Tangled webs - Elaine Cunningham [94]
"Don't you be worried about the lass, now," he said, dropping an arm around the drow's shoulders. "in this land, unmarried women stay in their father's houses. I've got me some warehouses at the edge of the village and a snug cottage of my own with an extra room that should suit my girl here. Never had me a daughter before, but i'm thinking i'll get the knack of it soon enough."
"She couldn't want better care," Fyodor said, deeply touched by the sincere warmth in Hrolrs words.
"Oh, don't mind me-just go ahead and make all the arrangements!" Liriel snapped. The drow shrugged off Hrolrs embrace and spun away to stalk into the night. After several paces she stopped, turned, and glared at the pirate captain. "Well, are you coming or not?"
Her two friends exchanged knowing glances and furtive grins. "There's one important thing to keep in mind when dealing with elven females," Hrolf confided to Fyodor in a droll whisper. "They're just like women, only more so!"
The rising sun was still clinging to the distant edge of the sea when Liriel and Fyodor caught their first glimpse of inthar. It was a vast and sprawling keep, ancient beyond reckoning. An enormous curtain wall of thick stone surrounded the site, its many gaps testifying to the ravages of time and battle. Inside this first perimeter was a maze of walls and buildings, most of which had been reduced to tall, tumbled piles of rocks. Above it all soared a single round tower, as remote and forbidding as the widow at a warrior's funeral. The explorers-Fyodor, Liriel, and three young Ruathen-stood for a long moment in somber contemplation of the grim site.
"That is the best way to enter." ivar, a young man with a bowl-shaped mop of yellow hair, pointed to a gap in the curtain wall. "The area has been explored and secured." "Secured from what?" Liriel asked warily. An aura of magic, as visible to her senses as the thick morning mist, clung to the ruins. It was best that she knew now what sort of magic-wielding creatures they might face, so she could prepare the needed spells.
"From time to time wild beasts lair in the ruins," Dagmar responded in a voice one might use to soothe a frightened child. The young woman drew a small bone knife from her sash and handed it to the drow. "You will not need to use this, but carrying it might make you feel better."
Liriel stared at the feeble weapon and then up at the woman. To all appearances, Dagmar was serious. The drow's eyes narrowed.
Sensing the coming storm, Fyodor hurriedly took the knife from Dagmar's outstretched hand and tucked it into Liriel's boot. "You may find a use for it," he murmured, then immediately regretted his choice of words. The drow's grim smile suggested that she had one already in mind.
Then a low, quavering moan started somewhere in the depths of the maze of stone, rising slowly into a thin wail. The sound was faint and distant, but it carried an eldritch chill that sent tremors through every member of the exploring party. ~
"A spirit," ivar said, his voice pale with dread. "There are many in these ruins."
"Not just any spirit," Liriel corrected him. "That's the cry of a banshee-the evil remnant of an elven female. I wonder what causes it to linger here."
Fyodor caught the musing tone of her voice and remembered her pledge to find and release the trapped spirits of the sea elves. Although he appreciated her devotion to her promise, he did not see how there could be a connection between the two matters. "Was this place once an elven stronghold?" he asked.
The fifth member of their party-Brynwolf, a young warrior with reddish-brown braids and beard-let out a scornful laugh. "i doubt that even inthar is that old! There are no elves on this island, nor have there been since the days of the Rus," he boasted.
"All the same, the elders have said we are not to go into inthar when the groaning spirit cries," Dagmar