‘I’ve seen him somewhere,’ Tanis murmured. ‘How about you, Caramon? Do you remember him?’
‘Ah, come on,’ said the big warrior. ‘We’ve seen hundreds of people this past month, Tanis. He was probably in the audience at one of our shows.’
‘No.’ Tanis shook his head. ‘When I first saw him, I thought of Pax Tharkas and Sturm...’
‘Hey, I got a lot of work to do, half-elf,’ Maquesta said. ‘You coming or you gonna gawk at a guy stitching a sail?’
She climbed down the hatch. Caramon followed clumsily, his sword and armor clanking. Reluctantly, Tanis went after them. But he turned for one final look at the man—and caught the man regarding him with a strange, penetrating gaze.
‘All right, you go back to the inn with the others. I’ll buy the supplies. We sail when the ship’s ready. Maquesta says about four days.’
‘I wish it was sooner,’ muttered Caramon.
‘So do I,’ said Tanis grimly. ‘There’s too damn many draconians around here. But we’ve got to wait for the tide or some such thing. Go back to the inn and keep everyone inside. Tell your brother to lay in a store of that herb stuff he drinks—we’ll be at sea a long time. I’ll be back in a few hours, after I get the supplies.’
Tanis walked down the crowded streets of Flotsam, no one giving him a second glance in his dragon armor. He would be glad to take it off. It was hot, heavy and itchy. And he had trouble remembering to return the salutes of draconians and goblins. It was beginning to occur to him—as he saw the respect his uniform commanded—that the humans they stole the uniforms from must have held a high rank. The thought was not comforting. Any moment now, someone might recognize his armor.
But he couldn’t do without it, he knew. There were more draconians in the streets than ever today. The air of tension in Flotsam was high. Most of the town’s citizens were staying home, and most of the shops were closed—with the exception of the taverns. In fact, as he passed one closed shop after another, Tanis began to worry about where he was going to buy supplies for the long ocean voyage.
Tanis was musing on this problem as he stared into a closed shop window, when a hand suddenly wrapped around his boot and yanked him to the ground.
The fall knocked the breath from the half-elf’s body. He struck his head heavily on the cobblestones and—for a moment—was groggy with pain. Instinctively he kicked out at whatever had him by the feet, but the hands that grasped him were strong. He felt himself being dragged into a dark alley.
Shaking his head to clear it, he strained to look at his captor. It was an elf! His clothes filthy and torn, his elven features distorted by grief and hatred, the elf stood above him, a spear in his hand.
‘Dragon man!’ the elf snarled in Common. ‘Your foul kind slaughtered my family—my wife and my children! Murdered them in their beds, ignoring their pleas for mercy. This is for them!’ The elf raised his spear.
‘Shak! It mo dracosali!’ Tanis cried desperately in elven, struggling to pull off his helmet. But the elf, driven insane by grief, was beyond hearing or understanding. His spear plunged downward. Suddenly the elf’s eyes grew wide, riveted in shock. The spear fell from his nerveless fingers as a sword punctured him from behind. The dying elf fell with a shriek, landing heavily upon the pavement.
Tanis looked up in astonishment to see who had saved his life. A Dragon Highlord stood over the elf’s body.
‘I heard you shouting and saw one of my officers in trouble. I guessed you needed some help,’ said the Highlord, reaching out a gloved hand to help Tanis up.
Confused, dizzy with pain and knowing only that he mustn’t give himself away, Tanis accepted the Highlord’s hand and struggled to his feet. Ducking his face, thankful for the dark shadows in the alley, Tanis mumbled words of thanks in a harsh voice. Then he saw the Highlord’s eyes behind the mask widen.
‘Tanis?’
The half-elf felt a shudder run through his body, a pain as swift and sharp as the elven spear. He could not speak, he could only stare as the Highlord swiftly removed the blue and gold dragonmask.
‘Tanis! It is you!’ the Highlord cried, grasping him by the arms.
Tanis saw bright brown eyes, a crooked, charming smile.
‘Kitiara...’
9
Tanis captured.
‘So, Tanis! An officer, and in my own command. I should review my troops more often!’ Kitiara laughed, sliding her arm through his. ‘You’re shaking. You took a nasty fall. Come on. My rooms aren’t far from here. We’ll have a drink, patch up that wound, then...talk.’
Dazed—but not from the head wound—Tanis let Kit lead him out of the alley onto the sidewalk. Too much had happened too fast. One minute he had been buying supplies now he was walking arm in arm with a Dragon Highlord who had just saved his life and who was also the woman he had loved for so many years. He could not help but stare at her, and Kitiara—knowing his eyes were on her—returned his gaze from beneath her long, sooty-black eyelashes.
The gleaming, night-blue dragon-scale armor of the Highlords suited her well, Tanis caught himself thinking. It was tight-fitting, emphasizing the curves of her long legs.
Draconians swarmed around them, hoping for even a brief nod from the Highlord. But Kitiara ignored them, chatting breezily with Tanis as if it were only an afternoon since they had parted, instead of five years. He could not absorb her words, his brain was still fumbling to make sense of this, while his body was reacting—once again—to her nearness.
The mask had left her hair somewhat damp, the curls clung to her face and forehead. Casually she ran her gloved hand through her hair, shaking it out. It was an old habit of hers and that small gesture brought back memories—
Tanis shook his head, struggling desperately to pull his shattered world together and attend to her words. The lives of his friends depended on what he did now.
‘It’s hot beneath that dragonhelm!’ she was saying. ‘I don’t need the frightful thing to keep my men in line. Do I?’ she asked, winking.
‘N-no,’ Tanis stammered, feeling himself flush.
‘Same old Tanis,’ she murmured, pressing her body against his. ‘You still blush like a schoolboy. But you were never like the others, never...’ she added softly. Pulling him close, she put her arms around him. Closing her eyes, her moist lips brushed his...
‘Kit—’ Tanis said in a strangled voice, wrenching backwards. ‘Not here! Not in the street,’ he added lamely.
For a moment Kitiara regarded him angrily, then—shrugging, she dropped her hand down to clasp his arm again. Together they continued along the street, the draconians leering and joking.
‘Same Tanis,’ she said again, this time with a little, breathless sigh. ‘I don’t know why I let you get away with it. Any other man who refused me like that would have died on my sword. Ah, here we are.’
She entered the best inn in Flotsam, the Saltbreeze. Built high on a cliff, it overlooked the Blood Sea of Istar, whose waves broke on the rocks below. The innkeeper hurried forward.
‘Is my room made up?’ Kit asked coolly.
‘Yes, Highlord,’ the innkeeper said, bowing again and again. As they ascended the stairs, the innkeeper hustled ahead of them to make certain that all was in order.
Kit glanced around. Finding everything satisfactory, she casually tossed the dragonhelm on a table and began pulling off her gloves. Sitting down in a chair, she raised her leg with sensual and deliberate abandon.
‘My boots,’ she said to Tanis, smiling.
Swallowing, giving her a weak smile in return, Tanis gripped her leg in his hands. This had been an old game of theirs—him taking off her boots. It had always led to—Tanis tried to keep himself from thinking about that!
‘Bring us a bottle of your finest wine,’ Kitiara told the hovering innkeeper, ‘and two glasses.’ She raised her other leg, her brown eyes on Tanis. ‘Then leave us alone.’