Elfshadow

by Elaine Cunningham

  Danilo pursed his lips and considered this. “Actually, there was this little fellow down in Cormyr …”

  “Oh, be still,” Arilyn hissed. Her fingers curved around the moonblade’s grip, and she dismissed Danilo and his foolishness to concentrate on the battle that was sure to come. She eased her horse westward and gestured for the dandy to follow her. The ground was less flat here, and a small hill some hundred yards away bore the ruins of what appeared to be an ancient keep. The setting sun would be at their back, providing a disadvantage to any attackers. There they could take a stand.

  No, there I can take a stand, Arilyn corrected silently, casting a derisive glance at the man beside her. Even if Danilo Thann were capable of holding his own in a fight—which she doubted—he would never risk getting blood on his big-city finery.

  For the hundredth time since sunrise Arilyn cursed herself over her unfortunate choice of a hostage. She had fought goblinkind many times, and she knew better than to be too confident about the outcome of such a battle. Even the horses, pampered fancy mounts that they were, sensed that danger lay before them; their ears lay back against their heads and they whickered uneasily. Granted, Danilo Thann was not traveling with her of his own choice, therefore she was honor-bound to give him what protection she could. But by all the gods, she would much rather turn him over to the goblins. Perhaps they could wipe that complacent look off his foolish face!

  Arilyn’s angry thoughts were interrupted by an unearthly screech. The sound split the air and hung, reverberating, over the marsh. That was the final straw for her temperamental horse, who reared up violently and unexpectedly. Arilyn grabbed at the pommel of her saddle with both hands to keep from being thrown. Before she could reclaim the reins, the horse bolted.

  “Hang on,” Danilo yelled, urging his own horse close to Arilyn’s panicked mount. What was he trying to do? she wondered. His horse looked no calmer than hers. It careened along with teeth bared, its ears flat back against its mane and the whites of its terrified eyes gleaming. Danilo seized Arilyn’s reins, struggling to control his own mount with one hand.

  That’s it, Arilyn thought with a flash of resignation. We’re both down. Before their spooked mounts had gone a dozen paces, by sheer strength of arm and will Danilo brought both horses to a halt.

  Arilyn gaped at the noble in disbelief, earning one of his charming, infuriating smiles. He tossed her reins back to her. “Nice trick, eh? Luck is with you. You abducted the captain of Waterdeep’s champion polo team. Next time, my dear, do try to steal battle-seasoned horses, hmmm?”

  Before she could respond to his gibe, a second roar rolled across the marsh. Arilyn drew the moonblade and readied herself for the attack. One of the dangers of the marsh lay in the weird way in which it warped sound. The taunts of their unseen enemy seemed to come from everywhere at once. Where, then, could she and Danilo run?

  From behind the ridge of a nearby hillock rose half a score of enormous, scale-covered nightmares. Arilyn had heard tales of the lizard men of Chelimber Marsh, but the reality brought a quick lump of horror to her throat.

  Tall as men, the scaly gray-green creatures lurched toward them through the mist and the marsh grass on heavily muscled legs, shrieking and roaring with bloodlust as they brandished blades and battlehammers in their massive, taloned hands.

  “Wait a minute! You said there’d be goblins. Those don’t look like goblins to me,” Danilo protested. “I could be wrong, of course.”

  “Lizard men,” Arilyn snapped, struggling to control her terrified horse as she formulated a battle plan. Outnumbered as they were, five-to-one, flight seemed the best course. As she flashed a look over her shoulder, she saw a small band of goblins—a hunting party, most likely—rising from the marsh grass, effectively cutting off the chance of a southward retreat.

  “So. Do we fight or run?” Danilo asked.

  The half-elf spun back around. The lizard men had fanned out into a line, blocking escape to the north or east. “I’ll fight. You run,” she shouted, pointing with the moonblade toward the ruined keep.

  Danilo extended his hand. “My sword?”

  Arilyn had forgotten. She reached behind her saddle, snatched his blade from its scabbard, and tossed it to him. Danilo deftly caught the weapon, then squinted toward the setting sun. “Now those,” he remarked, “are goblins.”

