Daried stared hard at the garrulous old fellow, weighing the truthfulness of his words and manner. Vada's bland smile seemed less warm than it had been before, but the elf could sense no duplicity in it. He scowled and turned back to the innkeeper, searching for a sly grin or insincere smirk that might give the lie to the old man's story, but Earek merely nodded in agreement.
"He was always kind to me when I was a lad," the innkeeper said. "A good man, a hero who never treated others like they were somehow less than he was. Red Harvald was a leader of this town for many years. He was no thief."
It's only to be expected that they would band together to defend their own, Daried told himself. Likely this Harvald fellow bought himself a town full of friends and admirers with the fine things he stole from the honored dead. Even so, the sun elf could see that he was not going to get far by lashing out with more accusations. The townsfolk remembered the man as a hero, and in Daried's experience, no one liked to learn about their hero's failings.
Besides, if Vada and Earek were telling the truth, then this Harvald fellow had spent his plunder well for many years. By now the funerary wealth of the Morvaeril dead must be scattered across half of Faerun, traded and sold a dozen times over.
The humans in the taproom watched him warily. Daried resigned himself to a more patient approach, and let the doubt and hostility fall from his face.
"As you must have guessed, the ruin that you name the House of Pale Stone was once my family's home," he began. "I have but lately returned from Evermeet, and I was appalled to discover that the palace had been broken into and the crypts denied. I hope that you can see why I was upset."
Earek the innkeeper nodded cautiously. "Anyone would be," he agreed. He waited for Daried to continue.
"Perhaps the man you call Red Harvald was the one who opened our vaults, or perhaps someone else pillaged the place before he ever set foot in it. The gems and jewelry removed from our dead are not that important to me. I wish that my ancestors' sleep had not been disturbed, but it is done, and I will speak no more of it.
"But there is one thing I ask of you, only one heirloom of my mother's family that I would wish to recover. It was a sword of fine elven steel, with three pearls set in its crossguard and a hilt shaped like a sea serpent. A design like a row of breaking waves graced its blade. Once it was enchanted, but its magic faded away centuries ago. It is nothing more or less than a beautiful old sword now, but it would please me greatly to find it." Daried felt his temper rising again at the idea of the Morvaeril moonblade in the hands of some human brigand, but he checked his anger with a deep breath. "I will, of course, pay a very handsome finder's fee to the current owner. I pass no judgment on anyone who happens to own it now. I will be satisfied with its return."
The innkeeper's eyes narrowed as Daried described the blade. When he finished, Earek glanced past the blade-singer's shoulder at Vada, seated by the hearth. Daried turned slowly, but Vada made no secret of his assent.
"I believe him," the old man told Earek. "He and his people have come a long way to shield us from terrible foes. It would be ungrateful-and stupid-of us to ignore his grievances."
The innkeeper nodded, and returned his attention to Daried. "I've seen that sword," he told the bladesinger. "It hung in a scabbard of red dragon-leather above the fireplace of a man named Andar, the son of Harvald. He lived in the house Harvald built."
"Very good," said Daried. "I will-"
Earek stopped him with a raised hand. "Andar was killed two days ago, sir. He led some of our folk against a large warband of Chondathan marauders. But after he drove them away, some of the mercenaries decided to follow him back to his manor. They killed him, looted the place, and burned much of it to the ground. I don't know if your sword is still there or not."
Daried grimaced. He remembered his scouts telling him of a skirmish near the town a couple of days past, but he had given it little thought. Gangs of desperate men and bands of reavers roamed the dale; he and his elves drove off or slew the ones they caught, but some eluded them. After all, they were watching the forests to the southeast, not the open lands to the west.
"Chondathans? I thought your enemies were Sembians."
The innkeeper snorted. "The Sembians don't do much of their own fighting, sir. They hire companies of mercenaries from all over Faerun to serve as their army. Hard, cruel men, all too eager to add some plunder to their Sembian gold."
"Where can I find the manor?"
"You'll find the place a little less than two miles southwest of the town," the innkeeper said. "It's a strong fieldstone farmhouse on the top of a small hill, with a big apple-orchard all around it. Just look for the smoke."
The bladesinger nodded and turned to go, but paused. Two or three violent deaths in a village the size of Glen was a hard thing to bear, even for humans. The Glen-folk hadn't despoiled his family's palace or stripped elven dead of their funerary attire, even if it was likely that their fathers had. They didn't deserve the brunt of his anger. He looked back to Earek and Vada from the door. "Do any of the family survive?" he asked.
"Andar's sons and their families live here in the town; they weren't there," Vada said. "Nilsa lived with her father, but she went up to Ashabenford earlier that day. She didn't return until the morning after." The old man fixed his watery gaze on Daried, and pointed the stem of his pipe at the elf. "If you should meet them at Harvald's house, remember that they've lost enough in the last few days. Speak less harshly to them than you did to us, if you have a dram of compassion in your heart."
Daried nodded once and left, shrugging off the weight of the human gazes on his back.
The warmth of the day did not diminish noticeably when the sun set. The long, hot afternoon simply faded into a humid, clinging night. The moon was only a thin crescent in the southeast, and the stars were faint and few. If there had been no moonlight at all, it might have been difficult for Daried, but as it was, he could easily follow the trail left by the marauders who had pillaged and burned Harvald's old house. They were driving most of the farmstead's livestock with them and moving slowly, as one might expect of a band of raiders burdened with loot.
They think that no one dares to chase them, Daried decided. They are that stupid, or that arrogant. Perhaps they figured that no village in this empty corner of the Dale would be able to muster enough skilled warriors to challenge thirty-five or forty seasoned mercenaries. That was Daried's guess as to the size of the warband. It could be larger, if there were other bands who had split off to roam in different directions before he had picked up their trail.
He'd found the farmstead half-burned, as Earek had told him. The walls of the old fieldstone house survived, but the roof was mostly gone, and the various outbuildings were all burned. An astonishing array of mundane possessions-pots and kettles, stools and chairs, chests and cabinets-had been dragged out of the house and strewn around. Three fresh-dug graves lay a short distance from the house. He didn't know who else beside Harvald's son had died there, but there had been no one at the burned manor to ask.