At least they had managed to escape the battle in Temple Row.
The brutality of the fighting, the sight of so many dead and wounded had completely overwhelmed Mina. She was confused by the noise, horrified by the carnage. Nightshade and Atta finally located her crouched under a bush, her eyes squinched shut, her hands over her ears to drown out the screams.
Nightshade persuaded her with some difficulty to come with him, only to nearly lose her to a black-robed, hooded priest of Chemosh, who stumbled across them by accident. Nightshade recited his rhyme for his exhaustion spell and the last he’d seen of the priest, he was lying on his back in the middle of the street taking an unexpected snooze.
Running around the back of the temple of Zeboim and cutting through an alley, they found themselves in the relative quiet of a residential area. The citizens, hearing the sounds of battle and fearing it might spill over into their neighborhood, had all barred their doors and were staying inside.
Nightshade stopped to catch his breath and get rid of a painful stitch in his side and try to figure out what to do. He decided to take Mina to the Inn and leave her in the care of Laura, then go back to find Rhys. Nightshade and Atta started off in the Inn’s direction, only to find Mina going the opposite way.
“Where are you going?” Nightshade demanded, halting.
Mina stood in the middle of the road, holding fast to the scrip with the artifacts in it. The scrip was dirty and stained, for when it grew heavy, she let it drag on the ground. Her face was covered in grime and soot, her hair was wet with sweat, her red braids starting to come undone. Her dress was splattered with blood stains.
“Godshome,” Mina replied.
“No, you’re not,” Nightshade scolded her. “You’re going back to the Inn. We have to wait for Rhys!”
“I won’t.” Mina returned. “I have to go to Godshome or the fighting will only get worse.”
Nightshade didn’t see how matters could get much worse than they already were, but he didn’t say that. Instead, he said crossly, “Then you’re going the wrong direction. Godshome is north, and you’re going west. We’re on the road to Haven.” He pointed. “That’s the road north.”
“I don’t believe you,” Mina told him. “You’re lying, trying to trick me.”
“I am not,” Nightshade returned angrily.
“Are so.”
“Am not!”
“Are so—”
“You’ve got the map,” Nightshade shouted at last. “Look for yourself.”
Mina blinked at him. “I don’t have the map.”
“You do too,” Nightshade said. “Remember? I spread it out on the rock back there near Flotsam and then you decided we were going to go for a fast walk and—”
He stopped talking. Mina was biting her lip and digging the toe of her shoe into the dirt.
“You didn’t!” he said, groaning.
“Shut up,” she said, glowering.
“You left my map back there! Way back there! Halfway around the world back there!”
“I didn’t leave it there. You did. It was your fault!” she flared.
Nightshade was so taken aback by this accusation that he was reduced to spluttering.
“You were supposed to pick up the map and bring it with us,” Mina continued. “The map was your responsibility because it was your map. Now I don’t know which road to take.”
Nightshade looked to Atta for help, but the dog had flopped onto her belly in the dirt and lay there with her chin between her paws. When Nightshade calmed down enough to speak without spitting all over himself, he stated his case.
“I would have taken the map, but you ran away with me so fast I didn’t have a chance.”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” Mina said petulantly. “You lost the map so what are you going to do about it?”
“I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. You’re going back to the Inn and I’m going to find Rhys and then we’re all going to have a good dinner. After all, it is chicken and—”
But Mina wasn’t listening. She walked over to a group of idlers hanging about the street outside a tavern with mugs of ale in their hands, arguing drunkenly about whether they should or should not go to see what the ruckus was about.
“Excuse me, sirs,” Mina said. “Which road do I take to go north?”
“That way, sis,” one of the young men told her with a belch and a vague wave of his hand.
“Told you,” Nightshade said.
Mina picked up the scrip, slung it over her shoulder, and walked off.
Nightshade immediately realized he’d made a mistake. What he should have said was that he didn’t know the way north and they should wait for Rhys. Too late for that now. He watched her walk off, alone and forlorn, and considered leaving, but he knew Rhys wouldn’t want him to abandon her. Though Nightshade didn’t know what good he could do. She never listened to him anyway.
He looked at Atta, who was sitting on her haunches, looking at him. The dog offered no advice. Heaving a deep sigh, Nightshade trudged after Mina and now here they were together, heading north towards Godshome without Rhys.
Nightshade continued to try to persuade Mina to go back to the Inn, but she continued to adamantly refuse. The argument carried them several miles out of Solace, at which point Nightshade finally gave up and saved his breath for walking. He was at least thankful for one mercy—since they didn’t have the map, Mina couldn’t very well run off at a god’s pace. She had to walk like an ordinary person.
Nightshade could only hope that Rhys would find them eventually, though the kender didn’t see how. Rhys would believe they were hurt or dead or hiding somewhere… Maybe Rhys himself was hurt or dead…
“I won’t think about that,” Nightshade told himself.
They walked a long, long time. Nightshade hoped Mina would eventually grow tired and want to rest and, whenever they came to a wayside inn, he hinted strongly that they should stop. Mina refused and pressed on, dragging the scrip along in the dirt behind her.
Travelers they met along the way stopped to stare at the odd trio. If anyone tried to approach Mina, Atta would growl at them, warning strangers to keep their distance. Nightshade would roll his eyes and spread his hands to indicate he was helpless in the matter.
“If you meet a monk of Majere named Rhys Mason, tell him you saw us and we’re going north,” he would call out.
The road went on, and so did they. Nightshade had no idea how far they’d come, but he couldn’t see Solace anymore. The highway had dwindled to a road and not a very good road at that, and then, without warning, the road heading north ended. A large mountain stood in the way, and the road went around it, branching off to the east and the west.
“Which way do we go?” Mina asked.
“How should I know?” Nightshade grumbled. “You lost the map, remember? Anyway, this is a good place to stop to rest—What are you doing?”
Mina put her hand over her eyes and began twirling around and around in the middle of the road. When she made herself dizzy, she staggered to a stop and thrust out her hand, her fingers pointing east.
“We’ll go this way,” she said.
Nightshade stood staring at her, dumbfounded.
“For a gnome nickel, I’d leave you to be eaten by bugbears,” he told her, then added in a mutter, “But that would be mean to the bugbears.”
He glanced to the west, where the sun was sinking rapidly out of sight, as though it couldn’t get away fast enough. Shadows were slithering over the road.
Nightshade began wandering up and down the side of the road, looking for largish rocks. When he found one, he picked it up and lugged it over to where Mina was standing and dropped it down at her feet.
“What are you doing?” Mina demanded, after he came back with the fourth rock.
“Marking the trail,” Nightshade said, hauling over rock number five. He threw it down, then began arranging the rocks, stacking four on top of each other and placing the fifth to the east of the stack. “This way Rhys knows which direction we’ve taken at the crossroads, and he can find us.”