'Don't look,' she commanded both Harpers with mock severity.
'Of course not,' they replied with identical grins, keeping their eyes carefully on hers. Then they turned around together, walking well away around one soot-blackened wall.
Sharantyr watched them go, took a deep breath, and reluctantly let her eyes fall to the cold form at her feet. She swallowed and then knelt beside it, taking up her newly sharpened knife. This was not going to be easy.
'Be easy, sister-in-arms,' nothing spoke, close by her ear. Shar nodded and smiled wanly as the voice of Sylune went on. 'Place your longest finger on the ribs, on the right side. Feel them? Move up one… and another.
There. Take the knife and make a mark large enough to see clearly.'
Shar swallowed. Then, deliberately, she did as she had been told, feeling her gorge rise alarmingly within her, a sudden hotness in her throat.
'If you spew on the body,' Sylune said in dry but somehow sympathetic tones, 'you'll make the job a lot more distasteful.'
Shar nodded irritably, wiping sudden sweat from her brow with one swipe of her forearm. Cutting a foe in the heat and swiftness of battle was one thing, but…
How did chirurgeons-and butchers, for that matter- do it?
The stone is deep,' Sylune said calmly, steadying her. Shar thanked her with another smile, ran the knife point down Old Elminster's side almost to the ground, and then drove it in.
Blood flowed, more and faster than she'd have thought, bathing her fingers in warm stickiness. Sharantyr's stomach lurched.
Involuntarily her eyes traveled to where Elminster's head should be and was not, and a moment later she flung herself to one side and emptied her gut onto the turf, her own ribs aching as she shuddered and heaved uncontrollably.
'It'll be harder if you wait,' Sylune said soothingly, but Sharantyr sung back to the bleeding body with an angry snarl, face white, and dug her blade in as if striking a blow in battle.
Her arms and breast were soon dripping, and she nearly squirted herself in the eye twice. One glimpse of her matted, dangling hair made her wish she'd tied it back before starting this, but she couldn't think of everything, by all the gods, and…
There. It slipped out easily into her fingers: a gray, unremarkable stone from Sylune's hut, the focus that allowed the undead Sister to speak, to be, this far from the place of her death. The means by which she'd been able to make this spell-crafted body move and speak and perceive-and ape Elminster so well.
The impersonation had been masterful, Shar reminded herself as she took another deep breath, her stomach a loose and floating thing, and got up grimly from her knees, the stone tightly clutched in her fist. Blood ran down her arms and dripped off her elbows as she headed for where the two Harpers stood talking. Modesty was just going to have to be abandoned for the nonce; she had to get clean!
'Goodsirs,' she said tightly, 'I must…
'Close your eyes and trust in us,' Itharr said gently. 'We won't lose the stone; just hold it out.'
Sharantyr did as she was bid and felt the stone taken from her fingers, followed by a warm stinging on them and on her eyelids, face, and body as someone washed her carefully with… zzar!
She wrinkled her nose at the unmistakable almond scent, and someone chuckled. Before she could draw breath to speak, Belkram said, 'Sorry, Shar. 'Tis all we could think of in haste.' After a moment, he offered slyly, 'We could lick you clean, after.'
'You could run to Zhentil Keep and back before nightfall, first,' she replied briskly, and all three of them chuckled. A moment later, she relaxed gratefully into the warmth of an energetic toweling.
'You won't be the only one smelling like a tavern, though,' Itharr said. Shar opened her eyes to look a question at him and saw that both men had stripped to the waist-hairy beasts, the pair of them-and were drying her with their undershirts. She wrinkled her nose again at the thought of smelling like an unwashed, sweaty man, then smiled at their hurt expressions and said hastily, 'You are sweet, both of you.'
'I was wondering when you were going to say that,' Sylune's voice said in her ear, in a faint, private whisper. Belkram proudly held out Shar's leathers for her to see the hasty but neat stitching where they'd sewn her rent shoulder panel more or less back together.
She took their work in her fingers and shook her head in delighted wonder. 'How did you do this in such a short time?' She clutched the leathers to her breast and looked from one beaming Harper to the other. 'You'll make wonderful mates, you two!'
'Oh, no,' Itharr said firmly, backing away.
'No, indeed,' Belkram agreed, eyes wary. 'We're kind folk, not crazy men.'
Sharantyr stared at them and then around at the gory body behind her, the soot-blackened rocks, the mushroom pulp strewn everywhere… and started to laugh. Not crazy. Indeed.
The snorting sound from the empty air at her elbow told her Sylune shared her amusement.
Shar shook her head again, her broad smile refusing to fade, and then a gentle breeze touched her with cool fingers, reminding her that she was- She looked down, then up at the carefully raised eyes of the two men, and said crisply, 'You have my thanks, and my clothes. I'd like them back now, if you don't mind.'
They bent and gathered her garments promptly. There's a worn spot here on your halter,' Belkram said helpfully, pointing, 'where it's starting to pull apa-'
'I'll live with it, thanks,' Shar told him firmly, taking everything in an armload and retreating hastily. 'A worn part of my body customarily lives beneath it.'
'Don't,' Itharr said quickly, holding up a warning hand. 'The body…'
Sylune added quietly, 'To the right three paces, and there'll be no chance of slipping on gore or tripping over the… remains.'
Shar sighed, breathed deeply for a few moments, and then turned her back on her two companions and marched around the body in a wide circle, heading for the other side of the ruins.
Belkram and Itharr exchanged glances, smiles, and shrugs. 'Worth seeing, and that's all I'd best say,' Itharr said quietly, reaching for the zzar bottle and its cork.
'I agree,' Sylune's voice said sharply from the stone Belkram's fingers had just closed on. 'Let's leave the comments at that fair observation, shall we?'
'Of course, great lady,' the Harpers replied in swift unison, and were treated to the sight of a stone chuckling.
Belkram nearly flung it down a moment later when a startled scream rent the air from the far side of the ruin. The two men snatched out blades and sprinted to the rescue, running too fast to spare breath to growl, 'What now?' — so Sylune voiced it for them.
They came around a rubble-strewn corner at a dead run, to see no nude ranger. 'Shar?' Belkram called urgently.
'Here,' their companion replied curtly, and they turned toward her voice. To find her, they had to pass through an arch and around the tumbled remnants of a wall, into a little sheltered corner. 'Did you bring my blade?' demanded the woman huddled in the corner, shielding herself with her hands.
'N-no,' Itharr said. 'What befalls?'
'Turn around while I dress,' Shar ordered, 'but keep your blades ready. You may need them.'
A few breaths later she joined them, breathing heavily in her haste. 'What made you scream?' Itharr asked, feeling her hand on his shoulder. 'You never scream.'
'Well, thank you,' Shar replied evenly, 'but I do. And so would you, if you were a woman wearing nothing but a smile and walked almost right into them!'
'Who're 'them'?' Belkram asked her, puzzled.
Shar pointed in exasperation. 'There! In the trees!'
The Harpers looked, and frowned-and then stiffened. Just inside the edge of the concealing trees, a dozen warriors stood frozen, weapons raised, faces tense, and eyes alight with frustration and appreciation. Belkram peered narrowly at the silent, absolutely motionless band. Only their eyes moved as he swung his sword idly in the air and stepped forward.
'Randal Morn, Lord of Daggerdale, if I'm not mistaken… and his court,' he said, and bowed to one of the statuelike figures. 'A moment, sir,' he said, and then looked down to the stone in his hand. 'Lady?'
