Кейт Новак - Masquerades

“They’re Night Masks, all right,” Alias said. “A reprisal squad, by the look of them. They’ll be packing poisoned knives. Standard guild operating procedure requires they teach us a lesson for hanging on to our own property. They intend to corner us somewhere, poison and gut us, and leave a calling card on our corpses.”

“Calling card?” Dragonbait queried.

“A domino mask,” Alias replied. “To remind the populace that they really rule here, not the noble merchant families. The Night Masks do not like people standing up to them. It’s bad for business. Makes it harder to intimidate the next mark.”

“Shouldn’t we alert the watch?” the paladin suggested.

“We are not in Suzail or Shadowdale. This is Westgate. The watch is safe inside at this hour. What we should do is a little reprisal work of our own. Come on.”

Dragonbait followed after the swordswoman, though he was certain he did not like the glint in her eye. Alias weaved her way through the crowded plaza, stopping to admire the roasting fish, the musicians, the dancers, buying a loaf of bread from a baker and a bag of produce at a fruit and vegetable stand, and chattering in the dwarvish tongue of the south with an old dwarven brewer who was doing a brisk business among the crowd from his wagon of beer kegs. She pressed some platinum coins into the brewer’s gnarled paw. The dwarf smiled broadly and turned to shout at his workers.

Dragonbait furrowed his brow in confusion; he knew how much Alias hated ale. No doubt she was enlisting the dwarf’s aid, but the saurial couldn’t imagine what the brewer could do to help them battle assassins. He turned his concentration back onto his shen sight to fix the positions of the three supposed Night Masks. The thieves circled around their quarry, following them through the crowd, stopping when they stopped, looking the other way whenever Dragonbait looked at them.

Once Alias reached the far edge of the plaza she nudged the saurial and, free of all human interference, the pair broke into a run. The three stalkers, no longer worried about remaining undetected, hurtled after them.

The chase was short, less than half a block, to a passage so narrow that Alias had to turn sideways to slip along it. By the light of the bonfire in the plaza, Dragonbait could see that their pursuers now had their knives out, and, as Alias had predicted, the weapons dripped with green ichor. The saurial dodged after Alias, annoyed that she had not shared with him whatever plan she had, no doubt because she knew he might not approve of it.

It was dark in the passage. The only light came from the entrance where they’d come in. In a moment, that too was in shadow as the Night Masks slid in after them. The thieves were laughing now, certain that they were about to make their kills. With his shen sight, the paladin noted that their evil was stronger when they were together than when they stood apart.

Alias stopped in front of him. In Saurial she ordered, “Hand me the staff and take your own sword. Stay low and give me a light on my signal.”

Dragonbait passed the ashen staff and took his own enchanted blade into his hand. Behind him he heard one of the assailants curse as he realized his night vision was no better than his prey’s.

“Now,” Alias commanded.

The thieves heard a deep growl in the passage before them. They halted, and a moment later cried out as the saurial’s sword burst with a great roaring noise into a brilliant blue-white flame that temporarily blinded them. When they finally adjusted their vision to the now lighted passage, they were much less certain of their victory. Dragonbait crouched before them holding out his fiery blade. The passage was already warming from the energy the weapon gave off. Behind the saurial, Alias stood with her cloak thrown back and her sword at the ready. Dragonbait could smell the green ichor that dripped from Alias’s blade, and he gave a low chuckle, which sounded quite ominous to their opponents.

“Come on, boys,” Alias taunted. “Are we going to fight or not?”

While the Night Mask enforcers were not unused to resistance, their opponents were not usually equipped with such deadly weaponry. Raw steel did not frighten them, but they had no desire for a taste of their own poison, and the fiery sword made them cringe instinctively. There was also something unnerving about the fey tone in the swordswoman’s voice. They were assassins, not warriors, and they’d come to kill, not be killed. They began backpedaling down the passageway.

They found their way blocked by a larger-than-man-sized ale keg seated upright. It became clear to the paladin what Alias had purchased from the dwarven brewer. With a grin, Dragonbait closed in on the assassins. Alias followed just behind him.

“Surrender now, and I’ll let you leave with your lives,” Alias said.

The Night Masks looked back at Alias and Dragonbait, then at the keg, then back at their would-be victims.

Dragonbait rotated his wrist so the point of his weapon traced little looping circles of light in the air.

The lead Night Mask dropped his poisonous weapon, and the other two followed suit.

“I don’t think you have the paperwork for any of those weapons, boys,” Alias said. “Better leave them all with me so I can evaluate them.”

The Night Masks hesitated. Dragonbait growled and ran his fiery blade down the side of the building to his right so they could see the scorch marks left on the stone. Soon there was a pile of Night Mask weaponry lying at the saurial’s feet.

“Keep stripping, boys,” Alias ordered. “I’ll tell you when to stop.”

Out in the street the dwarven brewmaster had set up a second bar to handle the spreading crush of party-goers. The red-headed swordswoman had paid him to block the alley with the large keg once he saw the Night Masks follow her in. Then, as per the swordswoman’s additional instructions, he announced that he would be giving out free samples from the great barrel of Chondath Dark Ale. He waited until he had a sizeable crowd about him, then tipped over the great keg standing across the passageway and knocked a tap into the end.

From the passageway beyond, the old dwarf heard the redhead say, “You’d better get moving, boys. I may not give you a second chance.”

The dwarf moved back from his tap as three men came rushing toward him and clambered over the keg of ale. The crowd howled with laugher, for all three men were naked save for their domino masks. These they clutched in a desperate effort to conceal what modesty they had left. The trio bolted through the crowd as fast as they could and disappeared into the dark streets. No doubt they stopped eventually to steal some new clothing, but they were not seen in Westgate again.

As Dragonbait and Alias climbed over the keg, the brewmaster offered them both a mug of ale from the barrel Alias had purchased. Alias declined, but insisted that Dragonbait enjoy a pint.

While the saurial sipped his beverage, Alias drew out the loaf of bread she’d bought and began using it to wipe green goo off her sword. She offered the paladin a bite first.

“You know I hate avocado,” he replied.

Alias shrugged. “I’ve gotten quite fond of it. It has that rich, buttery flavor. The flavor of revenge.” She popped into her mouth a chunk of the bread spread with green fruit.

“Was there a point to all of that, other than to amuse the crowd?” Dragonbait asked.

“A point?” Alias repeated. “We don’t need a point. They tried to rob us, and we got even. It was a good joke. Humor, remember humor?” She finished polishing her sword and sheathed it next to the saurial’s enchanted blade.

Dragonbait sipped his ale, looking at her over the top of his mug with a sad, paternal stare.