The Beggar and the Dragon

4

Linsha recognized the hunched and ragged figure waiting for her at the gate. She gave him the briefest nod and continued walking past the guard towers and along the path to the garrison’s main stables located in the large field to the north of the citadel. There was a stable available in the fortress itself, but it was small and its stalls were limited to horses used for message delivery and errand-running. Most of the Knights who had their own horse for personal use kept them in the bigger stable where the horses could be released into nearby pastures for exercise and fresh grass.

Knowing the beggar would follow her, Linsha continued along the path to the barn and walked into the dim interior. The stable lads were already up and hard at work cleaning stalls and feeding horses, but they had not reached her horse’s box yet. She waved one lad off who offered to help and fetched her own brushes and saddle. She poured a small scoop of fragrant grain into the horse’s trough and began to brush his coat while he ate his breakfast.

A horse of the desert lands, Sandhawk was as chestnut red as the rust-colored hills at sunset and as patient and enduring as the desert itself. Linsha had bought him shortly after her arrival in the Missing City, and thus far, she had been pleased with him.

The gelding tossed his head once, and then went back to his oats as the beggar limped into the stall. Linsha looked over the horse’s back and grinned at the man as she continued brushing the chestnut’s dusty coat.

“That’s one disguise I haven’t seen yet,” she said with a chuckle.

“My biggest mistake was buying these clothes from a real beggar. They came complete with fleas.” He scratched his neck and with the same motion pushed his broad brimmed hat back from his face. Lank, dark hair fell forward, partially hiding a livid scar that marred the man’s nose and left cheek.

Lanther had been a handsome man once. Linsha could see the strong lines of his nose and cheekbones under the weathered and scarred skin, but years of sun and desert wind and battles fought with sword and knife had taken a hard toll on his features. His eyes were a vivid blue, a dark blue like sapphires or perhaps the color of a thunderstorm at twilight. Those eyes twinkled at Linsha as the man crossed his arms and leaned against the stable wall.

“I heard you rode a centaur into town last night. What did you do to earn that honor?”

“Well, since you are the first to ask me that question, I will tell you. He was apologizing for ripping my tunic with a crossbow bolt.”

Lanther’s eyebrows slowly rose toward his hairline. “He shot at you?”

Linsha put the brush away and picked up a hoof-pick. “Accidently.” She leaned against Sandhawk’s side and carefully picked up his front hoof. “I went out beyond the ghost city into the outer lying edges of the ruins and bumped into a patrol. Their newest member shot before he realized what he was doing.”

“You weren’t hurt?” he asked.

“Just my tunic.”

His eyes narrowed. “What were you doing out there?”

“Tracking someone,” she replied from behind her horse. “The kind of man that makes my hackles rise.”

“Did you find him?”

“Lost him at the edge when the centaurs appeared.”

Linsha moved to the horse’s back hoof and slowly picked it clean while she waited for Lanther to tell her why he had come. He was a deliberate man and a patient one, two traits that had stood him in good stead. He had told her his story once of his work in the New Swamp. How, as a Legionnaire, he helped people trying to escape from Takar in Sable’s realm, providing them with food and guiding them back to the safety of the plains. Sable’s minions trapped him one day, until he fought his way out, and badly wounded, made his way across the miles of stagnant water and foul marsh to the small tribal village of Mem-Ban on the edge of Iyesta’s domain. There he recovered with the aid of the tribesmen. Unfortunately, his leg was too crippled to return to the swamp. He was sent to the Missing City to join the cell there and to work with Iyesta’s spy network. He had been one of the first Legionnaires to approach Linsha shortly after her arrival in the city, and together they had formed a steady friendship and a workable link between the Legion and the Order.

When he did not say anything after a while, Linsha peered at him around the back of Sandhawk’s rump and saw through the hairs of the horse’s tail that Lanther was trying to scratch his shoulder blades on the boards of the stall wall. He looked so uncomfortable and ridiculous that a chuckle slid out before she could stop it.

“You laugh,” he grumbled. “Some day you’ll have to use a disguise like this and the little demons will be all over your succulent flesh.”

Linsha, who had been forced to use a disguise like that once, jerked a thumb at the horse trough visible just outside the stable door. “So take a bath. There’re horse blankets in the tack room.”

He made a disparaging noise. “No thanks. I’ll find my own bath. I came to tell you that Sir Morrec’s company has been delayed near the forest. They won’t be back until tomorrow. One of your messengers is on the way here, by the way.”

Linsha nodded, resigning herself to another day of Sir Remmik’s dictatorial attitude. She didn’t bother to be surprised that a Legionnaire was telling her of her own commander’s business. The Legion often brought her news before her own Order received it.

Lanther paused as if waiting for her full attention. “We have found information on the elder who is missing,” he said. “We received a tip last night that the man is dead. We are searching for his body.”

Linsha hissed in irritation. “That makes three missing, doesn’t it? Who is doing this? And why?”

“I wish we knew. It would be most strange if these three deaths are mere coincidences.”

The two fell quiet for a time, busy with their own thoughts while the work of the stables went on around them.

After a while Lanther stirred and set his eyes on Linsha’s bent back. “By the way-” he paused to savor the moment of delivery-”your brother was in Flotsam.”

She shot straight up, startling her horse and dropping the hoof pick. “What? When? How do you know?”

A grin spread across Lanther’s scarred face, easing the usually tense lines around his eyes and mouth. “One of our members in Flotsam sent a report to Solace and to Falaius to report the death of one of our older members. Falaius was a friend of hers.”

Falaius Taneek was a desert barbarian turned Legionnaire who commanded the Legion cell in the Missing City. A tough but fair man, he had gained Linsha’s respect quickly and opened a cordial and diplomatic liaison between the Legion and the Solamnic circle. He would have known how pleased Linsha would be to hear news of her brother.

“What was Ulin doing in Flotsam? Was my father with him?”

“There was no mention of Palin. Only Ulin and someone named Lucy Torkay.”

Linsha leaned her arms over her patient horse’s back. “Lucy? Did the report say why?”

He shook his head. “It only said they were there last spring to look for her father. Apparently, he was a local brigand who had stolen the town’s treasury. Seems your brother and this Lucy saved the town.”

An image of her tall, lanky brother filled Linsha’s mind like a warm draught of spring wine. He was her only sibling and a friend and companion of childhood. It had been too many years since she’d seen him last, and she missed him deeply. “Saved a town, did he?” she murmured, bending over to retrieve the pick. “He would.”

She said nothing more as her thoughts revolved back to her place in the Missing City. She wished Ulin was there so she could ask him about the forebodings that discomfited her mind, but he was far away, probably back in Solace by now. There was only Lanther. He had been her friend for over a year, and if anyone in this city could understand her misgivings it might be him.