an emergency.
Whatever the reason. Lady Kalira had returned, empty-handed, a few minutes before.
Dogal and Alder had stayed close at hand throughout Sterren’s pitch; even while speaking he had watched for a chance to slip away from them, but had not seen one.
The same could not be said of Alar, Zander, and Bern, all of whom had wandered off. Zander and Bern had returned; Alar as yet, had not, nor was there any sign of Kendrik.
Sterren switched back to Ethsharitic and asked the warlock, “Would you care to join my companions and myself for dinner, and perhaps discuss the job further?”
The warlock nodded casually.
“Is there somewhere around here where we can get a decent meal,” Sterren asked. “Or should we head down to Westgate?”
“This is not my part of the city,” the warlock replied.
Sterren hesitated, then thought better of asking him any further questions, such as which part of the city was his, and why wasn’t he there. Instead, he turned to the wizard, a questioning look on his face.
Before he could speak, without a word, she pointed to a tavern on the north corner of Flood Street, where a faded signboard depicted a golden dragon.
“Good enough,” he said, as he led the way.
“Wait a minute,” Lady Kalira objected. “What about Kendrik and Alar?”
Sterren stopped. “My lady,” he said, “Kendrik deserted before we even reached the market; I last saw him among the... the...” He paused, then resorted to using the Ethsharitic word. “The brothels on...” He paused again, sighed, and said, “East Wharf Street” in Ethsharitic. Switching back to Semmat, he continued, “Alar wandered off some time ago, and I have no idea where he has gone and I don’t want to either search for him, or wait for his return.”
“But you can’t allow desertion!”
“I can’t allow myself to starve, either, or perish of thirst.”
A look at Lady Kalira’s face let him know that that was not going to be sufficient. “All right,” he said, capitulating, “Zander, you and Bern go find Kendrik and Alar. Then meet us at that inn, there.” He pointed to the Golden Dragon. “If we aren’t there, go back to the ship. It’s at the...” He stopped. He wished he knew the word for “wharf” in Semmat, but he didn’t, and besides, if these two asked for directions in Semmat, nobody would know what they were saying. “Tea Wharves” he said in Ethsharitic, then asked in Semmat, “Can you say that?”
“Why should we say it?” Zander asked.
“In case you get lost,” Sterren explained.
The concept of getting lost was not one Zander, born and raised on an open plain, thought of the same way a city boy like Sterren did, but looking at the maze of streets Zander saw the sense in it. He said, “Oh.”
“Tea Wharves,” Sterren repeated. “Try it.”
Zander struggled to wrap his tongue around the unfamiliar syllables. The resulting mess was not recognizable.
“Bern?” Sterren asked.
“Tea Wharves,” Bern said, in accented but perfectly intelligible Ethsharitic. Sterren peered at him suspiciously.
“You don’t speak Ethsharitic, do you?”
“No, my lord,” Bern replied.
“Zander, try it again. Tea Wharves.”
Zander managed to produce something almost adequate this time.
“Good enough, I suppose. Work on it while you’re hunting for your comrades.”
Zander nodded; Bern didn’t bother. Together, they turned and marched back into the market crowd.
Sterren watched them go, neither knowing nor caring whether he would ever see either of them again.
He had gotten rid of four of his seven unwanted companions, he thought; he was more than halfway to freedom!
“This way,” he said, leading the way to the Golden Dragon.
The tavern was less than half full, and they found a table readily, not far from the door. Sterren, after some consideration, decided that neither facing the door nor sitting with his back to it would be best for slipping away; he sat with his right side toward the door, his back to the open room.
Lady Kalira sat opposite him, against a wall; Alder took the chair to his right, back to the door, and Dogal to his left, facing the door. The warlock sat between Alder and Lady Kalira, the wizard between Dogal and Lady Kalira.
Sterren took the opportunity for a look at his two recruits.
Both were thin, but the wizard’s slenderness appeared to be due to borderline malnutrition, while the warlock was simply built that way. The wizard wore her hair in long black ringlets that trailed halfway down her back, and even in her present tattered and dirty condition they still showed signs of having been combed not too long ago. Her face was rather drawn, her eyes brown and anxious; if she were clean, smiling, and better-fed, Sterren thought, she would be attractive, possibly even beautiful.
She sniffled, then dabbed at her nose with a stained cuff. The warlock was clean and looked as if he was as well fed as he cared to be, but he was definitely not smiling. His lined, narrow face was fixed and expressionless, his mouth a thin line, his pale green eyes unreadable. His hair, black with the first traces of gray, was cut short, barely covering his ears. Sterren guessed him to be over forty; how much over he had no idea. He might have been handsome once, but now, Sterren thought, he was merely striking.
As soon as they were seated, even before the serving maid could reach them, the warlock said, “I notice that in an hour’s speech, you never once specified the nature of the employment you offered.”
Caught off guard, Sterren agreed, “I suppose I didn’t.”
The wizard was staring hungrily at the approaching tavern girl, and Sterren used that as an excuse to change the subject. “My lady,” he said in Semmat, “what shall we have, and at whose expense?”
“You brought us here,” Lady Kalira said, “you pay for it. You wanted dinner, we’ll have dinner. What was the man in black saying?”
“He asked a question about our offer. Wine with your meal?”
Lady Kalira nodded.
Sterren glanced at each of the remaining soldiers in turn, and each nodded. “Wine would be welcome,” Alder said.
Sterren nodded back, then switched to Ethsharitic and asked the wizard, “Would you like wine with dinner?”
The serving maid had reached the table, heard this final question, and saw the wizard’s nod.
“We have several fine vintages,” she said. Her tone made it a question.
Sterren said, in Ethsharitic, “The three barbarians wouldn’t appreciate it, and I can’t afford it, so I do hope my two guests will forgive me if we have the regular house wine and whatever you have for the house dinner tonight, rather than anything special. That’s for all six of us, unless...”
He looked questioningly at the warlock, who made a small gesture of acquiescence with one hand. The wizard said, “That would be fine.”
The tavern girl departed.
“The nature of this proposed employment?” the warlock said.
Sterren had carefully avoided being specific in his marketplace spiel, for fear of frightening off prospects, but he realized that the time for prevarication was past.
He sighed. “I’m the hereditary warlord of one of the Small Kingdoms, a little place in the far south called Semma. I didn’t want the job, but I’m stuck with it. Semma is on the verge of war with two larger neighbors, and we’re doomed. The army is absolutely pitiful and badly outnumbered. We don’t stand a chance unless we cheat. In the Small Kingdoms, at least in Semma’s neighborhood, they don’t use magic in their wars; it’s considered dishonorable or something, it’s cheating. Well, I’m ready to cheat, because otherwise I’ll be killed for losing. So I’m here looking for magicians who can help us win this war. It shouldn’t take much, since there’s so little magic there and the soldiers will never have fought against magicians before.” He looked at the warlock, hoping that he wouldn’t
