"Wode left an hour ago with the barmaid. Or rather, the blonde cow left and the boy followed."
"Hot on her trail," Caven said, satisfied. "Good lad. Which reminds me…" He maneuvered carefully over the dwarf, nearly falling headlong when the sodden creature hiccupped and rolled over. The room stank of stale things-food, beer, and breath. "I'm going with you," he repeated. "To the Masked Dragon."
"Tanis is already there. I doubt there's room for three."
"Then tell 'im to leave," Mackid said mulishly. "I can flatten any elf any day."
"Half-elf," Kitiara corrected. "And don't count on it."
Caven gestured magnanimously, which threw him off balance. "Tell him to get lost, then go along with me." He winked. "I'll generously forgive your debt." He caught his balance against the doorjamb.
Kitiara looked up, eyes skeptical but clearer than most others in the room. Caven Mackid was a splendid physical specimen of a man, but not exactly irresistible in his current state. And she wasn't tired of the half-elf yet.
"I'm leaving, Mackid." She turned away and walked up the three steps to the street.
It was raining. The cobblestones, slippery even in dry weather, were oily slick. Kitiara put one hand on the wall of the Happee Ohgr and moved quickly down the street, paying attention to her footing and trying to ignore the growing damp of her clothing. Behind her, she heard Caven's muffled oath as he emerged on the street into the wet weather. "Kitiara!" he bellowed. But she went on without stopping, rain trickling through her curls onto her face.
At this time of night, practically no one was left on the streets of Haven but a few drunks and an occasional bored town guard. Kitiara took a sharp left turn and found herself in a side alley devoid of life and light; it led in the general direction of the Seven Centaurs and was made of packed ground rather than slippery cobbles.
Caven appeared some distance behind her. "Kitiara?" He peered into the gloom.
"Leave it, Mackid," she snapped, and doubled her pace. At that moment, however, thunder crashed and the drizzle turned into a downpour. She leaped into a doorway with an exclamation. Caven joined her moments later.
The doorway was wide, protected, and dry. Locked double doors led into what was a warehouse of sorts. Caven stood motionless between Kitiara and the street, an air of expectation about him. She shivered, realizing that her short skirt and light blouse, while okay for freedom of movement and for attracting admiring stares in the Haven market, were less than adequate for a chilly downpour.
She was soaked to the skin. Caven, on the other hand, was protected by his tightly woven wool cloak.
She pointed. "You wear that cape even in the warm weather, Mackid?"
Caven smiled. "It comes in handy."
Suddenly Caven Mackid didn't look so drunk to her. What he did look was warm, and Kitiara found herself coveting his body heat as much as admiring his physique. She shivered again. "Lend me your cape, soldier," she ordered.
"Cold?" He grinned again. Caven loomed over her, not quite touching her. She could feel his heat. "I can do more to warm you than lend you my cape, Kit," he murmured. His eyes were dark in his pale face.
Kitiara leaned back against the rough stone wall of the doorway. Chill emanated from the rock. Out in the street, rain streaked down in needles.
She drew a shivery breath. Then she nodded. Caven reached for her.
Chapter 6
Smoldering blue eyes peered at Kitiara and Caven's refuge from a doorway across the street. The hood of a voluminous woolen robe, charcoal gray in the gloom, hid the woman's other features.
Kai-lid Entenaka had been trailing Kitiara Uth Matar unseen since the swordswoman and the three men had left the minstrel show earlier in the evening. But Kai-lid was mindless of the chill and the damp; her robe, magically augmented, warded off discomfort. Her fingers traced the silken cord at her waist. She could cast a light spell, of course, to see what the couple in the entryway across the alley were up to, but Kai-lid didn't need such illumination. Memories of similar moments in her own marriage washed over her. Since the end of the marriage, she'd sought to keep those recollections away, but they returned at times unbidden, usually at night.
She shook her head slightly to cast off the unwelcome thoughts. "What about the half-elf, Captain Uth Matar?" she whispered to herself.
Kai-lid waited patiently until the rain eased and the two figures, adjusting their clothing and combing their rain-soaked hair with their fingers, finally moved out of the doorway. Huddled under the man's cape, they headed off together into the night. The mage waited until they were gone, then crossed the lane. Her fingers searched through the pebbles and dirt on the doorway's floor. Warmth still clung to the brick paving, but she discovered no other vestiges of the couple's presence. She was about to give up when something small and hard skittered away from her moving hand. Now she did intone a light spell, and a pale green glow illuminated the doorway, revealing her delicate features, the color of warm oak. She searched again and found a dark button wedged in a corner against a finger of broken brick. It was probably of tortoiseshell; polishing had failed to eliminate the whorls of the creature's carapace.
The button was a small thing, but if it had belonged to Kitiara Uth Matar or that man, it would be enough for the mage's purposes. She held it in a clenched hand and slipped away through the dark streets. She kept to the shadows and met no one.
The inkiness of the night might have slowed an ordinary woman, but Kai-lid's magic helped light her way as she left the town behind her and paced along a path that led northeast out of Haven. She didn't bother to probe the underbrush around her. Although Kai-lid was not a powerful mage, she had tricks to keep her safe if the need arose. The rain failed to bother her; the forest canopy, far above her head, was a thick shield.
The path grew rockier, narrower, less packed by constant footfalls as she sped along. It led to Darken Wood, and it was the rare man or woman who ventured far in that direction.
The closeness of Darken Wood and its fearsome reputation made her hermitage perfect from Kai-lid Entenaka's viewpoint. She made the two-mile trek from her cave to Haven once a week, often enough to trade the herbs she foraged for money or items she needed. She didn't require much.
Kai-lid lived comfortably near the woods. She was no threat to its varied occupants, and that innocence, she believed, ensured her safety. When she'd arrived in the area, the dark forest's inhabitants had kept their distance. She'd sensed they were there, but they had not shown themselves.
Naturally stories came to her from well-meaning-or just plain nosy-Haven residents with whom she did business.
"There are souls of knights who fought and died centuries before the Cataclysm in those woods!" exclaimed a leatherworker when he found out where Kai-lid lived. "And creatures, neither dead nor alive, whose howling can drive a person mad. Move into town, woman!"
His fingers moved agitatedly over one of Kai's sandals, repairing a strap, but his voice rattled on. The man had gone on and on about the denizens of the Darken Wood. Kai-lid had no doubt that much of what he said was true. At times when she entered the woods in search of herbs and other things useful for magic, it seemed to her the trees were not quite where they'd been on earlier forays. Occasional strands of wild songs-like Plainsmen's death cries-came to her on the wind. And some nights, hoofbeats clattered to a halt just out of sight of Kai-lid's home.