The Yellow Silk - Don Bassingthwaite [40]
"Where are my beljurils?"howled Brin. All around him, pigs squealed and ran. Even Brin flinched away. Tycho turned pale and stumbled back. Brin lunged after him, flinging away the tin tube and jumping up to grab a fistful of Tycho's coat front. It should have been a ludicrous sight-the tiny halfling raging at a human who was almost twice his size. Somehow, though, it wasn't. Brin's weight dragged on Tycho, forcing him to bend almost double. Suddenly Black Scratch was there as well, snorting and scraping his hooves through the muck. Other pigs were closing in, too, following the boar's example and turning on their one-time friend. Lander stayed well back.
"They were there, Brin!" Tycho insisted. "They were there, I swear it!"
Brin's hand twisted the silk closed around the gravel and drove the bundle straight into Tycho's face. "Do those feel like beljurils to you?" he screamed. He hit Tycho again. "Do they?"
Tycho tried to reach forward and tear Brin away. The halfling just swung himself up off the ground and planted a foot hard in Tycho's gut, dropping down again as he staggered back, gagging and gasping for air. "Where are they?" Brin screamed.
"I don't know!" choked Tycho. He tried to scramble back to his feet, but Black Scratch was right there. Tycho sank into a crouch, eyes on a level with Brin's. "Bind me, Brin, I don't know. They were there. In the tube. I checked them with Jacerryl when he passed them to me. He can tell you that." His tongue licked out, smearing blood on his lips. "In the jail. Someone must have taken them while I was in jail."
"You were in jail?"
"I told you, there was trouble with Mard Dantakain!" Tycho shouted back. He was trembling. "I've been in the middle town jail for most of the day! Brin, you know I wouldn't try to cheat you!"
"I have buyers waiting for those beljurils." Brin stalked forward. His hand snapped out and closed on Tycho's chin, pulling the bard forward so they were nose to nose amid the snorting pigs. "You lost them. You find them."
Tycho swallowed. "Brin-"
"Can you pay for them? " Brin searched Tycho's eyes. "I don't think so. I can't even sell you to slavers for the price of those gems. Find them. You've got until noon tomorrow." He leaned back and forced Tycho's head around until he was staring into Black Scratch's yellow gaze. The boar huffed and long strands of foamy saliva sprayed across Tycho's face. "If you don't have the gems back, I'll take up
Lander's suggestion and let you try a serenade on Black Scratch." Brin leaned in close again. "I should warn you that he doesn't have much of an ear for music."
He thrust Tycho away and the bard went sprawling back across the sty. For a moment, he just stared at Brin in panic then he twisted to his feet and scrambled for the door back into the Eel. "Through the alley!" Brin spat at him. "Through the alley!" It was too late-Tycho was already through the door and running through the Eel. Over the noise of the pigs, Lander caught the shouts and exclamations from inside as he fled.
"Bugger," grumbled Brin. He turned around and flung the bundle of gravel hard against the nearest wall. Pigs squealed and darted away from the splinters of rock that came spraying out of it. "Lander! Are you done yet?"
Lander jumped for his abandoned spade. "Almost, Brin!"
"Leave it. Get back out there and find me Kuang Li Chien. Alive or dead, he has to be somewhere. And while you're out, find Desmada and see what she knows about Tycho being in jail." Lander blinked at the command and dropped his spade again, reaching instead for his shirt, mantle, and the curved saber. Brin rubbed Black Scratch behind the ears. "I don't like having this many loose ends floating around. They tend to get tangled up."
***
"Sir," said Giras the fence in an offended voice. "Are you trying to ruin me?" He flicked a finger at one of the gold coins Li had laid on the shop counter. "Such fine quality work as the items you request is not easily come by. And so exotic!"
"I told you," Li hissed between