by Tina Daniell
“I lost them hours ago,” Kit said a bit proudly. “First, they thought I was … you know, just like you said they would.” Her face darkened at the recollection of the slain nobleman. If Ursa noticed the hitch in her voice, he didn’t interrupt.
“But then,” Kit continued, “they chased me around the hills for a time. I stayed just far enough ahead of them to make them think they were going to catch up.” She couldn’t help chuckling a little. “After I tired them out, I made a wide circle and headed back here, where you said you’d meet me. Then …” Her voice trailed off.
“Here,” said Ursa, wrapping a rag around the tin cup and handing it to her.
“What is it?”
“Doesn’t have a name,” Ursa replied.
“It’s good,” Kit said after taking a sip. It tasted like strong tea, but more nourishing than that. From the flavor of the broth, it was a mixture of roots and powdered fish. Kitiara hadn’t realized how hungry she was.
“Uh-huh,” was all Ursa said. She waited for him to say something else, but he just sat there, watching her for several minutes, until she had drained the cup.
“Where are the others?” she asked again.
“Waiting somewhere,” he repeated.
“You said that,” Kit pointed out, getting angry.
He stared at her for a long minute. “They’re not coming,” he said, “and I’m going, shortly.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look, they didn’t even want me to come,” Ursa said flatly. “I came to make sure you were all right.”
“Why?” she demanded. “What do you mean? What’s happened?”
He looked at her again for a long time before answering. He stood and started to pace, before facing her. “I guess you have a right to know.”
“Know what?”
Ursa sat down again, watching her reaction. “The dwarves in Silverhole are building a mountain road. The convoy we robbed was carrying a half-year’s salary, in advance, for their labor. Fifty dwarves, some humans, six months of excruciating labor—enough gold and silver to make the four of us rich for ten, maybe twenty years.”
“Five of us,” she corrected tersely.
He let it pass.
“The road,” Ursa continued evenly, “was going to link two feudal estates on opposite sides of this particular mountain range. Without the road, it takes weeks, sometimes months, to travel from one estate to the next. A straight route would cut the time to a week, ten days at most.”
“So?” wondered Kitiara. Why was he telling her all this?
Ursa sighed. “Well, Kitiara, if you would listen once in a while instead of cutting in … It’s always good for a mercenary to know more about a job than simply when to fight or what to steal. Like how and why they’re doing it. Why do these two estates need a direct road at such expense, and how do we come into the plan?”
Kitiara had to agree that made sense. She relaxed her tone. “OK,” she said, curious. “Go on.”
“On the far side of the mountain lives a rich vinegrower whose fields are tended by minotaurs captured in foreign wars. The vinegrower is known as Lord Mantilla, although he is about as much a noble as I am a bard of Silvanesti. The minotaurs are bought at great expense at slave auctions. This vinegrower has a daughter, named Luz, who, on one of these auction trips, met a young nobleman with whom she fell in love. The young nobleman lives on the other side of the mountain. His father is a proud forester whose family has ruled a wide swath of land around here for generations and whose son is the jewel of his existence. He is a true nobleman, a former Knight of Solamnia called Sir Gwathmey.”
“I see,” said Kitiara, her eyes widening. Yet she didn’t see at all. This long nighttime tale reminded her of the kind her father used to tell, the ones that used to lull her asleep. But she wasn’t sleepy and she was certain that Ursa was getting to some point.
“No, you don’t see,” said Ursa, although with more kindliness in his tone than before. “Not yet. The vinegrower had worked for the forester as a young man, but was paid badly and accused of stealing foodstuffs from the main house. After he left in a furor, he made his way across the mountain and founded his own fortune, beginning a new life. The worst thing in the world would be for his daughter to marry his enemy’s son, and so he was anxious to break the marriage contract.
“But he had to do it without letting his daughter discern his role, because she is headstrong and would have insisted on having her way in spite of him.”
“Hmmm.” Events were beginning to add up.
