CHAPTER 22

PARADISE…DELAYED

A h, but ye’re a thief!” the man accused, poking his finger into the chest of the one who he believed had just pocketed the wares.

“Speak on yer own!” the other shouted back. “The merchant here’s pointin’ to yer vest and not me own.”

“And he’s wrong, because yerself took it!”

“Says a fool!”

The first man retracted his finger, balled up his fist, and let fly a heavy punch for the second’s face.

The other was more than ready, though, dropping low beneath the awkward swing and coming up fast and hard to hit his opponent in the gut.

And not with just a fist.

The man staggered back, clutching at his spilling entrails. “Ah, but he sticked me!” he cried.

The knife-wielder came up straight and grinned, then stabbed his opponent again then a third time for good measure. Though screams erupted all across the open market of Luskan, with guards scrambling every which way, the attacker very calmly stepped over and wiped his blade on the shirt of the bent-over man.

“Fall down and die then, like a good fellow,” he said to his victim. “One less idiot walking the streets with the name of Captain Suljack on his sputtering lips.”

“Murderer!” a woman screamed at the knifeman as his victim fell to the street at his feet.

“Bah! But th’ other one struck first!” a man in the crowd shouted.

“Nay, but just a fist!” another one of Suljack’s men protested, and the shouting man replied by punching him in the face.

As if on cue, and indeed it was—though only those working for Baram and Taerl understood that cue—the market exploded into violent chaos. Fights broke out at every kiosk and wagon. Women screamed and children ran to better vantage points, so they could watch the fun.

From every corner, the city guards swooped in to restore order. Some shouted orders, but others countermanded those with opposing commands, and the fighting only widened. One furious guard captain ran into the midst of an opposing group, whose leader had just negated his call for a group of ruffians to stand down.

“And who are you with, then?” the leader of that group demanded of the guard captain.

“With Luskan, ye fool,” he retorted.

“Bah, there ain’t no Luskan,” the thug retorted. “Luskan’s dead—there’s just the Five Ships.”

“What nonsense escapes your flapping lips?” the guard captain demanded, but the man didn’t relent.

“Ye’re a Suljack man, ain’t ye?” he accused. The guard captain, who was indeed affiliated with Ship Suljack, stared at him incredulously.

The man slugged him in the chest, and before he could respond, two others pulled back his arms so that the thug could continue the beating uninterrupted.

The melee went on for a long while, until a sharp boom of thunder, a resounding and reverberating blast of explosive magic, drew everyone’s attention to the eastern edge of the market. There stood Governor Deudermont, with Robillard, who had thrown the lightning signal, right beside him. All the crew of Sea Sprite and the remainder of Lord Brambleberry’s men stood shoulder to shoulder behind them.

“We’ve no time for this!” the governor shouted. “We stand together against the winter, or we fall!”

A rock flew at Deudermont’s head, but Robillard caught it with a spell that gracefully and harmlessly moved it aside.

The fighting broke out anew.

From a balcony at Taerl’s castle, Baram and Taerl watched it all with great amusement.

“He wants to be the ruler, does he?” Baram spat over the rail as he leaned on it and stared intently out at the hated Deudermont. “A wish he’s to come to regret.”

“Note the guards,” Taerl added. “As soon as the fighting started, they moved to groups of their own Ship. Their loyalty’s not to Deudermont or Luskan, but to a high captain.”

“It’s our town,” Baram insisted. “And I’ve had enough of Governor Deudermont already.”

Taerl nodded his agreement and watched the continuing fracas, one that he and Baram had incited with well-paid, well-fed, and well-liquored proxies. “Chaos,” he whispered, smiling all the wider.

“Oh, it’s you,” Suljack said as the tough dwarf moved through his door and into his private chambers. “What news from Ship Rethnor?”

“A great fight in the market,” the dwarf replied.

Suljack sighed and wearily rubbed a hand over his face. “Fools,” he said. “They’ll not give Deudermont a chance—the man will do great things for Luskan, and for our trade.”

The dwarf shrugged as though he hardly cared.

“Now’s not the time for us to be fighting among ourselves,” Suljack remarked, and paced the room, still rubbing at his face. He stopped and turned on the dwarf. “It’s just as Kensidan predicted. We been battered but we’ll come out all the better.”

“Some will. Some won’t”

Suljack looked at Kensidan’s bodyguard curiously at that remark. “Why are you here?” he asked.

“That fight in the market weren’t random,” said the dwarf. “Ye’re to be finding more than a few o’ yer boys hurtin’—might be a few dead, too.”

“My boys?”

“Slow on the upkeep, eh?” asked the dwarf.

Again Suljack stared at him with a thoroughly puzzled expression and asked, “Why are you here?”

“To keep ye alive.”

The question set the high captain back on his heels. “I’m a high captain of Luskan!” he protested. “I have a guard of my—”

“And ye’re needin’ more help than meself’ll bring ye if ye’re still thinking the fight in the market to be a random brawl.”

“Are you saying that my men were targeted?”

“Said it twice, if ye was smart enough to hear.”

“And Kensidan sent you here to protect me?”

The dwarf threw him an exaggerated wink.

“Preposterous!” Suljack yelled.

“Ye’re welcome,” said the dwarf, and he plopped down in a seat facing the room’s only door and stared at it without blinking.

“They found three bodies this morning,” Robillard reported to Deudermont at the next sunrise. They sat in the front guest hall of the Red Dragon Inn, which had come to serve as the official Governor’s Palace. The room boasted wide, strong windows, reinforced with intricate iron work, which looked out to the south, to the River Mirar and the main section of Luskan across it. “Only three today, so I suppose that’s a good thing. Unless, of course, the Mirar swept ten times that number out into the bay.”

“Your sarcasm knows no end.”

“It’s an easy thing to criticize,” Robillard replied.

“Because what I try to do here is a difficult thing.”

“Or a foolish thing, and one that will end badly.”

Deudermont got up from the breakfast table and walked across the room. “I’ll not argue this same point with you every morning!”

“And still, every morning will be just like this—or worse,” Robillard replied. He moved to the window and looked out into the distance of Luskan’s market. “Do you think the merchants will come out today? Or will they just cancel the next tenday’s work and pack up their wagons for Waterdeep?”

“They’ve still much to sell.”

“Or to have pilfered in the next fight, which should be in a few hours, I would guess.”

“The guards will be thick about the market this day.”

“Whose? Baram’s? Suljack’s?”

“Luskan’s!”

“Of course, foolish of me to think otherwise,” said Robillard.

“You cannot deny that High Captain Suljack sat on the dais,” Deudermont reminded. “Or that his men shouldered up to us when the market fighting died away.”

“Because his men were getting clobbered,” Robillard replied with a chuckle. “Which might be due to his sitting on that dais. Have you thought of that?”

Deudermont sighed and waved his hand at the cynical wizard. “Have Sea Sprite’s crew visible in the market as well,” he instructed. “Order them to stay close to each other, but to be a very obvious presence. The show of force will help.”