like to talk about the wisdom of riding aimlessly around the most dangerous territory we can find, now that we lack a false Elminster to escort. Surely these deadly shapeshifters can find us wherever we are?'
Belkram sighed again. 'To hear good sense spoken so directly and clearly is always disconcerting. It makes debate seem so… foolish.'
'Spoken like a man!' Itharr agreed in robust tones. 'Exactly,' Shar and the stone that was Sylune said in perfect unison. After a moment, everyone laughed.
Belkram rose again in his saddle still chuckling, and pointed northwest. 'Is that a suitable place I see before me?'
'Pray, good knight, ride ye and see,' Itharr quoted in response.
Belkram looked quickly at the lady ranger who rode with them, cleared his throat, and said loudly, 'Ah, no, Itharr. Not that ballad. Really.'
Shar gave him a smile, a twinkle in her gray-green eyes, and sang steadily, 'For I crave a bank by a stream running softly, where ye'll lay me down and make love to me!'
'Oh, no!' Itharr said in shocked tones. 'You were right, bold Belkram. Not a suitable ballad at all!'
'Belt up and stow it,' Belkram told him dryly. 'Well, what say you? Does anyone know what that place might be?'
'It's a little hard to see from inside this pocket,' Sylune said sweetly. 'Perhaps if we get closer and you dismount, I could tell something about it. We'd best poke about a bit first, to see if that's a prudent course of action.'
Itharr and Sharantyr both spread eloquent empty hands in answer to Belkram's query. 'We're out of the bits of Daggerdale I know,' Shar added. 'It looks more like a manor on a hill than a keep, but just as far past its proud days as Irythkeep. We'll be lucky to find any part of it still with a roof.'
'Well, we've been very lucky in avoiding rain thus far,' Itharr observed brightly.
'Hush!' both of the other riders said severely.
'Do you want to bring it on?' Sharantyr demanded, scowling. 'I've heard of lump-headed idiots before, but-'
'You weren't prepared for what a couple of Harpers can do,' Sylune said loudly enough for them all to hear, startling Belkram into nearly falling out of his saddle.
'Stead)' on, there,' Itharr commented. 'The bit of the horse that snorts and has ears is the front. Now, all you have to do is keep a leg either side of the beast and that front bit pointed-'
'You can belt up any time, friend,' Belkram said easily. 'Your tongue runs on almost as much as Elminster's!'
The stone in his pocket laughed heartily.
'Enough,' Sharantyr said, her eye on the lowering sun. Trap or no, let's look at this place before darkness leaves us no choices at all.'
The ruin they were fast approaching stood on a grassy hill whose steep slopes fell away into thick, tangled woods to the east and south. Broken land, all hills and copses, lay beyond it to the north, and there seemed to be a patchwork of woodlots and meadows-the former manor farmlands, no doubt-to the west. An overgrown road of sorts crossed the rolling country before them, leading down into the woods and thence up that oddly bare hill to the ruin. Why had no saplings sprung up on the hillsides?
'I don't like the look of it,' Itharr said.
'Nor do I,' Belkram said, 'but I must remind you that I've heard those same words from you about seventy times since we began faring together.'
'And how often was my concern justified?'
'Umm… twenty times or so.'
'Well?'
'But if we strike out the times we were looking at known Zhentarim holds, brigand camps, and undead holds, Itharr… four times.'
'Perhaps this'll be five,' Itharr offered, almost hopefully.
'You don't really have too much doubt, do you?'
'No. The backs of my hands itch,' the burly Harper said, as if that explained everything.
'The backs of his hands itch,' Belkram told the sky. 'Shar, you're closer. Scratch them for him, will you?'
'I go out riding with a pair of hairily handsome men,' Shar told her horse conversationally, 'and what do they want me to do? Scratch the backs of their hands. You certainly meet some crazed-wits in the ranks of the Harpers, don't you?'
'Enough levity,' Itharr said in quite a different voice, and drew his sword. A moment later he was riding down a green tunnel beneath the interlaced branches of the trees, slowing his mount abruptly and looking warily at the trees ahead. 'Lady of the Forest, be with us,' he breathed, knowing an arrow could take him in the face or throat before he even saw it.
He glanced back once. Sharantyr was catching up to him swiftly, her beautiful brown hair flowing free around her shoulders and her blade naked in her hand. Far behind he could see Belkram, head turning from side to side and then twisting to look back the way they'd come, in a steady, watchful cycle.
Knowing just what reckless fools they were, Itharr sighed as he faced the woods and rode on. Ahead, the road dipped to ford a small stream. No-a sagging bridge, gray with age and neglect, sloped across the bright ribbon of water. Past the bridge, the road climbed out into daylight, up the hill.
He expected an attack where prudence forced him to dismount and lead the horse through the shallow waters just above the ruined bridge, but none came. He thought he saw a small dark figure turn and scuttle away through the trees well downstream, but brownies and halflings could almost always be found in country like this, and might well leave a few humans alone.
Or might not, as their inclinations took them. Itharr's shoulders felt very exposed as he rode up the hill and circled the ruin at a careful trot, seeing his companions come up the hill in turn.
Someone had burned the manor house a long time ago. Roofless walls were all that was left of two barns and the house itself, which had a semicircular flagstone terrace commanding a very pleasant view from the hilltop. Anything with eyes had seen them approach, but the ruins looked safe enough in themselves. Sharantyr was already dismounting to check the corners.
'Human bones here,' she said almost immediately, 'and orcs, too. Long dead, and scattered by something that came along later, something hungry that had big teeth.'
'Ah, the expertise of the trained ranger,' Belkram said jovially. 'Have you decided on the best place for the horses?'
'Indeed,' Shar told him pleasantly, 'but I'm not sure if all three of them'll fit there; you'd probably struggle and squirm.'
Itharr's barked laughter spilled out his relief that no attack had come, and it was Sylune's turn to sigh. 'Crude, children… very crude. I'd best come out and look about. I can see undeath and things invisible where you can't.'
'Please do,' Belkram replied. 'Teasing aside, I've just as odd a feeling about this too-pleasant place as Itharr.'
The stone seemed to turn over in his pocket, and Belkram felt the softest of breezes against his cheek. 'Try to behave while I'm gone,' came a whisper in his ear, and he frowned in puzzlement at the word 'gone' until he recalled her first act as Elminster, when coming to a camp: checking the trees all around for spies, brigands, game trails, and the like. He stretched, trying to relax shoulders tight with tension, and looked around the ruin.
The place must have been a cozy house when it was whole, not a grand residence. There were no halls, fore-chambers, or defensive ring walls, just a stout building of rooms opening into rooms. They chose one for the horses and another for themselves, and built a fire as soon as Sylune drifted back unseen to tell them the woods around were safe for as far as she'd cared to look.
Belkram had bent his ear her way in suspicion at something subdued in her tone, but Sylune saw him and said firmly, 'Nothing is amiss that need concern you, Belkram. Relax, and have that debate you were so looking forward to. I'll stand watch the night through, if you'll all sleep clothed-or at least with your boots on-and with weapons to hand.'
