The sign above the door said Myrkiel’s Rest, and merchants had told her it was the best (near the only) inn in Narthil. Elmara found it pleasant enough, and took a chair against a wall at the back of the room, where she could see who came in. She ordered a meal from the stout proprietress and asked if she could use a room for a few breaths, offering a regal if she could do it undisturbed.
The innkeeper’s eyebrows rose, but without a word she took Elmara’s coin and showed her a room with a door that could be barred. When Elmara returned to her seat, humming the verse “O for an iron guard!” her meal was waiting, hot butter-bread and rabbit stew.
It was good. She was most of the way through it when the front door of the Rest burst open, and armsmen with drawn swords pushed in. An angry-looking man in robes of red and silver strode in their midst.
“Ho, Asmartha!” the splendidly garbed man snapped. “Who is this outlaw you shelter?” With an imperious jerk of his head, he indicated the young woman sitting in the corner. The innkeeper turned angry eyes on Elmara, but the hawk-nosed maid was calmly licking the last sauce from a rabbit bone, and paid no heed.
Motioning his armsmen to stay around him, the man in robes strode grandly toward Elmara’s table. Other diners stared and hastily shifted their seats to be well out of the way—but close enough to see and hear all they could.
“A word with you, wench!”
Elmara raised her eyes, over another bone. She inspected it, set it aside, and selected another. “Ye may have several,” she decreed calmly and went on eating. There were several sniggers and chuckles from around the tables—quelled by the cold and steady glare of the finely robed man as he turned on one boot heel to survey the room.
“I understand you style yourself a mage,” he said coldly to the seated woman.
Elmara put down another bone. “No. I said I worked magic,” she replied, not bothering to look up. After a few long breaths more, as she unconcernedly gnawed at a succession of bones, it became clear she had no intention of saying anything more.
“I’m speaking to you, wench!”
“I had noticed, aye,” Elmara agreed. “Say on.” She picked up another bone, decided it was too bare to suck on a second time, and put it down. “More beer, please,” she called, leaning to look past the crowd of armsmen. There were more sounds of mirth from the watching diners.
“Raztan,” the robed man said coldly, “run your blade into this arrogant whore.”
Elmara yawned and leaned back in her chair, presenting an arched belly to Raztan, who did not fail to miss it, his steel sliding in so smoothly that he overbalanced and fell on his face in the young woman’s bowl of stew. Everyone in the suddenly silent room heard the point of the blade scrape the plastered wall behind the young woman. Elmara calmly pushed her plate and bowl aside and selected a toothpick from the pewter holder before her.
“Sorcery!” one of the armsmen spat, and slashed Elmara across the face. No blood spurted—and the blade swung freely through the hawk-nosed face, as if it were only empty air. The watchers gasped.
The robed man curled his lip. “I see you know the ironguard spell,” he said, unimpressed.
Elmara smiled up at him, nodded, and wiggled a finger. The drawn swords around her twisted, sang, and became gray serpents. Horrified armsmen watched the fanged heads turn and arch back to strike at the hands that wielded them! With one accord, the armsmen flung down their weapons and leaped back. One man charged for the door, and his run became a thundering rush of booted feet as his comrades joined him. All around the guards, their blades, normal swords once more, clattered to the floor.
The man in robes drew back, face pale. “We shall speak again,” he said, his haughty voice a trifle uncertain, “and when we d—”
Elmara raised both her hands to trace an intricate pattern in the air, and the man turned and strode hastily back across the room, toward the door. Halfway there he halted, swaying, and the watchers heard him snarl in fear and frustration. Sudden sweat moistened his brow as he strained to move … but could not advance another step. Elmara rose and walked around to face the frozen man. Frightened eyes swiveled to watch her come.
“Who rules here?” she asked.
The man snarled at her wordlessly.
Elmara raised an eyebrow and a hand at the same time.
“M-Mercy,” the man gasped.
“There is no mercy for mages,” Elmara told him quietly. “I’ve learned that much.”
She turned away. “I ask again: who rules?”
“I—ah … we hold Narthil for King Belaur.”
“Thank you, sir,” Elmara murmured politely, and started back to her seat.
The man in robes, suddenly released from magical restraint, lurched and almost fell, took three quick steps toward the door, and then spun around and snarled a spell, his dagger flashing into his hand. The watching townsfolk gasped. The robed wizard’s blade and all the discarded swords on the floor leaped up in unison and hurtled through the air toward Elmara’s back in a deadly storm of steel. Without turning, El murmured a soft word. The steel points so close to claiming her life swerved away, flying back at the mage.
“No!” the robed wizard cried frantically, snatching at the handle of the door. “Wha—”
The blades thudded home in a deadly rain, lifting the man’s body off his feet and carrying him past the door. He fell, kicked once, and then lay still, the blades a shining forest in his back.
Elmara took up her cloak and pack. “Ye see? Mercy continues in short supply. Nor among mages, I’ve learned, is there overmuch trust,” she added and went out into the street.