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have pounced and torn apart the overbold intruder very swiftly.
"I need you," Joysil said gently. It had been a very long time since Aeglyl
Dreadclaw had heard such a sentiment. He laid aside his wild schemes of escape and
revenge in an instant to listen . . . and when she was done speaking and laid bare the
bald truth of her words with a spell that Aeglyl had last seen cast in his youth an age
ago, the great fang dragon drew itself up and hissed, "Lead me, and I shall fight wing
to wing with you. This peril must be swept away for all our sakes."
The song dragon turned, flapped her wings, and all of the wyrms took wing,
climbing and drawing apart to let her and the newly recruited Dreadclaw soar into
their midst.
"We must hasten," Joysil called and hurled herself through the air toward
Cormyr with a dozen dragons in her wake, a scaled host going to war.
Twenty-One
NO SWORD SHARPER THAN HER
TONGUE
The din of battle can be deafening, even to dying ears but give me twenty such
deafenings over one bitter dispute with my wife.
Sarseth Thald, Merchant of Amn
Musings On Being A Merchant Prince
Year of the Turret
"B'gads, Surth! How much longer must we sit here in the dark starving, eh?"
Aumun Bezrar wiped his sweating brow with one plump and hairy forearm, and
waved at the window with his knife. "The rest of Marsember grows richer by the
passing hour, while here we sit!"
The tall, lean figure leaning on the windowframe straightened and said icily,
"We're not starving, Bezrar. You've sliced open a good dozen cheeses since I
started keeping count and emptied an entire hand-keg of Sembian jack, too! I
chose this warehouse for two good reasons and the plentiful supply of food was one
of them. Mind you don't 'starve' too much or you won't fit through the door when
the time comes to go!"
"When will that be? Stop me vitals, Surth, they can't care enough to spell-hunt us
forever just as I can't eat cheese forever!"
"I know," Surth said darkly. "The other reason I chose this place, dolt, is that
crate you're sitting on. Tis full of Selgauntan glowstones, and their
enchantments duly registered and duty-paid should hide us from any seeking
spell that's not cast from right inside this building. I hope."
"Odd's fish, Surth don't you know? For sure? We could be cowering here for
nothing?"
"Stop waving that fish-gutter of yours and sputtering at me, Master Importer
Aumun Bezrar, and "
Malakar Surth fell silent in mid-sarcasm and threw up a hand for silence. With a
warning hiss, he slapped a finger to his lips and took two swift steps toward his fat,
sweating business-partner to drive home the urgency of his warning. With his other
hand, he pointed repeatedly at the floorboards below. Someone had entered the vast,
cavernous ground floor of their warehouse.
"You're sure this place is safe?" a cultured male voice asked doubtfully, bringing a
whiff of strong musk with it. Surth bared his teeth in a silent sneer. A noble, for all
the coins in Marsember.
"As safe as anywhere in this rotting fishgrave of a city," another man replied in
amused tones. "The rogues who own this cargo-barn haven't been seen for some
days and small wonder, with the Watch looking everywhere for them!"
"All the better reason to be wary," the perfumed noble said angrily. "Who's to say
there isn't a purple-noses patrol in here now or heading here for a regular
peer-about?"
A sudden glow flared below, shining up through gaps in the floorboards to show
Bezrar and Surth each other's tense faces.
"Behold," the amused noble said, "my glowstone. We can take a good look about
as we talk and be gone before anyone's the wiser.
If the Watch does burst in, saw you the 'storage for reasonable coin' sign outside?
Well, we're two empty-handed nobles inspecting the place to see if it's dry enough to
store the next incoming shipment of the wardrobes of Eastern silk our wives have
gone mad for, hmm?"
"All right," the perfumed noble said grudgingly. "Shine it over there I thought I
saw something moving."
"You did."
"Tymora's sweet tea !"
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