[Meetings 03] - Dark Heart

by Tina Daniell - (ebook by Undead)

  He met her eyes. She didn't flinch. After a moment, he stepped back and sat down wearily. "El-Navar is fine," he told her more calmly. "They are waiting, miles from here. None of them wanted to take the chance of coming back to the rendezvous."

  "Terrific," Kitiara snorted, sitting down again. "So I'm the only one who still considers me part of the group."

  "I came back," said Ursa deliberately. He raised his eyes to meet hers, and she nodded her gratitude.

  There was a moment of silence. They were surrounded by blackness and looked at each other across the small fire.

  "Still," he added meaningfully, "it's bad business. Nobody told us to kill Beck. Sir Gwathmey will have a price on our heads, and I'm not sure how Lord Mantilla will take the news. If he's smart, he'll say and do nothing. He detests the Gwathmey bloodline. But the whole episode may, eventually, lead back to him. And what El-Navar did may point to a Karnuthian among us, and mark any in his company."

  "So?" asked Kitiara.

  "So," responded Ursa, "I'm sure the best thing for us to do would be to split up for a while, get far away from this part of the world, and lay low. Let some time pass. See what happens."

  Kitiara thought about that. "All right," she agreed. "Give me my share. I was only planning to join up for this one job, anyway."

  "You don't understand," said Ursa, standing up and moving toward his horse, fiddling with the saddle and reins. He turned to look at her. "You were never one of us. We only used you to make the plan easier, to free up Radisson to help us with the main attack. You're not getting any share."

  "What?" Kit leaped to her feet and lunged toward him, pulling her knife. But Ursa moved even more quickly and grabbed her wrist. He bent it backward until the knife was next to her face. With his other arm, he slapped her hard across the face. He jerked the knife out of her hand and pushed her away.

  "They wouldn't let me give you a share," he said, half-apologetically. "Even if I wanted to."

  The look on Kitiara's face was pure fury. She made another move in Ursa's direction, but he waved the knife in front of her, and she backed off.

  "At least I came back," he declared between clenched teeth. "I came back to see if you were all right. The others wanted to ride on."

  "Thanks for nothing," Kit said, spitting the words. She looked around for another weapon, something she could grab and throw, anything, but it was a standoff.

  Ursa watched her for several seconds, until he was convinced that she had no recourse. Then he turned toward his horse, unstrapped a long bundle wrapped in scrim cloth, and tossed it on the ground at her feet.

  "What's that?" she asked contemptuously, barely looking at it.

  "Open it," he said.

  Cautiously, Kit stooped down and worked the strings and wrapping, revealing a scabbard bound in tooled leather. She unbladed a short sword: bone grip, etched, thick blade, the hilt and pommel ornamented with tiny, brilliant stones. It was as magnificent a sword as she had ever beheld.

  "It's yours," said Ursa. "It's worth as much as a good horse."

  "Why me?" Kit asked suspiciously, handling it.

  "Beck's sword," Ursa said matter-of-factly. "Obviously of personal significance, maybe a gift of heritage. The only thing we would dare do with it is bury it. You can take it back to Solace, which is far enough away. You're the last one to figure in on this mission. Nobody knows you were with us. You're safe—but I'd keep it wrapped and out of sight for a long while yet."

  Ursa waited for her response. Kit gazed with satisfaction at the sword in her hand, but when she looked back up at Ursa her eyes were hard and uncompromising.

  'You had to come back here anyway, to bury Beck," Kit said accusingly.

  Ursa's face looked stubborn. "Maybe," he said. He waited, but when Kit said nothing else, he started to mount. The minute his back was turned, Ursa knew he had made a mistake.

  The mercenary felt a sharp tip cut into his back. Blood trickled from the wound.

  "Not so fast," Kitiara said with a hiss.

  He turned around slowly, the sword in Kitiara's hands prodding him. Now the sword tip moved up to chest level and again nicked his skin.

  "Thanks for the sword," Kitiara said. "Now I want my fair share."

  "Don't be crazy," Ursa said tersely.

  Kit gave the tip of the sword a little nudge, opening up another small wound. "I don't have it with me," Ursa said through gritted teeth.

