Manshoon made his Lady Dark Armor lurk silently, well in the wake of what his newly bold lordling had unleashed.
Ahead of her, two men whose bodies blazed blue stalked the dark streets of Suzail in menacing silence, keeping together.
Langral and Halonter of the Nine were quite capable at reading the will of the one commanding them, when they stood close and those thoughts were fierce-and young and fearful Marlin Stormserpent had wanted them to stay together.
Well enough; that suited both of them. They were busy finding Seszgar Huntcrown, and it was proving to be slow work.
Every few paces they came upon someone hurrying along who couldn’t outrun them, or who blundered out of a door or alley too preoccupied with something else to notice blue enshrouding flames in time to run.
“Have ye seen the noble Seszgar Huntcrown?” Relve would ask.
“Recently?” Treth would add, leaning forward to rumble that word.
Usually the answer was a stammered denial, sometimes of even knowing what Lord Huntcrown looked like. Less than helpful-but then, their orders had come from a noble, and nobles weren’t known for sparing underlings work or calling on overmuch thought when crafting orders in the first place.
No matter what answer Langral and Halonter got, they promptly slew the answerer if there were no nearby witnesses, or just stalked on in search of someone else if there were.
It was a good thing night hadn’t fallen all that long before. Questioning and butchering their way across Suzail might take most of the dark hours. They briefly entertained the notion of keeping count of how many killings would be necessary before they found Huntcrown, but hadn’t thought of it until after they’d slain six-or was it eight? — already. Suzailans died quickly these days.
In Targrael’s head, and managing to read the thoughts of the two men in flames faintly through endless and silently snarling blue fire, Manshoon smiled. He’d noticed the very same thing.
Belgryn Murenstur blinked. Well, there … ‘twasn’t every night you saw the likes of that. Wreathed in flames they were, from head to toe, two men with drawn swords, striding along the street as if they felt nothing at all.
“Ho, man!” the shorter one called-to him Belgryn realized. And blinked again, coming to a sudden halt in his rush to be home. In another two paces, he’d have walked right into them, flames and all.
“Have ye seen the noble Seszgar Huntcrown?”
“Recently?” the taller flaming one added, in a deeper voice. They were both smiling.
Were those swords in their hands wet? As in, with blood?
With a rush of relief, Belgryn realized he had. “Yes, yes, I just laid eyes on him, as it happens-and all he carouses with, too. They were going into the Bold Archer and were more than a bit merry.”
Something was happening in his head … as if he was being watched from the dark corners of his own mind. Yes, a dark, coldly smiling presence, Manshoon by name, that he promptly forgot all about.
He blinked again. The shorter man, wreathed in flames he didn’t seem to feel, was thrusting himself closer to Belgryn to ask another question.
“What is this Bold Archer? A tavern?”
“A club. Uh, four streets back, you can’t miss it-”
Belgryn was turning to point when he saw the swords come up.
“Ye will take us there,” the taller flaming man rumbled, still wearing his smile. “Now.”
“I-uh, I’m in some haste to be ho-,” Belgryn started to stammer.
And abruptly stopped, because the swords rising to menace his throat were wet with blood, and because a door had just been flung open down the street, letting light spill out onto the cobbles.
Even before whoever moved to stand in that light started to scream, Belgryn saw clearly what was lying in the street where the two flaming men had just come from: two sprawled bodies that had blood running in slow, dark ribbons out from under them.
Two citizens of Suzail that the flaming men now smilingly flanking him had just slain.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
After one long look that he knew had left him hotly blushing, Delnor kept his eyes on the rush-strewn floor as he hastened through the tables of the Dragonriders’ Club. By the Diligence of Torm, when had the trip grown so long?
He was acutely conscious of his palace messenger’s uniform, and of the dozens-scores-of eyes that must be following him as he made his way right up to the front table where Lord Delcastle was lounging.
In the brightest lights of the stage right above Arclath’s easy smile, the same mask dancer was performing-with an air of defiance, no less! — posing and pirouetting around a glossy-smooth prowboard that had been thrust into the edge of the stage. It allowed her to move her body out until it overhung the wine-sipping noble.
Delnor firmly closed his eyes and groped his way the last few steps to the empty chair across from Arclath, who considerately removed his feet from it in the last instant before the crimson-faced palace messenger sat down both heavily and with great relief.
“Well met,” came the noble’s sardonic greeting as Delnor thankfully closed his hand around a proffered flaretop goblet and drank deeply. “What news?”
The mask dancer thrust her face in the new arrival’s direction for long enough to tender Delnor a brief, hard stare before returning to deftly catching Arclath’s steady stream of tossed coins out of the air, and putting them into dozens of small clips she’d braided into her long hair. Delnor saw her attach a gleaming golden lion then whirl away to smile at the next table, long hair swirling and sleek hips …
He swallowed again and looked away into the darkness-straight into the expressionless gaze of Tress, who was standing with her arms folded, keeping steady watch over her prized dancer and Lord Delcastle’s front table from a dark alcove beside the stage.
Delnor gave the club owner a weak, wavering smile and transferred his gaze to Arclath, who leaned forward through the sudden din of music that arose just then to accompany the dancers-a merry rhythm of longhorn, lute, tantan, and hand-drum, being played somewhere above their heads and coming down through holes around the pillars-to murmur, “So, now, what banners have you seen coming through the gates? What word has reached the palace of this or that noble’s arrival for this Council of the Dragon?”
For his part, Delnor was almost itching with curiousity as to what the Lord Delcastle had learned about the eavesdropping dancer, who was at that moment almost insolently performing right above them again. Something had obviously happened between them.
He risked the swiftest of glances up at the dancer-long enough to see quite vividly that she wore only sparkles, sweat, and her mask-and resigned himself to hearing about it later. Leaning forward until his nose was perhaps a finger’s length from Arclath Delcastle’s, he started muttering names across the table.
When a noble wants to hear which fellow nobles have come to town, and is paying for the drinks, the duty of a lowly courtier is clear.
“… And so she opened her arms for meeeee!” Broryn Windstag roared, off-key and more shouting than singing but too drunk to care.
Spreading his arms wide in a dramatic flourish, he crashed bodily through the doors of the Dragonriders’ Club as his fellow nobles stumbled on through the next verse of the song, words slurred and half-forgotten. Lord Dawntard was drunk, but then Dawntard was always drunk. Delasko Sornstern was the soberest of the three, but that wasn’t saying much, and he was drinking hard to try to overtake his hero Windstag in the race to oblivion.
Arclath peered hard back over his shoulder at the disturbance. Windstag, Dawntard, and Sornstern. Trouble. The crowd of loud roisterers with them were either their bodyguards or the hangers-on that any nobles who spend coins like water in the finer taverns of Suzail will attract, when said nobles will cheerfully buy anyone who howls approval at them wine-flagons and skins and bottle after bottle of wine.