hand and raised the other above her head. Necrotic energy blackened her fingers. Mareyn ducked the brigand’s sword slash, leaving Ilvani an open path. The witch released the blackfire. The dark energy hit the brigand in the face and blasted him off the back of the wagon. Two other brigands fighting nearby saw the blackfire and ran.
“Tymora’s kiss!” Mareyn saluted Ilvani with her sword. “This has been a fine day so far!” The Martuck boy whimpered and put his head behind a barrel.
“Oh, that’s not fair!” Skagi cried. He pushed through the group of human guards who pursued the brigands. “She does one spell, and everyone’s in awe and fleeing in fear. You always steal the glory, witch.”
Cree laughed. “Come on, Brother. Run with me, and maybe we’ll catch a few alive. Tuva and Vlahna will be pleased if we get a pair to interrogate.”
The sound of hoofbeats made them all turn. Bright-eyed and bloodied, Ashok rode over to them on his horse. Ilvani saw the way the nightmare stiffened when he got near her, the way his eyes darkened with malice.
He smells it on me, Ilvani thought. The dead woman’s scent, the storm. The spirits reach through me and stroke everything with a corrupt touch. Why couldn’t they have come sooner, when she’d needed their foul influence?
“The riders that kept on their horses are fleeing,” Ashok said. “Is everyone all right here?” His gaze found each of them but rested last and longest on Ilvani. “I saw your spell,” he said.
“We all did,” Skagi grumbled.
“It’s been a good day.” Ilvani found herself tentatively echoing Mareyn’s words.
“That’s not all-oh, come on, you heard what they said. The brigands are fleeing.” Mareyn dragged Les out of the wagon and got him on his feet. She smiled warmly at Ilvani. “This one shared the kiss with me.”
Skagi raised an eyebrow, but Ilvani just looked at her. The nightmare blew a short breath that to Ilvani smelled like smoke. She wondered if any of the humans could sense the wrongness of the stallion.
Mareyn laughed. “Not an actual kiss-I meant Tymora’s favor. It’s no coincidence that we toppled into your wagon. Tymora meant for us to bring good fortune to each other, and it started just now when we fought the brigands. I believe the Lady is always looking for such pairings, opportunities to throw folk into one another’s path and see what happens. What folk choose to do with these ‘chance’ meetings is up to them, but I believe they come out the better for it.” She held out a hand to Ilvani. “What do you say? Are we bound together in luck, for as long as we walk the same road?”
Ilvani looked at the woman’s outstretched hand. If she touched it, the spirits might crawl out of her skin and infect Mareyn, or the woman’s hand might become a snake. She could never trust what might happen when flesh touched flesh.
“Don’t tie your fortune to mine,” Ilvani said quietly. “You’ll regret it, if you do.”
She turned and got down out of the wagon while Mareyn’s hand still hung in the air between them. She didn’t wait to see the disappointment, the confusion seep into the woman’s eyes. There was nothing Ilvani could do about that. Too many eyes watched her, too many hands tried to touch her. Even Ashok. Especially Ashok. She could feel his gaze follow her all the way down to the river.
Ashok watched Ilvani walk away from the group. She kneeled by the water’s edge and drank. When she’d finished, she stayed where she was, her back to them.
The brigands were gone-Skagi and Cree had gone with Vlahna to try to round up stragglers, but Ashok had a feeling they wouldn’t catch any alive. This group had been well organized and prepared to accept heavy losses in order to get the caravan’s cargo. Still, they’d managed to fend them off with minimal loss of life.
Mareyn introduced the boy, Les, to him before the young one went running off to find his parents. Now the pair of them stood alone together. Ashok tried to wipe some of the dry encrusted blood off his body, but he knew he’d have to bathe in the river to remove most of it. Mareyn went to one of the fallen caravan guards and checked for signs of life. She shook her head and murmured a prayer to Tymora.
“Was he a companion of yours?” Ashok asked.
She shook her head. “He was one of Tatigan’s guards.” She looked around at the chaotic scene. “I’m surprised Daruk didn’t show up for this battle. We could have used him.”
