Hand of Fire - Ed Greenwood [62]
Narm, what are we going to do?"
Her husband gave her a helpless smile. "Well," he said brightly, "uh…"
As so often happens to those who dally, Faerun decided things for them. There was a sudden chaos of meaty, wagon-shaking thuds, a horrible wet spraying sound, and their wagon suddenly tilted.
Shan wrapped herself around Narm with a little scream as the world turned upside down several times.
Wood was shrieking and splintering all around them as a lot of heavy things wreathed in scratchy hay fell on them, one after another, and the wagon rolled.
The boards of the walls and floor shuddered, bulged, buckled, and twisted. There was a deafening crash that sent things flying or tumbling all over the shattered wagon, another unearthly scream… and silence.
Silence soon filled by shouts and wagon rumblings and more screams, punctuated by the hissing and humming of crossbow bolts very close by. Narm muttered something wordless and tried to shift himself from under his lady and seemingly dozens of coffers and haybales and other unidentified but sharp items.
Shandril clutched at him and hissed, "Lie still. For now we play dead and wait. Let someone else be hero – and crossbow target – for a change."
Narm opened his mouth to protest, stared into her fierce gaze, and nodded.
There were more loud and ground-shaking crashes.
Drovers were dragged past spewing steady streams of heartfelt curses ere the rumblings of moving wagons died away. Voldovan's caravan was coming to a halt – right in the closing jaws of whichever wolves were firing all of those crossbows from the trees.
Narm heaved, trying to move from under something that was numbing his left leg. "Lie still!" Shandril snarled into his ear.
"Then get that chest or whatever it is off my foot," her husband snarled right back at her. "I'm all wet down that leg, too. Am I bleeding?"
Shan shifted atop him, twisting around, and he felt her hands running gently along his leg, exploring…
Someone crashed through branches and rustling leaves very close by, someone else followed, breathing heavily, and from farther off came the clang of sword on sword – fast, furious hacking that soon ended with a despairing cry and gurgling sounds.
The hum and zip of crossbow bolts slackened, and the crashings of running feet and singing of swords upon swords swiftly rose to an everpresent din on all sides of the upturned ready-wagon.
Narm felt the heavy thing pinning his ankle thrust aside and quickly pulled his foot away. Shandril crawled back up him again in the tumbled gloom, and murmured into his chest, "Just water. A cask split – 'tis all wet, back there."
"What if someone puts a torch to all of this? We've got to – "
"We've got to lie still, love lord of mine. If flames do come, I can pull them into me and so both quench them and warm my spellfire. We're in what passes for a ditch, and by the sounds of it there are plenty of other crashed wagons. Now, quiet. We're dead, remember?"
"You make it hard to bear in mind," Narm told her with a smile, as Shan wormed her way into his arms and made herself comfortable. They lay together and listened to the sounds of men dying all around them.
"Whose wagon's this?" an unfamiliar voice gasped suddenly, startlingly close.
"Voldovan's – one of his ready-wagons. Hmmph! I guess the fire-witch wasn't such a world-searing menace after all." 'This was hers? Gods! Thender told us half Faerun is after her!"
"Not any more. Not unless they're the sort of crazed robe-wearers who hunt folk down after they're dead, to twist them into unlife to menace us all for an extra lingering lifetime or two! There's Voldovan – see?
All the bolts'll be flying his way, now. Come on!
Back to…"
The voice faded so swiftly that the sounds of frantically