Shandril got there first, but she might as well not have existed as far as the two grizzled old guards were concerned. "Our pact," Arauntar gasped, foaming blood running from his mouth with each word. "Keep it!"
The senior guard resembled a gigantic, copiously bleeding hedgehog. He lay groaning in the road-mud in a small lake of his own blood, transfixed by almost a dozen crossbow quarrels. All he seemed able to move were the trembling fingers of one hand, and his head. He glared at Shandril as she knelt between him and the struggling Beldimarr, and gasped, "Get back! Gods damn you, lass!"
"What pact?" Shandril snapped. "What're you doing, Beldimarr?"
The guards drew in close around her, and one reached down a hand to her shoulder to pluck her back-but Narm caught that reaching arm, shaking his head… and with a look of faint surprise at himself for doing so, the guard drew his hand back.
Beldimarr gave Shandril a glare every bit as furious as Arauntar's, and snarled, "What we all do in this trade, lass. As agreed aforetime between us, I'll give my friend a last pleasure-" he lifted the flask as far as he could, and then came down on that hand again with a grunt of pain "-an' then send him beyond pain, to the gods!" He lifted his dagger. "Now get out o' the way! He's died for you, lass. Now, let him go!"
"No!" Shandril snapped. "Narm, Voldovan, keep everyone back!"
"What?" the caravan master growled. "What crazed-",
"Do it," Narm said quietly. "Trust her. I'm alive now because she did this for me."
The guards threw him startled looks, and more than one pair of eyes swiftly narrowed. "Is this some sort of fire-witch magic?" one of them snapped.
Shandril looked up. "Yes! Please watch, but do nothing to, stay me-and perhaps I'll be nigh the next time, when you need it!"
In the startled silence that followed her words the maid of Highmoon looked from Beldimarr to Arauntar and back again and murmured, "Please, both of you, trust me."
Beldimarr shrugged and jerked his head toward his stricken friend. Shandril turned to the dying Harper and asked, "Arauntar, do you want to live?"
"Not in this much pain," he snarled back, and then groaned out a huge gout of blood and whimpered, " 'Course I do!"
"Beldimarr, Voldovan," Shandril snapped, "lift him a little off the ground, as gently as you can. I need to get under him."
"Under-?" Trading doubtful looks, the two men gingerly laid hold of Arauntar's armpits and ribs, reaching awkwardly around the many quarrels, and then shifted him a hands-breadth into the air.
The guard roared with pain, a cry that collapsed into sobbing as Shandril threw herself down into the blood, on her back, and wormed her way under Arauntar as if she was a lover embracing him. "Right," she gasped, struggling for breath. "Let him down, and let go of him. Now, get back!" -
Some Strange Sort of Sword
Some of us fight with swords, and some with nimble tongues or poison or coins. Oh, aye, and some of us blast Faerun around us with spells, or call down dragons, or set roofs afire. When you think right down through things, we're all just shaping different sorts of swords to cut our ways through life. Some measure success by the amount of blood they leave as their trail-and some by how little they manage to spill.
Narm reached in quickly as the groaning guard was let back down and wiped Arauntar's lips with his pouch-kerchief. The cloth came away dark and dripping with blood.
Wary, unhappy murmurs arose from the gathered, watching men. Shandril put her lips to Arauntar's.
Well, now, Beldimarr growled, wincing his way to a sitting position. "That beats a gulletful of Old Ironfire any day." He looked to Narm. "This some sort o' ritual? She's not stealing his soul ere he dies, is she?"
"Watch," Narm said tensely, "and don't interfere. Any of you."
As the last word left his mouth, a louder murmur arose from the guards: anger warring with worry. Spellfire was flaring around Shandril's mouth and hands-hands that ran slowly up and down Arauntar's arms and torso, as far as she could reach, as the glow of magical fire grew stronger and brighter.
Arauntar stiffened and groaned, his arms shuddering and his hands clenching into claws… and Beldimarr frowned and raised his dagger uncertainly.
Spellfire suddenly flared blinding-bright around the two bodies lying in the road, and Arauntar convulsed and screamed, throwing his head back and wallowing atop the raging fire that was Shandril as if he was trying to claw his way out of a hearthfire.
There were growls and curses from the watching men, and despite Narm's fiercely raised hands they strode or leaned forward, many hands going to swordhilts.
Arauntar fell silent and slumped down into the flames, and the mutters of anger grew-only to fall away into gasps of awe as the smoking crossbow quarrels standing up out of him suddenly caught fire, blazed up into flames, and were gone… in the space of a mere breath.
Abruptly the brilliance was gone, and the flames with it. Smoke curled away in strangely spicy wisps, and the tensely watching men could see Arauntar's scorched and blackened body lying still atop a white-faced Shandril. The mud around them was blackened and burned flat, and the maid of High-moon was smeared and streaked with ashes. She moved a hand, weakly feeling the ground with her fingertips, then struggled to get out from under the guard. As she moved, they saw she now wore only ashes that had once been leather and buckles and armor plates.
Narm bent to help her up but was shouldered roughly aside by Beldimarr. Shandril coughed, got herself to where she could crawl on hands and knees, swiped a filthy tangle of hair out of her eyes-and froze.
The point of Beldimarr's knife was glittering under her nose.
"What have you done to him, wench?" he growled menacingly.
Shandril slapped the dagger aside in exasperation and embraced the wounded Harper in an awkward hug. Beldimarr hissed with pain as one of her hands brushed the quarrel in his arm, and fell over on his side, with Shandril atop him.
"You don't make it easy, you great hairy hulks," she said, wincing, as spellfire flared again along her back and behind and legs.
"She's killing him!" a guard roared, his blade flashing out with frightening speed. Narm threw himself into the man and sent him stumbling aside before that steel could find Shandril's flesh. They were still staggering and grappling together when a faint, rasping voice made the guard freeze and brought silence to the ring of watching men once more.
"Gods be praised for sending you, lass," Arauntar said hoarsely, sitting up slowly and feeling his ribs. He flexed his fingers in wonder and touched himself here and there where warbolts had driven into him and were now gone.
Shaking his head, he looked up at the ring of intent faces and said, "I ache, all over, as if I've been beaten. My fingers feel… burned. The rest of me-fine. Whole, all my wounds gone." He sprang up suddenly, and great shreds of scorched armor fell away from him, crumbling into ash and tiny smokes. Standing half-naked in the ring of guards, Arauntar threw out his hands-causing most of the rest of his armor to fall away-and laughed. "I'm healed! Healed!"
"A miracle!" one of the guards gasped, and suddenly everyone was silent again, staring at Beldimarr and the naked lass squirming atop him, her limbs almost hidden from view in bright, rising flames.
Orthil Voldovan gave Narm a look of new respect, and muttered, "And ye sleep with that? Yer skin must be nigh stone!"
Narm was too busy rubbing his bruises and giving the guard he'd tussled with pats of silent, mutual thanks and apologies to do more than grin.