At that moment Fetterfist raised his eyes and spied Jack staring up at him. They locked gazes for a brief moment before the yellow-haired lord smiled, straightened, and turned to leave the balcony he stood on.
Jack swore and hurried inside to the hall just outside the ballroom, seeking the stairs to the upper floor. He quickly threaded his way through the elegant throng that mixed and mingled by the grand staircase, bounding up the stairs just in time to see Fetterfist descending the steps at the far end of the upper hall. Jack pursued the fellow at once, hurrying back down and crossing the ballroom to the manor’s foyer, deflecting greetings left and right as he rushed through the crowd. A moment later he clattered out onto the manor’s front steps, where a number of guests waited for their carriages to be brought up. He stood there on the steps, searching the crowd with his eyes, until he finally caught a glimpse of Fetterfist’s face glancing back from a carriage window to the Norwood’s manor. Then the coach with the slaver inside rolled away down the drive.
“Damn the luck,” Jack swore. He looked around desperately for some means of pursuit, but all he could see were more noble carriages and their coachmen. He briefly considered commandeering one, but at that moment Seila emerged from the manor and hurried down to join him on the steps.
“What is it, Jack?” she asked. “I saw you rush away. Is something wrong?”
He debated whether or not to alarm her before deciding that he would rather have her on her guard. “Fetterfist was here,” he told her.
Seila’s eyes opened wide, and a look of horror blanched her face. “No,” she gasped.
“I recognized him at a distance. Well, I am almost certain I did. When I saw him at Tower Chumavhraele half his face was hidden by that leather hood, but the shape of the jaw, the hair, his build, they all matched. And he seemed to take an interest in you.”
“Was he here as a guest?” Seila asked in a weak voice.
“I’m afraid so. At least, he was dressed for the party and seemed to fit in with the crowd.”
“Did you recognize him? I mean, do you know who he is?”
Jack shook his head. “I recognized his face, but that’s all. Remember, I don’t know many people in this day.”
Seila shivered in the cool night air, and wrapped her arms around herself. “Jack, if he means to take me back down to the drow again … I can’t go back to that dark awful place. I simply can’t!”
Jack caught her in his arms and drew her close; she buried her face in his neck. “Never fear about that,” he said. “We’ll make sure your father is warned, and we’ll find out who he is, trust me. I would die before I’d let them have you again.”
And, to his surprise, he realized that he meant exactly what he said.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The party began to break up an hour or two after midnight, as more and more guests called for their carriages and left for their homes. Jack rather hoped that he might entice Seila to join him in the guest chamber at some point in the night, but Marden Norwood made a firm point of showing him to his room and explaining that a servant would be in the hall just outside his door all night long in case he needed anything.
“For a genial old fellow he seems to entertain an uncomfortably keen sense of curiosity and certain suspicions about my moral fiber,” Jack grumbled to himself.
Even with that precaution he might have been tempted to try his luck by stealing his way into Seila’s room instead-after all, spells of invisibility or changing appearance were extremely useful for that sort of thing-except that Seila’s mother had mentioned that the manor was absolutely full with so many relatives visiting, so Seila would be sharing her room with a couple of her dear cousins. Jack settled for a peck on the cheek at the top of the stairs under Marden’s watchful eye, and passed the night quite alone.
He slept late the next morning, recovering from the night’s revels, then passed much of the day in a long, chaperoned ride with Seila and several of her close friends. Jack was not an experienced rider, but he hid his discomfort as best he could-any nobleman would be expected to ride well, even one from such a distant realm as the Vilhon Reach of a century past. Later in the afternoon, with his thighs and back aching, he gamely helped Seila go over the previous night’s guest list, searching for a name to put with the face of Fetterfist. Based on Jack’s description of the man’s height, leanness, and yellow hair, Seila was able to line out all but twenty or thirty possibilities.
“This is too many,” she complained. “I can’t report all these men to the authorities. And most of them belong to very prominent families. It would be unthinkable to levy an accusation unless we were absolutely sure of ourselves.”
“You and your nefarious captor move in the same circles,” Jack pointed out. “If you and I attend enough social functions and gatherings together, sooner or later I’ll spot the man I saw last night and point him out to you. You’ll almost certainly recognize him at that point, and we’ll catch our secret slave-dealer.”
“Good thinking, Jack,” Seila replied. “That might work.”
Jack grinned to himself. He thought so, too; why, he was almost grateful to this Fetterfist fellow for showing up, since it would give him the perfect excuse to stick closely to Seila for the foreseeable future. “Send me word of any event you mean to attend,” he told her. “I will clear my calendar to make sure I am at your side.”
After that, he reluctantly took his leave, returning to Raven’s Bluff in a Norwood coach as the afternoon gave way to evening. He enjoyed a quiet supper, gave the day’s correspondence a passing glance, and retired at nine bells-he was expected at the Smoke Wyrm early.
The next day the weather reverted to a typical Ravenaar spring, with blustery winds and light showers that threatened to linger all day. Jack arose shortly after dawn and dressed himself with great care. Instead of the elegant tunics and fine capes he’d favored since coming into money, he pulled on a quilted leather jerkin sewn with small steel rings and a long, hooded cloak. He sheathed one dagger in his right boot and another at his right hip, while hanging his fine rapier in a plain wood-and-leather scabbard on his left. He slung a roomy pack over his shoulder, and set out while the cool shadows of morning were still long and dark in the streets.
He found the cellar door of the Smoke Wyrm unlocked, and let himself in with a sharp rap on the lintel. “Hello,” he called.
Tharzon appeared in the hallway, leaning heavily on his cane. “Ah, there you are, Jack,” he said. “I was afraid you’d sleep away half the day before remembering your work this morning. Well, come on in, you’re the last to arrive.”
Jack followed Tharzon into the common room. Kurzen stood by one table, checking a large pack of his own; he wore a coat of worn, blackened steel scales, and a kite-shaped shield was strapped over his shoulder. By the large stone hearth a tall, burly half-orc in a hauberk of chainmail fiddled with the straps of the iron greaves on his shins, while a halfling woman with russet hair tied back in a braid worked on a large dagger with a whetstone. A lean human with long, shaggy braids of red hair and a W-shaped patch of red stubble on his chin sat in a chair by the window. He wore the robes of a mage and smoked a long clay pipe while nursing a mug of steaming tea.
“The company’s complete,” Tharzon announced. “It seems some introductions are in order. Kurzen you all know, of course. Jack, these three are the remaining members of the Blue Wyvern Company. The tall fellow in the mail is Narm; he’s a stout hand in a fight. Next to him, the young lady with the knife is Arlith. And the fellow by the window is Halamar, who’s known as a master of fire magic.” The old dwarf pointed to the half-orc, halfling, and mage as he named them. “Wyverns, this is Jack Ravenwild, a very resourceful thief and sorcerer back in his day. You might have heard some talk of Lady Norwood’s rescue from enslavement in the dark elf realm below Sarbreen; he was the man responsible for that. Today’s work is Jack’s scheme.”
Narm looked Jack up and down and shrugged. “Right, then. What’s the prize today?”
“A book of spells named the Sarkonagael,” Jack answered. “There is a hefty reward offered for its recovery; we’re going to retrieve it from Sarbreen.”
“You know where the Sarkonagael is?” Arlith asked. “Half the sellswords and freebooters in this town have been turning the place upside down looking for it. Five thousand crowns is a handsome pile of coin.”
“Ah, but unlike all those other amateurs, I’ve actually seen the book before. I know what I am looking for.”
“What sort of spells does the book contain?” the sorcerer Halamar asked from his seat by the window.
