Song of the Saurials - Kate Novak [96]
"He had no choice, though," Akabar explained. "Kyre was a minion of Moander. She would have enslaved both of us to the Darkbringer if Grypht hadn't destroyed her."
"How dare you speak such lies?" Breck growled at Akabar. "Kyre was a Master Harper! How dare you slander her like that? And with such a feeble story.
Moander is dead." The ranger turned his bow on the Turmishman. "You're lying about Kyre. Admit that you're lying!" he demanded.
Alias pushed Brock's bow aside. Despite her anger with Akabar and Zhara and Dragonbait, she couldn't let Breck shoot them full of arrows. "Lord Mourngrym said we were to capture Grypht, if we could, and bring Akabar back alive," she reminded him sharply. "If we don't do something for Grypht soon, he's going to die, and if you don't stop waving that bow at Akabar, your fingers are going to slip and we won't be able to bring him back alive either."
"All right," Breck said, "you can heal Grypht, but I want him tied up first."
"With what?" Alias asked. "Breck, he's too big to tie up. He's not going to run off anyway."
Dragonbait signed something to Alias.
"Dragonbait says he guarantees Grypht's good behavior," Alias explained to the ranger.
"He's going to guarantee the good behavior of a murderer?" Breck asked sarcastically.
"It was self-defense," Akabar insisted.
"Kyre wouldn't hurt anyone." Breck retorted.
"She was possessed by Moander," Akabar explained. "It's true Moander was dead, but the evil god's spirit is trying to return to the Realms. It can possess good creatures as well as evil."
"Like the treants," Alias pointed out. She shifted her position very subtly, blocking the ranger's view of Grypht as Zhara bent over the saurial wizard.
"You saw the treants, then?" Akabar asked. "They were controlled by Moander the same way Kyre was," the mage explained, motioning with his hands to keep Breck's eyes away from his wife. "She might never have joined Moander willingly, but she was possessed by a vine of some sort, the same thing that possessed the treants.
We had no choice but to destroy them. They tried to kidnap me and nearly killed Grypht. Why do you think a single arrow brought him down so easily? He received so many injuries from them that he passed out in our hiding place and slept for hours."
Akabar put a hand on Breck's shoulder. "I am sorry for the loss of your fellow Harper," he said to the ranger. "She seemed to me a beautiful and clever woman, traits that Moander could not have made her mimic were they not already her own.
I can understand your anguish. I share it with you."
Breck took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Replacing his arrow in his quiver and shouldering his bow, the ranger nodded respectfully at Akabar. "Thank you," he said. "However, you must realize I cannot accept your story without proof. There was nothing left of Kyre's body. You will have to come back to Shadowdale, so Morala and Lord Mourngrym can judge whether you are telling the truth or not."
Behind the ranger, Zhara finished her prayers to cure Grypht's wounds.
Akabar looked up at the trees hesitantly, reluctant to agree with the ranger but equally reluctant to refuse him. He looked anxiously at Grypht, who was rising slowly to his feet.
"He hasn't time to return to Shadowdale," Grypht said in Realms common.
Breck whirled around and discovered the saurial on his feet. The ranger reached for his sword, but Grypht caught his wrists. As burly as he was, the ranger was no match for the five-hundred-pound saurial.
"You've drawn my blood twice in as many days," the wizard said to Breck.
"Frankly, I'm getting a little tired of it. Now you will listen to me without attacking me."
Breck's body went limp and he glared at Grypht. "I'm listening, monster."
"Good," Grypht said, but he didn't release the ranger. "In our world," the wizard explained, "there are still fools who worship the Darkbringer and give his minions power to walk among us. Kyre came to our world as a visitor to study our music, and we welcomed