"You're looking at the stage as though you'd like to be up there with them," Kitiara teased, breaking into the half-elf's reverie.
Tanis indicated the family with a jerk of his head. "Music. That's one difference between elves and humans."
When Kitiara raised her eyebrows, the half-elf went on. "In Qualinost, it's assumed that every child will study an instrument. Often, at sunset, elves gather at the Hall of the Sky and hold impromptu concerts."
"So?" Kitiara demanded. "Humans like music, too."
Tanis frowned. "But humans see it as something only musicians do. I don't know many humans who play their own music. They come to places like this."
He gestured. The courtyard was filling up. They'd taken spots on the ends of the benches-Kitiara disliked being trapped in the middle of a crowd-and onlookers kept shoving past them for the few seats remaining.
"What do you play, half-elf?" Kitiara asked.
"Psaltery gittern…"
"Which are what?"
"The psaltery's a type of dulcimer," Tanis explained. "The gittern is like a guitar. I've tried other instruments, but I'm more enthusiastic than I am accomplished. Flint makes me practice outdoors." He looked at Kitiara. "Do you play an instrument, Kit?"
Kitiara's upper lip curved. "The sword's my instrument. But I can make it sing like nothing that pathetic crew can play." She gestured at the stage, where the family was lightly chanting a lilting but apparently endless melody designed to warm up their voices. "And my sword's a lot more effective against hobgoblins."
Kitiara's discourse was interrupted by the woman, who stepped to the front of the platform and welcomed the crowd. Her voice was dusky and low. She looked back at her husband, positioned by the drums and gong, and at her children, ready with flute, recorder, and clavichord. Then she faced the audience again, opened her mouth, and sang,
"There was a fair lady of old Daltigoth,
Her voice was as rich as spring earth, and the portly man next to Tanis shivered. " 'The Fair Lady of Daltigoth,' " the man said in an undertone. "I love that song."
The crowd settled down to listen. Dusk had given way to evening. Solinari was high in the sky above the courtyard, and Lunitari, the red moon, was beginning to rise. The torches focused attention on the stage, but the half-elf could see spectators leaving through arched doors to the inn's tavern, then returning with foaming mugs of beer. Kitiara had also noticed, he saw. "Would you like some ale?" she asked.
Tanis had barely nodded when the swordswoman was on her feet, moving toward the adjoining tavern. Suddenly her way was blocked by a muscular man with black hair, black eyes, and a set expression. He wore ebony breeches and boots, white shirt, and a scarlet cape, and he stood before Kitiara with an air of self-assurance. "Kitiara Uth Matar!" the man said quietly.
"Caven Mackid." Her tone was chilly. She didn't introduce the man to Tanis, who'd risen silently from the bench and approached the two. A slender teenager with emerald green eyes sidled next to the half-elf, gazing on with interest.
Caven looked neither to the right nor left. "You don't take many straight lines in your travels, woman," he said. "It took me a week to pick up your trail, and more than a month to track you here." Caven seemed to notice Tanis for the first time. "Fortunately," he said to the half-elf, raising his voice, "Kitiara is the kind of woman that people pay heed to as she passes through. As I'm sure you've noticed." Caven looked back at Kitiara. "A suspicious man might think you'd been avoiding him, my love," he said.
Kitiara pulled herself up straight, but she was still came up only to Caven Mackid's shoulder. "I'm still your superior officer, soldier. Watch yourself." Her tone was bantering, but her eyes showed no warmth.
The minstrels' tune continued, but several onlookers, sensing a possibly greater show in the making, gaped instead at Kitiara and Caven.
At Kitiara's words, Caven's hands dropped to his sides, and the friendliness faded from his face. The big man gazed at Kitiara with a strange light in his eyes-anger mixed with something else. Something was afoot that the half-elf wasn't privy to, but he was experienced enough with women to realize that Kitiara at one time had been much more than a commanding officer to this man.
"I believe you have something of mine, Captain Uth Matar," Mackid said silkily. "A money pouch, perhaps? No doubt an oversight on your part; our personal belongings did get a bit mingled there for a while, as I recall."
The slim teen-ager snickered. "I'll say," he said with a leer at Tanis.
"And as I recall," Caven Mackid went on, disregarding the youth, "you left in quite a hurry, my dear-too hasty even to leave a message. Pursued by ogres, no doubt. But I trust you've kept my money safe and have it now."
The teen-aged boy leaned toward Tanis. "Took off while he was out hunting, she did, and nipped most of his savings," he whispered. "If she'd just took off, I don't think he would've minded much. But it was the filching that stuck in Caven's craw."
"Wode!" Caven gently reprimanded the boy. "Good squires keep their mouths shut around strangers."
Behind Kitiara, the minstrels finished the ballad and launched into a reel. The swordswoman finally noticed the half-elf. "Tanis, this is Caven Mackid, one of my subordinates in my last campaign."
Caven smiled in an almost friendly fashion at Tanis, but he addressed his words to Kitiara. "A half-elf, Kitiara? Lowered your standards a bit, haven't you?" His squire snickered again, but the man quelled the outburst with a look. Instead, Caven gazed directly at Kitiara. His next words were an order. "My money. Now."
Off to one side, unnoticed by any of the four, a woman with skin the umber of burnished oak pulled back warily into a shadowed portal. A soft woolen robe, the color of a dove, set off her dark features. Her gaze was direct, her eyes azure around pupils of surprising darkness. Her straight, blue-black hair poured over her shoulders, over the crumpled hood of her robe, and down her back.
"Kitiara Uth Matar," she murmured softly to herself. "And that dark-haired soldier… I know him, too."
Eyes narrow, slim fingers fondling the silk pouches that dangled from her waist, she continued to watch wordlessly from the shadows.
Chapter 4
The whining of a thousand mosquitoes couldn't mask the thud of the monster's footsteps or the complaints of the beast's two heads in the darkness.
"Res hot!"
"Lacua hungry."
"Dumb bugs. Want snow. Why hot?"
"Spring. You stupid."
Pause. "Res go home now."
"No!"
In a small prairie south of Haven, the thirteen-foot ettin faced off with itself-no mean feat for a creature with such short, fat necks. The ettin's watery eyes