They popped out of the alley onto the edge of a market, still bustling in spite of the gathering night. Singe breathed a prayer of thanks for undeserved blessings and led the way into the crowd, slowly and casually. “Follow me,” he ordered. “Geth, keep an eye out behind us.”
The crowd in the market was mixed, mostly humans mingling with brawny half-orcs, but a few full-blooded orcs, delicate-looking elves, and lithe little halflings moved through it as well. Geth’s shifter features and Dandra’s exotic beauty barely stirred a second look. Singe himself felt practically invisible. Still, it seemed like forever before the press of bodies opened up ahead of them and they were on their own again, heading deeper into Zarash’ak with the crowded market between them and the docks. Singe let a little of the tension to ease out him. “Geth?” he asked cautiously.
The shifter shook his head. “No sign of Ashi or Vennet,” he reported.
Singe gave a slow sigh of relief. “Twelve moons. We’re away.”
“We are,” said Dandra thinly. Singe glanced at her. Her face was pale. “Light of il-Yannah, Singe-Vennet still has Natrac!”
It took an effort of will to hold back the memories of the horrors Dah’mir had inflicted on her. The thought that Natrac might suffer similar tortures was almost too much to bear and sent Tetkashtai retreating to the furthest recesses of her mind. When Dandra looked at Singe and Geth, though, she saw only harsh determination on both men’s faces. They shared a glance-and pressed on along the street, putting more distance between them and the docks. Dandra stopped dead. “We can’t leave Natrac as Vennet’s prisoner!” she protested.
Singe paused long enough to hook his arm around hers and pull her forward. “Dandra, I know.” He glanced into her eyes. His gaze was dark. “We shared your memories, didn’t we? But we can’t go back to Lightning on Water, not tonight. They’ll be waiting for us.”
“Vennet and Ashi? There are three of us and two of them!”
“You have a go with Ashi then, Dandra,” said Geth. The shifter’s voice was a quiet rasp. “She was tough with her fists and now she’s got her sword back. Have you watched the way she moves? She’ll be waiting if we go back. If she gets a chance to ambush us in the dark, the odds won’t be in our favor for very long.”
Singe’s arm tightened on hers. “And remember, it’s you they want. If we go back, we’re delivering you right to them.”
Dandra tensed. “But Natrac …”
“Vennet went to the trouble of drugging him,” Geth pointed out with cool practicality. “He’s not going to kill him now. He’ll be all right until the morning.” His hands tightened on the bag containing his great-gauntlet. “We’ll go back then.”
Singe still had a little money left from the sale of their horses in Yrlag. They found a small inn well away from the docks and took a room for the night. The innkeeper looked at Geth, but a smile and a word from Singe eased his worry. Once they were in their room, Geth flung himself down on one side of the bed and seemed to be asleep almost instantly. Dandra stared at him.
“How does he do that?” she asked. “How can he do that?”
“He’s been able to sleep whenever he wants for as long as I’ve known him. No matter what’s been happening, give Geth a moment of quiet and he can go to sleep.” Singe shook his head in awe. “It’s a valuable gift when you’re a mercenary.”
The wizard turned away, moving to the room’s window and throwing back the shutters. The window faced away from the street and out over the low rooftops of Zarash’ak’s ramshackle sprawl. A cool breeze drifted in from the distant sea, pushing back some of the pungent marsh smell that clung to the city. After a moment, Dandra slipped across the room to join him.
“You haven’t said much about the time that you and Geth served together in the Blademarks,” she said.
Singe looked down at her, then away. “No, I haven’t,” he said.
“Being an inanimate crystal gives you a lot of time to watch what’s going on around you. The only time I’ve seen people with the depth of anger you two have is when they were friends before they became enemies.”
Singe’s face twisted. For a moment, Dandra wondered if maybe she’d pressed too hard, but then his eyes closed and he let out a long sigh.
“Not too long after I joined the Frostbrand-our Blademarks company-the commander of the company, Robrand d’Deneith, took a few of us on a recruiting mission,” he said in a low voice. “Folk from the Eldeen Reaches generally make good scouts and the Frostbrand had developed a specialty in taking winter assignments, so we headed into the northern Eldeen. Not quite so isolated as Bull Hollow, but still more wild than civilized. In a little place that was hardly more than a crossroads, Robrand started his recruiting speech.” Singe’s expression grew nostalgic. “Twelve moons, the old man could talk! Recruiting was a hard sell in that region-the Eldeen Reaches had seceded from Aundair only a generation or so before and most Reachers didn’t want to have anything to do with the world outside their forests. But there was one eager young shifter who came forward with a hunger for adventure in his eye and signed up on the spot.”
“Geth,” said Dandra and Singe nodded.
“There’s a tendency in every Blademarks company for new recruits to band together. Eight of us joined the Frostbrand within a couple of months of each other. I was the first, Geth was the last. The bunch of us were practically inseparable for the next five years.” He reached up and ran a finger along his cheekbone, high under his left eye. Dandra looked closely and saw a thin scar. “Geth gave me that during a tavern brawl in Metrol. He was aiming for the Cyran soldier who was holding me from behind and missed.”
“That can’t be what broke you up though.”
“That was nothing. We laughed about it.”
“Then what happened?” Dandra hesitated, then said, “Tonight when Vennet mentioned ‘Narath’… you’ve said that name to Geth before and he doesn’t like to hear it either.”
The wizard gave no response.
“Singe,” Dandra said, “what happened at Narath?”
“Go to sleep, Dandra,” said Singe. His voice was cold and empty. “Take the bed next to Geth if you want. I’ll sleep on the floor.”
Dandra glanced at the bed. There was plenty of room for three people to lie side by side. She looked back to Singe. He was still staring out of the window, his face a harsh mask. Dandra held her tongue and turned away, leaving him to whatever dark memories were running through his head.
The sound of the room’s door closing woke her. Dandra sat upright, her mind snapping alert and the drone of whitefire throbbing on the air. On the floor under the window, Singe came to his feet with his rapier in his hand.
Geth stood inside the door, a big bundle of rags and three broad conical straw hats in his arms. He looked at both of them critically. “I walk out of here and you don’t stir, but I come in and you’re both ready to strike me down?” He walked over to the bed and dropped the bundle. “Here. I’ve been to market.”
The rags were clothes, simple and well worn-by fisherfolk previously if the smell that rolled off them was anything to judge by. Dandra wrinkled her nose. Singe stared. “Did you actually pay for those?” he demanded.
“More or less.” Geth tossed a muddy brown shirt to the wizard. “We can’t just walk up to Lightning on Water. We need something to disguise ourselves.”
“No one will recognize us by smell at least,” Dandra pointed out with a grin. Singe gave her a dim glower.
It was the middle of the morning by the time they left the inn and stepped back onto the street. Zarash’ak was alive around them. The air was humid and close, but the people of the City of Stilts moved around in a hurry, as if eager to get their errands finished before day grew any hotter. Dandra found herself staring around as she, Geth, and Singe wandered back toward the docks, unexpectedly aware of what she had missed of Zarash’ak when she had passed through as a crystal around Tetkashtai’s neck. The city had sounds, sights, and smells she hadn’t really appreciated before. Musicians on a street corner made strange music that mixed a chirping stringed instrument with a deep, thrumming pipe. On streetside grills, vendors cooked long strips of meat brushed with a thin sauce that smelled both spicy and sour. Other vendors made thick rounds of dark gold bread, flapping a pale yellow dough back and forth between their palms before slapping it onto hot iron griddles. People seemed to buy the yellow bread at one stall, then wander on to another to buy meat or blackened roast vegetables to stuff inside.