was moving.
The second night they were out of the thickest part of the forest and well into the lightly treed foothills; the inn was rougher, and the food less appealing. This time Tobas stayed awake, but contributed little to the after- dinner conversation, as it seemed to be made up almost entirely of boasting about prior exploits.
Tobas did not consider any of his prior exploits anything to boast about. He could not even resort to family, as Tillis did, since his ancestors had all been quiet farmers save for his father, and bragging about a pirate captain among Ethsharites did not seem a wise thing to do.
In the morning he tried to put himself in a different wagon, the fourth; its previous occupants, seeing him there, shrugged and boarded the second.
A moment later Tillis climbed into the fourth wagon. Tobas closed his eyes and pretended Tillis wasn’t there.
At times during the long day it almost worked.
The third inn was a ramshackle structure clinging to a rocky mountainside, but included an enthusiastic staff that made up for the physical shortcomings. Tobas took a particular interest in one of the proprietor’s daughters, a dark-haired beauty who appeared to be roughly his own age, but she was fascinated with Peren’s strange coloring and laughingly brushed aside Tobas’ tentative advances in order to devote herself to the albino.
Tobas shrugged off his disappointment; he was used to it. His successes with women had been few and far between.
But then, he was still young, he told himself.
For the last day he finally managed to pair himself with someone other than Tillis; he waited until the young Ethsharite had boarded the fourth wagon, then jumped into the fifth.
He found himself sharing the vehicle with Arnen and one of the other scoundrels, Korl Korl’s son. They stared at him for a long moment when he climbed in; then Arnen drew one of his knives, a long, narrow dagger, and began cleaning his nails with it. Korl simply leaned back against the side of the wagon and stared.
The entire morning passed without any of the three saying a word. Early in the afternoon, however, Korl whispered something to Arnen, who smiled nastily in return.
That was the full extent of conversation in the wagon that day, and Tobas quickly found himself wishing he’d stayed with Tillis.
Late in the afternoon the wagons pulled to a halt. Tobas had dozed off, despite the bumping; he woke with a start; sat up, and peered out the end of the wagon, wondering why they were stopping when day was still bright.
He realized why quickly enough; this was not another inn, but a castle, set in the middle of a small plateau.
This, obviously, was Dwomor Keep, the castle he had come to save from a dragon.
He wondered why anyone would want to bother. If he had lived in such a dismal place and had found it to be threatened by a monster, he would simply have left.
Dwomor Keep was a large, sprawling structure, obviously built piecemeal over a period of centuries; the various towers, turrets, and wings had only one unifying feature, that being that they were all in a sad state of disrepair. The town this miserable fortress guarded was a pitiful huddle of no more than a dozen sagging cottages, though a few scattered farmsteads could be seen here and there on the surrounding plateau; the entire area stank of manure. Any claim to be the rightful capital of Old Ethshar was obviously an unfounded boast. Either that, or the ruins of the capital had been completely buried centuries ago, and this place built on top.
He leaned out for a moment, gazing about at the surrounding countryside.
The castle stood at the approximate center of a more or less level area perhaps half a league in diameter; to the west, in the direction of the setting sun, Tobas could see nothing beyond, as if the World simply ended at the edge of the plateau. In every other direction, however, hills piled up around the little plain, and to much of the north and east mountains rose beyond the hills.
Looking back toward the castle once more, Tobas saw that the wagons had paused to allow a portcullis to be opened; when that had been done, the caravan proceeded on into the castle courtyard, where he remained unimpressed.
The courtyard was unpaved, simply an expanse of bare dirt that undoubtedly turned to a sea of mud whenever rain came; the castle structures around it were even more ramshackle and mismatched than the portions visible from the outside. The exterior, after all, had to be built of stone in order to be defensible, while the stables, mews, sheds, and other added interior features could be — and were — built of a variety of woods, bricks, and what appeared to be mud and straw.
What, he wondered, did Tillis make of this brave castle? It hardly lived up to the storytellers’ images.
The wagons came to a final halt, and the recruiter came marching back along the line, shouting, “All out! We’re here!”
Tobas clambered out of the wagon and dropped to the ground. He glanced at the gate they had entered through and noticed that the portcullis was being cranked back down; presumably the locals did not want any of their hired dragon slayers to escape.
And having thought of the locals, he noticed that there were certainly plenty of them around. He estimated thirty or forty people, mostly women and old men, were standing about the courtyard, studying the new arrivals.
He resisted the temptation to draw his athame and hidden vial of brimstone and set someone’s clothes on fire. The gesture would be startling, impressive, and probably very satisfying, but it might make too many enemies. Besides, he didn’t want to impress anyone; if he did, they might actually expect him to kill their ravening monster, wherever it was.
He wasn’t sure just what he wanted to do or where he wanted to be, but he was sure he didn’t want to tackle a dragon. Any fantasies he might have had back in Ethshar, brought on by the mention of a thousand pieces of gold, had been jounced out of him in the course of the long and uncomfortable journey from the city to Dwomor.
“All right, you people,” someone, a middle-aged man who was apparently a local official, called in truly barbarous Ethsharitic. “Do any of you speak Dwomoritic?”
No one answered.
“I was afraid of that. What about Trader’s Tongue?”
Two people admitted to that.
“We may need an interpreter, I guess. At least the king speaks Ethsharitic. All right, follow me.”
“Wait a minute!” the recruiter interrupted. “I want my money!”
“You’ll get it,” the official replied testily.
“I want it now! You said payment on delivery. Well, here they are, delivered, nine of them. Pay me; I’m not going to risk losing out if you scare some of them away.”
“You couldn’t wait five minutes?” He glanced at the nine adventurers, all of whom were listening with interest, then dug in the purse on his gold-trimmed belt and fished out a handful of coins. He counted out eighteen, Tobas could not see their size or metal, and handed them to the recruiter, who immediately, without a further word, headed for the gate. Tobas grinned; someone, he did not see who, laughed aloud, rather unpleasantly.
“All right,” the official said again. “Follow me. I’ll take you to your audience with his Royal Majesty Derneth the Second, King of Dwomor.”
The adventurers obeyed, filing haphazardly through the door. Rather to his surprise, Tobas found himself last in line; looking about, he realized that there were no guards or other restraints to keep him from deserting. The recruiter had departed with his money safely in hand; the caravan master was busy unhitching the mules; nobody else seemed likely to argue if Tobas simply turned and walked out, as the recruiter had, using a small door he saw standing open beside the portcullis that apparently led through the gatehouse.
No, he decided after an instant’s hesitation, he would follow along. He had nowhere to go in the surrounding mountains; furthermore, it might not be safe to wander aimlessly about the unfamiliar countryside. There could well be bandits and brigands, or wolves, in the area, not to mention the dragon that might be roaming about somewhere out there. The natives might not be friendly. He couldn’t speak the local language; it was, from the little he had heard, similar to Ethsharitic, but not similar enough to be intelligible.
