by Roland Green
"Can we move a second shelter underground before dark?" Jazra asked.
"If the humans—can we ask them to help?" Gregis said,
"I'll certainly try," Jazra said. "I mean to have us in the underground shelters, and them in the outside one, for a few days. The outside shelter will still be inside our perimeter, so the humans can't get out at will, and we can guard the cave entrance."
Gregis looked dubious.
"What is your problem with that?" Jazra asked. "You don't want the humans having to camp without shelter, do you?"
"No, Commander. I was thinking that maybe they deserve better, like being inside where it's warm. They don't have clothing like we do, and a couple of the women look hungry."
Jazra laughed without mirth, and said, "Zolaris, Gregis. You can have command of this outpost, either of you, for the asking. Just remember that along with the command goes dealing with Breena and her gang. Now, do you want to take command, or do you want to let me handle this my way?"
Neither soldier said a word, in any language, but their eyes said enough.
Gredin was exercising one of her father's mares when she heard shouting in the street. A girl she recognized as Phaye Tirmunt, from the Fox and Feather, ran into the stableyard.
"Gredin!" Phaye shouted, "They've found Erick!"
Gredin's ears refused to accept the words the first two times. The third time, Phaye came over and shouted them with her mouth almost against Gredin's ear.
Gredin's eyes misted over, and her legs trembled. Her voice was a squeak. "Where?"
"They're bringing him to my father's inn."
"Hop up behind me," Gredin snapped. It was a voice that
Torgia Mel might have used on a company poor at drill.
"Up—?" Phaye began, but Gredin had already leaped onto i be mare's back, and was holding out a hand.
With much heaving and gasping, Phaye climbed on the mare's back, and threw her arms around Gredin's waist. Gredin i bumped the mare's flanks smartly with her heels. The mare whickered, undoubtedly saying something rude, then broke into a trot.
Gredin's heels went in again, and this time she clapped her hands to either side of the mare's head. The mare's reply was still ruder, but it raised its speed to a trot—which nearly threw Phaye off.
"All right," Gredin said. "Gallop, you useless piece of whip-bait!"
The mare started to rear, thought better of it, and came down with all four legs in motion. It was at a canter when it left the stableyard, slowed briefly to turn onto the street, then broke into a gallop.
Gredin gave the mare barely more attention than needed to guide it. Her heart was trying to burst out of her chest, and, partly from Phaye's frantic arms squeezing around her, she could not draw a deep breath.
Her mind, however, was incredibly clear. It had room for only one thought: Erick is alive. That single thought seemed large enough to fill an entire world.
At a full gallop, the mare was two streets past the Fox and Feather before Gredin noticed it. By the time Gredin had slowed the mare, they were nearly out of town. By the time they had returned to the inn, the cart with Erick lying in the back was almost up to the front door.
Gredin dismounted more or less in good order. Phaye's dismount was more of a fall, but she rose unhurt. Someone grabbed at the mare's nonexistent bridle, then jumped back as the willful animal bared its teeth, and said something absolutely unfit to be heard in public, by either human or horse.
Gredin did not notice any of this. She scrambled into the back of the cart. Only a lingering vestige of sanity kept her from throwing herself on Erick. Just in time, she took in the open cuts and bruises, not to mention the curious dressings that hinted of graver wounds, and instead knelt beside him.
She nearly lost her wits again when Erick opened his eyes. First because he did not recognize her, then because he did. She had never seen such a smile on his face before.
She kissed his good hand. She kissed his forehead, eyebrows, nose, and available ear. She was about to kiss his lips, and go on kissing him, when a familiar voice spoke from above.
"Kiss him where half the town won't be watching," Seldra Boatwright said. "There's a tale you need to know."
"It's a tale of good healing," Erick murmured. "What is wrong with that?"
Gredin's eyes hurled the same question at Seldra, but the older woman was pulling her away from Erick and out of the cart. She saw that, if not half the town, enough people had gathered that some had rounded up the mare, and more were ready to carry Erick's litter indoors.
