“Going somewhere, pud?” said Strat.
“Strat,” said Kama, “I can handle this.”
“I was just leaving,” Zip replied.
“No you can’t,” said Strat to both of them. Then: “Zip, what she wants, you give her. What she ordered, you do. Or deal with me. Kama, there’s something more important than piffles going on out there. Finish with your boy toy and let’s get going.”
Kama winced but held out her hand steadily and said to Zip, “Either give me the talisman, or Strat and I are going down there and crush five or six of those stones. Do you want to risk that, and what will follow if the three of us have a falling-out?”
Zip looked from the big fighter to the slight woman and saw a shared purpose there; an implacable, uncaring deadliness common among those ure that their Cause was worth serving. He had to leam to match their pirit. Until then, he’d never win against them.
He reached into his beltpouch and handed her the object a girl had bund in the seawrack. It hardly glittered. It wasn’t even gold, just bronze. “Here, take it. And take out your lust somewhere else, from now on. I don’t want to mess with you no more.”
He heard Strat’s raw titter as he stalked away, and it scratched blood from his soul- He wondered if the thing in the altar would consider the extenuating circumstances under which he’d lost its gift.
And what would happen if it did not.
Ischade’s Foalside home was dimly lit, numinous. When they got there, Kama recognized Crit’s gray horse and squeezed her eyes shut. No wonder Strat had come running to get her: Crit at Ischade’s was naphtha too close to a torch.