“It so happens that Radisson has a brother who works as a household entertainer for Lord Mantilla. Radisson’s brother was asked to make contact with a group of mercenaries who would waylay the payroll shipment, thence stopping the progress of the mountain road, which was being built as part of the marriage accord. Such was the value of the payroll that the forester will not be able to finance his road again for a long time, if ever. The dwarves will stop working when they hear news of the robbery, and no other self-respecting road gang will make the mistake of taking on the task. No road, no marriage.”
“Did you get the payroll?” asked Kitiara, a little confused.
“Yes,” answered Ursa grimly. “Three of their men were killed, but none of us was even injured. We managed to capture the nobleman’s son and make our escape under the smoke screen of magic that Droopface concocted. Then, you led the rest of the guards on a merry chase in the wrong direction. That much went well and as planned.”
“Then why aren’t we celebrating. What’s wrong?”
“Something we hadn’t counted on,” said Ursa, his mouth curling bitterly. “There was a spell on the payroll chest. We couldn’t open it. Droopface tried everything he could think of, but his magic is limited and is more in the category of illusion than actual prowess. We tried everything to convince the nobleman’s son, name of Beck, to tell us the secret of the magic. But Beck Gwathmey proved an arrogant fool who wouldn’t tell us anything about the chest or stop taunting us with his plans to imprison and execute us.”
Ursa stood now, his back to her again, his voice lowering with tension.
“I saw his body,” Kit said softly.
“That wasn’t planned,” said Ursa harshly. “That was El-Navar, who couldn’t control his temper.”
“El-Navar?” began Kit wonderingly.
Ursa spun and grabbed her by the shoulder. “He’s a shape-shifter, you idiot! Don’t you know anything about Karnuthians? Why they’re never seen in these parts? They can turn into blood-crazed panthers—can and do, especially at night. That is their essence and their true nature. They can’t swim, are terrified of water, and never cross the oceans. But El-Navar was captured in his native land and freighted by ship across the great waters. On the continent he escaped from his handlers, and I met up with him. Most of the time he can manage when he turns into a panther. He is a good comrade. But sometimes it just happens. He changes into his beast form, and …”
Kitiara was speechless. Her eyes were glazed as she struggled to fathom the fact that El-Navar was a panther shape-shifter. That explained the strange dichotomy between his behavior in the daytime and at night.
“El-Navar,” Ursa continued, “got so worked up that, before our eyes, he transformed himself and attacked Beck, clawed and devoured him. It was incredible. I have never seen anything the like. It was over before we could think what to do. I’m not sure we could have done anything, even if we had tried.”
Ursa paused now, his voice choking. “The funny thing is,” he added after a time, “the spell on the chest was broken. Whatever the magic was, it was linked to Beck’s life. With Beck dead, the spell ended. We were able to get inside the chest, grab the silver and gold, and get away from that nightmarish scene as quickly as possible.”
Kitiara was silent, thinking. Now she understood. “And El-Navar?”
Ursa whirled angrily on her. “Forget El-Navar,” he said to her, glaring. “El-Navar ran off. We caught up to
him. By the time we did, he was … human again. Don’t be worrying about El-Navar. You’re behaving like a lovesick cow.”
“It has nothing to do with love,” Kit declared vehemently, standing up so that she was face to face with Ursa.
He met her eyes. She didn’t flinch. After a moment, he stepped back and sat down wearily. “El-Navar is fine,” he told her more calmly. “They are waiting, miles from here. None of them wanted to take the chance of coming back to the rendezvous.”
“Terrific,” Kitiara snorted, sitting down again. “So I’m the only one who still considers me part of the group.”
“I came back,” said Ursa deliberately. He raised his eyes to meet hers, and she nodded her gratitude.
There was a moment of silence. They were surrounded by blackness and looked at each other across the small fire.
“Still,” he added meaningfully, “it’s bad business. Nobody told us to kill Beck. Sir Gwathmey will have a price on our heads, and I’m not sure how Lord Mantilla will take the news. If he’s smart, he’ll say and do nothing. He detests the Gwathmey bloodline. But the whole episode may, eventually, lead back to him. And what El-Navar did may point to a Karnuthian among us, and mark any in his company.”
“So?” asked Kitiara.
