Shadows of Doom - Ed Greenwood [45]
Sharantyr looked at him and then at what was left of a man on the floor. She shivered for just a moment, then asked steadily, "The wand? What sort is this one?"
Elminster sighed. "Well, it can make things larger or smaller. If we had a tenday or two to spare searching this place, the keep, and any other haunts this mala-spell may have had, I suspect we'd find all manner of missing coins, gems, and other finery made very small. We might also find argumentative or very beautiful folk that the guard stopped, shrunk to the size of thy smallest finger." Sharantyr stared at him, eyes large and round. "What a monster!" she hissed, looking around the hut as if every drawer and corner held coiled snakes waiting to leap out at her with hungry fangs.
Elminster shrugged. "Ever wonder why there are more evil mages than good ones?" he asked. As he turned to go, he added quietly, "It's because power like that makes it so hideously easy to rule all about ye. Remember always, there is no such thing as a mage that is not dangerous." With a grunt of satisfaction, he took a handful of dusty, well-stoppered glass vials from an earthen jar by the door. "Healing quaffs," he said. "The only thing I dare spare the time to take. Let's be off, lass, before thy feared counterblow comes from the keep."
He stepped out through the curtain and paused. "Ye might pick up all the food ye can find-and wine, for that matter." He looked out, seemed satisfied, and added, "Never forget the food. Coins, now, are hard on the digestion and don't seem to restore a man like simple bread and cheese do."
"Women," his companion told him dryly, "are no different. And my name's Sharantyr, 'lad.' " She met his eyes challengingly.
Elminster laughed and replied, "My apologies, Sharantyr. Now hurry, will ye? I'll be giving this wand to one of the folk here, to hide away and use to free shrunken friends later."
A few hurried breaths later, they vanished back into the woods, Sharantyr's belt heavier by eleven daggers she'd stripped from the fallen Wolves.
It seemed they'd left these trees very long ago, but up the road, the fat Sembian merchant in newly slit-into-rags clothing could still be seen, sweating pounds off his rotund frame as he fretted, clambered, and pleaded to get his wine-wagons safely away before more guards arrived looking for someone to blame for the fate of their comrades lying sprawled bloodily in the dust of the road. Sharantyr cast a last look around, found herself grinning, and followed the Old Mage into the concealing green depths of the woods.
* * * * *
Belaerus shook his head. "Who'd a' thought it?" he said, staring at the bodies sprawled all around. "Just one old man."
Durvin the cellarer slid the wand he'd just been given into his boot and looked at his friend sharply. "I saw only a young man, a man with a long beard, braver than we. Young enough and brave enough to fight an entire guard of Wolves for the dale. To win back our homes for us."
Belaerus nodded hastily. "Aye, brave enough."
"Brave enough," echoed another merchant, and there were nods and murmurs there on the road. Men straightened and set their jaws. Durvin remembered old words, long unsung, and began, his rough voice rumbling loud along the road.
Six breaths later, when mounted, full-armored Wolves swarmed out of the keep and thundered down the road like a black wind, they found men with fierce, hard eyes and no fear in their faces standing amid the black-armored bodies on the road, singing the old Shieldsong of the High Dale.
* * * * *
Men rode hard that day, galloping importantly here and there about the dale. Longspear's message riders, hard eyed and quick, spurred from castle to keep and from keep to posts and barracks. In their wake, the aroused Wolves gave the High Dale a waiting air of armed alertness.
Bands of soldiers rode the roads, peered into inn rooms and farm kitchens to check again what had been checked many times