Shadows of Doom - Ed Greenwood [95]
Wolves drew back from her in horror as old tales they'd heard as boys, scoffed at as youths, and forgotten as men came alive before their eyes. They stumbled back, faces white, as the woman in slashed and tattered leathers leapt and darted among them, dealing swift, endless darkness with a battered blade.
"Die, damn you!" she wept, and gave them death.
"How did she get in?" one man raged, parrying with all his might.
"What boots it?" another yelled back. "Run! Run, if you would live! Ru-uuughh!" Sharantyr's long blade found his throat from behind, and his run ended there in a dying plunge to the stone floor.
In the end they all broke and ran, those who could move at all, leaving her panting and blood-drenched, alone with the dead. Sharantyr cried and cried, kneeling among death, until she could cry no more.
She rose, white-faced in the torchlight, and thought of Stormcloak. He was the real foe, he and his mages. He must die.
18
Cheerless Obedience to Mages
As Sharantyr's sobs died away, Lord Angruin Storm-cloak, striding importantly from his chambers to the great hall, heard their last echoes and frowned. What was a woman doing in this part of the castle? Had one of the men-? He sighed and had drawn breath to curse their waywardness when his eyes fell on men running toward him, terrified, blades drawn.
"Hold!" he roared, reaching for a wand. Was this some sort of treachery? "Stand, all of you! Answer me. Why are you running?"
They came to a clattering halt before his fury. Men shifted and would not look at him.
"L-Lord," one armsman said, fear full in his voice, "there's a woman-a dragon she is, with a sword! I saw her kill ten of us or more, and-"
"And so you fled, all of you," Stormcloak said with contempt. He looked coldly around at them all, eyeing men now clearing throats and exchanging glances and looking very uneasy indeed. "Are you warriors?"
Silence answered him. "Are you men?"
Nods, and more silence.
Stormcloak took a step forward. "Are you Zhentilar!"
"Aye, Lord."
"Yes, Lord."
Stormcloak nodded wolfishly. "Good," he said with deep sarcasm. "I had begun to wonder about that." Then his voice changed again. "And what do Zhentilar warriors do?"
"Obey, Lord."
" 'Obey when told to slay,' isn't that how the song goes?" Stormcloak corrected.
Nods answered him again. Stormcloak looked around at them all.
"Obey whom?"
A man swallowed. "Z-Zhentarim mages, Lord."
Stormcloak gave him a brittle smile. "And why do you obey mages, all of you?" He looked around at them all again. In the end, to break the heavy silence, he answered his own question. "You obey mages-myself, for instance-because if you don't, we'll unleash magic on you more terrible than any blade, more painful than any wound!"
He looked at them as the passage rang with those last shouted words, and let the echoes die away before continuing.
"Warriors who run one way can face one woman-with a sword," he added with a sneer. "Warriors who run the other way will face me," he said, raising his wand with slow menace and a silky smile.
In silence, the men called Wolves by the folk of the High Dale turned sullenly, raised their swords, and went back down the passage. Slowly.
* * * * *
Sharantyr stalked forward on silent feet, like a hunting cat. Many had fled down this passage. If she knew Zhents, they'd soon be back this way, a mage in their midst ready to use a spell or a wand to smite her down and impress all the warriors who watched.
So another way would be better. Were there no side passages in this place? She glanced this way and that as she went, and in the end chose a stair going up. If she could not go around, she must go over. She had only one life to lose and could not afford to fight fairly, or to face large groups of thirsty swords or a mage in a large open space.
"Well, then, Stormcloak," she said aloud, "let us see if one Knight with a sword can bring you down. It's been done to Zhentarim before."
"Who's that? Maerelee?" a voice asked from the head of the stair.
"No," Sharantyr replied truthfully,