Shadows of Doom - Ed Greenwood [80]
Then she spun about, keeping low to race back to Elminster. Sharantyr only hoped she'd be in time.
15
A Short Search for Death
Elminster of Shadowdale sat against the parapet, staring down disgustedly at the quarrel in his chest. A dark, spreading stain had already reached his lap. With trembling fingers, Sharantyr snatched the healing ring off her own finger and jammed it onto one of his.
He chuckled weakly and patted her shoulder. "Here," he said, pressing the wand into her hand. "Ye try." He nodded his head to indicate the parapet walk behind her, and Sharantyr turned angrily to see another four Wolves coming toward them.
She drew back her lip in a low-throated snarl, locked eyes with the nearest Wolf, who was raising his bow clumsily, and spat out the word she'd heard Elminster use: "Baulgoss."
The smooth, unadorned stick of wood in her hand pulsed with force, and two white bolts, trailing tails as if they were tiny falling stars, leapt from it. They struck the man before he could do more than open his mouth to cry out.
He groaned, shuddered, and dropped his heavy weapon, its bolt smacking against the parapet and glancing off over the forecourt.
Sharantyr crouched low as the other Wolves stopped and hastily raised their bows. Then she dropped the wand into Elminster's lap and dragged him bodily along the walk and around the corner, shielding him with her own body. One quarrel flashed just over her shoulder, tearing her leathers and leaving blood and burning pain in its wake, and another cracked hard off the parapet to the right. They were safely around the corner when the third quarrel struck stone somewhere. Elminster was shaking in pain, teeth clenched. Sharantyr had time only to pat him on the shoulder before she sprang up and ran, bent double, along the parapet walk to the nearest fallen Wolves. There had been one or two with shields… ah!
She tore a shield from an unfeeling, limp arm, donned it, and hurried back to the fallen Sage of Shadowdale. Snatching up the wand, she held the shield ready and ran back around the corner.
She heard a shout, and the shield shuddered under a heavy blow. The head of a quarrel appeared beside her arm. Had she not been holding the shield well in front of her, it might have pierced her breast. Sharantyr snarled and dodged against the parapet, risking a lowered shield for an instant, to look.
At least one other crossbow was ready, but she'd have no time to worry about it. The three Wolves whose quarrels had just missed her had crouched down to winch their bows into readiness again. Interrupted, they were rising with drawn blades, perhaps two paces away. Sharantyr snarled and hissed the wand's command word again, staring at one Wolf under the edge of her shield.
This time the wand brought her pulsing, purplish light and an intense feeling of icy cold. No missiles of force appeared, and her opponents did not slow or seem to feel anything. Sharantyr slipped the wand into her shield hand and backed hastily away, snatching out her own sword.
They came at her in a rush. Sharantyr waited until they were between her and the ready bow she'd seen, then went to one knee, pretending to wobble and groaning in pain. The Wolves almost got in each other's way trying to be the first to carve her.
Sharantyr took the first blow on her shield and leapt up, moving forward against the body of its wielder. Hip to hip, she turned the Wolf to one side, driving him off-balance into one of his fellows while she parried the thrust of the other Wolf.
Then she spun away and was behind them all, tying up the blade she'd parried with her own. She forced it down and drove the edge of the shield into the Wolf's face as hard as she could. He fell, spitting blood, as she ducked low.
As she'd expected, a quarrel thrummed past her, low and well aimed, thirsty for her blood. Instead, it found the knee of the Wolf turning beyond