“A good thing that no one who believes in omens is in sight.” He lifted half of the bench in each hand and tossed both pieces on the pile of firewood behind the hut.
“I honor you, Heir, but I also ask you to think on this. Few minotaurs would come here at the behest of one said to have lost honor. None would come, save in the hope of bringing this band under their authority in place of mine. Then the brawls and wrangling we have seen would be like childish quarrels compared to what we would see.
“Also, none would come at all, unless I returned north with the message myself. That would leave you with the whole burden of keeping our band from turning into a pack of wild dogs.”
“I could accept that, as needs be.”
“I will trust you with it if the time comes, but I think my fate and the band’s now begin to drift apart. I must sooner or later return north, with what I have learned of human strengths and weaknesses. More of the first than of the second, I would say, and I do not expect to live long after speaking that truth.
“Those who follow us, however, must be given a safe path out of this land, and out of reach of Istar if there is such a place. We must labor together until that is done. Then you will need to remain behind and lead, while I take one of the boats and sail north.”
“Alone?”
“One could crew a large ship with those who have sailed alone from this land to the minotaurs’ coast or the other way. In the good sailing season, with a well-made boat, it is hardly a perilous enterprise.”
“Are we then to begin to consider our line of retreat now?” Darin said. “You spoke of the dwarven nations.”
“Yes, but that was before I spoke with Fertig Temperer. He said that the dwarves might not let us in, though if they did, they would not give us up readily. His fear was that Istar might make the dwarves’ taking us in a pretext for a war against Thorbardin.”
“Such a war would not sit lightly on my conscience,” Darin said.
“Nor mine,” Waydol added, emptying the water jug. “Hand me the brush and comb, please.” He began grooming himself, though even Darin’s hardened nose suggested that the Minotaur really needed a complete bath.
“Besides, here in the stronghold we at least command ground from which we cannot easily be driven. Even Istar might let us go rather than pay the blood-price of a fight to the finish. And there are other folk, less set in their ways than the dwarves.”
Darin was not sure whom Waydol meant by that, other than its not being the kender or the gully dwarves, but the Minotaur was right. Here in the stronghold, brawls or no, they could buy time at a price they could afford.
* * * * *
Haimya was awake, but only able to smile and press Pirvan’s hand, by the time they reached Pedoon’s camp.
The camp had the air of having been hastily enlarged to accommodate many newcomers within the last few days. It still held no more than fifty armed men, that Pirvan could see. Allowing for half as many more on guard, that meant fewer than a hundred, even counting those women and children old enough to throw stones and wield spears.
No match for Pirvan’s soldiers, had they not encountered the flood and left much of their weapons and gear at the bottom of the river, along with twenty of their comrades. As it was, the ragtag force posed a real peril to Pirvan’s march, if Pedoon wished to offer one.
It seemed that he did not.
“We both want to go to the same place,” the half-ogre said. He handed Pirvan a piece of what appeared to be bread and a lump of what was most likely salt. Pirvan’s tasting did not resolve all doubt, but faces around him eased nonetheless.
“And what is that place?” he asked after drinking to cleanse his mouth.
“Waydol’s stronghold,” Pedoon said.
“If this were so, what is your reason for-?”
“Sir Pirvan, do you think me a fool? I know that you are trying to bring Waydol to heel. This bothers me not at all. I was thinking only of how we might work together for this.”
“Your pardon,” Pirvan said, though he felt not in the least apologetic. It seemed prudent, however, to listen rather than talk.
Listening was rewarded. Pedoon had gathered under what might be called his banner more than a hundred forest-dwellers, most of them human or with ogre blood. He wished to march them north to Waydol’s stronghold, but feared rival bands and also the cavalry patrols of Aurhinius.
“But if you marched with us, Sir Pirvan, we’d be too strong for rivals to attack. As for the Istarians, if they see that I’ve given oath to a Knight of Solamnia, a sworn ally of Istar, they might leave us be.”
Pirvan’s rank as a Knight of the Crown had not been granted to him to serve as a shield to outlaws. But if letting it so serve removed these folk from this land, and carried both them and his soldiers peacefully to the north, that seemed honorable enough.
Yet there was something in the way Pedoon spoke of Waydol that set Pirvan’s teeth on edge. He rose and brushed soot and mud off his breeches.
“I would like to think about this alone for a short while. Will I be in danger if I remain within your circle of sentries?”
Pedoon pulled from a pouch at his belt a cloth that might have been white about the time Pirvan was cutting his first tooth.
“Wear this around your head and it will be a sign of peace between us.”
The rag was not only filthy, but it also stank. Pirvan did not know what he might attract on his walk. The stink might keep away insects, and if the rag itself kept away arrows and spears from quick-tempered sentries …
“I thank you, Pedoon.”
* * * * *
From Windsword’s deck, gray walls of water seemed to shut out the horizon as gray clouds shut out the sky. Last night the ship had been sailing along a coast where barren headlands, terraced hills, and stretches of woodland alternated. Now it might have been in a world that held nothing but wind and water.
With no duties to keep him on deck, Jemar the Fair went below to his cabin. Eskaia was in bed, with Delia sitting on the carpeted deck, apparently listening to one end of her staff as if it were an ear trumpet, while the other rested on Eskaia’s belly.
Wondering if he’d stumbled on some women’s mystery, Jemar turned to withdraw.
“No, stay,” Eskaia called. “She is nearly done.”
“Done with what?” Jemar nearly snapped. Bad weather this close to shore always made him uneasy. They had plenty of sea room unless the wind changed, but that could happen, and the coast hereabouts made the worst sort of lee shore.
“I am listening to the babe,” Delia said. “Not with the ears of my body, but with a spell bound into my staff.”
“Oh?” Jemar said. “And what is the babe telling you?”
“Nothing much, other than it is well,” the woman said. “It is not yet time for me to tell lad from lass, or hear a heartbeat.”
“This is not our first,” Jemar said. “Pray do not treat me as a witling in the matter of babes.”
“Fathers are seldom much better than that,” Delia said, but Eskaia squeezed her hand hard so that she turned the sharp words aside with a smile.
“I’m a sailor,” Jemar said. “As fathers, we’re apt to be around for the laying of the keel, but the building and the launching are mostly mysteries. Are you done?”
“Yes,” Delia said, and she gathered herself to make a retreat with more dignity than haste.
“I thought a sour-tempered midwife was bad for the babe,” Jemar said when the cabin door was closed.
“Oh, she has merely had more trouble than she cares to remember, with fathers who want nothing new done for their babes,” Eskaia replied. “But the babe feels well, say I who have borne three, and I feel better yet. May I go on deck?”
“No.”
“Not in this common storm?”
“It is a short, steep, inshore sea, and the ship’s motion is sharp.”
“I remember walking the deck when the wind was slicing off the tops of waves and hurling them at the ship. To be sure, I saw men looking at me as if I were mad-”