The Temptation of Elminster - Ed Greenwood [93]
After a moment he took a few cautious crouching steps across the rock spur, picking his way between the still forms of his sleeping fellows. A thin thread of mist was drifting in the lee of the rock spur…strange, that, with the moon rising…but there was nothing to be seen. Not even seabirds, or an owl. In fact, that was why this was so eerie…the woods were still. No scuffling, no night cries or the shrieks of small animals being caught by larger prowlers… nothing. Paeregur shook his head in puzzlement, and turned slowly to go back. There it was again, that faint chiming.
He turned back to the west again and became a listening statue. After a time the chiming was gone. The tall warrior shrugged, glanced down at the horses below the prow…and froze.
Where were the horses? He took two quick strides to the other side of the prow, in case they'd all shifted to the east of the overhang…their lead-reins were long enough…but, no. They were gone. "Rolian," he growled, beckoning sharply, and ran along the prow to its very tip, where the still, cowled form of Avras sat facing out to sea, his sword across his knees. Hah! Some watch guard he'd turned out to be!
"Avras!" he hissed, clapping a heavy hand on the warrior's shoulder, "where are the horses? If you've been drinking again, so help me I'm g…"
The shoulder under his hand crumpled like a thing of dry leaves and kindling, and the faceless husk of Avras pivoted toward him for a moment before collapsing into ash. The man's skull tumbled out to bounce off Paeregur's boot before falling out and down to the road below with a dull clatter.
Paeregur almost fell off the spur recoiling in horror. Then he scrambled back along it to the first of his sleeping companions, and turned the blankets back with the point of his blade. A skull grinned up at him.
"Gods," he sobbed, slashing with his sword tip at the next cloak. His blade caught on the garment and dragged it half off, bones spilled out in a confusion of ash and collapse. Paeregur knew real gut-wrenching terror for the first time in his life. He wanted to run, anywhere, away from here.
Rolian was taking a damned long time to arrive.
Paeregur glanced along the spur to where Rolian had been sitting beside him, facing the forest…had been whispering to him, only a few breaths ago. Where had…?
The chiming, coming again…only this time, from among the wall of dark trees they'd been facing-sounded almost mocking. A little mist was curling around their trunks, and Rolian…
Rolian was standing in those trees with his sword in the crook of his arm and the laces of his codpiece in his hands, in the eternal wide-legged pose of men relieving themselves in the woods, facing away into the darkness. Paeregur started to relax, then fresh fear coiled in the pit of his stomach. Rolian was standing very still. Too still.
"Frostfire awake!" Paeregur roared, with all the volume he could muster, the very rocks rang back his shout, and an echo came back faintly from the depths of the forest. He was running as he bellowed, back along the spine of the spur toward Rolian… already knowing what he'd find.
He came to a stop behind that still form and tried to peer past it. Fangs? Eyes? Waiting blades? Nothing, the moonlight was enough to show him nothing but trees. He stretched out his sword gently. "Rolian?"
The warrior gave a long, formless sigh as he toppled forward into the trees. He broke into three pieces before he hit the ground, his blade bouncing away among dead leaves… and left Paeregur staring at a pair of empty boots and a tangle of slumped clothing. Ye bloody grave-sucking gods!
The tall warrior took two quick steps back from that place and spun around. Was he the only one left alive? Had any…but no. He almost shouted with relief: the mage Lhaerand was on his feet, face pinched with sleepy disapproval, as was the giant among them, slow-witted but loyal Phostral, his