The Sorcerer: Return of the Archwizards, Book III (The Return of the Archwizards 3) by Troy Denning

Author:Troy Denning [Denning, Troy]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780786959730
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast Publishing
Published: 2011-07-26T00:00:00+00:00

The Vaasans sat together on one side of the table, laughing and dribbling and whacking each other on the back mightily as they ate and drank and described the day’s combat to their jealous comrade, Dexon. To listen to the men talk, battling phaerimm was no more dangerous than stalking forest rothé, save that the phaerimm made it all much more exciting by hunting back. Had Takari not been along and seen for herself the humans’ deadly effectiveness that day—and many others—she would have believed the wine was stretching their tongues.

But it had all happened just as they described, and they had indeed added three tails apiece to their belts. Armed with Dexon’s darksword, Keya Nihmedu had claimed two for her own growing collection. Takari had taken only one, but that was with nothing but her own elven steel. Had she been wielding a darksword of her own, she would have killed more phaerimm than anyone.

Takari took the ewer and refilled it from the wine cask in the scullery, then stopped in the doorway and eyed the two healthy Vaasans from behind. With their massive shoulders and braided black hair, they looked more like thkaerths to her than humans, but she had spent enough time fighting at their sides to know that neither man was entirely the brute he seemed. She had seen Burlen risk his life several times to protect Keya without ever allowing her to notice, while Kuhl had returned from one patrol with a litter of orphaned raccoons tucked inside his cloak.

After a moment of deliberation, Takari settled on Kuhl and came up behind him with the ewer. They always stopped to wash the blood and soot off in Dawnsglory Pond before returning home to Treetop, so she knew that Kuhl was both a little leaner and less woolly than Burlen. It was still going to be like wrestling a bear, but she saw no reason to make it any more distasteful than it had to be.

“More wine, Kuhl?”

Without waiting for an answer, Takari pressed herself to Kuhl’s burly back and reached around his shoulder to refill his goblet.

She was wearing only the thinnest of shifts, so she knew he could feel her as well as she could feel him, but he only nodded and voiced his thanks without so much as a glance in her direction. Seeing that Dexon’s goblet was almost empty, Takari took the opportunity to make her point more clearly by plastering herself to Kuhl’s shoulder as she stretched forward to refill it. Lingering there rather longer than was necessary, she turned and smiled.

Kuhl looked away, a crimson flush rising up his cheeks.

Burlen pushed his goblet toward the ewer and said, “I’ll take another swallow myself, if you don’t mind.”

Takari banged the ewer down and peeled herself off Kuhl’s shoulder.

“Why should I mind? I’m sure you can pour.”

This drew a roaring laugh from Dexon and a hurt expression from Burlen. Kuhl’s face grew even redder. Takari wondered whether all humans were as dense as the one she had picked, or if there was something about Kuhl she did not understand.

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