The Nether Scroll - Lynn Abbey [94]
"Don't tempt them," Dru advised.
The tremors were subsiding. Sheemzher's back relaxed, his arms and legs went limp a few heartbeats later.
Tiep asked, "Is he-?"
"No, he'll come around in a moment or two."
"That was a lot of geas to put on a little body." Rozt'a observed. "Somebody doesn't want him talking about that Nether scroll in a big way."
"Not somebody-Wyndyfarh."
"Can you get around it?"
"In a month, in Scornubel with all Ansoain's books open in front of me, if I got lucky, stayed lucky, and didn't kill him by mistake."
Sheemzher coughed out phlegm and bile. He tried to sit but couldn't lift his shoulders. "Sheemzher hurt. Sheemzher not remember."
"Your good lady doesn't want you answering certain questions of mine."
The goblin tried again to sit. He still couldn't manage it on his own. Rozt'a offered her hand. Sheemzher ignored it, groping at his sides instead. "Spear? Where Sheemzher spear? Sheemzher not Sheemzher without spear."
Panic gave the goblin a drunk's strength and coordination. He struck both Dru and Rozt'a in his efforts to find the missing spear. The blows were hard, but not hard enough to prevent Dru from spreading his hand across Sheemzher's chest and forcing the goblin to lie back on the stone.
"It was you or the spear," Dru explained, which wasn't the complete truth. He could have carried both and he had looked for the spear, but he hadn't wasted much time in the search.
Sheemzher hung his head and hugged himself. He'd lost his spear and his hat-possessions which he'd clearly prized-his bright-colored garments were dirty and sodden, and his good lady had tagged him with a geas that had fallen just short of killing him. A man in his place might be feeling pretty well abandoned by now. And a goblin? Dru laid a hand on Sheemzher's shoulder.
"We'll look for it when we go back underground."
"We're going back down?" Tiep asked, a mix of relief and surprise in the question.
Dru nodded, but not before Rozt'a answered, "Of course we are. I don't care what Lady Wyndyfarh is or what she's done-we're getting that scroll. We're getting Galimer out of Weathercote Wood. One alhoon isn't enough to stop us."
She named the Beast Lord's breed without howling. The word was almost familiar.
Rozt'a caught him staring. "Just because I didn't ride with Ansoain doesn't mean I grew up in a garden, Druhallen," she told him indignantly. "There were others before you, and not all of them were bastards like the one in Triel. When I was just starting out, I hired on with a Cormyr lord who wanted to reopen the family gold mine, which meant cleaning out a couple centuries' worth of squatters, the worst of which was an alhoon. There were about forty of us-a sentience shield, the lord called it. He armed us with green wood sticks and bundles of straw, no steel allowed, for our own safety, he said. We marched ahead of two priests and a wizard, all laying low, pretending to be common.
"A few of the veterans had shivs in the their sleeves; one wrapped his long sword in straw. When the alhoon started grabbing minds, setting us against each other, blood flowed bad, but the wizard popped up quick and pasted it good. Like as not, we'd have all walked out of there if we'd stuck with the sticks and straw. Easiest five lions I ever earned."
Tiep took advantage of a pause to ask, "Why didn't you say something, then, when I told you what the Beast Lord looked like? Those things hanging off his face. It's not like anything else anywhere ever looked like that!"
Rozt'a shrugged. "Forty brawlers in a mine tunnel-I was way toward the back and never saw what we were supposed to be distracting. By the time our priests and wizard were done, the alhoon was soot. The undead, they go fast in a holy fire. After Sheemzher howled, I started thinking about what I felt that day and what happened a little while ago. I call it a close enough fit. An alhoon isn't invincible, Dru."
He had difficulty meeting her eyes. "If you've got forty hired brawlers, two priests, a wizard, and a Cormyr lord." She started to scowl. "Don't get me wrong, Rozt'a: