For the next fifteen minutes, she shadowed Tallis as he moved among the crowd, dispensing coins-and unless she was mistaken, threats-among the knaves of the Market. When he thought no one was looking, he produced a vial of liquid from his coat and drank its contents quickly. A potion? She half expected him to fade into invisibility, but there was no apparent effect. Protection of some kind, perhaps? He moved as if he were expecting trouble.
Soneste’s instincts brought her closer to him as he approached a group of Lhazaarite sailors in fur-trimmed cloaks. Just beyond them, she spied the north end of the curtain of shadow that blanketed the Market. From the inside, one could see out into a visible if muted world. Not for the first time, she wondered if the curtain also blocked sound.
Soneste moved close enough to overhear their conversation.
“Tallis?” The largest of the Lhazaarites leaned in closer to get a better look at the Karrn.
“Javey. Yeah, it’s me. I’ve cleaned up and become another arrow in the bunch, see?” Tallis stroked his smooth chin and grinned.
“Walk out of here, Tallis. I’m serious. Haedrun doesn’t want to see you.” He hefted a massive cudgel in two hands.
Haedrun. The name was unknown to Soneste. Someone complicit in the ir’Daresh murder, or someone Tallis knew who could help him escape the city? Perhaps another Lhazaarite who could give him passage by ship?
“Sorry, I’ve got to talk to her.”
Ahh, a woman.
“She didn’t tell you why, did she?” Tallis continued. “Help me out, Jave. This is important.”
“No! Walk away.” Javey glanced around as his three comrades began to fan out around Tallis.
One of their number was a well-muscled woman with a heavy cutlass in hand. All of them wore thick leather armor and fur-lined capes and the other two carried well-worn short swords. From what Soneste had heard back home, Lhazaarites did not go down easily.
Tallis tapped the silver brooch on his coat. “I’m part of the Windwrights Guild now. Better sailors-even the lowliest of Lyrandar cabin boys-than the greatest of Lhazaar princes. Did you know?”
Javey, a bigger man than Tallis by far, swung his cudgel at the Karrn’s midsection. Tallis sucked in his stomach, barely avoiding the rib-crushing swing.
“Come now! Sleights we can forgive, Jave!” Tallis shook his head. He gripped the hilt of his rapier with one hand, but did not draw it. “Debts we can forget, but take another swing at me, and we’ll never share another drink again.”
The big man actually seemed to take the words to heart, pausing as he hefted his cudgel back against his shoulder. “No,” he said at last, maintaining his stance. “Walk Tallis!”
“Fine.”
Tallis started to turn away then spun back sharply. He pulled at the grip of his sheathed rapier and the whole shaft pivoted at his hip. The tip of the sheath, evidently weighted for just this purpose, slammed hard into the big man’s groin. Javey sucked in air as he stumbled, groaning, to his knees.
The other three raised their weapons and spit Lhazaarite curses. Soneste tensed and gripped the hilt of her rapier, uncertain whether to let this play out or reveal herself by helping the Karrn follow this lead.
Tallis drew out his weapon at last. In place of a blade, a slender glass vial half the length of the sheath was attached to the hilt. Some sort of cloudy gray liquid swirled within.
Full of tricks, isn’t he? Soneste mused. Tanglefoot bags, false weapons. What next?
Growling, the Lhazaarite woman closed in first. A seasoned warrior, she made a few wild swings merely to test Tallis’s skill. The other two sailors maneuvered slowly at his back. Soneste almost called out in warning, but held her tongue and watched.
“I don’t think that trick will work the same on you,” Tallis said to the woman, looking down at Javey who still lay on the ground, coughing. “Or … would it?”
“You had your chance,” the woman snarled, diving forward with a well-aimed strike.
Tallis had taken his measure of her as well. He jumped back a pace-putting himself dangerously close to the other two-and held out his strange hilt-vial to intercept her blade as though parrying with a blade of his own. The glass reservoir, predictably, shattered-
A cloud of thick, nubilous mist exploded from the impact.
The air was muddied with the gray fumes, obscuring all sight. Soneste couldn’t make out Tallis or his three opponents, but she heard the slap of metal against leather, and the solid rap of a fist against flesh. Several times.
“Blunted!” was all she heard from Tallis.
Soneste looked around to see if any of the Market’s other attendees planned to intervene. The scuffle had attracted some spectators, but even those looked on with only passing interest. She tried to make herself appear as one of them, relaxing her hands and pretending to inventory her pockets.
The alchemical cloud dispersed quickly. Tallis stood panting, only a single cut along one arm showing that he’d been attacked in turn. A blade had sheared through the fine green coat, but the wound bled only lightly. Even Tallis’s tricorn hat was unmoved. The Lhazaarites lay upon the ground, ushered swiftly into unconsciousness. He knew where to hit and how to hit hard. Soneste felt a pang of empathy for the sailors. She noted the blackened eyes, the bloody noses, and the red welts on the Lhazaarites. Tallis had obviously exhibited restraint with Soneste when he’d defeated her. He was capable of considerable violence.
Tallis didn’t tarry. He sat down casually beside Javey, who looked at his fallen comrades in despair. Tallis picked up the big man’s cudgel and turned it over in his hands.
“One more time, Javey. This is bigger than you and me, not worth losing all you have. Haedrun.”
The Lhazaarite’s sickly face looked up at Tallis. “I can’t …”
Tallis looked around to gauge the onlookers. His eyes passed right over Soneste, but he made no indication that he recognized her. Then he looked back at Javey and jabbed the butt of the cudgel into the man’s mouth, splitting his lip.
“Haedrun?” he asked calmly. “Or did you not wish to keep your teeth?”
“Kol … Korran!” the man cried, spitting blood. “Stop, Tallis … I’ll tell you.”
“That’s quite enough! Leave the man alone.”
Soneste and Tallis both turned their heads at the bold voice of the newcomer. He wore a chain hauberk and held a long sword readily in one hand. Though the man carried himself like a professional soldier, she could see no insignia upon his uniform. His hawkish features were indistinct in the gloom of the Market, but he looked a little older than Tallis.
The expression of hostility on his face drew Soneste’s hand back to the hilt of her rapier. By the Sovereigns, how many enemies did Tallis have?
“I know why you’re here,” the man said, “but this is your mess. Leave Haedrun out of it.”
Tallis stood and faced the soldier. “It surprises me to see you here, Bentius, but it sounds like you know where she is.”
“Leave Haedrun alone. Your only chance to survive this is to run, before I hand you over to General Thauram myself.”
Tallis’s expression darkened with suspicion. “I can’t leave her out of this. She’s the reason I’m in this at all.”
Bentius closed the distance between them, pointing his sword at Tallis. As he moved, Soneste observed a severe limp in one leg. Soneste had seen something like that before. A once-broken kneecap, healed by magic but probably not soon enough to fully restore it.
Tallis dropped the cudgel and held his hands out in a show of truce. Soneste had seen him in action enough now to sense the tension building within him, especially when he appeared unarmed.
“You brought this on yourself, half-elf.” Bentius gestured with his blade to the Lhazaarites on the ground. “You make too many enemies. Did you really think this pathetic Lyrandar get-up would hide you here?”