Under the Crimson Sun

was the same as Karalith’s: the sea green eyes.

Another non-elf trait was that Komir had shaved his head. The sweat got to him, he said, and he found it easier to survive under Athas’s crimson sun without any hair in the way. It was a pity, as his hair was thick, lustrous, and shining-but Karalith knew the value of practicality. And the round, bald head gave her brother a rugged look that sometimes aided in the game.

“Yes,” she said in response to her brother’s query. “I set aside the two hundred for Gash, and Tricht’tha and Feena are taking the five hundred to Lyd now.”

“Excellent. Lyd doesn’t deserve to have that sandscraper blacklisting her.”

Karalith nodded. Lyd hadn’t even been able to get a table at this season’s bazaar because Belrik had soiled her reputation. Nobody in Raam would buy her wares anymore, all because he misunderstood the description of her burlap, confusing it with her raw silk supply.

“That five hundred,” Komir continued, “should be enough to get her to some other city where Belrik’s good name won’t sully hers.”

Grinning, Karalith said, “I don’t think Belrik’s name will be all that good after he digs around the wastes for months looking for a treasure that isn’t there.”

“You don’t feel sorry for the little bastard, do you, Lith?”

Karalith glared at her brother. “I’m not even going to dignify that with a response, Ko. You said it best-he’s a sandscraper. I wouldn’t let him clean my sandals.”

Komir snorted. “He wouldn’t know how. Still, I hope that Feena’s brother doesn’t take too long to get here. I’d just as soon be away from Raam as fast as possible.”

“Agreed.” She wrapped one arm around her brother’s shoulder. “So let us go sell as much as possible so we won’t ever have to come back …”

CHAPTER FOUR

Rol really, really had to pee.

There were a lot of reasons he was sorry that Fehrd was dead, but right now the one foremost in his mind-and in his bladder-was the fact that, with only two of them, the overnight shifts on guard duty were longer. This had happened on other occasions where only two of them worked a job, or one of them was injured and couldn’t pull guard duty. In fact, it happened every time: the final hour of Rol’s shift involved a lot of jumping up and down waiting for Fehrd or Gan to relieve him so he could relieve himself.

The night had been fairly quiet. The caravan had torches that were placed at the perimeter to keep some of the nocturnal creatures away. It didn’t always work if they were hungry enough, but generally they stuck with prey that wouldn’t require them to blind themselves in order to capture it.

Rol tried to distract himself by thinking about Tirana. At least, he was pretty sure that was her name. He had always had trouble remembering women’s names. Gan had expressed opinions as to what that meant, but Rol mostly ignored them. Ignoring Gan was the only way to properly tolerate being in his presence half the time.

Tirana was the daughter of the slave trader, whose charm was in inverse proportion to that of her father. Generally, people assumed slavers to be utter bastards with no redeeming social value, but in Rol’s experience, they were generally quite calm and sensible. They were businessmen, mostly, and treated their slaves precisely the way they would any other merchandise. Often that meant they were well cared for.

However, Tirana’s father, Calbit, fell into the utter-bastard stereotype. In fact, he was the first one Rol had met who did. He had-according to his daughter-a collection of fighters from all over who he’d purchased on behalf of his partner back in Urik.

Rol had always been grateful that he’d managed to avoid having to fight in the arenas. Gladiatorial fights were the most popular sport going, and Rol had seen a few from the cheap seats in arenas all over Athas. Mostly he came away from them thanking powers greater than him that he wasn’t down on the combat stage. He preferred to fight for fun or for profit. Doing it by force just took all the fun out of it.

He contemplated whether or not it was worth tempting Calbit’s wrath by waking his daughter and having some fun with her before going to sleep. Of greater concern was tempting Tirana’s wrath, as annoying her would not lead to the result he was hoping for.

At least, not that night.

Then again, he didn’t have much longer to go. They’d reach the Dragon’s Bowl fork some time the next day, and then the slavers would continue on the Great Road to Urik while the rest of them veered off to Raam. So it might well have been his only chance, if he thought about it.

Not that he was truly thinking straight, as he hopped back and forth on the shifting sands.

The best part was that she’d come to him, initially. She expressed sorrow over Fehrd’s death, for which Rol thanked her and then quickly changed the subject. Death, he felt, never really suited the mood of a conversation with a woman. So every time she tried to bring Fehrd up, he changed the subject to something that was more conducive to his endgame.

“Finally,” he bellowed when he saw Gan approach his position on the perimeter of the caravan, the torchlight combining with his eye patch to cast odd blacks onto his face. “What took you so long? My back teeth are floating.”

“You know, seriously, you can just relieve yourself while you’re on duty.”

“That’s not what I do.” Rol had a work ethic, after all, and Gan knew that. “The last thing I want is to have to take on bandits with the family jewels hanging out.”

Gan rolled his eye, which looked ridiculous with the patch. “You don’t even know your family.”

“Hardly the point, and you know it.” Rol shook his head. “Anyway, it’s been quiet. A few lizards here and there, but nothing big enough to eat, much less be a danger.”

Nodding, Gan pulled out Fehrd’s staff. Or, rather, Fehrd’s father’s staff.

Rol asked Gan the same question he’d asked when Gan had removed it from Fehrd’s corpse. “You do know how to use that thing, right?”

“Fehrd gave me lessons,” Gan said.

With a sigh, Rol said, “Fehrd gave you one lesson, three months ago.”

“I’m a quick study.”

Rol opened his mouth to argue the point-in fact, there were several points worth arguing with Gan about-but he decided not to in favor of finally emptying his bladder. “I’ll be at the slaver carriage if you need me,” Rol said. Even if Tirana-or whatever her name was-wasn’t awake nor to be awakened, he liked the idea of waking up in her carriage.

Then, recalling something he’d meant to tell Gan, but had forgotten in the mental anguish of not being able to pee, he turned and said, “By the way, I saw some dead aguardi cacti around.”

“So your comment about anakores turned out not to be a joke?” Gan asked.

“Maybe not. Keep your eye open.”

“Will do,” Gan said as Rol walked toward a sand dune. When he got over to the other side of that, he could urinate in private.

As he adjusted his breeches so he could finally relieve himself, he thought about where in the caravan he might have his liaison with the slaver’s daughter. Privacy was, after all, hard to come by in a group of three dozen travelers (and that wasn’t even counting the slaves in the stone cart).

The next sound he heard was not one he expected. His urine hitting the sand, the howl of the wind, even the flickering of the nearest of the torches-all of them hovered in the background.

But suddenly, he found himself compelled.

In some ways it reminded him of the Way-Rol and the others had done some security work for more than one wizard in their time-but this didn’t quite match how he’d felt when mages worked their mind-craft on him.