Chapter

19

In spite of the King’s defeat by the Preceptor, the port of Altimak was prospering. It was still being used by Skeltian merchants and foreign ships from dozens of kingdoms, but the new Baltorian ships and the privateer militia ships in the Preceptor’s pay also docked there frequently. Alongside were the sloops of the King’s navy, but a popular mutiny had seen them go over to the Preceptor. Altimak was a place where even the stallholders in the market needed to speak a smattering of a dozen languages, as well as being skilled and ruthless street fighters.

Jelindel negotiated cheap but clean rooms for herself, Daretor and Zimak in a hostelry between the docks and the market. She had deemed it wise to be close to the centre of the port, but she had not discussed it with the other two. These days she had to resort to subtle pressure rather than reasoning to get her way, as Daretor and Zimak were growing increasingly reluctant to take orders or even suggestions from her.

Once alone Jelindel spoke the word of seeing that sent her eyes and feeling to the paraplane, but she found no more than the sorts of minor enchantments that one might expect in such a port city.

‘Hopeless place,’ muttered Zimak as they later wandered through the market in thick, humid air. ‘We’re already wanted in Skelt for horse-stealing, arson, theft, murder and sundry other crimes that I’ve probably never even heard of. Why come back?’

‘Fa’red frequented these parts for many years,’ replied Daretor. ‘Something must have drawn him here. Besides, we’ve not come up with any more constructive thoughts on where to look throughout the seven kingdoms, twelve cities, eighty towns, ninety-six temples and two hundred and five libraries that we have checked over the past year and six months.’

Faced with numbers that he had trouble counting up to, let alone remembering, Zimak stopped to bargain for a skin of wine. Presently they continued on their way again.

‘I could have bedded a real queen in Passendof,’ Zimak said after taking a swig of the red stream from the wineskin.

‘And gotten yourself eaten,’ muttered Jelindel.

‘She might have married me and made me King.’

‘That’s not the way that things are done in royalty. I risked my life to save you from her.’

‘And I risked my life for you in the Valley of Clouds!’

‘Risked your life for me? Why of all the –’

‘Please shut up, both of you,’ rumbled Daretor. ‘We should search this place quickly and move on, not fight.’

‘Again,’ added Zimak.

‘I’m tired and hot,’ complained Jelindel. ‘Does anyone else want to wear the mailshirt?’

Zimak reluctantly took over their enchanted burden and they split up. Libraries were not considered of great import in Altimak, so while Daretor and Zimak went around the port looking for a glow from the mailshirt, Jelindel hired herself as a relief scribe in the marketplace. She charged low rates and did excellent work, so that after two days she was not short of customers.

‘While passing through the Garrical Mountains on the way to the Skelt coast we saw the devastation wreaked by the flying dragon,’ a salt merchant’s apprentice dictated proudly. This was his first really long trip away from home.

‘Don’t you mean the Hamarian crater lake?’ Jelindel prompted.

‘No, no, I speak of melted rocks and a burned village,’ the apprentice said earnestly.

Jelindel looked up at once.

‘Did you see this dragon yourself?’

‘Alas no, learned sir, and it seems that I was a full month too late for the show. Just as well, perchance. There were but few survivors to tell the tale.’

‘And what tale was that?’

‘Why, that a dragon appeared out of the sky and spat fire upon the village.’

‘Why did it do that?’

‘Who knows the minds of dragons?’

‘Can you tell me where it is that you saw this devastated village?’

‘Yes,’ he said cannily. ‘If you can write my letter for free.’

The location turned out to be twenty miles west of the Dominer Pass, in the Garrical Mountains. The youth spoke of long, deep grooves in the rock, as if a hot knife had been dragged through the surface of a tub of mutton fat.

There had been none of the usual signs of fighting, such as arrowheads in the timbers. Some of the bodies had been burned to char on open ground.

Although it seemed relevant to nothing in particular, Jelindel decided that it was worth checking. The customs office had lists of trade routes, and these had towns and distances included.

