The Hidden City

here use the word “monster”, but we all know what a large, shaggy creature who lives alone in the mountains is, don’t we?’
    ‘Peasants are an excitable lot, aren’t they?’ Ulath laughed, draining his tankard. ‘We were out on a training exercise once, and this peasant came running up to us claiming that he was being chased by a pack of wolves. When we went out to take a look, it turned out to be one lone fox. The size and number of any wild animal a peasant sees seems to grow with each passing hour.’
    ‘Or each tankard of ale,’ Tynian added.
    They talked with the now-polite official for a while longer, and then the man wished them a good journey and left.
    ‘Well, it’s nice to know that the Trolls made it this far south,’ Ulath said. ‘I’d hate to have to go looking for them.’
    ‘Their Gods were guiding them, Ulath,’ Tynian pointed out.
    ‘You’ve never talked with the Troll-Gods, I see,’ Ulath laughed. ‘Their sense of direction is a little vague—probably because their compass only has two directions on it.’
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘North and not-north. It makes finding places a little difficult.’
    The storm was one of those short, savage gales that seem to come out of nowhere in the late autumn. Khalad had dismissed the possibility of finding any kind of shelter in the salt marshes and had turned instead to the beach. At the head of a shallow inlet he had found the mountain of driftwood he’d been seeking. A couple of hours of fairly intense labor had produced a snug, even cozy little shelter on the leeward side of the pile.
    The gale struck just as the last light was fading. The wind screamed through the huge pile of driftwood. The surf crashed and thundered against the beach, and the rain sheeted horizontally across the ground in the driving wind. Khalad and Berit, however, were warm and dry. They sat with their backs against the huge, bleached-white log that formed the rear wall of their shelter and their feet stretched out toward their crackling fire.
    ‘You always amaze me, Khalad,’ Berit said. ‘How did you know that there’d be boards mixed in amongst all this driftwood?’
    ‘There always are,’ Khalad shrugged. ‘Any time you find one of these big heaps of driftwood, you’re going to find sawed lumber as well. Men make ships out of boards, and ships get wrecked. The boards float around until the wind and currents and tides push them to the same sheltered places where the sticks and the logs have been accumulating.’ He reached up and patted the ceiling. ‘Finding this hatch-cover all in one piece was a stroke of luck, though, I’ll grant you that.’ He rose to his feet and went to the front of the shelter. ‘It’s really blowing out there,’ he noted. He extended his hands toward the fire. ‘Cold, too. The rain’s probably going to turn to sleet before midnight.’
    ‘Yes,’ Berit agreed pleasantly. ‘I certainly pity anybody caught out in the open on a night like this.’ He grinned.
    ‘Me too,’ Khalad grinned back. He lowered his voice, although there was no real need. ‘Can you get any sense of what he’s thinking?’
    ‘Nothing specific,’ Berit replied. ‘He’s seriously uncomfortable, though.’
    ‘What a shame.’
    ‘There’s something else, though. He’s going to come and talk with us. He has a message of some kind for us.’
    ‘Is he likely to come in here tonight?’
    Berit shook his head. ‘He has orders not to make contact until tomorrow morning. He’s very much afraid of whoever told him what to do and when to do it, so he’ll obey those orders to the letter. How’s that ham coming?’
    Khalad drew his dagger and used its point to lift the lid of the iron pot half-buried in embers at the edge of the fire. The steam that came boiling out smelled positively delicious. ‘It’s ready. As soon as the beans are done, we can eat.’
    ‘If our friend out there is down-wind of us, that smell should add to his misery just a bit.’ Berit chuckled.
    ‘I sort of doubt it, Sparhawk. He’s a Styric, and he’s not allowed to eat pork.’
    ‘Oh, yes. I’d forgotten about that. He’s a renegade, though. maybe he’s discarded his dietary prejudices.’
    ‘We’ll find out in the morning. When he comes to us tomorrow, I’ll offer him a piece. Why don’t you saw off a few slices of that loaf of bread? I’ll toast them on the pot-lid here.’
    The wind had abated somewhat the following morning, and the rain had slacked off to a