Spy, Spy Again by Mercedes Lackey

Author:Mercedes Lackey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DAW
Published: 2020-06-08T16:00:00+00:00

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In the light of predawn, he half-woke, saw someone squatting in the grass at his feet, and came completely awake with a yell of alarm that awoke both his companions.

“Peace!” Ahkhan said immediately, putting out a restraining hand as Tory fumbled for his dagger. “This is one of our hosts.” The Sleepgiver managed a half-bow from the tangle of his bedroll, which the figure returned.

Tory shivered in the cold air of predawn, which did not seem to affect their host in the least, even though the man was naked to the waist, wearing only a pair of leather trews and a breechcloth of leather. His head was shaved, and his body had been painted in irregular stripes of red and ocher. He held a sort of spear in one hand, and he had a bow across his back and a quiver of arrows at his side.

“Greetings, guests,” the man replied, in the tongue of Menmellith, but with an odd, lyrical accent. “I come to invite you to break your fast with us. There is hare and fruit.”

Fruit? At this time of the year? Tory was eager to find out more, and equally eager to eat something besides traveler’s biscuits, so he was glad when Ahkhan accepted for all three of them.

They simply got up and left their blankets and possessions where they lay and followed the man to the front of the canyon, where a small fire burned and the bodies of several hares roasted on spits above and around it, making efficient use of every bit of heat and flame. Along with the four men who awaited them there, there were four unhooded hawks of a kind Tory had never seen before, jessed and on perches stuck into the ground. They were handsome birds, lean, mostly a very dark brown, with lighter brown on their shoulders and black-tipped white tailfeathers. Tory was intrigued that they were not trying to attack one another, even though they were completely unhooded.

All four men were dressed like the first, except for one who had a small deer pelt as a kind of cape fastened over one shoulder and under the opposite arm.

“Peace to you,” said Ahkhan. “And thanks for your hospitality.”

“You and your friends are mannered, Sleepgiver, and we had more hare than we needed,” said the first man. “Better to share than to waste.”

Tory was shocked at first that they knew what Ahkhan was—then he realized that if they were the night guards, they had probably been able to hear every word spoken from their hiding places on the cliffs.

“Sit, eat. There will likely be a caravan; this afternoon, tonight at the latest,” said the man wearing the deer pelt. “May you prosper against the demon-priests,” he added, and spat off to one side, ceremoniously.

They took a seat and accepted portions of hare and some odd, reddish fruits that looked nothing like anything Tory had ever seen before, red-skinned, green-fleshed, a kind of oval lump with spines here and there which the others were snapping off with the flats of their blades.

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