When the sun rose, they mostly lay down to sleep, though one stood watch. When Bareris's strength started to trickle back, he wondered if he could take the sentry by surprise, kill it or club it unconscious, and flee while the other gnolls slumbered on oblivious.

If so, it might be prudent to try. Gnolls had a savage reputation, and it was by no means ridiculous to conjecture that eventually the hyenafolk meant to fry some bard meat in their skillet.

Yet he was reluctant to strike out at anyone who, thus far at least, had done him more good than harm, and his lingering weakness, coupled with his frustration over his failure to liberate Tammith, nurtured a bleak passivity. He simply lay and rested until sunset, when the sleeping gnolls began to rouse.

The big one walked over and peered down at him. "You better," he said. As his form was half man and half hyena, so was his speech half voice and half growl. If he hadn't possessed the trained ear of a bard, Bareris doubted he would have understood.

"I am better," he agreed, rising. "The curse is finally fading. My name is Bareris Anskuld."

The gnoll slapped his chest. "Wesk Backbreaker, me."

"Thank you for hiding me from my enemies."

"Hide easy. Sneak around humans and stinking blood orcs all the time. They never see." Wesk laughed, and though it sounded different, sharper and more bestial than human laughter, Bareris heard the bitterness in it. "Or else they kill. Not enough gnolls to fight them. Not enough singer, either. Crazy to bother them like you did."

Bareris sighed. "Probably."

"But brave. And fight good. Like gnoll."

"That's high praise. I've seen your people fight." No need to mention that he'd witnessed it during his wanderings and had been fighting on the opposing side. "Was that the reason you rescued me?"

"Help you because you chop fingers of Red Wizard."

"Did he wrong you somehow?"

Wesk snorted. "Not just that one. All Red Wizards. Gnoll clan fight in legion. Wesk's father. Father's father. Always. Until Red Wizards say, no more war. Trade now. Then they make blood orcs and say blood orcs better than gnolls."

Bareris thought he understood: "To save coin, someone decided to reduce the size of the army, and you and your clan brothers were discharged."

"Yes. Just hunters now. Robbers when we can. Not fair!"

"On the ride north, I heard that Thay's at war with Rashemen again. The legions of Gauros and Surthay are looking for recruits."

"Recruits?" Wesk snarled. "Crawl back to take orders from blood orcs? No!"

"I understand. It's a matter of pride." A mad thought came to him. "If you won't serve a tharchion, what about working for me?"

Wesk cocked his head. "You?"

"Why not? I can pay." In theory, anyway. In fact, most of his wealth was in his sword belt and purse, which the gnolls had already confiscated, but he'd worry about that detail when the time came.

"To kill Red Wizards? Want to, but no. Told you, gnolls too few."

"I understand we can't wage all-out war on them, but we can make fools of them, and maybe it will involve bleeding an orc or two along the way."

Wesk grunted. "Everyone needs to hear, but some not talk your talk. I… " He hesitated, evidently groping for the proper word.

"Translate? No need." Bareris sang softly, and the growling, yipping conversations of the other gnolls abruptly became intelligible to him. While the enchantment lasted, he would likewise be able to speak to them in their own language. "Let's gather everyone up."

The impromptu assembly convened around the ashes of last night's cook fire, and Bareris found that the unwashed-dog smell of gnoll was markedly worse when several of the creatures gathered together. Some of the hyenafolk glared at him with overt scorn and hostility, some seemed merely curious, but with the possible exception of Wesk, none appeared cordial or sympathetic.

But a bard had the power to make good will flower where none had existed before, and as he introduced himself and spun his tale, he infused his voice with subtle magic to accomplish that very purpose.

Yet even so, he wondered if a story of a loved one in peril could possibly move them. If gnolls were even capable of love, they'd never, so far as he knew, permitted a member of another race to glimpse any evidence of it. On the other hand, they were tribal by nature. That suggested something approximating a capacity for affection, didn't it?

In the end, perhaps the person he moved the most was himself. Spinning the story made everything he'd experienced acutely, painfully real, and when he told of seeing and touching Tammith only to lose her again immediately thereafter, it was all he could do to keep from weeping, but he couldn't allow the gnolls to think him a weakling.

He ended on a note of bitter anger akin to their own: "So you see how it's been for me. I undertook what should have been a simple task, especially considering that I was willing, nay, eager, to reward anyone able to help me, but I met contempt, betrayal, and bared blades every step of the way. Now I'm done with the mild and reasonable approach. I'm going to recover Tammith by force, and I want you lads to help me."

The gnolls stared at him for another moment, and then one, with a ruddy tinge to his fur and longer ears than the rest, laughed his piercing, crazy-sounding cackle. "Sorry, human. It can't be done."

"Why not?" Bareris demanded.

"Because the slaves go to Delhumide."

For a moment, Bareris didn't understand. They were all in Delhumide, and what of it? Then he realized the gnoll wasn't speaking of the tharch but of the abandoned city of the same name.

Twenty-three centuries before, when Thay had been a Mulhorandi colony, Delhumide had been one of its greatest cities and bastions of power, and when the Red Wizards rebelled, they'd deemed it necessary to destroy the place. They'd evidently used the darkest sort of sorcery to accomplish their purpose, for by all accounts, the ground was still unclean today. Demons walked there, and a man could contract madness or leprosy just by venturing down the wrong street. No one visited Delhumide except the most reckless sort of treasure hunter, and few of those ever returned.

"Are you sure?" Bareris asked. It was, of course, a stupid question, born of surprise, and he didn't wait for an answer. "Why?"

"We don't know," said the gnoll. "We have better sense than to go into Delhumide ourselves."

"Even if we could," said Wesk. After listening to his broken Mulhorandi, Bareris found it odd to hear him speak fluently, but he naturally had no difficulty conversing in his own racial language. "Soldiers guard the place by day, and at night, the things come out. I don't know if they're the fiends that have always haunted the place or pets of the Red Wizards-maybe some of both-and it doesn't matter anyway. They're there, and they're nasty."

"I understand," Bareris said, "but you fellows are experts at going unseen. You told me so yourself, and I witnessed your skill firsthand when you hid the both of us. I'll wager your legion used you as expert scouts and skirmishers."

"Sometimes," said Wesk.

"Well, I'm a fair hand at creeping and skulking myself, so long as I'm not crippled. With luck, we could sneak in and out of Delhumide without having to fight every warrior or lurking horror in the ruins."

"To steal back your mate," said the gnoll who'd jeered at him before.

"Yes. I've never seen Delhumide, but you've scouted it from the outside anyway. You can figure out the safest path in. Together, we can rescue Tammith, and in gratitude for your help, I'll make you rich enough to live in luxury in Eltabbar or Bezantur until the end of your days. Just give me back my pouch and sword belt."