Foster motioned to another squad that was moving to saddle their horses and gave them instructions. Erik glanced back as he lifted his saddle to place it on the back of his own mount. Where was Nakor? he wondered.
Nakor grunted as he picked up the plank, silently cursing the fool at the other end who didn’t seem to realize something existed called “coordinated effort.” The man, whose name was unknown to Nakor but whom he thought of as “that idiot,” insisted on lifting, moving, and dropping without bothering to mention it to Nakor. As a result, over the last two days, Nakor had accumulated an astonishing collection of splinters, scrapes, and bruises.
Nakor had encountered difficulties returning to Calis’s company. The muster had finally halted with the core army to the north of this tributary to the river Vedra, while Calis and other other new mercenary companies were to the south. Passing across the smaller river was now accomplished only by riders with official-looking passes, issued by the generals. Nakor had three such passes in his bag, having stolen them two nights before, but he didn’t want to try to use one until he could study it, and there hadn’t been any place to study the documents without attracting attention. Besides the risk of losing such documents, Nakor had a predisposition not to call attention to himself unless there was a reason to do so.
But the generals had ordered a bridge rebuilt across this tributary and a work gang was diligently doing just that. Nakor figured he would pose as a worker and when the bridge reached the opposite shore, he would simply vanish into the crowd on the other bank.
Unfortunately, the work was going more slowly than he had hoped, since the labor turned out to be slave labor and, as such, the workers were in no hurry. Also, he was now being closely guarded at night. The guards might not have noticed him when he arrived—if there was an extra slave in a squad, the guard would merely assume he had miscounted in the morning—but he would be certain to notice if there was one less.
Which meant Nakor would have to wait for exactly the right moment to vanish into the companies of mercenaries. He knew that once he was free of the guards watching the work gang he would have no trouble staying free, but he wished to create as ideal a moment as possible before he attempted it. A manhunt in the southern camp might prove amusing, but Nakor knew that he must share what he had learned with Calis and the others before too long, so that they could start planning their escape from this army and their eventual return to Krondor.
“That idiot” dropped his end of the plank before Nakor could move, and as a result he took more splinters in his shoulder. He was about to do one of his “tricks” in retaliation, a sting to the buttocks that would make the man think he had sat on a hornet, when a chill passed over him.
He glanced back and felt his chest tighten, for a Pantathian priest stood not ten feet away watching the construction, speaking quietly to a human officer. Nakor set down his end of the plank and hurried back for another, keeping his eyes down. Nakor had encountered the Pantathians and their handiwork before, while traveling with the man who was now Prince of Krondor, but he had never seen a living Pantathian that close. As he passed the creature he noticed a faint odor, and remembered having heard of this smell before: very reptilian, yet alien.
Nakor bent to pick up another plank and saw “that idiot” stumble over a rock. He lost his balance and took a half-step toward the Pantathian. The creature reacted, turning with a clawed hand sweeping out. The talons struck across “that idiot’s chest, ripping his tunic as if they were knives. Deep cuts of crimson appeared as the man cried out. Then he went weak in the knees and collapsed, to lie twitching on the ground.
The human officer said to Nakor, “Get him out of here,” and Nakor and another slave grabbed the fallen man. By the time they had moved him back to the slaves’ compound, the man was dead. Nakor studied the face, frozen in death with eyes open, and watched closely. After a few minutes, he was certain he knew exactly what poison the Pantathian had on his claws. It was no natural venom, but something created by mixing several deadly plant toxins together, and Nakor found this revelation fascinating.
He was also fascinated by the Pantathian’s need to demonstrate before the human officer his deadly ability to kill with a touch. There were politics here in the camp of the Emerald Queen that were not obvious to those far from the heart of power, and Nakor wished he had the time to try to uncover more about them. Any struggle in the enemy camp was good to know about, but unfortunately, he couldn’t afford to spend the time insinuating himself where he could observe the byplays of power.