She reached out with her perceptions. It was only partly a matter of seeing, partly a matter of feeling at a distance. “Yes. You’re right.”
“And notice the smell in the air, like a storm is brewing. Notice the flicker inside their mouths. You can see it blink like a twinkling star, even this far away. I doubt there’s much point to it. It’s difficult to hurt a dragon with the same element it breathes itself. But it’s their instinct to ready the weapon, no matter what.”
“So they really are going to duel. I wonder why.”
“I have no idea. But I do know I’d rather not be in the town underneath them while they do it. Let’s watch from here.”
And that was what they did, for what seemed a long while. Then the dragons swooped toward the buildings below. One disappeared into the streets on the north side of Mourktar, and the other into the southern part of town.
Gaedynn shrugged. “Well, whatever it was that divided them, apparently they worked it out.”
“Apparently,” Jhesrhi said. She felt a little disappointed. How often did a person have the chance to watch dragons fight each other?
“Then shall we?” Gaedynn waved his hand at the road ahead. Jhesrhi gave a nod, and they rode onward.
By the time they reached the outskirts of the city, the clear sky was giving way to gray clouds blowing in from the sea. The streets teemed with a mixture of races. Humans. Kobolds. Goblins no taller than Khouryn with big pointed ears and ruddy skin, and orcs with swinish tusks and, occasionally, one eye gouged out in honor of their patron deity Gruumsh.
Whatever his kind, if a person was well armed and carried himself like a warrior, he often wore the wand-and-scepter badge. Mourktar was full of soldiers, some likely sellswords arrived by sea. It was additional evidence that Threskel really did intend to mount an invasion.
In a sensible world, Jhesrhi thought, she and Gaedynn would scurry back to the Brotherhood with this valuable piece of intelligence. But in this one, they had to proceed with their pointless errand, searching for a creature who’d surely perished in the cataclysm that had killed even mightier beings and altered the face of Faerun itself.
With the streets so crowded, it was slow going, and she worried they wouldn’t find anywhere to stable the horses or to stay themselves. Gaedynn managed it, though. A silver coin and the promise of more persuaded an innkeeper that he could somehow provide care for two more nags and that it would be all right for a pair of weary travelers to sleep in the hayloft.
By that time, the sun had set. They ate a supper of fish stew, rye bread, and ale in the inn’s common room, then headed back out into the streets. Jhesrhi braced herself for the press of bodies. It had been unpleasant enough on horseback, when people could only brush and jostle her legs. It would be worse when she was fully submerged in the crowd.
But she tolerated it because she had to. She caught Gaedynn glancing at her repeatedly, checking on her, and shot him back a scowl.
Which perhaps he didn’t deserve, for he wasted no time leading her to a narrow, doglegged street where the taverns had names like The Five Nuggets and The Hill Man’s Bliss and the merchants sold shovels, pans, sluice boxes, traps, bows, and boar spears. Since he’d never visited Mourktar before either, she had no idea how he found the right part of it so quickly. It didn’t seem fair that a man raised in the woods should seem so completely at home in cities as well. Especially since she seldom felt fully at ease anywhere at all.
As they wandered from one smoky, boisterous taproom to another, he presented himself as the woodsman and hunter he was, and the hill men took him for one of their own. She looked on quietly as he bought rounds of drinks, swapped preposterous boasts and filthy jokes, and in time turned the conversation to strange tales and rumors from the wild.
It was probably because she remained aloof from the conversation that she was the one who noticed someone watching them.
A small man sat alone in the shadowy corner nearest the door. He wore the same stained, patched, rugged garb as most of the people in the room, but to judge from the pallor of his face and hands, he hadn’t really spent much time in the sun and the rain. He wasn’t quite staring at Gaedynn, Jhesrhi, and the hill men at their table, but his dark, pouched eyes kept returning to them.
She wondered how best to find out who he was and what he wanted. She was still pondering when he abruptly rose and headed out into the night.
She took hold of her staff, still shrouded in a layer of cloth to hide the rare, valuable blackwood and inlaid golden runes. The wrapping attenuated her mystical link to the rod, but not so much as to render it useless. She waited another moment, then rose and started for the door. Gaedynn gave her a questioning look. She raised her hand, signaling him to keep his seat.
Though she was only a few heartbeats behind the watcher, by the time she stepped out the door, he was nowhere to be seen. She whispered to the breeze that carried both the stink of the city’s garbage and the saltwater smell of the sea. Unfortunately, it hadn’t taken any notice of the pale man.
“What’s going on?” Gaedynn asked.
Startled, Jhesrhi jerked around to find him standing right behind her. “I told you to stay put,” she said. But he hadn’t, because he didn’t trust her nerve and judgment anymore.
“We’re done here anyway,” he said. “What pulled you out of your chair?”
“Someone was watching our table. I wanted to find out why, but somehow he outdistanced me.”
Gaedynn looked around. “Well, he could have ducked in any of these doors, and it’s not that far to the bend in the street. Who do you think it was?”
She shrugged. “Someone trying to pass for a hill man, but not. Beyond that I can’t say. I hope he wasn’t a spy looking for his opposite numbers from south of the border.”
“Even if he was, we weren’t doing anything overtly nefarious. I think it’s more likely he’s a spotter for the local thieves’ guild. I was spreading a little coin around. And even though you have that hood shadowing your face and a cloak obscuring your shape, a perceptive fellow could still tell you’d make a lot of coin for any of the local festhalls.”
She scowled at him.
He grinned back. “Facts are facts, buttercup. The point is, if we keep our guard up, we can surely handle a few toughs.” He hesitated. “Can’t we?”
“Yes,” she said, gritting her teeth. “In your estimation, have we learned anything?”
“I assume you heard most of it. Plenty of people have stories to share about a dragon roaring in the night. The problem is, the tales are vague as to what hillside or mountaintop it’s roaring on. But just now I got the name of a fellow who collects information about the Sky Riders, then sells it to trappers looking for particularly luxuriant pelts or prospectors looking for streams that run yellow with gold.”
“In other words, a swindler.”
Gaedynn smiled. “I’d bet my life on it. Or at least somebody’s life. But I’d also wager he gathers real information to make his lies more convincing. And that he’s not averse to peddling that as well, when there’s a market for it. Shall we go find out?”
Jhesrhi kept watch for the pale man, and for any lurking ruffians, as Gaedynn led her into a shabby dead-end street. She didn’t see anyone suspicious. Nor, when she consulted it, did the wind. Maybe the watcher had taken their measure and decided to seek easier prey.
She noticed the structures in the immediate vicinity were smaller than average, with windows placed lower to the ground. Some builder had thrown up a dozen apartment houses for people shorter than humans.
Gaedynn rapped on one of the street-level doors, then waited. After a time it squeaked open a crack, and a halfling peered out from the darkness within.
“Good evening,” Gaedynn said. “My companion and I are headed into the Sky Riders. We need information to ensure a successful journey.”