see no-one else today when you leave.”
She stood up and went behind a curtain. He heard her lie down; he left quietly.
Thrusherwas helping Dubro with a wheelrim, but both men stopped when they saw
him.
“She wishes to be left alone the rest of the day,” he said.
“Then you best begone from here.”
Walegrin headed out from the awning without argument. Thrusher joined him.
“Well, what did you leam?”
“She told me that we will not go north and that a great fleet is headed for
Sanctuary.”
Thrusher stopped short. “She’s mad,” he exclaimed.
“I don’t think so, but I don’t understand either. In the meantime we’ll follow
our original plans. We’ll come back to the city tonight and speak to the men
you’ve found. There should be twenty-five swords finished by now-if there
aren’t, we’ll cut our losses and leave with what we’ve got. I want to be out of
here by sunrise.”
6
The light in the tiny, upper room was provided by two foul-smelling candles. A
man stood uncomfortably in the center of the room, the only place where he could
stand without striking his head on the rough-hewn beams. Walegrin, deep within
the comer shadows, fired questions at him.
“You say you can use a sword-do you fight in skirmish or battle?”
“Both. Before I came to Sanctuary, two years back, I lived a time at Valtostin.
We fought the citizens by night and the Tostin tribes by day. I’ve killed twenty
men in a single day, and I’ve got the scars to prove it.”
Walegrin didn’t doubt him. The man had the look of a seasoned fighter, not a
brawler. Thrusher had seen him single-handedly subdue a pair of rowdies without