10 – Aftermath by Asprin, Robert

“Zip,” she called, catching up, reaching out, and he couldn’t seem to jerk his elbow away. “We need you. /need you. And you owe me this-“

He stopped. He should have known it would come to that- “Right, we’re all working together now and anyway, one time you saved my ass so I’m yours to command? No chance, lady. These’re Ilsig matters, and you ain’t one. Understand, or do I have to say it in Rankene?”

“I understand that you found some sort of talisman on the beach and that if you give it to that . . . thing . . . you’ve been feeding human flesh to, you might not be able to finish what you start. If you’ve got to move the stones, I’ll make a deal with you.”

He crossed his arms and looked down at her. At least he had that advantage: he was taller. He said; “Go on, let’s hear it.”

“I won’t tell anyone about the altar, or what’s in it, as long as no perceptible trouble comes from it, if you’ll give me the talisman you were going to give to it.”

“How do you find this crap out?” he blurted. “Is it Randal, your pet mage? You been following me? What?”

She just looked up at him, her eyes full of a surety and power that her little, female body shouldn’t have been able to contain, let alone radiate. It was Tempus’s blood in her, some more-than-human attribute, he was certain.

He said then, “No. I’m not doing anything like that. Why should I?” and turned to go back down the hill.

And Straton was there, on that freakish bay horse everybody knew about, come from nowhere, out of nothing, leaning on his saddlehorn, meaning his thumbnail with a glittering blade. There, right between Zip and the path down to the riverbank.