Spellfire - Ed Greenwood [136]
The bard wore dusty and torn leather breeches and a halter, both shiny with age. Swinging a hoe with strength and care, Storm was covered with a glistening sheen of sweat, and stray leaves stuck to her here and there. She waved and, laying down the long hookhoe, hastened toward them, wiping her hands on her thighs. "Well met!" she called happily as she came.
"I'm going to hate leaving this place," Shandril said in a small, husky voice. Narm squeezed her hand and nodded.
"I am, too," he said, "but we can come back when we are stronger. We will come back."
Shandril turned to look at him, surprised at the iron in his tone. She was smiling in agreement as Storm reached them. The pleasant smell of the bard's sweat-like warm bread, sprinkled with spices-hung around her. Narm and Shandril both stared.
Storm smiled. "Am I purple, perhaps? Grotesque?"
Narm caught himself, and said, "My pardon, please, lady. We did not mean to stare."
"None needed, Narm. And no 'lady', please. we're friends. Come in and share sweetwater, then let us talk. Few enough come to see me."
On the way to the house, she said to Shandril, "So what is so strange about me?"
Shandril giggled. "Such muscles" she said admiringly, turning to point at the bard's flat, tanned midriff. Corded muscles rippled on her flanks and arms as she walked. Storm shook her head.
"It's just me," she said lightly, leading them through a stout wooden door that swung open before she touched it, into cool dimness within. "Sit here by the east window and tell me what brings you here on such a fine morning. Most seek Storm in fouler weather."
"Urrhh… as bad as Elminster? Narm said in response. She handed him a long, curving horn of blown and worked glass, in the shape of a bird. He held it gingerly, in awe. "It's real glass!"
"Aye… from Theymarsh in the south, where such things are common. It breaks easily," the bard said, filling another. Shandril held hers apprehensively, too. One of the guards backed away when offered one.
"Ah, no, lady," he said awkwardly. "Just a cup, if you have one. I'd feel dark the rest of my days if I broke such as that." Shandril murmured in agreement. The bard smiled at them all, hands on hips, and then turned and spoke softly to the guardsmen.
"We must be alone, these two and I, to talk. Bide you here, if you will. The beer is in that cask over there; it is not good to drink more sweetwater so soon. Bread, garlic butter, and sausage is at hand in the cold-pantry. Come with speed if you hear my horn." She took down a silver horn from where it hung on a beam near her head, and turned to Narm and Shandril.
"Drink up," she urged simply. "There is much to talk about." She went to the back of her kitchen and swung open a little arched door there, into the sunlight. "Follow the path into the trees, and you shall find me." Then she was gone.
The visitors from the tower looked around at the low-ceilinged kitchen, the dark wooden beams, and hanging herbs. It was cozy and friendly, but ordinary, not the wild showplace of art and lore one might expect in the home of a bard. A small lap harp rested half-hidden in the shadows on a shelf near the pantry door. Narm almost dropped his glass when suddenly, and all alone, it began to play.
They stared at it as the strings plucked themselves.
One of the men-at-arms half rose from his seat with an oath, clapping hand to blade, but a veteran turned on him. "Peace, Berost! It is art, aye, but no art to harm you, or any of us." The harp played an unfamiliar tune that rose and fell gently, and then climbed and died away to a last high, almost chiming cluster of notes.
"Sounds Elven," Narm said quietly.
"Let us ask," Shandril said, standing her empty glass carefully upon the table. "I'm done." Narm drained his with a last tilting swallow and set it down with care beside hers.
They nodded to their guards, went out the little