  The half-elf groaned. Three more of the creatures had sprung from behind the piles of stone and rubble, their weapons drawn. Gibbering and snarling, they rushed forward, and Arilyn caught a whiff of the stench that rose from their dark orange skin and filthy leather armor. All three goblins waved rusted swords, and their snarls bared rows of short, sharp fangs. Lemon-colored eyes gleamed with eagerness for battle.

  “I’ll take those little ones,” the dandy volunteered.

  “Go, you half-witted troll,” she shouted.

  Danilo saluted her and wheeled his horse around, galloping toward the ruins and the onrushing goblins. On horseback, Arilyn reasoned, even Danilo should be able to handle three unmounted goblins. To her surprise, he slashed at the western-most lizard man as he rushed past it, as if daring the creatures to follow him.

  Good tactics, she acknowledged briefly. If we divide them, they can’t surround us as easily. Then there was no more time for thought. The lizard men were almost upon her.

  All of the lizard men.

  A moment’s surprise, and then Arilyn understood. The creatures might hunt in a band, but they had little intelligence. Their instincts were for survival, not strategy. Thus, each individual lizard man chose to attack the smaller, seemingly weaker member of the pair. Their mistake, she thought with a thin smile. Raising the glowing moonblade aloft, she forced her horse into a charge.

  The first of the lizard men lumbered into range, swinging a curved scimitar in a wicked arc. With a lightning combination, Arilyn parried its first blow and then ran the creature through. The next lizard she disarmed by lopping off its taloned hand. Its shrieks of rage and pain set the rest of the pack rocking back a step, buying Arilyn an instant’s respite. She struggled to control her horse as she flashed a glance in Danilo’s direction.

  He was faring far better than she’d dared to hope. Somehow he had managed to fell two of the goblins. Still on horseback, he was making short work of the third. The lizard men, having decided on Arilyn, were paying him no heed whatsoever. For the span of one heartbeat, Arilyn knew despair. Her hostage would surely take the opportunity handed him and flee, leaving her to face the monsters alone. Well then, she would give them a fight. With a fierce battle cry, she raised the sword in challenge and dared the lizard men to come within its range.

  The creatures halted, uncertain. Long, reptilian tongues flickered in and out between daggerlike fangs as the lizard men weighed their hunger and the encouraging shouts of the goblin band against the glowing sword and half-elf’s unexpectedly strong resistance. Arilyn’s prancing mare whinnied in terror, and the sound seemed to shatter the lizard men’s momentary reluctance. Sensing a weakness, they shrieked anew and pressed forward, almost climbing over each other in their eagerness.

  The moonblade danced and twinkled as Arilyn slashed at her attackers. Three more lizard men fell, clutching at sliced throats or severed limbs. One of the remaining creatures came in low with a large, upturned knife and a bright idea: attack the horse. Perceiving the monster’s intent, Arilyn viciously dug her heels into her horse’s side and jerked back the reins. The terrified mare reared, just barely avoiding a slash that would have gutted it.

  Arilyn used the momentum of the horse’s movement to dismount. Throwing herself backward in a somersault, the agile half-elf rolled out of the saddle and landed on her feet, moonblade in hand. With the flat of her blade she smacked the mare’s flanks, hard. The horse fled, dodging the clutching talons of the five still-standing, hungry lizards. The lizard men, robbed of the promise of horseflesh, surrounded Arilyn and closed in.

  The half-elf could hear excited squeaks and harsh, hig
h-pitched chattering just outside the tight circle of scales and blades. Wonderful, Arilyn thought with dismay. The goblin hunting party had finally decided to join in. As if she didn’t have enough to deal with.

  One of the lizard men got through her guard, and the tip of its sword slashed a burning line across her left shoulder. With her next swing Arilyn cut the lizard across the face. Blinded and roaring, the creature pawed at its eyes and reeled away, knocking one of its brothers to the ground in its frenzy. The fallen lizard man thrashed about, struggling to regain its footing on the marshy, blood-slick ground. With a quick jab, the moonblade found its heart, and the monster lay still. Arilyn leaped over it toward the blinded lizard, and quickly ended that beast’s suffering.

  Now there were but three of the lizard men left. Even tired and wounded, Arilyn felt confident of winning against those odds. She doubted, however, whether she would have the strength at battle’s end to wade through a band of goblins.

