“Pfft,” Gerith said, rolling his eyes. “Seren’s the heroine. You’re the comic relief.”
“Seren?” Zed asked. “I thought she was your winsome damsel.”
Gerith sighed melodramatically. “Would that it were so,” he said, bowing his head. “As comely as she is, I fear I’m too much for such a fragile lass. She would not endure. Seren will have to settle for Tristam.”
Zed laughed. “I need to visit your tribe some day, Snowshale,” he said. “I need to see what sort of family coughs out something like you.”
“I’m the quiet one,” Gerith said.
Zed looked at Gerith blankly.
“I have seventeen sisters.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m not,” Gerith said. “I’m the youngest, too. Bunch of troublemakers, every one of them. Why do you think I left home?” Gerith looked around with a bored expression, then suddenly changed the subject. “Does Eraina know that we’re following her?”
“No,” Zed said, watching the glidewing.
“Oh,” Gerith said, pondering that for a few minutes. He looked up at Zed curiously. “Why are we following her, then? Don’t we trust Eraina?”
“You trust everyone, Snowshale,” Zed said. “I don’t trust anyone.”
“But she’s a paladin,” Gerith said. “They have to be good.”
“Exactly,” Zed replied.
Gerith looked confused. “Paladins are picked by the gods,” he said. “They can’t be untrustworthy, can they? I mean if they were, the gods would just pick someone else, right?”
“Gods can be stupid too, Snowshale,” Zed said. “Divine favor doesn’t make you immune to mistakes. Paladins have a way of not watching where they’re going because they think the gods are watching over them.”
“Aren’t they?” Gerith asked.
“Doesn’t really matter,” Zed said with a shrug. “If Boldrei isn’t keeping an eye on Eraina, I am.”
Above them, Blizzard suddenly sat up, alert. The glidewing flapped across the street onto another rooftop, watching something in the street below.
“She’s moving,” Gerith said.
“Follow her,” Zed said. “I’ll meet up with you later.”
“Aye,” the halfling said, scrambling to his feet and rushing off as fast as he could, trying to keep his pet in sight.
Zed tapped out his pipe and tucked it into his coat. He walked down the street, searching for the building the glidewing had been watching. A crest hung above the door, emblazoned with a chimera’s head below a mailed fist clutching a double-bladed sword. This was a House Deneith holding, a bastion of the Sentinel Marshals. Zed peered about casually but no one appeared to care much about his presence. He strode toward the bastion, stepping aside just as the door opened. A thin man wearing a Marshal’s seal on his chest stepped out, lifting a hood over his face to shield against the rain.
“Evening, Marshal,” Zed said, nodding at the man as he walked toward the door.
The Marshal nodded, paying no attention to Zed. “If you are a client or wish to assist with an investigation, please see my subordinates within,” he said, pushing past Zed and making his way down the road.
“Thanks very much,” Zed said.
The inquisitive stopped at the door, peering over his shoulder and watching the Marshal hurry away down the crowded street. He followed casually, keeping his eye on the man without seeming to. The Marshal wasn’t paying much attention, so it wasn’t difficult. Either he didn’t care that he was followed or the idea that he could be followed had never entered his mind. He cut a direct path through the randomly twisting streets and alleys of Korth. Not only did the man know exactly where he was going, he had obviously gone this way many times before.
The man turned a sharp corner and stepped into a small building. It was a speaker post, a place where dragonmarked Sivis couriers could transmit messages to distant lands via magic. Zed took up an unobtrusive position across the street and watched the building patiently. After several minutes the Marshal emerged and headed back the way he came, again not even glancing to see if he was followed. Zed felt almost insulted that he had made such a professional effort not to be seen by someone who obviously was making so little effort to watch his trail. He sighed and snatched up a heavy wooden beam from the garbage strewn alley and circled around a side street. Hefting the beam over one shoulder, he waited for the Marshal to round the corner. When the Marshal appeared, Zed lunged forward. The man only had time to gasp in surprise before the beam took him across the temple.
Zed dropped the beam and lifted the unconscious Marshal, hooking his arms under the man’s shoulders and dragging him deeper into the alley. Instinctively, he glanced behind him, sensing someone approaching. An embarrassed smile creased his weathered features when he saw the woman facing him.
“Eraina,” he said, leaning the unconscious Marshal against the wall and standing with an embarrassed expression.
“What are you doing, Arthen?” she demanded.
“Sightseeing,” he said lamely. “Your homeland is very lovely. Very … gray. Your comrade here has injured himself.”
She folded her arms across her breasts and scowled. “You know I sense your lies,” she said. “Are you trying to infuriate me further?”
“I was trying to be funny, really,” he said. “He’s just unconscious.”
She stepped toward him. A startled caw sounded above them. Zed looked up to see Blizzard perching at the edge of the roof with Gerith mounted on his back.
“Erm … everything all right?” the halfling asked in a small voice.
“Go back to the ship, Gerith,” Eraina said.
“Aye,” the halfling said in a relieved voice. Waiting for no further explanation, he flapped off into the night.
“This isn’t what it seems to be, Eraina,” Zed said, gesturing at the unconscious Marshal. “No one on the Mourning Dawn is a traitor, I’m sure of that. So I guessed that someone must be intercepting our communications. The thing is-we don’t really have any communications. None of the rest of the crew keep in touch with anyone outside the ship except for Gerith, Dalan, and you. Gerith doesn’t send anything but love letters to a dozen girls in random cities. He never mentions anything about what we’re doing. Dalan’s speaker posts are always financial, and always travel through such convoluted, circuitous routes that anyone tracking us would never find the source.”
“That leaves only my regular reports to House Deneith,” Eraina said.
Zed nodded.
Eraina sighed, leaning on her short spear and closing her eyes in frustration. “Do you think that I am stupid, or did you forget that I am a Sentinel Marshal?”
Zed blinked. “I don’t follow you.”
“You aren’t the only one with the power of deductive reasoning, Arthen,” she said. “Since our conversation in Vulyar I have been thinking about the information leak.” She looked at him, her eyes blue, clear, and sad. “I was Bishop Grove’s bodyguard, and his friend. I failed to protect him from Marth and have hunted him ever since. Yet every time I find a promising clue or lead, it crumbles. It wasn’t until Wroat that I truly believed there was a chance. Then Marth found us, again and again.” She bowed her head, her face growing dark. “And always, he found us shortly after I had dispatched one of my reports to Korth. Those reports were always delivered to this man, Marshal Killian.”
Zed sighed. “So you knew Killian is a traitor, but you reported to him anyway? That was foolish.”
“You are quick to judge, Arthen,” she said, glaring at him. “It is no wonder that you fell.”
Arthen opened his mouth to spit an angry retort, but hesitated. His expression softened. “Tell me what happened, then.”
“I did not know Killian was a traitor, but I suspected,” she said. “So I gave Killian my report. I said that the Mourning Dawn had sustained such damage that only a miracle would allow her to fly again. I told him that the Ghost Talon halflings were apparently working for Baron Zorlan d’Cannith, who would likely turn his efforts toward blocking Dalan’s progress. I told him that Marth was last seen trapped in a flaming airship, battling a rogue elemental, and that his survival was highly unlikely. I told him that the last person who could have translated Ashrem’s journals for us had been murdered. I told him that the surviving members of the crew would be returning to Korth.”