“So,” responded Ursa, “I’m sure the best thing for us to do would be to split up for a while, get far away from this part of the world, and lay low. Let some time pass. See what happens.”
Kitiara thought about that. “All right,” she agreed. “Give me my share. I was only planning to join up for this one job, anyway.”
“You don’t understand,” said Ursa, standing up and moving toward his horse, fiddling with the saddle and reins. He turned to look at her. “You were never one of us. We only used you to make the plan easier, to free up Radisson to help us with the main attack. You’re not getting any share.”
“What?” Kit leaped to her feet and lunged toward him, pulling her knife. But Ursa moved even more quickly and grabbed her wrist. He bent it backward until the knife was next to her face. With his other arm, he slapped her hard across the face. He jerked the knife out of her hand and pushed her away.
“They wouldn’t let me give you a share,” he said, half-apologetically. “Even if I wanted to.”
The look on Kitiara’s face was pure fury. She made another move in Ursa’s direction, but he waved the knife in front of her, and she backed off.
“At least I came back,” he declared between clenched teeth. “I came back to see if you were all right. The others wanted to ride on.”
“Thanks for nothing,” Kit said, spitting the words. She looked around for another weapon, something she could grab and throw, anything, but it was a standoff.
Ursa watched her for several seconds, until he was convinced that she had no recourse. Then he turned toward his horse, unstrapped a long bundle wrapped in scrim cloth, and tossed it on the ground at her feet.
“What’s that?” she asked contemptuously, barely looking at it.
“Open it,” he said.
Cautiously, Kit stooped down and worked the strings and wrapping, revealing a scabbard bound in tooled leather. She unbladed a short sword: bone grip, etched, thick blade, the hilt and pommel ornamented with tiny, brilliant stones. It was as magnificent a sword as she had ever beheld.
“It’s yours,” said Ursa. “It’s worth as much as a good horse.”
“Why me?” Kit asked suspiciously, handling it.
“Beck’s sword,” Ursa said matter-of-factly. “Obviously of personal significance, maybe a gift of heritage. The only thing we would dare do with it is bury it. You can take it back to Solace, which is far enough away. You’re the last one to figure in on this mission. Nobody knows you were with us. You’re safe—but I’d keep it wrapped and out of sight for a long while yet.”
Ursa waited for her response. Kit gazed with satisfaction at the sword in her hand, but when she looked back up at Ursa her eyes were hard and uncompromising.
“You had to come back here anyway, to bury Beck,” Kit said accusingly.
Ursa’s face looked stubborn. “Maybe,” he said. He waited, but when Kit said nothing else, he started to mount. The minute his back was turned, Ursa knew he had made a mistake.
The mercenary felt a sharp tip cut into his back. Blood trickled from the wound.
“Not so fast,” Kitiara said with a hiss.
He turned around slowly, the sword in Kitiara’s hands prodding him. Now the sword tip moved up to chest level and again nicked his skin.
“Thanks for the sword,” Kitiara said. “Now I want my fair share.”
“Don’t be crazy,” Ursa said tersely.
Kit gave the tip of the sword a little nudge, opening up another small wound. “I don’t have it with me,” Ursa said through gritted teeth.
“Then let’s go get it,” Kit insisted.
“They’ll never give it you,” warned Ursa. “They’d kill you, and they’d let me be killed by you, if need be, without a second thought.”
“Too bad for you,” said Kitiara. She gave the sword another push, and Ursa’s blood flowed freely. Yet as Kit did so, the mercenary astonished her by reaching over with amazing speed and grabbing her sword by the blade. She hadn’t noticed before—idiot!—but his hand was gloved in heavy leather. And though the sword cut sharply into the hide, Ursa was able to grip the sword firmly and push it away before Kit could react.
Then, her attention diverted, Ursa kicked upward, catching Kit fully in the groin. As she buckled, he kicked even higher with the other leg and caught her in the chin. She felt a snap and collapsed, bobbling the sword. Ursa gave Kit one more vicious kick in the side before she lost consciousness.
Ursa stood over her, quickly bandaging his hand in some cloth torn from his tunic. The wrapped hand looked blood-soaked, but in reality the cut was not very deep or painful, and Ursa knew it would heal. The look on his face was more of anger than anything else. His eyes were cold and unforgiving.
