Hand of Fire - Ed Greenwood [44]
There was just time for a skewer of fried arnhake and jellied eel ere he tied the bell-cords across the wagon-flaps and took his rest for the night. Being searched was such hungry work.
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"Lady," said the softly menacing voice behind the knife that gleamed in front of her throat, "am I glad to see you!"
"Not half so much," Sharantyr replied with a smile, seizing the thief's wrist and jerking hard down and toward her, so that his deadly blade plunged hiltdeep into her breast – without sound or resistance, as if she was a ghost, or a woman made of smoke – and slipping a noose of her stonemaiden around his neck,
"as I am gladdened, sirrah, to see you".
Startled eyes stared at her, eyes bulged, and lingers clawed at the tightening cord. A knee shot up desperately between her legs to strike her armored codpiece with numbing force. Numbing for the thief, that is. A loop of her cord captured his knife-wrist even more tightly than it held his throat, and after a moment of frenzied and futile struggle, he sagged limply in her grasp. He was helpless, and they both knew it.
"My delight is so sharp and swift, good sir," the lady ranger continued sweetly, "because you're going to take me to see Belgon Bradraskor – or the Master of the Shadows, if you prefer his, ah, professional title."
The thief s pleading eyes managed to convey even deeper desperation, and he clawed and wrenched at her arms in vain. This shapely woman was much stronger than she looked… and much stronger than he was.
Sharantyr gave him another, almost impish smile and tweaked the cord she was holding to remind him wordlessly that she knew just how much air he was getting and could cut off his supply – and his life with it – at any time.
"I don't want to hurt you," she told the strangling man, "and I don't want to harm Belgon. In fact, if you give him my name, I believe he'll be pleased indeed to see me. Now, can you take me to him, or are you… expendable?"
By a swift and rising series of panting sobs and nods the thief managed to convey his ability and deeply earnest willingness to guide this woman, whom blades couldn't touch, anywhere she pleased, this very moment, and to any number of Masters of Shadows she might care to see.
Sharantyr smiled still more broadly and did something to his wrist that made his fingers burn and his knife clatter to the ground. "Remember," she purred, making it clink on the cobblestones with the toe of her boot, "that I could have slain you and did not. I want no further unpleasantness between us.
Consider me a mistake who decided to be merciful to you."
He nodded, eyes very wide, and she slipped around behind him like a graceful ghost and tightened the stonemaiden around his throat in a slip-knot, so that it made a leash. She slipped another of its cords around one of his legs below the knee and let it hang loose. If he tried to run, it could be pulled tight to trip him in an instant.
"My name is Tessaril Winter," she purred. "What's yours?"
"Ta – Taber, l-lady."
The cord around his neck tightened suddenly, leaving him with no air at all. He sobbed, reeled as the night grew darker around him… then the cord loosened, and he could breathe again.
"No, no," that gentle voice said, deep with sadness and disappointment, "I want your real name."
"B-Besmer, lady."
"Lady -?"The cord twitched, warningly.
"Lady Winter!" he said hastily. "Lady Tessaril Winter."
"That's much better, Besmer," the lady behind him said approvingly. "We both grow older, though, and so doth the night – a night I could be spending with my friend Belgon."
"Y-yes?"
"Guide me,"