The Eagle And The Nightingales

The dancer turned toward the man who had grabbed him in bewilderment_he started to say something, and the stranger calmly slung him around toward the tables and punched him in the face hard enough to knock him backward. He knocked over two tables as he fell and landed on a third, collapsing it. Those tables overturned, and their occupants scattered, more than a few of them getting to their feet and looking for the cause of the trouble with fire in their eyes.

Another heartbeat later, and that entire corner of the room was involved in a free-for-all_which quickly spread in the Haspur's direction.

Peace-keepers converged on the brawl from every part of Freehold; Nightingale spotted them making for the stairs and pushing their way through the dancers, most of whom were not yet aware that there was anything wrong.

But more violence erupted along a line between the strangers' table and the Haspur, with fighting breaking out spontaneously and spreading like wildfire.

Soon an entire quarter of the room was involved in the brawl, and fists were flying indiscriminately.

Fights were not all that usual here, especially not one of this magnitude. It was almost as if there was someone going through the crowd provoking more violence, instigating trouble and moving on before it could touch him_

Nightingale was still outside of the fighting, though many people around her had abandoned the dancing or their tables and were peering in the direction of the altercation. She jumped up onto her chair, then stood on her table and scanned the crowd as the fight converged on the openly startled Haspur and engulfed him.

Intuition and a feeling of danger warned her that the strangers must be in there, somewhere_and if the Haspur was their target, they would be moving in on him now.

Her flash of intuition solidified into certainty as she spotted them widely separated in the crowd. There they were, all right, converging on the Haspur from three directions as he tried to extricate himself from the brawl without getting involved himself.

And as for the Haspur's identity_there was no glass between her and him now, and she had a good look at his head and face, at the way he moved. It was T'fyrr; it had to be. If it had been a stranger, she might have been tempted to let the peace-keepers handle it.

Well, it wasn't. And damned if I am going to let these ruffians go after a friend!

Her harp was safe in the Rainbow Room; she was no bar-brawler, but she hadn't been playing the roads for all these years without learning a few tricks. She jumped down off the table and began slithering through the crowd of struggling, fighting customers. As long as you knew what you were doing and what to watch out for, it was actually fairly easy to wade through a fight without getting involved_or at least, without suffering more than an occasional shove or stepped-on toe. She made her way to the spot in the milling mob where she'd last seen T'fyrr fairly quickly_but she actually got within sight of one of the men that were after him before she saw the Haspur.

That was when she knew that T'fyrr was in danger, real danger, and that these men weren't just planning on roughing him up. After all, if these people weren't after him, why would this one be carrying a net_why carry a net into a place like Freehold at all? Lyonarie was not a seaport_Freehold might offer a lot of entertainment, but fishing wasn't part of it_and this lad didn't look anything like a fisherman!

She looked around frantically for something to make his life difficult before he got a chance to use that net. If he caught T'fyrr in it, he could entangle the Haspur and_

No, best not think about that. Find a way to stop him!

There! She darted out of the fight long enough to seize a spiky piece of wrought- iron sculpture_or, at least, Tyladen alleged that it was sculpture_from an alcove in the wall. It wasn't heavy, but it was just what she needed. She slid back into the crowd nearest the fellow with the net, just in time to see him back out of the crowd a little himself and spread the net out to toss it.

She heaved her bit of statuary into the half-open folds just as he started to throw it.

He lurched backward, unbalanced for the moment by the sudden weight of iron in the net. He was quick, though; he whipped around to see if someone had stepped on the net, and when he saw how the spikes of the sculpture had tangled everything up, his mouth moved in what was probably a curse. He pulled the mess to him, since no one seemed to be paying any attention to him, and began to untangle it, moving out of the crowd completely for just a moment.

That was when Nightingale slipped up behind him and delivered an invitation to slumber with a wine bottle she'd purloined from an overturned table.

He dropped like a felled ox: net, statue, and all. Nightingale dropped the bottle beside him after giving him a second love-tap to ensure that he stayed out of the conflict for a while.