Twenty miles west of the Dominer Pass was a village named Lers-Dharek. A penstroke was slashed across the name, and in the margin was scrawled ‘Razed by outlaws. Abandoned’.

The clerks at the office had heard only that it had been attacked and burned by outlaws, and on the surface that seemed quite a reasonable explanation.

A check of the city register revealed the names of twelve people with Lers-Dharek as their previous place of residence. Most had passed through the port and taken ships for elsewhere on the coast. All had arrived a month ago.

Only one man was still living there, a tailor named Korok who now had a stall in the marketplace. By that evening Jelindel found him and hired his services to sew a windcollar into her jacket while she waited. After a time she steered the conversation to the dragon that had burned his village.

‘It comes one night when Reculemoon setting,’ Korok said without looking up from his work. ‘Not a dragon like in crests and tapestries of rich nobles. Beautiful thing, full of facets, lights and intricate patterns. So beautiful, Korok cannot look away, even as – even as it spits blue flames.’

‘Blue flames? From its mouth?’

‘No mouth, and blue flames can only be seen when smoke drifts across them. Not flames, maybe … spears of blue. They are long, thin bars that come from its belly. Not a single house, tavern or stable is standing. Those who run are burned down. Korok watches them running. Just a flash of blue, all about their bodies, then gone! Just a puddle of melted gravel on roadway.’

Jelindel noted that he sat crouched and mumbled his words, and was close-lipped. It was as if he feared that something terrible would notice him if he stood up straight or spoke out loud.

‘Yet I heard that a dozen survived that night,’ she prompted.

‘Ha ha, more, maybe thirty surviving, young man. Most are fleeing inland to the Baltorian frontier, others come this way to flee by ship, Korok comes with them. They were from farms nearby, farmers have money to buy passage on ships. Not Korok. Very poor. Korok’s silver argents melted into stones of house. Farmhands are strong, hardy, they fight frontier outlaws and walk through deep snow. Not Korok. Korok must live in a town if Korok is to live. Korok is poor and feeble, see?’

He pushed back his sleeve to reveal a scrawny arm, then returned to his sewing. Jelindel noted that he did exquisite stitchwork, even though he had no more than waxed thread and jackhare leather to work with.

‘Your craftwork is impressive,’ she said as she watched. ‘Your talents were wasted in such a remote village.’

‘Ha ha, sold jackhare gloves and riding caps with vermilion stitching of village coat of arms to rich travellers. Captive market, yes? Did fine repairs for fine garments, but all gone now.’

‘So you were the only survivor from the village itself.’

‘Gah … not quite. Korok is returning, ah, late dusk from farm where Hic’Tofdy boys hunt for jackhares. Fine boys selling fine pelts to Korok. Korok hiding behind rockslide, watched. Terrible, terrible. Those who ran flared alight like hay dropped on coals. Others die in their houses.’

Jelindel reached across to a tray and selected a pair of gloves. They were very finely made, and a snug yet flex -ible fit when she tried them on.

‘Pah, they are lady’s gloves. I make you nice gauntlets for riding, very manly.’

‘No, I have small hands and besides, these are nice for reading beside a campfire.’

‘Reading? You can reading? Ha ha, clever boy. Nine silver argents.’

‘Would you include the work on the collar in that price?’

‘Oh, well … dear, dear, dear … maybe eleven the lot. Very little capital for new materials, still using skins from Hic’Tofdy boys. Not many left.’

Jelindel picked up a patch of leather about the size of her hand. ‘If you would embroider a likeness of the dragon on this piece, then twelve argents. You said it was very beautiful, and I want to have a beautiful but deadly image for when I am awarded arms one day.’

‘Hie! He reads, he fights, and he is wealthy! You are count in disguise, yes?’

Jelindel winced at the nearness of his joke.

‘No, I’m not a count. So, will it be twelve?’

