Stormlight - Ed Greenwood [7]
Sylune smiled. "Now, would I admit that?" She slid around to hover by Storm's other shoulder as the first bright rays of the rising sun stabbed down into the hollow, over the tall stacks of split firewood. "And what would the wood-chopping Chosen of Mystra desire for morningfeast this fair day?"
" Fresh milk, dove eggs and sage, sharp cheese topped with hot nutmeg sauce, fried mushrooms and bacon slabs, a handful of radishes and another of grapes, and a mince tart of two, with little mind wine to wash it down." Storm rattled off without hesitation or anu pauses for breath.
Sylune gave her a withering look.
Storm said cheerily, “You asked. Did you leave your body in the kitchen, as usual? Well, then-you have it all ready by the time I'm finished here"
"I can?"
"Nothing's too much for the free-floating Chosen Mystra," Storm replied grandly, bowing like a court noble.
"That gesture looks a little grander if you're wearing clothes," the Witch of Shadowdale observed.
"Such criticism is more kindly received from folk who're wearing bodies" Storm told her. "Now get out of here. There're two shadowtops crowning that pile over there, and I want to try a little axe-throwing without clever-mouthed flying head in the way!"
Sylune thrust out her own tongue, and then flew idly away across the raspberry patch in the brightening morning.
Storm chuckled, shed her gloves, spat on her hands and picked up the axe again, narrowing her eyes to judge the throw. The head of a doe rose above the two trees she was staring at, and gazed at her with soft, thoughtful brown eyes.
"Boo," she said. It knew her too well to be afraid a her, and came clambering down the bank to leap a stack of firewood and nuzzle her for anything sugary she might be carrying.
Storm sighed, picked the deer up, and trudged up out of the hollow, ignoring its startled kicks. the other side of the fence, little one," she told. "It's not as if I don't provide you with your very own grading garden already!"
Brown eyes met her own silver-blue ones, and the deer sniffed loudly.
I see," Storm replied, as the animal kicked again. "No, you're coming with me…"
The stone post that flanked that rose-girded arch were graven deeply with swirling moons, stars, adn harps; this was her farm, all right. The man in the dapple-gray cloak and mottled, smooth-worn brown leather armor put a hand into his shoulder-pouch and slowly drew out something silver. He showed it to toe watchful wolfhound that stood in toe entrance a silver harp pin, gleaming on his open palm in the bright morning sun.
The dog nodded to him, for all toe world like a respectful human gateguard, and stood back. The man gave it an answering nod and cautiously stepped past. The lane ran under a huge grape arbor and on toward a low-lying, grass-roofed farmhouse that seemed to grow out of the garden beyond. Birds were singing and flitting among the trees of an orchard to his right, and there was no sign of farmhands or livestock. Even the usual reek of manure was absent.
But then, anyplace that looked more like a wood land garden than a working farm almost had to be the abode of Storm Silverhand. The man picked up his pace. His soft boots made no sound on the grass path that led to flagstones and a little patio of hanging plants. A stone seat was built into the rubble wall of a raised herb bed, and-through another open arch without any door that he could see-the path led into the cool dimness of a stone-floored kitchen.
He stood in the farmhouse, surrounded by its stillness. There was stall no alarm, or hail, or any sight or sound of inhabitants. Birds flew about, a cat curled in sleep in the morning sun outside another archway and…
Perhaps seven paces away, at one end of the huge, knife-scarred harvest table in the center of the kitchen, a woman's body was slumped back in a char.
She wore only a light, filmy robe of flame-colored silk, a looked very dead. Her bare feet were sprawled among the legs of the next chair along. Her arms dangled loosely.