solid stone, but at least they didn't give dwarves funny looks… and suddenly, even before the promised dinner came, Shandril felt something hard touch her forehead, hard and unmoving and restful…
'Thy lady, lad,' Mirt said, reaching over to poke Narm. 'She’s out dreamstalking already… Nay, nay, don't wake her. Just keep her hair out of the soup when it comes…'
Unmoving, Shandril lay face forward on the table, her hair spread out around her in a swirl of ash-blond tresses. Narm's gentle hands gathered it back to her shoulders, combing out the worst tangles. Shandril slept on, shoulders rising and falling faintly.
She was running barefoot through night-dark woods, flames of spellfire racing up and down her bare body like a beacon. Where her feet came down, flames leapt up and left a fiery trail. Behind her, she could hear wolves running, wolves and men… men with dark cloaks and cruel eyes. They rode skeletal dragons that laughed hollowly, even after she blasted them. There were more of them, more and more, and the spellfire in her hands was fading away and failing… They came nearer, the men laughing now along with the bony dragons… near, nearer… Dark hands shifted suddenly, fingers lengthening horribly into reaching, writhing black tentacles…
'No! No, you won't take me!' Shandril screamed, lashing out with her hands. She was somewhere warm and bright-sitting at a table at the inn. With her friends. Shandril blinked and stared about wildly, breathing hard.
'Easy, Shan, easy,' Narm said, holding her. 'It was only a dream.'
Shandril nodded-but her gaze had settled on a hard faced man approaching their table. He looked like a warrior, and lie strode slowly at the head of four others of similar cut Mirt turned in his seat to face these strangers, but did not rise.
Delg leaned across the table and hissed, 'No spellfire unless you have to, Shan. Let us handle this, aye?'
Shandril had no time to reply. The newcomer's voice was already raised in anger. 'You're the ones who stole my little girl! Thieves! Slavers! You won't get away this time! Innkeeper! Bring your crossbows!' He waved a hand and stepped aside. The warriors behind him, all armed, started menacingly forward.
Mirt rose ponderously from his chair to meet the foremost man, who held a naked scimitar ready.
'You're first, fat one,' die man sneered, drawing up his blade for a slash.
Mirt ducked suddenly beneath its bright edge and slammed into the man's midriff. The man flew backward, crashing into another brigand in a confusion of clattering blades, hard knees, and helplessly flailing hands. Mirt continued his lunge, grabbed the belt of yet another man, and flung him sideways into the man who'd first accused them. 'The landing!' he bellowed as he fell amid a growing hubbub.
Narm and Delg were already looking up. Two more warriors were hurrying down the stairs to the landing, cocked crossbows in their hands. Delg's axe flasher! across the room, whirling as it flew. Men shouted in fear, and the tables all around emptied in haste. The axe sailed true, and the next moment one of the archers was slumped on the stairs, whimpering and clutching at the red ruin of his shoulder, where the bright dwarven axe was buried deeply amid the spreading blood.
Narm stood up coolly, shielding Shandril with his body, and raised his hands to cast a spell. Before he could, Delg slapped his leg. Narm looked down-and the dwarf thrust a small, loaded hand-crossbow into his hands. Narm stared at it for a moment, and then took it, aimed it carefully, holding it in both hands, and fired. An arrow thrummed into the floor as the bow from which it had come crashed over the railing. Its owner clutched at Narm's quarrel in his throat, made strangling noises, and followed his weaponry to the floor below.
Without pause, Delg snatched a handful of quarrels from his belt, thrust them into Narm's hands, and scrambled up onto the table, drawing a long knife from his boot.
Men shouted out in the lobby, and the thunder of running feet answered the call. Blades had been drawn all over the taproom. Some sort of alarm gong rang behind the bar, and there was a momentary lull in its wake-so everyone heard the grisly cracking sound as Mirt calmly broke a man's neck. The attacker's body slumped to the floor like a heavy sack of coal as the old merchant's hairy hands released hint Wheezing, Mirt snatched up a chair and met the charge of the last swordsman, sweeping aside the slashing blade.
