The City of Splendors_ A Waterdeep Novel - Ed Greenwood [93]
"I'll see him safe home," Lord Jardeth announced.
Korvaun Helmfast turned to Naoni. "If you'd not think it an imposition, we should serve you three likewise."
A Watch officer who stood safely behind his fellows chuckled. "Ah, now-who'll be protecting who, hey?"
Amid the mirth that followed, Naoni Dyre drew herself up and said with quiet dignity, "We accept your kind offer, Lord Helmfast. Courtesy and duty, it seems, aren't always strangers to men of Waterdeep."
Taking the cue, Taeros extended a hand to Lark.
"Help yon stormcrow take your friend to a healer," she told him coolly, ignoring his outstretched hand to rise unaided. "Lord Helmfast's protection will be quite enough for us. We helpless lasses might not be able to keep two of you from inciting bloodshed."
Beldar shrugged off Starragar's helping hand and took a few tottering steps. The street blurred and tilted precariously, and he leaned on the nearest wall until his vision deigned to sort itself out.
"The lass was right," Taeros said, materializing out of the haze. "Let me call a carriage and take you to a healer."
Beldar lifted tentative fingers to his forehead. To his surprise, his wound was shallow, little more than a scratch.
"It's not serious," he said, something of his surprise creeping into his voice.
Starragar regarded him skeptically. "There's a lot of blood. You were knocked senseless. Either alone, much less both, justifies a healer's fee."
"Head wounds bleed freely," the Roaringhorn responded shortly.
It was hard to admit that most likely he'd simply fainted, like a swooning maiden in one of those foolish chapbooks his sisters were always reading. With an effort, he straightened and stepped boldly away from the wall.
"I'll have the wound tended," he told Taeros. "If it's all the same to you, I'd prefer to be alone."
There was understanding on his friend's face. "I feel much the same way," the Hawkwinter admitted quietly. "Never before have I taken a man's life. It's a grim and serious thing, not to be lightly regarded or easily forgotten."
Beldar stared at Taeros. What the Hawkwinter had just said was truth, of course-but it hadn't even occurred to him. And what did that lack reveal of Beldar Roaringhorn?
Still, the mask offered him was preferable to revealing his humiliation. He clapped the shoulders of both friends gently. "Thanks. Get you home, and we'll talk later."
The Hawkwinter nodded and reached for the strings of his readycoin purse. "No arguments," he said firmly, pressing the bag into Beldar's hands. "The women of Waterdeep would never forgive me if I withheld the means needed to keep a scar from marring that face."
The Roaringhorn managed a smile. "You'll have it back, to the last nib."
Black eyebrows arched in feigned amazement. "That knock on your head must have been harder than we thought!"
Beldar chuckled, because it was expected, and waved Taeros and Starragar on their way.
After the last swirl and glimmer of black and amber gemweave had disappeared around a corner, Beldar removed his own cloak and turned it so only the dark lining was showing. His task ahead would be harder if eyes marked him and wagging tongues repeated his name.
He made his way purposefully along now bustling streets. Ducking down a particularly noisome alley, he picked his way through litter and offal to where it ended against the stout stone wall of a warehouse, adorned with crude graffiti and fading blazon-bills of events long past.
Finding the stone that was lighter in hue than the rest, Beldar ran his fingers around its edges, widdershins. A stone door swung open reluctantly on silent hinges, letting him slip into a narrow, low-ceilinged passage beyond.
The stairs at its far end glowed faintly. Beldar drew the door closed and proceeded cautiously; the glow came from a spongy lichen that made the steps slippery. The last time he'd traversed them, it had been in a bone-bruising tumble that his older brother had found highly amusing-yet Beldar smiled in grim