“This is one fight I won’t miss!” cried the kender in excitement, and peered inside a dirty window to see what the commotion was about.
Twenty men were seated at tables and booths in the room. They were all dressed in black armor of a type that looked familiar to the kender, though he couldn’t recall why. Flagons of ale and beer sloshed over onto the floor as they talked, their voices muffled by the window. Barmaids walked between the patrons, nimbly avoiding groping hands.
The bartender, a large, unpleasant-looking man, cleaned glasses with a dirty towel behind the bar. Earwig could see that every one of the men carried weapons— knives and swords, some sheathed, others laid across tables, exposed and ready for trouble.
Standing higher on his toes, Earwig saw one of the barmaids, a girl of about twenty with dark, straight hair and attractive features, bend down to pick up a broken mug. One of the men, dressed in better clothes than the rest, hit her with the flat of his sword. He sent her stumbling into the window frame, causing the other men in the
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room to howl with laughter. Struggling to stand, the barmaid looked out the window. She and the curious kender made eye contact. The woman fell backward, a look of surprise on her face. Earwig continued watching with interest.
The barmaid walked warily up to the man who had hit her. “1 think you’ve had enough, my lord. You better go back to your home.”
“I’ll have another!” was the slurred reply. “You can’t throw me out!”
“Catherine,” called the bartender, glowering. “Go wake the stableboy. Send him for Councillor Shavas.”
At the sound of the name, the man appeared to reconsider. Grumbling, he pushed a chair back noisily and headed for the door, his steps unsteady. The wooden door banged open. Scratching his stomach with his right hand and the back of his neck with his left, the man looked around the alley and saw Earwig.
A street light shone full on the kender. The man, staring at Earwig’s neck, lurched forward.
“Where’d you get that?” he demanded hoarsely, stag’-gering down the short flight of stairs that led from the inn. “Itsh mine!”
Earwig, startled, put his hand to the cat’s-skull necklace and frowned. He didn’t like this man.
“You drunken sot!” the kender taunted, getting a firm grip on his hoopak. “I wouldn’t tell you if it were day or night. I wouldn’t tell you if your pants were unlaced, which, by the way, they are. I wouldn’t — ”
The man reached down, caught hold of the kender by the shirt, and pulled a dagger from his own belt.
“I kill your kind, vermin!”
“What with? Your stinking breath?”
Using all his strength. Earwig brought his hoopak up
DRAQONLANCE Pneiubes
between the man’s legs, striking him in the groin. The man doubled over in pain, clutching himself. The hoopak fell a second time, this time on the man’s head, knocking him unconscious.
“Oh, dear, now you’ve done it!” said a voice.
Earwig saw the barmaid standing in the doorway. She sounded worried, but he saw that she was trying hard not to laugh.
“You better go!” she said softly, hurrying down the stairs. “He’s an important man in this town. There might be trouble.”
“You mean from those guys in there? I can handle them!” said Earwig stoutly.
“No, not them. Just go, quickly. And . . . thank you,” she whispered in a rich voice, soft and pleasant. Leaning over, she kissed the kender swiftly on the cheek. Then, hearing shouts inside, she waved at him and hurried back up the stairs, closing the door behind her.
Earwig stood in the alley, his hand pressed against his cheek, a look of rapture on his face.
“Wow! No wonder Caramon likes kissing girls. That’s even more fun than picking a lock!”
Caramon stood over his brother, staring at him anxiously. “Are you sure you’re all right? What happened, Raist? What was that?”
“I don’t know,” the mage said weakly. “I’m not certain. Be silent, Caramon. Let me think.”
For some reason, his mind was pulling him back to their childhood. Raistlin had the vague feeling that something like this had happened to him before. Long ago.