“All right, then. I’ll make sure that I don’t involve you in my quarrels, Mirya. But I’ll be damned if I’ll stand still and watch some Mulmasterite thugs threaten my friends right in front of me. I promise you I’ll make sure my fights are finished before I go.” Geran shook his head and stormed away. He tried not to slam the door behind him, but he didn’t quite succeed. Mirya shouted something after him, but he turned back toward Griffonwatch and set off without looking back.
Slavers in the Tailings, the Shieldsworn keeping no laws within the town’s walls, and thugs dressed in the colors of foreign companies extorting native-born Hulburgans. Somewhere at the back of it all, Jarad Erstenwold had been murdered in the Highfells by tomb robbers. Geran fumed silently as he shouldered his way through the narrow streets. It seemed that looking after Jarad’s affairs might take longer than he’d thought.
FIVE
13 Ches, the Year of the Ageless One
The day after the encounter at Erstenwold’s, Geran rose early and spent half an hour practicing his weapon-forms in a little-used court on the castle’s south face. When he finished, he returned to his chambers, splashed himself with cold water for a teeth-chattering bath, and dressed. Then, before leaving his rooms, he took a large book written in Elvish from his baggage. Geran spent an hour studying the words and symbols from the spellbook, pressing into his mind the arcane phrasings and signs he would need to unlock his magic quickly and surely should he need it. Given what he’d seen of the state of affairs in Hulburg so far, it seemed wise to be ready for anything.
With the swordmagic spells fixed in his mind, Geran took a few moments to renew the protective charms he usually maintained from day to day. He quickly rewove wardings of keen perception and deflection, defenses that just might save him from a dagger in the back or see him through an unexpected skirmish. His battle-shields were much more powerful, of course, but he couldn’t maintain them for long; the wardings he could wear all day, like an invisible shirt of light mail. He returned his spellbook to the trunk at the foot of his bed and whispered a locking spell out of habit.
“All right,” he said aloud. “Now for some breakfast.”
He trotted down the stairs leading from his old bedchamber to the great room in the Harmach’s Tower, where the family normally took their meals. Hamil was ahead of him, already finished with his own breakfast. The halfling was engaged in a game of dragon’s-teeth with Geran’s young cousin Kirr, who chortled with delight every time he found an opportunity to put one of his own markers on top of Hamil’s. Somehow the halfling never failed to provide the young lad plenty of opportunities to take his pieces.
Hamil looked up at Geran with a doleful frown. “It seems I’ve fallen into the hands of a master strategist,” he said. “I don’t doubt that this young fellow will grow up to be the greatest general since Azoun of Cormyr. Neighboring lands should sue for peace now, while his terms remain generous.”
“That’s right!” Kirr declared. “Ha! You missed another one, Hamil!” He plunked a red tile down on top of one of Hamil’s white ones.
“What-but how? You fiend! You have captured my last white!” the halfling spluttered in feigned outrage. The young boy cackled in reply, almost helpless with delight at his own cunning. His older sister, Natali, studied Hamil suspiciously while she arranged her own pieces for the next match, clearly aware that the halfling was throwing the game but wise enough not to say so right before she got a chance to play him.
Geran shook his head. In a hundred years he never would have guessed that Hamil had a weakness for children. He helped himself to a broad plate of honeycakes, bacon, and eggs from the breakfast service and sat down near the game to watch as he ate. “A word of advice, Kirr,” he said between mouthfuls. “If Hamil loses again but suggests that maybe you should play for coin next time, say no.”
The halfling snorted. “Even I am not that underhanded, Geran!”
“Do they play dragon’s-teeth in Tantras, Geran?” Natali asked. She was quieter than her younger brother, but in two brief evenings Geran had already learned that she had a quick and lively sense of curiosity and never forgot a word she heard. Where Kirr was constantly in motion, fidgeting and standing and sitting and pushing tiles together when it wasn’t his turn, Natali held herself as still as a falcon watching a mouse.
Geran nodded. “Yes, indeed. And people play dragon’s-teeth in most other places I’ve visited too. In the Moonsea it’s regarded as a children’s game, but if you go down to Turmish or Airspur you’ll see grown men playing all afternoon. They take tremendous pride in playing well, and sometimes they gamble bags of gold on games. The marks on the tiles are different, but the game’s pretty much the same everywhere you go.”
“Where do the marks on the tiles come from?”
He smiled at that, wondering why in the world she thought he might know. “I’ve heard that long ago they were runes in Dwarvish, but they’ve changed over the years. Dragon’s-teeth is an old dwarven game. It’s said that once upon a time dwarf merchants used the runes and tiles to strike bargains and keep accounts with each other.”
The young girl studied the ivory tiles intently, her brow furrowed. “How could you make trades by playing dragon’s-teeth?”
“I don’t know, Natali. Maybe a dwarf could tell you.”
He heard a light, quick step approaching and looked up to see a blonde woman in a mail shirt trotting up the steps. Geran swung his legs over the bench and stood. “Kara! It’s good to see you!”
Kara Hulmaster smiled broadly when she caught sight of him and quickly crossed the room to throw her arms around him in a rib-cracking hug. “Geran! You’re here!” she laughed. She was not much more than about five-and-a-half feet in height, but she had wide, strong shoulders and an acrobat’s compact build, and when she squeezed, Geran had a hard time taking a good breath. “It’s been years!”
“Too long, I know,” he admitted. He returned her embrace and then stepped back to look at her. Her hair was paler than he remembered, bleached by long months spent outside beneath the sun every year, and laugh lines gathered at the corners of her eyes. Kara had the squarish face and fine, narrow nose of the Hulmasters, but her strikingly luminous eyes glowed an eerie azure with the spellscar she had inherited from her father. The serpentlike blue mark entwined her lower left arm and covered the back of her left hand, beautiful and sinister at the same time. Two or three generations past, someone in her father’s line had come in contact with the virulent, unchecked Spellplague and had been changed by it. As far as Geran knew, Kara’s father had never even known it himself-the Spellplague was capricious that way. Certainly Harmach Grigor never would have permitted his sister Terena to marry a man known to carry the defect of a spellscar. But no one had known the danger until Kara’s spellscar had manifested early in her thirteenth year.
“I heard about Jarad,” he told her. “I’ve come to pay my respects and look after anything that needs looking after.”
“I should’ve known you’d come home,” Kara said with a sigh. “I’m sorry, Geran. I wish you were here for a happier reason.” She glanced over to the table and noticed Hamil with Kirr and Natali. “Who’s your friend?”
“My apologies. Kara, this is Hamil Alderheart. Hamil, this is my cousin, Kara Hulmaster.”
Hamil slid off the bench, took Kara’s hand, and kissed it lightly. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Lady Kara,” he said. If he was startled by her spellscar, he was careful not to show it. “Geran has told me a lot about you, but his reports simply don’t do you justice. I am your servant.”