Amber and Blood - Margaret Weis [82]
Gazing out his window, Gerard watched the monk in his shabby orange robes make his unobtrusive way among the crowds, taking the highway that led north.
“I wonder if I’ll ever know how this strange tale ends?” Gerard asked himself. He sighed deeply and lay back among the pillows. “I don’t see any good coming of it, that’s for sure.”
He was just about to try to get some sleep when a guardsmen came to inform the sheriff that an angry mob was taking out their fury on the Temple of Chemosh.
ightshade traipsed along down the road after Mina, muttering to himself and scuffing his boots in the dust. Mina walked several paces ahead of him, her head held high, her back stiff. She was taking no notice of him, pretending she didn’t know him. Atta trotted along at the kender’s side, though she would stop every so often and look back wistfully down the road, searching for Rhys.
“I hope he’s all right,” Nightshade said for the thousandth time. He glared at Mina and kicked irritably at a rock and said loudly, “If it wasn’t for some people, I could be back there seeing for myself and maybe helping to save him after some people ran away and left him!”
Mina flashed him an angry glance over her shoulder, and stubbornly kept on walking.
At least they had managed to escape the battle in Temple Row.
The brutality of the fighting, the sight of so many dead and wounded had completely overwhelmed Mina. She was confused by the noise, horrified by the carnage. Nightshade and Atta finally located her crouched under a bush, her eyes squinched shut, her hands over her ears to drown out the screams.
Nightshade persuaded her with some difficulty to come with him, only to nearly lose her to a black-robed, hooded priest of Chemosh, who stumbled across them by accident. Nightshade recited his rhyme for his exhaustion spell and the last he’d seen of the priest, he was lying on his back in the middle of the street taking an unexpected snooze.
Running around the back of the temple of Zeboim and cutting through an alley, they found themselves in the relative quiet of a residential area. The citizens, hearing the sounds of battle and fearing it might spill over into their neighborhood, had all barred their doors and were staying inside.
Nightshade stopped to catch his breath and get rid of a painful stitch in his side and try to figure out what to do. He decided to take Mina to the Inn and leave her in the care of Laura, then go back to find Rhys. Nightshade and Atta started off in the Inn’s direction, only to find Mina going the opposite way.
“Where are you going?” Nightshade demanded, halting.
Mina stood in the middle of the road, holding fast to the scrip with the artifacts in it. The scrip was dirty and stained, for when it grew heavy, she let it drag on the ground. Her face was covered in grime and soot, her hair was wet with sweat, her red braids starting to come undone. Her dress was splattered with blood stains.
“Godshome,” Mina replied.
“No, you’re not,” Nightshade scolded her. “You’re going back to the Inn. We have to wait for Rhys!”
“I won’t.” Mina returned. “I have to go to Godshome or the fighting will only get worse.”
Nightshade didn’t see how matters could get much worse than they already were, but he didn’t say that. Instead, he said crossly, “Then you’re going the wrong direction. Godshome is north, and you’re going west. We’re on the road to Haven.” He pointed. “That’s the road north.”
“I don’t believe you,” Mina told him. “You’re lying, trying to trick me.”
“I am not,” Nightshade returned angrily.
“Are so.”
“Am not!”
“Are so—”
“You’ve got the map,” Nightshade shouted at last. “Look for yourself.”
Mina blinked at him. “I don’t have the map.”
“You do too,” Nightshade said. “Remember? I spread it out on the rock back there near Flotsam and then you decided we were going to go for a fast walk and—”
He stopped talking. Mina was biting her lip and digging the toe of her shoe into the dirt.
“You didn’t!” he said, groaning.
“Shut up,