She was just in time. The first hasty bolt burned past her upper arm, ripping away leather as it went, but the second whistled straight into her throat-and harmlessly on through it, as if she'd been made of smoke. Sharantyr unwound the cord from around her midriff and shook it out into a loose coil, letting one stone-weighted end hang from her hand. A deadly little obsidian knife rode in a gorget-sheath down the back of her neck, under her hair, but this little throwing-maiden seemed more useful now. Almost as useful as a personal ironguard enchantment.
Sharantyr strode on toward the first boulder without breaking stride, hoping there weren't too many brigands- and that their ranks didn't sport anyone who could work magic. Not that it was likely that a mage of power would be starving over travel-scraps out in the wilderlands when cities were full of folk who'd pay well for castings of minor magics, but…
She was perhaps three long strides away from the rock when the brigand rose up again and hurled a dagger into her face. There was a momentary, feathering blur as it sliced deep into her eye-or rather, whirled through her head as if she weren't there, after its point found no eye nor socket. Her ears rang with his curses as he hastily drew a rather rusty curved sword and commenced hacking at her.
Sharantyr dropped her stonemaiden to the ground, letting only a small length of it trail from one hand held out as far as she could behind her-with his blade passing freely through her body, he could sever the cord all too easily, and then she'd be reduced to punching, kicking, gouging, and hair-pulling.
That curved blade sliced through her breast-forth and back, forth and back, veering up to cleave her nose and jaw on the third swing, and taking out her throat on the fourth. Sharantyr smiled sweetly and kept coming.
"A ghost!" her assailant wailed, going pale. "A haunt!" He whirled to flee-and Sharantyr swung the stonemaiden as hard as she could, almost throwing it. Along the cord she felt the solid jar of the blow-and the sickening yielding of his head that followed, ere he toppled silently to the grass, and bounced. Her stonemaiden sent a spattering of blood and brains on toward the second rock, and the ranger followed them, still smiling.
"Helve, you idiot!" the brigand there was roaring, as he rose and his crossbow cracked again. "Never turn your back in a fray-not even on a lone wench!"
He was a good shot. The bolt blinded her momentarily as it flashed through her right eye-and kept on going.
"Mask preserve me, Tymora save me-Shar defend me!" the second brigand swore, forced to believe what he'd been able to dismiss as clumsiness on the part of his fellow outlaw up until now. He gaped at Sharantyr as her smile widened and she sauntered toward him, hiding her trailing stonemaiden once more.
True to his own advice, this brigand backed away, never turning his eyes from her for an instant as he snatched his sword and dagger out-and tripped over some loose stones behind him, to fall headlong with a ragged cry. Sharantyr was over his rock in a bound, stonemaiden up in both hands to strike in either direction, depending on who else might be lurking.
There was a third brigand, and a fourth, but they were far enough away that she managed to strike the frantically rolling and kicking second brigand senseless before they reached her. A blade she didn't feel tore through her, but the fists holding its hilt drove up under her ribs as hard as the thrust itself. If she hadn't leaped into the air to rob their impact of its smashing force, some of those ribs might well have broken.
From the height of her leap Sharantyr dashed the maiden's stones across the man's snarling face, and he ceased to be a concern-at about the same time as the fourth brigand reached her, slicing the air like a madman as he came with a sword almost as long as her legs. Snarling and sweating he hacked at her-back and forth and back, his slaying steel a blur.
Sharantyr was forced to drop her maiden to avoid having its cords severed a dozen times over. Then she sat down and kicked out, seeking to drive his own legs from under him and send him crashing down-but he was too large and strong to do more than hop awkwardly aside and regain his balance, still hacking furiously.
Sharantyr sighed as she watched sharp steel blaze its way back and forth through her leather-clad breast-after all, this magic wouldn't last forever, and… ah, well. The old ways were old because they so often worked.
Buckles could hold leather very well, but the enchantment made her fingers pass through them. Though she couldn't undo them, she could unlace leathern thongs, enough to lay bare most of the curving flesh The brigand's eyes widened, his sword-swings slowed- and Sharantyr bent, snatched up her maiden, and struck him hard across the face with its trailing stone. With a roar of pain, he staggered away, and this time, the whirling cords took his ankles from under him with brutal speed. There were rocks jutting from the ground beneath his head where he bounced, and it was a loosely lolling, groaning brigand from whom she retrieved her weapon, ere she glanced all around and decided there were no more foes to fell.
Sharantyr shook her head. Brigands, these days…
She recovered her fallen sword by looping the cords of her maiden around it until she could carry it as a trussed-up bundle and strolled on her way.
Her partially unlaced state won her a seat on a heavily guarded wagon crammed with gigantic "sow-bottles" (so named for their hoglike girth) each stoutly girded in its own wooden cage. The bottles all contained mordants, which would be used to etch armor in Waterdeep-if the deadly acids ever reached the City of Splendors.
Mordants had a way of disappearing in Scornubel, and her charms notwithstanding, Sharantyr was firmly urged to wait for the next ferry when the wagon reached the Chionthar. She caused some alarm when the small forest of swordpoints so urging her passed harmlessly through one of her hands-and she underscored that surprise by calmly walking through them, so that it was with close to a dozen blades apparently plunged deep into her breast that the Knight of Myth Drannor waved a cheerful farewell and waited for that next ferry.
When he returned, the boatman-who had seen all of this-was very respectful, and Sharantyr floated up to the Scornubel docks lounging against him and humming a merry tune.
She was looking forward to seeing this lawless den of thieves and, following Lhaeo's directions, to meeting one of its law-breaking inhabitants in particular: Belgon Bradraskor. Master of the Shadows, indeed.
"Mystra and Tymora preserve me!" Shandril snarled, clawing at the nearest rail desperately as the ready-wagon struck a particularly large pothole so violently that she was sure the racing wheels not so far beneath her would either shatter or fly off.
They did not, though the entire wagon bounced with deafening clatters of landing cargo and several sickening moments of plunging through air, as one wheel after another crashed into the unyielding earth, spitting stones in all directions like angry crossbow bolts, and made its own shrieking, rebounding leap. Shandril's untidy collection of old armor plates clanged and clashed in her face for the six-hundredth-and-something time, leaving her with yet another cut on her jaw, then fell bruisingly back again- only to rise up once more even before they all had time to swing down. She swung her head to one side with a softly but deliberately snapped curse, scrunching one eye closed, and let them batter her cheek and neck.