Elminster_ The Making of a Mage - Ed Greenwood [58]
"Dare they… shoot again?" El gasped. "With… their own folk…"
"Hasn't stopped 'em yet," Farl puffed. "Keep dodging!"
The next arrow came as they reached the top of the street and turned aside to duck along an alley, crouching low. The humming grew louder, and they both dived to the cobbles. The arrow whipped low over them, and cracked into some shutters across the way just as a patrol of armsmen shouldered out of the alley, halberds held high. The patrol-captain peered down in the dimness at the two men sprawled in front of him and snapped, "Get that light up here! Something befalls! Swords ou-"
The Moonclaws had a second archer, it seemed. His shaft hit home with a solid thump-and the captain gurgled, spun around, and plunged to the cobbles, strangling on the long, dark shaft through his throat.
Farl and El rolled to their feet while startled armsmen were still wrestling their halberds down, and ran down the alley past the patrol, hooking the feet out from under the only armsman who tried to block their path.
As the soldier crashed to the cobbles, Farl swarmed up a draper's outside wooden staircase, with El close behind. The roof was an easy leap up from the rail, but slippery with puddles of rainwater. The next roof was thatch, and they burrowed thankfully into its far slope to catch their breaths.
They looked at each other in the darkness, panting. "There's naught for it," Farl said a few frantic breaths later, "but to form our own gang."
"Tyche aid us," El murmured.
Farl looked at him. "Don't you mean Mask, Lord of Thieves?"
"Nay," Elminster replied. "I was praying that this 'gang' does not end our friendship… or our lives."
Farl was a silent for a long time. Then Elminster heard him murmur, "Oh, Lady Tyche, hear me…"
* * * * *
"Ah, Naneetha! Those velvet hands…" Farl was laughing- and then he stopped. "That's it! We'll call ourselves the 'Velvet Hands'!"
Groans and laughter rang round the tiny room. It was dusty and stank of decades of salted fish-but the owner of the warehouse was dead, and the two broken-down carts they'd carefully jammed together in the mouth of the alley made it unlikely any patrols would get close enough to hear them. Over a dozen folk were in the room, keeping a wary distance apart, with careful eyes on each other and their hands close to their weapons.
Farl eyed them all, and sighed. "I know none of you are delighted at this idea… but everyone here knows it's band together or be slain-or leave Hastarl to try our luck elsewhere… in strange places where we'll be marked as suspicious outlanders an' find a local gang of thieves waiting to sink knives into us."
"Why not join the Moonclaws?" Klaern rasped. He was one of the Blaenbar brothers, who lounged together by a window where they could give a signal to someone outside.
"On what terms?" he asked reasonably. "Every time Eladar or I have crossed paths with 'em, they've tried to put their blades into us before a word was exchanged. We'd start out on the fringes, all of us, untrusted and expendable."
"More than that," Elminster put in, drawing startled looks from all over the room. "I've wondered at all those leathers an' matching badges they wear. Expensive, that-an' right from the outset, before they'd taken two coins to rub together. Good weapons, too. Does that remind all of ye of anything? A private bodyguard, belike? An army in Hastarl that strikes at thieves-us-whenever they see us. That sounds like the work of someone in the hire of a magelord, or the king, or someone rich and important. What better way to rid the city of thieves and arrange 'accidents' for thy rivals but than to put thine own band on the streets?"
There were thoughtful nods all around the room now. "Now that," fat old Chaslarla said, scratching herself, "makes more sense o' the mess than I've heard since I first saw 'em. An' it explains why some armsmen seem to look the other way when they strike out-under orders, belike."
"Aye," young Rhegaer