‘Twelve, the lot … is fair. Down in warm seaside port are not many liking Korok’s gloves. Colder in mountains. All want splash collars for fishermen. Ugly things.’

Jelindel practised turning the pages of an almanac with the gloves as Korok finished the collar. A tax collector’s wife stopped to ask Jelindel if the gloves were comfortable, then bought a pair herself. She and her husband had travelled through the remains of Korok’s village a fortnight earlier, and she confirmed that the very rocks had melted deeply.

‘Someone must have offended the dragon mightily,’ Jelindel said when she was gone.

‘Never see dragon before that night,’ said Korok.

‘Had there been strangers in your village around this time?’

‘There were always strangers in village. Village exist to tend travellers. Travellers strangers. Very logical.’

‘Was there any stranger that you remember in particular?’

Korok paused to scratch his thin hair.

‘Warrior, has name Mentrian Hil’Tranl. He buys gauntlets from Korok. Very rich. Five lancers riding with him. Tall, and black, curled hair. Fine clothes, fine weapons. Wants Korok’s gauntlets, good taste you see. Hands not like warrior, more like priest or mage, very soft.’

‘Did he wear a plain ring on one of his lesser fingers?’

‘No ring, but … very strange. Hic’Tofdy boy sees fight in tavern, tells me. Warrior gets cut on cheek from Daba Rouse. Very good with knife, Daba Rouse. Good friend of Korok.’

‘But what did the boy see that was strange?’

‘Ha ha! Green blood. Hic’Tofdy thinks big fight to start, but no. They leave. Ride into night. Hic’Tofdy stays at Korok house, tells all, takes Korok money for pelts, then Korok goes to Hic’Tofdy farm with him but carries no money. Many, many bandits, but want silver, not pelts. Korok not silly.’

Jelindel said nothing. She knew that she was too excited, that she would be over-eager and blurt out something that she might regret.

Korok finished the collar and went on to embroider the dragon. The shape of the dragon slowly emerged under his fingers. At last he held it up, complete. The shape was that of some exotic pendant, rather than a dragon, and it meant nothing to Jelindel. ‘Did you notice which way the … the warrior and his men travelled?’

‘No, no. Might be here! Might be that some churl cut him again then dragon with blue fire comes here too. Maybe Korok learn sailmaking and leave on ship. Hard for Korok to stay alive, easy for Korok to die.’

Jelindel paid the twelve silver coins, then left to find the others.

The night was warm in the port city, but Jelindel wore her new gloves all the way back to the hostelry. The gloves made her hands look a little larger and less feminine, and her old gloves had recently fallen apart. Daretor and Zimak were sitting on a bench under the awning of an open-air tavern across the square and they called her over.

‘These were the price of a great discovery,’ she said as she held up her gloved hands for them to see.

‘Hear our discovery first,’ said Daretor excitedly. ‘The mailshirt glowed orange for a moment.’

They had been sitting in their room in the hostelry, cleaning and sharpening their blades and preparing for the journey to the next town with the mailshirt between them. Before their eyes it suddenly glowed like a pile of dull coals in a grate, then faded almost as rapidly. That meant that another link was within a half-mile of the hostelry.

‘You say it flared up within a heartbeat, then died down almost as fast?’ Jelindel confirmed.

Both of them nodded.

‘Like a casket opening and closing?’

‘A box – yes, yes!’ exclaimed Zimak. ‘Or like the door of a tavern opening to spill light into a dark street, then closing again.’

Jelindel rubbed her gloved hands together, frowning.

‘Then we have two lessons to take from this. The first is that this linkrider has a casket that somehow quenches the link’s emanations. The second is that if he keeps the link in such a casket, he cannot be wearing it.’

‘Another lesson is that he is very close by,’ Zimak added. ‘In this very port.’

‘And a further lesson is that he knows we are here,’ Daretor concluded. ‘Our mailshirt flared, so his link must have flared as well. He must have had the casket’s lid up just long enough to notice the glow.’