All the while, Narm's trembling hands fumbled at reloading the unfamiliar weapon, He wished he knew some better battle spells and cursed himself for not having enough magical strength to protect his lady. The bolt slipped once again from its groove. Narm cursed and looked up in frustration. Over his shoulder, he glimpsed the man who'd accused them all, drawing back his hand and snarling. A dagger glittered in it, a dagger meant for Shandril. Narm roared a warning.
Shandril twisted desperately sideways in her seat to get below the table. The knife came down, leaping through the air at her with frightening speed, twinkling as it came. A straining body leapt to intercept it in midair over the table, shielding her for a crucial instant before crashing heavily down amid the scattered remains of their dinner. Narm landed with a ragged gasp and lay still.
Shandril stared at him in horror. Fear and anger coiled in her throat with the rising spellfire. Trembling with rage, she stood to lash out at the man-but the warrior no longer stood there.
Delg had leapt from the table where he had been fighting and struck the man squarely in the face-knife first and with all the dwarf's bearded and booted weight behind it. The man was falling with Delg still wrapped around his head, both of them covered in blood that did not belong to the dwarf.
Off to one side. Mirt had just broken his chair over the disarmed swordsman, who was falling now in a strangely boneless, flopping way to the floor.
There was no foe left to smite. Shandril stood there, hands smoldering, facing a frightened innkeeper and two red-faced but rapidly paling cooks with cleavers and crossbows in their hands. Other patrons stood farther back, swords and daggers and eating-forks held outs, fear on their faces. Silence came again to the taproom of The Wanton Wyvern.
'No, lass,' Mirt rapped out al her, pointing to where Narm lay on the table. The bloody dagger stood out of the young mage's side, just below his left shoulder. 'Delg, take his feet, will ye? We've no time to lose!'
Delg got up. dripping his victim's gore and panting. 'Anyone else hurt?'
Not pausing to answer, Mirt raised his voice in a bellow addressed to everyone in the taproom. 'All of ye- stand aside! I've no quarrel with any of ye, but any who bar our way will end as these did, by Tempus! And any who raise blade against us will answer for it to King Azoun!'
In the shocked silence that followed, the frightened onlookers silently parted to make way for them, and Mirt hurried them out to the doors.
'Delg, scout!' he barked, and the dwarf lowered Narm s legs to the ground and hurried past them into the night outside. 'Shandril,' the stout merchant added, holding Narm by the shoulders, 'take his feet, gently-but haste matters more than handling, now… Good, good… hurry, now…'
Delg was waving them on. They hurried out into the night and across the dark and muddy inn yard. Narm's eyes were closed, and he was breathing raggedly, breath rasping and wet.
'Where are we going?' Narm asked. Mirt's shaggy, lionlike head was looking this way and that. 'To the gate,' he roared and trotted on. In a few jolting seconds they were there, and the old merchant thrust Narm into Delg's arms.
'Hold him,' he panted, 'and don't let him fall.' And he whirled away from the staggering dwarf to attack the props and bars of the gate like alt angry bear, snatching and grunting and clawing.
Wooden spars bounced and crashed aside, and before they'd stopped bouncing, lie had the gate open. Out into the road lie stumbled, looking this way and that — 'Baergasra? There ye are! Quickly, we've need of thy healing.' Mirt said in a voice halfway between a snarl and a sob. A breath later, the old derelict in tattered rags appeared out of the night, running hard. An astonished Shandril realized she was watching a healthy and fast- moving woman, not a drunken cripple. Mirt waved her in through the open gate and came after, straight to Narm. 'Delg?' Mirt snapped. 'All safe?'
'Looks clear,' the dwarf replied grimly as he shifted Narm's limp body across his shoulders. Shandril had been holding her man's head tenderly, but site let go in haste as Mirt plucked him from Delg's shoulders and laid him against the base of the high fence. Then the Old Wolf snatched out his dagger.
By the glow from its blade, Shandril saw the stout, filthy beggar woman kneeling beside Narm. The knife stood out of Narm's narrow chest, just forward of the armpit.
Baergasra's grimy fingers plucked the blade deftly out, and Mirt's hand was there to press hard against the blood that followed. The woman waggled the bloody dagger so that its blade caught the light. She stared at it a moment, flung it aside, and spit after it.
