Elvenbane

'No more caravans...no more sandstorms!' Ardan grinned, his teeth showing white in his black beard. 'That last one was enough for me! Demon's eyes! I thought we was gonna lose the whole pack-train! If I never see 'nother storm like that, it'll be too damn soon.'

'Got that right.' Kel folded the tunic carefully, admiring how easily it compacted into a tiny package. He listened a moment at the door of the tent, then lifted the entrance flap and discovered that the drugged water had finally put the wild girl to sleep. He motioned Ardan to follow him inside.

He moved several bundles to one side, and stowed the tunic away in the secret bottom of one of his pack- baskets. 'Remember where that is, in case something happens to me,' he told Ardan, who nodded. 'That has to go to the Lord, no matter what.'

'No fear of that,' Ardan replied with another grin. 'But I'll be watchin' yer back, in case some 'un gets ideas.'

Making him my second was the smartest thing I ever did. 'Good man,' Kel said, slapped Ardan companion-ably on the shoulder, and went back to the entrance, calling out to one of the boys for food and water. He had no fear he'd wake the girl now; he'd put enough black poppy in that water to knock out a pack-grel.

'Take a seat, old man,' he said, gesturing to one of the piles of cushions. 'The girl's good till sundown at the least. I've no mind to have to tend a wild thing if it wants to run, nor damage good, sound merchandise; I figure on keeping her well muddled until we reach Anjes.'

'Kel...I don't s'ppose there's any chance that girl could have been planted, is there?' Ardan said, with a sudden frown, as one of the 'prentices, a thin, nervous boy, brushed aside the canvas flap, bringing a skin of water fresh from the pool, bread, and goat-cheese. 'The Lord has a powerful lot of enemies. And it's kind of odd, finding that girl out here, alone, claimin' she's lost.'

Kel bit off a mouthful of bread and considered the idea. No matter what the others thought, Ardan was anything but stupid, and that was just the kind of twisted trap one of the other lords might think up...

He stood up, strolled over to the girl, and looked down at her, thoughtfully. She looked nothing like the instrument of a plot; tangled in the pillows and silk covers, she looked even younger than he supposed she was. His guess was that her age was maybe fourteen; she looked eleven at most, with her face slack with sleep.

He noted her work-worn hands, the tough, sinewy muscles, the scratches and scars and half-healed cuts. Her bare feet were as tough as boot-leather. And there was a fair amount of abrasion on her arms and the back of her neck and legs...signs that she, too, had been caught in the storm.

'Well,' he said, after a moment of study, 'she's scratched up, callused, with a skin like a field hand. From the look of her, she's been through that storm. And nobody could've known we were gonna find this place...I mean, I knew it was on the map, but that don't mean water's gonna be where the map says.'

'Lord could've drove us with that storm,' Ardan countered. 'Girl could be a field hand. Tunic could have a glamorie on it.'

'True enough. But I got a test for that, remember?' Kel returned to the pack-basket that held his prize, and extracted it again. He pulled a silk-wrapped bundle out of his belt-pouch, and carefully unwrapped it, revealing a pendant wrought of an odd, dull metal of a greenish cast, centered with a black stone. He applied the stone to the tunic, taking care not to touch it with his bare fingers.

'There, see?' he said triumphantly, when the stone remained a glossy black, and the tunic remained unchanged. 'If there was any glamorie around, this'd take care of it.'

Ardan nodded thoughtfully. 'Girl don't act like anythin' but wild, I'll give you that. All things considered, I'd be willin' to lay down money that she's a wild 'un, an' you know I don't bet on nothin' but a sure thing. I gotta think of these things, Kel, it's m'job.'

'And I'm right glad you do it.' Kel stowed the tunic back in hiding, and the pendant in his belt-pouch. 'So, if you'll bet she's wild, then I'll take that as good as trade-gold. Now, tell me something, what do you think of the girl? Will she be worth selling, you think?'

