Azure bonds - Kate Novak [60]
Akabar polished off his supper and licked his fingers. "Congratulations," he said to Olive, handing her a folded meat and millet sandwich filled from the far side of the skillet. "May I try?"
"Of course," the halfling replied, relinquishing her seat beside the lizard. "Answers told, mysteries revealed."
Akabar sat in front of the lizard, frowning in deep concentration. "Dragonbait," he asked, "can you understand me?"
The lizard held up the Flaming Dagger. No.
"Well," the mage said, "at least he's honest." With a smile he asked, "Is the halfling a perfect fool?"
Dragonbait lifted up the Holed Plate. Yes.
Alias giggled.
Akabar screwed his face into a scowl. "Would you mind very much if we threw her on the fire for kindling?"
The Flaming Dagger. No.
Akabar burst into laughter. "Idiot bard! You've trained him to show the yes card when you smile and the no card when you frown. He's a quick study, but there are trained monkeys in Calisham who know that trick. Now, eat your dinner before it gets cold." He and Alias turned back to the pan for second helpings.
"The way you spice food, it could melt steel for hours," the halfling grumbled. Before she took a bite of the peppery mixture, she glared at Dragonbait, saying, "I bet you're proud of yourself, lizard."
Dragonbait held up the Holed Plate, cocked his head at the halfling, and a strange clicking sound came through his stubby teeth. Olive felt certain he was laughing at her.
12
The Dream and the Kalmari
The evening sky over Shadow Gap was overcast except in the far south, where a few stars glittered between the mantle of clouds and the horizon. Alias exhaled slowly, watching the vapor from her breath rise and drift away in the cool mountain air. Despite the chill, she was quite comfortable. Akabar had not stinted on warm clothing and blankets for their trip north.
On second watch. Alias looked over at Akabar, who lay under only one wool cover, and his arms over that. Gently, she dropped a fur hide over him from chin to knees. In no time he pushed most of it aside, and his arms, clad only in his flimsy robe, once again lay exposed to the cold air.
Either he's got some magic trick to keep warm, or he carries the heat of the southern sun inside him, Alias thought.
Olive, under the pretext of keeping the extra bedding dry and safe from marauding beasts, slept on top of most of them. In sleep she looked deceptively childlike and innocent, the swordswoman thought. But Akabar, with his beard and the sun-wrinkles about his eyes, looked older.
Alias studied the sleeping Dragonbait, trying to decide if he looked older or younger. He slept as peacefully as a child, yet even with his tail drawn up between his legs and curled beneath his head, the power of his warrior's frame was apparent. Alias wondered if he didn't sleep, as the saying went, the sleep of the righteous, untroubled by his dreams because he lived up to his own standard of goodness.
He was neither a slow riser nor one to awaken with a start. Whenever she awakened him, he opened his eyes curiously, smiled that toothy grin, and gave a pleasant chirp. The few times the party had shifted camp in the middle of the night to avoid being stumbled upon by goblins and ores, Alias had discovered the lizard already awake, lying very still, sniffing the air, his hand wrapped around the hilt of his sword.
She wrapped one of her own blankets about the lizard's shoulders, a custom she'd adopted from her travels with the Company of the Swanmays. She'd missed the sisterly concern the seven members, all women, had had for one another, but she hadn't felt comfortable enough among the strangers with whom she now traveled to perform so intimate a gesture… until tonight.
She thought very hard about Dragonbait, about all he'd done for her, all she knew about him, all the things she felt about him. He was the least human of her companions, he couldn't talk to her, and she had little idea what went through his mind, yet Dragonbait was the only member of the