vessels to contain the power I hope to give you. I can only tell you that he who summoned me cast spells to increase the likelihood of our success.'
'Who are you talking about?'
'I'm forbidden to say. Someone who wants to help you avenge yourself. Does anything else truly matter?'
Mari frowned. 'It may. I'm willing to risk my life. As a warrior, I did it more times than I can remember, but if I change into something like you, will I still be the same person inside? Will I keep my soul?'
The blood fiend shrugged. The gesture looked peculiar with four arms performing it. 'I can't say. I'm a hunter, not a scholar of such esoterica, but ask yourself if this spark you mortals prize so highly is truly of any use to you. Does it make your punishments and humiliations any less excruciating? If not, what good is it compared to a chance for retribution?'
Maybe he was right, and even if not, it abruptly came to her that in all probability, he was going to transform her whether she consented or not. Ultimately, he was as much a slave as she was and had no choice but to carry out his master's commands. He was offering her the opportunity to agree because… she wasn't sure why. It seemed preposterous to imagine that such a being could like her or consider her a kindred spirit, but perhaps her initial defiance had elicited a measure of respect.
If so, she was glad to have it. It had been a long while since anyone, even the servant who brought her meals, had shown her anything but contempt. She didn't want to forfeit that regard by showing fear, by obliging him to treat her as victim and pawn instead of accomplice, and perhaps that was what ultimately tipped the balance in her mind.
'Yes,' she said. 'Make me strong again.'
Tsagoth grinned. 'You were never truly strong, human, but you will be.' He clawed a gash into the palm of his lower left hand and held it out to her. 'Drink.'
His blood was like fire in her mouth, but she forced herself to suck and lap it anyway.
Bareris wasn't sure if he was a guest or a prisoner of the gnolls, and at first he was nearly too sick to care. So-Kehur's curse of weakness was to blame. Ordinarily such afflictions passed quickly, but the effects of arcane magic, partaking as it did of primordial chaos, were never entirely predictable, and maybe some lingering vestige of the illness from which Bareris had only recently recovered rendered him particularly susceptible. In any event, it had taken him well into the next day to start feeling any stronger at all.
Thus, when, guards shouting and cracking their whips, the caravan resumed its trek, he'd had no choice but to simply lie and watch, not that he could have prevented it in any case. Lie and watch as Tammith's captors marched her away into the gathering darkness.
Once the procession vanished, the gnoll who'd dragged him back into the low place in the earth, thus hiding him from the Red Wizards and their minions, rose, hoisted him onto its back, and headed north. A head taller than even a lanky Mulan, the creature with its hyenalike head, coarse mane, and rank-smelling spotted fur manifestly possessed remarkable strength and stamina, for its long stride ate up the miles without flagging, until it reached the rude camp-three lean-tos and a shallow pit for a fire-it had established with several others of its kind.
Evidently they were all out hunting and foraging, for as the night wore on, they returned one or two at a time with rabbit, edible roots, and the like, which they grilled all together in an iron skillet. Bareris's rescuer-or was it captor? — insisted that he receive a share of the meal, and while some of its comrades snarled and bared their fangs, none was as big or powerful-looking, and their display of displeasure stopped short of actual resistance.
When the sun rose, they mostly lay down to sleep, though one stood watch. When Bareris's strength started to trickle back, he wondered if he could take the sentry by surprise, kill it or club it unconscious, and flee while the other gnolls slumbered on oblivious.
If so, it might be prudent to try. Gnolls had a savage reputation, and it was by no means ridiculous to conjecture that eventually the hyenafolk meant to fry some bard meat in their skillet.
Yet he was reluctant to strike out at anyone who, thus far at least, had done him more good than harm, and his lingering weakness, coupled with his frustration over his failure to liberate Tammith, nurtured a bleak passivity. He simply lay and rested until sunset, when the sleeping gnolls began to rouse.
The big one walked over and peered down at him. 'You better,' he said. As his form was half man and half hyena, so was his speech half voice and half growl. If he hadn't possessed the trained ear of a bard, Bareris doubted he would have understood.
'I am better,' he agreed, rising. 'The curse is finally fading. My name is Bareris Anskuld.'
The gnoll slapped his chest. 'Wesk Backbreaker, me.'
'Thank you for hiding me from my enemies.'
'Hide easy. Sneak around humans and stinking blood orcs all the time. They never see.' Wesk laughed, and though it sounded different, sharper and more bestial than human laughter, Bareris heard the bitterness in it. 'Or else they kill. Not enough gnolls to fight them. Not enough singer, either. Crazy to bother them like you did.'
Bareris sighed. 'Probably.'
'But brave. And fight good. Like gnoll.'
'That's high praise. I've seen your people fight.' No need to mention that he'd witnessed it during his wanderings and had been fighting on the opposing side. 'Was that the reason you rescued me?'
'Help you because you chop fingers of Red Wizard.'
'Did he wrong you somehow?'
Wesk snorted. 'Not just that one. All Red Wizards. Gnoll clan fight in legion. Wesk's father. Father's father. Always. Until Red Wizards say, no more war. Trade now. Then they make blood orcs and say blood orcs better than gnolls.'
Bareris thought he understood: 'To save coin, someone decided to reduce the size of the army, and you and your clan brothers were discharged.'
'Yes. Just hunters now. Robbers when we can. Not fair!'
'On the ride north, I heard that Thay's at war with Rashemen again. The legions of Gauros and Surthay are looking for recruits.'
'Recruits?' Wesk snarled. 'Crawl back to take orders from blood orcs? No!'
'I understand. It's a matter of pride.' A mad thought came to him. 'If you won't serve a tharchion, what about working for me?'
Wesk cocked his head. 'You?'
'Why not? I can pay.' In theory, anyway. In fact, most of his wealth was in his sword belt and purse, which the gnolls had already confiscated, but he'd worry about that detail when the time came.
'To kill Red Wizards? Want to, but no. Told you, gnolls too few.'
'I understand we can't wage all-out war on them, but we can make fools of them, and maybe it will involve bleeding an orc or two along the way.'
Wesk grunted. 'Everyone needs to hear, but some not talk your talk. I… ' He hesitated, evidently groping for the proper word.
'Translate? No need.' Bareris sang softly, and the growling, yipping conversations of the other gnolls abruptly became intelligible to him. While the enchantment lasted, he would likewise be able to speak to them in their own language.
The impromptu assembly convened around the ashes of last night's cook fire, and Bareris found that the unwashed-dog smell of gnoll was markedly worse when several of the creatures gathered together. Some of the hyenafolk glared at him with overt scorn and hostility, some seemed merely curious, but with the possible exception of Wesk, none appeared cordial or sympathetic.
But a bard had the power to make good will flower where none had existed before, and as he introduced himself and spun his tale, he infused his voice with subtle magic to accomplish that very purpose.
Yet even so, he wondered if a story of a loved one in peril could possibly move them. If gnolls were even capable of love, they'd never, so far as he knew, permitted a member of another race to glimpse any evidence of it. On the other hand, they were tribal by nature. That suggested something approximating a capacity for affection, didn't it?
In the end, perhaps the person he moved the most was himself. Spinning the story made everything he'd experienced acutely, painfully real, and when he told of seeing and touching Tammith only to lose her again
