Heirs of Prophecy - Lisa Smedman [25]
"North to where?" she asked him.
"To Featherdale and Essembra, and, if luck holds, all the way to Hillsfar. It'll prob'ly be the last one heading north 'fore the road closes. We'll have to wait out the war in Hillsfar-not that I mind."
Larajin looked him in the eye. "How do you know about this caravan?" she asked. "It's not posted on the board-and you're no trader."
He guffawed, and Larajin winced at the smell.
"Course it's not posted! You want some halfie reading it and telling his savage cousins in the trees we're coming through?" He shook his head. "You got one thing right, though, I'm no trader. I'm a sellsword. Name's Enik."
He waited for Larajin to volunteer her name. When she didn't, he shrugged and continued, "I been hired to
*
protect the caravan." He stroked the hilt of his sword. "You come north with us, and me and my steel will be what's standing between you and them wild elves, missy."
Larajin didn't like the way he was rubbing the hilt of his sword. It was all too suggestive of something else. Still, it wouldn't hurt to see if this caravan really existed. If it was the only one headed north, it might be her only chance to reach the Tangled Trees. From her readings of the Master's books, she knew they lay more than one hundred and fifty miles to the north. She could hardly travel all that distance on foot.
This man was only a sellsword and as such could be expected to be rough and unsavory. She could at least see if the traders driving the caravan were decent folk.
fWhere is the caravan assembling, and when?"
Enik gave her a twisted grin, still sucking his bad tooth. "That'll cost you a raven. Fer all I know, you're a halfie spy."
Larajin froze, feeling the blood drain from her face. He hadn't guessed that…
No, he hadn't. Enik, still grinning, gave her a broad wink. He hadn't spotted the elf blood in her, after all. It had just been his idea of a joke.
"Tell you what," Larajin said carefully. "You give me the information, and when it's proved to be accurate, you'll get your raven-but not until we're under way. Deal?"
Enik sucked on his tooth, considering it.
"All right." He pointed at a warehouse just beyond one of the arches leading out of the plaza and said, "The caravan is loading its cargo of wine there, at the Foxmantle warehouse. They'll be at it all night. Come first light, it's away. You want to be on one of the wagons, you meet me there just before dawn."
Larajin nodded. If what Enik was saying was true about this being a Foxmantle caravan, things were looking up. The Foxmantles might be loud and brash, their wild young daughters prone to scandalously foolish
exploits, but the family was a firm friend and ally to the Uskevren-they were people Larajin could trust. All she had to do was show the head driver the dagger with the Uskevren crest on it and claim to be Mistress Thazienne. With luck, he wouldn't have met Thazienne, and she'd have nothing to worry about.
She eyed Enik. Nothing, that was, except making sure this lout didn't try anything during the journey north, but the dagger would also see to that.
She nodded to him, patting the money pouch at her hip. "Dawn it is, then, at the Foxmantle warehouse," she said. "Ill see you there."
She kept the smile on her face as she watched him leave but let it drop the moment he was out of sight. Making her way out of the plaza, she took a circular route through the side streets that would lead her to the Foxmantle warehouse. She wasn't going to go trustingly to meet a lout like Enik in the murky light of dawn, down some back alley behind a warehouse. Instead she'd make her own arrangements with the caravan's head driver while the wagons were being loaded. If she liked what she saw, she'd arrange for her passage north-and worry about traveling with Enik later.
**
Larajin coughed as a tendril of mist drifted back down the road toward the caravan, stinging her lungs. Beside her, on the driver's seat of the lead wagon, Dray Foxmantle dabbed a monogrammed handkerchief to his eye.
"Gods curse that fool of a wizard," he muttered. "Why couldn't