  As she fought, Arilyn heard a strange battle hymn drifting from somewhere on the marsh. It was a bawdy ballad, set to a well-known drinking song, and it was rendered triply incongruous by the refined tone of a well-trained tenor voice:

  They’re far from staid after a raid

  Those men of Zhentil Keep:

  They kill off all the women

  For they much prefer the sheep.

  The Zhents don’t eat their ill-got treat;

  Not one of them’s a glutton.

  So isn’t it a marvel

  That they always smell of mutton?

  Blasted human! Arilyn ducked a battle axe and gritted her teeth in annoyance. To her surprise, she found that the foolish song rallied her more effectively than the battle skirl of Moonshae pipes. She fought on, buoyed up by a mixture of relief and irritation. Danilo would get away, and in his own flamboyant fashion.

  Unimpressed by the music, the three lizard men pressed in. One of them lunged at her with a dagger. Arilyn knocked the weapon from its claws and darted forward, thrusting the moonblade deep into its reptilian eye and immediately killing it. The creature fell heavily forward, and the half-elf tore her sword free and leaped clear of the toppling corpse.

  With a triumphant roar, a huge, brown-scaled lizard man hefted his battle axe and took a mighty swipe at the half-elf’s knees. She leaped high to avoid the blade, but on the backswing the axe’s handle caught her and knocked her sideways. Thrown off balance, she flew several feet before she hit the ground hard. She stopped face down beside a steaming, sulphur-scented pool. Arilyn scrambled to her feet. If she had been hurt by the fall, the pain would come later.

  The remaining pair of lizards, smelling blood, closed in. Arilyn faced them and crouched in a defensive stance, holding the moonblade before her in a two-handed grip. The sword glowed a brilliant blue in the gathering darkness, lighting the half-elf’s grim face and reflecting the cold fire of her eyes. The monsters, expecting a wounded half-elf and an easy kill, fell back in surprise and fear. Taking advantage of their reaction, Arilyn advanced, raising the magic sword high.

  A clatter of hooves distracted the lizard men. Brandishing his sword, Danilo Thann rode his dainty chestnut mare in tight circles around the creatures and the half-elf, his blade prodding and teasing as he harried the monsters, as if trying to draw their attention away from Arilyn.

  What now? she thought in exasperation. The fool would get dizzy and fall off his horse before he managed to accomplish anything of value.

  Roaring its annoyance, one of the creatures raised a length of rusty chain and tried to swat away the pesky human. Its first blow knocked the sword from Danilo’s hand, and with a triumphant snarl the creature started whirling the chain, preparing to launch the weapon at the nobleman.

  Arilyn pulled a knife from her boot and hurled it into the creature’s open, snarling mouth. With a strangled gurgle, the beast stopped dead. The chain kept whirling, however, wrapping itself around the lizard man’s arm with a cracking of bone. To Arilyn’s surprise the monster merely spat blood and switched its weapon to its other hand.

  Danilo’s wild ride brought him too close to the axe-wielding brown lizard. The monster hoisted his weapon and swung, slashing the nobleman’s silk sleeve from elbow to wrist and drawing blood.

  Danilo galloped several yards away, then reined in his horse and regarded his ruined garment with dismay. He jabbed a finger at the lizards. “That’s it. Now I’m angry,” he informed them. The lizard men roared and continued to lumber toward Danilo, chain and axe raised for the kill.

  “When in doubt, run,” Danilo announced to the marsh at large. He wheeled his horse around and headed to the north. The lizard men fell in behind him.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” Arilyn shouted at the monsters. For lack of another weapon to hurl, she snatched up a stone and threw it. “Stand and fight, you overgrown sacks of shoe leather!”

  The missile struck the axe-wielding lizard man in the back of the head. Bellowing its fury, it threw its weapon aside and thundered back toward Arilyn. The beast lunged forward in an elemental frenzy, its fangs bared. Arilyn stood her ground until the last moment, then she dove to one side and rolled safely away. The charging lizard’s jaws closed on air, and the monster skidded to a stop, arms windmilling wildly as it struggled to maintain its balance.

  Arilyn came in low and sliced the lizard man cleanly across its throat. The beast crashed nose-first into the ground. With a brief nod of satisfaction, the half-elf headed off at a run in the direction of Danilo and the final foe. She easily overtook the wounded and slow-moving beast, and stomped hard on its tail to distract it from its overdressed prey.

