At his elbow, the War Wizard Tsantress rolled her eyes. 'I'd hate to have heard that, because I just might agree with it-and then what sort of trouble would I be in?'
'I still can't believe he's alive,' Lorbryn Deltalon put in from behind them both.
'Believe it,' Laspeera said wearily. Then she stepped forward, astonished Florin by embracing him, and over his shoulder announced, 'You are good folk, you Knights. But get you on to Shadowdale with your pendant, before anything else happens.'
The Knights muttered various forms of agreement, turned with waves and smiles, and went out to the Moonsea Ride to walk east.
Dauntless promptly strode to where he could watch them go. Laspeera grinned and shook her head at that, then turned and carefully conjured a portal in the center of the clearing.
When the glow of that magical doot was bright and steady, she ushered the Harper and her fellow war wizards toward it. They obeyed, filing through the glow and journeying back to Suzail in a single step.
'Ornrion,' she called.
Dauntless turned his head, saw the portal and her beckoning gesture, gave the dwindling figures of the Knights one last, long look, then obediently started toward the waiting glow.
He was still a pace away from it when something slid silently out of the trees ar the far end of rhe clearing.
The flying sword, point-first, gliding low beneath the leaves.
'Get through!' Laspeera snapped at the ornrion. 'No, don't stoo and turn-go!'
Dauntless ran, and Laspeera ducked aside from the portal and hastily started to close it.
The flying sword streaked at the portal's waning glow.
Laspeera frowned as a sudden rhought struck her. She whipped two wands from her belt and unleashed them with cafe at the flickering, shrinking edges of the portal.
It guttered, rippled wildly, and suddenly shot up into the air, the sword slicing air just beneath it, then arcing around to speed at it again.
The rippling glow dodged again, the sword almost plunging through it. The radiance seemed for just a moment to collapse into a wildly agitated helix… then became bright and hard again, but smaller and humming loudly. The sword shot toward it again.
Laspeera willed the doorway onto its edge and to rise, and again the sword just missed it. By then, her former portal had raced to hover before her like a shield.
The sword was getting faster. It darted at the shield, plunged into it as silently as if the shield were mere empty air… and slowed to a snail's pace in midair, hanging almost motionless as it worked its way through the glowing barrier.
Its point was glittering a mere arm's length from Laspeera's breast.
She stepped aside leisurely, resheathed her wands, and got the strongest spell she knew ready, mouth going dry.
Either she had just made the biggest-and quite likely the last- mistake of her life, or…
The sword emerged from the shield, still gliding so slowly it seemed almost frozen. It had acquired a strange glow of its own, a pulsing purple-white sheen that raced up its length to its elegantly curled quillons, then back down.
'Yes!' an exulting voice erupted from it. 'Yessss!'
The Sword That Never Sleeps turned and streaked off northeast, faster than it had ever sped before.
Chapter 18
No realm can confine me Sick of working? Want to be free? Of lack of coins, of the drudge's load? I'm an adventurer a-wandering New forays ever pondering No realm can confine me; I'm for the open road.
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
