The tent that had been prepared for them was close to the edge of the camp and somewhat smaller than the others belonging to the Tigerclaw. The bent wood poles were new, but the hides covering them were old and stale with years of smoke; a hole at the peak let in fresh air and light. Cariss saw them through the flap of the door, then left.
Tempest spoke before the door flap had even stopped swaying. “They know something. I don’t-”
“Shh,” hissed Belen. She twitched back the door just a bit and looked outside. Albanon could see over her shoulder as she peered around. Cariss and her warriors might want nothing to do with them, but many ordinary Tigerclaws lingered with curiosity. Belen let the door flap drop back into place. “This is a tent, not a cottage,” she whispered harshly. “Sounds will go right through the walls.”
“I thought the Tigerclaws valued hospitality,” said Uldane.
“Value, yes. Are stupid about it, no. Keep your voices down.”
“Just how do you know so much about the Tigerclaws, Belen?” asked Albanon. “I’ve lived in Fallcrest for seven years and I don’t remember Scargash sending emissaries.”
“You weren’t there all the time, were you? Moorin sent you off on errands.”
Albanon narrowed his eyes. “Even if the Tigerclaws did send emissaries, why would the Lord Warden have assigned one guard to escort them?”
Belen’s face tightened and she blew out her breath slowly. “Fine,” she said at last. She stepped to the center of the tent, farthest from the thin hide walls. “My mother was a Tigerclaw.”
“You have shifter blood?” Uldane said.
“No,” Belen told him. “My mother was one of the human class that the Tigerclaws call the Tamed. She met my father, a hunter, near Nenlast and fell in love. Her clan wouldn’t accept him, so they ran away. She was the one who taught me the ways of the tribe.”
“Why didn’t you just say so?” asked the halfling. “Cariss and Hurn might have treated us better from the beginning!”
“The Tigerclaws don’t look kindly on anyone who leaves the clan. They call them Riven and shun them-and that extends to their descendants.” Belen looked around at them. “Don’t tell anyone this. If the Tigerclaws find out, they might force us to leave.”
“That doesn’t sound like such a bad thing,” Roghar said.
“It would be. They wouldn’t be gentle about it.”
“I think we have more to gain by cooperating,” said Tempest. “Like Albanon said to Turbull, maybe the Tigerclaws can tell us more about what lies ahead.” She nodded to Albanon. “Good thinking.”
“I didn’t want it to seem like we were just giving in,” Albanon said.
Belen nodded. “Turbull will respect you more because of it.”
“It looked more like he was mocking me.”
“You showed cunning. Tigerclaws appreciate those who know when not to fight but who will still try to turn a situation to their advantage.”
“Belen,” said Roghar, “is it possible things have changed with the Tigerclaws since your mother’s day?”
“Not likely. Cetainly not so fast. The Tigerclaws place great importance on maintaining their traditions.”
She seemed almost proud, but Roghar’s suggestion dug into Albanon. “Turbull led his clan away from Scargash and the Winterbole Forest in the face of the Abyssal Plague. It sounds to me like he’s willing to break with tradition when he needs to.”
For a moment, Belen’s expression took on a shifterish ferocity. “Some traditions are inviolable. Turbull will respect you, just as he’ll respect the traditions of hospitality. If he didn’t want us here, he would have sent us on our way.”
“It’s why they want us here that worries me,” said Roghar.
“Turbull will deal fair with us,” Belen insisted. She gestured toward furs and blankets that had been heaped on a low sleeping platform. “We should rest. The Thornpads may not have much but they’ll put out all they do have to honor us as their guests. It’s important we don’t antagonize them.”
“Rest?” Uldane asked. “I wanted to look around. I’ve never had the chance to explore a Tigerclaw camp before.”
“Rest,” said Belen firmly. “We don’t leave the tent until Turbull sends for us.”
Uldane pouted. “He didn’t say anything about that.”
“He didn’t have to. Guests have duties to the host, too.”
Albanon glanced at Tempest and Roghar. One of the surest ways to be certain Uldane would try something was to tell him not to do it. Roghar wrinkled his snout. “I’ll sleep in front of the door.”
