James Wyatt - Dragon forge

“Where are you going now?” Ashara asked.

“A fine question,” Cart muttered. There seemed nowhere to go but farther down.

“Would you care to accompany me to our enclave? You could meet the Baron.”

Cart had heard Haldren speak of disgust rising in his gut, or the taste of it in his mouth, and indeed he made the same face when he felt disgust at some person or idea that he made when he tasted something he didn’t like. Lacking a digestive system or any sense of taste, Cart had never understood the physical sensation of it, but disgust assailed his mind like a wave of unease radiating back from his face.

“No,” he said. He had no taste for the scheming, the maneuvering. And he had a sudden sense that even kind, pleasant Ashara was using him, trying to bring him into a position that would bring her advantage. “I enjoyed our talk, Lady,” he said, honestly. “I hope to see you again soon. But I must go.”

He put his back to the cathedral and the Cannith district and walked away.

He was a good twenty paces away when he heard Ashara’s quiet voice. “Good-bye, Cart.”

Kauth’s first conscious awareness was of motion-back and forth, bouncing up and down. Slowly the sensation resolved into the gentle lurch of the Orien coach, continuing along the rough road to Greenheart. The light began to register in his vision, and he opened his eyes. Zandar crouched over him, wearing his habitual sardonic smile. “He lives!” the warlock proclaimed.

Full awareness of where he was rushed into his mind, accompanied by a surge of panic. He put a hand to his face to check-yes, he was still Kauth. He tried to roll himself sideways and nearly fell off the bench he was lying on. With some effort, he managed to prop himself up on one elbow. His body still screamed with pain, and he grimaced at Zandar.

“You have my thanks, Zandar,” he said. “But you’re about the last person I’d think to call a healer.” He fumbled at his quiver, reaching for one of the wands he used most often, one that held healing magic. It wasn’t there.

“Looking for these?” Zandar said, holding three wands out to Kauth. “You can thank them, not me.”

Kauth snatched them away. He didn’t like the idea of anyone rummaging through his pouches-especially the warlock, he realized. Even if Zandar had just saved his life, he wasn’t quite ready to trust the man. Choosing one of the wands, he extended his mind to touch the weave of magic it held, and felt a fresh wave of healing magic wash over his body like cool water against fevered skin. He took a deep breath and sat up.

A murmur of approval arose in the seats around him-evidently several of the nearby passengers had been watching with interest. Sevren and Vor stood in the seat behind him, and even the orc was smiling. Zandar moved from his crouch and sat on the bench next to Kauth.

Zandar leaned close and murmured in his ear. “I’m afraid we’ve become celebrities on the coach,” he said. “Too much attention, if you ask me.”

“What happened?” Kauth asked, shaking his head. “It’s all a blur.”

“The Children of Winter attacked the coach, of course. And we killed them. That makes us heroes.” Zandar grinned again. “I’ve always wondered what that would feel like.”

“Who are the Children of Winter, and why did they attack us?”

“Sevren, you want to answer that?”

The shifter leaned over the bench. “They’re one of the-” He stopped suddenly, and Kauth turned to look at him. Sevren’s amber eyes were narrowed as he looked down at him.

“What’s wrong?” Kauth asked.

“What kind of agent of the Wardens doesn’t know who the Children of Winter are? Khyber’s blood, what Reacher doesn’t know them by reputation at least? Who are you really?”

Kauth glanced at Zandar, who sat between him and the aisle. The warlock scowled, and Kauth could almost see his eldritch power boiling in his eyes, churning shadow eager to burst forth and wreak destruction.

Damn Kelas, he thought, and damn the Royal Eyes of Aundair. They should have given me more information.

But they want me dead, he reminded himself.

“All right,” he said, looking back at Sevren. “I wasn’t completely honest with you back in Varna. I’m not a Reacher. I was born in Stormreach, and I’ve only been in Khorvaire for a few weeks. I came here looking for work-the kind of work that my experience in Xen’drik might help with. The Wardens hired me for this mission, so I’m a sword for hire, not one of their regular scouts or agents.”

“Much like us,” Vor observed.

“How much are they paying you?” Zandar asked.

Kauth did some quick math in his head. He had offered them payment of a thousand gold galifars each. It would be reasonable for him to keep two parts for himself. “Five thousand.”

Zandar looked to Sevren, and Kauth met the shifter’s gaze. Sevren stared at him for a long time. Finally he said, “That’s a pretty good story. It’ll do for now. Zandar, Vor, you agree?”

The others nodded. Zandar’s smile returned to his face. Kauth wasn’t sure what to make of that.

“So here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll take that five thousand and divide it in four parts instead of five. We’re all equal partners in this mission now. Twelve fifty each.”

Just the right amount of hesitation, Kauth reminded himself.

“Done.”

Sevren extended a hand over the back of the bench, and Kauth clasped it. “Equal partners,” the shifter said. “That means I give the orders now.”

Zandar laughed, and Kauth just shrugged. “Seems to me you’ll do a good job keeping us alive,” he said. “I have no problem with that.”

“Good. That’s settled. Now, back to your question, ignorant Stormreacher.”

Kauth laughed. The people of the Eldeen Reaches were used to scorn coming from the self-styled sophisticates of the Five Nations. They all looked down together on the provincials of Stormreach, situated at the tip of the mysterious southern continent of Xen’drik.

Sevren shared the laugh. “The Children of Winter are one of the crazier sects running around the Reaches,” he said. “Their leaders are druids, so they have sort of a respect for nature. But they tend to focus on a part of nature’s cycle that other sects prefer not to dwell on.”

“The dying part,” Kauth guessed.

“Exactly. They work with spiders, scorpions, wasps, and centipedes-that sort of thing. That seems to be a matter of personal preference rather than a part of their philosophy, but it certainly helps them terrify the peasants, which seems to be part of their goals.”

“So why did they attack the coach?”

Sevren shrugged. “That’s what they do. They believe that nature is going to cleanse the land, and they see themselves as agents of that cleansing.”

“Hastening the cycle of nature,” Zandar observed.

“Something like that.”

“I hope they were prepared to meet the end of their life cycles,” the warlock said.

Kauth laughed-it was easy to make himself laugh. But as he laughed, he wondered whether his companions were prepared for their own deaths.

Nothing is permanent, he reminded himself.

His next thought disturbed him: Perhaps I should join the Children of Winter.

Greenheart was a stark contrast to Varna and, indeed, to every capital city of Khorvaire. It would be a stretch to call it a city at all. At a guess, Kauth figured that fifty Greenhearts would fit inside Fairhaven’s walls, but he thought he might be guessing too low. There were precious few actual buildings-little more than stone huts that looked as though they’d been lifted out of the earth to serve as shelter. Other residents lived on strange platforms in the trees that seemed to be extended from the branches themselves. Nowhere in the town was the work of carpenters or masons readily apparent.