Ardan cocked his head a little to one side. 'Huh. I think so. Once we find out where she got the stuff...if she knows, if she ain't too feebleminded to remember. Some of these wild 'uns, their memory ain't too good.' Ardan scratched his side through his tunic, and ate a piece of cheese. 'You get bondlings what's escaped, or some of them rogues, runnin' around wild...half the time they starve, or eat bugs or somethin'. They have any kids, they get brought up the same, they have problems thinkin' about anythin' that ain't got somethin't' do with food.'

'Don't imagine eating bugs does much for their brains,' Kel agreed. 'Brains don't matter much, though, not in a girl. Don't need brains to make a bed, nor to lie in it, eh?' He laughed, and Ardan joined him. 'You're a good judge of flesh, Ardan, what else do you think?'

'Well, since you're askin' my opinion, I'd say she's no beauty, but she'll fetch a fair price.' Ardan craned his neck up a little to get a better look at the sleeping girl. 'That red hair's nice; too bad she cut it so damn short. 'Nother thing you might bark her for is fighter. Don't need brains to be in the arena, either, just a healthy sense 'f wantin' t' stay alive an' some good reactions. And these wild ones, they make good fighters if you catch 'em young 'nough.'

'Now that's a thought,' Kel said, pleased. Too bad he couldn't just sell her and pocket all the money...but somebody'd snitch, sure as the sun rose. Lord Berenel was all right, but no way was he going to put up with that. He'd have Kel's hide on his wall if Kel cheated him.

But sell her and keep part, especially if he could get a good price...that was something else. Berenel didn't mind a little skimming, now and again, especially on a pure windfall...

Ardan rose to his feet and joined Kel in looking down at the sleeping girl. As Ardan had said, she was no beauty, but she wasn't ugly either. Attractive, Kel decided. That pretty much described her. Dark red hair in tangled curls covering her ears down to her shoulders, sun-bronzed skin, decent figure. Good face; arching brows and high cheekbones, with a pointed little chin that made her look like a vixen-fox.

Attractive, healthy, and tough. She ought to bring a decent price; more than a decent price if he could parlay the fact that she was wild into an asset, as Ardan had suggested.

Sometimes Ardan came up with the best ideas out of nowhere.

'Not bad,' Ardan said, after a moment of long study. 'Y'know, you put her in a short little leather tunic t' show off them long legs, grow her hair more, put her out in the arena, she'd make a good novelty. 'Specially if it turns out she can fight. I think we oughta have them auctioneers bark her that way.'

Ardan's judgments on trade, though seldom offered, were never wrong. Kel nodded, and made up his mind to share the profit-skim equally with his second.

'You think there's any harm in keeping her sleepy'till we get to the city?' he asked.

Ardan shook his head. 'Naw. We can't waste time with a kid tryin' t' fight us. We ain't set up f r the slave trade. I'sped if we keep tellin' her that we're friends, we're takin' her somewhere safe, an' keep feedin' her poppy, we'll be better off.'

'We're about...three days from Lord Dyran's land...a bit more than a week from the city. Think there'll be a problem with keeping her on the poppy that long?' Kel had some experience with poppy addiction; his current supply came from a drover who'd been tied to the stuff. He'd gotten so out of control when Kel took it away from him that Ardan had to kill him.

A waste, but there it was. Demons only knew where he'd gotten it, or got the addiction in the first place.

'Week, two weeks, that won't be a problem. Make it easier to try and get sense from her, about where that skin came from, too.' Ardan knew more about drugs and their effects than Kel; he doubled as the caravan's rough herb-healer and bonesetter. Kel was living proof that he knew his business. Ardan had patched up more than a few little gashes of his.

'Then I think we've got ourselves a nice little piece of property, eh?' Kel grinned at the bigger man, and Ardan grinned back.

They both returned to the comfort of their cushions, Kel feeling very much at ease with the world. He sipped at the cool water, admiring the purity of it, and the sweetness. On caravan neither he nor Ardan ever touched a single drop of spirit, nor took any drug they didn't absolutely have to have...like poppy after a serious wound. He'd always felt that a leader could never be anything less than at his absolute peak of alertness. Ardan not only agreed with Kel, he followed his leader's example, even when he plainly longed to try a glass of some new vintage or