Marsheila Rockwell - Skein of Shadows

Sabira smiled. She had a feeling this partnership would work out just fine.

She was about to open her mouth to begin the negotiation process when a hush came over the tavern and all heads turned toward the entrance. Sabira turned to look as well and saw Xujil standing there, scanning the room. His gaze fell on her and he started toward her table. As he passed, people hastily got up from their tables, leaving coin beside their unfinished drinks on their way out.

When it became clear what the drow’s destination was, Laven glanced at Sabira.

“Another cranky friend of yours?”

Sabira met his eyes coolly. If working with the drow was going to be a problem, she needed to know it now. She could find other men to go down into the caverns; she couldn’t find another guide who knew the route Tilde had taken.

“Something like that.”

“Well, this should be fun, then.”

Sabira turned back in her seat to face the drow as he stopped next to her table, the only one aside from Laven’s that was still occupied. Even the kobold piper and shifter dancer had left the tavern, leaving them alone, except for Raff’s twin, who might have been a statue for all the attention he paid them.

“Marshal,” the drow said by way of greeting, and Sabira almost groaned. That was going to drive Laven’s price up, she was sure.

“Something I can do for you?” she asked shortly, not bothering to hide her annoyance.

“The mayor asks everyone who enters Tarath Marad to register with him and pay a small usage fee, to help offset expenses incurred by the town in housing and feeding so many extra people. Since Brannan is unable to register for you, he requires your presence.”

Sabira cocked an eyebrow at that. That was some pretty shrewd governing for a guy who dumped a dead body in a well and didn’t think there’d be consequences.

“Where is he?”

“At the mayor’s home, in the cavern,” the drow replied, unperturbed by her less than welcoming tone.

“Tell him we’ll be along shortly.”

“Brannan asked me to bring you-”

“I’m sure he did, but we’re in the middle of being unavoidably detained. Tell him we’ll be there just as soon as we’re done here.” She knew the drow was from a culture alien to her and that he hadn’t been on the surface long enough to acclimate, but he would have had to be from a completely different plane of existence to mistake her expression.

Xujil inclined his head.

“As you will.”

She waited until the drow had exited the tavern before turning back to Laven and Glynn.

“I believe we were just about to discuss you coming to work for me?”

Glynn gave her a wide smile, and Sabira could fairly see the coin pile growing in the other woman’s head.

“Ir’Kethras too? You do run with some interesting folks, don’t you… Marshal?” Laven asked, hazel eyes gleaming.

Sabira kept her own smile intact, though mentally she was sticking long needles in the soft spots between Xujil’s toes. Rusty ones. Possibly coated in poison.

“Just Sabira. I’m on vacation,” she replied airily. “And as far as Brannan goes-well, you said you wanted to get rich. No better way than by learning from someone who already is.”

She looked Laven and his companions in the eye, one by one.

“We’re going into Tarath Marad, farther in than anyone else has lived to tell about, and that drow everyone seems to hate is the one who’s going to lead us there. I can pay you one hundred platinum apiece. Half now, half when we get back, plus a percentage of the profits on anything we find that we wind up selling. You provide your own weapons and your own bedrolls; I’ll provide the rest. Wealth and a wild time. What do you say?”

Laven didn’t hesitate.

“We’re in.”

Zol, Barrakas 17, 998 YK

Trent’s Well, Xen’drik.

As they made their way out of the Shimmying Shifter-a rather ironic name, given that the dancer had barely been moving-Laven introduced Sabira and the others to the rest of his group.

“This here’s Rahm, and this is our resident wizard, Zi,” he said, gesturing first to the man in chainmail, who nodded affably, and then at the bald man, who didn’t. “Don’t mind him. He lost his robes in a game of Jarot’s Bluff. Been in a mood ever since.”

That explained the poorly-sewn canvas he was wearing.

“Who’d he lose to?” Sabira asked, idly curious.

“Glynn.”

Ah. Well, she’d come close to betting the clothes off her back a time or two herself, so she wasn’t one to judge, but she did wonder what the other woman had done with the robes. The dark-haired woman didn’t seem to be any more the dress-wearing type than Sabira was.

“It wasn’t the losing that upset him so much as her trading them for a couple of new daggers,” Laven continued. “He wasn’t too happy about that.”

“Please,” Glynn scoffed. “That cheap Thrane cotton wouldn’t have stopped a gnat bite, let alone a blade. At least the canvas is thick enough to offer some actual protection. I probably saved his life.”

“How very philanthropic of you,” Greddark interjected wryly. “I’m sure the profit you made had nothing to do with it.”

Glynn looked at him askance.

“Of course it did. Wouldn’t have been a point to it, otherwise.”

Greddark laughed at that, and the others joined in easily. Well, all except Zi, but Sabira was pretty sure she saw the corner of the wizard’s mouth twitch upward when he thought no one was looking.

She hid a relieved smile of her own. Integrating two very different groups into one cohesive team was a difficult enough task under the most ideal of circumstances, and these were anything but. It helped that everyone seemed to have a sense of humor. The better they got along, the better their chances of surviving this mission.

Well, some of them, anyway. She held no illusions that everyone who went into Tarath Marad with her would come back out again, not when thirty Blademarks and a powerful sorceress hadn’t been able to do so. But her little group of misfits had something Tilde’s men hadn’t-a willingness to break the rules. Whether or not that would be enough to keep them alive remained to be seen.

“So, tell me why everyone in Trent’s Well seems to hate our guide,” Sabira said in a low voice as the others began to chat and swap war stories behind them. “What did he do-poison the water supply?”

Laven didn’t seem to get the joke. When he looked over at her, his face had grown serious.

“Not just him. All the Unders-well, the few of them that stayed up on the surface, anyway. Wasn’t here when it happened, but from what I’ve heard, it seems they didn’t take too kindly to being discovered. They’re fighting some kind of war against some other Unders down there and I guess they thought the folks in the expedition were allied with their enemies. Followed ’em back up here and slaughtered the whole mess of ’em in their sleep before Brannan could talk ’em down. Killed their families too-women and children. Even an infant. Townsfolk would’ve started their own war if the Wayfinder hadn’t intervened. Got the mayor to grant the Unders amnesty, or some such-probably by appealing to his bank account. But not before the townsfolk took one of ’em and skinned him alive, then staked him out over a nest of scorpions.” Laven shook his head, bemused. “Funny thing is the other Unders didn’t seem to care that they killed him, just that they let scorpions defile his corpse.

“Anyway, now there’s a few of ’em who guide expeditions down into the caverns in exchange for ‘surface magic.’ Brannan and the mayor pretty much run the whole thing-make a nice profit off it too.”