Stormlight - Ed Greenwood [104]
Aundable waved away a proffered glass of amberfire wine, glanced at a map of eastern Cormyr, and ran a finger along the trails north and east of the Wyvernwater. There was the hold of Hawkhar, seat of House Indesm; Galdyn’s Gorge, home to the Yellanders; and Firefall Vale, home to the Summerstars…
The face of Shayna Summerstar swan into his mind. Aundable frowned and glanced at his wife. If he’d been one for the shining younglings, he could do worse, far worse, than the beautiful Shayna Summerstar.
His frown deepened as he bent his will to use that vividly remembered face as a focal point to target his scrying attempt. Wasn’t Firefall where the Sevensash band had been sent, to see to some sort of minor trouble? Aundable leaned forward, peering into the depths of his scrying crystal, where small lights swam and wandered…
*****
It had been a long day. The sun set on Firefall Vale and the shadows inside the riven keep grew truly dark. Storm wearily clenched her teeth and, with desperate speed, wove a web of silver fire, seeking to enclose the foe once more. Her barrier around the keep had gone long ago, sacrificed to save her own skin from the shapeshifters vicious attacks.
Now he was teasing her, flying out from the battlements again and again, forcing her to snare him and drag him back. Each time she brought him back, he lashed her with spells that darted into her mind and sought to steal secrets and pry loose lore. This defense was grueling work. Storm was sweating and exhausted as she snared him for the fourteenth time.
This time he laughed and flew right at her, extending a finger that glittered.
Storm's heart sank. She knew what spell he must be using. Somewhere in the keep, there was an enchanted sword; if his extended digit struck her, the powers of that blade would injure her as if he wielded it directly.
"Bastard," she whispered, spinning three tongues of silver fire-two to fend off any tentacles he might decide to grow when he got close enough.
A head she had not expected to see again bobbed up from behind a broken wall, and magic missiles streaked through the air in a gleaming net of deadly force.
The enchanted bolts struck home, and the smiling foe spun sideways in startled pain, jerking his body repeatedly. He crashed into one of the few intact walls in the heart of the keep and tumbled along it-straight into the burst of magical ice that a grimly smiling Broglan hurled last.
Shards of ice sang and tinkled off stone. The foe fell with them, through a hole in the floor and out of sight The war wizard gave Storm a cheerful wave, and pointed upward.
Storm looked. Shayna Summerstar dangled head down from the edge of a broken-off ceiling.
Broglan's spells bad made her gown into a gag, lashed her hands to her mouth, and transformed a cloak into the binding that held her ankles to a spar. The heiress hung, red-faced and helpless; if she struggled too much, she might plunge to the floor below and be struck senseless-or even swing herself out into a much longer drop, and almost certain death.
Storm grinned in appreciation, waved, and then set about using the time Broglan had bought her. She had to cast and hang three of her spells in a stasis-sphere, and make the sphere itself seem attractive.
She turned away from Shayna to obscure the young noble's view of what she was doing, and crafted a gleaming golden sphere about twice as large as her head. It floated, turning slowly as she pumped spells into it, casting them quickly and carefully: a ward-away, a manyjaws, and a blood lightning. In a few flickering instants, the silver fire triggered them, held them hanging, and closed up her sphere for her.
Two long fingered hands rose from a distant rent in the floor and wove a spell of their own.
Part of Broglan abruptly became a spineless, glistening, pale-white mass of tentacles. The wizard’s face went just as pale. He gasped, clutched