"I'll handle the horses. You find yourself a place to sit. And get those boots off before your feet fester."
Beshaba's mercy—Tiep hadn't considered that possibility.
His feet weren't as bad as he feared. He'd lost a slab of callus from his left heel, and the big toe on his right foot was bloody; nothing a slathering of second-skin lotion couldn't handle. Rozt'a dragged their medicine chest over and mixed the lotion in a brass bowl. The most important ingredient went in last: a few drops of sickly green oil from a silver flask embellished with a rose-colored Lathandrite agate. Tiep counted five drops in all and flinched in advance, knowing how badly the potion-drenched cloths would sting when Rozt'a wrapped them around his feet.
"You'll survive," Rozt'a assured him.
Tiep didn't trust himself to answer. He couldn't nod without sending a stream of tears down his cheeks but he only yelped once, when Rozt'a squeezed his big toe, making sure that the lotion worked deep.
Druhallen scrounged wood from the bog-forest—no great challenge there—and got a fire going, which for a competent wizard was no great challenge, either. The wet wood smoked vigorously and the smoke was foul, but it got rid of the bugs. They were glad to have it, at least until Sheemzher returned.
"No flame! No flame!"
The dog-face thrust his spear into the fire and battered it apart. Dru's eyes narrowed and his fists clenched in a way that usually meant a fireball was due. Sheemzher saved himself with a single word and a gesture toward the clouds.
"Dragons."
"What kind?" Dru asked, because it made a difference.
"Big!" Sheemzher replied, which meant, probably, that the Greypeaks weren't home to one of the more benign dragon species.
The bugs came back—with a few thousand of their closest friends. It was a struggle to eat their cold supper without catching a few buzzing specks in each mouthful. Doubly difficult for Tiep because his feet hadn't stopped throbbing and he couldn't escape his bugs, even temporarily, by moving about on the ledge. He'd peeked beneath the cloths a few times: the second-skin oil was living up to its name. Tiep's feet felt like they were on fire, but the swelling had already gone down and the raw skin on his left heel was toughening.
Night came sooner than it would have out in the open as the clouds and mountains combined to stifle the sunset. Tiep braced himself for absolute darkness, then discovered that the bog made its own eerie light: lazy will-o'-the-wisps rose from the ground. They swirled higher and higher until they bumped into the clouds where they dissipated slowly. The result was enough light to see shadows and movement, enough light to watch Sheemzher open up his striped waistcoat—it looked bedraggled now, though the dyes were good and the colors hadn't run together. He fished out something that hung from a cord and writhed. A rat, Tiep realized just before the goblin snapped its neck. He impaled the freshly-killed rodent on his spearhead then used the bloody weapon to draw a perimeter around their camp.
"Do you think that will keep the dragons away?" Rozt'a asked.
"Demons, not dragons. Sheemzher know. Sheemzher remember. Demons not cross blood."
Dru overheard and chortled, "That's a new one!"
Rozt'a silenced him with a well-aimed hiss, then added, "Do you want to draw straws for the first watch?"
"No—I'm awake until midnight anyway. This place isn't what I expected, so I need to make some changes in what I'm remembering. We need to be able to hide as well as fight. I'll wake you when I'm done, and you can keep your eyes open until dawn."
Tiep wasn't terribly surprised when neither one of them had given a thought to him. Galimer was Tiep's advocate when it came to both chores and privileges. Without Galimer, he was a child again. Rozt'a didn't want him to grow up, and Dru didn't think he could. On the whole, Tiep found it easier to deal with Dru's prejudices.
Tiep bedded down an arm's length from Rozt'a and dozed a little while Druhallen waited for the midnight moment when he'd do whatever it was that magicians did to prepare themselves for spellcasting. One of the first lessons Tiep had learned from his foster parents was: Never disturb a wizard, especially Druhallen, when he was cramming spells. It was hard to know when, exactly, midnight arrived but it was easy to spot when it had passed because Dru cleared his throat several times and folded his magic box with a series of satisfied snaps.
Tiep pulled his damp boots over Rozt'a's bandages and intercepted his foster-father before he awakened Rozt'a.
"Let me watch the rest of the night."
Dru scowled and said nothing, not an omen of agreement.
"My feet aren't hurting so much now. I can walk around, if I need to. I've been taking a watch since I was ten years old."
There was no change in Druhallen's expression.
"I gave you my word, Dru. I know I was wrong. Aren't you going to let me do anything to make it up? Can't you trust me even a little?"
"It's not for me to say, Tiep. I'd have to talk to Rozt'a first. She and I agreed we'd handle the night-watch ourselves."
"She wouldn't mind."
"She would. It was her idea; she insisted on it."
That was a blow to Tiep's heart. He counted on Rozt'a's unquestioning support. Dru and Galimer might fume, but Rozt'a called herself his mother and mothers didn't turn their backs on their children. Even his own mother had died rather than abandon him; Tiep was sure of that, despite the rumors he'd heard in Berdusk streets.
Tiep had a predictable reaction when his heart hurt: He got angry. He got nasty.
"You're both trusting a dog-face goblin to get you to Dekanter and back."
He knew he'd made a mistake before the words were cold on his tongue. Druhallen's face became as hard as a plaster mask which reminded Tiep that Dru was one of those rare wizards who could brawl with the best—or worst—of any city's scum. But Dru got his temper under control.
"The bug lady didn't leave us any choice. What is it between you and Sheemzher, Tiep? Did you two cross paths before he came to the room?"
"No."
Tiep could have kicked himself right afterward—Dru had all but handed him a script for getting rid of Sheemzher and he'd wasted a perfect opportunity by blurting out the truth. Druhallen had that effect on folk whose heads didn't come up to his shoulder. Tiep tried to repair the damage—
"We've been tricked, Dru, conned, gulled, set up, whatever. Look at us, sleeping on stone mattresses, eaten alive, and wearing wet shoes. At the rate we're going, we'll be lucky if we get to Dekanter before the snow flies. If anyone was following us—Damn, if they left that first morning when we were in Weathercote and they stuck to the Dawn Pass Trail, they're going to get there long before us on this lousy excuse for a shortcut. Doesn't that bother you? Make you ask questions about our guide and his mistress? The way I figure it, the bug lady and the Black Network have marked us for sheep, Druhallen, and they've got us following a goblin goat straight to slaughter."
Dru stared into the darkness, rubbing his dark-stubbled chin. "It looks that way, doesn't it, when you lay everything on the table."
If Galimer or Rozt'a had said those words, Tiep would have rejoiced, but Dru was different. When Dru conceded a point, it was time to watch your back.
"Of course, when you put everything on the table, you're taking coincidence and making it deliberate. For example, you've got to assume that Sheemzher not only knew I was going to take the back way after I left the charterhouse, but that he arranged for those brutes to beat that goblin child. Not to mention the timing—a few moments one way or the other and either the chicken coop would have been empty or I'd have found a corpse. Same thing in Weathercote Wood with the reaver and, more important, with you, Tiep. If Rozt'a hadn't sent you scrambling up that tree, would you have stolen that amber ... on your way into the forest?"