Melody Tiamat
The Dragons' Bard - Book 2
Land's End
Her back stiff with expectant tension, Shani scouted out a campsite and sat on Bunny at the roadside as Hunter turned the team into the flat treeless area. Even the nearest shrub was a good sixty feet away. No one could get close enough to take the group by surprise. Everyone promptly took to their tasks, but this time the wolves stayed wolfen. Priestess and Hunter unharnessed the horses, while Lycari and Shani stood guard. Nightingale set up the tents with Akiahr's inexpert help. Mainly the Zaraii tried not to put his claws through the canvas as he held things up for the bard. He looked terribly incompetent; a perfect city-bred consort who was rather useless for anything else despite his size.
No attack came even after they were preparing meals over the hastily-kindled fire. Shani became slightly twitchy. She wandered the camp, listening and watching. Where were their nemeses? She and Lycari stayed back from the fire. It wouldn't do to be half blinded by the flames with a fight in the offing.
"They're out there somewhere," she murmured to Lycari. "I know I'm right."
Lycari nodded his head. "We all trust your judgement."
Half an hour passed with no sign of any kind of trouble. Ears, whether human or other, failed to hear surreptitious movements. Eyes found no movement other than birds chasing insects and tired horses lazily switching their tails. Wolves sniffed the wind as the moons rose but smelled nothing but moonlight.
Akiahr and the wolves shared the keenest hearing and were the first to hear it; a dull rumble on the road, the sound of many, many hooves in slow cadence. Lupine forms melted into the grass as quickly as a breath. Everyone sat with their weapons handy, just in case.
Before long the rest could also hear the hooves as well as whistles and whip-cracks and the rumble of laden wagons. The moonlight glinted off a dust cloud above the road as the forms of horses appeared; a whole herd by the look of it, plodding stolidly along. Riders flanked the herd; at its head was an armed man astride a dainty filly. A horse trader on his way to market was not a threat and the companions relaxed a fraction, but remained vigilant to the other directions.
The point rider broke away from the herd to approach them, revealing himself as a gaunt albino wearing well-used chainmail, with a plain but serviceable sword by his side. His hand stayed off the sword's hilt, but was not far from it as his pink eyes took in the group, the defensive set-up of the camp, the coach. His filly pranced nervously, scenting both Akiahr and the wolves and he laid a soothing hand on her neck. The rider noted Shani's gear and mount and he nodded a respectful greeting. "Greetings, Mistress T'Shono."
Shani's eyebrows raised a fraction. Not everyone recognized her Clan affiliation that readily. "Greetings, herd master. What would you have of us?"
"My employer," continued the albino, "begs that you share your campsite for the night. We appear to have gone astray and misjudged the distance to town and have need of a large area to stay the night, for our horses need tending. We can offer armed guards to protect everyone within the site."
Shani caught the man's eyes in a hard stare. "We seem to have been given wrong directions as well. Innkeepers, eh?" The albino nodded.
The wagons creaked into view. The horse trader and several other merchants had banded together into a caravan, a common practice when traveling through wild lands. Merchants teamed together to hire guards and shared both the costs and the benefits. From the look of the guards hired to mind this caravan, it was a rich one. Six wagons, roughly fifty loose head of horses and twenty men made a large group who would, indeed, need a large, cleared space for the night. Shani moved aside and beckoned the lead wagon into the clearing. A caravan would allow them all to get some sleep.
The albino turned his horse to wave at the caravan leaders. A loud popping noise and the air was full of arrows, then men appeared where nothing had previously been. Shani, Akiahr and the albino drew their swords as one, the albino shouting at his fellows, "They have a battle mage! Find him and kill him!"
