Ghostwalker - Erik Scott De Bie [65]
A collective gasp ran through the crowd as the earth genasi pulled back his hood. The scars and bruises of battle still decorated his face and, if anything, added intensity to his words.
"Your men spent all night searching for some stranger, swords drawn, injuring or frightening the townsfolk," Unddreth accused. "This cannot stand!"
"A 'stranger?' Walker is a murderer who has been attacking our people for days!" Greyt corrected. "Many men are already dead and you insist I call my rangers back-you demand I leave our lands unprotected? I do what I must to stop this killer-for the watch has found nothing but failure." Unddreth shivered at the barb. "You protest my methods?"
"Speaker Stonar would have-" Unddreth began.
"Speaker Stonar left us in our time of need!" Greyt interrupted. "He refused to protect us, either because he would not or could not. He fled to our noble High Lady Alustriel when his countrymen cried out for aid! I can only hope she sees his cowardice or discovers his culpability."
Confused frowns answered from the crowd and Greyt chuckled.
"Guilt," he clarified, and the people cheered.
"A bid to rule Quaervarr?" Derst asked skeptically. "That's not like-"
"I know," returned Bars. Anger coursed through him. He hated politics and its machinations, but he understood the game. Greyt played the crowd like a yarting. "Not like the Greyt we know. He hates this city."
Greyt waited until the cheering died down. "I cannot believe, however, that Stonar is behind this," he shouted. "He is a good and just man, with nothing but noble intentions. I refuse to believe he is anything but ignorant-an unwitting piece of the puzzle."
Derst and Bars shook their heads. Not a power struggle, then.
"I believe the killer is acting on his own," Greyt said, "A lone villain murdering our people!"
"He is no villain!" Unddreth shouted, but his words were lost in the hubbub of frenzied shouting.
"Stonar must be told!" came a shout from the crowd. "Cast a sending to Silverymoon right away and bring him, along with a unit of the Argent Legion-"
"Impossible," came a voice that should have been too soft to penetrate the noise of the crowd but projected loudly all the same. At the sound of that voice, the crowd parted around a cloaked figure. Bars and Derst looked and saw a shapely half-elf woman in a leather cloak, flowers laced through her shockingly light hair and feathers adorning the end of a gnarled staff she carried. Though the morning was chill, she wore only a light leather tunic and leggings. Her face, flushed in the cold, was young and smooth, but her eyes were both knowing and wise.
Bars was at a loss for words. "Who is yon lady?" he asked Derst.
"Now that's a woman," the knight replied. "The Lady Druid Amra Clearwater, of the Oak House. Powerful, skilled, and an excellent tumble between the sheets." The paladin gave him a sidelong, warning look. Derst cleared his throat. "I mean, so I've heard."
The beautiful half-elf continued in a light voice. "Some barrier thwarts our spells, as though a dark moon rises over Quaervarr and shrouds our sight," she said.
"A magical barrier?" asked Greyt. "Then our enemy is more powerful than I thought!"
Cheers mingled with gasps of horror. The crowd fixed its eyes on the Lord Singer. The roguish knight and the paladin looked at one another, utterly confused. What could Greyt be thinking? Did he want to start a panic?
Silence, tense and fearful, gripped the square.
Greyt grinned. "Fear not, though, for the danger has passed," he said. "Thanks to my efforts, the killer is in our hands and we shall question him to find-"
"He escaped!" Bars shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth. "The killer escaped!"
"Dolt," Derst cursed under his breath, turning his head so as not to be recognized.
* * * * *
Greyt swore inwardly, angry at this news. He had no doubt it was true. He had ordered his men to take Walker alive or dead