“Right,” said Shane. “Then here’s what we’ll do…”
“I’M sorry that we are meeting under such circumstances,” said Jorge. “I don’t blame you for being annoyed with us. We are…um…single-minded about demons.”
“I noticed,” said Marguerite. She thought about saying, “It’s fine,” then thought there was no damn reason to let him off the hook, then thought, I do not want to antagonize these people, I want their help, and said it anyway.
Marguerite was riding double with Jorge, and Davith was with one of the others. Wren had joined Ashes in the dogcart, since the paladins’ horses had made it abundantly clear that they did not like Wren, would never like Wren, and would prefer that Wren was somewhere far away, preferably with a hoofprint on the back of her head. Wren had been philosophical, and the shaggy pony that pulled the dogcart appeared almost embarrassed for its brethren’s behavior.
“It’s not fine,” said Jorge with a sigh, “but it’s what we are. Though we usually manage to be slightly more tactful about it. I apologize. The hospitality of the temple will be open to you, and though it is not lavish, I trust that you will find it better than either the ground or a jail cell.”
He was using the voice, Marguerite realized. He was good at it, though not so good as Shane. She told herself to stop being soothed. Her traitorous nerves relaxed anyway.
The temple, when they finally reached it, was a utilitarian-looking building, and Marguerite expected everything else about it to be utilitarian as well. The décor certainly didn’t change her opinion—plastered stone, plain white with only a small line of decorative paint near the floor. She was just thinking, Paladins! with a certain amount of smugness when they reached the baths, and then her opinion underwent a dramatic reversal.
It wasn’t ostentatiously luxurious, the way that the Court of Smoke’s baths had been, but soap and hot water was plentiful, and afterward there were deep pools for soaking. Judging by the mineral smell, the water was piped from another of the region’s hot springs. Marguerite settled with a groan somewhere between bliss and agony.
“Tell me about it,” said Davith. The baths were not divided by sex, though he’d taken his own pool in deference to modesty. Wren’s modesty, specifically, I bet…
She felt guilty wallowing in such pleasure when Shane was undoubtedly suffering. But not wallowing isn’t going to help him in the slightest. You don’t get to package up your virtuous forbearance and send it to him. And possibly it will be important later that my back isn’t permanently kinked.
Ashes required a hand into the water, but then sank down to her chin. “The artificers keep trying to do this in Anuket City,” she said, eyes closed. “But none of us can ever agree on how to run the boilers. It’s come to blows, and once, a murder attempt.”
“Was it a serious attempt?” asked Marguerite, after digesting this for a moment.
“There was a hammer involved.”
“I see.”
“And a small explosion, although that may not have been deliberate.”
“Ah.”
When they had soaked long enough that Marguerite’s fingers were starting to prune, they hauled themselves out of the water and were led to the main hall. Jorge was waiting, along with three other people, one of which was clearly a paladin and the other two of which looked like priests. They were all significantly older than he was, and had a look of seniority about them.
“If you can talk while you eat, we can make this as quick as possible,” said Jorge, giving the other three a sharp glance.
“No need to glare, Jorge,” said one of the priests, an older woman with dark skin and her hair worked into dozens of tiny braids. “We can see that they’re about done in. We won’t keep them answering questions until they drop.”
And answer questions they did. Most of the interrogation was directed at Wren, who confirmed that it was definitely a demon, that she had felt it herself, and that it was far and away the most powerful one that she had encountered.
Marguerite listened and interjected occasionally, but this seemed like a case where specialized vocabulary was called for, which Wren had and she didn’t. The food was simple—bread, cheese, and spiced meat—but the quality was very high. The Dreaming God’s people clearly favored simplicity, but not necessarily austerity.
She was almost lulled into complacency by the food and the bath and the hum of conversation when the senior paladin asked, “How difficult will it be to kill this man?”
Marguerite’s head snapped up. “Whoa! Wait a minute, now!”
“We must plan for the worst,” the senior paladin said.
“Obviously this isn’t knowledge that any of us wish to use,” said the priestess, giving her colleague a quelling glare. “But it is important to know.”
Wren looked sick. “Hard,” she said. “We’re former Saint of Steel. If he’s berserk, he, um. Would be very hard.” She pushed the rest of her food away. “He’s very strong.” She took a deep breath, and then her voice flattened out and assumed the odd, almost dreamy tone that Marguerite had heard before, when discussing assassins in the fortress. “Shane prefers a two-handed sword and will be slower as a result of it, but you must assume that any hit he lands is likely to be a lethal one. He compensates for the slowness by wearing heavy gauntlets and he will punch with them. His reach is what you would expect from a man of his height. His distance vision past about twenty feet is poor.
He is right-handed. He has an old knee injury on the left side that troubles him in bad weather, and it takes him a few minutes to work the stiffness out in the morning. Once he is berserk, it is impossible to guess how he will fight. It will be brutal, efficient, and unpredictable. If he’s been unable to obtain a replacement two-handed sword, he may try to compensate with a shield.” Wren paused and swallowed and sounded a little more like herself. “He was never terribly good with a shield, though.”
Dead silence filled the hall. Davith had stopped eating and looked as ill as Marguerite felt.
“Well,” said the senior paladin finally. “That was an extraordinarily clear and concise report.”
Wren nodded, still staring at her plate.
“I think,” said the priestess gently, “that we have kept you all awake long enough. Beds have been prepared for you. In the morning, we’ll talk more.”
Wren nodded again, rose, and saluted. There was a mechanical quality to her movements, as if her body was running on old instinct and the real Wren was locked away somewhere inside. Probably not far from the case.
Marguerite took her arm as they left the hall. “It will work out,” she said, and the beauty of not being a paladin was that she could lie.
FORTY-EIGHT
THE FIRST RAIDER that Shane saw had large, dark eyes that might have been called soulful if they had been in a less murderous face. He was watching over a group of a half-dozen children who were struggling to wash clothes in the stream, though his air was far more that of a prison warden than a nanny.
The sounds of laundry slapping against rocks covered the sound of Shane’s approach. And if they were ordinary children, they should be loud enough for an elephant to sneak up on them. That they aren’t shrieking and laughing and trying to drown each other is not a good sign.