  "Then let's go get it," Kit insisted.

  "They'll never give it you," warned Ursa. "They'd kill you, and they'd let me be killed by you, if need be, without a second thought."

  "Too bad for you," said Kitiara. She gave the sword another push, and Ursa's blood flowed freely. Yet as Kit did so, the mercenary astonished her by reaching over with amazing speed and grabbing her sword by the blade. She hadn't noticed before—idiot 1—but his hand was gloved in heavy leather. And though the sword cut sharply into the hide, Ursa was able to grip the sword firmly and push it away before Kit could react.

  Then, her attention diverted, Ursa kicked upward, catching Kit fully in the groin. As she buckled, he kicked even higher with the other leg and caught her in the chin. She felt a snap and collapsed, bobbling the sword. Ursa gave Kit one more vicious kick in the side before she lost consciousness.

  Ursa stood over her, quickly bandaging his hand in some cloth torn from his tunic. The wrapped hand looked blood-soaked, but in reality the cut was not very deep or painful, and Ursa knew it would heal. The look on his face was more of anger than anything else. His eyes were cold and unforgiving.

  He picked up Beck's sword and, with some difficulty, wrapped it up again in its elaborate covering. Kitiara was motionless.

  Ursa shuffled toward his horse and rose stiffly into the saddle. He was about to stick Beck's sword back into its niche in his pack, when he glanced again toward Kitiara and had a change of mind.

  "Here," he said to no one in particular, his voice heavy. He tossed the sword into the dirt, next to her crumpled body. "You earned it, Miss Kitiara," he added as he turned his horse away.

  Chapter 8

  Stumptown

  Kitiara struggled awake, feeling as if she had been drugged. The throbbing pain that came a moment later made her wish she was still asleep. The memory of her nasty confrontation with Ursa flooded her mind.

  Anger tugged her to her feet as surely as if a rope was pulling her up. Brushing off her clothes, Kit noticed a long, thin bundle laying at her feet. Beck's sword, she realized. Ursa must have left it. Little enough for my trouble, she thought. The image of El-Navar, his diamond eyes and black hair like writhing snakes, flickered across her mind. There had been that too, a rite of passage that she no longer had to anticipate with either curiosity or trepidation.

  The dusky morning light revealed ugly bruises spreading across Kit's jaw and neck. She touched them gingerly. Well, she thought to herself, they can't leave the daughter of Gregor Uth Matar in the dust.

  Kit picked up the sword and strapped it to her back before untying Cinnamon and hobbling alongside her horse, tracking Ursa's hoof prints. As she might have guessed, after about a half an hour of painful walking, the search ended at a stream where the tracks vanished. Ursa was too practiced a mercenary to have not made an effective escape. Kit knew she would never pick up his trail and, if she did somehow, it would vanish again somewhere down the line.

  Standing there, Kit realized how hungry she was. She bent to the water and drank deeply. Then, with a few encouraging words to Cinnamon about the likelihood of a warm, well-stocked stable at the end of the day, she stiffly mounted her horse and set off—to where, she had no idea.

  Silverhole was ten or twenty miles to the north, but she didn't dare go there; the men who had been chasing her would certainly scout that place as a likely hideout. But Kitiara figured there would be smaller settlements, feeding off the road builders, directly to the south and west.

  By midday Kit found herself in the southern foothills and felt safe. Si
lverhole was a half-day's ride distant. She was on the edge of territory where the forest dwindled and the land rose sharply into miles of knifelike ridges. Farther to the west, the terrain became barren and inhospitable. Not even mercenaries would seek to escape in this direction, she thought confidently.

  Kitiara approached a small group of dwellings. Not much of a town, it was more a hastily thrown together assemblage of tents, huts, and shacks, with the occasional timbered building. Stumptown, a lettered sign read, no doubt because the trees hereabout had been leveled by lumbermen, and all that remained were scarred stumps. A motley assortment of people moved about on muddy, makeshift streets. Still, there was at least one food and drink establishment, Kit saw, and she was ravenous.

  Of course there was a slight problem in that she didn't have any money.