‘What luck!’ Zimak chirped, holding up his tankard for a toast.

‘Not so lucky,’ warned Jelindel. ‘My discovery may be connected to yours, and if that is so we are all in danger. This entire port could be burned to a lake of molten rock.’

Jelindel told them what she had learned from Korok, and they both confirmed that they too had heard the story of a village up in the mountains being annihilated a month ago.

Like Thull, Mentrian Hil’Tranl had bled green blood.

‘The destruction of the village may not have been revenge,’ Daretor suggested. ‘He may have been trying to move about unnoticed, and was willing to sacrifice the village to keep his secret.’

‘But he still has that dragon-demon at his call,’ Jelindel pointed out.

‘Nice gloves,’ said Zimak.

Jelindel showed them the embroidery of the dragon, which resembled something between a wedge and a teardrop.

‘No legs or wings, nothing that resembles eyes either,’ said Zimak. ‘It could be a huge magical amulet, the size of a ship –’

‘That’s it!’ exclaimed Jelindel. ‘A ship!’

‘In the mountains? Flying?’

‘There are obscure scholarly theories about the dragon that caused the crater in Hamaria being a huge, powerful flying ship. The crater filled with water, and is now known as Skyfall Lake. We passed through it on that barge, remember?’

Jelindel looked to the sky, which was colouring with evening. ‘Where is the mailshirt now?’

‘In the pack between my feet,’ said Daretor.

‘Then we must keep a watch for any glow at all times. Daretor, I’ll take it to the hostelry while you keep watch here. Every time it glows, I’ll put a lamp on the windowsill for a moment. Zimak, can you get about the port and ask after Mentrian Hil’Tranl? A tall, finely dressed man –’

‘– with black, curly hair and an escort of five men. It may take a day or so, but I can find him if he’s here.’

Jelindel realised as she left them that they were suddenly accepting her authority again. While the days were mundane and routine she was a mere girl to them. Once they were close to the next dragonlink, they suddenly needed her.

The mailshirt did not brighten again, and Daretor joined Jelindel in the hostelry after the tavern closed. He put on the mailshirt and a coat over it, leaving some of the sleeve links visible. Zimak returned much later, and he had news.

‘Hil’Tranl is here,’ he announced as soon as he arrived. ‘He and his men have been taking short voyages over to Kaplus Island, staying at one of the inns there for a few days, then returning here. One of the ferrymen knows them well. Ah, and look at these, I got them for sixteen argents!’

He proudly held up a pair of jackhare riding gloves and Jelindel recognised Korok’s stitching at once.

‘Nice gloves, but you were robbed,’ said Jelindel. ‘Mine cost half as much.’

Zimak’s shoulders slumped for a moment, but he rallied. ‘They’re heavier gloves, with a drip-flap in the wind sheath for riding in the rain. There’s a lot more leather, too.’

‘Mine are jackhare, yours are goatskin. The old devil must have really seen you coming.’

‘He wasn’t there. The woman who was tending his stall said he left in a hurry to do some urgent errand.’

‘Or because he was terrified,’ Daretor suggested. ‘There’s something else, too.’

‘What?’

‘They’re nice gloves.’

Zimak flung the gloves at Daretor’s head but the warrior ducked – and the room lit up with a dazzling blue flash followed by a blast like a thunderclap. The room filled with smoke as they crawled for the door.

A second bolt of blue lightning annihilated the half-open window shutters.

Horrified, Jelindel watched a line of blue light pierce the smoke and blast the opposite wall to blazing matchwood.

Just as Daretor reached the door it was smashed inwards and several men burst into the smoke-filled, burning room. Jelindel rolled to one side as Zimak lashed out with one leg and caught a man in the knee.

Daretor’s axeshaft struck a shadowy face, then he swung back blindly at someone whose blade had scraped across the mail under his coat.

Jelindel spoke a soft word at the legs in front of her and they became enmeshed in blue coils that brought the intruder crashing to the floor. Two others engaged Daretor outside the door, lit only by the fire within the room.

