Tangled webs - Elaine Cunningham [145]
"No. Lloth will not touch you through me, this i swear!" The drow's vehement tone and the haunted look in her ~ amber eyes convinced Fyodor not to pursue the matter. "i agree with you that many strange things have happened in Ruathym, but i cannot piece them together."
"Let's start with the raid on Holgerstead," she said. "i suppose you've considered that ibn might have supplied the tainted mead."
"More than considered," Fyodor agreed somberly. "i have made inquiries among the men of Holgerstead. No one recalls that mead was among the goods ibn sold."
"Who's to say he needed to sell it? He might just as well have slipped a couple of kegs in among the rest."
"We could check Hrolf's warehouses to see if some is missing," Fyodor suggested.
Liriel responded with a humorless chuckle. "Much good may that do us. Hrolf was not one for keeping records, and he wasn't much of a housekeeper. No one but he knew what was in that place."
The Rashemi sighed and rose from his bed. "You continue to think on it, little raven. I am required to hold council with the other chieftains, but we will speak of these things as soon as we might."
"The heavy burden of power," she said lightly, hoping he might hear the irony-and perceive the truth-in her words. But Fyodor responded only with a somber nod, and they walked together in silence.
After Fyodor left her, Liriel made her way to Hrolf's warehouse and let herself in with the key the pirate had given her. She did not hope to find any answers there, but she was tired and frustrated and in sore need of solitude. So she rummaged about a bit, found a few bolts of cloth, and fluffed them into a bed.
Liriel had no idea how long she'd slept before she was roused by the squeak of the opening door. She was on her feet before the door swung shut behind the three men who had entered the warehouse.
"Thought i'd find you in here," announced a familiar, hate-filled voice.
The drow sighed. This was starting to get tiresome. At least this time ibn had been thoughtful enough to bring reinforcements. That might add some interest. He was flanked by Harreldson, the sailor who served as cook aboard the Elfmaid, and another man whose face was familiar but whose name Liriel had never learned.
"One of us you might catch with your danmed elf tricks, but not three. You'll not be getting away this time," ibn exulted. All three men drew their swords and began to advance on the drow.
"Need help, do you? You prove yourself not only a traitor, but a coward!" she mocked him.
Her accusation stopped the man in his tracks, and a stunned expression crossed his usually stolid face.
"You are the traitor of Holgerstead," she continued. "Who else could have supplied the drugged mead? Why else would you have traveled to Holgerstead rather than honor your captain?"
ibn snorted angrily. "Not that old song again! You've accused me before of getting into the mead, and you know damn well this tale holds no more truth than the last one. You've fooled a lot of folk here, but some of us remember the ways of the Northmen. Elves are not to be trusted, be they black white, or green! Hrolf died, the danm fool, because he wouldn't see that!"
Something in his words raised a terrible suspicion in Liriel's mind. She knew ibn's hatred of elves ran deep, but was it possible that he had slain his captain for the "crime" of consorting with elves?
The very thought congealed the drow's anger into a cold and killing rage. Her first impulse was to hurl a fireball at
the red-bearded man, one that would leave nothing of him but cinder and ashes. Yet she did not dare. Hrolfhad told her of the barrels of smoke powder stored in the enormous room. "So it was you who killed Hrolf," she hissed as she advanced on the much-iarger man. Although he held a weapon and she did not, ibn instinctively fell back a step before her fury.