until we hammer it out.'
Semoor grinned. 'Give it here. I'd welcome something to batter flat, about now.'
No,'Islif and Pennae said in unison, severely.
'You want to make enough noise to draw things to us for more than a day's travel all around?' the thief added. 'Know how far that sort of sound carries?'
Semoor gave her a bright, idiotic grin. 'Evidently not. Farther than your curses?'
'How's Jhess?' Florin asked. 'I think she took the full force of whatever spell she sent at it. Something made the spell turn back on her.'
'That would be the work of the wizard who was watching,' Pennae told him, joining him as he peered down at Jhessails sprawled, unconscious body. 'Who I don't think is a war wizard.'
'Doesn't seem like their style, no,' Islif agreed. 'So, what other foes do we have?' She shot Pennae a look. 'Just how busy have you been, separating nobles from their coins?'
The thief shrugged. 'No busier than we've all been, getting them separated from their heads by war wizards as they get caught doing treason, time and again. I doubt most of them care overmuch about us, if they think of us at all.'
'Well.' Semoor sighed, 'Someone is thinking of us. Right attentively, too.'
'Let's hope he's tasted enough battle for one night,' Pennae said, looking at Doust's ribs. 'This ledge and slope here is probably the best camp we'll find for defending in the dark against anyone who can't loose arrows at us.'
She looked up at Semoor. 'Heal your friend, here. Tymora shouldn't mind. He certainly took his chances.'
'What about Jhess?'
'Let her lie in peace for now. At dawn, the two of you may need to be healing her. I didn't recognize the spell she tried to use-did either of you?'
The priests both shook their heads.
'Well, sit on either side of her and keep watching her. If she turns cold or doesn't rouse, start with the healings right away. Or we may be down one mage.'
'Is she that bad?' Florin asked grimly, planting his sword and going to his knees beside the still, wan-faced Jhessail.
Pennae shrugged. 'Don't know, not knowing the spell she tried. All we can do is wait and see.'
'Why not cast the healings right now?'
'Because it's not morning yet, Florin,' the thief said. 'We don't know when we'll be attacked next. One of us may end up needing them more urgently than little Flamehair here.'
Florin nodded and turned to face the night, where they could already hear beasts moving. The creatures were heading for where the corpse of the dirlagraun lay. To feed.
His left arm, leg, and the left side of him were all covered in bone now, and most of his face, too. His hair was falling out in great, dry, crumbling handfuls.
Brorn had shrugged off most of his clothing at first, for fear it would melt or rot away when the bone-change touched it.
Yet it was back on, now. His spreading, creeping covering of bone was affecting only his skin. Beneath it, he still felt like himself- strong, agile, alive, not a brittle, light, dead thing.
It hadn't covered his eyes. Yet. It had done something to them, though. He could see keenly in the night- gloom, walking among the trees as sure-footed as on a cloudy day.
And half of him, stlarn it, looked like a walking skeleton.
He dared not go out to the road, where folk could see him. He probably shouldn't let himself be seen as he was now, in Cormyr, at all. In the Dales, they were backwoods farmers, simpler folk. His appearance might tetrify them, but they weren't of Cormyr, so he didn't care what they thought of him, so long as none of them got brave enough to start thrusting pitchforks or aiming crossbows his way.
What would happen to him when the bone covered him entirely? Would it start gnawing at his innards or growing across his eyes?
Was he doomed?
Not that there was a thing he could do to stop it.
Which meant he might as well keep on as if he was going to live, until the gods showed him otherwise.
So he was looking like a monster already and very soon would be a monster to most folk of Faerun. Which meant the life of a lurking, forest-dwelling outlaw would be all he could hope for.
Well, the northern Dales were the best place he could think of to try to do that. All the vast forest to lurk in, good farms to plunder crops from…
There was nothing left fot him in Cormyr, unless he could get the Pendant of Ashaba.
It would be useless to him in Shadowdale. No simple farmers would accept a walking skeleton as their ruling lord.
Yet if he could get it back to, say, Arabel and see the Lady Lord there, he could bargain with it and perhaps get a war wizard to banish this bone armor and turn him back the way he'd looked before.
To get the Pendant, of course, he'd have to kill some Knights of Myth Drannor. No great crime, that, in the eyes of the Cormyrean authorities. At least from what he'd seen and heard. That ornrion had looked to be itching to butcher some Knights himself.
Moreover, Brorn Hallomond had a sworn score to settle. Lord Yellander must be avenged.
Something shifted in his groin. Gods, it had covered him there. Well, that was it. He was a monster.
Could he get work in Sembia in one of the festhalls? The Man of Bone, now onstage, dancing with the highcoin lasses? Say, now…
No. Try for the lordship first. Noble lords in Cormyr were all far richer than dancers in clubs, and with coin enough he could buy all the lasses he wanted to dance with.
He had to have that Pendant.
Knights of Myth Drannor had to die.
Telgarth Boatblade leaned forward over the table, the better to murmur to the four conspirators Ruldroun had sent here. 'See those men coming in now? Each of you get a good look at the face of one of them. Thorm, that one. Darratur, the tall one. Glays, the one with the mustache. Klatn, the balding one. I'll take the one with the beard. Go upstairs to pretend to look for rooms if you have to, or follow them into the jakes-just get a good look. Don't make them suspicious by staring. Try to seem boted, and look around idly, often, as if you always do. But fix their features in your memories. The moment you have, go out front, and we'll meet by the hitching rail.'
'Why?' Klarn asked.
Boarblade decided there and then that Klarn would be the first of the four to die, if the need arose. He did not need someone questioning his every word.
'They are a Crown envoy and his bodyguards. We're going to wait until they're abed, use our hargaunts to adopt their faces, then firmly but urgently require the discreet use of our mounts-their horses; they'll be fast, first- rank beasts, believe me! — and ride on out of here.'
Four faces stared intently at him. They were excited. Good.
'Trot until we're out of sight of this place,' he added, 'then walk until we find a stream. Rest the horses a bit, then walk them again, and start looking for a place off the road to camp. Come the warm hours after highsun on the morrow, if we do all that righr, we can be galloping hard along the Ride.'
He sat back and said firmly, 'We've got us some Knights to catch, they've a long start, and I for one am not walking all the way to Shadowdale. Which is certainly how far we'll have to go if we try to catch up to them, just plodding along on foot. Anyone dispute that?'
No one did.
Chapter 21
