clamped down on the feelings that were trying to flower inside her and squeezed them until there was nothing left.
As she attended to that, voices echoed up ahead. Steel rang on steel.
Jhesrhi and her companions entered a spacious, high-ceilinged chamber, lit and warmed by a crackling hearth at either end and filled with a miscellany of folk. There were almond-eyed Shou clad in flowing silk garments and armed with oddly curved blades and halberds. Others, dark-haired, ruddy-skinned humans and slender half-elves, wore the trappings of Aglarond s griffonriders, including winged pewter brooches, and dangling straps that would buckle to their saddles. In contrast to the other groups uniformity, Bez s sellswords sported whatever clothing, armor, and weapons suited them, although each displayed the red and yellow of the skyship s flag somewhere about their persons. The stocky Rashemi seemed poorly equipped compared to the rest, with only boiled leather vests for armor, but they had plenty of spears, axes, war hammers, and even a fair number of swords.
The clanging came from two fellows practicing cuts and parries using live blades. Swordsmen with more bravado than sense, thought Jhesrhi. Bone dice clattered, and an empty bottle crashed against the wall. A circle of listeners groaned and jeered at the end of a joke or story, and a couple of men even lay snoring on the floor.
Jhesrhi knew little about Rashemen and even less about Thesk. Yet despite the exotic armor, weapons, and styles of clothing on display, and the oddly accented speech that filled her ears, the scene seemed familiar enough to make her feel at home. During her years as a mercenary, she d often watched soldiers-at-arms lounging around trying to fend off boredom while they were waiting to fight, march, or perform some other task.
By the looks of it, some folk had been stuck in the keep long enough for a degree of friendly feeling to develop among the groups. One of the fencers was a Shou, and the other, a sellsword. Other mercenaries were gambling with griffonriders. Only the Rashemi appeared to be keeping wholly to themselves while glowering from the quadrant they d claimed as their own.
By the Black Flame, said Aoth, his tone disgusted.
Wait here, the escort said. I ll ask the Iron Lord if he ll see you. He headed for a door in the far wall that had its own rather bored-looking sentry.
Fezim! called a jovial bass voice. Jhesrhi turned to see Mario Bez rising from the circle of dice players squatting on the floor.
Bez was a strapping middle-aged man who would have been handsome if not for a bumpy beak of a nose. He wore his long graying hair tied back in a ponytail. The rapier and dagger hanging on his hips had arcane sigils both incised in the pommels and guards, and running down the scabbards. Jhesrhi suspected that, like Aoth s spear, they served both as weapons of the mundane sort and mystical foci.
It s grand to see you, said Bez, strutting closer. Although it s sad that you re still as greedy as when we squabbled over loot down in Turmish.
Meaning? Aoth replied.
You already have griffons of your own, yet you ve come to steal this flock? No, that can t be the proper term. This pride away from me, said Bez,
And not content with the company of one beauty, you arrive with two. Ladies. He reached for Jhesrhi s hand, leering. To bow over it and kiss it, she surmised.
She allowed the fire inside her to leap out and set her hand ablaze. Bez snatched his fingers back.
Sorry, she said, without bothering to try to sound like she meant it. I m just not fond of being touched.
But I am, Cera purred, proffering her own hand, and sure enough, the sellsword gave it a kiss that lingered a heartbeat longer than necessary. She gave Aoth an impish grin over the top of the other mercenary s head, and he grunted in return.
All right, said Aoth once Bez had straightened up. Let s talk business. I need new griffons, and my men and I know how to train them. You have a skyship, and I suspect you don t know how to break a griffon to the saddle, or even how to care for one or ride one.
I can learn, Bez answered. Would you and the ladies like some firewine? Rashemen is where it comes from, and one thing I ve learned during my stay is that the locals hold the best of it back for themselves. He waved the newcomers toward a table with bottles and cups on top of it.
Aoth picked up an open bottle, filled pewter goblets with the dark red wine, and handed them to Cera and Jhesrhi. But why undertake such a complicated enterprise? he asked. Why empty your coffers paying what s bound to be a high price, given the number of bidders? How about if I pay you to climb back aboard the Storm and fly away?
The sellsword shook his head. Sorry, can t do it, he said. You know that my crew and I comprise one of the Five Companies of Yaulazna?
Yes, replied Aoth. Yaulazna was an earthmote, an island in the sky, afloat over the Great Sea far to the south. Five sellsword bands, each possessed of a skyship, shared it as their base of operations.
Well, said Bez. It seems to me that the Five Companies could improve their fortunes by merging into one under the command of their ablest captain.
And your thought, Cera said, is that a company of griffonriders will help prove you are that captain.
Bez smiled. I might have expected a sunlady to prove as insightful as she is lovely, he replied.
Not bothering with a cup, Aoth swigged from the neck of the bottle in his hand. All right, he said. If I can t bribe you to go away, how about any of these others? Have you tried?
No, replied Bez. Because as it turns out, all of us who traveled so long and so hard through the winter cold to get here were laboring under a misconception. This affair isn t a simple matter of bidding and dickering.
Then what is it? asked Aoth.
It s a sacred matter, a new voice growled.
Surprised, Jhesrhi turned, tensing. Sensitive to anyone approaching too near, she generally felt it when someone came up behind her. But the room was so boisterous and crowded that she d missed it that time.
The voice belonged to a Rashemi warrior, half a head taller than many of his comrades, with a square, clenched jaw and glaring brown eyes. He was wearing some sort of multicolored beadwork regalia, every piece of it sporting a griffon motif. Rearing processions of the beasts ran around his headband and armbands, while one big one leaped from the mountain scene on the front of his vest.
Jhesrhi wondered why he looked so angry.
This is Vandar Cherlinka, said Bez. I expect you ll meet any number of hospitable Rashemi during your stay. He s not one of them.
Vandar scowled at the gibe, and Jhesrhi thought she knew why it had hit the mark. As she understood it, the Rashemi held hospitality sacrosanct.
And what is your story? asked Aoth, addressing himself to the newcomer.
Perhaps surprised by the other man s mild, reasonable tone, Vandar blinked. But the Rashemi s voice remained as gruff as before. The griffons are a miracle of the Three, he said. Never in memory have they bred in such numbers. I lead the Griffon Lodge, and I helped bring the beasts down from the mountains. Nothing could be plainer than that the spirits mean for my brothers and me to ride them in Rashemen s defense. They surely don t intend for the Iron Lord to barter them away to outlanders for mere coin. Especially for filthy Bane-worshipping Thayans to turn against us!
Aoth snorted. You think I m Szass Tam s emissary? he asked. How would that work, exactly, at a court where any such agent could only expect to be killed on sight? It s true, I was born in Thay, but I renounced that allegiance a long time ago, and the lich would have me tortured and killed if I ever fell into his hands. Now, if the spirits are supposed to decide who gets the griffons, how s that going to happen?
What it really means, said Bez, is that the hathrans will decide whose offer to accept. The Iron Lord is just their intermediary in the matter. Rumor has it that they re waiting for a sign.
I assume, said Aoth to Vandar, that the Wychlaran have their own seat of power somewhere in town.
The Rashemi s eyes narrowed. Yes. The Witches Hall, he replied.
Then I don t know why all of you are loitering here when you could be making pests of yourselves there instead, said Aoth. Cera, Jhes, drink up, and we ll pay them a call.
Bez laughed. They won t see you, he said.
They ll only mark you down as impudent and impious.
Aoth grinned. Maybe they wouldn t see you, he retorted, but I had the foresight to bring a female priestess and a wizard to Immilmar along with me. We ll improvise some masks for them if we have to.
