“I doubt the wound on his head was part of your arrangement,” said the half-elf. “You robbed him.”
The crowd outside murmured approval of the templar’s determination, but Rhayn did not attribute any such nobility to him. To her, the man’s actions suggested that he wanted a bribe, and she had no doubt that her father would gladly pay it-then steal it back later.
“The fat oaf deserves his bandage,” Rhayn said. “I had to smash a flask over his head to keep his grubby hands off me.” She gave the vendor a spiteful glare, then smiled at the half-elven templar. “Still, I can see why you are suspicious. What will it take to convince you of my innocence?”
“All the purses of your tribe don’t have enough gold to bribe one of King Tithian’s templar’s-if that’s what you’re asking,” said the red-haired man.
Rhayn and Huyar glanced at each other with furrowed brows, unsure of how to proceed. In their experience, templars could always be bribed-usually for a modest price.
It was Faenaeyon who came up with their next ploy. “Did I mention that I have another daughter?” the big elf asked. “You may have heard of her-Sadira of Tyr?”
“If you say so,” the half-elf answered, rolling his eyes. “And you might be my father as well. It still wouldn’t matter.”
The templar shifted his partisan to Rhayn’s chest, the motioned at the dagger in her hand. “Give that back to the wine vendor,” he said. “You won’t be needing it where you’re going.”
A woman in the crowd yelled. “That’s right! Let these elves know what happens when they rob the free citizens of Tyr!”
“To the iron mines with her!” cried another.
Rhayn looked to her father. “Maybe we could buy the dagger?” she suggested. If the templars couldn’t be bribed, perhaps the wine vendor could.
Faenaeyon only scowled at her in return. “What else have you been holding back?” he demanded, gesturing at the dagger. He glared at the templars for a moment, then looked back to Rhayn with a silvery light gleaming in his eyes. “You’re trying to dupe me!” he yelled. “You’re in this with them!”
Rhayn scowled. She had heard her father make such accusations before, when he was well into his cups, but never at such a critical moment.
“Think of what you’re saying!” Huyar exclaimed. “No Sun Runner would side with an outsider!”
“If she keeps the dagger from me, what else has she hidden?” hissed Faenaeyon. He raised his arm as though he were lifting something on the other side of the curtain.
“Stop!” ordered the red-haired templar.
“This is between me and my daughter,” the chief growled, pulling his sword from behind the curtain.
“Your daughter is Tithian’s prisoner now,” the templar said, pushing his partizan toward Faenaeyon. “If you try to harm her, I’ll kill-”
In a blinding fast kick, Huyar planted the sole of his foot square in the fellow’s chest. As the templar stumbled back, Faenaeyon’s bone sword flashed past his son’s ear, striking the Tyrian’s neck with a sharp crack.
Huyar wasted no time pondering how close the chief had come to killing him instead of the templar. He dived at the half-elf guarding Rhayn. The Tyrian started to bring his weapon around to defend himself, then saw Rhayn still clutching the disputed dagger and hesitated. In that moment, he was lost. Huyar struck simultaneously with three fingers to the larynx and a kick to the knees. The half-elf dropped his partizan and fell to the floor, grasping at his throat.
As the second templar fell, the wine vendor turned to flee. Rhayn leaped after him, burying the dagger’s blade deep into his back. The fat man dropped, his death scream upon his lips.
Shrieks of terror and shock rose from the crowd outside. Men and women began to run, fearing the mad elves would come after them next. Cries of “Murder!” and “Call the King’s Guard!” rang down the street.
Rhayn slammed the door to the shop, and Huyar used a stolen partizan to knock out the poles supporting the counter awning. The wooden shutters slammed into place with a loud bang, closing out the confusion in the streets.
Rhayn looked to her father and found him standing in the center of the room, clenching his sword and staring at her with narrowed eyes.
“Tada, were you really going to kill me?” she asked.
Faenaeyon scowled and held out his free hand. “Give me that dagger.”
THREE
CARAVAN DANCERS
Over the melody of the ryl pipes came a strange trill, a feral call almost indistinguishable from the song. The sound was hauntingly familiar, enough so that it weakened the music’s spell and released the sorceress from the ecstasy that had seized her. As Sadira’s pivoting hips slowed and her rocking shoulders wavered to a stop, she focused her drink-blurred eyes on the face of a nearby musician.
“D’you hear that?” she asked, her slurred words barely audible over the bracing cadence of his finger drums.
“Dance,” he said.
“No,” Sadira replied, struggling to fight back the compelling waves of music that filled her head. “Something’s out there. We could be in danger.”
The man, a nikaal with dust-covered scales and a black mop of hair, cocked his reptilian head about at odd angles, turning his recessed ear slits in all directions. When he heard nothing unusual, he repeated his command. “Dance!”
Sadira stepped away from the dancing ring, where women of many races-nikaal, human, tarek, even dwarves-were leaping about a sour-smelling fire of dried inix dung. The men stood gathered around the circle, either playing instruments or simply watching the dancing women with eager eyes. They were all dressed in Nibenese fashion, with a colorful length of cloth wrapped around the waist, then passed diagonally over the upper body. To Sadira, it looked as though the saramis might come unwound at any moment, but so far the robes had stayed in place even through the wildest gyrations of the dancers.
Once she escaped the dancing ring, Sadira turned to examine the rest of the campsite, searching for the haunting sound that had interrupted her trance. The caravan had stopped in the ruins of a toppled tower, a circular basin half-filled with sand and lit by the flaxen light of the two Athasian moons. The small compound was surrounded on all sides by what had once been the tower’s foundation, a jagged wall that still rose anywhere from a few feet to a few yards above the ground. Atop the ancient wall stood a half-dozen sentries, their eyes fixed on the dark sands outside the camp. The sentries showed no sign of alarm, or even curiosity. Sadira began to wonder if she had imagined the sound.
Hoping she would hear the trill again if she moved away from the music, the sorceress retrieved her cane and walked over to a large cask a few yards away. Next to the keg stood Captain Milo, an attractive, dark-skinned man with a well-kept beard and rakish smile. With Milo was his drive master, Osa, a female mul as hairless and as powerfully built as Rikus. She had a square face, with thin lips, enigmatic gray eyes, and a scar-laced scalp that suggested she had spent more than a few years in the gladiatorial ring. On the sides of her head were small holes, surrounded by lumps of fire-branded flesh that had once been ears.
The captain filled a mug and handed it to the sorceress. “You dance well, Lorelei,” he said, using the name Sadira had been given when she joined the caravan.
“It’s hard not to, once you’re out there,” the half-elf answered, noticing that the mul woman was watching her lips. “They’re playing more than music on those instruments.”
“The music is enchanting,” the captain agreed, giving her a noncommittal smile. “And I am happy that you partook of it. Most passengers do not understand. They think the women dance for the men’s pleasure, not their own.”
“I dance for both,” Sadira replied, giving him a crooked smile. “What’s the harm if I dance and a man watches? There are more dangerous things to do with an evening, and whose business is it, anyway?”
“Perhaps the business of one of the gentlemen who was with you when we met,” Milo suggested. “I was under the impression that one of them was your …” he hesitated, looking for the right word, then said, “your special companion.”