Free Honor Bound by Elaine Cunningham Page A

an island, linked only by
fragile bridges of blood or choice or necessity.
    Is this what had happened to Honor?
The elf woman who's stumbled into the Starsingers grove that
midwinter nice had looked so frail, and she'd aged more than a
handful of years could explain. It was almost as if she'd been
denied the renewal of a springtime Greening.
    Was that even possible? How could
any elf endure that and live?
    Nimbolk quickened his pace, suddenly
anxious to leave this crowd of humans behind.
    The wharfs gave way to an open-air
market, a small village of tables and tents and wagons where one
could purchase fresh fish, pot-ready rabbits and fowl, root
vegetables, baskets of summer berries, and a bewildering variety of
household goods.
    A plump woman was tossing nuggets of
salt bread to passersby to tempt them into buying her strange
loaves—thin ropes of bread twisted into knots. Nimbolk caught the
piece she threw his way and munched it as he worked his way through
the crowd.
    Up ahead a path disappeared into the
shadows between two rows of warehouses. Nimbolk veered away from
the crowd and slipped gratefully into the treeless shade. So much
sun, so many days at sea, had bleached any hint of summer green
from his hair and skin and left him as pale as a northland
human.
    The noise of the port fell away,
muted by thick stone walls. Since there were no eyes to see him,
Nimbolk abandoned his attempt to move like a human. For a moment,
he reveled in the ability to move without being deafened by his own
footsteps. His expanding senses caught the muffled thud of fists
against flesh, the soft grunts of pain.
    Judging distances was difficult in
these human-built caverns, but Nimbolk guessed the fight was taking
place behind the tall wooden building to his right.
    Curious, he veered off along a
passage littered with old crates. At the end of the alley he turned
onto a rock-strewn strip of land between the warehouses and the
cliff overhead.
    Four men stood behind the tall
wooden building. One of them, a yellow-bearded man wearing a
fisherman's knitted cap, sagged in the grip of two men sporting
identical tunics of blue-dyed leather. A third uniformed man thrust
a coin at his victim's battered face. Even in the dim light,
Nimbolk could see the tell-tale shine of fairy gold.
    "There's no sense denying it, not
when this was found in your boat."
    The fisherman spat a mouthful of
blood at the man's boots. "There might be white spatter on the
hull. That don't mean I'm on friendly terms with the seagull that
dropped it."
    His tormenter raised a short club
and jabbed at his chest. The fisherman's gasp of pain ended in a
gurgle.
    Nimbolk frowned. He wondered if the
thugs realized they'd broken this man's ribs and driven a jagged
bone into one lung. The fisherman was as good as dead. If the
purpose of this beating was extracting information, these men were
as stupid as they were brutal.
    The club-wielded man poked him
again. "That's not the answer I'm looking for."
    "Only one I got," gasped the
fisherman.
    "Maybe you'd rather answer to
Captain Volgo? Because I feel obliged to tell you that he's not
half as pleasant as we three fellows."
    Volgo.
    For a moment Nimbolk stood frozen,
his mind filled with the image of Asteria lying face-down in bloody
snow, a man with a club standing behind her.
    The fisherman spat blood into his
killer's eyes. The man swore and rocked back a step as he swiped
one sleeve over his face. His blood-streaked features twisted in
something almost like joy as he lifted the club high.
    The man who'd killed Honor had worn
that very smile.
    Nimbolk threw the knife before he
realized he'd unsheathed it. The blade spun three times before it
sank to the hilt in the man's exposed armpit, paying him his own
coin for the death he'd given the fisherman.
    The man stumbled, and the downward
swing meant to end the fisherman slammed into the face of one of
the thugs holding him.
    Their comrade yelped in surprise. He
danced aside, letting the