'Huh?' Her companion, the Shin'a'in Swordsworn Tarma, started up out of a doze, blinking sleepy, ice-blue eyes. Her granite-gray mare snorted and sneezed as the thin swordswoman jerked alert.
'I asked you how far it was to the next town,' Kethry repeated, raking sweat-damp amber hair with her fingers, trying to get it tucked behind her ears. In high-summer heat like this, she envied Tarma's chosen arrangement of tiny, tight-bound braids. It may not have been cooler, but it looked cooler. And Tarma's coarse black hair wasn't always coming loose and getting into her eyes and mouth, or making the back of her neck hot.
'Must've nodded off; sorry about that, Greeneyes,' Tarma said sheepishly, extracting the map from the waterproof pocket on the saddle skirting in front of her. 'Hmm -- next town's Viden; we'll hit there just about dusk.'
'Viden? Oh, hell--' Kethry replied in disgust, rolling the sleeves of her buff sorcerer's robe a little higher. 'It would be Viden. I was hoping for a bath and a bed.'
'What's wrong with Viden?' Tarma asked. To Kethry's further disgust she didn't even look warm; there was no sheen of sweat on that dark-gold skin, and that despite the leather tunic and breeches she wore. Granted, she was from the Dhorisha Plains where it got a lot hotter than it was here, but--
Well, it wasn't fair.
'Viden's overlord is what's wrong,' she answered. 'A petty despot, Lord Gorley; hired a gang of prison scum to enforce things for him.' She made a sour face. 'He manages to stay just on the right side of tolerable for the Viden merchants, so they pay his fees and ignore him. But outsiders find themselves a lot lighter in the pocket if they overnight there. Doesn't even call it a tax, just sends his boys after you to shake you down. Hellfire.'
'Oh, well,' Tarma shrugged philosophically. 'At least we were warned. Figure we'd better skirt the place altogether, or is it safe enough to stop for a meal?'
'Safe enough for that,' Kethry acknowledged. 'From all I heard they don't bestir themselves more than they can help. By the time they manage to get themselves organized into a party big enough to give us trouble, we'll have paid for our meal and gone.'
The dark, stone-walled common room of the inn was much cooler than the street outside. Bard Leslac lounged in the coolest, darkest corner, sipped his tepid ale, and congratulated himself smugly on his foresight. There was only one inn -- his quarry would have to come here to eat and drink. He'd beaten them by nearly half a day; he'd had plenty of time to choose a comfortable, out-of-the-way corner to observe what must come.
For nearly two years now, he had been following the careers of a pair of freelance mercenaries, both of them women (which was unusual enough), one a sorceress, the other one of the mysterious Shin'a'in out of the Dhorisha Plains (which was unheard of). He had created one truly masterful ballad out of the stories he'd collected about them -- masterful enough that he was no longer being pelted with refuse in village squares, and was now actually welcome in taverns.
But he wanted more such ballads. And there was one cloud on his success.
Not once in all that time had he ever managed to actually catch sight of the women.
Oh, he'd tried, right enough -- but they kept making unexpected and unexplained detours -- and by the time he found out where they'd gone, it was too late to do anything but take notes from the witnesses and curse his luck for not being on the scene. No bard worth his strings would ever take secondhand accounts for the whole truth. Especially not when those secondhand accounts were so -- unembellished. No impassioned speeches, no fountains of blood -- in fact, by the way these stupid peasants kept telling the tales, the women seemed to go out of their way to avoid fights. And that was plainly not possible.
But this time he had them. There was no place for them to go now except Viden -- and Viden boasted a wicked overlord.
Leslac was certain they'd head here. How could they not? Hadn't they made a career out of righting the wrongs done to helpless women? Surely some of the women in Viden had been abused by Lord Gorley. Surely Gorley's Lady was in dire need of rescue. He could just imagine it -- Tarma facing down a round dozen of Gorley's men, then dispatching them easily with a triumphant laugh. Kethry taking on Lord Gorley's sorcerer (surely he had one) in a mage-duel of titanic proportions. The possibilities were endless....
And Leslac would be on hand to record everything.
Tarma sagged down onto the smooth wooden bench with a sigh.
