And now we bring bad news to Harbend again. Gods! They all want Lord Garak, Master Garak or Harbend de Garak representing our shared interests with Keen. Is there no one to see how tired he is?

Sighing Nakora shrugged and returned inside the canvased group of wagons serving as their barracks. Emptier than unusual. She had ordered night patrols doubled since the attack. Come morning she'd receive complaints from tired soldiers.

I believe you have no such worries, Captain Laiden. What have you seen together? I see your men look at you as an older brother or father. Paid mercenaries. I wonder.

Suspicions or not. Captain Laiden still had no way of understanding the ways of Khi. Had no personal interest invested either, she admitted sourly. Did she really care so much?

Gods! Someone has to lessen the blow.

She wrapped her cloak around herself and went back into the dark coldness outside.

***

"What do you mean they're gone?"

"There are clear signs of an attack, M'lord, but we can't find any bodies. My guess is they've been taken."

Harbend gave Trindai a helpless look. "So what do we do now?"

"I can send out scouts tomorrow, M'lord."

"Do you believe they can catch up?"

"Maybe, maybe not. But we should have a better chance knowing if anyone's planning another attack."

Harbend nodded. Sound thinking. "Do so," he said at last.

Trindai rose and left.

Harbend waited until Trindai was out of sight before leaning forward, face in hands. Now what? Arthur and Chaijrild both gone. Lianin would be livid when he told her. As for Arthur. He didn't even want to think about the repercussions when they finally returned to Verd. If worst came to worst they'd probably encounter a band of Khraga blaming him for losing Gring as well.

"So, what do we do now?" he asked himself and was surprised to get an answer.

"We go after them or we continue, or maybe even both."

"Who?"

A figure slowly became a visible contour against the night sky. Nakora! Gods! For a moment he thought he'd seen a ghost.

"I hope I did not scare you. I never intended to."

"No, not at all," he lied. "Have a seat." He pointed at the low chair Trindai had occupied just a little while earlier.

Nakora gracefully accepted his offer.

"Are you not cold?" he asked to break a silence starting to become awkward.

"Cold? You must be joking, Lord Garak," she laughed. "You have made a fine fire here, and with the tarpaulin all around us there is no wind."

Harbend silently agreed. She still wore her leather coat and he sat here in his shirtsleeves. "So, what to do?" he asked, more to change subject than to listen to her repeat what she had already said earlier.

"Send a search party. You have to. The rest continue to Braka."

"Do I have to?"

She looked at him quizzically and nodded. "Yes, I believe so, but can you?"

He returned her look and sighed. "I do not know. I honestly do not know."

"Find a way, for your own sake. At least this you can handle the way you prefer. They shall not demand your sacrificing your conscience to prove yourself being one of us again. Not with a taleweaver involved at least."

He stared out into the darkness. In his mind he followed the long line of circles of wagons stretching out behind them. Ten wagons to each circle, thirty circles, and one out of five of the men and women who depended on him would want him to make the human decision. Only one out of five who wouldn't ask him to abandon his friend even if none of the others would ever dare to voice that to his face. Gods! He was guilty of losing a taleweaver to who knew what kind of destiny.

"Are you sure?" he asked, and a coldness having nothing to do with winter crawled down his back as he waited for her answer.

"I am certain. Not this close to the executions. Who knows, it might be a matter of a couple of days that is needed this time as well."

"I do not know," he whispered hoarsely. "I really do not know."

"You must decide. The law requires it. Good night, Lord Garak. I leave you now." The softness in her voice belied the harsh words, and Harbend knew he had an important ally.

***

Trindai de Laiden was eavesdropping. He lacked the moral restrictions against getting information in such an underhanded way, a lack he was well aware of. None of his superiors would care about how he got his intelligence, but all of them would most certainly come down on him if he failed to find out what he should have known.

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At the moment he was trying to handle a problem, one that had currently not reached anything like a satisfying conclusion. Arthur Wallman had to be found and rescued. That, at least, was what Madame de Felder would want, but then she didn't have all the facts. She'd charged him with keeping the outworlder celebrity safe while at the same time making certain the golden opportunity to make a show of increasing Keen's trade didn't fail. She had no possible way of knowing that the creepy outworlder had turned out a taleweaver. The Roadhouse was too far away from Keen for that, but, he thought sourly to himself, he didn't have the benefit of ignorance.

Now Arthur Wallman had to be found and rescued before news about his capture reached kings, councils and other untranslatable bodies of governments deciding to set up rescue missions of their own. Those could, if poorly handled, grow into a conflict that would make the perpetual war between Rhuin and Khanati pale in comparison.

"And I'm the unlucky bastard with this shit in my lap," he muttered silently under his breath. Well, shit or not, it wouldn't do to be discovered here.

Trindai edged himself between the wheels under the wagon where he was hiding. He didn't like what he was hearing. Some traders were apparently not as interested in heroic rescue missions as in protecting their own coffers, and at the moment two of them were voicing their concerns to a group of their colleagues.

You idiots! Why can't you keep your greedy thoughts to yourselves? I don't need a mutiny on my hands now.

Trindai crept back and silently made his way to the horse he'd left far away enough from the circle of wagons not to be seen from it.

A short ride, a few barked commands and a couple of questions later he sat down in the wagon where the Vimarin brew mistress had set up her mobile tavern. The other guests scrambled to their feet and left the wagon as fast as their feet could carry them when he made it clear he wasn't above using his saber on anyone overstaying their welcome. All but one, that was. Trindai had to physically prevent Harbend from joining the exodus.

"We have a problem, M'lord," he said after he'd forcefully turned a startled Harbend to face him.

"We, or you?" Harbend asked regaining some of his composure.

Trindai grinned. He had to give the master trader the credit of being more coldblooded than the average civilian. "We have, or more precisely, you and I have."

"How so?"

"There are traders who don't want to stay put while we send out patrols to find Arthur Wallman."

"Gods! Not you as well. Yes, yes, yes, I want to find my friend and get him back here. I just do not want to order more executions in order to do so."

"I want to make one thing absolutely clear," he growled. "I don't care a bastards fate about your friend, but darkness, it's imperative that we bring the taleweaver to safety."

"I know," Harbend murmured, "but how?"

"That, M'lord, is your decision, but to make that decision easier you should know that I'll leave this caravan with all my men if something doesn't happen very soon."

Harbend looked as if he was going to explode, but then a smile crept up his face. "That," he began, smiling even wider, "is an argument I believe my fellow traders will have no problems understanding."

"Good. Then I have things to do." Trindai made as if to leave.

"Why the hurry?"

Trindai sat down at the unexpected question. There had been an edge of command to it he didn't like.

"Captain, if you are indeed a captain, what is your role here?"

Something cold ran down Trindai's spine. Darkness, have I blown my cover?

"You're not a mercenary escort captain, and your troops are not a bunch of men you happen to command for this trip, long as it may be," Harbend continued relentlessly. "You act with the coordination of professionals. Gods! You somehow made me hire an entire unit rather than random men at arms."

"I don't understand, Lord Garak." Darkness, Mairild will have my skin for this! "What do you mean?" I failed to keep a secret even to a civilian.

"I saw your reluctance at the executions. Tired of killing civilians are you?"

"Huh?" Now Trindai was honestly surprised. Where was this going?

"Too many years spent in the glorious Inquisition doing that dirty work? Captain, are you escorting us, or are you running from your superiors?"

Oh, oh he believes... Lucky day of mine. "You're too perceptive for my taste, Lord Garak. Does it make any difference what we were before you hired us?" Trindai barely managed to keep from sighing with relief.