can't-we can't just leave these people here like this.' 'I don't owe them anything.' 'You freed them.' 'I came after the slavers,' the druid said, 'not to free those people. They're responsible for themselves. If they're meant to live, they'll find a way.' He stepped into the brush without hesitation or a backward look. Caught off-guard, Druz quickly went to reclaim her own kit from one of the men, who had taken it from the wagon. 'That's mine,' she said. 'I found it,' the man said, clutching the leather kit to him. Druz showed the man the sword in her fist. 'I'm not leaving here without that kit,' she stated in a calm voice. Even though she'd felt sorry for them a moment before, she also knew she'd take what was rightfully hers. She'd been in cities before that had been attacked by invading forces. Even after the invaders were routed, looting had gone on in the shops and homes that had been damaged. The citizens had taken whatever was left by the invading forces. 'Let her have the bag, Larz,' a thin woman with a bruised face said. 'I found it,' the man said. 'It's probably hers.' 'Maybe she's lying.' Angry and frustrated, Druz stripped the bag from the man's hands. She'd liked the man better when she'd believed he was a victim. Stepping back from him, she tucked the kit tinder her arm and opened it. She took a few small packages from the kit and handed them to the woman. 'Food,' Druz said. 'It's not much, but maybe it will help see you back to your homes.' 'The slavers burned our homes,' the woman said. 'They burned us out when they took us.' 'I'm sorry,' Druz said. 'What we've got here,' the woman said, 'is all we have.' 'At least you're still alive and free,' Druz said. 'Free to starve to death in this forest or to fall to one of the vicious beasts that live here,' a man muttered. 'If we don't catch our death in this rain.' 'We need someone to guide us out of here,' the woman told Druz. 'We have small children with us. Maybe we can't pay you for your services now, but there will come a time when we can.' 'No,' Druz said softly, forcing herself to be hard. 'I'm sorry. I can't.' She glanced at the forest in the direction Haarn and the large bear had gone. There was nothing to mark their passage. 'I've got to go.' 'If you leave us here, we may die,' the woman said. Druz sheathed her sword. 'Maybe you won't,' she replied. 'Head east. Alagh?n lies in that direction. Perhaps you'll encounter a merchant caravan. Stay together and you should be all right.' The ex-slaves' faces showed the doubts they had. Haunted by feelings of guilt but knowing she'd already undertaken an allegiance, Druz jogged in the direction Haarn had taken, hoping the druid had not gotten too far ahead of her and wasn't going to try to leave her behind. She didn't allow herself to look back at them because she didn't think she'd be strong enough to keep going. She knew it wasn't strength that had allowed the druid to leave the slaves. The man simply didn't care for any of the people they'd freed. The realization chilled Druz as much as the rain that soaked her clothing because, for a time, she'd tied her future to the druid's.
CHAPTER SIX
'You're sure this is the place?'
Eyes burning from only occasional restless sleep over the last three days, Cerril glanced up at Two-Fingers's hoarse, whispered question. He stood on trembling legs only from sheer force of will and a desire to survive. Leaden-gray fog rolled in from the Sea of Fallen Stars and carried a cold mist that had already dampened Cerril's hair and skin. The young thief pulled the thin blanket more tightly around his shoulders and shivered again.
Another of the small cemeteries that pockmarked Alagh?n's surrounded them. Headstones and markers, tumbled and disheveled, offered visual proof that most-if not all-of the families that had left dead there in the past had long since died out or moved away. Rampant weeds and untrimmed trees formed living walls that subdivided the land of the dead.
'Is this the place?' Two-Fingers asked again. 'Is this the cemetery you dreamed about?'
Cerril peered out at the piles of broken markers and shattered crypts. Nightmares-vibrant and bloodcurdling- had haunted what couldn't have been more than a handful of hours of sleep during the past three days.
'Perhaps,' Cerril said.
'Perhaps?' Hekkel sounded restless and angry.
