She could see similar conflict on the faces of her companions. They all wanted to see Guisarme to safety, and they all knew they couldn’t afford to. Even Jester, whose face couldn’t betray expression, still managed to convey his quandary by hanging his head, as if in shame.
“I’ll take him.”
Sabira turned to see the driver of the gnomes’ wagon, pulling along a soarsled weighed down by two chests marked “Property of the Library of Korranberg.” Sabira also saw books poking out of the mouth of a burlap bag and, finally, the dragonshard-tipped staff.
“I have to return these items to the doyen’s family. I can transport your companion back with me, as well.”
Doyen? The staff-wielder had been one of the luminaries of Korranberg? That wasn’t going to go over well back in Zilargo. She wondered briefly who the gnome might have been, then decided it was probably safer if she didn’t know.
“Thank you,” Sabira said gratefully, relieved and chagrined at the same time. It didn’t matter that it couldn’t be helped-leaving a man behind still stuck in her craw like a mugful of Old Sully’s gone bad. Which was, she supposed, the difference between her and Brannan. They might both choose the needs of the group over the needs of the individual, but she at least felt bad about it, and money was never a factor.
“I can give you a writ-” she began, reaching for one of her own pouches, but the warforged waved the offer away before she could make it.
“I’m taking one of my fallen brethren home, either to be restored to his former glory or to be laid to rest. One does not pay an honor guard.”
Sabira nodded her understanding.
“Of course; I meant no offense. But Guisarme no longer has anything to go back to, thanks in part to his decision to join us on this expedition. If the artificers can revive him, he’s going to need money, to pay for the repairs if nothing else. And he’s still owed payment for making it this far.” She dug out their agreed-upon fee from her money pouch, plus a handful of extra platinum. If asked, she’d say it was hazard pay, but she knew in her heart it was blood money. “And maybe you can talk to Kupper-Nickel on the way back. He might be able to get Guisarme reinstated to his old job, if he still wants it.”
The driver took the proffered coins without comment and deposited them into his own pouch. Then he stood aside as Skraad and Greddark lifted Guisarme’s body and placed it carefully on the sled. There was no ceremony, and no words were spoken as the driver led the laden soarsled away, but somehow it felt no different to Sabira than the funeral she’d witnessed earlier.
No, that wasn’t strictly true. She hadn’t known the gnomes, and neither of them had saved her from being filleted by a dragon. Their deaths were regrettable, but ultimately elicited only a distant, almost clinical pity from her. Guisarme’s death-if that’s what this truly was-did much more than that.
It hurt.
They watched the warforged driver until he disappeared over the dunes that were all that was left of the dragon’s sandstorm.
As they were turning back to Brannan’s new wagon, another deep rumble sounded from the vicinity of the dragon.
“And now we really are out of time, Marshal,” the Wayfinder called to her. “We’re leaving, with or without you.” True to his word, the mechanical wagon began to hum as Xujil powered it up at his signal.
Skraad broke into a sprint, followed by a surprisingly fleet Jester. Sabira could have outrun them both, but she doubted the same was true of Greddark, so she matched his pace instead. Ahead of them, the orc and the warforged clambered up onto the back of the wagon. Greddark reached it moments later as it was starting to move. Sabira pushed him up from behind as the others reached down to pull him in. Then more hands reached down for her and lifted her up into the wagon just as it began to skitter forward faster than she could have run.
Brannan set her lightly on her feet and released her, grinning sardonically.
“I was beginning to think you’d grown tired of my hospitality and decided to walk all the way to Trent’s Well instead.”
“What, and miss out on the opportunity to annoy you for another week?” Sabira replied, meeting his grin with a thin smile of her own. “Not on your life.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Zol, Barrakas 17, 998 YK
Trent’s Well, Xen’drik.
Despite the Wayfinder’s justifiable concern, if the sand dragon did indeed escape its glass cage, it apparently decided they weren’t worth chasing, for they saw no further sign of it. They sheltered in the skeleton-like rock formation known as the Bone that night without incident, and the caravan made its way into Trent’s Well a week later, having encountered nothing more serious than assorted mephits and a rabid jackal after that first eventful day of travel.
The small settlement at the base of the Skyrakers was nothing like Zawabi’s Refuge. Where the djinn’s oasis had large, well-built homes and lush trees, Trent’s Well was a mixture of tents, wooden shacks, and disabled wagons situated around an old, crumbling stone well. A path led from the makeshift village up a rocky slope, and a group of armored men were heading up it as Brannan’s wagon skittered to a halt near the largest tent.
“What’s up there?” Sabira asked from her place beside the Wayfinder. She’d taken to riding in the front on the second day of the trip, when cramped quarters and short tempers had combined to force Xujil and the wagon’s original warforged driver to move to another covered cart. The final straw had been when the construct made the mistake of saying they should have left Guisarme to rot instead of endangering the entire caravan trying to save him. After that, it had been either transfer the warforged to another wagon, or bury him, much as he’d suggested be done to Guisarme. Xujil had gone with him, ostensibly to keep him from causing any more trouble, but in reality Sabira thought being around so many surface dwellers wore on the drow’s nerves-or at least being around the eating, breathing, sleeping ones. She didn’t blame the drow for making the move. After being kept awake by Skraad’s cattlelike snoring the last few nights, she’d been contemplating finding another wagon herself. But at least it had kept her from doing more than dozing, and hence, from dreaming, so she hadn’t complained too loudly. Another of the Sovereigns’ small blessings, she supposed. Blessings which were getting smaller all the time.
Since none of the others had wanted to take Xujil’s place next to the Wayfinder after Brannan-predictably-sided with the driver, Sabira found herself there, scanning the sky and sand in front of the caravan, while the rest of her companions took turns doing the same out the rear of the wagon. None of them wanted to be caught unprepared again. Not after the price it cost them last time.
“Up there? That’s what you’re looking for,” Brannan replied, bringing Sabira’s attention back to the present with that damnably perfect smile as much as with his words. “The rest of the settlement, and the entrance to Tarath Marad.”
Sabira eyed the steep slope skeptically, wondering where they’d found room for a town between the boulders and the bluffs.
“Kind of hard to build on that, I’d think,” Greddark commented from behind her, echoing her thoughts. “Well, I mean, for humans. Dwarves are smarter. We wouldn’t bother-we’d just excavate.”
Brannan glanced over his shoulder, turning his smile on the dwarf who’d poked his head out from the back of the slowing wagon to survey the town.
“Indeed. Then the settlers of Trent’s Well must have been veritable geniuses, because they built their town inside a cave that was already there.”
Greddark harrumphed and withdrew back into the wagon, muttering something about unloading. To keep from laughing, Sabira asked another question.
“They dug the well here, but settled up there? That doesn’t seem like the work of ‘veritable geniuses.’ ”