"Please don't argue with her," Rozt'a pleaded. No telling what Wyndyfarh had put into her mind. "We're talking about Galimer here. He'd go to the ends of the world for you, and you know it. If she wants us to avenge one man or one hundred, don't bother her with questions. Just say yes."
Druhallen had just decided that Lady Wyndyfarh was mostly hawk in her natural form, but now the face she showed him wore such a satisfied expression that he'd swear she was part cat.
"A wise woman speaks," the lady purred, "but it is neither one man nor one hundred that you must avenge. Save for Sheemzher, my servants are all insects whose minds I have awakened with magic. Many of them fell victim to a great and ancient evil. You will bring me proof that it can no longer harm them."
Bugs! She was sending them off to collect butterflies! Perhaps it was just as well that Ansoain was dead and her son a prisoner. Dru would never live this one down otherwise. "We'll bring them back in a gilt cage," he muttered glumly.
That brought another laugh from the otherworldly woman. "If any of them yet survive—and I doubt very much that any do—they will fly to me faster than you can walk. Bring me the golden scroll that defiled them. The Beast Lord who rules at Dekanter was beneath my notice before he found that Nether scroll. Now he has become a threat. I am not a god, Druhallen of Sunderath. You are wrong there, but I have sworn an oath to Faerun's goddesses of magic. I may not leave this glade. Bring me the golden scroll of Netheril and you will have done more good than you can measure and I will restore your weak friend to you."
Dru bristled. Never mind that he knew Galimer's faults better than he knew his own and had on more than one occasion hung the same "weak" label on him, but he wouldn't stand for anyone else belittling his friend.
"Galimer Longfingers is worth more than ten of your Netherese scrolls. Just tell us what we need to know about it and well be gone—the sooner to be back."
"You know everything that's essential," Wyndyfarh replied with the indignation of a woman unaccustomed to criticism. "Sheemzher knows the Greypeaks and Dekanter. He'll answer your questions."
Druhallen started to say something about not wanting to rely on a goblin, but that was the sort of remark that had gotten Galimer's mind separated from his body. Likewise, Dru stifled the perfectly logical question: If Sheemzher had all the answers, why wasn't he the instrument of Wyndyfarh's vengeance? Rozt'a stepped into the awkward silence.
"How long do we have? How much time before—?" Her head turned toward Galimer and left the question incomplete.
"No harm will come to Galimer while he is with me."
Dru considered that good news, Rozt'a heard it otherwise and, taking a backward step so he could see both her and Wyndyfarh together, Dru understood. Rozt'a had never been a beauty and life on the road was taking a toll on her appearance, as it had on all of them. Her attractiveness— and Druhallen could personally attest that it was considerable—sprang from her competence and spirit. She was at her best in mercenary leathers, with a sword at her hip, and she would have looked ridiculous with long hair, or in a flowing white gown.
But leave her husband in the company of the dangerously beautiful Lady Mantis, a woman of enchanting beauty and wizardly might? That prospect struck fear in Rozt'a's bold heart.
"C'mon," Dru said, prying her attention away from Galimer with a touch. "If we head back to Parnast right now to get our gear and horses, we'll be on our way this time tomorrow and back before the moon turns—"
"Not to Parnast," Lady Mantis interrupted. "The village is too dangerous for you right now. I have sent word. All that you need will be waiting for you outside the Wood. You'll be within the mountains by sunset. Those who pursue you think only of roads, they will not look for you in the mountains between here and Dekanter."
Pursuers? From Parnast? Well, surely Amarandaris knew they'd slipped through the palisade without their promised second meeting. The Zhentarim lord could have translated their absence into a beeline journey to Dekanter. He'd be ahead of them, unless somehow he knew they'd gone into Weathercote Wood first. How or why might Amarandaris know that? What was the trade between the Zhentarim and Weathercote Wood? What was the alliance between Wyndyfarh and the village? Dru sighed; he might never know the answers to those questions.
For now, all he needed to know was that the Network would be looking for him until they found him in Dekanter or elsewhere. The pool of acid in the pit of Dru's stomach grew deeper than he'd believed possible, then he realized that Wyndyfarh had been staring at Tiep when she mentioned pursuit.
It was enough to make a man wish he were on better terms with his gods.
Dru felt a tug on his tunic. He looked down into the goblin's smiling face.
"Good sir not worry. Sheemzher take good care, good people. Sheemzher knows Greypeaks, Dekanter. Sheemzher born Dekanter. Sheemzher marry Ghistpok daughter."
7
3 Eleint, the Year of the Banner (1368 DR)
The Greypeak Mountains
If the Weathercote Wood had been an odd, unpleasant place for a city-bred man named Tiep, then the interior of the Greypeak mountains was ten times worse. Two days out from Lady Mantis's grove, Tiep found himself wishing that the bug lady had cast her spells on him rather than Galimer. The life of a mindless statue couldn't be worse than following a dog- faced goblin on the back route to Dekanter.
At least the bug lady had kept her word about their gear. Their six horses, saddled and packed with their gear and a generous supply of food, had been waiting late yesterday when Sheemzher led them out of Weathercote—not at the little wooden bridge where they'd entered it, but at another spot, farther east of Parnast. A pair of ratty goblins had been waiting with the horses. Both had run off the moment they spotted company coming.
Tiep suspected magic and he'd refused to climb into Hopper's saddle until Dru and Rozt'a had each applied their specialist's eye to horseflesh and gear. They assured him than nothing had been tampered with. If Tiep couldn't trust his foster-parents, then there wasn't anyone he could trust. He'd lived without trust when he was younger and had no nostalgia for old times. He'd considered splitting while he could still find his way back to the village last night, when Dru was studying his spells and everyone else was asleep.
Manya's kin would give him a roof and meals until he could put something else together. However, abandoning the quest to free Galimer from the bug lady was too craven for his gut to tolerate. For Galimer's sake, Tiep swore an oath to Tymora. He'd follow the dog-faced goblin to Dekanter, even if it got him killed along the way.
He half-expected death with every step Hopper took.
There were two kinds of traveling in the Greypeaks: treacherous and weird. The rocky trails were the treacherous part. Little more than glorified ledges, the trails weren't much wider than a horse's rump. They left Tiep riding with one stirrup banging into the mountain and the other hanging out over a whole lot of nothing. Worse, the trails weren't clear. Say what you would about the Zhentarim, if they claimed a trade route, they sent crews out to keep it clear of rock falls and water cracks. Here in the Greypeaks, when Hopper planted a hoof, there was no telling whether the ground would slip or stay firm beneath it. The horse was lathered from nerves, and so was Tiep.