Read Ghostwalker for Free Online

looking for rooms for a tenday or two, and stables for our steeds.”
    “Stables are open,” Garion said as he wiped a tankard clean. “But Greengrass’s got us all full. I’d love to help ye, Lady Knight, but we got no empty rooms.”
    “Wha?” sounded a voice to her left.
    The man who had grunted—not spoken, exactly—saw Arya and grinned lasciviously. Brown hair fell to his shoulders and he wore a half beard—a goatee, they called it in Waterdeep.
    He was dressed exquisitely, with a long feather in his hat and a rapier and main gauche at his belt. He was clearly the foppish sort, and was just as clearly drunk.
    “Ye kin stay in me own room, lassie,” the man slurred. “Me bed’s not too wide, but that needn’t bother us…”
    “How romantic,” Arya murmured.
    “Shut up, Morgan,” Garion said. He turned to Arya. “Decent enough fella, him, but when he gets in his cups—”
    “Who axed ye, Garion?” scolded Morgan. “I was jes’ havin’ a chat with this comely wench ‘ere—”
    “My thanks,” said Arya, smiling politely, “but no.” Then she ignored Morgan and turned back. “Are you quite certain? Do you know of any other rooms in town?”
    “Hey!” Morgan snapped, reaching for Arya. “I was talkin’ to ye, flipskirt!”
    A dagger appeared, quivering in the wooden surface of the bar a hair’s breadth from Morgan’s fingers.
    “Sorry, sorry,” said Derst with a cough. “Must have slipped out of my hand.”
    “Ye almost hit me!” shouted Morgan, following his exclamation with a string of curses that made Arya and even the innkeeper blush faintly.
    “I say, Bars,” Derst said from behind Arya. “Quite a mouth on that knave.”
    “Indeed,” replied the burly knight, standing to Derst’s right. “A knave indeed, to speak in such a manner in the presence of a lady. I fear I must ask him to desist.”
    Arya looked at them sidelong, rolled her eyes, and slid out of the way. The two moved up to Morgan, Bars to his left and Derst to his right.
    “Ye gots a problem, ye fat orc?” the drunk asked.
    Bars’s face colored deeply and his hands clenched into fists. Morgan laughed at the spectacle and took a pull from his tankard.
    “Uh-oh, he insulted the weight,” observed Derst. “Only I get to do that.”
    “Bars, Derst—let it alone,” Arya warned.
    “Too late, lass,” rumbled Bars as he fingered the twin maces at his belt.
    “He’s very sensitive about his Beshaba-cursed figure,” explained Derst. “You shouldn’t have said that, Sir Inebriate.”
    Morgan shoved his stool back and drained the last of his ale. “I’ll hear none o’ thy insults, mangy goblin!” he shouted as he yanked his rapier free of its scabbard.
    Arya saw Derst wince and shook her head. “He shouldn’t have said that either,” she observed to Garion.
    The barkeep nodded. “I’d stop them, but I have a feeling that’d just make it worse.”
    Arya agreed silently.
    ” ‘Ave at ye!” Morgan shouted as he lunged, sword first, at Bars.
    The big knight’s maces were out in a blur and he swatted the blade to the right, harmlessly wide, into the bar. The drunk drew the blade back and thrust again, this time at Derst. The roguish knight had already drawn his curious weapon—a dagger with a foot-long chain trailing from the grip—with which he parried, even as he spun the chain around in an underhand motion inside his arm. Morgan’s eyes grew confused. As the rapier slid past, Derst threw the chain up and struck Morgan on the chin with a resounding thump.
    The rake staggered back clutching at his goatee, where a trickle of blood seeped between his fingers. Bars held two light maces, one overhand and one underhand, crossed before him. At the burly knight’s side, Derst absently spun the chain around, inside and outside his arm, alternating with a flick of his wrist.
    Morgan’s eyes clouded over with rage and drink. Screaming, he drew his left-hand dagger and lunged again. His movements were graceless,