Dragons of Winter Night - Margaret Weis [161]
“I’ve seen him somewhere,” Tanis murmured. “How about you, Caramon? Do you remember him?”
“Ah, come on,” said the big warrior. “We’ve seen hundreds of people this past month, Tanis. He was probably in the audience at one of our shows.
“No.” Tanis shook his head. “When I first saw him, I thought of Pax Tharkas and Sturm.…”
“Hey, I got a lot of work to do, half-elf,” Maquesta said. “You coming, or you gonna gawk at a guy stitching a sail?”
She climbed down the hatch. Caramon followed clumsily, his sword and armor clanking. Reluctantly, Tanis went after them. But he turned for one final look at the man, and caught the man regarding him with a strange, penetrating gaze.
“All right, you go back to the inn with the others. I’ll buy the supplies. We sail when the ship’s ready. Maquesta says about four days.”
“I wish it was sooner,” muttered Caramon.
“So do I,” said Tanis grimly. “There’s too damn many draconians around here. But we’ve got to wait for the tide or some such thing. Go back to the inn and keep everyone inside. Tell your brother to lay in a store of that herb stuff he drinks—we’ll be at sea a long time. I’ll be back in a few hours, after I get the supplies.”
Tanis walked down the crowded streets of Flotsam, no one giving him a second glance in his dragon armor. He would be glad to take it off. It was hot, heavy and itchy. And he had trouble remembering to return the salutes of draconians and goblins. It was beginning to occur to him—as he saw the respect his uniform commanded—that the humans they stole the uniforms from must have held a high rank. The thought was not comforting. Any moment now, someone might recognize his armor.
But he couldn’t do without it, he knew. There were more draconians in the streets than ever today. The air of tension in Flotsam was high. Most of the town’s citizens were staying home, and most of the shops were closed—with the exception of the taverns. In fact, as he passed one closed shop after another, Tanis began to worry about where he was going to buy supplies for the long ocean voyage.
Tanis was musing on this problem as he stared into a closed shop window, when a hand suddenly wrapped around his boot and yanked him to the ground.
The fall knocked the breath from the half-elf’s body. He struck his head heavily on the cobblestones and—for a moment—was groggy with pain. Instinctively he kicked out at whatever had him by the feet, but the hands that grasped him were strong. He felt himself being dragged into a dark alley.
Shaking his head to clear it, he strained to look at his captor. It was an elf! His clothes filthy and torn, his elven features distorted by grief and hatred, the elf stood above him, a spear in his hand.
“Dragon man!” the elf snarled in Common. “Your foul kind slaughtered my family—my wife and my children! Murdered them in their beds, ignoring their pleas for mercy. This is for them!” The elf raised his spear.
“Shak! It mo dracosali!” Tanis cried desperately in elven, struggling to pull off his helmet. But the elf, driven insane by grief, was beyond hearing or understanding. His spear plunged downward. Suddenly the elf’s eyes grew wide, riveted in shock. The spear fell from his nerveless fingers as a sword punctured him from behind. The dying elf fell with a shriek, landing heavily upon the pavement.
Tanis looked up in astonishment to see who had saved his life. A Dragon Highlord stood over the elf’s body.
“I heard you shouting and saw one of my officers in trouble. I guessed you needed some help,” said the Highlord, reaching out a gloved hand to help Tanis up.
Confused, dizzy with pain and knowing only that he mustn’t give himself away, Tanis accepted the Highlord’s hand and struggled to his feet. Ducking his face, thankful for the dark shadows