War in Tethyr

13

"Shield of I

"How come it talks?" Chen demanded. "Horses don't talk."

"I do," Goldie said with great dignity. "What happened?"

"Now, now, Randi, you're sounding almost petulant. Whereas you really should be very grateful to me. If it weren't for me, complete and total disaster would have been the order of the day-no thanks to certain parties I could name…" "Goldie!"

The mare's flanks swelled and a vast sigh rushed from her flared nostrils. "Not appreciated, never appreciated, but isn't that a horse's lot in life? Bear another's burden all day, with never a 'Goldie, do you feel like walking about in the hot sun all day whilst I loll about your back?'-there, there, Zaranda, don't get that dan-gerous gleam in your eye. Your orc is fine. So is the ranger, and so am I, if you happen to care."

Zaranda took a deep breath and tried to remember the spell for casting lightning bolts. She'd never been able to quite get her mind around that one. Trying to was always good when she needed distracting.

"Goldie," she made herself say calmly, "will you please tell me what happened?"

"I would've long since, had it not been for your constant magpie interruptions. Along about the sixth bell after dawn a party of blue-and-bronzes came by, looking like so many cheap Calimshite knock-offs of Lanta

"Where's Shield now?"

"Oh, he's still being a gargoyle. I took a turn in the yard about noon and had a look at him. He does a really creditable gargoyle, by the way; wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if Torm had finally revealed his true calling to him."

Zaranda darted into the stableyard and looked up. No, she thought, Goldie's mistaken. There's only one exceptionally large and ugly gargoyle up there… exceptionally large, ugly, wingless gargoyle.

She started back inside. Then she stopped. Zazesspur was a city in which gargoyles on the roofs of hostelries wouldn't strike anybody as odd, but she didn't remember seeing any on the Repose's roof before.

She looked up again. Crouched on the roof's very verge, clawed hands on knees, cowl thrown back and mouth held wide to reveal what even from four stories down was very impressive dentition, was unmistakably Shield of I

"Gods!" Zaranda breathed, and raced inside.

"He's been up there all day?"

Goldie nodded.

"Where's Stillhawk?"

"So far as I know, he's up there too. But then, of course, no one tells me anything; I'm only a beast of burden."

"How did you know," Chenowyn asked with disarming i

Goldie opened her mouth. Then she shut it, and her eyes popped wide open.

"Congratulations," Zaranda told the girl. "You must have magic: that's the first time I've seen her rendered speechless." Then she was racing for the stairs.

Stoic as a statue, Shield of I

Sitting with his back against a dormer and his booted feet braced on the red hemicylindrical roofing tiles, Stillhawk furrowed his brow, his equivalent of an angry outburst. Like Farlorn, he still doubted the orog, and it in particular troubled him to hear an evil being referred to as paladin. Though the paladin's path was in many ways as inaccessible to a man of the ranger's character as it was to an orc of unrepentant stripe, he served the same ideals.

Shield's massive shoulders shrugged. "How can one serve Light if one fears the Burning Face?" he asked, using a common orcish name for the sun.

"Easily," Zaranda said. "Don't you think good deeds need doing at night? Besides, you can wear a cowl."

"Have you ever seen a cowled gargoyle?"

Zaranda stopped with a gob of ointment on her fingertips. "Was that humor? That was humor, right?"

"I did what must be done. If I suffer, it is no more than my sins have earned." He frowned. "Though it gripes my soul to have fled from minions of the law. Did I do wrong? May Great Torm judge me harshly."

"May Great Torm not be such an ass!" Zaranda burst out. "Those men intended you harm, and it had nothing to do with anything you've done, or even who you are. It was what they thought you were, and your i

"Still, laws are laws," the great orc said with childlike conviction. "We must obey."

"It is against no law in Tethyr to be an orc," Zaranda said. Of course, that was because for Tethyrians, such a law would be like outlawing venomous serpents or spiders. This didn't seem the time to mention that fact. "And besides, those weren't minions of the law; they were the servants of the city council. The city police serve the law of Zazesspur. The guard is something else again."

"Oh," Shield said.

Zaranda drew in a deep breath, released it in a soundless sigh. She glanced aside at Stillhawk. The ranger was rubbing the dark bristle that covered his chin if he went more than four hours without shaving. He shook his head. Well, sophistication wasn't his strength either.

"There," she said, putting the finishing touches on the orog. The white ointment made Shield's face, a great pitted, tusked, and snouted moon, a truly terrifying sight, like a mask Dalelands children might put on to frighten homeowners into giving them treats at Highharvestide. "That's done. And now-"

She turned to look at Stillhawk. "Now the two of you must leave. Right this minute. Get outside the walls and make yourselves scarce in the countryside. The scullions have packed food for you, and in the unlikely event that it runs out before I come to join you, there's no better huntsman in Tethyr than Vander Stillhawk of the Elven Woods."

Both her companions spoke at once, which was at least quieter than most such multiple outbursts. "I serve you," Shield of I

"You ca

She reached out to touch a scarred and pitted cheek. Her flesh still quailed from the contact, but only a little. "For me, Shield. Please."

Pouting-which his tusks made a truly alarming sight-he nodded his huge head. Zaranda stood and faced the ranger.

Why-? he started to sign.

"Because someone has to keep Shield of I

Stillhawk raised his head and managed somehow to look even more grimly stoic than usual-his form of outraged protest and reproach. I ca