  With an incongruous squeak, the lizard spun around. Ignoring Arilyn, it dropped its chain weapon and gathered up its tail and draped it over its wounded arm, gazing mournfully down at the tip and emitting pitiful, chirruping whimpers. Involuntarily, Arilyn’s sword arm lowered.

  Suddenly the beast stiffened. It hissed, gurgled, and slumped twitching to the earth. A sword protruded from its neck at a hideous angle.

  Behind the fallen lizard man stood Danilo Thann. Not bothering to advertise his intent, the dandy had quietly skewered the monster through the back of the neck. Arilyn felt a sudden and unreasonable flash of anger. “Where are the goblins?” she demanded, thinking it better to vent her rage on them than on her hostage.

  Danilo pointed. To Arilyn’s surprise, all six members of the goblin hunting party lay in a bloody pile.

  Breathing heavily, she held the moonblade up before her. Its light was almost gone, a sure sign that the danger was past and the battle over. She sheathed the weapon and turned to the nobleman. For a long moment they regarded each other silently over the dead body of the brown lizard man. “You had to kill him like that?”

  Danilo recoiled, blinking in surprise. “Whatever are you talking about? Him who? There’s a lot of dead ‘hims’ out here to choose from, you know. A few ‘hers’ too, I would imagine, although I’m no expert on lizard anatomy.”

  Arilyn raked one hand through her sweat-soaked black curls. “Forget it. Where’s my horse?”

  “She won’t be far away,” Danilo said. He placed one boot gingerly on the brown scales of the lizard man and yanked out his sword. After fastidiously wiping it clean on a clump of marsh grass, Danilo took the reins of his mare and went in search of the other mount. Arilyn trudged after him.

  They hadn’t far to go, for Arilyn’s horse milled just inside the walls of the ruined keep. Danilo produced some sugar lumps from his magic sack, and coaxed the mare to him. The horse sniffed, then its rubbery lips folded around the sugar in Danilo’s outstretched palm. The dandy smiled and scratched the white star on the horse’s forehead. “The sugar should sweeten your temper a tad, my pretty,” he said. The horse nickered softly and nudged at Danilo with her muzzle.

  “It worked!” he said. He cast a speculative look at Arilyn, then with a sly smile he offered her a sugar lump.

  Arilyn blinked, her mouth dropping open in astonishment. Then
her worn face lit up unexpectedly and she laughed.

  “I shall accept that as an apology,” Danilo stated, an expression of delight flooding his face as he surveyed the loveliness of her usually stern visage. “Quite a fight, eh?”

  His frank admiration disconcerted her, and his casual approach to battle defied her perception of him. Danilo Thann was not quite the helpless, shallow dandy he appeared. He was dangerous, in more ways than one. Arilyn’s smile faded, and her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

  “The goblins are dead,” she observed.

  Danilo quirked an eyebrow as he surveyed the carnage around them. “You have a firm grasp on the obvious.”

  “How?” she persisted, ignoring his teasing.

  He shrugged lightly. “You know goblins. They’re always fighting among themselves and …”

  “Enough!” Arilyn snapped, rounding on him. “I am not a fool. I do not enjoy being treated like one.”

  “You get used to it,” Danilo interjected mildly as he adjusted the angle of his hat.

  “To which, no doubt, you can attest,” she noted with asperity. “Whatever else you may be, though, you can fight. Where did you learn to fight goblins?”

  He grinned disarmingly. “I have five older brothers.”

  “Very amusing,” she said dryly, crossing her arms over her chest as she studied the man. “That is not enough to explain your skill or your confidence in battle.”

  “All right then, would you believe six brothers?”

  Arilyn’s shoulders sagged in defeat. “This isn’t getting me anywhere,” she muttered to herself. She straightened and addressed the young man in a brisk tone. “All right. Your secrets are your own. You saved my life, and I owe you. You have more than earned your freedom.”

  From beneath the brim of his hat, Danilo gazed pointedly around the forbidding landscape. “How lovely,” he drawled. “Now that I’m no longer strictly necessary to you, you no longer require my company. In compensation, I get to pass some time in the Marsh of Chelimber, taking in the sights, conversing with the natives. A bargain, by my eyes. Tell me, am I to undertake this suicidal journey on foot?”