"Here," he said to no one in particular, his voice heavy. He tossed the sword into the dirt, next to her crumpled body. "You earned it, Miss Kitiara," he added as he turned his horse away.
Chapter 8
Kitiara struggled awake, feeling as if she had been drugged. The throbbing pain that came a moment later made her wish she was still asleep. The memory of her nasty confrontation with Ursa flooded her mind.
Anger tugged her to her feet as surely as if a rope was pulling her up. Brushing off her clothes, Kit noticed a long, thin bundle laying at her feet. Beck's sword, she realized. Ursa must have left it. Little enough for my trouble, she thought. The image of El-Navar, his diamond eyes and black hair like writhing snakes, flickered across her mind. There had been that too, a rite of passage that she no longer had to anticipate with either curiosity or trepidation.
The dusky morning light revealed ugly bruises spreading across Kit's jaw and neck. She touched them gingerly. Well, she thought to herself, they can't leave the daughter of Gregor Uth Matar in the dust.
Kit picked up the sword and strapped it to her back before untying Cinnamon and hobbling alongside her horse, tracking Ursa's hoof prints. As she might have guessed, after about a half an hour of painful walking, the search ended at a stream where the tracks vanished. Ursa was too practiced a mercenary to have not made an effective escape. Kit knew she would never pick up his trail and, if she did somehow, it would vanish again somewhere down the line.
Standing there, Kit realized how hungry she was. She bent to the water and drank deeply. Then, with a few encouraging words to Cinnamon about the likelihood of a warm, well-stocked stable at the end of the day, she stiffly mounted her horse and set off-to where, she had no idea.
Silverhole was ten or twenty miles to the north, but she didn't dare go there; the men who had been chasing her would certainly scout that place as a likely hideout. But Kitiara figured there would be smaller settlements, feeding off the road builders, directly to the south and west.
By midday Kit found herself in the southern foothills and felt safe. Silverhole was a half-day's ride distant. She was on the edge of territory where the forest dwindled and the land rose sharply into miles of knifelike ridges. Farther to the west, the terrain became barren and inhospitable. Not even mercenaries would seek to escape in this direction, she thought confidently.
Kitiara approached a small group of dwellings. Not much of a town, it was more a hastily thrown together assemblage of tents, huts, and shacks, with the occasional timbered building. Stumptown, a lettered sign read, no doubt because the trees hereabout had been leveled by lumbermen, and all that remained were scarred stumps. A motley assortment of people moved about on muddy, makeshift streets. Still, there was at least one food and drink establishment, Kit saw, and she was ravenous.
Of course there was a slight problem in that she didn't have any money.
As Kit drew closer, she saw a sign proclaiming: Piggott's Hospitality. The place was large enough, though the wood was weathered and the paint peeling. The windows were dingy where they were not cracked or boarded over. The single midafternoon customer-an ancient, grizzled dwarf-wobbly ascended the wooden front steps, looking as if he had just emerged from a barrel of soot and ash.
Nothing like the well-being and hospitality that emanated from Otik's inn back in Solace, Kit reflected, feeling a momentary pang of homesickness. She shook her head.
"Must be my aching body and empty stomach taking over," Kit muttered to herself as she dismounted and led Cinnamon around to where she supposed the kitchen entrance must be.
After tying her horse to a post, Kitiara secreted Beck's sword among some bushes. Squaring her shoulders, she knocked on the door, determined not to appear to be a beggar. A fat man with a thick, slack jaw, wearing a grease-stained apron, answered. Taking his time, he looked Kit up and down. One of his ears was clotted and misshapen, no doubt the souvenir of an altercation.
"Well, you look a little worse for wear, m'lady. Lover's quarrel was it? I likes 'em sassy, meself, but not too lippy. Now, what can I do for you?"
The man hadn't budged from the doorway. His considerable bulk filled the frame, blocking Kit's view of the interior. The smells wafting out, while no comparison to Otik's famous fare, were tempting enough to make Kit fight down the immediate revulsion she felt for this oaf and reply civilly.
"I'm passing through your town and have lost my purse along the road. Is there some work I could do in return for a meal?"
The man's attitude toward Kit took on a more calculating edge. "Know your way around a kitchen, do you?"
Kit, who had been hoping for some more physical chore, got a sinking sensation in her stomach, but hunger impelled her. "Yes, I can wash dishes, and in a pinch I can cook."
The man startled Kit by grabbing her arm and yanking her inside the door. "I do the cooking, m'lady, but if you can wait tables and wash dishes you can pitch in. The fellows who work here need all the help they can get. We don't get many ladies helping out, cuz the ladies in this town don't waste their time with kitchen work. They've turned their talents to more profitable ventures, if you know what I mean."
He threw his arm familiarly around Kit's shoulders and steered her toward one corner of a long table in the middle of the messiest kitchen Kit had ever seen. Dirty dishes, pots, and pans covered every available space. A gigantic black iron cauldron filled with something or other bubbled away over the fireplace, splattering into the flames and onto the hearth. Spilled water, grease, and all manner of foodstuffs glinted on the floorboards under which ran a shallow crawlspace. Gaps between the boards allowed most of the spillage to run off below. And from the rustling she heard beneath her feet, Kit surmised that none of it was going to waste.
"Piggott's the name, as in 'Piggott's Hospitality.' Hey, Mita, get the new girl some of that stew you're burning," Piggott yelled to a slightly built teenage boy skulking in the corner.
He turned back to Kit. "Work the dinner shift, and we'll see how it goes. One bowl now, all you can eat afterward. Them's my rules. If you work out, we'll see if I can think up anything else for you to do." He leered at her meaningfully before heading toward the doorway that led into the public room and tavern.
"What about my horse?" Kit called out after him. "She's tied up in the back."
Piggott paused to glance over his shoulder at Kit. "If you want me to feed your horse too, then count on staying through breakfast tomorrow. I'm not running a charity. One way or another-" he winked lewdly at her "-you'll have to pay for what you get."
Kit was too tired and hungry to shoot him the insult he deserved. She sank wearily onto a bench at the table. The boy named Mita brought her a bowl of some stew, setting it down in front of her. Kit spooned it up hungrily even though it was so hot it burned her tongue. It was tasty, though.
Mita hovered at the edge of the table. He had yellow hair that bristled like cornstalks, a pockmarked face, and a pink slab of a tongue.
"Well," Kit said after several mouthfuls, "if you're waiting for me to tell you how good this is, it's decent enough, but could use more pepperoot. My father always said, when in doubt, add pepperoot. And Piggott is right. You've burned it."
Seemingly disappointed, the boy's pink tongue disappeared, and he turned away silently. As he walked toward the hearth, Kit noticed that he limped slightly. For some reason, she was reminded of Raistlin and immediately warmed to the boy. It makes more sense to have him as an ally than an enemy in this place, Kit thought reasonably.