said, as Halger looked at the apprentice over her shoulder, amusement warring with interest on his weathered face, 'but the fiasco should be… entertaining.'
'One barrel only, mind,' Halger growled. 'Ruin an entire shipment, lad, and they'll have me cooking you for evenfeast! And what good are barrels turned to ash? We reuse them, you know.'
The cook's words rose like angry arrows to the ears of the Tyrant, the wizard Druskin, and the Buckler commander as they came out onto a balcony overlooking the mound of potatoes. The mage stiffened, but the Tyrant put a firm hand on his arm and murmured, 'Hold peace and silence for now. Let us watch and learn for a bit.'
Druskin gave him a glare of mingled astonishment and embarrassment, but clamped his lips together and turned his burning gaze to the scene below.
Brandor saw that movement, and glanced up. At the sight of the three most powerful men in all Mintarn looking back down at him, two faces coolly calm but his master quivering with suppressed rage, the apprentice went pale.
The Buckler commander-his commander-leaned forward and said calmly, 'Pray proceed, Brandor. One last prank? Or a clever stratagem that can benefit us all? For your future, I hope 'tis the latter. The true value of a warrior is less often bold innovation than minstrels would have us believe. More often, 'tis in carrying out the drudge duties of potato peeling-or, yes, of watching at our posts without snoring-than in all the glorious charges and bloodily victorious attacks that all too many bards sing about… but I'm sure your master will have more pointed words to address to you in the near future. Cast your spell and redeem yourself, if you can.'
Brandor trembled, managed a sickly smile, and stared down at his hands. What else could he do but cast the spell?
He drew in a deep breath, turned his back on them all, and raised his hands to work his latest magic.
His fingers were still poised, the casting not begun, when something moved inside the first barrel. It rolled forward-just an inch or so, shoving the heavy stop-log with it-and the faint reek of swamp water wafted to Brandor's nose. He swallowed, and turned to Shalara. 'D-did you see…?'
She nodded, face as pale as his own. Something that could move that barrel would have to be big. Not a thousand-odd oysters, but something very much larger…
'Well, 'prentice?' Druskin's voice was as angry as his expression had suggested. He leaned over the balcony rail. 'Is there a particular reason why you hesitate to carry out Commander Maerlin's order? Or is this yet another prank?'
Brandor tried not to shake nor look as pale as he felt as he looked up and blurted, 'P-please, sir-the barrel moved! There's something alive in there.'
'Well, of course there is, boy! Oysters aplenty, hmm? Cos* your spell!'
Brandor looked helplessly at Shalara in the unhappy silence that followed, and she came to his rescue.
'Sir Mage,' she said crisply, looking up, 'Your apprentice speaks the truth, and I saw him fall from confidence to… dread in but a breath. I also saw why. The barrel moved. Something within is trying to get out.'
Druskin's eyes narrowed, and he said softly, 'Trying to play the hero and impress a lady again, lad? A spell of yours moved that barrel, 111 warrant. Have done. Stand away, cast no more spells, and take yourself to my quarters without delay. I shall have words to impart to you there.'
In the silence that followed, the barrel gave a slight groan, then things happened very fast.
The end of the barrel bulged, then hissed open, coming slightly askew. A swampy reek rolled across the kitchens and before anyone could say or do anything, the end piece was sent flying.
A green torrent of stinking water poured forth. Brandor saw a glistening wet hide, staring froglike eyes, then a curve-bladed cutlass vying with a short spear for the pleasure of enthusiastically ending a certain apprentice's life. Something the color of an olive, that had the head of a giant frog, lumbered forth and stood upright on webbed feet. It was taller and broader of shoulders than any man Brandor had ever seen. Corded muscles rippled under glistening slime as it thrust viciously at Brandor with its spear. It wore armor made of the carapaces of sea turtles and a murderous expression. Its long red tongue lapped forth hungrily from between jagged-toothed jaws, and its breath stank.
'A-a bullywug?' Brandor asked Faerun around him in utter astonishment.