  As Kit drew closer, she saw a sign proclaiming: Piggott's Hospitality. The place was large enough, though the wood was weathered and the paint peeling. The windows were dingy where they were not cracked or boarded over. The single midafternoon customer—an ancient, grizzled dwarf—wobbly ascended the wooden front steps, looking as if he had just emerged from a barrel of soot and ash.

  Nothing like the well-being and hospitality that emanated from Otik's inn back in Solace, Kit reflected, feeling a momentary pang of homesickness. She shook her head.

  "Must be my aching body and empty stomach taking over," Kit muttered to herself as she dismounted and led Cinnamon around to where she supposed the kitchen entrance must be.

  After tying her horse to a post, Kitiara secreted Beck's sword among some bushes. Squaring her shoulders, she knocked on the door, determined not to appear to be a beggar. A fat man with a thick, slack jaw, wearing a grease-stained apron, answered. Taking his time, he looked Kit up and down. One of his ears was clotted and misshapen, no doubt the souvenir of an altercation.

  "Well, you look a little worse for wear, m'lady. Lover's quarrel was it? I likes 'em sassy, meself, but not too lippy. Now, what can I do for you?"

  The man hadn't budged from the doorway. His considerable bulk filled the frame, blocking Kit's view of the interior. The smells wafting out, while no comparison to Otik's famous fare, were tempting enough to make Kit fight down the immediate revulsion she felt for this oaf and reply civilly.

  "I'm passing through your town and have lost my purse along the road. Is there some work I could do in return for a meal?"

  The man's attitude toward Kit took on a more calculating edge. "Know your way around a kitchen, do you?"

  Kit, who had been hoping for some more physical chore, got a sinking sensation in her stomach, but hunger impelled her. "Yes, I can wash dishes, and in a pinch I can cook."

  The man startled Kit by grabbing her arm and yanking her inside the door. "I do the cooking, m'lady, but if you can wait tables and wash dishes you can pitch in. The fellows who work here need all the help they can get. We don't get many ladies helping out, cuz the ladies in this town don't waste their time with kitchen work. They've turned their talents to more profitable ventures, if you know what I mean."

  He threw his arm familiarly around Kit's shoulders and steered her toward one corner of a long table in the middle of the messiest kitchen Kit had ever seen. Dirty dishes, pots, and pans covered every available space. A gigantic black iron cauldron filled with something or other bubbled away over the fireplace, splattering into the flames and onto the hearth. Spilled water, grease, and all manner of foodstuffs glinted on the floorboards under which ran a shallow crawlspace. Gaps between the boards allowed most of the spillage to run off below. And from the rustling she heard beneath her feet, Kit surmised that none of it was going to waste.

  "Piggott's the name, as in 'Piggott's Hospitality.' Hey, Mita, get the new girl some of that stew you're burning," Piggott yelled to a slightly built teenage boy skulking in the corner.

  He turned back to Kit. "Work the dinner shift, and we'll see how it goes. One bowl now, all you can eat afterward. Them's my rules. If you work out, we'll see if I can think up anything else for you to do." He leered at her meaningfully before heading toward the doorway that led into the public room and tavern.

  "What about my horse?" Kit called out after him. "She's tied up in the back."

  Piggott paused to glance over his shoulder at Kit. "If you want me to feed your horse too, then count on staying through breakfast tomorrow. I'm not running a charity. One way or another—" he winked lewdly at her "—you'll have to pay for what you get."

  Kit was too tired and hungry to shoot him the insult he deserved. She sank wearily onto a bench at the table. The boy named Mita brought her a bowl of some stew, setting it down in front of her. Kit spooned it up hungrily even though it was so hot it burned her tongue. It was tasty, though.

  Mita hovered at the edge of the table. He had yellow hair that bristled like cornstalks, a pockmarked face, and a pink slab of a tongue.

  "Well," Kit said after several mouthfuls, "if you're waiting for me to tell you how good this is, it's decent enough, but could use more pepperoot. My father always said, when in doubt, add pepperoot. And Piggott is right. You've burned it."

  Seemingly disappointed, the boy's pink tongue disappeared, and he turned away silently. As he walked toward the hearth, Kit noticed that he limped slightly. For some reason, she was reminded of Raistlin and immediately warmed to the boy. It makes more sense to have him as an ally than an enemy in this place, Kit thought reasonably.

