me.”
Stung, he smirked. “Can you think of a better reason?”
It was only after the words left his mouth that it even occurred to him that he could have responded differently, with something other than a jeer. But by then she’d already sunk back into stony silence.
He told himself it was for the best. For after all, he didn’t much care what she was feeling or why. Why should he? Keen-Eye knew, nobody, Jhesrhi included, had ever been all that interested in easing his distress.
The rain fell harder, and the sky darkened. Gaedynn judged it was around midday, but it looked like dusk. That was why he didn’t spot the guard outpost until he and Jhesrhi were nearly on top of it. That and the fact that there was no watchtower or bastion there, just a barricade of tangled brambles across the trail and a hole in one of the hillsides it ran between.
Gaedynn reined in the black mare. “Shouldn’t your damned wind have warned you we were coming up on that?”
“This is new country,” Jhesrhi said. “I’m still making friends with it. But I don’t see anyone. Maybe it’s abandoned.”
As if to mock her hope, two dwarf-sized figures with reptilian heads emerged from the opening. They were kobolds, specimens of one of the barbaric races often found in service to dragons.
Gaedynn grimaced. Had they detected the outpost in time, he and Jhesrhi could have ridden around it. But they couldn’t do that now without arousing suspicion.
Oh well. Like his companion, he’d disguised himself as a shabby drifter in search of nothing more than the chance to shoot, forage, filch, or-if absolutely necessary-earn his next meal. He expected to put the deception to the test many times before his mission was through, and he supposed this might as well be the first.
He kept one hand on the reins and raised the other to show that it was empty. Then he walked his horse forward. Jhesrhi did the same, except that she lifted both hands and guided the gelding with her knees. Show- off.
They halted their mounts in front of the barricade. For an instant Gaedynn wondered how the hunched, stunted kobolds with their oversized skulls, long lashing tails, and musky stink could simultaneously be so like and unlike the dragonborn he and his comrades had come to know over the course of the past few tendays.
“Names,” rasped the kobold on the left. Like his comrade, he wore the crossed-scepter-and-wand emblem of Kassur Jedea. Kassur was the nominal king of Threskel, although it was common knowledge he took his orders from Alasklerbanbastos just like everybody else.
“I’m Azzedar,” Gaedynn replied, “and this is Ilzza.” They were common Untheric names, and many Threskelan families descended from Untheric stock.
Two more kobolds wandered out into the rain. They must have had a sizable warren under the hill.
The black mare wasn’t a war-horse. Possession of such a valuable mount would have immediately discredited Gaedynn’s disguise. She was just a nag, and she tried to shy away from the reptiles. He drew back on the reins to steady her.
“Coming from Chessenta?” asked the kobold who’d spoken before. The glint in his narrowed eyes belied his casual tone.
“Abyss, no,” Gaedynn said. “Or mostly no. I may have done some hunting on the other side of the line, but not lately. Too many patrols. Mainly I’ve been camped just a little south of here.”
“Where are you headed?”
“My brother’s farm. His bitch of a wife wouldn’t let Ilzza and me winter there, but they’ll need help with the spring planting.”
“Well,” said the kobold, “maybe they’ll get it. If you can pay the toll.”
“Toll?” Gaedynn asked.
“Maybe you haven’t heard, wandering around in the wild, but we’re going to war. And the Bone Wyrm needs coin to fight it.”
Gaedynn was reasonably certain that no copper collected at this remote outpost would ever find its way to Alasklerbanbastos’s coffers. But from his perspective, that was hardly the point.
“I don’t have any coin,” he said.
“You’ve got horses,” the kobold answered. “True, they don’t look like much, but they’re something. How do you feel about walking the rest of the way to your brother’s place?”
“Wait.” Gaedynn rummaged in a saddlebag. “I have a little dreammist.” He pulled out a bundle wrapped in a rag and leaned down to proffer it.
The kobold slipped around the end of the barricade, opened the packet, and sniffed the few bits of brown crushed leaf inside. “You don’t have much.”
“Enough for you and your friends to have some fun,” Gaedynn said.
“Oh, take it and let them go on,” a different kobold said. “We’re getting soaked.”
“All right,” said the first kobold, evidently a sergeant or something comparable. It waved a clawed hand, and its fellows started to drag the mass of brambles aside.
“Stop,” a new voice rumbled. Less sibilant and two octaves deeper than the kobolds’ voices, it spoke Chessentan more clearly. Perhaps because it issued from a throat and mouth better shaped for human speech.
Gaedynn turned. Something more or less man-shaped, but as tall on its own two feet as he was on horseback, peered back at him from the darkness inside the burrow.
The big creature yawned. “What do we have here?”
“Nobody,” said the sergeant. “Just vagabonds.”
His superior emerged into the light and the rain. Perhaps it was a kind of kobold too. It had the same sort of claws, fangs, and greenish leathery hide. But sorcery, or conceivably mixed blood, had produced something more closely resembling one of the hulking giant-kin called ogres.
The big creature looked at the weapon clipped to Gaedynn’s saddle. “That’s a fine bow for a vagabond.”
Wishing he’d made do with an inferior one, Gaedynn inclined his head. “The one fine thing I own, sir. You wouldn’t take it, I hope. It’s what keeps the woman and me alive when times are lean.”
The leader grunted. “We’ll see.” It turned to the ordinary kobolds. “Search them. Persons and baggage both.”
If Jhesrhi knew a spell to change the creature’s mind, or to extricate herself and Gaedynn from this situation in some other way, now would be an excellent time to cast it. Before the kobolds unwrapped her staff or found the gold and silver they carried. Hoping to nudge her into action, he shot her a glance-then felt a pang of dismay.
Since they’d reached the barricade, she’d sat silently with her head bowed. She was trying to look cowed and submissive before the kobolds.
But now appearance had become reality. She was trembling.
By the Nine Hells and every flame that burned there, what was the matter with her? He’d watched her battle foes far more intimidating than kobolds and ogres without flinching.
“Get off your horses,” the kobold sergeant said.
Gaedynn wished he could drive an arrow into the reptile’s upraised snout. But an innocent traveler wouldn’t have had his bow strung, and so his wasn’t either. He yanked his sword from under the bundle intended to render it inconspicuous and cut.
The sergeant jumped back out of range. One of the other kobolds cast a javelin. It flew past the black mare’s head.
Spooked, she reared. Caught by surprise, Gaedynn tumbled from the saddle and over her rump to slam down on the ground.
Kobolds rushed him. Luckily they had to maneuver around the barricade and the frightened horse to do it, in the moment before she galloped back down the trail. It gave him time to roll to his feet and meet his first attacker with a slash that split its belly.
Javelins jabbed at him, and he knocked them out of line. Back foot splashing down in a puddle, he retreated to keep the smaller reptiles from encircling him. Then, from the corner of his eye, he glimpsed something looming on his flank. He pivoted in that direction, and the big creature’s long, brass-studded war club whizzed down at his head.
His warrior’s instincts kept him from trying to parry, lest he break his sword and perhaps his arm with it. Instead, he sidestepped and slashed the officer’s forearm. The brute snarled.
