Azure bonds - Kate Novak [98]
"He'll come back," Olive said again. "He always does."
The night grew even colder, and eventually, as the combatants on the hill wearied and let their fires and magics die out, it grew darker, too. Olive was a snoring lump in a bundle of furs, Akabar a motionless mannequin in his colored robes and one blanket. Alias shivered in her only cloak, but she could not stay wrapped in her blankets. She spent her watch pacing and staring into the darkness, waiting for Dragonbait to return. She did not bother to wake Olive, but continued to watch past her turn.
But Dragonbait still did not return.
A few pins of light from watchfires in the city pricked at Alias's eyes. He's there, was all she could think. He went into the city without me.
Like I planned to do to him, she added. Again she felt the draw of the city, an ache to learn the mystery within.
Her heart prompted her to look in Yulash, but her head insisted she had no proof that he was there. He could be anywhere. He might have been captured by the Keepers or the Red Plumes. That thought made her more anxious. As far as she knew, both Akabar and Olive had been right in their claims of Hillsfar and Zhentil Keep atrocities.
Actually, Alias couldn't think of any army that would let a creature as blatantly non-human as Dragonbait pass unchallenged. They'd try to capture or kill him immediately, Probably kill, Alias admitted, because he'd put up a fight.
She was ready to wake the mage and bard and set out immediately when another thought made her hesitate. If he's wandering out on the plains, lost, but finds his way back to an empty camp, he'll think we've been captured. Someone has to stay, she decided. But Akabar looked so concerned by the lizard's disappearance, Alias knew he would insist on accompanying her, and Olive would not stand for being left behind, believing there was treasure to be had in the city.
She hovered uncertainly over the two sleeping forms for several moments, trying to make up her mind. Going alone would only perpetuate the lizard's folly, but she could not help herself. She bent down over Akabar's pack and dug out a stick of charcoal and his map. On the back she wrote: "Looking for D. Wait here."
She lay the parchment by Akabar's head. Then, after slipping the finder's stone in her boot, she picked up her shield and sword and walked away. Her steps drew her toward the great mound city.
*****
Akabar's eyes snapped open the moment Alias opened his pack.
The mage had cast a magic mouth enchantment on his earring to tell him if Dragonbait returned, and at first he thought that was what had awakened him, but when the piece of jewelry repeated its magical warning, whispering, "Someone's in your pack," he realized his mistake.
After the earlier disappearance of his magical tome, back when the halfling had joined his caravan, the mage had decided that it would not be squandering his power to use it to protect his property, even from a fellow traveler. Still, he wondered at Ruskettle's nerve and dishonor.
He lay perfectly still, focusing on his baggage through the slits of his eyelids, but the figure rooting through his belongings was too big to be Ruskettle. It couldn't be Dragonbait; his other magic mouth spell would have warned him.
When the figure straightened, Akabar nearly gasped and sat up in surprise. It was Alias. She scrawled something hastily on his map and then took a step toward him.
Akabar closed his eyes. He almost held his breath, but caught himself in time and began feigning the shallow breathing of a sleeper. Through his eyelids, he could sense the stone's light on his face and then sense it