hands ere he wakes!"
Horsehair sizzled and stank right under her nose as stray spellfire licked along manes. The snorting horses made sounds very like a human's frightened sob and bolted.
Shandril sighed and wasted spellfire on a huge roiling cloud right in front of them that brought them to an abrupt, rearing halt – just long enough for her to snatch Thorst's nearest dagger out of its sheath and bring its point stabbing down on one tightstretched harness strap.
Worn leather parted like damp parchment, leaving one file of horses nearly free. Side-straps and lead reins still held the two beasts to their fellows, but only one harness-root was still attached to the wagon. It slewed around sharply as those stilltethered horses tried to turn away from the, flames and run hard away.
A few crossbow bolts came leaping out of the flames roiling in the air around her, and one of them thudded into the flank of a horse. It shrieked, bucked, and tried to twist away from the sudden fire in its side. Shandril's world became a confusion of flying reins and frightened horses.
Snarling, she stood up and determinedly aimed spellfire down both sides of the road, as low among the tree trunks as she could, seeking to slay or drive away whoever was firing at her. Leaves melted away into ash, and charred branches crumbled and fell into dying flames.
There were shouts from the trees and a scrambling of men. Shandril hurled fire wherever she saw movement, her flames momentarily outlining men convulsed with pain and clawing at the air, ere they screamed and fell.
"Around!" she gasped in Thorst's ear. "We must turn the wagon around!"
"What?" he gasped faintly, clawing at reins that were no longer there, "have you no spells for that? You do fire well enough!"
Shandril growled wordless frustration at him and clung to the rail as the horses kicked and bucked, dragging the ready-wagon a little farther around to the left. The maid from Highmoon peered this way and that into the trees, but saw no more lurking men.
As she risked leaning out of the wagon to look back at the cleft and the confusion of wagons and running men there, a horn called, close and loud, in the trees.
It was promptly answered by another back down the road, on the far side of the crag.
Galloping hooves thudded briefly, receding back to the south, and a lot of the shouting suddenly stopped. No more lances or bolts came streaking through the air, and after all the screaming and clang of steel, things seemed very quiet. Here and there charred and smoking wood snapped as it cooled, men and horses groaned… and a distant torrent of words drew swiftly nearer.
It was Orthil Voldovan, still riding hard but now with three grim guards beside and behind him. His whip was doubled in one hand, and there was a long, notched and bright-scarred sword in the other.
"Nameless whoreson dogs of outlaws, to despoil and slaughter and snatch away the work and coin of hardworking folk! Pox and pestilence upon them, Talona's claws rake their vitals, Talos send them storms so they sleep not, and Beshaba make their every adventure go awry, and their every chance be lost and ruined! Ho, fire witch! Hast left me any forest, ahead? Or a blaze to smoke us all out and send us fleeing for our skins back south into the toils of those carrion wolves?"
"Hail and well met, Orthil," Shandril said grimly, standing up on her perch. "We've a horse that took a bolt here! Can you do anything for it – talk it to sleep, perchance?"
One of the guards snorted back a guffaw, and the others visibly relaxed, one of them lowering a crossbow that Shandril hadn't even noticed.
"How's Thorst?" the caravan master barked.
"How's my Narm?".
"I asked ye a – he's fine, he's with Narbuth; we stopped him running through the battle to find ye.
He'll be along soon. Now, how's Thorst?"
"Not good," Shandril told him. "Shoulder torn open