Tennetty snorted. "Bet your f.u.c.king a.s.s you are." She gestured at the beast. "What was that?"

The wizard shook his head. "I do not know. Traders have brought rumors of strange things coming out of Faerie. The Warrior spoke ofa""

"The Warrior?" Jason asked. "He was here?"

"Two tendays ago," the wizard said.

"Describe him," Tennetty hissed.

The wizard shook his head. "I only saw him for a moment, outlined against the flames of the burning shack of the slaver, Nosinan. A big man; I can say no more. He told me to be gone, that this was a matter between him and the guild.

"He left a message, and then he vanished." The wizard spread his hands. "I never saw his boat, nor his companions. But they were here; and now they are not."

"The message," Tennetty said, taking a step toward the wizard, then stopping herself. "He left a message for us?"

"Not for you. For the slavers. He shouted at me, 'Tell them,' he said, 'tell them that the warrior lives, and tell them I am coming for them.' Then he shouted at his companions to meet him and the boat, and gave the body of Nosinan a final kick . . . and then he was gone."

Several of the villagers nodded in unison; one of them, a thin pock-faced man with deep-set eyes, spoke up. "It's just as Dava Natye said. It's just as we told Laheran, of the guild."

CHAPTER 20.

Comfort.

Be cheerful while you are alive.

a"Ptahhotep.

Grab what comfort you can, however you can, whenever you can. The ride gets real rocky 'way too often.

a"Walter Slovotsky.

Bren Adahan had decided that Jason and Tennetty, still recovering from the shock of their wounds and the healing, needed a good night's rest. Jason wasn't in the mood to protest.

So they spent the night ash.o.r.e, explaining to the villagers that it would not be a good idea if anybody from the village came up on them at night. They camped out on the gra.s.sy fringe just above the rocks, in clear view of the Gazelle, where it floated at anchor. The others preferred to sleep under the stars, but Bren Adahan and Jason each pitched a small raider tent.

Jason was asleep when something touched his foot. He woke suddenly, reaching for his pistol.

"Easy, Jason," Jane Slovotsky's voice whispered from the mouth of the tent. She tapped him on the foot again. "You were crying out in your sleep."

There was a bitter taste in his mouth, and his head felt as if someone was regularly jabbing a dull icepick into the back of his head. He brought himself up to his elbows.

"It must have been a dream," he said. But the dream was gone now. Something about wading through knee-deep rivers of boiling blood, holding a crying baby girl over his head. It had been distinct, sharp as the edge of a knife . . . but now it was gone.

He wiped sweat from his forehead and stretched, his blankets damp and musty around him. "Thanks for waking me." Her outline was vague in the dark, and then it was gone. She was gone.

His mouth still tasted sour as he checked his weapons. There was no waterskin near his head; he'd forgotten to put one nearby. As far as he knew, Tennetty had the only bottle of Riccetti's Best on the island. He needed a drink of something, and his bladder was full, tight as a drum.

He didn't like waking Tennetty. Not only did she need her rest, but she always came awake armed. Two or three times the Gazelle had taken an unexpected pitch or roll and he'd found himself b.u.mped up against Tennetty, the slim woman coming awake wide-eyed, a knife in her hand.

He had slept in his jeans, but unbuckled the waist for comfort; he b.u.t.toned himself up, slung his holster over his shoulder, then crawled out and stood up in the night.

Tennetty was asleep a few yards to his left and Jane had returned to her blankets and sleeping canvas, to his right.

Tireless Durine was on watch, sitting on a rock down by the water. The big man raised his hand in greeting.

Bren Adahan's tent was a stone's throw from Jason's, and beyond that was the forest; Jason took the traditional twenty steps beyond the farthest sleeper and urinated against the nearest tree. He b.u.t.toned his fly and walked back toward the camp.

Beyond the charred bones of the waterfront buildings, beyond where gentle waves stroked the sh.o.r.e, the Gazelle stood at anchor, supported by a sea that seemed built more of reflected starlight and faerie light than of water. It caught the twinkle of the million points of light overhead, and mixed it with the pulsations of the distant faerie lights.

There were light footsteps behind hima"bare soles on dirt.

Jane Slovotsky cleared her throat. She stood there in the dark, wearing loose drawstring pants and a shirt, holding a pair of clay bottles. "Pretty, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"Which do you want? Whiskey, water?"

"Both," he said, accepting the whiskey bottle first.

"You're not exactly your father," she said. "He wouldn't have let me sneak up behind him."

"I heard you."

"Sure."

He uncorked the bottle and took a swig. Lou Riccetti's corn whiskey might not have been as important a development as guns and gunpowder, but it had its points. Still tasted like horse p.i.s.s, though.

"Easy on that," she said. "You had a bit of a shock today. Don't push yourself."

His first reaction was to bristle, to tell her that he was capable of judging how much he should drink and that it was none of her d.a.m.n business . . . but she was right.

"Good point," he said. He exchanged bottles with her, and she took a quick swallow before recorking the whiskey.