As the cutlass whistled past his head, he ducked, raced three frantic paces to the long tongs, and spun around again-just in 'time to strike aside the spear and end up with the tongs wedged between them.
The bullywug towered over him, its fetid tongue slapping his face and hair. Shalara screamed. Brandor shrank back from a snapping bite, clung desperately to the tongs, and tried to set his feet on the wet, slippery floor. He could hear startled curses from Halger and from the balcony, and the slap of the cook's boots… running away.
Then he had no time to pay attention to anything else but staying alive. The bullywug was upon him, hacking and biting.
'Get away from it, boy!' Druskin shouted. 'I can't cast a spell with you there.'
Almost shoved off his feet by the bullywug's writhing and head-down charging, Brandor clenched his teeth and fought back, becoming suddenly and acutely aware that the only thing keeping the swamp monster from leaping around the kitchen to slay at will were his own hands on the long tongs, and what ever skills he might acquire in its use in, say, his nexi five panting breaths or so.
'Hold on, lad!' Halger shouted, his thundering boots now growing closer again. Til be right there!'
He wasn't strong enough to hold it. He was going t(die. He was Abruptly the thing gave a roar of rage or disgust and clawed Brandor sideways, sending him skidding helplessly on the wet flagstones. He fell hard on his behind, saw the cook sprinting across the kitchen with a harpoon in his hands, heard the men on the balconj strike alarm gongs with enthusiasm-and saw the bul-lywug pounce on Shalara.,,
She tried to run, slipped and fell, and screamed in utter terror. Up on the balcony, Druskin was cursing like a sailor, hands raised to unleash a spell he dared not cast.
Brandor scrambled up, swung the tongs with all his might, and rushed forward with his swing. The hearth girls chose that moment to scream.
He blundered clumsily into the bullywug's side, managed to make it hiss and stagger, then was flung free, losing his grip on the tongs, by one slap of a webbed hand.
The metal tongs bounced on the floor with a clang like a forge anvil, and the bullywug's hiss rose into a sort of a roar as it flung its spear, taking Halger in the shoulder and spinning him around. The harpoon that Brandor would barely be able to lift bounced away.
The apprentice gulped, found his feet again, and ran like he'd never run before in his life. The cutlass was already sweeping up. When it came down, Shalara's life would end.
The bullywug had fought men on pitching ship decks, beaches, and on wet, rock-strewn shores. It had faced down sharks in its time, and even slain sahua-gin, but its experience of weak, clumsy, and recklessly stupid apprentices was limited. It chose to ignore the puny youth's charge as its blade swept down to lay open the she- thing.
That blade went wide, striking sparks from the flagstone floor, as Brandor lost his footing and crashed helplessly into the bullywug's legs. The frog-monster staggered, then turned to hack this persistent annoyance to pieces.
Brandor stared up into cold, goggling eyes, saw his death in them, and as he wriggled sideways in wetness, remembered slipping about in slivers of diced potato, and-of course! Mystra aid me, he thought. The potato-peeling spell!
'Get away, Shalara!' he cried, frantically rummaging in his robes for the components, and continuing to wriggle sideways on the floor, away from the Tyrant's sobbing daughter. The bullywug made a chuffing hiss that could only be laughter. Gods, he must look like a fish flapping out of water. Go on, goggle-eyes, laugh at me just a moment longer…
He snapped out the spell with haste but precision, as the cutlass swept up again, then rolled aside, throwing his hands up in front of his eyes. He doubted diced bullywug blood would be something he wanted to ingest.
The squalling, hissing, and wet slicing sounds were truly grisly, and the smell made him gag, but to Bran-dor they might have been a minstrels' symphony, embroidered with trumpets-well, one blast at least: the clang of the cutlass striking the floor.
He was drenched, he was rolling desperately, col‹ shine was everywhere… and it seemed an eternity o sweaty, desperate rolling before he ran into somethinj lying on the floor that groaned at him. Halger.
