Elminster_ The Making of a Mage - Ed Greenwood [62]
*****
Elminster rose from atop Peeryst's unconscious form, made sure the door was bolted this time, and hurried to where Farl, eyes still streaming from the perfume, was staggering away from the bed.
"We've got to get out of here," he muttered, shaking Farl.
"Damned Moonclaws," his partner snarled. "Grab something to make all this worthwhile."
"I have," El said, "now let's begone!"
His words rose into an excited shout as a new pair of leather-clad figures swung in the window, using yet more silken lines.
They landed running, blades out. Elminster swept up a small glass-topped table, spilling figurines in all directions, and hurled it hard.
His target ducked, and the table sailed harmlessly out the window-just as one of the figurines landed, hard, on his foot.
Elminster hopped in pain, roaring. The grinning Moonclaws man closed in on him, raising a gleaming blade, as the other one dived to grab the nude, shrieking woman on the bed.
*****
The table fell through the night to explode in shards of glass and twisted spars of brass on the cobbles far below. Some of them clattered on the windows of the feasting-hall and the parlor. The befurred and bejeweled elders of both families turned at the sound, and more eyebrows were raised.
"They wouldn't be fighting, would they?" Janatha Glarmeir said anxiously, fanning herself to conceal her burning cheeks. "It certainly seems lively."
"Nay," Darrigo Trumpettower roared, "that's just… what d'they ca-oh, aye, 'foreplay;' y'know, the fun 'n' games beforehand… great big room up there to chase each other around in…" He sighed, looking up at the ceiling. Obligingly, it shook under another sharp, booming crash, and a cloud of dust drifted down. "Wish I were younger and Peeryst was calling for help…"
Promptly there came a faint, quavering cry. "Help!"
"Well," Darrigo said in delight, "if the lad ain't the very shinin' image of his old uncle, indeed! Where're those stairs? Hope I can remember how to do the deed, after all these years…"
*****
Elminster danced backward, wincing. The Moonclaws man lunged at him, blade flashing, and then grunted in surprise as Farl reached out and wrapped himself around the man's leg. The Moonclaws thief toppled like a felled tree, and Farl stabbed him in the throat before he'd even stopped bouncing. The stag statue, cracked and somewhat smaller now, spun away from under the man's sprawled body.
Elminster saw what Farl had done, turned his head away, and promptly emptied his dinner all over a blue-dyed fur rug from Calimshan.
"Well, that's one rug we won't be taking back with us," Farl called merrily as he sprinted across the room to where the last Moonclaws woman was struggling with the sobbing bride. Just as he got there, the thief managed to get her hands on Nanue's face and throat, and looked up.
Farl didn't slow. He planted a firm fist in her mask as he ran past.
She hadn't even hit the carpet when he leapt out the window, one of the swing-lines hissing through his gloved hands as he slid down in haste.
Elminster snatched up a hand-sized jewel-coffer to add to the hairpins he'd stowed in his boots, thrust it down the front of his shirt to free his hands for climbing, and ran after Farl. Screaming, Nanue ran the other way, toward the door where her husband lay senseless.
Elminster tripped over the stag, cursed, and ended his flight to the windows in a helpless roll. The statue slid away across slick tiles exposed when rugs were rucked up in the battle, and caromed off a wall, spitting pieces of itself in all directions.
El fetched up against the windowsill in an untidy heap-unseen by the Moonclaws man who swung grandly in the window at that moment and stepped right over the thieving prince. His eyes fixed on the statue, gliding to a gleaming stop in the moonlight.
"Aha! A king's ransom-mine!" the thief bellowed, hurling a dagger out of habit at the nude woman fleeing across the chamber. The flashing fang struck an upright mirror, which pivoted on its pintles, overbalanced, and came crashing down at Nanue. She shrieked and leapt desperately