doesn’t want to do business with a couple of pensioned-off veterans, Corporal,’ Ulath said. ‘Let’s go talk with the local commissioner. I’m sure he’ll be very interested in the way this fellow treats his Imperial Majesty’s soldiers.’
‘I’m his Imperial Majesty’s loyal subject,’ the innkeeper said quickly, ‘and I’ll be honored to have brave veterans of his army under my roof.’
‘How much?’ Tynian cut him off.
‘A half-crown?’
‘He doesn’t seem very certain, does he, Sergeant?’ Tynian asked his friend. I think you misunderstood,’ he said then to the nervous innkeeper. ‘We don’t want to buy the room. We just want to rent it for one night.’
Ulath was staring hard at the now-frightened little Tamul. ‘Eight pence,’ he countered with a note of finality.
‘Eight?’ the innkeeper objected in a shrill voice.
‘Take it or leave it – and don’t be all day about it. We’ll need a little daylight to find the Commissioner.’
‘You’re a hard man, Sergeant.’
‘Nobody ever promised you that life would be easy, did they?’ Ulath counted out some coins and jingled them in his hand. ‘Do you want these or not?’
After a moment of agonized indecision, the innkeeper reluctantly took the coins.
‘You took all the fun out of that, you know,’ Tynian complained as the two went back out to the stable to see to their horses.
‘I’m thirsty,’ Ulath shrugged. ‘Besides, a couple of ex-soldiers would know in advance exactly how much they were willing to pay, wouldn’t they?’ He scratched at his face. ‘I wonder if Sir Gerda would mind if I shaved off his beard,’ he mused. This thing itches.’
‘It’s not really his face, Ulath. It’s still yours. You’ve just been modified to look like him.’
‘Yes, but when the ladies switch our faces back, they’ll use this one as a model for Gerda, and when they’re done, he’ll be standing there with a naked face. He might object.’
They unsaddled their horses, put them into stalls and went on into the taproom. Tamul drinking establishments were arranged differently from those owned by Elenes. The tables were much lower, for one thing, and here the room was heated by a porcelain stove rather than a fireplace. The stove smoked as badly as a fireplace, though. Wine was served in delicate little cups and ale in cheap tin tankards. The smell was much the same, however.
They were just starting on their second tankard of ale when an officious-looking Tamul in a food-spotted wool mantle came into the room and walked directly to their table. ‘I'll have a look at your release papers, if you don’t mind,’ he told them in a loftily superior tone.
‘And if we do?’ Ulath asked.
The official blinked. ‘What?’
‘You said if we don’t mind. What if we do mind?’
‘I have the authority to demand to see those documents.’
‘Why did you ask, then?’ Ulath reached inside his red uniform jacket and took out a dog-eared sheet of paper. ‘In our old regiment, men in authority never asked.’
The Tamul read through the documents Oscagne had provided them as a part of their disguise. These seem to be in order,’ he said in a more conciliatory tone. ‘Sorry I was so abrupt. We’ve been told to keep our eyes out for deserters – all the turmoil, you understand. I guess the army looks a lot less attractive when there’s fighting in the wind.’ He looked at them a bit wistfully. ‘I see you were stationed in Matherion.’
Tynian nodded. ‘It was good duty – a lot of inspections and polishing, though. Sit down, Commissioner.’
The Tamul smiled faintly. ‘Deputy-Commissioner, I’m afraid, Corporal. This backwater doesn’t rate a full Commissioner.’ He slid into a chair. ‘Where are you men bound?’
‘Home,’ Ulath said, ‘back to Verel in Daconia.’
‘You’ll forgive my saying so, Sergeant, but you don’t look all that much like a Dacite.’
Ulath shrugged. I take after my mother’s family. She was an Astel before she married my father. Tell me, Deputy-Commissioner, would we save very much time if we went straight on across the Tamul Mountains to reach Sopal? We thought we’d catch a ferry or some trading ship there, go across the Sea of Arjun to Tiana and then ride on down to Saras. It’s only a short way from there to Verel.’
‘I’d advise staying out of the Tamul Mountains, my friends.’
‘Bad weather?’ Tynian asked him.
‘That’s always possible at this time of year, Corporal, but there have been some disturbing reports coming out of those mountains. It seems that the bears up there have been breeding like rabbits. Every traveler who’s come through here in the past few weeks reports sighting the brutes. Fortunately they all run away.’
‘Bears, you say?’
The Tamul smiled. ‘I’m translating. The ignorant peasants around here use the word “monster”, but we all know what a large, shaggy creature who lives alone in the mountains is, don’t we?’
‘Peasants are an excitable lot, aren’t they?’ Ulath laughed, draining his tankard. ‘We were out on a training exercise once, and this peasant came running up to us claiming that he was being chased by a pack of wolves. When we went out to take a look, it turned out to be one lone fox. The size and number of any wild animal a peasant sees seems to grow with each passing hour.’
‘Or each tankard of ale,’ Tynian added.
They talked with the now-polite official for a while longer, and then the man wished them a good journey and left.
‘Well, it’s nice to know that the Trolls made it this far south,’ Ulath said. ‘I’d hate to have to go looking for them.’
‘Their Gods were guiding them, Ulath,’ Tynian pointed out.
‘You’ve never talked with the Troll-Gods, I see,’ Ulath laughed. ‘Their sense of direction is a little vague – probably because their compass only has two directions on it.’
‘Oh?’
‘North and not-north. It makes finding places a little difficult.’
The storm was one of those short, savage gales that seem to come out of nowhere in the late autumn. Khalad had dismissed the possibility of finding any kind of shelter in the salt marshes and had turned instead to the beach. At the head of a shallow inlet he had found the mountain of driftwood he’d been seeking. A couple of hours of fairly intense labor had produced a snug, even cozy little shelter on the leeward side of the pile. The gale struck just as the last light was fading. The wind screamed through the huge pile of driftwood. The surf crashed and thundered against the beach, and the rain sheeted horizontally across the ground in the driving wind.
Khalad and Berit,
