"Oh, gods drown all," the grizzled rorden said feelingly, "put up your steel, lordling! You, too, Lord Hawkwinter. There'll be no taking anyone anywhere-by us, anyway. Stand back, men."

He looked down at Lark. "I can see by their, ah, liveliness that your friends here are unharmed. How fare you?"

"Covered with the blood of a man whose weight prevents me from rising," she replied, "but otherwise unharmed." She turned her head to regard Taeros and added coldly, "Yet uncertain of what value lies in the protection of men who inherited titles rather than wits-and whose solution to all impediments seems to be drawing a sword."

A few Watchmen chuckled, at least one whistled in anticipation of fireworks to come, and everyone watched the face of Lord Taeros Hawkwinter redden.

In that expectant silence, Taeros sheathed his sword, inclined his head to Lark, and replied politely, "I bow to the wishes of a lady whenever possible, and as the good officer here has promised you'll not be imprisoned or interrogated, I'm content to let matters run their lawful course."

He turned to the rorden. "I assume you'll wish to interview other witnesses to ascertain the true cause of this disturbance. If you've further need of me or my friends, kindly send word and we'll happily answer any questions put to us."

"Prettily said," the old Watchman replied. "Down blades, men. I think our work here is done-unless, milords, you'd like us to carry Lord Roaringhorn somewhere?"

"I-I can carry myself," a quiet answer startled him, from the bloodstained form at their feet. "I think."

Taeros peered down. "Beldar, how badly are you-?"

"I'll live," was the curt reply, followed by a groan as Starragar hauled the Gemcloaks' leader to his feet.

"I'll see him safe home," Lord Jardeth announced.

Korvaun Helmfast turned to Naoni. "If you'd not think it an imposition, we should serve you three likewise."

A Watch officer who stood safely behind his fellows chuckled. "Ah, now-who'll be protecting who, hey?"

Amid the mirth that followed, Naoni Dyre drew herself up and said with quiet dignity, "We accept your kind offer, Lord Helmfast. Courtesy and duty, it seems, aren't always strangers to men of Waterdeep."

Taking the cue, Taeros extended a hand to Lark.

"Help yon stormcrow take your friend to a healer," she told him coolly, ignoring his outstretched hand to rise unaided. "Lord Helmfast's protection will be quite enough for us. We helpless lasses might not be able to keep two of you from inciting bloodshed."

Beldar shrugged off Starragar's helping hand and took a few tottering steps. The street blurred and tilted precariously, and he leaned on the nearest wall until his vision deigned to sort itself out.

"The lass was right," Taeros said, materializing out of the haze. "Let me call a carriage and take you to a healer."

Beldar lifted tentative fingers to his forehead. To his surprise, his wound was shallow, little more than a scratch.

"It's not serious," he said, something of his surprise creeping into his voice.

Starragar regarded him skeptically. "There's a lot of blood. You were knocked senseless. Either alone, much less both, justifies a healer's fee."

"Head wounds bleed freely," the Roaringhorn responded shortly.

It was hard to admit that most likely he'd simply fainted, like a swooning maiden in one of those foolish chapbooks his sisters were always reading. With an effort, he straightened and stepped boldly away from the wall.

"I'll have the wound tended," he told Taeros. "If it's all the same to you, I'd prefer to be alone."

There was understanding on his friend's face. "I feel much the same way," the Hawkwinter admitted quietly. "Never before have I taken a man's life. It's a grim and serious thing, not to be lightly regarded or easily forgotten."

Beldar stared at Taeros. What the Hawkwinter had just said was truth, of course-but it hadn't even occurred to him. And what did that lack reveal of Beldar Roaringhorn?

Still, the mask offered him was preferable to revealing his humiliation. He clapped the shoulders of both friends gently. "Thanks. Get you home, and we'll talk later."

The Hawkwinter nodded and reached for the strings of his readycoin purse. "No arguments," he said firmly, pressing the bag into Beldar's hands. "The women of Waterdeep would never forgive me if I withheld the means needed to keep a scar from marring that face."

The Roaringhorn managed a smile. "You'll have it back, to the last nib."

Black eyebrows arched in feigned amazement. "That knock on your head must have been harder than we thought!"

Beldar chuckled, because it was expected, and waved Taeros and Starragar on their way.

After the last swirl and glimmer of black and amber gemweave had disappeared around a corner, Beldar removed his own cloak and turned it so only the dark lining was showing. His task ahead would be harder if eyes marked him and wagging tongues repeated his name.

He made his way purposefully along now bustling streets. Ducking down a particularly noisome alley, he picked his way through litter and offal to where it ended against the stout stone wall of a warehouse, adorned with crude graffiti and fading blazon-bills of events long past.

Finding the stone that was lighter in hue than the rest, Beldar ran his fingers around its edges, widdershins. A stone door swung open reluctantly on silent hinges, letting him slip into a narrow, low-ceilinged passage beyond.

The stairs at its far end glowed faintly. Beldar drew the door closed and proceeded cautiously; the glow came from a spongy lichen that made the steps slippery. The last time he'd traversed them, it had been in a bone-bruising tumble that his older brother had found highly amusing-yet Beldar smiled in grim satisfaction, remembering how he'd wiped the smirk off his brother's face.

Or rather, the necromancer's prophecy had stolen that smile and put a swagger into Beldar's step that hadn't yet deserted him.

Until today.

His first real battle had been an utter disaster. He was destined to be a leader of men, a hero who could rise from seeming death. That was the prediction his brother's coins had bought, yet to his utter mortification, he'd let some lout get a fish-gutting knife past his guard, then swooned at the sight of his own not-quite-blue-enough blood!

He'd atone for this. He would win his next battle, which was why he was here again. It would be a simple matter for the necromancer to seek out the man who'd cut him and the names of those who'd caused the fray in the first place. Thus armed, Beldar Roaringhorn would seek vengeance on them all.

The stairs ended in a small, dark stone hall. Its far wall was carved into the likeness of an enormous skull, a faint greenish glow emanating from the empty eyesockets.

Beldar strode forward to put the purse Taeros had given him on the ledge of the skull's nose.

"I seek names. Their fates have already been decided."

A moment of silence greeted his boast. Then a dry chuckle came from behind the skull-wall, and a voice he knew. A crone's voice. "Welcome, young Roaringhorn. Come in, and learn those you wish to slay."

The front four "teeth" swung inward, and Beldar ducked and climbed through that opening-and a tingling moment of warding magics and spells of darkness-into a surprisingly lavish room.

Fabulous tapestries softened its stone walls, and a warm red glow came from a marble hearth. A winged imp, the necromancer's familiar, was curled up before the brimstone-scented fire like a somnolent cat.

A shapeless pile of black rags rose haltingly from a deep-cushioned chair. Beldar went to one knee-not out of respect, but from memory of the pain the old woman had inflicted at his last visit, when as a lad he'd been too proud to bend a knee.