Gredin stood, crying her relief into Seldra's shoulder, with Phaye patting her clumsily, until Erick vanished through the front door of the Fox and Feather. She stepped back, wiped her eyes on the tail of her shirt, and glared at Seldra.
"Now, what's this tale, Seldra? It had better be worth hearing, or I'm going to Erick right now."
Seldra combed her dusty hair with her fingers. "It's not that bad, girl. It's just that, well, look at those dressings. What kind of healing magic is that?"
"Erick said good healing."
"Probably," Seldra admitted. "But he did vanish for all those days, then come back mysteriously healed after being out in the mountains, where not even the gods know what might be happening. Or who might be taking humans captive, and sending them back to spy on us."
Gredin let out an incoherent screech, which made several heads turn.
"I'm not saying what I believe," Seldra said. "I'm saying what's abroad in the town already."
"Then people in this town are crazy or sick," Gredin said, and Phaye nodded vigorously.
"Phaye's father thinks much the same," Seldra said. "He said anybody who feared Erick could stay out from under his roof while Erick is there. He'd even help them to leave.
"Also, I know that Erick's clean. I saw something that so far nobody else has admitted to seeing. Close to where they picked up Erick were two sets of footprints. One was a human woman's. I he other was a bear's. And Drenin Longstaff, the druid, is a werebear."
Both girls' mouths opened so wide that their jaws seemed likely to strike the ground. Seldra laughed. "Now, don't noise that about, and I won't tell you how I learned, myself. I will tell you that Erick came home with the help of a man who could recognize evil a bowshot off, and would not touch it with a lance.
"Go to your man, girl, and ignore the evil tongues."
Everything after "lance" was addressed to Gredin's vanishing back.
"Would anybody care to wager that the Rael are listening to us?" Elda said. She stretched, throwing her graceful shadow in silhouette against the wall of the tent.
Ohlt laughed. "No wager. Jazra told me they would be."
Elda used several unflattering terms to describe the Rael, then stopped and said, "And she's the only one who can really make sense of Common."
Ohlt nodded. "Zolaris is working on it, and of course all the Rael will be able to understand what we say, if not what we mean, in a while."
"It doesn't matter," Elda said. "I'd tell them the name of every man I've bedded for a hot bath."
Brinus shook his head. "I don't think they have those even for themselves."
"Baths?" Elda said. "Why not? They are the masters of the marvelous. Can't they heat up even a pot of water?"
"If they did, the Overseer's warriors might see the heat," Ohlt said. "Jazra says that the enemy can do that. Remember, the Overseer is much more worried about the Rael than about us."
"Time will come that this Overseer will worry about us," Elda sighed, "so we have to stand with the Rael. but has anybody got a plan? Or do we just wait on the Rael's pleasure?"
Brinus squeezed his sister's hand, and kissed her forehead. Ohlt wished he could have done the same. Elda was wild, unpredictable, and likely to give others headaches and unrequited desires. She would never betray a friend.
Hellandros coughed. His voice was thinner than Ohlt liked to hear, but every word was clear.
"I can see why everyone is impati
ent, but I think the secret to winning Rael trust, and forming an alliance, is working with them—"
"The way we did this afternoon?" Chakfor Stonebreaker growled. "If I had wanted to be a slave, I could have sold myself to the mines of the Three Kingdoms!"
"Working with them, day after day, while they lose their fear of magic," Hellandros said, as if Chakfor had not spoken.
"If it's your magic they're going to see, they'll be asking the Overseer to take them back to the sky," Chakfor said, but not quite as harshly as the words sounded.
"I may be able to use the same spell I used on your axe, on some of their weapons," Hellandros said. "But I don't propose to use that until I've tried some safer ones. Fireballs, for example. And that reminds me, has anyone seen a bat around here?"
"Why?" Elda asked.
"The successful casting of a fireball spell requires certain material components," Hellandros said, with the air of someone explaining arithmetic to a simpleton. "Bat guano is one. Sulphur is the other. So we would need a hot spring, for the sulphur."
"The mountains are full of—" Chakfor began, curiously aroused at last.
