Spellfire - Ed Greenwood [135]
With a Jerk that nearly wrenched his arms from their sockets he brought himself to a halt and hung grimly in midair. It was then that he noticed his left hand had come down hard upon a nesting evendove and crushed its frail body against the stone ledge.
"Ugghh," he said, suppressing an urge to snatch his hand away.
"How do you think I feel?" demanded the crumpled bird, opening one eye sourly.
At that Torm did fall. The bird sighed, became Elminster even as Torm fell helplessly away below him, and created a fan of sticky web-strands. These lanced down to the grounds far below, enveloping Torm on the way.
The thief came to a slow, rubbery halt only feet from the ground, and hung there helplessly. He began to struggle. "Serves you right," Elminster muttered darkly, and became a bird again.
Above the two eavesdroppers, Shandril and Narm had decided to join the Harpers. "After all" as Narm put it, "if we don't like it, we can back out." "Shall we tell them now?"
"No. Sleep on it, Elminster said." Outside, Elminster smiled quietly, though one couldn't see it for the beak.
"And so to bed again, you and I-and this time I would not hear your life story."
Outside, on the window ledge, the bird that was Elminster looked up at the stars glimmering above Selune. The Silent Sword had ascended above the trees. The night was half done. The bird's beak dwindled. It grew a human mouth, and sang, very softly, a snatch of a ballad that had been old when Myth Drannor fell: … and in the wind and the water the storm-king's fire-eyed daughter came a-rotting home across the sea leaving none on the wreck alive but me…
The sun rose hot that morning over Shadowdale, glinting on helms and spearpoints atop the Old Skull.
Mist rose and rolled away down the Ashaba. Narm and Shandril rose early, and lingered not in the Twisted Tower, but set out for a brisk morning walk accompanied by six watchful guards that Thurbal insisted on sending with them. Their bright armor flashed and gleamed in the sunlight, and reminded the two lovers constantly of danger lurking near, and of spellfire.
They found themselves hungry again, despite a good breakfast of fried bread and goose eggs at the tower. They stopped in at The Old Skull Inn for bowls of hot stew. Jhaele Silvermane bid them fair morning as she served them, waved away their coins, and asked them when the wedding would be.
Shandril blushed, but Narm said proudly, "As soon as can be arranged, or even sooner." Their escort of guards developed sudden thirsts for ale that made Shandril shudder with the earliness of the hour, but all soon set forth again up the road toward Storm Silverhand's farm.
The dale was quiet despite the morning vigor of workers in the fields. All Faerun seemed at peace.
Birds sang and the sky was cloudless. Narm realized that he and his lady had only a vague idea of where Storm Silverhand's farm was. He turned to the nearest guard, a scarred, mustachioed veteran who bore a spear lightly in his hairy hands. "Good sir,"
Narm asked, "could you guide us to the dwelling of Storm Silverhand?"
"It lies before you, lord-from this cedar stump, here, on up to the line of bluewood yonder." Narm nodded and said his thanks, for Shandril had already hurried ahead. The guards trotted with him until they caught her again.
It lay behind a high, crown-hedged bank of grass-covered earth. Over the hedge could be seen the upper leaves of growing things. All was lush and green. On this bright morning, bees and wasps danced and darted among the curling blossoms of a creeper that coiled in gnarled loops. The men-at-arms walked watchfully and carried their blades ready, but Shandril could not believe that there could be anything lurking to offer ready danger, in such a place and on such a morning as this.
They turned where a broad track cut through the hedge, and followed it up a line of old, twisted oaks to a large, rambling house of fieldstone. Its thatched roof was thick with velvet-green moss and alive with birds. Vines on tripods and pole-frames stretched away from