Zimak flung his knife, catching one in the ribs, but the other fled as Daretor tried to get past the body. Daretor threw his axe, catching the attacker between the shoulders. The assailant was dead long before he had tumbled to the foot of the stairs.

The municipal constables arrived to arrest the surviving assassins on charges of malicious affray. Then the Port Authority’s Inspector of Order came to survey the magical damage to the hostelry. Jelindel had already done a quick check herself, and had been amazed to find not a single trace of the aura of enchantment.

They retired to Jelindel’s room. Outside, a steady, soaking rain had set in.

‘Not one of them had green blood,’ Jelindel pointed out as they sat in darkness relieved by a single thumb -lamp.

The constant thrum of rain on the wooden shingles above was like being beneath thousands of stampeding mice. Zimak glared upwards.

‘I hope we’re not meant to be going out in that,’ he said, pointing upwards.

‘They were all local blade-hands,’ said Daretor. ‘I checked with the sergeant of the constables. All were blades-for-hire who usually work as bodyguards, or sail with privateer crews. The tallest of them did have curly black hair and fair skin, like the one Korok described. His blood was red, though.’

‘I had a careful look at the room once the fires were out,’ said Jelindel. ‘Those blue lances of light were near-horizontal, and judging from the direction … well there is only one tower with a line-of-sight to the window. The Morgendros Tower.’

‘That’s over four crossbow shots away,’ scoffed Zimak. ‘A half-mile at least.’

‘Could a crossbow have done what happened up there?’

‘No weapon known to man could do such damage,’ Daretor said with authority. ‘It’s a weapon without honour. I say it’s the linkrider.’

‘That is my thought too, and I feel he is still in that tower,’ said Jelindel. ‘We should go there.’

‘What?’ Zimak exclaimed incredulously. ‘That weapon can roast you whole from a half-mile away, yet you want to get closer? Besides, it’s raining.’

‘She’s right,’ said Daretor. ‘The linkrider will be expecting his blade-hands to return with the mailshirt covered with the splattered remains of my head. There was a lot of smoke about. I doubt he could have seen what happened, even with a farsight.’

‘My beautiful gloves,’ Zimak said miserably. ‘They are soaked with water.’

‘Riding gloves that cannot stand against water are useless as riding gloves,’ said Jelindel.

Zimak grunted, but did not disagree. They slipped away from the hostelry and made their way across the port towards the tower.

They were not far away when a small section of the mailshirt began to glow steadily through a tear in the sheepskin jacket’s sleeve.

‘He has the link out!’ hissed Zimak.

‘Pah, he can’t know whether friend or foe carries it,’ said Daretor.

‘But once he sees that we are none of his lackeys he will cast his lightning bolts again.’

‘But Jaelin has lightning of her own,’ Daretor said thoughtfully. ‘Both of you, run ahead of me to the tower, and I’ll come more slowly with the mailshirt. Your word of ensnaring works at up to ninety paces, Jaelin, does it not?’

‘Yes, but at that range I’d barely have the life-force left to crawl until it returns to me.’

‘Then we must get you closer to him. You go on alone. Zimak, stay with me. I have an idea.’

Jelindel ran in an arc, to come up to the Morgendros Tower from the side. The rain had soaked through her boots and her rain cape was of little use when running through such a heavy fall, but she scarcely felt the discomfort.

She stopped, panting hard, too tired and keyed up to be afraid for the moment. At the base of the tower was some sort of grillwork fence. Jelindel could not tell if it was ornamental or served some other purpose. The only light was from a lantern at the edge of a small square before the tower.

The rain eased as she waited, but still nobody came and nothing happened. Jelindel walked into the square, keeping to the shadows. All the while she kept glancing at the bluestone tower that dominated the square.

There was a balcony near the top of the tower. That had to be where the blue thunderbolts had originated, Jelindel decided. She stared up at the balcony in anticipation. A break in the clouds allowed light from Reculemoon to leak through.

