The would-be servant of Lathander lifted his sunrise disk and told it, “Oh, I never thought you’d been sleeping, in all those half-days-half-days, lass! — you’ve spent behind closed doors with, ah, fortunate Master Bardeluk.”
Islif snorted, and nudged him with the metal-shod toe of a much-patched boot. “What a small mind you have, holynose! I’ve been shut up teaching him to read and write. This-” She hefted the long, slightly curved longsword, and they saw a blue sheen race down it-“was my price, from the beginning.”
“Stop waving that about,” Jhessail said quietly. “You’re… impressing me.”
Islif grounded the blade on the toe of one boot-and surprised them all by smiling broadly. “Well,” she said, bright teeth flashing, “that’s a start.”
“You’re certainly impressing the Estle boys,” Doust observed. “Their eyes are like roundshields!”
Jhessail looked downslope. “They look less impressed than suspicious to me.” She sniffed. “Afraid we’ll pounce on one of their precious sheep and butcher it right here, belike.”
“Huh,” Semoor grunted. “More likely they’re hoping we’ll start kissing, and you’ll take your clothes off. That’s what they use the Stronghold for.”
“Live in hope, don’t you, Wolf?” Jhessail replied, her words dripping acid.
The priestling of Lathander shrugged and spread his hands-an elaborate gesture somewhat spoiled by the half-empty wineskin wrapped around one of them. “Lady Flamehair,” he explained, as if to an idiot child, “that’s what holy folk do. Live in the hope that the gods grant us, every day.”
“Until, in the fullness of time, you die like everyone else,” Islif commented, extending an imperious hand for his wineskin.
Semoor pretended not to notice, and declaimed, “Islif Lurelake, Jhessail Silvertree, Semoor Wolftooth, and Doust Sulwood-adventurers bold!”
Doust sighed. “I’m not so sure ‘bold’ is telling truth. Say: restless for adventure.”
“And you neglected to mention the boldest of us all,” Jhessail said, from between the two priestlings. “Florin, who’s off somewhere tracking stags and exploring the King’s Forest right now!”
It was Semoor’s turn to sigh. “The man in whose shadow I dwell, day after month after season.”
“Well, that’s because you’re not-in truth-bold enough,” Islif pointed out, firmly plucking the wineskin from his grasp as a breeze rose at her back, setting the leaves rustling. “Florin is. Which is why he’s elsewhere, whilst we sit here watching the last of the day fade, talking and dreaming-and no more than that.”
“But we can’t just go tearing off into the woods hacking at things and telling everyone we’re adventurers!” Semoor’s growl was as fierce as it was sudden. “Or ’tis the inside of one of the king’s jails we’ll be finding, soon enough! We need a charter-and charters cost coins none of us have!”
Doust looked at his friend, his eyes even darker blue than usual. “Coins we could scrape together, but we still have to convince someone we deserve a charter, and by all Tymora’s holy kisses, I don’t know how! Would you grant a bunch of restless younglings license to wander about the realm, hacking at things and looking for trouble?”
Semoor snorted. “Of course. Stupid question. Fortunately for the realm-and ill luck for us-I’m not King Azoun.”
“Stoop, don’t say that. Tymora frowns on those who speak of… ah, ‘poor fortune.’ ”
“ ’Tisn’t Lady Luck’s frown that makes me despair of ever managing to convince any court official to grant us a charter,” Jhessail snapped, her face going red. “I mean, look at us! Bored, restless younglings, yes? Get apprenticed, they’ll say! Learn a trade! Earn an honest day-coin! And send word back to us that you’ve done so, to save us the trouble of sending a war wizard by to peer at you as we serve all the malcontents!”
She stopped waving her arms suddenly, snatched the wineskin Doust was holding, and took a long, deep drink.
The two priestlings exchanged glances. Semoor spoke first.
“Let’s just go to Sembia, and to the Nine Hells with a charter!”
