“In exchange for safe passage out of the country.”
Bez snorted. “Not exactly a generous offer for professionals of our caliber.”
“Your other option is to go on hiding here like the common outlaws the Rashemi now consider you to be. How’s that working out?” Aoth waved his spear to indicate the haggard faces and crudely constructed lean-tos he saw before him. “Do you like sleeping rough in the cold of a northern winter? Anybody sick yet? Are you finding plenty to eat? Just how often do you run into ettercaps and trolls? I hear the Ashenwood is crawling with them.”
Bez glowered. “I won’t insult your intelligence by saying we don’t find our situation challenging. But after what’s happened, it’s difficult to believe Yhelbruna and the Iron Lord would let us depart in peace no matter what.”
Jet made a spitting noise that was half screech as well. “Liars always have trouble believing other folk are telling the truth.”
“You’re right,” said Aoth. “But maybe Captain Bez senses there’s something I haven’t mentioned. And if we’re going to sneer at him for being the lying, traitorous turd he is, then maybe I shouldn’t hold any information back.”
Bez’s hand had shifted to the hilt of his main gauche. Evidently, he didn’t appreciate being likened to dung. “By all means,” he said through gritted teeth, “enlighten me.”
“You understand the locals have cause to dislike you,” Aoth replied, “but you don’t realize just how much of your treachery has come out. Vandar Cherlinka survived your attack to reveal you and your crew murdered his lodge brothers.”
For a heartbeat, Bez looked taken aback. Then he chuckled. “I can see how that looks bad.”
“Still, I told you the truth. Rashemen’s need is such that if you help now, Yhelbruna swears by the Three that each and every one of you will receive a pardon for his misdeeds. But for you, Captain, that won’t be quite the end of the matter. You and I may think of this land as backward, but it understands dueling as well as Chessenta, Impiltur, or any civilized realm you care to name. And before you take your leave, one of the folk you’ve wronged will call you out.”
“Are you referring to yourself?”
“I don’t know for certain, but I hope so.”
“Then perhaps it wouldbe better to kill you here and now.”
“Better for whom? It’s only you who will have to fight the extra fight. No one will bother your men.”
A white-haired, sour-faced man with a wand tucked in his broad yellow belt cleared his throat.
Bez’s eyes flicked to the side to see who’d spoken, then immediately returned to Aoth. “Uregaunt,” he said. “What is it?”
“We’re sellswords,” the old mage said. “We follow a leader because it’s in our interest, not because he’s some halfwit inbred nobleman or somebody like that. Starving here in the snow is notin our interest.”
Bez smiled a smile so crooked it fell just short of being a sneer. “So you’re telling me if I don’t accept Captain Fezim’s offer, you’ll desert.”
“I’m saying I’ve watched you win plenty of fights. I’ll wager you can win one more.”
“Or,” Aoth said, “I suppose that if you’re afraid, you could even refuse to duel. But I wish you luck commanding sellswords or attracting contracts when word of thatgets around.”
“I’m not afraid,” Bez said, “just examining all possibilities. You’d do the same in my place.”
“So is that a yes?” asked Aoth.
Bez snorted. “It is, curse you to the Hells. I assume you understand that to fight to best advantage, my crew and I will need the Storm of Vengeance.”
“I do,” said Aoth. He paused, giving the Halruaan a breath to examine what he must imagine to be the possibilities of that. Then: “That’s why Jhesrhi and Yhelbruna are busy carving runes in the hull. If you attack us once you’re in the air, or try to fly away without meeting your obligations, it will be your turn to burst into flame and fall out of the sky.”
The tent still held the heat of Cera’s conjured sunlight long after the glow had died away. She supposed it retained the heat of the three bouts of lovemaking too. At any rate, she was warm enough, but a mix of tenderness and worry still prompted her to snuggle even closer to Aoth’s naked body.
She hadn’t meant to wake him, but his luminous blue eyes opened in the gloom, and then he kissed her. “Ready for another tumble?” he asked.
“That would be lovely if you can manage it. One more. After that, it will be dawn and my time to pray.”
“Then let’s have at it. I know you can’t keep Amaunator waiting, and I don’t want him interrupting me in the middle.” He caressed her breast and made it tingle.
Good as it felt, she put her hand on his to stop it moving. “We’ve been too hungry for one another’s touch to talk much. Before we start in again, and then have to get up and be about our business, I just … well, I want you to know the deathways were bad for me, worse, even, than for Jhesrhi, because they all but cut me off from the Yellow Sun. It was partly the hope of finding you again that kept me from breaking down.”
“Only partly?”
“Be grateful an impious cutthroat rates even that high.”
“That sounded witchy. Yhelbruna and her kind are a bad influence … But, darling lass, if you insist on talking seriously, then I guess I should take a turn. I missed you too. Enough that I realized something.
“You can’t turn down being sunlady of Chessenta if your peers elect you to the office,” he continued. “Being a priestess is your calling. And I can’t give up being a wandering sellsword. That’s mine. But I swear by the Pure Flame, we won’t lose one another. At the moment, I have no idea how to make things work, but we’ll find a way.”
“I want that too. Perhaps we can figure it out after we defeat the undead.”
She’d intended to sound confident, but his lambent eyes narrowed. “Are you scared we won’t? Mario Bez has the scruples of a starving rat, but he has no play except to deliver on his promise. Neither he and his men, the Old Ones, nor I have gone into Immilmar, so Lod’s agents in town haven’t seen us and can’t have sent word to him that we’re lurking about. If Lady Luck smiles, we’ll catch the undead by surprise.”
“I’m more worried about Jet’s part of the plan.”
“Because he hasn’t healed?”
She sighed. “It’s difficult to answer that. He’s done all the healing the Keeper’s light could promote, given that I wasn’t able to tend him until days after he was injured. But he should take more time to rest. Are we surethis is a wise idea?”
Aoth grunted. “It’s difficult to answer that. Taking on undead and dark fey, we’re likely to need all the strength we can muster.”
“But will it even work? Yhelbruna said the Three would incline the wild griffons to serve those who defeat the undead. So far, no one truly has.”
“Which means that at this point, goddesses and spirits don’t figure in, and in the absence of their prompting, the griffons will act in accordance with their nature. That’s to follow the leader of the pride, and if Jet defeats the golden beast, he’ll bethe leader.”
“But the golden beast’s no ordinary griffon. It’s a telthor.”
“And Jet’s the product of enchantments I cast not just on him but his bloodline going back for generations.”
“I’m not concerned because I underestimate him. It’s because I care about him and know you love him.”
Aoth snorted. “If I ever said such a thing to him, he’d mock me forever after. But you’re right, I do, and I argued when he broached his scheme on the journey back from the Ashenwood. But maybe he needsthis fight to test himself. He doesn’t want to go on living except in the knowledge that he’s still as strong as ever.”