The Sword in the Cave
"Tygg, I saw... I had a vision."
"You saw what they wanted you to see. I don't doubt there's some queer art happening in this land. But who it's
being done on, that I wonder about."
"This is all a guess on your part. Some wild flight of barbarian fancy."
"And your trusting them is just part of your quest. You'd drive that ship down a maelstrom if a child told you a
Shard was a the bottom of it."
"And if I did, you'd leap to the bottom faster. That's your way. So why stop now? Where has your vaunted courage
gone?"
Tygg wheeled on her, and gestured at the burning corpse. "It was here, when you needed it."
"I did not need it. It was dead from my fire. Your theatrics only did it a mercy. I had it down without you."
"Then you'll need me no further." And with that, he strode back through the darkness.
She said to his back, "Is it so hard to believe a woman, Tygg?"
"It seems not" he said, without breaking stride. Then it was her turn to scowl.
*
*
*
Drea and the crew of sailors slept fitfully under strange stars, and woke to a cold breakfast left for them in large
brown leaves, a crushed meal of some kind, heated in flame to make a kind of cake. It was filling enough but lacked
any kind of flavor. They ate and then they wrapped the remains and waited for the women, who emerged from their
huts under a grey dawn. Without bidding their visitors a good morning, they wrapped themselves in their dark
cloaks and floated double-file up a pathway between two hills that lead north.
The oldest of the sailors, a man named Gint, offered to take the men to the cave himself, so as to spare the Captain
the risk to her life. Drea regarded him silently. He had been aboard the Dread for some time, had shown himself a
good bosun's mate. But he was not fooling anyone now. He wanted these women all to himself, and thought it
would go better for him if Drea was back aboard the ship.
"No, Gint," she replied. "I am responsible. We will see this thing through." And they set off on the same path,
keeping the women in side as they moved over hill and down dale and across sward. The sky, hid by iron-grey
clouds, brought them no cheer as they followed, just within sight, the troop of dark cloaks on the horizon. Soon the
trees began to whither and then to vanish, an lumps of black obsidian peppered the dry path and the tops of the hills
grew long and sharp and snow-covered. The day was ill.
At last the women stopped in front of a cave at the foot of a great mountain. Drea and Gint and the sailors took
cover behind an outcropping of rock and watched from a safe distance. They saw as one of the women stepped out
of the double-file, came to the front of the others, and disrobed. Again naked, she walked with two others into the
cave. A short while later, the two came back out, rejoined the ranks, and as silently as they came, took the road
back. They gave no sign of being watched, and soon disappeared the way they had come.