Uldane’s pout grew deeper. “I know what you’re trying to do,” he said. “But think about it. Isn’t it to our advantage to know everything we can about the camp in case we need to run? Nobody will see me. It’s practical.” He looked up with hope in his eyes as if expecting the argument to sway them.
“We should move the whole sleeping platform in front of the door,” said Tempest.
Albanon, Uldane reflected while he waited for the last watchful eyes to close, wasn’t the only one who knew how to turn a situation to his advantage without fighting. The way he saw it, if the Tigerclaws respected cunning, they’d love him.
The others hadn’t moved the sleeping platform after all, but Roghar was still stretched out in front of the door. Albanon and Tempest shared the broad platform, while Belen sat with her back propped against it. From where he lay across the tent, rolled in blankets as if sulking, Uldane watched through barely open eyes while the Fallcrest guard’s head nodded down to her chest. She jerked upright once, then her head fell again. He waited a little longer to be certain she was truly asleep, then made his move. Roghar might have thought he was being clever by blocking the door, but the thing with tents was that doorways were basically just a formality. The ground where Uldane had chosen to curl up dipped down in a little pocket. The hides that covered the tent were loose above it.
With a twist and a little wiggle-and a peek to be certain no Tigerclaws were paying attention to his side of the tent-he was under the hides and outside, leaving the bundled blankets behind like the empty cocoon of a newly emerged butterfly.
Uldane paused in the shadow of the tent. The camp was busy as the barbarians prepared for the feast Turbull had ordered. Anyone who had been idly watching the outsiders’ tent had been called away. From where he stood, the halfling could see some of the Tigerclaws dressing a variety of small game and setting the carcasses to grill over fires-the smell of sizzling meat was wonderful. He was tempted to try his luck at snatching a plump looking squirrel.
No, he told himself firmly. He wasn’t going to do anything that stupid. He had wanted to look around the camp and that’s what he was going to do. Eating could wait until the feast. Or until he found something more portable than a whole squirrel, at least. He turned the other way and darted to the cover of the next nearest tent.
Even in the crowded camp, evading notice was ridiculously easy. Boxes, baskets, and bales of goods provided shelter. Tall tufts of grass and weeds around the fringes of the big communal tents gave a slim halfling plenty of hiding places. There was so much activity that even if he did come across an alert Tigerclaw, Uldane had only to wait a few moments for a suitable distraction to present itself. He found the rhythm of the camp and grew bold. When he came across a row of fresh griddlecakes, he helped himself to one and savored its steaming sweetness as he slipped from cover to cover.
In the course of his explorations, he came across a variety of goods of a more civilized make than the Tigerclaw would likely have crafted for themselves, yet of sufficient wear that they weren’t likely acquired through trade. Maybe these were the Tigerclaws that had scavenged the area around Winterhaven after all. They were probably building up resources in the face of the Abyssal Plague, if Turbull’s story of leading his Thornpad clan into hiding was true. He was disappointed to find only two of the massive saber-toothed cats that were the Tigerclaws’ almost legendary war-mounts, but then if t
he Thornpads had slipped away in secret, maybe they hadn’t been able to bring any more of the cats with them. Or maybe they hadn’t wanted to. It probably took a lot of hunting just to keep the beasts, penned up in a small but stout stockade behind the camp, fed and happy.
Unlike their barbarian masters, the great cats raised their heads and looked straight at Uldane as he stood watching them. They didn’t roar or growl, though, and Uldane wondered if maybe they saw him as less of a threat and more of a bite-sized morsel.
“If you show up at Turbull’s feast,” he told them, “I’m running, no matter what Belen says.”
One of the cats put its head down on its immense paws. The other yawned hugely, exposing fangs longer than Uldane’s entire hand, then, without taking its green eyes off him, slowly licked its muzzle. A little shiver ran up Uldane’s back and he decided it was time to move on.
All in all, the Tigerclaws and their camp were less exciting than he’d hoped they would be. It was really no more interesting than skulking around Fallcrest or Winterhaven and watching people go about their business. Less even because of Belen’s voice nagging in his head. Guests have duties to the host, too.