A flash of light erupted from the ground floor portal and a building across the square collapsed in a cloud of dust. A figure emerged holding something small and stubby straight out in front of him. He stopped and seemed to take aim, as if with a small crossbow.

Jelindel took aim herself and spoke a sharp, focused word.

The blue coils were off-target, but not by much. A glowing tangle pinned the linkrider’s hand and weapon to a grille. He struggled frantically to get his hand free.

Unsteady and drained, Jelindel drew her shortsword with a brisk ‘shrick’ and slowly stalked across the small square.

There, in the light of Reculemoon, the linkrider struggled desperately against the blue, glowing coils. A shortsword flashed in his free hand, then he chopped down at the blue coils, screaming hideously as his hand was severed at the wrist.

Jelindel tried to run across the rain-drenched square, but she was fatigued and her legs sluggish.

The linkrider dropped his sword, turned and ran, padding away into the shadows much faster than Jelindel’s legs could carry her. He was clutching his stump of a wrist in front of him. Jelindel had not set a long delay on the entrapment coils, and they suddenly collapsed and let the weapon and hand fall to the ground.

She picked up the angular, unfamiliar object and carefully put it into her tunic pouch. As she examined the hand she noticed something odd about the smell of the blood. Taking it over to the lamp she realised that it was green.

Jelindel had expected Daretor and Zimak to have come running by now. A crowd began to gather about the ruined building. Some speculated about lightning hitting the place. Others deemed it an evil portent.

Suddenly a section of rubble burst upwards and an arm and head emerged.

‘Daretor!’ screamed Jelindel as she scrambled up to help the emerging warrior.

‘I thought you said you could read street signs, you stupid little clown!’ Daretor called back into the rubble.

‘Don’t you call me stupid, you bumbling great ox!’ came a muffled voice from within the pile of plaster-cling and wood slats. ‘Is it my fault if the dummart signwriters can’t spell in this town?’

Jelindel went to tell them about the thunderbolt weapon, but something held her in check. Instead she gently helped Zimak from the rubble. Already blood was smearing his face.

Daretor had three fractured ribs and a multitude of cuts and bruises, while Zimak had a gash down the side of his face and a twisted ankle.

They were dug out within minutes, but it was two days before they were able to ride. By then Jelindel had caught a cold and was running a fever.

‘Just look at this scar on my cheek,’ grumbled Zimak as they rode at a brisk trot towards the foothills of the Garrical Mountains. ‘The heroes of legend never get scars in embarrassing places.’

‘It gives you a rakish look,’ said Daretor. ‘Girls like scars. They like to touch them.’

‘Do you like scars, Jaelin?’ asked Zimak.

‘They leave me cold.’

‘See? See what I mean?’ Zimak retorted.

‘Jaelin’s no stranger to scars; she’s sewed up most of ours,’ Daretor replied. ‘Some smooth-skinned wench may find yours a novelty, though.’

It was over a week before the mailshirt began to glow again. As they rode through the foothills and into the Garrical Mountains there was plenty of evidence that the linkrider had passed that way, and was in a hurry.

The villagers that they spoke to confirmed that a one-handed man had indeed gone before them. He seldom stayed for more than a few hours, bought a new horse whenever he could, and had hired an escort of mercenaries somewhere.

Finally luck turned against the linkrider. The Galenian Bridge had been destroyed in a border dispute with Baltoria, and he was forced to backtrack for more than a day, then take a trail south at Rockwall. The latter was a village cut into the side of a cliff.

Daretor estimated that they had missed the linkrider by only a handful of hours, and they set off after him with no more rest than it took to buy provisions.

The trail became narrower and was poorly maintained. To make progress worse, the linkrider’s men had brought down rockfalls here and there, but Daretor and Zimak were already experienced at making their own trails and leading the animals over broken ground. They relentlessly narrowed the distance between them.

‘The mail is glowing,’ Jelindel said, taking a glance at the mailshirt that she was again wearing beneath her sheepskin coat.

