There was nothing intrinsically sinister about the three. Their garb, outlandish and weapon bedizened as it was, was no more than what was fashionable among Tethyrian bravos, particularly soldiers-of-fortune-which these appeared to be. Their gait was fairly steady, which indicated they likely hadn't imbibed enough in the tavern to make them boisterous. They could turn into trouble, but didn't constitute automatic menace. "Ho," said one with ginger-colored mustachios waxed into wings. He approached Stillhawk. "Are you the master of this traveling circus?"
The ranger nodded to Zaranda. The bravos looked to her and shrugged. Taller than any of them, with her man's garb and her saber with its well-worn hilt slung now at her own waist, Zaranda Star did not invite men to trifle with her, for all her handsomeness. Instead they craned to look past the mob of locals rummaging through the goods on the racks and drop cloths.
The tallest of the sell-swords, whose black hair hung in tight perfumed curls to his shoulders and who wore tights that were vertically striped red, blue, and yellow on one leg, and purple with yellow stars on the other, elevated a long and lordly nose.
"Rubbish for rubes," he opined. A general growl rose from the locals, but instead of pressing, they edged away from the heavily armed trio. Ignoring them, the black-ringleted bravo looked square at Zaranda. "Have you nothing more worthwhile than straight pins and thimbles?"
"Straight pins and thimbles are amply worthwhile for folk who have none," said Zaranda evenly. She made it a habit not readily to take offense, and to deal in general in the calmest manner possible. This habit was highly profitable to a merchant. Her mastery of swordsmanship and her latent skill at magic made it easier for her to maintain the required serenity of mind.
"We have some swords and daggers from the East," Farlorn said. "Wondrous work, of a style seldom seen in these parts." Zaranda had coached him carefully in advance: Tethyrians tended to prize craftsmanship above all things.
The third man waved him off. His close-cropped brown hair and the yellowish scar that ran from one eye to his broad, stubble-clad jaw belied the foppery of his dress. "Weapons we have. Have you good magic?"
Farlorn cocked an eyebrow at Zaranda. A little sardonically; this was her call to make, though Farlorn was one who little cared to defer to others. But he was, after all, in her pay.
Here was a cusp of sorts. Zaranda was ready enough to sell her goods to whoever was willing to pay a good price for them. The nicety here was whether the query sprang from mere curiosity, a prospective customer's interest, or something more sinister. On their own account, these three worried Zaranda little, particularly with Farlorn and grim Stillhawk at her side. But who knew how many comrades they had out of sight outside the village, who might be eager to ambush even such a well-guarded caravan as this for sufficiently tempting plunder? Magic items were always in demand, immensely valuable in their own right and readily convertible to cash anywhere in Faerun.
Which, of course, was why a comparative handful of rare and powerful objects from fiend-haunted Thay provided the backbone of the profit Zaranda hoped to realize on this expedition.
"Are you mages?" she asked. "Could you, say, read a spell scroll, or ply an enspelled wand?"
Ginger Mustachios spread hands no less scarred than Stillhawk's. "We are simple fighting men. We have no skill with spells. Still, we can use enchanted weapons as readily as the next man."
Zaranda shook her head and smiled thinly. "I regret that the only magic weapons we have are those we ourselves carry. And they're not for sale."
It was the truth. They had won some enchanted weapons on the Thay expedition, but without exception these had been cursed, or such that they would turn and bite the hand of anyone who tried to wield them who wasn't a devotee of a dark god such as Cyric or Talos. Such objects were valuable to certain folk, of course, but Zaranda found it uncomfortable at best to have dealings with them. They were also of considerable interest to collectors with more risque tastes, particularly in the West. In Zaranda's experience, though, the potential for trouble outweighed the potential profit, so she had-not without a twinge of regret- opted to leave them where they lay.
Ginger Mustachios frowned briefly, and for a moment Zaranda thought he might cause trouble; Tethyrian bravos often dealt poorly with disappointment and tended not to reckon odds when they were angry. But instead, he shrugged and glanced over at his burly, scar-faced comrade, who had found a brazen oil lamp that had in fact come from far Rashemen in the Unapproachable East, and represented the upper limit of the luxury items the countryfolk might afford. This the man was rubbing surreptitiously on his sleeve.
"What ho, Argolio?" the mustachioed man sang out, clapping his companion's thick shoulder. "Think what you're doing, man. If by some chance this tall, foreign-born vixen had overlooked a magic lamp from the East, what then? Had a djinn appeared with a flash and a puff of smoke, next thing you knew you'd be down at the village midden, wringing out your codpiece!"
The heavily built man flushed, turning his scar a painful pink. He hurriedly put the lamp back.
The tall one shook back his aromatic hair. "I'm bored," he announced to the afternoon breeze, gradually rising from the east. "Let's away."
"Whither bound?" asked Farlorn.
"To Zazesspur," the ginger-haired man declared as the three walked back to where their mounts were tethered to tarnished brass rings on stone posts. "Baron By-Your-Leave-Fanny, or whatever they may call him, is hiring men with strong arms and stout hearts for the civic guard. His gulders spend as well as any man's, or I'm an Amman." The inhabitants of the country immediately to the north were generally considered boors by Tethyrians, few of whom had ever actually encountered one.
"Better yet," the scar-faced man said too loudly, trying to make up for his earlier embarrassment, "there are monsters to slay and treasures to seize. That's the way to go adventuring! Never faring far from the comforts of favored tavern and favored wench, ho-ho!"
The three mounted their horses, turned them with flamboyant caracoles and accompanying swirls of dust, and rode off to the west, uttering high-pitched yips.
Zaranda watched them go, arms akimbo. "The civic guard," she repeated.
"Perhaps this Baron Faneuil is just the man anarchy-ridden Tethyr needs," Father Pelletyr said. He took another bite from his onion.
"How can you do that, Father?" Zaranda asked.
A day and a half west from the little village in which they had encountered the three mercenaries, the country took on a bit more of a lilt and roll. East of Zaranda's county, which lay almost in the Snowflake foothills, the land grew steadily flatter and more sere. Now it was beginning to green about them again as they drew nearer the sea. They even began to see trees, alone or in small woods, that did not cluster along watercourses and had not been planted to give shade or windbreak.
It was still all but desolation to the northerly eyes of Zaranda's comrades.
Farlorn had his yarting unshipped and was playing and singing a song in a strange tongue as they rode. "The very words are music, О Bard," Father Pelletyr said. "What language is that?"
"Wild Elvish," Farlorn said. He had a distant, dreamy expression on his face. "The language of my mother's people. Do you know much Elvish, Father?"
The cleric shook his balding head. "Alas, I do not. I am only a poor priest of Ilmater, blessings to his name. It has never been my calling to minister to the folk of the woods."