Rise of the Blade - Charles Moffat [64]
A smoke stained mage peered up at the warrior. He wet his sooty lips with a pink tongue and coughed at the taste. "Chev's getting away," he finally croaked.
"He did what?" screamed Pierce, his voice thundering through his packed office and down the marble hallways. "My ship? He destroyed my ship?"
Martinez looked at Durnan for help. Durnan looked at his boots.
Martinez looked the other way at Mirt. The moneylender looked out the window.
Finally the Harper looked at Marque Draque, the only person in the room who wasn't a Harper and yet helped out now and then provided there was something in it for the mage. Draque was busy scribbling notes on a scrap of parchment and looked like he hadn't even heard anything.
A vein stood out on Pierce's forehead and he clutched his desk for support. Mumbling something about needing a stiff drink, he sat down and put his head in his hands. Martinez sat down in Durnan's chair, took a quick sip of brandy from a bottle in his pocket and handed it to Pierce. The Doctor took it and downed it without a word. He leaned back in his bronze armour and stared at the ceiling. Taking a deep breath, Pierce stood and set the bottle down with a sound similar to a gavel. "If anyone needs me, I'll be in the basement chopping up more wood for the winter."
It was with an eerie calm that Chev stayed low for the next few days. He stayed for long hours in shadowy taverns, watching the hours drift past. There was no more Harpers. Actually, there were more, but they had all disappeared. He didn't eat much and the food was always cold because he took his time eating.
He had caught a glimpse of Valeska in a crowd but she had spotted him first and disappeared faster than a quickling could blink. The bard had a right to avoid him but at the same time Chev had a feeling she was enjoying her sudden renewed fame so soon after the drow assassination. He too was getting more than his fair share of recognition.
Fame was something he had never wanted. Perhaps it was humbleness that had made him great, Chev mused in the darkness of his booth. He was a simple warrior, asking for nothing more than an excuse to keep his sword edge sharp, food in his belly and-
"Love," he said loudly, interrupting a bard's story.
"Love?" the fair haired man laughed from his stool by the bar. "I was about to say I fell in a pit, and you blurt out the word love? If you were being chased by an angry ogre, which would you prefer to fall in? A pit or in love? I for one would not want to fall in love with an ogre! Mystra's breasts man! What were you thinking of?"
Chev stood with casual ease and shook back the hood of his cloak to reveal his handsome face and brown hair. "I was thinking of a fair woman. A woman so fair and beautiful that any man would find it hard not to blurt out such a word. Can your bardic tongue put words to such a feeling?"
"Stupidity?" the bard blurted and his head rocked back from Chev's fist before he had even finished the word.
"Try love," Chev said evenly and lifted the young man by the neck with one hand and threw him across the room to crash into several alarmed patrons. "A feeling that leaves a man sick to the stomach for all eternity," he said as he walked through the room of parting people. "Do you know the kind of agony a man can endure when his soul is torn with a lost lover?" he said as he lifted the bard by the back of the shirt and held him at arm's length so that they were eye to eye. The man's arms and legs dangled down as if he was a mere puppet.
A stern heavyset barkeep positioned his head in between the two and looked Chev in the eyes. "You sound like a man with more than his fair share of stories. Instead of wreaking the place, how about you share a few with us?"
This was the kind of courage Chev liked. He saw in the barkeep a sense of comradeship that he had not seen in a long time. He had seen a bit of it in Pierce but he had always been too busy fighting to take a closer look. The warrior dropped the bard to the floor and broke open a smile. "You want a story,