Free Witches of Kregen by Alan Burt Akers Page B

there is work to be done and I cannot get on with it.”
    “Aye, majister!”
    They wanted to troop off to The Risslaca Transfix’d but I bellowed out: “Oh, no! Oho no! If you insist on my company then I insist on the tavern.”
    They whooped at this, sensing my change of mood.
    “Where, majis?Where?”
    “Why, what better place is there than The Rose of Valka?”
    That tavern and posting house was very dear to me. Situated on the eastern bank of the Great Northern Cut, the inn had witnessed important events in my life upon Kregen. The owner was Young Bargom, still, and he was overjoyed to see us. Not overwhelmed. As a Valkan making a good living in Vondium and running a respectable house, he was now himself an important member of the community.
    We rollicked in and the wine came up and we sat and stretched our legs and talked, and, inevitably, we sang.
    I forbade the great song “The Fetching of Drak na Valka” for that would take too long. There were plenty of Valkans there, naturally, and they all called me strom, much to the disapproval of the Vallians of Vondium. So we sang “Naghan the Wily”, a Valkan ditty, and “King Naghan his Fall and Rise.”
    We sang relatively few soldiers’ songs, and this, too, was understandable given the company. We did, though, have a bash at “Have a care with my Poppy” and “The Brumbyte’s Love Potion.”
    In an interlude I leaned over to Farris and spoke quietly. “I really must leave soon, Farris. I’ll just ease out unobtrusively. You can calm ’em down when I’m gone.”
    He knew me by now.
    “If you must, Dray. Opaz knows the work never ceases.”
    “We must all come to the fluttrell’s vane,” I said, and at the next opportunity to excuse myself did so and went outside. The night breathed sweet and still, and She of the Veils sailed golden above. In those moon-drenched shadows I started off, swinging my arms, feeling the lightness of freedom once again.
    A shape at my side, a small hand clutching my arm, a girl’s voice, whispering in alarm in my ear—
    “Dray! Dray! Your face! What are you thinking of, you great fambly! Here — in here, bratch!”
    With that she hauled me into a narrow slot of shadowed rose-colored radiance in which we were hidden from all sight from the inn windows.
    The shadows fell across me, the shifting illumination across her face.
    I did not know her.
    She was clad, as best I could make out, in trim-fitting russet leathers, rapier and dagger scabbarded to a narrow waist. Her face was not beautiful. Rather, in its round perkiness it held a cheekiness that would infuriate and enchant. Her eyes — I thought — were Vallian brown. Her large floppy hat drooped about her ears.
    I just managed to bite off an instinctive: “Who the hell are you?” No one I do not know and cherish calls me Dray. No one. But she had.
    She stared at me anxiously. She made no move to draw her dagger to spit me.
    “It seems you believe you know me, Kotera,” I said, and my growly old voice came out alarmingly small.
    “Oh, you clown! What d’you think you’re doing, parading around with your face?”
    “It’s mine—”
    Now it happened that I’d swung a plum-colored flying cloak about me as I’d stepped out of The Rose of Valka. A furtive movement from the end of the little alley into which this remarkable lady had dragged me drew my instant attention.
    My right hand crossed to fasten upon the hilt of my rapier.
    A man enveloped in a cloak moved across the alley mouth. I could not see his face, turned away from me and shadowed. But he looked a nasty customer. Big and ugly, no doubt, strong and powerful, and ready to knock some poor innocent down and rob them as to quaff a stoup of ale. He moved not at a crouch but as though coiled and ready to spring savagely upon any who stood in his path. I must say he’d give anyone a queasy turn.
    The girl saw him.
    She turned that round cheeky face up to me and I saw it was transfixed with horror.
    She