“I’m in the middle of explaining to these runts who I’m after when this creature comes out of nowhere and attacks us. We made such a ruckus, it wasn’t like it had to hunt too hard for us.”
“I’d never seen anything like it before,” the lathon said, spreading his arms wide as he spoke. “Huge, with fangs as long as your arm, and covered all over with scales.”
“Huge for you, you mean,” said Burch. “Truth was, it wasn’t any bigger than me.”
“You said Ss’lange was gigantic,” Brendis said.
“Hey, the boy’s listening,” the lathon said, waving for a server carrying a pitcher of ale to come over. “Be sure to top off his glass,” he said, pointing at the young knight. “He’s far too clearheaded.”
“Here’s the kicker, kid,” Burch said. “This critter wasn’t Ss’lange. I’d been tracking him through the region for about a week, and it turns out he’d gone and infected one of his surviving victims—on purpose. He figured it might throw me off the scent. Nothing else he’d tried up until then had worked.
“I’ve seen him before though. Fought him once, even. I can tell right away that this critter’s nothing like him, and I figure out what’s happened, so I do what I have to.
“What’s that?” asked Sallah from the edge of her seat.
“I smack it once, hard, to get its attention, to get it to chase me away from the others. Thought they might have blown all their arrows on me. Once I had it to myself, I beat it half to death.”
“Of course, as he’s doing that, we spread out to look for him. Just then Ss’lange pops up out of the grass and tears into us. He was a cunning hunter, waiting for us to get far enough apart he could take us on one at a time.
“I’ve hunted dozens of different breeds of thunder lizards, but this weresnake was something else. He gutted two of us and ripped the throat out of a third before we realized there were two of them running around with us in the night—three if you count Burch. He came after me next, but I made him pay for it. I gashed open his chest with my spear.”
“About then, I showed up to save the day,” said Burch.
Halpum threw an arm around the shifter and pointed at him. “This crazed shifter launches himself at Ss’lange so hard and fast I thought it was a rabid clawfoot.”
“Clawfoots get rabies?” Burch asked.
“I don’t know,” the lathon said with a laugh. “It’s a strange world. Who can tell?
“So there we are with two of these monstrous critters trying to claw each other to death right in front of us. The smart thing to do is run, but we’re too thickheaded for that. I figure the furry one hasn’t done us any harm yet, so I call for a charge, and we all stab our spears into the scaly one, who’s got his coils all wrapped around Burch by then, crushing the wind out of him.”
“This doesn’t do much good,” Burch says. “Ss’lange cleaned his fangs on bigger sticks.”
“But it gets Ss’lange’s attention.”
“Which is all I need.” The shifter grabbed his neck with a ripping motion. “Next thing, the weresnake’s on the ground, missing a throat.”
Halpum nodded, smiling. “Fight over.” He paused for a moment. “Course, that’s not the end of it.”
Burch shook his head. “There was still his daughter to find. Plus the fact Ss’lange gored my shoulder with his fangs before he went down.”
“You’re still here,” Brendis said.
“Barely,” Halpum said. “He spent the better part of a month with us, recovering. It wasn’t the wound so much as the poison.”
“And the girl?” Kandler asked. Esprë weighed heavy on his mind as he spoke.
“Ask her yourself,” the lathon said, jerking his head toward the young halfling who had entered the room earlier.
Burch leaped across the table before Kandler could even turn his head. The shifter landed in front of the newcomer, sweeping her up into his arms like a long-lost child.
“I thought I scented you,” he said. “It’s been a long time. Too long.”
Monja giggled as he held her out away from him at arm’s length to get a better look at her. “Children do grow,” she said.
Burch hugged the halfling to him before setting her back on her feet and kneeling down next to her. Then he stopped marveling at her and reached up to caress the wolf’s tail hanging from her staff. His black eyes grew wide.
“You’re the clan shaman now?” he said. “I’m getting older than I thought.”
Monja shook her head. “Wodager is still with us. I’m next in line.”
Burch grinned, showing all his long, sharp teeth. “That’s a proud line.” He rubbed his shoulder, where Kandler guessed the scars from Ss’lange’s fangs rested under the shifter’s thick fur.
“I didn’t call for you for a reunion, daughter,” Halpum said from the other side of the table, “no matter how happy it may be. Our friends here, new and old, can’t stay long. Kandler there, a kidnapper races north with his girl. To Karrnath at least, maybe beyond.”
Monja stepped forward to where Kandler sat on the ground, his legs folded under the low table at which he ate. She put her hand on his shoulder. “I am with you, then, until we find her. Your cause is mine.”
Kandler started to protest, but the words caught on his tongue. He turned to Halpum and forced them through. “I cannot risk your daughter to save mine.”
Monja grabbed Kandler’s chin and turned his head to look at her. “I am no child. I am likely older than you.”
The justicar started to open his mouth again, but the halfling shushed him. “Don’t look to him.” She stepped closer, near enough he could taste her breath. It smelled of anise. “I’ve known the terror of a kidnapped child. Your cause is mine.”
21
When plates were cleared and the flagons topped off, Monja spoke to Kandler again. A dazzling presence in the lathon’s tent, all eyes stayed centered on her as she slipped into a space cleared between Burch and her father without a needed word. She chatted with them both, taking up with the shifter as if not a day had passed since they’d last met.
Her exuberance reminded Kandler of Esprë in her brighter moments, in the days before the Mourning, before her mother had been lost to them both. Since then, a cloud had always hovered over the young elf, casting even her best days in shadow. Living in Mardakine, nestled up against the horror of the Mournland, hadn’t helped. More than once, Kandler had thought to give up on dead Cyre, but neither he nor Esprë could find the strength to tear themselves away from the place and head for more pleasant climes.
Circumstances had done that for them.
It took the justicar a moment to realize that someone had called his name.
“Kandler?” Monja said, the lilt now gone from her voice. “Are you with us?”
The justicar nodded.
“I asked if you had anything of your daughter’s with you.”
Kandler lowered his eyes for a moment, then shook his head. “Burch knows her scent. We never thought we’d have to track her through the air.”
“Nothing?” Monja’s face fell. “Not even a small token she might have given you? A birthday gift?”
Kandler and Esprë had never gone in for such sentimentality. Esprina had been the most pragmatic elf Kandler had ever met—one of the many things he’d found attractive about her—and she’d passed that trait on to her daughter. Living as nomads in wartime too—and then in barren Mardakine—necessities had crowded out much else.
“Why?” he asked.
Monja’s grimace creased her childlike face, and Kandler saw her for her true age. Wisdom lurked behind those youthful eyes.