The Windsingers Series: The Complete 4-Book Collection. Megan Lindholm

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СКАЧАТЬ the Kerugi’s reply.

      ‘We cannot be of much help to you. There are many hives and many inns in Dyal. The Human male should have given you better directions.’

      ‘My thoughts exactly. I thank you for your time, and for having speech with me.’

      Ki waited politely until her reply had been relayed to the Kerugi. The Olo offered her welcome and farewell. The Kerugi with its Olo waddled off.

      Ki scanned the length of the street. She had lost count of how many inns she had checked; but there was another of the tall pointed structures that housed a Kerugi inn in its shadow. She trudged toward it, trying not to breathe the fine dry dust that hung in the city streets like fog. The heat of summer filled the bowl of Dyal Valley as if winter would never come, yet she knew that in another moon the streets of this city would be flowing mud and blowing wind.

      A motley crowd moved through the early evening air. It was mostly Kerugi, with here and there a scuttling T’cherian or a striding Human breaking the pace of the traffic. A tall Brurjan in guard harness hulked past Ki, and she felt her belly muscles tighten as his shadow fell across her. If Dyal made a practice of hiring Brurjan guards, these streets would be safe after dark. Ki knew of no creature that would willingly cross a Brurjan. Hastily she stepped up onto a planked veranda that fronted the inn. Stooping, she swept the door slats to one side and peered within. Damn the man. He wasn’t in this one, either.

      She wrinkled her nose against the odors of the common room. A drunken tinker and his drinking companions were the only Human inhabitants. Kerugi huddled in clusters around the low feeding vats, Olos twined on their shoulders, twittering to one another in their own tongue. Ki watched in distaste as one of the Kerugi shuffled up to a vacant vat and, with a grunt, expelled its digestive tendrils from a slitlike aperture in its belly. A T’cherian server scuttled over to upend a jug over the vat, slopping thick brownish porridge over the Kerugi’s digestive tendrils. The flatulent odor of the room increased.

      Ki sighed and entered the inn, the door slats chattering behind her. She’d have food and a cold drink before checking the rest of the inns in Dyal. If she had realized how Dyal had grown since she last had delivered freight here, she would have demanded more specific directions from Vandien. ‘That Kerugi inn at Dyal’ had seemed a sufficient description. Who could have predicted that hordes of the tiny-fingered weaver folk would have moved to Dyal?

      ‘Carrion crows and horny old hags they are!’ the tinker bellowed out suddenly. Ki eyed him warily. He was a disreputable-looking fellow. His face was sun browned, his eyes pale, his hair dusty as though he had just brought his wagonload of pots into town. A gelid pot belly cushioned him against the table, though he gestured with hands that seemed, beneath their grime, capable and strong. Once he might have been a handsome man, but age and the laxity of drink had brought a droop to his face, a sag to his lips and jowls, and leached the brightness from his eyes.

      The tinker’s eyes leaped and fastened on Ki’s. She jerked her gaze away, shamed to be caught staring like a mannerless child. She crossed the room hastily, her dusty skirts whipping against travel-stained boots. Nervously she glanced about, seeking a table as far as possible from drunken tinkers and Kerugi with their twittering symbiots. But instead of a table, a low doorway caught her eye. She made her way to it, to stoop and peer into the dim room beyond.

      The wooden floor was strewn with rushes and fragrant grasses. Low trough tables of warmed sand were scattered about the room. T’cherian diners crouched around them. Several eye stalks swiveled in her direction, then politely swerved away. Pincerlike fingers on jointed limbs resumed the conveying of food to mandibles.

      Ki ducked in and stood up, savoring the muted light, the cleanliness, and the relative quiet of the place. From the common room behind her, she heard the tinker bellow out, ‘Blood-sucking Windsingers!’ and follow it with muted curses. But here there was only the chink of pincers against the round-bottomed vessels of food snugged in the sand-troughs.

      The sole Human inhabitant of the room sat with his back against the wall and his legs stretched out beneath a sand table. One booted foot rested comfortably on the ankle of the other. His head was tilted back, his eyes rolled up as, with one hand, he groped on a shelf above him. His fingertips teased a bottle to the edge, and caught it just as it began to tip into a fall. A light shower of sand came with it, dusting his hair. With a practiced twist of the wrist, he nested the round-bottomed bottle into the table before him. Two hemispherical glasses waited there, one clean and one tinged with dregs.

      The man pushed the sleeves of his cream-colored tunic back to his elbows, exposing finely muscled forearms, and bent over the bottle to work off the seal. Curly dark hair fell over his forehead, partially obscuring the scar that divided his face.

      Ki moved softly across the room, placing her boots with such care that she stood over him before he was aware of her. Dark eyes swept up to meet her green ones. She gave his boots a light kick. ‘I should have known,’ she grumbled. ‘It would be the Kerugi inn with a T’cherian serving room.’ She dropped to the floor and settled in beside him, her booted ankles crossed comfortably atop his.

      ‘It was so obvious, I never thought to mention it,’ Vandien conceded. ‘How was your haul?’

      Ki leaned back against the wall behind them and let herself relax. ‘Bad roads, hot weather, unfriendly towns, and ungrateful recipients on this end. They claimed the top sacks of beans were spoiled from exposure to the weather. I thought they always smelled like that. We argued a bit, and I cut my fee a little, and we parted amiably. At least, the Kerugi’s Olo seemed friendly enough when I left. Who knows what a Kerugi really thinks about anything? All you hear is the carefully edited reply from its Olo …’

      ‘Um,’ Vandien agreed. He had resumed picking at the bottle’s seal, flicking away scraps of greenish wax to expose a fibrous stopper. He reached under the table to draw a small knife from a sheath on his belt and dug it into the stopper. ‘I hope you’re not too tired,’ he said casually. Amusement tugged at the corner of his mouth. He smoothed his small moustache to cover it, but Ki was alerted.

      ‘Nothing a good night’s sleep won’t cure.’

      ‘Think we could be in False Harbor ten nights from now?’

      ‘False Harbor?’

      ‘About a day’s ride beyond Bitters by horse; maybe two for the wagon. The road is narrow and rutted.’

      ‘But why would I want to be in False Harbor then?’

      Vandien glanced up at the T’cherian server making her way to their table laden with two steaming bowls. He timed his reply perfectly, speaking as he poured a dark purple liqueur into their glasses. The T’cherian nested their bowls into the sand before them. ‘I’ve contracted us a job there.’

      Ki was speechless in the double amazement of Vandien actually seeking for gainful employment, and daring to commit her wagon and team without her permission. He looked up from the liqueur and laughed aloud at her wide eyes, her gaping mouth. As her eyes narrowed and she took a deep breath for speech, he raised both hands in supplication. ‘Before you tell me your current opinion of your dearest friend, let me tell you the details of the deal. You decide if even a stubborn Romni teamster would have walked away from it.’

      Ki picked up her glass and leaned back against the wall, regarding him skeptically. She took a slow sip of the liqueur. He grinned at her engagingly, already sure of himself, and shifted to feel the companionable warmth of her shoulder and hip against his.

      ‘Three nights ago, I was sitting here, at this very table, when the strangest woman I’ve СКАЧАТЬ