'The only song I sing is the scream of steel, the hymn of the duel,' Walker said.
She was silent, bowing to his words.
'Do not fear for your lands,' he said, rising. 'This place is precious. It is the only home I have ever known. The only one I can remember.' He turned away, looking into the sunset.
The Ghostly Lady's thin lips turned up in a bittersweet smile. 'I am sorry, Walker,' she said. 'I did not mean to remind you-'
'It is nothing,' he said, interrupting her. There was pain in his voice, pain in the suppression, but Gylther'yel said nothing.
The two were silent for a long moment. The sun dipped fully below the horizon and darkness cast its shade over Faerun.
'Night falls,' Walker said. 'The third night. Time to return to my task.'
'Old green Drake, jolly as the day is long,' rang the chorus, hollered at the top of Derst's lungs as he danced upon the table.
'Raids a town, not for food but mead!' Bars responded in his deep bellow. He tried, unsuccessfully, to push Derst off the table, but the roguish knight danced out of the way.
'Carries his booty along-' Arm-in-arm, their voices joined in a raucous disharmony for the last lines of the chorus. 'A little drink is all he needs!'
The Whistling Stag was filled with laughter. The knights sang, voices slurred with plenty of the same honey- brew of their refrain, and danced-poorly. The ditty used an old Iluskan folk melody but Amnian words pilfered from Derst's favorite bard of that southern kingdom. The crowd loved it. Bars and Derst, arms locked and feet flying, twirled awkwardly amidst a sea of smiles.
Over at the bar, Arya was careful not to allow her hood to slip and reveal her identity. As it was, she gave a small smile and raised her tankard of weak ale in tribute to the dancing fools.
The two were never more amiable than when they were deep in their cups. All their biting wit and competition vanished, to be replaced with jest and good-hearted friendship. Arya wondered if the two ever clearly remembered their sodden revels, and if they would be embarrassed that their seeming rivalry ended with only a mug or dozen of mead, ale, or elverquisst. Especially elverquisst.
Arya found herself wanting to join them, as a noble lady did not often have the chance to engage in such pursuits-Regent Alusair of Cormyr a notable exception-but she had other plans.
She had retired early, feigning weariness, and emerged without armor or sword, clad in woodsman's garb. In plain, earthen tones, Arya would not leave the sort of impression the daughter of Lord Rom Venkyr of Everlund in blue and silver would strike. Perhaps on this, the third evening, she could finally find some answers to the questions that had brought her to Quaervarr.
Finishing her ale, Arya waited until Bars and Derst were finished with their merry tune about the drunken wyrm. Then, while the crowd clapped and cheered the two staggering singers on, she set two copper coins on the bar and made her exit unobtrusively.
Arya stepped out into the night and pulled her cloak tightly around her slim frame. Her breath crystallized before her face. While the snow that had dusted Quaervarr the previous night was gone, the air was not warmer for it. The street was deserted, and Arya felt a familiar emptiness creeping up on her, as it always did when she was alone, but she pushed it away as best she could and made her way to the other local tavern, the Red Bear.
Unlike the Whistling Stag, renowned throughout the Silver Marches for its fine brew and finer company and visited by almost every adventurer in the north once or thrice, the Red Bear catered solely to Quaervarr locals. The ale was of a lower quality and the conversations were correspondingly less lively. Still, it was an excellent meeting place for hunters, trappers, and frontiersmen of all kinds, providing a common ground where they could come after a day's work and compare tales over tankards of Keeper Brohlm's finest. The old, hardened patrons were the most likely to know about life in the Moonwood.
Thus, they were the most likely to have heard word of the missing couriers.
Arya stepped into the smoky bar, stooping to avoid knocking her head against low-hanging, mildew-stained rafters. With a tiny gasp, she managed to catch herself before she stumbled down the steps into the tavern.
' 'Ware, lass,' a gray-bearded man said at her side, reaching to steady her. He forgot to set down his mug and splashed ale over them both, but he didn't seem to notice. 'The Bear's not what she used to be.' Arya accepted his hand with a nod and a smile and ignored the creeping wetness he had just spilled all over her wool breeches.
Taking her response as encouragement, he launched into an explanation of the rafters and the sunken floor. Local legend had it that the founder of the Red Bear had built the tavern on the finest ground available to compete with the Stag, but the curse of Silvanus on certain disloyal worshipers had caused the ground to soften and brought the tavern sinking down.
'That'll teach us to skip ceremonies for a brew, aye, lass?' he asked with a chuckle.
Arya accepted the tale with an easy manner, though it held little interest for her. It would not hurt her cause to ingratiate herself with the townsfolk. The barkeep caught her eye, and she ordered a weak ale.
'What can you tell me about travelers who pass through the Moonwood?' Arya asked the old man. 'Messengers from Silverymoon, mayhap?'
'Well, the one who'd be knowing about that'd be Lord Singer Greyt.' The name set his eyes to shining. 'He meets all the outsiders and adventurers passing through. E'en wedded a few o' them.'
Arya held up her hand. 'I'm not really interested in hearing about-'
'Did I hear ye mention the Lord Singer, Elbs?' a particularly buxom serving maid asked beside their table. She was a golden-haired woman of the north with steeper curves than Arya had thought possible on a woman's body.
Arya was about to pipe up, but a huge smile painted her dining companion's face. 'Annia… Aye, lassie,' he said. 'Just telling Goodwoman-'
'Goldwine,' Arya said. She reasoned Bars and Derst wouldn't mind if she borrowed their names. 'Maid Goldwine.'
'Goodmaid Goldwine about Quickwidower's wives,' he said.
'Quickwidower?' Arya asked, frowning at the nickname.
'Aye, Greyt can't stay married more than a year or three,' said Annia. 'Just like any man, if'n ye ask me. Charmin' though-just look at the wives and babes. Though…' A shadow crept across her face. 'They was all sickly. Poor babes, only one survived to ten.'
'Greyt has separated from many wives?' asked Arya.
'Aye, after a fashion. The lasses tended to meet with accidents,' Elbs said somberly. 'Greyt's got the rottenest luck with women. Shame, such pretty things. Died, most o' them. Or left town-just couldn't settle down. Hey, that sounds like one o' the Lord Singer's rhymes-'
The barmaid slapped him on the back of the head. 'Lord Greyt certainly made that mistake,' the barmaid said. 'Should've ne'er settled down, but Lyetha was here.'
'Lyetha?' Arya asked, wondering what the half-elf woman had to do with this.
'The woman he's always loved,' Elbs said wistfully. 'Lyetha, heartbroken after her husband and son disappeared. The most beautiful woman in Quaervarr.' The barmaid's face turned stormy. Elbs smiled widely and patted her bottom. ' 'Cept for me pretty Annia 'ere.'
Apparently appeased, the voluptuous woman smiled and moved away.
Elbs turned back to Arya. 'Only babe still breathing, though, be that fancy-faced Meris,' he said. 'Dashing, but something about him I just don't like, ye know?'
'What?' Arya asked.
'I don't be knowing,' he replied. 'Never talks back to his father-right respectable lad, that Meris.'
'You mean respectful,' corrected Arya. 'They are not the same thing.'
'Oh aye,' Elbs replied. 'Even when Lord Singer goes against Speaker Stonar…'
As he continued, Arya nodded without speaking. She had been thinking about getting up and trying her luck elsewhere, but something about this thread of conversation was appealing. She offered to buy Elbs another ale, an
