The Dream Spheres - Elaine Cunningham [133]
Regnet grinned, not at all offended. "The lady has many charms, but those are the skills that come first to mind when her name is spoken. A redoubtable hostess."
"Is that so," Danilo said without much interest. "If Galinda Raventree were not so adamant in her refusal of suitors, I would think that you might be describing her."
"Indeed I am," Regnet said, not without pride.
At that moment, a feral shriek exploded from the far corner of the room. The yeti rocked back and forth, like a frozen creature trying to tear itself from a tomb of ice, and then it lunged forward.
Both men leaped to their feet. Danilo reached for his spell bag, and Regnet drew his dagger.
The yeti crashed to the floor, taking a table with it and sending ivory chess pieces flying like shards of ice. It rolled over onto one dead side and lay where it fell, leaving the real danger revealed behind it.
Myrna Cassalanter stood there, her hands fisted at her sides and her face as twisted and furious as a harpy's. She was dressed for seduction: Her henna-colored hair was arranged in an artful tangle to suggest-or invite-a lover's touch, and her gown was scarlet, clinging, and cut exceedingly low. Much of her snowy bosom was exposed and was, at the moment, quivering with indignation.
"You thrice-bedamned troll! Son of a poxed whore!" she shrieked. Her hands hooked into rending claws, and she came on like a rampant dragon.
Regnet tossed aside his dagger and leaped over the chair he had just quit, turning it so to put some barrier between himself and the flame-haired virago bearing down on him.
She leaped onto the chair in her frenzy to get at the man who had scorned her. Regnet dodged to one side, barely escaping her raking nails. The chair, no longer supported, crashed onto its back and sent Myrna tumbling over it and onto the floor.
She rolled toward the hearth but was on her feet with an agility that a traveling juggler might envy, brandishing an iron poker in a determined, two-handed grip.
Regnet backed away, tripping over the upended chair. "Munson!" he roared.
The halfling steward appeared in the doorway, wringing his hands. "I tried to warn you, sir," he began.
His next words were lost in Myrna's shriek as she took a mighty swing. Regnet leaned away from the blow, but the tip of the poker traced a sooty path across the front of his shirt. On the back swing, Myrna fetched him a glancing blow to the head. Encouraged by this success, she came on, shrieking like a banshee and flailing the poker with all the verve, if none of the skill, of an elven bladesinger.
Danilo settled back on his heels, folded his arms, and considered Regnet's dilemma. If Myrna had been a man-or for that matter, a woman trained in the fighting arts-Regnet could have settled the matter in a swift contest. Propriety forbade him to mishandle a gentlewoman. Even using force to subdue her was skirting the line. To all appearances, subduing Myrna would not be an easy matter. She bolstered this suspicion by smacking Regnet in the gut with enough force to double him over.
Danilo supposed he ought to come to his friend's aid. He firmly intended to do so. At the moment, however, he found the spectacle vastly entertaining. Moreover there was no denying that it held a certain justice. Danilo doubted that Tyr Himself could come up with a more fitting retribution for a casual and thoughtless lover than the wrath of one he had scorned. Who was he, the merest of mortals, to intervene in so apparently divine a pattern?
Just then Myrna landed another solid whack, this one a two-handed upswing that would do justice to a master polo player. It caught Regnet under the chin, and his head snapped painfully back. He dropped and rolled beyond reach just as another vicious, chopping blow clanged onto the floor.
The halfling steward rushed in and grabbed at Myrna's arm. She flung out an elbow and caught him in the face. He staggered back, clutching an eye already