“Does she look like a Far Western girl to him?” Zeb asked Amatesu but the samurai answered for himself, speaking a single word that sounded like a name. “ Matsuko.”
Amatesu dropped her gaze to the ground and Zeb thought for a moment she looked pained. She spoke in a very quiet voice.
“For his Lordship Uriako Shikashe-sama, the Madame Nesha-tari appears much like his wife, Uriako Matsuko-sana.”
Zeb looked back across the fire at Shikashe. “You are married?”
Amatesu had not looked up yet, and her voice became even quieter.
“His Lordship’s wife was slain long ago in Korusbo, along with their children. Their loss pains him greatly, and it is why he has come to this place. Far from the memory of them.”
Zeb blinked and looked back at Shikashe, whose face was as always impassive though he now stared into the fire rather than looking at any of the others.
“Condolences,” Zeb said. “I am sorry.”
“Wait a minute,” Phin pushed himself to a seat on the grass and raised a hand. He spoke to Amatesu slowly in a manner Zeb had found condescending, though just at present he was unsure how much anything he thought or felt lately was a byproduct of Nesha-tari’s weird juju.
“What, exactly, do you think that Nesha-tari is?”
The shukenja finally raised her eyes from between her feet.
“I do not know. I am not yet familiar with the many creatures of this land.”
“Creatures?” Zeb asked.
“Yes.” Amatesu looked at him steadily. “Whatever she is, the Madame Nesha-tari is not human. Not altogether.”
“And the reason,” Phin glanced at Zeb. “The reason we were at each other’s throats a minute ago…You think that is part of whatever magic Nesha-tari possesses as well?”
Amatesu nodded. “This is not the first time on our journey that men near to the Madame Nesha-tari have come to fight. Though this time Uriako-sama and myself saw it early enough to intervene.”
Zeb winced. “This time?” Amatesu nodded.
“We needed your services as the translator who had begun with us in Ayzantu City was killed by a sailor aboard our first ship.”
Zeb and Phin exchanged another long look. There had been a moment there, Zeb thought, where if he had been able to get a fist on Phin he might not have stopped hitting him.
Amatesu allowed the two men a long silence before speaking.
“It is our hope now that you two have an awareness, that the effect of Nesha-tari’s presence may not be so strong.” She frowned. “Though it does seem to be growing stronger, of lately.”
Phin looked off toward the inn, but Zeb looked between the two Far Westerners.
“Why are the two of you even with that…woman? And why hasn’t Shikashe tried to kill me yet?”
“Uriako-sama is a man of formidable will. As to your first question…” Amatesu gave a shrug, which Zeb thought may have been a gesture she picked up from him.
“We two have found ourselves in many situations most strange since leaving Korusbo, and the West. This is not, for us, much more different.”
Zeb looked at the shukenja, and shook his head faintly.
“I think you should start telling me stories while we are on the march.”
Amatesu gave no answer, other than to lower her gaze back to the ground.
*
Nesha-tari watched the conversation from across the road. She did not understand the words in Codian but could hear them all plainly as her Hunger had by this time intensified all her senses. She had awakened as a man approached her room from around the side of the inn, and recognized Phinneas Phoarty by his scent when he was beneath the window. She had stood in the darkness, and without making any conscious decision she had fully intended to kill him as soon as he stuck his head into her room.
She was relieved that Amatesu’s arrival had kept her from doing so, not for any reasons of morality nor even because it would likely have complicated her continued travels with the Westerners and Zebulon Baj Nif. As Hungry as she now was, Nesha-tari could feel her power coursing within her. Her heightened senses were the least of it. Nesha-tari felt immensely strong and did not doubt that if she wished too, or would let herself, she could bound across the road and slaughter everything in the camp field, apart perhaps from the Westerners. They might put up a scrap. The energy Nesha-tari could feel from the pads of her feet to the tips of her hair was exhilarating, delightful, and would have been wholly intoxicating were it not accompanied by the agonizing knot of the Hunger in her stomach, like she had swallowed a burning brand.
If she Fed now the pain would be relieved, but with it would go the power. Nesha-tari was little more than two weeks from the Camp Town at Vod’Adia, and from the man she was sent there to kill. He was also an individual of great strength, and Nesha-tari did not doubt that it would take all of hers to best him.
The conversation broke up and the Westerners returned to their tents for there were still two hours left of darkness. Phoarty and Baj Nif remained talking by the fire and Nesha-tari heard them speak her name more than once. She realized she was creeping closer only when her bare foot touched the crushed stone of the road’s shoulder, and she made herself stop. She shuddered in her robe beneath her cloak even though the touch of the soft fabric was grating against her skin. She stalked back toward the inn.
A little more than two weeks, and her Hunger would be assuaged either by Feeding or by the final relief of her own death. Nesha-tari thought she could probably make it that long.
Probably.
Chapter Twenty-One
Tilda awoke well before dawn in her room in the Stars and Stones, and a good idea got her quickly out of bed.
Before going to sleep Tilda had taken some time to pare down her luggage to the few things she could easily carry on foot into the Vod Wilds. She had one backpack with some extra clothing and the blankets of her bedroll tied to the bottom, four wineskins now filled with water hanging on the sides. She had emptied Captain Block’s kitbag for it was still awkward to manage even with the makeshift strap, and took a page from Dugan’s book by repacking the maps, money, the silver flask with the embossed sailing ship, and a few small trinkets of her own into a pair of small saddle bags she could comfortably sling over a shoulder. Some of the items thus kept would probably not be of much utility but they were relatively light. Some, particularly the maps, had been expensive.
Beside her heaviest shirt, tunic, and trousers, Tilda would wear her vest with her seven throwing knives, one always at the small of her back, her stiff leather sleeves with the pair of heavy blades in the forearm sheathes, and her black Guild cloak with the emerald green lining now fastened within for additional warmth. Two more heavy knives would be in her walking boots, though after bitter consideration she decided not to bother carrying the riding boots any longer as she did not think there was any place within the Vod Wilds she was likely to come across a horse. Hobgoblins ate horses, as Tilda understood it. She had no sword now for she had left hers with Block though she did still have the light wooden scabbard, wrapped in eel skin. She decided to move her buksu club to her hip by fastening the leather cup to hold its head to the bottom of the empty scabbard, and binding the snapping strap to hold its neck against the top.
That left only the long ackserpa gun, for Block’s pistols were ruined. Tilda had plenty of iron and stone balls for the weapon but found she had hardly enough powder to fire ten of them. Block’s powder horn had been one of the things lost while fleeing from the bugbears. That seemed to make the long weapon hardly worth carrying, though Tilda thought she might be able to get more powder once she reached Camp Town. She suspected that anything sold there would be at a daunting price.
When she woke up early, Tilda had a better idea. She washed at a basin of cold water and dressed, then hurried down to the common room well before dawn. The place was dark and quiet and the front door was locked on the inside. Tilda went out, knelt to retrieve her thieves’ tools from the pocket stitched in the cuff of her right boot, and picked the lock shut behind her.