Bones splintered, and the Turmishan screamed and staggered back, eyes wide with astonishment.
She strode after him. "I really want to know."
The dusky-skinned bullyblade dodged aside from her sword. He hissed in pain and, clutching his stricken arm, gave her a glare. "You really are a farm lass, aren't you?"
Islif nodded. "Yes. One who wants to know why you set upon us. We had our swords out and were disputing with Purple Dragons! Surely outlaws can be patient or sensible enough to seek easier prey than that!"
"We're not outlaws," Halmut snarled, his useless arm dangling in his wake as he hurried to a fallen fellow. The sprawled body- Yarlen, who still owed him three lions from their last dice game, curse it all-wore two sheathed daggers he could use about now. "Or weren't. Until you Knights slew Lord Yellander and lost us our livelihoods! We weren't here after 'easier prey,' you stone-witted slut! We were after you'. "
"And now?" Islif asked, still striding after him.
"And now," the Turmishan snapped triumphantly, ducking down, snatching out a dagger, and whirling to fling it in her face, "we still are!"
He was whirling back to the body to pluck up the second dagger and spring at her with it when the first one, in the wake of a ringing clang, came spinning past his head to bounce to a stop amid the crushed remnants of a shrub.
Halmur sprang forward after it, seeking to get away from the sword he knew would already be thrusting at his backside.
Islif sighed and slashed instead at his hindmost ankle, lifting her blade and tripping the fleeing bullyblade into a crashing fall into another nearby bush. He rolled amid crackling branches and found his feet-more agile eel than the wallowing warrior she'd expected him to be-to stand panting at her.
"Think you're clever," he gasped, "don't you? Playthings of Queen Filfaeril, above us all, daring to cross Vangerdahast himself!" He spat at her. "Tymora-kissed bitch! How sheer blind luck has kept you alive thus far, I don't-urrrk!"
The hurled warhammer crushed Halmur's throat and bounced away from him, leaving the stricken bullyblade to clutch his neck, stare wild-eyed at Islif, and topple.
Semoor strolled forward, dusting his hands in evident satisfaction. "See that? One throat, dead-on! Not many priests of Lathander could land that, I tell you! And the result? One far too sardonic Turmishan, silenced forever!"
Islif regarded her fellow Knight with something approaching contempt. "Does Lathander approve of his holynoses crowing about a slaying they've done?"
"Cerrainly hope so." Semoor grinned at her, chastened not in the slightest. "Because, look you, that's my fifth in a row! Four just back there-one got away, and I let him go because one must be merciful from rime to time, just to allow some sort of balance to prevail in the world-and now this little dancing toad. I'd not waste tears on him, were I you. He was the only one of them I've heard about, in all our visits to revels and Court functions. Seems he liked treating ladies rather cruelly. I can provide details if you'd like."
"Spare me," Islif said. "And what're you wearing that sword belt for? That sheath makes you look ridiculous. Like a-a-" She blushed, unexpectedly, and turned her head away.
"An extra nightblade sticking out of my forehead?" Semoor asked cheerfully. "Hadn't thought of that, but I quite like the notion."
He struck a pose and strutted a few steps, making the empty dagger sheath bounce off his nose, before glancing idly across the clearing, stopping in mid-bounce, and adding, "Huh. Looks like we're done. Florin's just felled that great red-bearded brute. So unless there're still some arrows about to come whistling out at us-"
"Stoop," Doust growled as he came up to them, bedraggled and bleeding, "I wish you hadn't said that."
Semoor shrugged. "I believe I'm safe enough in doing so. I don't think there's anyone left in hiding who could take it as a cue. What happened to you?"
"Imminent death, deliverance from same by Florin," Doust said grimly. "I don't think Tymora intended me to wage war."
"I know Lathander didn't want me to," Semoor said brightly. "He meant me to intone soft prayers and bathe in the offering coins gently bestowed upon me by an adoring populace, and I've been practicing my intonings, too, but people who want to kill us keep interrupting, by-"
"Perhaps they're critics," Florin said in a dry voice, joining them with Jhessail at his side. "Where's Pennae?"
All of the Knights peered across the clearing, looking this way and that, afraid they'd catch a glimpse of Pennae's dark leathers among the sprawled fallen. It was Semoor who saw her first.
"There," he said, pointing.
Something that had been feebly rolling in the creek rose up rather wearily and gave rhem all a bleak look.
It was Pennae, looking rather the worse for wear. She had been wounded in several places, caked in foul-smelling mud, and mosr of her hair was gone, her scalp blackened and scorched. Doust and Jhessail both looked at the threads of blood curling lazily in the slow waters of the stream sliding past their boors, and then back along that winding water to the thief.
"She's hurt," Doust announced to no one in particular, and he started across the clearing.
"Doust!" Islif snapped, hastening to catch up with him. "There could be a score of foes in these trees!"
Doust shrugged. "Tymora, remember? The bolder I dare, the safer I'll be."
Islif frowned. "I'm not sure that's quite how the luckpriests put it."
He waved her words away, still hastening on to where Pennae was now standing, wincing a little as she settled herself into a pose against a handy tree trunk.
"Hail, fellow conquering heroes," she greeted them as they came up to her. Her face-even her lips-were pale, but her grin was as sardonic as ever.
"You're hurt," Doust said without greeting. "Sit down."
"No, you can paw me just as well if I stay right where I am," Pennae replied a little wearily. "Sit down would probably turn into fall down, and I've bled quite enough already."
Doust shook his head, threw up a hand to his fellow Knights to keep clear, and started to murmur a healing prayer.
"Heed me," Pennae told the rest of the Knights, over his shoulder. "Up this hill behind me, in the trees, there's a little hollow, and it's full of what's left of an old stone mansion. Ruined, overgrown- trees right up through it-but someone's still-"
She gasped as Doust's glowing fingertips touched the worst of her cuts. She closed her eyes and trembled for a moment as he moved his hands gingerly over her, and then she opened them, smiled, and said, "I do so love a man's hands on me. When he's doing me good, at least."
Semoor rolled his eyes. "You were saying? Someone's still…"
"Using it for something," Pennae said. "I got caught in a spell that had been cast across its doorway. Some sort of fire rrap."
Semoor rubbed his hands and grinned. "Treasure!"
"Is that allyou think of?" Florin and Islif asked disapprovingly, in almost perfect unison.
"No, but it'll do to think about until more important things arise," Semoor said. "Such as matters of the Morninglord. and… well, more matters of the Morninglord!"
"Indeed," Islif said. "This ruined mansion will be a good place to get well away from."
As if her words had been a cue, a crossbow quarrel came humming out of the woods and smashed her off her feet.
"Down!" Florin roared, flinging Jhessail to the turf as he spun down into a crouch to reach out a hand to Islif.
Who was clutching her ribs and groaning, her armor dented deeply on one flank.
"Are you-?" he snapped.
"Alive? Aye," she gasped. "More than that, I'm not willing to venture."
"Come on, "Semoor snarled at them all. "Stone walls are about all I know that can stop arrows!"
Pennae had already dropped from leaning against the tree to crouching in its lee, beckoning them.