  "My name's Kitiara," she called after him, her tone more congenial. "You aren't that clodhopper's son are you? I hope not. I'd rather be his slave than his kin."

  Mita turned and cracked a wan smile. He was almost as grubby as the kitchen surroundings, but his smile was sweet and genuine. "I get paid a little, and my meals. I stay in the barn."

  "Tonight," said Kit, returning his smile, "the barn'll be my home, too."

  She returned to her stew, and for the next several minutes gulped the rest of it down. Mita went out to tend to Cinnamon for her, and when he returned, Kit was already getting started, dumping dishes into an empty wooden tub.

  "Start filling this with water from the well out back," she ordered. "Carry two buckets at a time if you can. We've got to get organized here."

  Mita hesitated for a minute, as if deciding whether to challenge Kitiara's assumed authority. He was about her age, maybe a year or two older, in fact.

  Just then the rumble of voices from the public room grew louder as people began arriving for supper. Mita shrugged his shoulders, picked up two buckets, and went out the door.

  Soon Piggott was yelling numbers through the door, and Kit and Mita were doing their best to keep up. There was only one dish served every night, always some variety of stew, and the numbers signified how many bowls needed to be dished up. It wasn't long before Mita and Kit were filling up bowls whether they had time to clean one beforehand or not.

  "Don't worry, nobody expects cleanliness-and-godliness when they eat at Piggott's," Mita advised Kit good-humoredly as he hurried in with a dirty bowl, wiped it with a dirtier towel that dangled from his waist, and spooned in a helping for the next customer. "Leastwise they don't if they live around here. If they do mind, they're probably just passing through and won't be back anyway. This is the only place for miles around that serves hot food."

  Dashing in and out of the kitchen, ferrying empty and filled bowls of stew. Kit hardly had time to look around the public room. A bar and counter stood at one end of the place, near the kitchen door, where Piggott filled drinks and took orders. Along the floorboards stood tight rows of colored bottles—a fixture in lowlife Krynn bars—and at eye level, cheap, framed watercolors of snowy mountain peaks and cascading waterfalls were hinged to the walls.

  The clientele consisted mostly of dwarves, plus a few grime-covered humans. Most were miners or loggers; some were from the road crew, which was obvious by their heavy-stitched clothing, backpacks, and belts of implements. The noise was shrill, and as she passed by the tables, Kitiara could make
out only snatches of excitable conversation.

  "It's a ploy, some kind of damn trick, if you ask me. . . ."

  "They say Sir Gwathmey's son was himself killed. . . ."

  "I still don't believe it, and I won't believe it till I spit on the evidence. . . ."

  "You drink any more of that stuff tonight, and you'll be asleep and wetting your own pants. . . ."

  "Are you going back to work. . . ?"

  "What do you take me for, Aghar? I won't be gulled. . . ."

  Kitiara pricked her ears as she moved easily among the grumbling customers, for nobody was paying much attention to her. And nobody was looking to tie a young woman into the crime—or hoax, some said—they were all steamed about, the hijacking of the road gang payroll. The road builders among them had already packed and made plans to head home.

  "Somebody made off with a fortune," Mita said when the dinner rush was over and they had a chance to talk. "The dwarves think it's all a stunt to deceive 'em into working for free a little longer. Dwarves are shifty and suspicious types," he added knowingly, "and they don't like to be made fools of."

  "Anybody hurt?" asked Kitiara innocently. At least, she hoped the question sounded innocent.

  "Just a nobleman's son," shrugged Mita. "The robbers killed him but good. Made it look like a wild animal, though, which is one reason why the dwarves smell something funny. One thing's for sure, dwarves don't work on credit, and that road's never gonna get built now."

  "Won't Piggott's business suffer?" asked Kit.

  "Some," conceded Mita. "At first. But seems there's no end to dwarves and travelers. And if you want to get hot food and strong drink and—" he lowered his voice a little apologetically "—female company in these parts, you've got to come to Stumptown."

  Kit and Mita had served helpings of stew until the black iron cauldron was almost empty, at which point, Piggott had announced that the kitchen was closed. By that time, the crowd in the public room had already thinned out considerably.