"Er...well..." said Yodel, weakly. It is hard to resist the eloquence of a brawny, though shapely, arm slung round one's shoulder. "Very well, lady," he acquiesced with a sigh, "If you will pleadge to keep me same from Lord Droth, I will guide you to his place in North Yarfell."
They passed down the long corridors, down the spiral stairs, (as they pssed the council chamber, Procell and Focalor, Yodel's other guards, fell silently in behind them) and out the great City-gate of the Castle. As they passed the gate, a guard spat just before Yodel's feet with a surly scowl. His two guards lowered ttheir halbards.
"No, lads, no!" muttered Yodel, quickly. "No scenes! No violence." They passed on.
Down, down through the winding streets of Yarfell. Catcalls followed them on some streets.
"Look, Yodel's got himself a Barbarian mistress!"
"Selling yerself in a foreign market now, eh, merchant?"
"Outland slave!"
They hurried on, to the ferry at the shore of the Yar. The boatman, with an impassive face, took Yodel's gold, and handed them into his craft. Painfully he rowed them across the swift and turbid river, on which the late afternoon sun shone in a fury of orange and gold,to the steep shore of North Yarfell. Up the stair cut into the cliffy bank, and into the narrow Street of the Silversmiths. The Street of the Lamp-merchants. The Blackhill Road. Finally, they drew near to the great darkstone house, The Sign of the Storms, which was the town residence of the Lords of Yarhaven.
"We are here," whispered Yodel, seemingly suspicious of the numerous shadows that veiled the hidden corners of the lonely square the house stood in.
Boldly, Krys stepped foward, and grasped the great door-knocker, a brass ring in the jaws of a whale.
"DOOM! DOOM!"
Silently the door swung open. All was black within...
Yodel faced her, his face drawn and anxious looking... "Do we enter?"