“Goblin kisser,” Uldane muttered under his breath, kicking at the ground. He’d circled the camp several times and dusk was approaching. Time to head back to the others, he decided. At least he could report what he’d found out about the camp. Maybe he could even try to slip back into the tent and his bundled cloak without being noticed.
Then he noticed something odd.
Most of the tents in the camp were large communal structures, more like longhouses really. A few were smaller, like Turbull’s tent or the one that had been set up for Uldane and the others. The halfling stood at the far end of the camp, facing a very similar small tent-similar except for the hunter who dozed outside the door and for the lack of tall weeds around its walls. The well-trampled plants in the vicinity were only just springing back to life, as if the tent had been erected in just the last couple of days.
Another new tent and one that was, unless Uldane was wrong, under guard. His curiosity was aroused.
One quick look, he told himself. He made his way around to the back of the mysterious tent, looking for the same type of low spot he’d used to escape theirs. He didn’t find one, but the hides in one spot were loose enough that he could pull them up from the ground. He listened for any sound from inside the tent and, hearing nothing, twitched up the loose hides and wriggled his head and shoulders through. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the gloom inside, but when they did-
“Goblin kisser!” said Uldane again.
CHAPTER TEN
I will kill him,” snarled Belen. “I will chop him up into little pieces and make halfling sausages.” She stomped-again-on the empty blankets that should have been wrapped around Uldane.
“Quietly,” Tempest reminded her. The tiefling was all for an angry rant but as Belen had said, a tent was not a cottage. Tempest peered through the narrow gap of the tent door. Twilight had fallen and the busy camp had become restless again as the Tigerclaws waited for the feast to begin. Her tail flicking, she scanned the gathering shadows and the half-concealed hiding spots for any sign of Uldane. “Still nothing,” she said.
Belen ground Uldane’s blanket under her heel. “I shouldn’t have trusted him. If he gets caught…”
“He won’t get caught,” said Albanon. “He’s better than that.”
Belen’s response was less of a word and more of an indelicate body noise. Albanon twitched slightly, but kept a calm expression. His thumbs, however, folded and unfolded rapidly. Tempest knew him well enough to recognize the signs of strain. She let the flap of the door fall and turned back. “We all should have known better than to trust him,” she said. “But Albanon’s right. Uldane won’t get caught. He’ll come back. He’s not entirely stupid-he knows the danger.”
“I’m not certain he does,” said Belen. “The Tigerclaws pride themselves on creative punishment. Ferocity is just one side of their totem spirit.”
“If the Tigerclaws try anything, we can defend ourselves,” Roghar said. He had his sword out, and was occupying himself by polishing the blade.
“Really? Against the whole tribe? Because that’s what we’d be fighting.”
Roghar gave the sword a final buff and slid it back into its scabbard. “If we have to,” he said.
Tempest’s tail twitched again as the conversation she’d had with Albanon just before they’d stumbled across the barbarian camp came back to her. There was definitely something wrong with Roghar. She’d never known the dragonborn to run from a fight, but she’d never known him to seek one out either. “I don’t think we want to do that if we can help it,” she said. “We’re not in trouble yet.”
The words had barely left her mouth before Albanon raised his head and said sharply, “We might be. Listen.”
All four of them paused. In the quiet, Tempest could hear women’s voices raised in song. Belen’s breath hissed. “I know that song. It’s a serving prayer. The feast will start soon.”
Tempest risked another glance through the tent flap-and jerked back. Uldane had run out of time. Outside, Cariss and Hurn were striding together through the camp toward their tent. “The Tigerclaws are coming for us!” she whispered.
Roghar growled and grabbed for his shield as he surged to his feet. Belen cursed. Albanon’s face tightened, but he leaped across the tent and snatched Uldane’s blanket from under Belen’s feet. He shook it, throwing a cloud of dust into the air, then quickly tucked it into the same bundled shape that the halfling had used to trick them. “We tell them Uldane is sick,” he said, standing up.
“That’s not going to fool anyone,” said Roghar.
