Shadows of Doom - Ed Greenwood [90]
"Shar," the Old Mage suggested calmly as a flurry of ringing blows drove him back across her toward the stair, "cut the legs out from under this fellow for me, will ye?" Sharantyr grinned savagely. "I'll do better," she replied, and snaked an arm out from under the tangle of limbs to drive her sword up into the breeches under his armor skirt.
The man screamed, gave an awkward hop, and fell to the floor, writhing in agony. Elminster dropped the sword and went to the table.
Men were thundering back up into the room, hastily donning helms and drawing swords. Elminster picked up the heaviest chair he could find, and with a sudden rippling of muscles threw it across the room to crash into the foremost man.
The startled Wolf went down, and the man behind him tripped and went sprawling. Elminster hurled the iron sphere he was carrying at the next man and charged forward, snatching out his dagger again.
He used it twice with brutal haste before he reached the pinioned man. With a bleak smile he struck the sword out of the man's hand and shoved the man hard with his shoulder.
The man was wrapped in metal bands, like a cage that has tightened around its prisoner until the bars press into the skin all around and movement is impossible. Elminster drove the helpless man backward into the door frame, where he lodged amid cracking noises of wood and bone, and a scream of pain.
"Noisy, these Zhents," he commented as the man screamed again. Men behind him in the corridor outside the room began to curse, trying and failing to push the pinioned Wolf out of their way. "How do ye, Shar?"
Sharantyr came to join him, blade wiped clean. "I'm still alive," she replied grimly, eyeing the man, "but I like little the thought of hacking my way through that lot. What say we go back up again and seek another way down?"
Elminster frowned for a breath or two as unseen men shoved and cursed, doing something that made the caged man scream again. Then he nodded. "I don't like to leave magic behind, with things as they are," he said, eyeing the iron bands, "but there's no easy way to get that back without fighting all of them. I suppose I should thank Mystra and Tymora both for it merely working when I needed it."
Sharantyr nodded and took his arm. "Come, El. Let's be out of here before someone else finds magic that works and fills this room with fire-or worse."
Elminster looked again at the now-unconscious man, head bouncing and lolling from the force of blows he was taking from behind as impatient warriors tried to force their way into the room. He sighed, drew up his robes in both hands for faster climbing, and made for the stairs. Sharantyr glided just behind him, sword ready, watching their rear as they ascended. It was turning into a very long day.
17
Beware Ladies with Steel in Their
Hands
"Is the high constable still alive?" Sharantyr asked as they came cautiously out of the turret and looked around. A quiet had fallen over the High Castle as the afternoon sun lit up its every nook and crevice. In the courtyard below, a few dalefolk could be seen cautiously probing bodies and piles of rubble and tumbled gear. Doors were closed, and turret windows shuttered. Save for a thin wisp of smoke rising from the castle kitchens, the fortress seemed deserted, as if no one lurked within, plotting victory and gathering swords and magic.
Elminster spread empty hands. "Mulmar? I barely recognized him, ye know, with the chains an' all. He headed for the battlements by one stair while we ascended by the other. I lost sight of him after that. I seem to recall hearing him cry out when they were firing all those quarrels at us." He winced. "If he fell there, in the forecourt, I may have sent him to the gods myself a little later when I hit the Zhent's globes."
At the memory, he drew the wand from his belt, looked at it quizzically, and sighed. "I can't remember what Art is left in this. It's gone wild so many times now, who can tell?" He shrugged. "Let us seek Irreph, whate'er befalls now. Thy thought is a good