Oathblood

Huge open vats and the stack of raw hides piled like wood beside the entrance identified the source of the harsh chemical reek. The amber-haired sorceress curled her lip in a scowl at the sight of the tannery at the bottom of the hill, though her distaste might as well have been for the cluster of hovels around it. 'That's 'progress,' ' the sorceress said flatly. 'Or so the owner would tell you. Justin warned me about this.'

Tarma narrowed her eyes in self-defense as another puff of eye-watering potency blew across their path. 'Progress?' she said incredulously, while their dappled-gray warsteeds snorted objection at being forced so close to the source of the stench. 'What's progressive about this? Tanneries don't have to stink like that. And that village--'

'I don't know much,' Kethry warned her partner. 'Just that the owner of this place has some new way of tanning. It takes less time supposedly.'

'And definitely makes five times the stink.' Tarma would have lifted her lip, but she didn't want to open her mouth any more than she had to.

:And five times the filth,: Warrl commented acidly. :The place is sick with it. The earth is poisoned.:

Well, that certainly accounted for the unease the place was giving her. All Shin'a'in had a touch of earth- sense; it helped them avoid the few dangerous places left on the Plains, the places where dangerous things of magic were buried that were best left undisturbed.

'If this is change, progress, I don't like it,' Tarma said. 'I know you sometimes think the Shin'a'in are a little backward, because we don't like change, but this is one reason why we prefer to stay the way we are.'

The sorceress shifted in her saddle and shrugged. 'Well, that isn't the only thing the man's changed,' Kethry continued. 'And until just now, I didn't know if it was a good change, or a bad one.'

Her partner's troubled tone made Tarma glance sharply at the sorceress. 'What change was that?'

'There're no Tanners' Guild members down there except the owner,' Kethry replied. 'And I thought that might be a good thing, when I first heard of it. Sometimes I think the Guilds have too much power. You can't get into an apprenticeship if you haven't any money to buy your way into the Guild, unless you can find a Master willing to waive the fee. I thought that something like this might open the trades, give employment to people who desperately need it. But that--' she waved at the duster of shacks around the tannery building, '--that mess--'

'That doesn't look as if he's doing much for the poor,' Tarma finished for her. 'But there isn't much that we can do about it. We're just a couple of freelance mercs on the way to interview for a Company.' At Kethry's continued silence, she added sharply, 'We are, aren't we?'

Kethry smiled a little from behind a wisp of windblown, amber hair. 'Need isn't complaining, if that's what you're worried about. By which, I assume, Master Karden isn't interested in providing females with employment.'

'Possibly.' Tarma shrugged leather-clad shoulders. 'Whatever the reason, at least we aren't going to have to fight your sword and its stupid compulsion to rescue women whether or not they deserve rescue -- or even want rescue.'

Kethry didn't even answer; she simply touched her heels to Hellsbane's sides and gave the mare her head. The warsteed, sister to Tarma's Ironheart, threw up her head and moved readily into a canter, all too pleased to be getting out of there. Ironheart was after her a fraction of a heartbeat later.

The stench proved to be confined to the valley. Once they were on the opposite side of the next hill, the air was fresh and clean again. Tarma could not imagine what it must be like to live in that squalid little town.

:Presumably, their noses are numb,: Warrl supplied, running easily alongside the road, his lupine head even with Tarma's calf. His head and shaggy coat were the only wolflike things about him; if Tarma squinted, she would have sworn there was a giant grass-cat running at her stirrup, not a wolf, in reality, Warrl was neither; he was a kyree, a Pelagir Hills creature, and bonded with Tarma as Kethry's spell-sword Need was bonded to the sorceress.

Once out of the reach of the stench, the horses slowed of their own accord. Warrl looked pleased with the change of pace. He looked even happier with the village built of the yellowish stone of these hills that appeared below them, as they topped yet another rise.

This would be their last stop before Hawksnest, the home of the mercenary company called 'Idra's Sunhawks.' Tarma had no doubts that between the letters of introduction they carried, letters from two of Idra's former men, and their own abilities, Idra would sign them on despite their lack of training with a Company. After all, it wasn't every day that a Captain could acquire both a Shin'a'in Swordsworn and a Journeyman White Winds sorceress for her ranks. When you added the formidable Warrl to the bargain, Tarma reckoned that Idra would be a fool to turn them down.

And no one had ever called Captain Idra a fool.

But that was ahead of them. For tonight, there would be a good meal and a bit of a rest. Not a bed; that single-storied country inn down there wasn't big enough for that. But there would be space on the floor once the last of the regulars cleared out for the night, and that was enough for the three of them. It was more than they'd had many times in the past.