"You are full of what we're going to be digging out of bat caves," Elda interrupted.
"Would you rather abandon the Rael, who saved our lives?" I lellandros snapped. "Or wait to see the Overseer's horde turn ill of your friends into Doomed, before they steal your soul and make you one yourself? No will, no prowess, no pride, never again a lusty man in your bed!"
Nobody kept a straight face after that. Nobody stopped laughing for quite a while, either. Elda finally wiped away her tears and kissed Hellandros on the thin spot in his hair.
"If you want lusty men, don't look to me," the wizard said. "But I will be mightily surprised if we cannot start turning doubters and enemies into friends within a few days."
nine
Four days in camp, and M'lenda was on her second day of tending the Rael wounded.
She was helping the one called Hazlun raise his head to drink some soup when the shelter door opened. Breena strode in, followed by a draft, and assorted dead leaves and dust.
M'lenda looked at what was now floating in Hazlun's soup, then at Breena. She wanted to do more than look, but anything that would penetrate the Rael merchant's exceedingly thick skull was probably unlawful for a cleric to utter. As for actually doing anything to the woman. . . .
Inspiration struck M'lenda. She ignored Breena as if the woman were as invisible as the air, touched her ring, and began the prayers for the spell to purify food or water.
The soup was like human soup, mostly water. M'lenda had with her own eyes seen the Rael making it, using only a spoon-
ful of yellowish powder to a bowl of hot water, yet somehow producing something that really tasted like soup. Not the best soup—it would only be tolerated in the cheaper sort of tavern -but warm, and apparently nourishing.
M'lenda began to mutter a simple spell.
"Why you come to the sick, talk nonsense?"
M'lenda glanced up and saw, with a sinking heart, that Breena wore a decryptor in her ear. She went on anyway, until the soup quivered briefly, and the dirt and leaf bits vanished. I landing the soup to Hazlun, who could manage the bowl one-handed if she held him up, she turned to Breena.
"I do not talk nonsense, Mistress Breena. I come here to do work with your sick that anyone can do, Rael, human, dwarf, or elf . If you do not want me here, perhaps I can hope to see you in my place?"
Breena's expression would have been poisonous on the face of any being with enough of a face to show expressions. She stamped out, leaving the shelter door open. M'lenda hurried to i lose it before more dirt blew in. She had some trouble with this because the tent door had no ties, just those curiously dry strips that she saw the Rael press together, after which they stuck as if sewn.
Fortunately, Hazlun had finished his soup before anything i ould dirty it. Of the other wounded, Guinva, a female marine, was burned worse than Erick Trussk, and too sick to pay much .it tention to what went on around her.
The second one, Bruchs, had a concussion, both legs broken,and was only just now recovering his wits. He must have understood at least the tone, if not the words, of M'lenda's exchange with Breena. He was grinning in a way that M'lenda doubted Breena would have liked, had she seen it.
To be sure, it was seldom that the merchants and the soldiers were friends, and then only as far as the merchants wanted protection, or the soldiers wanted the merchants' wares (or bribes). This made M'lenda feel easier about the Rael, to know that all i heir magic was not enough to solve that common problem.
Hazlun's grin was even wider than Bruchs's. He even laughed briefly, then winced at the pain of his broken ribs.
"You make 'magic?' " he asked. His accent was atrocious, but the words were intelligible. "Breena make trouble everywhere she go." His face softened. "She frighten for children. Think trouble mean soldiers stupid."
"Well, I think you did the best you could, and if you hadn't, she : wouldn't be alive to complain," M'lenda said. Breena reminded her of some of the older clerics who had taught her, in whose eyes nobody younger than themselves could do anything right.
That was another thing that the Rael, and the people of the world (she still could not bring herself to say "this world") seemed to have in common.
The grimlock sprang out from the boulders so suddenly that even Asrienda's ranger skills and Drenin's magic did not detect it. As for Skindulos of the Spear, the wood elf was not at home outside the cover of the trees, and made no secret of it.