Jhessail gave him a fierce look. “And bid farewell to Cormyr? ” She waved down the hill at its ripples of waving grass, then swung around to indicate the gently dancing leaves in the great gnarled trees above. “Our home? Leave this? ”
“Well,” Islif said dryly, “I haven’t noticed any great mustering of outlaws in Espar. Or heaps of treasure, dragons’ caves, or evil wizards, for that matter. And if we walk around our neighbors’ lanes and pastures trying to stir up adventure, there soon will be outlaws hereabouts: us.”
“Aye,” Doust said slowly, gazing out across the fields, “Espar’s a fair and pleasant place… but watching sheep wander is about all the excitement any who dwell here can expect, most days.”
“Most years, ” Semoor corrected sourly.
Islif shrugged. “If we ever-somehow-become adventurers, staying dry and warm and fending off hunger may well become daily excitements.”
“Always the cheery merry-maid, aren’t you?” Semoor sighed, turning his sunrise disk of Lathander over and over in his fingers.
“I’m easier on the ears than some always-sharptongues I could name,” the warrior-lass replied, hefting her sword meaningfully.
“Oooh,” the priestling of Lathander gasped in mock-terror, recoiling with all the subtlety of old Laedreth the Lute playacting a frightened queen in the greatroom of the Eye, with a few tankards inside him. “You’re so- menacing! Oooo!”
Islif sighed. “With just one good kick, holynose, I could really make you squeal!”
Semoor leered, “Ah, but I can do the same to you with naught but my tongue!”
Islif rolled her eyes. “Semoor, your mind outreeks a cesspit. It’s a wonder to me your prayers don’t make the Morninglord spew his guts out!”
Semoor’s smile went away in an instant. “Don’t jest about that. Holy Lathander blesses new ventures-and that’s just what we’ll be, if we set off adventuring!”
“Aye,” Jhessail agreed grimly. “If.”
“And if not,” Doust said quietly, “ ’tis temple-field farming for Wolf and for me, separate somewheres in the upcountry, while the two of you grow gray hairs here in Espar as farmwives, birthing calves, tilling fields, having babies, and cooking, cooking, cooking.”
“ Don’t remind me,” Islif snapped.
“Florin,” Jhessail said wistfully. “We need Florin to show us the way clear of this.”
The wind rose around them with a sudden howl, as if in agreement.
“Lad, both of the lord’s jacks’re deep in dreams,” came the hiss out of the darkness on the other side of the tree. “Still game for this?”
“Of course, Del,” Florin murmured, from his side of the great duskwood. “I’d not miss this for all Lord Hezom’s gold.”
The dark shape of the horsemaster moved in the still-faint light of the rising moon; Delbossan was shaking his head. “Huh. If she gets hurt-or if yon pair of jackblades wake-’twon’t be Hezom’s gold the two of us’ll have to be worrying over! He already owns rope enough for our hangings!”
“They won’t wake ’til morn,” Florin muttered close by Delbossan’s head. “Trust me.”
“Oh. Another of your herb-powders in their tankards?”
“Now if you ask not, I’ll not have to say, aye?” The ranger grinned. “Yet I’ve a strong hunch, somehow, they’ll be unharmed when they rise… around highsun. Mind you pretend to have been affected, too-and scare them enough that they agree to help you search along the road to save all your hides, rather than running straight to Espar to cry the alarm. Somewhat south of Hezom’s guardpost you ‘find’ a trail, and follow it through the woods around Espar to Hunter’s Hollow. I’ll meet with you there by highsun, three days hence.”
“Done, lad. Don’t make me rue this.”
“Trust me, Del. Now take my place here behind the tree, and keep hidden. She’ll probably run to where the moonlight’s strongest, but who can say for sure?”
“With that dragon, lad, there’s no surety-trust me. ”
They chuckled together, foreheads almost touching, and parted, clapping each other’s shoulders in the nightgloom. In the words of the old song: ’Twas time to be taming the lady…
The pavilion glowed like a bright jewel in the night, which surprised Florin not at all. A city-reared noble lass
