Luck in the Shadows

logs and shook what appeared to be hot coals onto the tinder.
    "More magic for you." Grinning, he handed Alec the jar. Small chips of stone glowed bright as embers but, like the lightstone, gave off no heat.
    "Those are fire stones," he explained. "Be careful with them. They won't hurt skin but the second they touch anything that will burn-cloth, wood, parchment-they ignite. I've seen too many accidents to carry them traveling."
    Flames licked up through the dry wood, dispelling the chill and darkness. The natural chamber narrowed overhead to a crevice, and by some trick of the draft the smoke was drawn neatly up this natural chimney.
    Firewood, folded blankets, and a number of pottery jars lay on various ledges around the caves. Piles of dry bracken and fir boughs were formed into rough pallets against the walls.
    "This is snug camp," said Alec, admiring it.
    "Micum found it a while back," Seregil said, huddling over the flames as closely as he dared. "Only we and a few friends know about it. Who was here last?"
    Micum inspected the stone shelf that held the jars and held up a black feather. "Erisa. She must have stopped here before going into town. Let's see what she's left in the larder."
    Carrying a few of the jars to the fire, he inspected some marks carefully incised on the wax seals. "Let's see. There's a bee on these, that's honey. A wheat stalk, that's hard biscuit.
    A bee and a cup-mead. What've you got?"
    "I'm not certain." Seregil held a jar closer to the light. "Dried venison. And here's some tobacco for you."
    "Bless her kind heart." Micum took a pipe from somewhere inside his tunic and filled it. "I left my pouch behind in all the scuffle."
    "And these two must be herbs," Seregil continued.
    "Looks like yarrow and fever bane. Well, thanks to our good friend Micum Cavish, we're in no need of
    healing. I just want to get dry!"
    Stripping off their filthy garments, they spread them by the fire and wrapped up in blankets.
    Too cold to concern himself with modesty for once, Alec noticed that both of his companions had a number of scars, though Micum's were by far the more numerous and serious. The worst was a pale rope of tissue that began just beneath his right shoulder blade. It curved down around his back to end just short of his navel. Noticing the boy's interest, he turned to the light and ran a thumb proudly over the end of the welt.
    "Closest I ever came to Bilairy's gatepost." Lighting his pipe, Micum puffed out a few rings of mellow smoke. "It was nine winters ago, wasn't it, Seregil?"
    "I believe it was." Seregil gave Alec a wink. "A group of us were traipsing up around the Fishless Sea and ran into a particularly unfriendly bunch of nomads."
    "Unfriendly!" snorted Micum. "I'd never seen their like before-great hairy giants. We still don't know where they came from. They were too busy trying to kill us to answer questions. We stumbled across their camp by accident one evening, and figured we'd say hello and try to trade for supplies. But just as we reached the pickets, a whole pack of them—big as bears and twice as mean—came charging out of nowhere at us on foot. We were mounted, but they had us surrounded before we realized what was going on. The weapons they used looked something like a big flail; a long haft with several lengths of chain attached, each two or three feet long.
    Only the links of the chains were flattened and the edges ground keen as razors. Of course, we didn't know about that until after we'd started to fight. Cyril lost an arm, cut clean off, and Berrit was blinded and died soon after. One of the bastards took the front legs off my horse and then laid into me. That's when I got this beauty." He ran a hand over the knotted ridge of flesh again. "I was all tangled up in the stirrups, but I managed to get my sword up in time to block his swing— all but one of the chains, and that laid me open to the bone right through my jerkin. If I hadn't blocked the rest, I believe he'd have cut me in half. Seregil popped up from somewhere and killed him just as he was going for another stroke. It's lucky we had the drysian Valerius traveling with us, or I'd have crossed over right then and there."
    "I suppose this was my worst," said Seregil, showing Alec deep indentations in the lean muscle on either side of his left thigh.
    "I was exploring an abandoned wizard's keep. She'd been dead for years, but a lot of her wards were still in place. I'd been very careful, spotted all the symbols,