He picked up Beck’s sword and, with some difficulty, wrapped it up again in its elaborate covering. Kitiara was motionless.
Ursa shuffled toward his horse and rose stiffly into the saddle. He was about to stick Beck’s sword back into its niche in his pack, when he glanced again toward Kitiara and had a change of mind.
“Here,” he said to no one in particular, his voice heavy. He tossed the sword into the dirt, next to her crumpled body. “You earned it, Miss Kitiara,” he added as he turned his horse away.
Chapter 8
STUMPTOWN
———
Kitiara struggled awake, feeling as if she had been drugged. The throbbing pain that came a moment later made her wish she was still asleep. The memory of her nasty confrontation with Ursa flooded her mind.
Anger tugged her to her feet as surely as if a rope was pulling her up. Brushing off her clothes, Kit noticed a long, thin bundle laying at her feet. Beck’s sword, she realized. Ursa must have left it. Little enough for my trouble, she thought. The image of El-Navar, his diamond eyes and black hair like writhing snakes, flickered across her mind. There had been that too, a rite of passage that she no longer had to anticipate with either curiosity or trepidation.
The dusky morning light revealed ugly bruises spreading across Kit’s jaw and neck. She touched them gingerly. Well, she thought to herself, they can’t leave the daughter of Gregor Uth Matar in the dust.
Kit picked up the sword and strapped it to her back before untying Cinnamon and hobbling alongside her horse, tracking Ursa’s hoof prints. As she might have guessed, after about a half an hour of painful walking, the search ended at a stream where the tracks vanished. Ursa was too practiced a mercenary to have not made an effective escape. Kit knew she would never pick up his trail and, if she did somehow, it would vanish again somewhere down the line.
Standing there, Kit realized how hungry she was. She bent to the water and drank deeply. Then, with a few encouraging words to Cinnamon about the likelihood
of a warm, well-stocked stable at the end of the day, she stiffly mounted her horse and set off—to where, she had no idea.
Silverhole was ten or twenty miles to the north, but she didn’t dare go there; the men who had been chasing her would certainly scout that place as a likely hideout. But Kitiara figured there would be smaller settlements, feeding off the road builders, directly to the south and west.
By midday Kit found herself in the southern foothills and felt safe. Silverhole was a half-day’s ride distant. She was on the edge of territory where the forest dwindled and the land rose sharply into miles of knifelike ridges. Farther to the west, the terrain became barren and inhospitable. Not even mercenaries would seek to escape in this direction, she thought confidently.
Kitiara approached a small group of dwellings. Not much of a town, it was more a hastily thrown together assemblage of tents, huts, and shacks, with the occasional timbered building. Stumptown, a lettered sign read, no doubt because the trees hereabout had been leveled by lumbermen, and all that remained were scarred stumps. A motley assortment of people moved about on muddy, makeshift streets. Still, there was at least one food and drink establishment, Kit saw, and she was ravenous.
Of course there was a slight problem in that she didn’t have any money.
As Kit drew closer, she saw a sign proclaiming: Piggott’s Hospitality. The place was large enough, though the wood was weathered and the paint peeling. The windows were dingy where they were not cracked or boarded over. The single midafternoon customer—an ancient, grizzled dwarf—wobbly ascended the wooden front steps, looking as if he had just emerged from a barrel of soot and ash.
Nothing like the well-being and hospitality that emanated from Otik’s inn back in Solace, Kit reflected, feeling a momentary pang of homesickness. She shook her head.
“Must be my aching body and empty stomach taking over,” Kit muttered to herself as she dismounted and led Cinnamon around to where she supposed the kitchen entrance must be.
After tying her horse to a post, Kitiara secreted Beck’s sword among some bushes. Squaring her shoulders, she knocked on the door, determined not to appear to be a beggar. A fat man with a thick, slack jaw, wearing a grease-stained apron, answered. Taking his time, he looked Kit up and down. One of his ears was clotted and misshapen, no doubt the souvenir of an altercation.