‘So he’s close by at least,’ concluded Daretor.

‘But still many hours away,’ Jelindel pointed out, looking at a charblack map that she had sketched after talking to the villagers at Rockwall. ‘Serpent’s Gap is just ahead.’

‘Long time since my serpent’s been near a gap,’ muttered Zimak sullenly.

‘Unless you have something helpful to say –’ shouted Jelindel.

‘Smoke!’ exclaimed Daretor, pointing southeast. ‘Thick smoke, not just a campfire.’

‘There’s a bridge on the map,’ said Jelindel. ‘They’ve probably set it afire, and it’s at least three hours ahead.’

Jelindel took out her farsight and looked south. ‘There’s a village due south, about two miles away by the look of the figures I can see.’

‘There’s one called Landretal on the map,’ said Zimak.

‘Better check his reading of it,’ said Daretor.

‘One more remark like that and –’

‘That’s enough, both of you!’ Jelindel said tersely. ‘Look yonder, it’s the flood plain of a river. It has cultivated fields and sheep grazing in the pastures. We could get across that in no more than a half hour.’

‘There’s also a thousand-foot drop a few yards to our right,’ warned Daretor.

Jelindel dismounted and walked over to the side of the trail. Kneeling at the edge she peered down.

‘It’s not quite sheer, and there are plenty of ledges. We could leave the horses here and climb down using our ropes.’

‘What about my ankle?’ Zimak protested.

‘You ride along with the horses and wait at the bridge while Jaelin and I climb down and cross the fields,’ Daretor declared with finality.

Zimak shrugged. ‘Aye, then. Jaelin, take my parry-hilt knife; it’s lighter than that demishield.’

Taking only their weapons and ropes Daretor and Jelindel made their way down the cliff in a half hour, then began jogging across the fields of the floodplain. They crossed the river on a board and block bridge and met up with the road again just beyond the village.

After a short rest they started down the road towards Landretal.

A man loafing beside the namestone told them that seven men had arrived from the other direction about an hour earlier, and were down at the stables buying feed for their horses.

Jelindel and Daretor carefully checked the place, noting four mercenaries at the stables. All had both hands.

‘Could you take them?’ Jelindel asked as they stood by the roadside.

‘One, yes. Two, only with luck. Three, suicide. I can see four here, and there are two more with the linkrider.’

‘And he might run while his men engage us.’ Jelindel frowned as she thought. ‘Stay here. When you see the mercenaries running, make an attack on them. With luck a couple of them will stop to engage you.’

‘But what will you do then?’

‘I don’t know yet.’

Jelindel made her way through the village, which was preparing for the weekly market on the next day. Provisions for travellers were available at the tavern, she was told, and she was given directions for finding it. As she approached the place she saw one of the mercenaries bartering with the taverner while the other stood beside … Korok! The second mercenary was chatting with a serving girl while the strange little man sat writing awkwardly at a half-barrel table beneath an awning. One of his wrists ended in a bandaged stump.

Jelindel took out her farsight and studied the scene. The bench was a heavy, crossed-beam type. Perfect. Curious villagers began to crowd around her and she collapsed her farsight and put it in her pouch. She began to walk forward, with the villagers trailing after her.

Korok was intent on his writing and the mercenary at his side had never seen Jelindel. At twenty paces she dropped to one knee and spoke a finely tuned word of binding.

A thin, blue coil lashed Korok’s left leg to the frame of the bench, just below the knee. He screeched in alarm and struggled to free himself, toppling the half-barrel and spilling his notes and writing kit onto the ground.

The villagers scattered back from Jelindel at once.

‘That’s him, kill him!’ Korok shouted, pointing at Jelindel. The mercenaries drew their weapons and moved to surround her.

I’m competent but I’m no veteran warrior, Jelindel reminded herself. The minor word of binding had not left her too drained, but she was standing in the open with no wall or ally to put at her back.