Albanon’s eyes narrowed in concentration and the long fingers of one hand flicked in the pattern of a simple spell. The blanket began to rise and fall as if a small figure within was breathing. The fingers of his other hand sketched another sign and a piteous moan emanated from the blankets. Albanon looked to Roghar. The dragonborn wrinkled his snout and gave a grudging nod.
And just in time. “Guests of Turbull!” came Hurn’s gruff voice from the other side of the tent door. “Come out!”
Cariss didn’t seem interested in waiting for a response. The tent flap jerked as she pulled it aside. Tempest found herself staring eye to eye with the shifter. Cariss bared sharp teeth. “Try something, tiefling.”
It took effort, but Tempest swallowed her instinct to meet aggression with aggression and stepped back. Cariss scanned the interior of the tent. “Leave your shield,” she said to Roghar. “You won’t need it.” Her gaze came to rest on Uldane’s twitching, moaning blankets. “What’s wrong with the halfling?”
Relief rolled through Tempest. “He’s sick,” she said. “Something he ate didn’t agree with him. Can he just stay here?”
Cariss frowned and started into the tent. Tempest’s relief turned into panic and she glanced at Albanon-just in time to see the wizard narrow his eyes again and twitch his nose. The phantasmal moaning rose to a pained gasp before giving way to the loud and sudden breaking of wind. A horrific stench billowed through the tent, strong enough to make Tempest’s eyes water. Cariss recoiled.
“Maybe a guard to stand watch,” Tempest suggested, trying not to choke on the stink. “Unless it would offend Turbull if Uldane didn’t attend-”
Cariss shook her head hastily and stepped back out of the tent. Tempest was only too glad to follow her. Outside, Hurn was actually grinning. Cariss snarled at him, then gestured for Tempest and the others to follow. Tempest managed to get close enough to Albanon to whisper, “That was foul. Moorin actually taught you that?”
“A child’s trick in the Feywild. Moorin tried his best to make me forget it,” Albanon murmured back. “Where could Uldane have gone? Even if he went to explore the camp he should have come back.”
Tempest could only shake her head.
Roaring fires marked the site of the feas
t and drove back the chill of the falling night. Once again, Turbull waited to greet them. This time, however, they were shown to a place where they could sit together, still close to the Tigerclaw chief but apart from, rather than mingled with, the barbarian warriors. This time as well, the entire clan was gathered around them. Tempest would have been lying to herself if she tried to claim she wasn’t intimidated.
And yet it seemed to her that there was tension among the Tigerclaws as well. As platters and bowls made their way first around the inner circle, then out to the rest of the clan, the noises of celebration she associated with a feast were subdued. More than once she caught members of the clan tucking away chunks of meat as if hoarding them against lean times. Others, she noticed, ate with abandon, as if knowing that this might be the last great feast for some time. As the meal progressed, the Tigerclaws squatting beyond the inner circle seemed to lose interest in the outsiders that had come among them, focusing instead on the primal act of eating.
The warriors that sat closer to the chief, however, did not. Just as she’d slipped furtive glances at the Tigerclaws, Tempest found that the warriors were glancing frequently at her and the others. She’d look down at her food, then up again to find half a dozen eyes turning quickly away from her.
If the bulk of the clan was concerned about where their next meal would come from, the warriors had something else on their minds. Tempest couldn’t quite tell what that might be, but it certainly had something to do with them.
Turbull himself remained inscrutable. Again, Belen took the lead in speaking with him, but her attempts to turn the conversation to anything more meaningful than the weather, hunting conditions, and apologies for Uldane’s “illness” were rebuffed. Tempest could see that Roghar was getting impatient. Albanon looked uneasy as well-she guessed that Uldane was on his mind. Even Belen had started to look annoyed with Turbull’s evasiveness, though that only made her push harder. Tempest was beginning to feel frustrated herself. Turbull was playing games with them. The shifter wanted something from them, but why didn’t he come right out and ask it? She took her anger out on the roasted leg of a rabbit, sinking her teeth into the dark flesh and tearing it off the bone.
The Eye of the Chained God tap-3 Page 15