called in and experience in dealing with monsters and killers? Talthaliel's warnings that Walker was a wildcard to be watched seemed irrelevant.
There was still the matter of the Venkyr girl, however, and that was what plagued Greyt's mind now. Talthaliel's warning that the girl was clever and insightful set off bells in Greyt's head. He had to keep Arya away from this Walker. Their meeting-as Talthaliel had warned-would bring only bad consequences.
Just as he was pondering this, there was a knock at his ballroom door and Claudir stepped inside to announce that 'Lady Arya Venkyr and her companions' waited without.
Intrigued, fighting the muddiness in his head, he waved for the steward to show her in.
'Uncle, I must protest,' said the knight as she stormed in. Her appearance was stunning in her silvery armor, aided in no small part by the flush of anger. The other Knights in Silver who were her companions walked in as well, clad in their armor and bearing their weapons. So she had decided she could not come alone, eh? Greyt frowned.
'I went to speak to Captain Unddreth about his encounter in the Moonwood,' Arya said, 'and I was turned away-not by the Watch, but by your guards.'
Greyt waved his hand through the air. 'So?' he asked, his head rocking woozily.
'He's fairly tipsy,' Derst observed quietly to Bars.
'Done in by Moradin's hammer,' the paladin agreed.
Arya seemed not to notice. 'I really must be able to continue my investigation into the disappearances of the couriers, and anything related to Walker could help to-'
'Didn't I tell you to leave that alone?' interrupted Greyt. He rose from his chair and pulled himself up to face her.
'He smells terrible,' Bars murmured to the roguish knight.
'Like you did last night, after spilling that venison stew all over your tunic,' replied Derst under his breath.
Brows arching, Bars gave an almost imperceptible nod.
Arya screwed up her face in distaste at Greyt's foul breath. 'Excuse me, Uncle, but I am on an assignment from Silverymoon to investigate the disappearances-'
'What's this preoccupation with Walker all of a sudden?' asked Greyt, cutting her off. Arya's companions looked at each other. 'It almost sounds like you're infatuated with him.' Her mouth dropped open. 'Ah yes, dark and mysterious… is he handsome? A thrilling lover?'
'Well, that was uncalled for,' Derst said with a frown. 'Aye, Bars… Bars?'
Though he did not speak, it was clear that Bars agreed, for he flushed, stepped forward, and dropped his hands to the maces at his belt.
Greyt saw this and his face skewed up in a crooked smile.
'Oh, a hero, eh?' He pushed his slim chest out and stepped right up to the hulking paladin, a man nearly twice his size. The Lord Singer stood a step higher, so their eyes were almost level.
Bars refused to back down before him, and Greyt laughed in his face. 'The gallant knight stands to defend his beleaguered lady, the way all the stories and ballads tell; all flowery, all heroic… all lies.'
'Take back what you said,' Bars said. Greyt flashed a mocking smile in the paladin's face but did nothing of the sort. 'I won't ask again.'
'Very well,' Greyt said with a shrug. 'I take it back, then.'
Bars gave him a long, measured look-one that the Lord Singer answered with a gaze of haughty disdain-and backed away. The Lord Singer grinned, put a finger to his forehead, and broke down in a laughing fit.
'Heroism,' he cackled.
'Please, uncle,' Arya said. 'You are drunk.'
'Yes, yes I am,' the Lord Singer replied with a dazed smile.
Then he lunged forward and seized Arya before either of the other knights could react. He pulled her face to his and went for her lips.
He ended up on the ground clutching at his groin where Arya had kneed him.
'G-get away from me!' stammered Arya.
The Lord Singer, nearly unconscious from drink and pain, was in no position to argue. The three knights hurried out the door, Bars trying to convince Derst that it was all right because the knave was drunk, Arya casting her step-uncle warning glances, and Derst exclaiming at the top of his lungs that they had both taken leave of their senses. Meanwhile, Greyt, face flushed and brows knitted with fury, struggled to growl at them.
Arya Venkyr would regret this, step-niece or no.
Chapter 9
28 Tarsakh
As storm clouds rolled overhead and the residual light from the setting sun faded, Walker made his way back to Quaervarr with a heavy heart and a head full of worries. His sword felt leaden in its scabbard and his clothes similarly weighty because of the light rain. As he had expected, the ghost druid had been nowhere to be found in the grove, but he had still felt her presence, watching him. And, as always when he felt her eyes upon his back, the ghost of Tarm Thardeyn was nowhere to be found.
Any other man may have feared Gylther'yel's retribution, but Walker thought little of this course of events. This was simply the way of things with his teacher, the only mother he had ever known: a mother who neither loved nor forgave.
Elves' memories were long and their scorn hot, she often said to him, and after fifteen years he knew it was the truth. But there was nothing he could do about it, so Walker focused on the task at hand-slaying the third and last of Greyt's henchmen.
At least Walker thought that the giant of a man they called Bilgren was the third attacker-he would not know until he faced the barbarian, until he could feel that same soul of hatred he had sensed that night fifteen years before.
In keeping with his thoughts, the rain strengthened from a dreary drizzle to a gloomy downpour.
Eluding the grim-faced guards at the sole gate of Quaervarr was not a problem. Though they were sharp- eyed and suspicious, clutching their silver-headed spears tightly, visibility was reduced to almost nothing in the rain. Walker slipped through the shadows, hidden in his heavy cloak, within a sword's length of the guards.
A shadow in the rain, he made his way up the empty main street. Few townsfolk came out on a good night, fewer when it rained so heavily. Walker did not need his eyes to navigate the town, for he had walked its streets many times before, unseen and unknown by the townsfolk.
As the street opened up into the main plaza, the rain let up for a moment, and Walker lifted his head. He could see the lamplights bright in the windows of Greyt's manor. He could see faces inside those windows and the shadowy silhouettes of moving figures, but he did not think much on them. He knew that he would be inside that place soon enough.
He turned north and started down the road toward the oldest part of town, through the original shadowtop gates, where the first settlers had set up camp in what would become Quaervarr. Townsfolk claimed that the additional settlers carried a shade of cowardice because they had stayed south, close to the Silverymoon road, where help could come the fastest. It made for a tiny difference, but the northern Old District carried more of a frontier feel.
Bilgren's house, a stout former tavern the barbarian had bought for its ale store and wine cellar, squatted dankly a few buildings down the road next to an unmanned merchant wagon filled with goods in bundles. The entire place seemed worn and abused, even at this distance. The second floor balcony had half-collapsed from mildew and rot and most of the windows were boarded up. The building might have seemed condemned but for the thick iron door set in the front. Carved with roaring tigers, the door represented Bilgren's measure of his own strength-local legend said the barbarian had carried the several hundred pound door single-handedly from the smiths of his homeland, hundreds of miles distant.
Lost in his thoughts, Walker was completely surprised when a hand reached out of an alley, seized him by the