The grimlock went after Skindulos, and Asrienda knew the creature would devour his flesh as readily as hers or Drenin's. Indeed, the grimlock would hunt anything, using its acute hearing and potent magic to make up for its blindness.
The only surprise to Asrienda was the grimlock's being here at all. She had not known of any of this cave-dwelling race having been seen in the Khaim Mountains. Of course, the dwarves might well have encountered tribes of them, but dwarves were a close-mouthed lot.
Asrienda slashed at the reaching gray hand, felt her dagger bounce off the tough hide, and had to jump back to avoid the swing of a hand axe. On the other side, Skindulos was also opening the distance.
As Asrienda unslung her bow and nocked an arrow, Drenin Longstaff stood in the path of the grimlock's charge. Tall as he was, the grimlock was taller, although even leaner.
Drenin seemed unmoved by the grimlock's attack—or at least he did not move. Instead, his staff blurred, and suddenly the grimlock was clutching its throat with its free hand and making helpless squeaking noises.
Skindulos ran in, thrusting from the flank, but the grimlock had the wits, and more than the swiftness, to whirl, and chop the spear shaft in two. This time, when Skindulos gave ground, he was sweating, even in the chill mountain dawn.
That was the grimlock's last attack. As it pursued Skindulos, the druid uttered a string of incomprehensible words, raised his staff in one hand, and made a sign with the other.
The grimlock halted, shaking its head as if dazed, just before it would have trapped Skindulos against the face of a cliff. Drenin took three inhumanly long strides forward, reversed his staff, and, with both hands, thrust it hard against the back of the grimlock's skull.
The gray-funed humanoid toppled, and would have rolled down the slope if Asrienda had not grabbed hold of its feet while Drenin blocked its path with his staff. The druid nodded his thanks.
"I paralyzed his voice, then dispelled the magic around him. He is mute twice over, unable to summon his friends.
"Now let us see what we have here. This is the first time I have seen a grimlock in these mountains."
"I also," Skindulos said.
They knelt by the fallen grimlock. It—he—was male, armed only with the axe, scantily clad, and looking as if he had been feeding still more scantily. Certainly no creature in good health showed that many ribs.
Drenin rose. "We may have a fugitive, perhaps the last
survivor of a clan we did not know about. The fall of the comet, or the golems, could have destroyed the rest of the clan."
"What if they did not?" Skindulos asked. "Perhaps we should arm the hobgoblins with fire-wands, to use on the grimlocks. The two folk are—"
Drenin looked as if he wished to feed the elf a foot or two of his staff. "Would you trust a hobgoblin to fight only the grim-locks, given that kind of power? You have not seen the fire-wands hurling death, or you would have been silent."
"One need not always see to know," Skindulos said, with an impudent grin. "I never saw Asrienda unclothed, but I already know that she would be a fair sight if I did."
"I never saw you unclothed, either," Asrienda replied, between gritted teeth, "but I know exactly where to strike to unman you, the next time you talk like that."
"Children, children," the druid chided, and both elf and half-elf laughed. Asrienda was of marriageable age, by human terms, if barely so by elven ones. Skindulos was probably older than the druid, for all that he was still a young elf.
At least Asrienda hoped he was young. He needed some excuse for his behavior.
• « •
Elda Ha-Gelher pulled tight the last binding on her pack of bat guano, and glowered at it as if it had done her a grave wrong.
Fedor Ohlt felt the same way, and his pack was even heavier than hers. Hellandros had still not said that he had enough of either material for the fireball spells, the sulphur or the bat guano. So, every day, two folk, Rael or human, went to the hot springs, and two more to the cave.
In time, they would have collected all the sulphur, and all the guano in the mountains. Ohlt hoped that Hellandros would be satisfied, particularly as the wizard himself did not take part in the gathering of either material. He was generous with his thanks, though, and M'lenda was equally generous with her small spells to relieve muscle aches.
"I don't know what you're going to do," Elda went on, scratching vigorously at her hair, "but I'm going down to the stream to wash some of this off."
"Remember what the Rael said about not dirtying the water supply," Ohlt said.