So we almost got killed-again-and lost all our horses and gear. Is this the sort of adventure we can look forward to?" Semoor said. He winced as his feet pained him more and more with each step. The blisters weren't something he was looking forward to lancing. "How long before we're walking along naked and starving, waiting for the first hungry beast or knife-waving outlaw to happen along and put us out of our misery?"
"Think of it as an unending sequence of new beginnings, Wolftooth dearest," Pennae said, "and the Morninglord will provide. Or is your faith as weak as your backbone?"
"Hey hoy!" Semoor snapped, giving her a glare. "Do I question your profession, thief?"
Pennae shrugged. "I care not if you do, Saer Yapping Tongue. Some folk open their mouths and spew out mere noise that the rest of us soon cease heeding-and I fear you're one of rhose folk. I expect that at your funeral, your complaints and whinings and not-so-clever remarks are going to rise from your grave without pause until the gravediggers shovel enough earth on top of you that we finally won't have to hear it all any longer."
"Here, now," Jhessail said. "Enough. Some band of adventurers we'll be, if we start clawing at each other like brawling tavern drunkards!" on offer in Espar," Pennae said, "and while I agree with you to a point, Jhess, I think 'tis time and past time we aired some things. Before I strangle Saer Semoor with his own sharp, forked tongue."
Doust reached a quelling hand to his longtime friend's arm at about the time Islif clapped a hand over the crimson, fiery-eyed Lathanderite's mouth.
"Before you respond to Pennae, Stoop," she said in his ear gently, "I'd like you to do one thing for me. Pretend that several senior priests of the Morninglord are standing right here listening to all you say. Please?"
She withdrew her hand. Semoor shot her a simmering look and the words, "Thank you, Islif."
Then he turned to tegard Pennae and said, "I am what I am. If there's something about me you think teally must be changed, you'll have to convince me. Not that I think insults will move me much. Would they change you?"
"Oh, shrewdly said," Doust murmured.
Florin nodded. "Your words, Semoor, ring true enough in my ears. Pennae?"
The thief regarded Florin thoughtfully, then nodded, turned, and went to Semoor-and kissed him.
He tried to lean and turn his face away from her, stiffly, but she was far more agile than he and could caress and kiss very skillfully when she wanted to. In mere moments he was groaning under her tongue and embracing her fiercely.
Jhessail rolled her eyes skyward. "And of course there's always that way to solve every little dispute, too. Not being a jack, I haven't what fills a codpiece to be led around by, but it seems to wotk for them. Every time."
"Lead me around by my codpiece, lass?" Doust asked her hopefully, waving a hand. " 'Tis just down here!"
Islif decided it was her turn to indulge in some eye-rolling. "How far is it to Shadowdale?" she asked Florin, in world-weary tones.
"Don't ask me!" he jested. "I'm but a simple backwoods tanger!"
"Who walks with kings and beds noble lasses as calmly as some Ed greenwood of us change our jerkins," Pennae teased him, coming up for air.
"If I pick another fight with you," Semoor asked her hopefully, nor releasing her from his embrace, "will you make peace wirh me like this again? About the time we make camp and decide on sleeping arrangements for the night, say?"
"Speaking of which," Islif said, "we're walking rhrough wild country, and we'd better decide how to camp and keep ourselves alive before we fall asleep and anything small with jaws has its way with us. Even a weasel or a groundcat can take your throat out with ease if you're just lying on the ground snoring."
"So we'll be standing watch every night? Oh, gods," Semoor snarled, "why is the world so stlarning unfair?"
It was Florin who stopped walking this time, to spin around and fix Semoor with a stern look. "I don't know why. Perhaps the gods do. What I do know is that we're adventurers and that, yes, the world isn't fah. Making it fair is our job. Yours, mine, all of us."
Silence fell after he finished speaking those words, and in its cloak the Knights walked on, one by one nodding and murmuring agreement in their various ways.
Lost in thought, the wizard Targon turned from a high balcony in Zhentil Keep and strolled across the gloomy and deserted chamber into which the balcony opened. He had no particular quarrel with most of the Zhentarim wizards of lesser rank-they were ruthless graspers-after-power, to be sure, but who of the Brotherhood was not? — bur the five or six mages he did want brought down were difficult targets. To avoid being exposed to the entire Brotherhood as a peril to all, he would have to move very carefully against whichever one of them he chose to slay first.
That meant he still had to learn a lot more abour their alliances with beholders and Bane priests and the gods alone knew who else, so as toHe staggered, arched over backward, and stood trembling, suddenly transfixed by the sword Armaukran.
It had come racing out of the sky and swooping through the archway from the balcony so swiftly that the light ward spell he was using hadn't even had time to chime. Now the agony was so white-hot, he could barely frame coherent thoughts.
He should have been able to sense the sword approaching.
What had happened to it?
Grimly, Old Ghost felt for the sword's enchantments with his will, red mists of pain rising to flood his mind with the looming threat of oblivion…
"Die!" Horaundoon snarled, his hatred a deafening bellow crashing through Old Ghost's thoughts. "I've been changed and need never fear you again, cruel schemer!"
The Zhentarim staggered blindly across the room with the blade through him, as two minds wrestled amid gathering darkness inside his head-a darkness that smiled and drew in around Horaundoon with tightening talons.
From somewhere near at hand, he heard Old Ghost ask silkily, "Oh? Need you not?"
Then the darkness struck, bursting into ctimson fury as sentience flooded into and overwhelmed sentience.
This time, Old Ghost made sure of his foe, rending a howling Horaundoon ruthlessly and utterly.
When the mind thunder had fallen quiet again, and he stood alone in the dripping ruins of Targon's mind and dying body, he knew only the sword was vessel enough to trust in and inhabit.
He looked and felt, coiling through threads of enchantment and long-disused powets… finding excitement again, after so long…
There is much room in this blade. Room for a dozen minds or more, if I can command that many at once. Company for centuries, to warm me with their fancies and memories and hatreds-until I tire of them and subsume or destroy them.
The dying Targon slumped down, and the sword drew back out of him and flew away, out from the balcony in a great soaring arc, heading for Shadowdale.
One less fool to trammel me. On to find others.
As the humming, blue-silver blade flashed through the air, Old Ghost wondered idly if it was smiling as smugly as he was inside it.
Not that there was any hurry. There would be plenty of time to subvert adventurers when the Knights of Myth Drannor finally arrived in Shadowdale.
Brorn Hallomond found the old casket he was looking for. It would take the strength of an owlbear to drag aside the stone lid and maul him. Here he could sleep and heal.
Gods, he wished he'd been able to steal another healing vial.
Huh. As to that, he wished he'd been able to steal himself a castle full of servants and fine food and a title to go with it, too.
Perhaps next time.
He hammered the sliding stone catch with the pommel of his dagger, gasping with the pain each blow brought him. He hauled up the hinged lid with a howl of pain and more or less fell in on top of the btittle, shrouded corpse inside.