Cloak of Shadows - Ed Greenwood [66]
First to find her.
Ignoring the startled gasps and hissed warnings from behind her, Huerbara strode across the darkened chamber to the only door she could see. This had better be Alustriel's palace, or Milhvar would soon be hearing about his overblown cleverness.
The door was unlocked. Beyond stretched a short passage whose left-hand wall soon became a row of tapestries, implying a larger room in that direction, Huerbara walked forward without hesitation.
Behind her, the two male Malaugrym exchanged glances, shrugged, and followed.
Voices were coming from beyond the tapestries. Male voices, at ease.
"She never seems to know what she wants to buy, but she always comes back with something. Or rather, a pile of somethings." A glass clinked down on a table.
There was a chuckle. "You can sell more to a woman who knows not what she wants to buy but is restless to have new things in her hands."
There was a snort. "You make her sound like a brothel cruiser, not the lady with the largest collection of once-worn gowns in Silverymoon."
"And you want to wed her. Have you thought this through?"
Kuervyn and Andraut smiled silkily at each other and turned toward the tapestries, hands going to the slim blades they wore at their belts.
Huerbara shot out two long, silent tentacles to wave them to startled stillness. She glared at them and gestured down the passage, beckoning them on. There'd be time for such amusements later, unless, of course, they had the whole palace after them by then.
Bringing two such flamebrains along on this mission could prove very dangerous to her, she reflected, following the passage through an archway and into the rear of what seemed to be a gigantic wardrobe.
And then a slim hand reached out in front of her and unhooked a dust-shroud-covered gown from its place on the crowded bar. Huerbara smiled tightly and shot a slim tentacle around that corner, high up. Eyes swam down the tentacle to see her quarry, and guide that appendage around its throat before it could utter a sound.
Huerbara stepped around the corner with a pleasant smile on her face, another tentacle snaking out to take the gown from suddenly desperate fingers. The maid whose throat was wrapped in her tentacle-a pretty wench with great dark eyes and a pert little lace-framed bosom-stared helplessly at her for a few moments in terrified bewilderment before Huerbara broke that pretty neck with a deft twist, and the light in the eyes faded away. Then she handed the body back out into the passage to amuse the two louts, felt them take it with low laughs of anticipation, and shifted to match the maid's form perfectly.
A moment later, Shantra the Underdresser stepped unconcernedly out of the wardrobe room, dust-bagged gown in hand, and looked up and down the corridor she found herself in. Two magnificently mustachioed guards in opulent uniforms were seated before a closed and barred door at one end of the passage, playing leap-knights at an ornate octagonal board. Light, soft voices spilled from two open doorways in the other direction.
The guards looked up, so she gave them a half-smile before she turned away. One guard looked back to his game immediately, but the other guard frowned. His eyes narrowed as he watched Shantra-his beloved, who'd never looked at him with such pleasant lack of recognition before-walk away and pass through one of the doors. She'd never walked like that, either, all sinuous glide and none of her happy bounce.
He got up, saying softly, "A moment, friend Silder. I'll be right back, but come with your sword if I bellow."
He left the other guard frowning up at him and went down the passage as quickly