Grinsa's expression had turned grim, leading Torgan to believe that he, too, wanted to go after the Mettai woman. But he simply nodded. "All right, then. We'll go to the Horn."
"Damn you both," Torgan said. "You've just killed us."
Grinsa eyed him briefly before turning to Jasha. "If you're hungry you should eat now. I want to be moving before long."
"Right," the young merchant said.
Once more, Grinsa looked Torgan in the eye. "The sooner we find these merchants, the sooner we'll be heading east again, toward the Mettai woman. So I'd suggest you make peace with this decision and help us in any way you can." He didn't wait for a reply. He turned and walked to where his mount waited for him, leaving Torgan standing alone.
Torgan wanted to scream at the man. He wanted to pick up a rock and crush the white-hair's skull. And once more he thought of the burned osiers in his sack, and the decision he'd failed to make the previous night. He followed Jasha to where the younger man's horse stood and watched as he took out some smoked meat.
"Do you want some?" Jasha asked.
"You shouldn't have come back."
Jasha smiled and shook his head. "Right. I should have let them kill you."
"Yes, if that's what it came to, you should have let them." Torgan looked away, his eyes straying to his own mount, and to the travel sack resting beside the beast. "But it might not have come to that."
"Meaning what?"
"Nothing. Just that I can take care of myself. You might not think so, but I did pretty well for myself for a lot of years before all this foolishness began." He exhaled heavily, wondering how he had ever allowed all this to happen. He'd been the most successful merchant on the plain, perhaps in all the Southlands. He'd had enough gold to last the rest of his life, and he'd been carrying wares that could easily have doubled his fortune. Now he had nothing and spent every moment at the mercy of the Fal'Borna. And it had all happened in the span of maybe a turn, perhaps a bit more. It was enough to make his head spin. "The point is," he said, "you should have gotten away when you had the chance."
"No, Torgan. Maybe that's what you would have done, but not me." He shook his head.
"You're an idiot."
"You're welcome."
Torgan glowered at him. "Tell me about the merchants you met."
"There's not much to tell," Jasha said with a shrug. "HedFarren was reluctant to tell me anything at first, but I think in the end he realized how much was at stake, and his fear got the better of him. Actually, he reminded me of you." He said this last with his gaze lowered.
Torgan made a point of ignoring the remark. "What about the rest?"
"I didn't speak to all of them. The leader was an older man named Tegg. He was wary of me at first, but he did his best to help once he convinced himself that I didn't mean his friends any harm. And there was a woman named Ghella. She was the one who saw baskets in Lark's cart."
Torgan nodded. "I know Tegg, and Ghella, too. Tegg Lonsher, that's his name. Crusty old goat. Good enough wares, but a stubborn negotiator. I usually try to avoid doing business with him. I always liked Ghella, but she was just the opposite of Lonsher: too easy, too willing to close the deal. I always knew that I could get a good price from her, whether I was selling or buying. You don't want to do that," he said. "People always used to tell me that I was disliked, as if that was supposed to hurt my feelings or something. But the fact is, as a merchant, being liked is secondary. Chances are if you're liked it's because you're too easy. I didn't make all that gold by being friends with everyone. I did it by setting a price and sticking to it."
"Right," Jasha said.
The young merchant was merely saying it to humor him. Torgan should have been angry, but he understood. Both of them had lost their carts, their wares, and all their gold. Chances were they'd be dead before long, victims of the Fal'Borna's twisted sense of justice. And here was Torgan, dispensing advice on the finer points of trading as if they were in some Eandi marketplace. But for just that moment, thinking like a merchant again, instead of like… whatever it was he had become, he remembered what it had meant to be Torgan Plye. He felt strong and smart and wealthy, and all the other things he once had been and wasn't anymore.
"You understand," Torgan said a moment later, "that by taking us to the Horn rather than east toward N'Kiel's Span, they're condemning us. We might find Lark and Stain, but we'll never find the Mettai woman, and they'll have all the reason they need to kill us."
"We don't know that for certain."
Torgan just stared back at him, saying nothing, waiting. It didn't take the lad long.
"Maybe you're right, but I can't blame them for the choice they made. If we were in Eandi lands, and our situations were reversed, we'd do the same thing. We'd gladly let them die in order to save Eandi lives."
He couldn't argue, but that only made him angrier. "We should be able to fight them," he said. "We're just letting them do this to us. It would be one thing if we'd fought them and lost, but we haven't fought at all. We've just surrendered."
Jasha's expression hardened. "I choose to see it differently. Yes, they've threatened to execute us, but they're trying to defend their people. We don't have to think of this as a war against the Fal'Borna. We're fighting with them against this plague. We're allies in an effort to save lives."
Torgan laughed mirthlessly. "Allies? You really are an idiot, aren't you?"
"And you're an ass. I imagine you always have been. I'd hoped to convince myself that there was more to you than greed and selfishness, but I was wrong." Ile took hold of his horse's reins and began to lead the animal away. "Fine then, Torgan. Fight your war. It's not one you can win, and it's certainly not one I intend to fight with you."
Torgan watched him go, his anger still building. Yes, he thought, I’ll fight any war. And I don't need your help, because I've got a weapon that even you don't know about. You don't think I can win? Just watch me.
Less than a day before, that weapon meant nothing; he'd been too weak to use it, too afraid. But now they had abandoned their search for the witch and Jasha had left him to stand alone against the white-hairs. He still trembled at the thought of killing these Qirsi, but he no longer shied from it. And that was a start.
Grinsa walked to where his sleeping roll still lay on the ground and began to gather it up. He knew that Q'Daer would have more to say about all that had just transpired, but he wasn't certain that he was ready to explain himself quite yet.
The truth was he already regretted what he had done. He had no desire to see the Fal'Borna suffer. He wanted only to find the Mettai witch, return to Cresenne and Bryntelle, and leave E'Menua's sept for good. Now he was further than ever from making that happen, and he had only himself to blame. How could he explain to Cresenne that he would be gone for another turn or perhaps longer? How could he tell her that this had been his choice, that he had volunteered to go west, after the merchants, rather than east, toward the Mettai?
And what choice did he have? The baskets were out there, and though a'laqs on the plain had managed to warn one another about the danger facing them, that hadn't saved the sept they had found a few days before. Grinsa and his companions might be the only people on the plain who even knew enough to be looking for these merchants. If they did nothing, thousands would surely die, and their wraiths would haunt Grinsa for the rest of his life; they would follow him to Bian's realm. He had to do this. He knew it with the certainty of a condemned man.
So why did he feel that he had just betrayed Cresenne and Bryntelle, the only two people in this entire land who truly mattered to him?