“The bard?” Ashok said. He tried to picture someone like Darnae playing a lute in the middle of the bloody scene. The picture didn’t fit in his mind.
“Your witch is a strange one,” Mareyn continued, dismissing the subject of Daruk as quickly as she’d brought it up. “I’ve never met anyone who refused the kiss like that.”
“You shouldn’t be offended,” Ashok said. He rolled over the dead body of a brigand and searched for pouches or symbols, something to suggest where he might have come from. Of course, he found nothing. “Ilvani’s not easily drawn out of her own mind.”
“Oh, I wasn’t offended,” Mareyn said, “and I won’t stop trying-to draw her out, I mean. I still think there’s a purpose to our meeting. She’s different-I can tell. Even among shadar-kai, she’s been hurt more than most, hasn’t she?”
“More than anyone knows,” Ashok said.
“Then she needs Tymora’s aid more than I thought,” Mareyn said. She checked another dead brigand but came up with nothing.
“She already has the favor of Tempus,” Ashok said, “whatever that’s worth.”
“It’s a tricky thing, the gods’ favor,” Mareyn agreed. She wiped her blade on the grass before sheathing it. “They often know our needs better than we do, though we don’t always realize it.”
“If that’s true, Tempus owes Ilvani more than He can ever make up for,” Ashok said. “Her needs have gone unheeded far too long.”
“I’m sorry to hear that-” Mareyn stopped and picked up what looked like a hand whistle from the ground next to one of the brigands. “What have we here? A lucky find?” She grinned at Ashok.
Ashok took the whistle and put it to his lips. He blew a shallow breath and got a high-pitched warbling sound from the whistle. “A fake bird call,” he said. “That’s how they signaled the attack.”
“Who signaled?” Mareyn said. “We scouted the surrounding area all night. Nobody got close enough to see the camp.”
“And yet, as soon as Skagi, Cree, and I left the camp to hunt-reducing the caravan’s numbers-the call went out,” Ashok said. “That’s what scared the deer. They’ve heard it before and know it means violence.”
Mareyn cursed. “So we’ve got a traitor tagging along with us on this trip.”
“Show this to Tuva,” Ashok told her, “but no one else. If the traitor’s not dead or escaped with the brigands, he’s still here. We have a better chance of catching him if he doesn’t know he’s been found out.”
“A good plan, but what if the traitor is you or me?” Mareyn said, cocking an eyebrow.
“Then Tymora’s luck isn’t working very well for one of us,” Ashok said. “We’ll find the traitor-it’s only a matter of time.”
Once they’d tended the wounded, buried the dead, and got the caravan back in order and ready to move on, they’d lost half the morning. Dim sunlight penetrated the restless clouds, and the ground was still wet, but Tuva and Vlahna pushed them at a merciless pace to make up for all the lost time. The normally serene Tatigan wore a black look and snapped at anyone who tried to speak to him.
Tuva must have told him about the traitor. It did nothing for Tatigan’s pride in his new trading venture to have it undermined from within after only a day on the road.
Strangely, however, most of Tatigan’s anger seemed directed at the bard, Daruk, who rode in the same wagon with the merchant. They argued in low voices for more than an hour, until finally Tatigan’s temper erupted for the entire caravan to hear.
“You’re not a minstrel singing for his keep at the village inn,” Tatigan cried.
“You’re right,” Daruk said, his smooth voice rising to match Tatigan’s ire. “I’m much more than that. I don’t rise to meet the challenge of dirt road brigands. It’s beneath me.”
“Beneath you!” Tatigan’s face reddened. “You think you’re putting on a show for-”
“Aren’t I?” Daruk said. “This is my work. I perform on a stage-it might be blood-soaked, but it’s my arena. I decide when I go on and off again. That was our agreement.”
“Gods save me from your tragic romanticism,” Tatigan said irritably. He lowered his voice, but Ashok still heard. “We lost four good men and women today, and many more were hurt.”
