Don Bassingthwaite - The Grieving Tree

A true kalashtar would find such an unsophisticated stink revolting .

Dandra had to work to keep her anger from showing on her face. I like it .

Of course you do , Tetkashtai said.

Natrac led them across one side of the market. Both Dandra and Singe stared at the plant life displayed in the stalls they passed. Dandra had imagined the market would sell only leafy herbs, but instead all conceivable fragments of a seemingly infinite number of plants were on sale. Leaves of all shapes and sizes. Twigs. Stalks. Bark. Chips and slivers of wood. Flowers. Seeds. Roots. Fresh. Dried. Each stall was enveloped in its own particular scent as well: some peppery, some sweet, some acidic, some utterly foul.

“Where do all of these come from?” asked Singe above the noise.

“Some of the common ones are grown in villages around the city,” said Natrac, “but a lot are wild. Locals gather them, pool them, and send someone into Zarash’ak to sell. A few come from really deep in the Marches or are particularly rare.” He pointed to a merchant who was shaving slices off a big, hard stalk as if it were some kind of woody cheese. “That’s rotto stem. A piece that big probably earned whoever found it enough money to live off for two months.”

“What’s it used for?”

“You cook it in wine, then make a face cream out of it. It takes away wrinkles.”

“Truly?”

Natrac gave him a suffering glance. “No,” he said, “people pay a small fortune just for the pleasure of putting hot mush on their face.”

Dandra looked around them. “Do you think the people who bring the herbs in from the deep Marches will be the best ones to ask about the Spires of the Forge?”

“Not just them,” said Natrac. “Anyone who spends time in the wilds tends to congregate around here-especially members of House Tharashk. Dragonshard prospectors, herb scouts, and bounty hunters all have the same concerns when they’re in the wild and they like to share information.”

He stopped in front of one of the buildings that faced onto the market. It looked strange to Dandra’s eyes-part tavern, part tea room. Through a window, she could see a mix of rough humans and half-orcs sipping gingerly from steaming mugs. “What kind of place is this?”

“It’s a gaeth’ad house. You don’t find them much outside of the Shadow Marches. Just think of it as a tavern.” Natrac stepped up to the door. “Wait here. I may not be long.”

He went inside. Dandra glanced at Singe. “What’s gaeth’ad?”

“The herbs from the Shadow Marches can do more than take away wrinkles,” the Aundairian told her. “Gaeth’ad is herb tea with a kick. A skilled gaeth’ad master can brew a custom tea that will make you feel however you want to. House Jorasco has hired masters to brew sedatives, but mostly gaeth’ad needs to be really fresh to be potent.”

Natrac’s business inside the house took almost no time at all. “We’re in luck,” he said as he emerged. “There’s a Tharashk bounty hunter in the city at the moment who’s supposed to know western Droaam. He favors one of the other gaeth’ad houses, but the person I spoke to thinks he might be there now. I’m told he’s the best available.”

“That sounds like a good start,” said Singe. “Let’s find him.”

The gaeth’ad house that Natrac led them to had a crooked hunda stick like Orshok’s hung over the door to serve as a sign. Unlike the previous house, its windows were covered in slat shutters that allowed air to circulate but gave those within a greater degree of privacy. Dandra paused for a moment inside the door to let her eyes adjust. The interior of the house was a dim, quiet room broken up by screens made of coarse paper. The screens made it hard to judge how many people might have been in the place-perhaps half of the tables that she could see were occupied, though she couldn’t always see whether their occupants drank their tea alone or in the company of someone else. The atmosphere was thick, humid even for Zarash’ak, and laced with a sweet-acrid smell.

Natrac walked up to the bar, a long polished counter that stood in front of jar-lined shelves more suitable to an apothecary’s shop, and spoke in Orc to a young half-orc on the other side. A few coins changed hands, disappearing into her sleeves, and she nodded. She pointed deeper into the maze of screens. Natrac turned back to Singe and Dandra.

“He’s here,” he said. “Follow me.”

Behind a screen at the very back of the house, a high-pitched voice was speaking softly in a harsh language Dandra didn’t understand. Every few minutes, a deeper voice would add something in the same language. Natrac paused just beyond the screen and cleared his throat. The high-pitched voice broke off and Dandra was certain that she heard the soft whisper of a dagger being drawn.

“Yes?” called the deeper voice.

“I’m looking for Chain d’Tharashk,” said Natrac.

“Come through,” said the deep voice. “All three of you.”

Dandra felt a trace of unease. She held up the three fingers to Singe and mouthed silently, how did he know?

The wizard looked unimpressed. He lifted a foot and pointed to it. Chain had heard their footsteps, Dandra realized.

“Old trick,” Singe murmured as Natrac disappeared around the screen. Singe gestured for Dandra to follow the half-orc, then fell in behind her.

The man who sat at the table on the other side of the screen was large. No, Dandra thought, “large” didn’t do him justice. Standing up, he would be taller than Natrac, maybe as tall as Ashi. His muscles were nearly as thick as Geth’s, bulging out from beneath a stained, sleeveless leather shirt. Nearly obscured by hair on his left forearm, a small dragonmark twisted and turned in a slash of color. The thick stubble on the man’s face matched the length of the stubble on his shaved head. Beneath heavy eyebrows, his eyes were dark and alert. “You’ve found me,” he said. “I’m Chain.”

His voice matched the rest of him-dark, heavy, and threatening. Any doubts Dandra had about leaving Geth and Ashi behind vanished immediately. Chain was a walking challenge. She didn’t think either the shifter or the hunter could have even spoken to him without starting a fight.

There were two chairs before the table. Natrac took one and Singe gestured for Dandra to take the other. She seated herself, shifting her spear out of the way. There was a fourth chair, but it was occupied by the source-or so Dandra assumed-of the high-pitched voice she had heard before. A goblin crouched in the chair, his slight frame tensing as Dandra touched the shaft of her spear. Reddish eyes in a flat face the color of dirty parchment watched each of them closely. One of the small creature’s hands was hidden by an enormous account book. Dandra guessed that it was holding the dagger she had heard drawn. She made a show of moving her hand away from her spear and he relaxed. Slightly.

Chain sat back, his chair creaking under his weight, and looked them over with such intensity that Dandra felt as though he was committing their appearances to memory.

As soon as Natrac had finished introducing himself and them, Chain asked, “So what do you want?”

Singe was just visible out of the corner of Dandra’s eye. She saw his face tighten. “Blunt, aren’t you?”

“People don’t hire me for my charm. You want charm, hire an elf.” The big man reached out and picked up a mug of gaeth’ad . “You want the best, hire me.”

Chain’s manners grated across Dandra’s nerves worse than Tetkashtai’s bitterness. “We didn’t say we wanted to hire you,” she said.

“Then you’re wasting my time.” Chain turned his head and nodded to the goblin. The little creature look back to the account book and began babbling in his harsh language as he ran thin fingers down a column of close-written text.