The Rose of Sarifal (Forgotten Realms) by Paulina Claiborne

Author:Paulina Claiborne [Claiborne, Paulina]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780786961320
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast Publishing
Published: 2012-05-01T00:00:00+00:00

CAPTAIN RURIK

KILL HIM,” SUKA SAID, SCRATCHING HER NOSE.

They stood outside the prison in Caer Corwell. Poke had dragged the leShay prince over the cobblestones, away from the blank wall and down the street. Now they paused to draw breath and consider the next step, Marabaldia, the gnome, the cyclops, and the pig. It was early evening, and there was a mist over the port.

No one followed them. For a moment, Prince Araithe seemed almost human in his vulnerability, whimpering with shock, his velvet cap awry, his eyes closed, his gray hair stringy and unkempt, his shirtsleeve ripped and bloody. He lay on his back. Poke had him below his elbow. His gloves were gone. Marabaldia stood above him in her old blue dress, holding the iron bar she had taken from her cell. In this light her eyes shone in different colors.

“Kill him,” repeated Suka. “You know that’s what he would have done,” which didn’t make much sense—she meant it’s what he would have done to them, was, in fact, trying to do—whatever. She looked up at Marabaldia, and for a moment before she turned away in self-defense she caught a glimpse of herself in the giantess’s right eye, as if in a mirror.

With an odd sense of distance she saw herself as others saw her, a tiny figure with an upturned, freckled nose and short pink hair, grinning with nervousness and gesticulating like a monkey, terminally unheroic, and the piercings and tattoos didn’t help, seemed an obvious overcompensation, though she’d never thought of them that way.

“You know if we don’t kill him, he will hunt us down,” she grumbled, even her voice unfamiliar. It didn’t surprise her when Marabaldia disagreed with her. How could anyone agree with anything she said?

“And are we bound by what our enemies do?” said the giantess, her voice gentle and pure, her skin a regal purple in the failing light. “Isn’t it always better to show mercy, as bright Selûne has commanded us? Perhaps instead of copying the vices of our worst enemies, we should learn from them. Treachery and murder have brought this person low.”

Suka looked away. Once delivered from the effect of Marabaldia’s evil eye, she heard the wisdom of her own advice, which was obvious enough to convince even a pig, she observed. Poke had broken the prince’s forearm, snapped the bone between her enormous molars, but the strange thing was, he didn’t even seem to notice the pain but just lay on his back in the dust, helpless, Poke’s cloven foot in the middle of his chest. It was as if his spirit had already left his body. She wagged her head from side to side, pulling at the joint until the arm was almost severed, while at the same time she began her transformation to her human shape, climbing up the ladder gratefully yet painfully, Suka imagined, until she let the prince’s arm drop from her mouth and stepped away from him, a fleshy, pink-skinned woman with a crest of yellow hair.

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