“Try all the thought-twisting you wish, but you’ll not be rid of me. No one talks Simna ibn Sind out of his share of treasure.”
Ehomba sighed, his ribless chest rising and falling less than it would have had it been properly supported from within. “You are certainly a most determined man, friend Simna. Once you get an idea in your head, nothing can take it from you.”
“That’s right, and don’t you forget it, mentor of calves.” The swordsman pulled hard on a line.
“Wait!” Ehomba rose up as far as he could in the cradle of Hunkapa’s arms.
“What for?” Jawline set, Simna continued to ready the windwagon. “So you can try more of your sorceral tricks and word games to discourage me? I don’t think so.”
“It is not that. Someone is coming.” A shaky, rubbery arm rose to point back in the direction they had come.
Frowning, a reluctant Simna turned to gaze back up the wagon track. “I don’t see anything. If you’re trying to stall so I’ll leave before we cross the river, you’re wasting your time, Etjole. Like it or not, I’m coming with you. All the way to Ehl-Larimar.”
“From out of the trees, a little to the north. A lone rider. An old friend.”
“What ‘old friend’?” Exasperated, Simna turned fully on the bench seat. “We have no friends here, and no member of the Grömsketter’s crew would leave her to come this far inland. We don’t—” He broke off in midsentence as a single figure hove into view. Ehomba was right; it was an old friend.
It was the herdsman’s skeleton.
Pushing its mount hard, the long, lanky collection of bones kept low, head forward and arms locked around the neck bones of its osseous steed. Legs pounding, the skeletal stallion picked up speed as it struck the slight downslope leading to the edge of the river.