Elminster Must Die_ The Sage of Shadowdale - Ed Greenwood [93]
And abruptly stopped, because the swords rising to menace his throat were wet with blood, and because a door had just been flung open down the street, letting light spill out onto the cobbles.
Even before whoever moved to stand in that light started to scream, Belgryn saw clearly what was lying in the street where the two flaming men had just come from: two sprawled bodies that had blood running in slow, dark ribbons out from under them.
Two citizens of Suzail that the flaming men now smilingly flanking him had just slain.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
A NIGHT OF SWORDS AND BLOOD
After one long look that he knew had left him hotly blushing, Delnor kept his eyes on the rush-strewn floor as he hastened through the tables of the Dragonriders’ Club. By the Diligence of Torm, when had the trip grown so long?
He was acutely conscious of his palace messenger’s uniform, and of the dozens—scores—of eyes that must be following him as he made his way right up to the front table where Lord Delcastle was lounging.
In the brightest lights of the stage right above Arclath’s easy smile, the same mask dancer was performing—with an air of defiance, no less!—posing and pirouetting around a glossy-smooth prowboard that had been thrust into the edge of the stage. It allowed her to move her body out until it overhung the wine-sipping noble.
Delnor firmly closed his eyes and groped his way the last few steps to the empty chair across from Arclath, who considerately removed his feet from it in the last instant before the crimson-faced palace messenger sat down both heavily and with great relief.
“Well met,” came the noble’s sardonic greeting as Delnor thankfully closed his hand around a proffered flaretop goblet and drank deeply. “What news?”
The mask dancer thrust her face in the new arrival’s direction for long enough to tender Delnor a brief, hard stare before returning to deftly catching Arclath’s steady stream of tossed coins out of the air, and putting them into dozens of small clips she’d braided into her long hair. Delnor saw her attach a gleaming golden lion then whirl away to smile at the next table, long hair swirling and sleek hips …
He swallowed again and looked away into the darkness—straight into the expressionless gaze of Tress, who was standing with her arms folded, keeping steady watch over her prized dancer and Lord Delcastle’s front table from a dark alcove beside the stage.
Delnor gave the club owner a weak, wavering smile and transferred his gaze to Arclath, who leaned forward through the sudden din of music that arose just then to accompany the dancers—a merry rhythm of longhorn, lute, tantan, and hand-drum, being played somewhere above their heads and coming down through holes around the pillars—to murmur, “So, now, what banners have you seen coming through the gates? What word has reached the palace of this or that noble’s arrival for this Council of the Dragon?”
For his part, Delnor was almost itching with curiousity as to what the Lord Delcastle had learned about the eavesdropping dancer, who was at that moment almost insolently performing right above them again. Something had obviously happened between them.
He risked the swiftest of glances up at the dancer—long enough to see quite vividly that she wore only sparkles, sweat, and her mask—and resigned himself to hearing about it later. Leaning forward until his nose was perhaps a finger’s length from Arclath Delcastle’s, he started muttering names across the table.
When a noble wants to hear which fellow nobles have come to town, and is paying for the drinks, the duty of a lowly courtier is clear.
“… And so she opened her arms for meeeee!” Broryn Windstag roared, off-key and more shouting than singing but too drunk to care.
Spreading his arms wide in a dramatic flourish, he crashed bodily through the doors of the Dragonriders’ Club as his fellow nobles stumbled on through the next verse of the song, words slurred and half-forgotten. Lord Dawntard was drunk, but then Dawntard was always drunk. Delasko Sornstern was the