Before he realized it, Cerril took a step toward the smaller boy and gripped the haft of his knife.
Hekkel stepped back, tripping over a toppled headstone and sprawling in the greasy loam that had been left from the rain earlier in the day.
'Don't touch me!' the smaller boy yelled.
Two-Fingers gripped Cerril's shoulder. 'He's not who you're here to be mad at, Cerril.' Two-Fingers spoke gently, and there was a trace of fear in his voice.
For a moment, the blanket flying around him and rage boiling inside him, Cerril considered shrugging Two- Fingers's grip off and leaping down on Hekkel, except he knew he wouldn't be satisfied until he'd cut the boy's heart from his chest. Instead, Cerril made himself turn away.
Two-Fingers drew away quickly. Wan starlight blunted by the thick cloud cover formed a dulled sheen on his round face.
'I'm sorry, Cerril,' the bigger boy mumbled.
Hekkel slowly, warily, got to his feet. 'Maybe we should forget this,' he suggested.
Drawing the sodden blanket back around him, grateful for even the small amount of warmth he drew from the cover, Cerril shook his head. His hair was so damp it stuck to his face, but that wasn't entirely due to the weather. A fever had plagued him, along with the nightmares.
'No,' Cerril said, turning to look out over the time-ravaged cemetery. Rats scurried among the stones, their red eyes gleaming in the darkness. 'We finish this tonight.'
During the course of the two previous nights, Cerril had led them through over a dozen cemeteries. They'd been chased from three of them by the city watch and by a couple of gravediggers preparing a plot for a burial the next morning.
Until the dreams had sent him into the cemeteries of Alagh?n, he hadn't known how many graveyards there were in the city. He still didn't know an exact number, but he had garnered a better sense of the city's long history from his endeavors.
Even before Turmish had become a nation, Alagh?n had existed as a trade port to the Sea of Fallen Stars. Nomadic tribes traveled from the Shining Plains to trade with seafaring merchants who stopped over during their journey to the southern lands. Even the dwarves of the Orsraun Mountains came down from their digs and cities to barter gold they'd clawed from the clutches of the earth.
As the trade port became a city, growing by leaps and bounds as successful trade ventures encouraged hew business, death followed. Besides war and robbery, plagues claimed the lives of the settlers. The Year of the Clinging Death took nearly half the populations of the entire Vilhon Reach. War with pirates and other nations followed, lasting hundreds of years. Alagh?n stood as a city despite the worst of it, but citizens fell and were buried, sometimes in mass graves. The Plague of Dragons in 1317 began in Alagh?n and spread throughout the Vilhon Reach.
The Time of Troubles had followed forty years after that, and none of Faer?n remained untouched. Gods had walked the lands, and death and destruction had followed. The building of more gravesites had followed as well.
Knowing that the other boys in the group were on the verge of deserting him, Cerril plucked Malar's coin from his belt pouch. The gold coin glinted dully under the overcast night sky.
Effortlessly sliding the gold coin on top of his thumb, Cerril sent it flipping through the air with a practiced toss. Even heavy as it was, the gold coin twisted and twinkled, making the most of the available light.
At the apex of its flight, the coin seemed to catch a brilliant streak of light. The gold burned reddish-yellow for a moment, like it had suddenly caught fire or was freshly hammered from a dwarven forge. Noticing the effect, Cerril feared for his hand as the coin plummeted. Over the last three days, he'd felt nothing but evil from the coin.
The fire died out in the coin as suddenly as it had come. It fell heavily into Cerril's palm. Even if he'd deliberately tried to miss the coin, the cursed thing would have landed in his hand. Despite trying to lose the coin over the past few days, even to the point of luring pickpockets to snatch it from him, Cerril had been unable to get rid of the thing.
Cerril gazed at the coin lying against his palm. The heavy heat of the coin weighed against his palm. Breathlessly, he curled his fingers over it.
'That was a sign,' Hekkel whispered.
