The City of Splendors_ A Waterdeep Novel - Ed Greenwood [17]
"Well shoveled," Korvaun chuckled, as hammerings and clatterings fell silent above them, and the faces of workers-younger ones grinning, but older ones frowning apprehensively-began to gather to gaze down at the Gemcloaks.
"Moreover," Starragar added hastily, recalling which side he was supposed to be on, "I can only view any attack upon this establishment's claims, however embellished they might be, to be an assault on the essential character of what it is to be Waterdhavian! Endless mercantile disputation and strife is the very lifeblood of our city! In short, to demand the destruction of this shop is to decry the very soul and core of Waterdeep!"
"What, by all the watching gods….?" a grizzle-bearded carpenter demanded in bewilderment, shouldering between his suddenly idle trustyhands to gaze down and try to discover why they'd all stopped work.
"Foolblades," an older worker spat scornfully, hefting his mallet. In response to his employer's sharp, inquiring frown, he added in explanation, "Young wastrel nobles. At play, as usual."
"And when foolblades play," another worker grunted, "things always get broken."
The carpenter leaned forward and bellowed down at the Gemcloaks, "Ho! Be off with you! Yes, you!"
Malark seemed not to hear. "Well, then," he said grandly, continuing the game, "only one solution remains to men of honor!"
"Indeed," Taeros replied politely. Four blades sang out of scabbards to join Beldar's already-bared steel, and the Gemcloaks drew themselves smoothly into two lines, facing each other in mock menace.
Someone hummed a mock fanfare, and one man from each line glided forward to stand blade-to-blade. With matching grins, Beldar and Taeros indulged in a mocking, finger-crooking parody of the elaborate lace-wristed courtesies of old nobles. Grand flourishes were made, bows performed, and blades crossed delicately, steel kissing steel.
"Insomuch as thy tragic and injurious delusions must fall, have at you, miscreant," Beldar intoned, stepping back to strike a dramatic pose made resplendent by his ruby cloak.
"And to rescue all Faerun against thy grievous and ever-burgeoning errors, have at you," Taeros replied, his fierce grin belying the haughty styling of his words.
With a whoop, Beldar lunged and charged, hacking hard twice at Hawkwinter steel as he came, the drive and direction of his assault seeking to back Taeros over a handy bucket.
Taeros, who'd marked that hazard before crossing steel, sprang over it without looking down. In a swirl of amber finery he retreated nimbly into the litter of boards, chopping-blocks, dangling ropes, and sawhorses that crowded the building's ground floor.
Beldar advanced, kicking the bucket at his Hawkwinter foe. If the bucket chanced to contain fresh and very sticky mulehoof glue, and if Taeros happened to be adept at sliding aside and letting such missiles hurtle past him to strike and topple a leaning sheaf of boards, and thence ricochet hard into the face of the first charging worker to come thundering down a rickety temporary stair, well, that was merely the will of the gods, was it not?
And if the Gemcloaks burst into the wood shavings and barrel-littered worksite with enthusiastic roars, wild slashes, and kicks that upset most of the barrels and toppled an entire run of thankfully unoccupied scaffolding with a deafening crash into the stout stone wall of the shop next door, well, that too was as the gods willed and merely to be expected when the future champions of Waterdeep's honor took the field with blades bared and battle in their eyes.
"Ho!" Malark boomed cheerfully. With wondrous economy of movement he parried two blades as he landed a kick to Starragar's