cobbles of the gloomy keep courtyard. Too weary to be thankful, they started the trudge over to where promised ale waited.
Their wagon was backed to a dock, posts were fitted into sockets in the cobbles and the horses tethered to them, and the wagon doors were swung open. One wagon-guard trotted down from the dock to join Garfist and Iskarra, giving them a 'just watch yourselves' look as he arrived and held out his hand for a tankard.
A gang of burly, sweat-soaked men who'd obviously been heaving cargo for most of the day strode wearily forward with some of the velduke's knights, and the gray wagon's load was inspected and brought out onto the dock in an astonishingly short time. Garfist, Iskarra, and the guard carefully refrained from looking at each other as it became apparent that the men of Bowrock had found no wizard, second guard, or false front of stacked crates.
Yardryk, it seemed, was as clever as he thought he was. Thus far, at least.
The head of the guard was as cheerful as if dozens of lasses far younger and more beautiful than Iskarra had just agreed to tongue-tease him for days on end, when he strode up to them and pronounced that their arrows were, 'The best I've ever seen, and the blades aren't far behind that, either!'
Bright gold coins were counted out and bagged under the watchful noses of the two scruffy drovers and the wagon-guard, the tall stern knight clapped Garfist on the back like an old friend and pronounced trading with them 'a proper pleasure,' and they were requested to depart.
The wagon-guard took firm hold of the sacks of coins; Garfist and Iskarra, uncomfortably aware of the watchful eyes of many Bowrock guards, were forced to shrug, exchange glances, and head for the horses without dispute.
Garfist went around back to swing the wagon doors closed, and was unsurprised to find the guard's sword out and raised to menace him.
The guard remembered Iskarra in time to spin around as she slipped through the wagon from the front, but his spellguard against skaekur did him no good at all against the hairpin she kept coated with lursk. He slumped to the ground without hesitation, and Iskarra shrugged and let his head bounce. What need have cruel bastards for brains?
It took her a short, fumbling time to tie the coin-sacks together and drape them over her neck before concealing all under the crawlskin, and a little while longer to drop her breeches and empty her bladder into the guard's half-full wineskin, drop a pinch of one of her powders into it, restopper it, and shake vigorously.
By then, Garfist had searched the man for weapons and found what he'd hoped to find: a dagger engraved with a smith's mark from somewhere else in Galath. He flung the wagon doors wide again and bellowed, 'Aid! A spy from Murlstag, sent to harm Bowrock!'
Knights were swarming the wagon almost before Iskarra could get down from it and point back up at it with a trembling hand.
When they shouted questions at Garfist, he pointed with one massive hand at Iskarra. When all eyes were on her, she cried, 'Yon guard, inside; we hired him in the market outside the gates of Wrathgard. Paid him good coin, too. And just now, our lawful and honest trade here done, we're securing the ropes inside the wagon to leave, and we catch him hauling out his wineskin and saying he needs to get to a well, somewhere in this keep, before we go! When we tell him that sounds witless, he draws steel on us. So Gar here lays him out a-dreaming, but you'd best take and bind him, and that wineskin, too!'
Frowning, knights rushed up into the wagon in a thunder of boots and a flashing of swords. Iskarra and Garfist watched them, backing away slowly and casually, until heavy hands fell on both of their shoulders, and they turned their heads to find unsmiling Bowrock guards saying rather coldly, 'Our wizard would like you to give him some answers.'
'Answers?' Garfist rumbled, eyeing the ring of swordpoints that had suddenly appeared, to encircle his throat.
'To questions he's bound to want to ask,' a knight told him, indicating where they'd sat to take ale before. 'Why don't we all just sit down and-'
The ear-shattering explosion that erupted behind them just then sent the gray wagon and its unfortunate horses whirling in all directions in many pieces. One of them was large enough to behead Garfist's knight, and the blast itself heaved the cobbles underfoot and hurled Iskarra and some of the smaller guards right in under the wheels of other wagons. Garfist received a blow on the shoulder that sent him spinning like a top, so he had many brief whirlings of time in which to see a variety of spectacular fires erupt amid the other wagons in the courtyard, and watch broken men and the gore spatter across the keep walls and then start to drip back down again.
Where the wagon and all those knights had been, there was nothing, nothing but scorch marks radiating outwards from a shallow pit in the cobbles. An unseen giant had taken a great greedy bite out of the front of the loading dock, and there were cracks in the floor that hadn't been there before.
As Garfist came whirling toward her, spitting a stream of curses as he plunged, bounced, groaned, and came skidding to a stop just the other side of the wagon wheel hard by her head, Iskarra rolled over, her head ringing, and wondered if she'd ever he able to hear anything again.
It seemed the wizard Yardryk was clever enough, after all.
Rod Everlar sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, wrapped in a housecloak embroidered with dancing unicorns-dancing unicorns? In Falconfar? Oh, right, there had been a row of them on the box of the very first Holdoncorp game-and said, 'Tay? That's the last servant gone again, I think. You can come out now.'
Taeauna smiled and reached up a hand to him; Rod drew in his breath sharply in wonder. It was the hand that had been fingers of ash and bone the last time he'd looked, but now it was whole again, as perfect as if it had never swung a sword or done any rough work, let alone been crisped in magical flames.
He took hold of her offered hand and peered at it closely, running his own fingers over its unblemished softness. 'It was the gewgaw, wasn't it? You reached for it, and it burned you?'
'Hush,' the Aumrarr murmured. 'Be careful. We must speak as if a servant stands over us always, listening to what we say and writing it down. Come to bed.'
Rod raised his eyebrows in such stunned astonishment that Taeauna giggled, and put the bed-furs to her mouth hastily to muffle her mirth. Then she lowered them enough to say in mock indignation, 'By the Flying Falcon, do men think of nothing else? Really!'
At least, Rod hoped it was mock indignation.
Pointedly keeping the cloak on and wrapped around him, Rod slid in under the furs beside her, muttering, 'Your lord obeys your command. So what am I supposed to be thinking about?'
In response, Taeauna ducked down under the furs, crooking her head in a clear signal for him to join her. When they were both entirely under the covers, she threw an arm over him, pulled herself close against him, and whispered, 'Move about a little, and moan, as if we're… you know.'
'What is this, method acting?'
Taeauna gave him a puzzled frown, and Rod shrugged and tried an amorous moan. The result left her fighting not to giggle again, a struggle she promptly abandoned.
'Tay,' Rod murmured patiently, 'I love being in bed with you, even if, you know, nothing happens, but like any other guy, I find the teasing gets a little wearing. What is this?'
Her face went serious in an instant, and she nodded. 'Lord,' Taeauna whispered, 'this is the best way for us to talk together frankly, just now. The way you found me, the 'gewgaw,' as you call it; you should know what it does before anything else happens.'
Rod moved his arm over her, growled as if in passion, and whispered into her armpit, 'So tell me.'
Taeauna firmly pushed his head away. 'That tickles. Know then, lord, that I awakened before you, and sought the chamberpot. You were then- forgive me-flat on your back and snoring.'
'Nothing to forgive,' Rod said, carefully rolling over atop her but keeping his weight on his arms and off of her. Under him, Taeauna deftly rolled onto her front..'Say on.'
'The usual glow in the air, and that… that thing appeared, above your chest, about the length of my leg-and
'And things didn't go well.'
