Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol. III

“I like this place,” the shadow steed rumbled. “They know how best to treat an animal. I should visit Zuu again in the near future!”

“They won’t treat you so well if they find out it’s you scaring all their other horses.”

What Cabe had said was true. Around them, the other mounts were stirring, the voice of Darkhorse unnerving them. The shadowy stallion tried to speak quieter. “I wish I could enter with you, friend Cabe.”

“That would certainly raise a few eyebrows and shut more than a few mouths. I don’t think even the locals treat their horses that well anymore. You’d best stay here for the time being. It won’t be a loss, either. This close, you should be able to pick up a number of the voices outside. You’ll also have people coming and going here, too.”

Darkhorse scraped the floor of his stall, gouging out a valley in the rock-hard dirt. He was not pleased with his end of the mission, but he understood that there was no way he could blend among people. Given time-more than they had now-the eternal might be able to copy the basic structure of a human, but he would not be able to copy their ways. A human-looking Darkhorse would still garner too much attention; despite the centuries among men, the demon steed had a rather unique thought pattern and personality. He did not and could not act like a mortal. Neither, for that matter, would he have been able to pass for an elf or any of the other races.

There was and there would always be only one Darkhorse.

The inn was surprisingly clean compared to many that Cabe had experienced. His sense of smell, despite having been dulled, was still able enough to pick up the delicious odors coming from the back. The warlock’s stomach grumbled, hoping to remind him that while he had a mission here, so did it.

The interior of Belfour’s Champion had much in common with many inns, of course, save that here there was no escaping the symbol of the place, the horse for which it had been named. There were small statuettes, trophies won by the selfsame steed, lining one wall. Tapestries revealing the various feats of a chestnut goliath covered most of the others. If even half of them were true, the animal had been a wonder.

Perhaps the most unusual bit of decor was the clean, polished skull that hung above the rock fireplace across from him. From the small wreath below it, he gathered that this had once belonged to the famous horse. It was, to the warlock, a peculiar way to honor even a most favored companion, but this was Zuu, after all, and it was Cabe who was the foreigner here.

Cabe found an empty bench off to one side of the eating area and sat down. Almost the second he was comfortable, a sun-haired serving girl was at his table. Unlike the guards, she was dressed in a more conventional outfit. Yet while the skirt and bodice were of a style that might have been found in any tavern across the Dragonrealm, the form barely hidden within was not. Cabe was of the opinion that there must be much to be said for the Zuu way of life; both the men and the women seemed remarkably fit.

“What can I get you?” she asked after he had revealed the marker. She had slightly elfin features, but with what could only be described as a saucy touch to them. The warlock was uncomfortably reminded of a serving girl named Deidra who had been all but able to wrap him around her finger when they had worked together in the Wyvern’s Head.

“What’s best? Food, I mean.”

“That’d be the stew.”

Cabe’s stomach rumbled again. “That’s fine. Stew and cider.”

She vanished in a swirl of skirts, leaving Cabe to recover. He loved Gwen, but a man had to be blind not to notice some women, just as he was certain it worked the other way.

There were a number of other travelers in the place, not to mention three good-sized parties of native Zuuans or Zuuites or whatever they called themselves. A few scattered individuals here and there verified that Cabe would not stick out. He picked out the loudest conversation, that of a trio of horse merchants, and started to listen.

His meal and drink came a couple of minutes later, by which time he was more than ready to abandon his first attempt. The serving girl dropped a heaping bowl of delicious-smelling stew in front of him along with a chunk of brown bread. As she reached over and put down the mug of cider, she hesitated long enough for him to admire the view if he desired. Cabe, who was familiar with the ways of some taverns and inns, gave her a noncommittal thank you and enough coins to satisfy both the bill and her. Once she had disappeared back into the crowd, he started in on the stew while at the same time choosing his next target.

The stew was superb, which made concentrating a bit harder at first, but he soon picked up on one of the other conversations. This one, between a pair of the locals, at first sounded like yet another talk about horseflesh, but then switched.

The first man, a thin elder, was muttering, “. . . dwarfs keep insisting. Even said they saw the place glow once.”

“Ain’t nothing happens in that godforsaken place. I don’t even think there’s no Dragon King there. Never hear anythin’.” His companion, about half his age and with as thick a beard as any the warlock had ever seen, picked up his mug and drank long from it.

“So? We ever hear anything from our drake? You see a few in the city near the king’s place, but old Green never shows up or demands anything. Could be the same with this one.”

The younger man put down the mug. “But still . . .”

Their conversation shifted again, talking about Dragon Kings and kings in general. Cabe held back a grimace. The glow and the dwarfs interested him, but he could hardly walk over to the men and ask them. He wished that he could be like Shade had been. The master warlock had not only been able to hide his presence in a full inn, but he would blatantly summon people, ask them questions, and send them away without them recalling or anyone else taking the slightest notice. Cabe could have done the same, but he felt wrong about doing so.

He focused on two other discussions, found nothing, then discovered that even with his concentration, he could not make out any of the others clearly enough. The stew lost some of its flavor as he realized that he would have to resort to sorcery and modify his hearing. Again, it was a simple spell, but he still did not care for any transformation, however minor.

It took him but a moment to do it. Now, he was not only able to hear conversations on the far side of the room, but he could pick them out of all the others and hear those speaking as if no one else were making a sound.

Much to his regret, however, it turned out that no one had anything concrete to add to what he knew. Cabe had expected it, but had hoped for more. He would have to search elsewhere. Rising, he left the nearly empty bowl and mostly untouched cider and departed before the serving girl returned.

There was no dearth of inns in this quarter. Not all of them were up to the standards of Belfour’s Champion, but all of them were surprisingly neat. Compared to the worst, Wyvern’s Head had been a stable.

No, not a stable, Cabe thought as he entered the next one. You can literally eat off the floor in these stables.

At the next two places, the warlock picked up a smattering of information. An intruder killed in the west, his identity unknown. He had been carrying a pouchful of foreign gold and a few valuable gemstones. Two guards had died in taking him . . . and the patrol had originally only wanted to ask him the same simple questions they asked every visitor. Another body found, this one stripped of all his possessions. Oddly, the two did not seem directly connected.

There was mention of the glow again, a brief brightness that had lit up part of the western sky the very night that Cabe had had the second vision. Only a few had actually seen it; most of those he listened to knew of it only secondhand. Evidently Zuu did actually keep a few hours aside for rest.

After the fifth inn, Cabe came to the conclusion that he had heard all he would hear this evening. While he had not garnered much more than he had begun with, he was not unsatisfied. Slightly fatigued, the warlock started back to the stable where Darkhorse was no doubt impatiently waiting for him. The eternal would probably be disappointed in his findings, but that did not matter.

He was just passing Belfour’s Champion when he sensed something amiss, although what it was he could not say.

“Well, it’s our visitor who eats and runs without saying farewell to a girl.”

It was the serving woman from the inn. In the flickering light of the torches, she almost reminded him of a drake woman, so magical did her beauty seem. She had a shawl over her shoulders that could not have served to