‘But they can fight,’ said Vaja.
As they started readying their horses, Praji said, ‘That, indeed, they can do. There, Captain, now you know as much about the Gilani as just about any man born in these parts.’
Calis said, ‘Well, if they want to avoid trouble, we should be able to make a swing ten miles to the south and back before sundown.’ As if concerned over something, he looked back at the main body of the camp, then said to De Loungville, ‘Leave a squad to look after things.’ Lowering his voice, he said, ‘And tell them to keep an eye out for Nakor.’
Foster motioned to another squad that was moving to saddle their horses and gave them instructions. Erik glanced back as he lifted his saddle to place it on the back of his own mount. Where was Nakor? he wondered.
Nakor grunted as he picked up the plank, silently cursing the fool at the other end who didn’t seem to realize something existed called ‘coordinated effort.’ The man, whose name was unknown to Nakor but whom he thought of as ‘that idiot,’ insisted on lifting, moving, and dropping without bothering to mention it to Nakor. As a result, over the last two days, Nakor had accumulated an astonishing collection of splinters, scrapes, and bruises.
Nakor had encountered difficulties returning to Calis’s company. The muster had finally halted with the core army to the north of this tributary to the river Vedra, while Calis and other new mercenary companies were to the south. Passing across the smaller river was now accomplished only by riders with official-looking passes, issued by the generals. Nakor had three such passes in his bag, having stolen them two nights before, but he didn’t want to try to use one until he could study it, and there hadn’t been any place to study the documents without attracting attention. Besides the risk of losing such documents, Nakor had a predisposition not to call attention to himself unless there was a reason to do so.
But the generals had ordered a bridge rebuilt across this tributary and a work gang was diligently doing just that. Nakor figured he would pose as a worker and when the bridge reached the opposite shore, he would simply vanish into the crowd on the other bank.
Unfortunately, the work was going more slowly than he had hoped, since the labor turned out to be slave labor and, as such, the workers were in no hurry. Also, he was now being closely guarded at night. The guards might not have noticed him when he arrived – if there was an extra slave in a squad, the guard would merely assume he had miscounted in the morning – but he would be certain to notice if there was one less.
Which meant Nakor would have to wait for exactly the right moment to vanish into the companies of mercenaries. He knew that once he was free of the guards watching the work gang he would have no trouble staying free, but he wished to create as ideal a moment as possible before he attempted it. A manhunt in the southern camp might prove amusing, but Nakor knew that he must share what he had learned with Calis and the others before too long, so that they could start planning their escape from this army and their eventual return to Krondor.
‘That idiot’ dropped his end of the plank before Nakor could move, and as a result he took more splinters in his shoulder. He was about to do one of his ‘tricks’ in retaliation, a sting to the buttocks that would make the man think he had sat on a hornet, when a chill passed over him.
He glanced back and felt his chest tighten, for a Pantathian priest stood not ten feet away watching the construction, speaking quietly to a human officer. Nakor set down his end of the plank and hurried back for another, keeping his eyes down. Nakor had encountered the Pantathians and their handiwork before, while traveling with the man who was now Prince of Krondor, but he had never seen a living Pantathian that close. As he passed the creature he noticed a faint odor, and remembered having heard of this smell before: very reptilian, yet alien.
Nakor bent to pick up another plank and saw ‘that idiot’ stumble over a rock. He lost his balance and took a half-step toward the Pantathian. The creature reacted, turning with a clawed hand sweeping out. The talons struck across the idiot’s chest, ripping his tunic as if they were knives. Deep cuts of crimson appeared as the man cried out. Then he went weak in the knees and collapsed, to lie twitching on the ground.
The human officer said to Nakor, ‘Get him out of here,’ and Nakor and another slave grabbed the fallen man. By the time they had moved him back to the slaves’ compound, the man was dead. Nakor studied the face, frozen in death with eyes open, and watched closely. After a few minutes, he was certain he knew exactly what poison the Pantathian had on his claws. It was no natural venom, but something created by mixing several deadly plant toxins together, and Nakor found this revelation fascinating.
He was also fascinated by the Pantathian’s need to demonstrate before the human officer his deadly ability to kill with a touch. There were politics here in the camp of the Emerald Queen that were not obvious to those far from the heart of power, and Nakor wished he had the time to try to uncover more about them. Any struggle in the enemy camp was good to know about, but unfortunately, he couldn’t afford to spend the time insinuating himself where he could observe the byplays of power.
A guard said, ‘Drop him there,’ pointing to a garbage heap that would be hauled away by wagon at sundown and dumped at a fill a mile or so away from the river. Nakor did as he was bid, and the guard ordered the two slaves to return to work.
Nakor hurried down to the building site, but the Pantathian and the human officer were now gone. He felt a brief regret that he couldn’t study the Serpent priest any longer, and even more regret that ‘that idiot’ had been killed. The man had deserved to have his backside stung, but he hadn’t deserved to die painfully as a poison shut down his lungs and heart.
Nakor worked until the noon meal. He sat on the bridge, now only a few yards from the other bank, dangling his feet above the water as he ate the tasteless gruel and hard bread to keep his strength up. All the while he ate, he wondered what Calis and the others were doing.
Calis motioned for the outriders on the right flank to keep an even line of sight, one man to the next, for a half mile. Signals from the closest man indicated the order was understood.
They had been riding since noon and still had no sign of anyone near the bank. Either the report of those tribesmen being nearby was in error, or they had left the area, or they were, as Praji had said, able to keep themselves from being seen.
Erik watched for any unexpected movement in the grass, but it was a breezy afternoon, and the tall grass moved like water. It would take eyes far better than his to see someone moving through this sheltering plain.
A short time later, Calis said, ‘If we don’t find something within the next half hour, we should return. We’ll be getting back to the ford in the dark as it is now.’
A shout from an outrider, and everyone looked to the west. Erik used his hand to shade his eyes against the afternoon sunlight, and saw a rider frantically signaling from the base of a large mound. Calis motioned and the column turned toward the rider.
When they reached the base of the hillock, Erik could see it was covered in the same grass as the plains, making it look like nothing so much as an inverted shaggy bowl. Almost completely round, it was some distance from the next rise, the beginning of a series of hills leading toward the distant mountains.
‘What is it?’ asked Calis.
‘Tracks and a cave. Captain,’ answered the outrider.
Praji and Vaja exchanged questioning looks, and dismounted. They led their horses close to the cave and inspected it. A short entrance, one a man could enter stooped over, led back into the gloom.
Calis glanced down. ‘Old tracks.’ Then he moved to the entrance and ran his hand over the stone edge of the cave. ‘This isn’t natural,’ said Calis.
‘Or if it is,’ said Praji, also running his hand along the wall, ‘someone’s done some work on it to make it more sturdy. There’s stonework under this dirt.’ He brushed away the dirt and revealed some fitted stones underneath.
‘Sarakan,’ said