“I have not found the black dragon, but I smelled the scent of at least two lairs,” Hipparan went on. “I hope that does not mean two dragons. That would create a difficult situation.”
“Your talent for understatement is admirable,” Haimya said. “But pray, exercise it some other time. Where are these lairs?”
One was near the southern end of Crater Gulf, too far for anyone but Hipparan to reach. The other was in the ruined castle not far downhill.
“I also sensed traces of magic that wasn’t a dragon’s,” Hipparan went on. “That is all I can say about it. But there were sentries in two camps around the ruins. The camps looked new.”
Haimya and Pirvan looked at each other. The thief held his tongue, knowing that they would have as good a plan and also save Haimya’s pride if he let her speak first.
Haimya frowned. “I think we should study this castle first. Someone there may know where Gerik is, or be a suitable hostage. Whatever new power Synsaga commands, he cannot afford to waste the lives of his men. That would turn them against him, and dragons and mages are small use when the knife’s in your back or the poison’s in your wine.”
“If you take a captive, I will hide him,” Hipparan said.
It seemed they had their night’s work as well planned as possible. Hipparan took to the sky with a clap of wings, staying at treetop height until he vanished into the mizzling darkness.
Pirvan heaved his pack again onto his aching back and took up his staff. Matters were not going as badly as they might, which was better than they had for some time. He would not say, “If Golden Cup had not been dismasted …” for “if” was not a word he honored.
But when he and Haimya were safely away with her betrothed, he would not only be saying farewell to her He would say farewell to any more traveling aboard ships. If the gods wanted him to change his profession and take up questing, he would do so, but only on dry land.
* * * * *
Lady Eskaia was buckling a belt on over her gown when she heard more hailing from the lookouts. The belt was a simple affair of leather and silver, intended for wear outdoors when it might be needed to support weighty purses, daggers, and the like.
It was also one she could don herself, as was everything else she wore now. Eskaia had never believed in needing maids to put on every garment from shift to gown and from sandals to hat plume. With Haimya’s help, she had picked a dozen arrays, for everything from temple ceremonies to berry-picking, that she could put on by herself. Then she had packed that dozen aboard Golden Cup.
Some of them would never be the same again, she feared. Salt air and drenchings in seawater wrought enough havoc on the robust garb of sailors. With a respectable woman’s wardrobe, they made a shambles of anything they could reach.
Perhaps she should find a good seafarer’s tailor when she returned to Istar. A few gowns of heavy wool, with robust trousers to wear underneath (short-drawers let the breezes up), and some sailors’ jackets, with a trifle of embroidery to set them apart …
Eskaia broke off her musings as she realized that the ship had fallen silent. She snatched a box of hairpins, chose a handful at random, and started putting her hair up. It would be convenient to wear it as short as Haimya’s, which never needed more than a ribbon if that, but …
The silence ended abruptly in a din, where everyone aboardship seemed to be shouting at once. Eskaia thrust the last pin into her hair and nearly pierced her scalp as the door to her cabin flew open.
“Is knocking an art unknown to sailors?” she snapped. Then she recognized Grimsoar One-Eye.
“Your pardon, my lady” Pirvan’s big friend was breathing heavily, and his good eye was twitching fiercely, something she had not seen it do since the dismasting.
“What is happening?”
“Minotaurs, my lady.”
“Spare the ‘my ladys’ and tell me more. Those two ships?”
Grimsoar nodded. “They’ve the rig of minotaur ships, for certain. Nobody else uses it, or buys a minotaur ship without rerigging her. Ever seen the tackle on a minotaur ship?”
“I’ve seen minotaurs,” Eskaia said. “I can imagine it.”
“Good. Then you can imagine that we’re in trouble.”
“Are minotaurs always hostile? Bad-tempered, yes, but that’s not the same thing-”
Grimsoar laughed. “Glad somebody can find something funny in this. No, I think they’re coming in for a fight. They don’t look like merchant ships, and even one of their traders might take a chance at us, helpless as we are.”
“Thank you,” Eskaia said. She hooked her purse on one side of the belt and her dagger on the other. “If you will escort me on deck-”
Grimsoar used several choice phrases that indicated how extremely unlikely it was that he would do any such thing. He also mentioned several gods whose assistance Eskaia would need to get past him.
Eskaia wanted to laugh. But the big man was in a position that she owed it to him not to make more humiliating.
“Step aside, please, Grimsoar.”
“Pirvan and Haimya-”
“Are not here. I am my own mistress.” She cocked her head to one side, decided not to bat her eyelashes at him, but used her most winning smile.
“Have you orders to keep me below?”
“Ah-”
“No, I suppose.”
“Well, put it that way …”
“I thought as much. Then please, step aside.”
Grimsoar frowned but did not move. Eskaia sighed. She wanted to use some of the big man’s words right back at him. There was, however, the dignity of House Encuintras to preserve.
“You cannot keep me below without using force,” she said coolly. “If you have no orders to keep me below, then using force will be assaulting me. For that you could be hanged or thrown overboard with weights on your feet.
Of course, they may decide to spare you until after the fight. You are a good fighting man. But they will certainly expect you to get killed in the fighting. I will expect.
“You may live and you will not be dishonored if you let me pass. If you hold me here against my will, you will surely die and you may be dishonored.”
Grimsoar’s wits were much faster than one might expect in a man of his size and appearance. He sighed and stepped away from the door.
“On your head be it, my lady. Ah-do you want a helmet, so if what’s on your head is a stone-?”
“Thank you, Grimsoar.”
“I’ll see if there’s one that fits.” He went out, muttering not quite under his breath about the futility of helmets for women who didn’t have anything important in their heads.
* * * * *
The two sentries both looked like men farther out in the darkness and much farther from their comrades than they cared for. They were also well armed, one with a bow as well as a sword. Both wore breastplates and low-crowned helmets with rims.
They would still have been no great matter except for one problem. Their post was astride the only route Pirvan and Haimya could take to the castle without passing close to one of the two guard camps. Each of those camps contained twenty times two soldiers, and would have sentries out as thick as bees around a rosebush.
Haimya whispered, “If those two have the wits of a hen, we can’t take one without alerting the other. We don’t have bows, and one of them does. So we have to be close, silent, and take both of them at once.”
Her words did not say that this was impossible or at least dangerous. Her tone was eloquent.
Pirvan feared he would need eloquence, too, if he was to persuade her of the need to avoid killing.
“We also have to leave them alive,” he said.
“In our rear?”
“If they are senseless-”
“They can awake and give the alarm. Even their absence from their posts might do that.”
“They will be even more absent if we kill them and have to dispose of the bodies. That will cost us time, and perhaps any hope of peace with Synsaga. He may not hold his men back from vengeance for slain comrades.”