Embra's words boomed clearly in the taproom of the Sighing Gargoyle, causing every man there to stiffen and fall silent.
In a table in one corner of the room that Flaeros Delcamper would have recognized, four drinkers smiled a little ruefully at each other across a small forest of empty winebottles. Maelra Bowdragon shuddered, too, but Uncle Dolmur patted her thigh comfortingly under the table, and her father clapped her shoulder reassuringly above it, and she sighed a long sigh and then managed another smile.
"I suppose this means we'll have to invent something to trade in, or keep clear of the Vale henceforth," the Master of Bats observed.
"Oh, I don't know," Craer Delnbone replied, stepping forward out of the brief flash of a teleport-spell with Tshamarra Talasorn at his side. "We're short of bats in Aglirta."
He handed a chittering, wing-flapping bat back to Arkle Huldaerus, and added a trifle archly, "Though we won't be, if you keep sending them to spy on us in such excessively obvious numbers."
The four mages around the table eyed each other in startled silence for a moment-and then, suddenly, everyone started to laugh.