He found himself parrying a myriad of blows, slashes, and flying cups. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Spielt and Kreelan had entered the fray. He worked his way into the middle of the courtyard, now jammed with thrashing bodies, most of them held upright by the press of people. Then, just as the fighting was heaviest, the crowd drew apart to reveal a man’s body sprawled facedown, floating in the waters of the fountain. Crimson ripples spread in a ghastly halo around his head.
“Murder!” The cry came from a hundred throats. The crowd poured into the street, and in five minutes the only ones left in the tavern besides the owner were the two men from Avarilous’s table, the merchant, and the dead man. A second later, the landlord and his band of helpers emerged from behind the bar and ranged themselves before the door. Avarilous sank back into his nook, watching the scene with glittering, attentive eyes.
The two drinkers would have followed the rest of the crowd, but their way was barred by the landlord, who came at them in a furious rush.
“You fools! What have you been doing? This fight will bring the watch down on this house for sure!” The landlord’s voice ended in a shriek as Spielt seized him by the throat and pinned him against the wall with one hand, while his other drew a wickedly curved sword from beneath his robes. His friend stared grimly at the landlord’s henchmen as they started forward.
“Call off your dogs,” he growled, “unless you’d care to end the evening as a corpse.” The landlord gestured frantically with one hand, and the large guard, Sirc’al, stepped back a pace. His hand was on his own sword, and his eyes looked death at the scarred man.
The ruffian nodded to his companion, who loosened his hold on the landlord. The fat innkeeper choked and gasped for a moment, then sank into a chair. Kreelan gave his friend a ghastly smile and the two stepped confidently toward the door.
Light flashed suddenly from a blade, as one of the innkeeper’s men drew a broadsword and pressed it against Spielt’s throat. “Halt! Or your friend dies!”
Kreelan stopped, his mouth slipping sideways in anger. He glanced down, making a visible effort to regain his temper. Then he looked up again. “Go ahead! He’s less than nothing to me. I can pick up a better helper than him in any dockside brothel.” He took another step.
Spielt’s face had turned ashy, but his voice, when he spoke, was surprisingly calm. “Death’s waiting that way, Kreelan. Another step and you’ll be food for the Fallen Temple.” He flicked his eyes upward, toward a shadowed balcony that ran around the second story of the room. “Right now there’s a crossbow aimed straight at your head. Raeglaran was keeping an alternate escape route open for us. Well, that’s what he’s doing for me, all right.”
Kreelan began to look upward, then thought better of it. “You’re bluffing, Spielt.”
Spielt’s laughter had a touch of hysteria about it. “Am I? Then walk ahead. You’ll find out soon enough.”
Sirc’al’s stance appeared to relax slightly. He laughed deep in his throat and brushed a hand over his balding head, the skin mottled and scaly. “So you’ve betrayed each other. What more could I expect from such slime? Well, I’ll have you first, Kreelan.”
Kreelan grinned tightly. “Not quite.” Slowly he brought up the hand that until now had stayed clenched in a fist by his side. It held a small glass sphere that the others could see was divided in half by a thin partition. One half held a black powder; the other contained a clear liquid. “Know what this is?”
The smile froze on Sirc’al’s face. “What?”
“Smoke powder,” Kreelan crowed. “And next to it, oil of phosphorus. You know what happens if the sphere breaks, don’t you? The oil will ignite, and the smoke powder will explode.”
Sirc’al laughed. “Go ahead, fool! There’s barely enough powder there to blow yourself up.”
Kreelan said calmly, “Ah, but there you’re mistaken, my friend. This is just one sphere. In my pack, I have two more. True, there will be only one small explosion from this one, but it will be followed by a somewhat larger explosion. I shouldn’t care to be standing next to me.”
Sirc’al snorted. “You’re bluffing.”
“Am I? If your friend over there kills Spielt, Raeglaran will shoot me. I’ll fall. And with me will fall this little sphere. This little glass sphere.” He smiled nastily. “Spielt, if Raeglaran kills me, and the sphere breaks, I and our friend here will be dead. But his other friends will have no reason not to attack you. Five against two? Not good odds. And that assumes you won’t be taken down when I fall.”
Kreelan shifted his eyes upward. “Raeglaran,” he called. “In case you’re getting some bright ideas, shooting me now will only get your boss killed. And do you think you’d make it out of the tavern with these fellows, not to mention the watch, on your trail?”
Sirc’al grunted contemptuously. “You needn’t worry about the watch.”
“Why not?”
“Because we’re already here.”
Kreelan started, and the hand holding the sphere wavered visibly. The guard tensed.
The scarred man’s voice was brittle as fine crystal. “How did you come here tonight?”
“Ask your friend.” Sirc’al made a minute nod toward Spielt, who smirked at his former comrade.
Kreelan’s voice rose to an outraged shriek. “You? You bastard! You planned to betray me all along.”
“No more than you were planning for me,” Spielt snarled. “You’d sell your mother for a handful of copper pieces if the opportunity came along. But now the tables have turned, thank Umberlee.”
Spielt’s mercenary companion had recovered his aplomb and managed to give the impression of shrugging his shoulders without actually doing so. “Well, well. Perhaps I would have. I’ve always admired initiative, Spielt. Possibly you have a bit more than I was willing to give you credit for, though any would be more than that. And now you’re caught in your own trap, tightly as a Tharkaran lobster.”
“Ah, but what about you?” Spielt’s voice was poisoned with hatred. “How are you going to get out of here, pray tell?”
Kreelan rolled his eyes. “I don’t know. At present the situation’s a bit of a standoff.”
“And a remarkably entertaining one, I might add,” observed Avarilous, stepping out of the shadows.
Kreelan’s hand jerked, and the sphere nearly slipped from his fingers, bringing forth an anguished cry from Sirc’al. The other watchman’s fingers whitened on his sword hilt.
Kreelan was the first of the group to recover fully. “By all the foul beings of the Abyss, who are you, and what are you doing here?”
For the merest instant, Spielt’s eyes flicked toward Avarilous. “I know him. I thought there was something odd about him from the moment he sat down at our table.” His hysterical giggle pierced the damp air. “I knew we should have taken care of him earlier.”
Avarilous smiled agreeably, taking care to keep his hands in plain sight and make no sudden movements. “Gentlemen, a word from an impartial observer seems as if it would not come amiss just now.” He picked up his ale from the window ledge where he had set it.
Kreelan spoke before the others. “Perhaps it would, but I don’t know exactly what game you’re playing. Are you an agent of one of the other cities?”
Avarilous permitted himself a small shrug. “My concerns in this affair are my own. For all you know, I could be an innocent bystander. But I know enough of what’s occurring in the Five Kingdoms these days to understand something about who you’re all working for.”
Spielt sneered openly, the veins in his neck turning purple. The watchman’s sword rested closely against the largest of these, and Avarilous could see the tip of the blade denting the dirty skin. “If you know so much about it, Whoeveryouare, tell us about it.” The blond mercenary glared at Kreelan. “I’d love to know who this tanar’rispawned bastard is working for.”