them.
“You know nothing about him! How dare you presume to judge?”
In the stillness, her voice was very loud. Samar bowed his head. Flushed with anger, Alhana touched heels to her horse’s sides and cantered past Kerian and Chathendor, who were riding ahead.
“My lady,” the old chamberlain called. “This place is not safe! Stay with us, please!” He urged his balky mount after her.
Kerian glanced back at Samar. For a moment, the Silvanesti’s perpetually hard face showed one overriding emotion: fear. She realized it was not personal fear of the dangerous journey, but concern for Alhana.
It was then Kerian realized something else: Porthios and Alhana had come to some sort of an understanding. Whatever it was, it had eased the anxiety that shadowed Alhana’s face. Good for her, Kerian thought; no one should be that lonely and alone.
As for Porthios, wherever he was Kerian wished him bathed in twice the stink that was clogging her nose.
Dawn was beginning to lighten the sky when the wagon carrying the feverish Hytanthas passed under a low-hanging tree limb. A figure dropped from the branch and landed silently in the open cargo box. Hytanthas stirred.
“Who’s there?” he murmured.
“A friend.”
Bare fingers touched Hytanthas’s forehead then withdrew. A twig was placed against his lips.
“Chew this, but don’t swallow.”
“Are you a healer?”
“Don’t ask questions. Chew.”
Hytanthas chewed until the voice told him to spit out the bitter-tasting twig. In minutes, he rested easier, the ache in his limbs subsiding for the first time in days. With a sigh, he relaxed, his head lolling against the lambswool blanket that softened his bed atop bundles of Qualinesti weapons.
“What news have you of Gilthas?”
Halfway lost to slumber, Hytanthas mumbled an answer. Under the stranger’s gentle but insistent questioning, Hytanthas told of the elves’ predicament in Khur and of the Lioness’s reluctance to return. He withheld nothing, not of what he knew or his opinions. The questions finally ceased, and the medicine bark that soothed his fever and loosened his tongue lowered Hytanthas into a deep sleep.
Porthios sat back against the wagon’s side. For a long time, he stayed there, staring at nothing, lost in thought.
Chapter 11
Breetan Everride had been in conquered Qualinesti less than two months, but the changes wrought in that time were profound. When she traveled to Alderhelm to investigate the disappearance of Nerakan mercenaries, she rode through a land at peace-the peace of those broken in spirit. However, riding from Frenost to Samustal, she passed through a countryside tingling with alarm, the roads choked with people fleeing north or west. Most were buntings heading to the coast, to take ship back to wherever they’d come from. Mixed in with them were the camp followers and sutlers who always trailed mercenary armies.
A few questions, accompanied by a few coins, posed to refugees elicited surprising news. All over northern Qualinesti, natives were rising up against their oppressors. With Beryl gone, and the Knights of Neraka quiescent in the south, the local folk had only Samuval’s bandit army to contend with. The success of the masked rebel in Samustal had shown them victory was possible. In a hundred locations, bandit detachments had been ambushed. Some of these were carefully planned traps; others, spontaneous uprisings. The bandits seemed incapable of regaining control. Whenever they moved to crush one outbreak, two more would erupt behind them. Slowly but surely, Samuval’s men and their allies were abandoning the open countryside and holing up in fortified towns.
Although she wore the full panoply of her Order and carried her new crossbow openly, no one molested Breetan. Rebels kept well clear of the Dark Knight. Bandit officers, conscious of their failings, remained aloof lest their weakness inspire her to intervene against them. Only refugees approached, begging for help and steel. Breetan paid for useful information, but refused otherwise to aid the greedy, defeated leeches.
She reached Samustal as dusk was falling. Her target, the rebel leader known as the Scarecrow, was unlikely to be so near the scene of his first victory, but she might glean valuable information there. Besides, she wanted dinner, drink, and a place to rest for the night.
A pall of smoke hung over the center of town. Gossip was divided as to who was responsible for the town’s torching: bandits or elf rebels. The old core of the city, which Lord Olin had surrounded with a stockade, was a smoldering ruin. With night fast approaching, traffic was hurrying to the town’s south side, where Lord Gathan had erected a palisade around an earthen mound. Breetan headed for that.
There was no gate, just a baffle of timbers to guard the single entrance. The palisade had been erected in obvious haste. The timbers still carried their bark and hadn’t been squared; gaps existed between nearly every one and its neighbors. Some of the gaps were wide enough to admit longbow arrows. Breetan saw no guard towers, just a few open platforms atop the wall. She shook her head. Grayden was garrisoning a deathtrap.
Three foot soldiers barred her way at the baffle. “Who’re you?” growled one.
“A traveler in search of a meal and a bed.”
He laughed harshly. “This isn’t Palanthas. They’re sleeping on mud in there!”
“Mud protected by a wall,” she said mildly.
He stood aside, and she rode through. The enclosed space within the log wall was only two hundred yards across. In the tight confines, tents and shanties had been thrown up in complete confusion, leaving no clear lanes for defenders to reach the wall if there were a general attack. Breetan was disgusted anew. One determined assault and the place would fall like a rotten apple in an autumn breeze.
Ahead, a long tent bore a hand-painted sign proclaiming that Wine, Meat, and Bread (the last two misspelled) could be had within. She dismounted and tied her animal to the picket line. Crossbow in hand, she ducked under the low canvas roof.
Along the far wall was a bar comprising planks laid atop barrels. A muscular man, his head completely shaved, was pouring drinks with both hands. His apron was shockingly white amid the general squalor.
“Step up and state your pleasure!” he boomed.
She called for wine and-after a brief discussion with the proprietor-beef, bread, and whatever came with it. He bellowed the order toward a flap in the back of the tent. She glimpsed flames and saw a large calf turning on a spit.
The wine was a surprisingly good vintage, a Coastlund red. Before her first cup was gone, a trencher of food was placed before her. A generous slab of beef, still red in the center, was surrounded by boiled potatoes, onions, and carrots. Half a round loaf of bread lay atop the meat.
“No food shortage here,” she remarked.
He laughed. “Not for them that can pay!”
She ate standing at the bar, for there were no chairs in the place. At the waist-high tables scattered throughout the room, various folk worked the crowd of bandits and refugees, offering gambling, soothsaying, and love for hire. A few feet down the bar, a blind man played a flute for alms. His cap contained a great many broken seashells and very few coins.
While she ate, Breetan questioned the bartender. He’d been there less than a week and considered ruined Samustal a “ripe opportunity.” He certainly looked able to take care of himself. Replace his wine urn with a sword, and he’d make a formidable fighter.