A cold wind blew out of the west, but her smile was warm in the darkness.

The water was cold and fresh. It tasted good, particularly clean and bright tonight. Valeran had once said something about the value of almost getting killed: it did tend to sharpen the senses.

He handed her the water bottle. "Thanks."

"Mind if I ask a question?" she said as he started to turn away.

He shrugged. "Go ahead."

"Why haven't you made a pa.s.s at me?" There was a curious lilt in her voice, a note he hadn't heard before. "Is it me, or is it you, or is it some combination?"

"Has every man you've ever known tried to get you to sleep with him?"

She smiled. "Almost. Since I turned fourteen."

He looked down the slope toward the others, and she nodded.

"Sure. All three of them. Durine was kind of cute about it. Bren's being kind of a nuisance."

He shook his head, once. "Bren Adahan says he wants to marry my sister," he said coldly. "I'm not sure I like that."

"No harm done." She snorted. "I said no. Besides, I didn't know that it fits in only one," she said. "Yours shaped like a key?"

There wasn't anything to say to that, but he did anyway: "Do you have to talk like that?"

"I don't know." She shrugged. "Runs in the family. A lot runs in my family. . . . Did you ever ask yourself why my father sent you after me?"

"Because he wanted you and your mother and your sister to relocate to Biemestren," he said.

She snorted. "You do need a keeper. Didn't it occur to you that he thought that the two of us might pair off? Or don't you have all the parts?"

"No." It hadn't occurred to him. He swallowed. Why was she bringing this up? Just to make him uncomfortable. It should have occurred to him, though. Back in Biemestren, around court, there had been constant subtle pressure from most of the barons to pair him off with a baronial daughter. Any baron who had a daughter had no difficulty seeing her as the next empress. Why should Walter Slovotsky be all that different?

"Oh, that's too bad," she said half-mockingly. "You don't have all the parts, eh?"

"You know what I meant."

"Yes, I do."

He didn't remember her putting down the bottles, or moving closer to him, but suddenly she was in his arms, her hands locked behind his back, her mouth warm on his.

After a while she let go of him, moved a few inches away. "About time, Cullinane."

Durine had been watching the whole thing casually from his place by the water. Jason wasn't sure, but he thought he saw Durine smile before he turned away.

"He knows," Jason said.

She shrugged. "So what? Doesn't your tent have enough room for two?"

"Y-yes," he said, biting his lip in frustration at the way his voice shook for a moment. He was the man, d.a.m.n it; he was supposed to be smooth and sophisticated. "But, why?"

"Didn't your father ever tell you not to look a gift horse in the mouth?" She laughed quietly, then kissed him gently on the lips when he frowned. "No, no. I'm not laughing at you. It's because, like, you're irresistible, maybe?"

"Try again." His smile didn't feel entirely genuine. Maybe Jane Slovotsky saw herself as an empress at court, too, eh?

"Who knows?" As though she was reading his mind, she nodded. "It won't bother me that from the morning on, it'll get easier to keep Bren's hand off my a.s.s. That's getting real tiresome. But mainly it's because of my father."

"Your father?"

"Something he said. Something about what almost getting killed does. Or doesn't it make you h.o.r.n.y, too?"

CHAPTER 21.

To Salket.

The logic of the heart is absurd.

a"Julie de Lespina.s.se.

Lying, like eating, can be overdone.

a"Walter Slovotsky.

Klimos to Geverat, and they hadn't been there, but maybe on Menelet? No, no, the raid on Menelet was tendays ago. It was Klimos. The three of them, the dozen of them, the hundreds of them, had struck on Klimos, burned everything to the ground.

And did you see that thing fly by last tenday? I don't know if it was a dragon, but you wouldn't have any essence of dragonbane to sell, would you?

Geverat to Heshtos, and Jane thought that might be it, so they fired off a signal rocket that night and lay anch.o.r.ed offsh.o.r.e for a night and a day, supposedly rerigging the mast.

A boat came out to investigate, but it was only some local fishermen: Did you see those strange faerie lights last night? And have you heard about the Warrior? He could be anywherea"I hear the slavers are p.i.s.sing down their legs any time they hear a loud fart.

They went ash.o.r.e, but there was nothing but rumors.

Jane Slovotsky knelt by the map. "Salket," she decided, tapping the parchment, then resting her hand on Jason's leg. "It feels right." Her hand was warmer than it had any right to be.

"Two days," Bothan Ver said, hauling in the mainsheet, nail-bitten fingers directing the rope precisely, delicately, like a puppeteer pulling on the strings of his marionette. "Perhaps."

"If the wind holds," Thivar Anjer added, leaning on the tiller, squinting at the distant horizon. "Which it might."

"We'll find him there," Tennetty said, stropping her bowie against a whetstone. "And maybe only one or two of us will die."

"Everybody dies," Kethol said quietly. "Some of us a little piece at a time."

"It's your play, Jason," Durine said. "You're the Heir."