FicWad

It was late afternoon when they came up in front of the Dexan clan-house. As with all clan-houses, it was a single, very large stone structure, built flat and ugly. There were a number of doors, all of which were either guarded or thoroughly locked. Beronal strode up to one of them, and Cassia followed. There were four guards there, wearing linked-plate armor, and carrying heavy spears.

"I request admittance," said Beronal in Dexan, "by the laws of [cherkoth]." Cassia understood Dexan, could even speak it. But that was not a word she recognized.
The Dexans seemed a little surprised at his use of the word, too.

"What would a [chasack] know of [cherkoth]?" asked one of them. [Chasack] was a word that she recognized. It was a distinctly impolite term for non-Dexans.

"[Cherkoth] is not apportioned by birth, it is found or lost. As any true man would know." The one who had spoken jerked back at that. From where Cassia was standing, this did not seem to be the best way get help from the Dexans, but this was Beronal's idea; if he had wanted advice, he probably would have asked for it.

The man looked as if he were about to reply, but Beronal cut him off. "I am a stranger at your gates, and I ask for water and salt. For more, I'll pay in blood and in gold, if need be. This is [cherkoth], whether you recognize it or no!" Then he started walking toward the gate. Cassia had never heard of a stranger getting inside a Dexan warren without violence, but it wasn't as though she had anything else planned. She followed him.

The guards didn't step out of his way, so Cassia got ready for a scuffle. Then someone inside spoke. "It is [cherkoth] for us to give you those things," he said. "You may enter. But know that the [strat-iraii] that you will pay will not be a light one." The speaker stepped out from the doorway. He was an older man; his mustache was white and luxuriant, and he wore a silver chain around his waist.

The Dexans who had been guarding the gate stood aside, bowing their heads. Beronal smiled unrepentantly. "Then the rewards that I earn will be equally heavy," he said, as he stepped into the doorway.

The older man snorted. "Earn them before spending them, outsider. And what of her?" Cassia was following Beronal when the spears of the guards crossed in front of her, blocking her path.

"I have sworn to her my swords; my honor is held by her."

The man snorted again, but the spears went up.

###

Cassia would have found the passage through the Dexan halls fascinating, were it not for her lingering fear of violent death at the hands of her father and the civil authorities, and from the rather ominous bits in Beronal's conversation with the Dexans; she wasn't sure what Beronal meant by "paying in blood" or what a "strat-iraii" was. Neither sounded pleasant, in context.

In that frame of mind, she wasn't as interested in seeing things that few non-Dexans had ever seen as she might have been. Dexans were short, and they didn't build their homes for easy access by tall people. They half-crouched their way through a succession of corridors with low ceilings, poor lighting, and a stink of many people living in the same place. The guards who had been watching the door stayed behind, but the old man was leading them, and they soon found themselves followed by a group of warriors, all wearing armor and carrying spears.

Cassia wanted to know more about what Beronal had gotten them into, but decided against asking him. She had the distinct sense that if they did anything wrong, they weren't going to get the help Beronal wanted, and the Dexans with the spears weren't going to be politely showing them to the door, either.

There was a constant susurrus of conversation around them, and, from time to time, the sound of running feet ahead of them. Dark eyes watched them from doorways. Mostly children, with heads of bushy black hair. Some of the people watching them were women, and Cassia imagined that they were as unfamiliar with non-Dexans as she was with Dexan women. They were generally shorter than Dexan men, and wore their hair long and unbound. Most of them were nowhere near as stout as the average Dexan man, but there were occasional exceptions. They were absolutely silent while Cassia and Beronal were in view, but she could hear the excited whispers after they passed out of sight.

They were led into a small room, with a simple wooden bench, a basin of water, and nothing else. The door was shut behind them, and Cassia was quite certain that the guards were waiting behind it. "Is it safe to talk?" she asked, quietly.

"For now. It would probably be for the best if you just smiled politely if Dexans start talking to you."

"Fine. What's going on?"

"I'm going to have to wrestle soon. If I win, we should be able to get what we need from the Dexans."

"What, military support? There must be hundreds of people under arms here."

Beronal cut her off. "They're only allowed to remain under arms because they pose no threat to the Duke. If the guard comes for us here, the Dexans hand us over, whether or not I win my match. They certainly won't be going off on a crusade against your father, or, for that matter, the Duke's armies, who are a considerably larger threat at the moment. And there probably aren't that many more than fifty men under arms here, anyway - we've just been in a position to see a fair percentage of them."

"So what are they going to give us?"

"A way out of Caniphor, if everything works out."

"How-" Cassia started, but Beronal cut her off.

"Please." He had sat down on the bench, and was blowing air past his teeth slowly. "I've been doing more than a little running today, and I'm guessing that they've got a fairly good champion waiting to face me, if the hetman's tone of voice was any guide. I could use a little time to rest. Everything will be made quite clear, soon enough, assuming that I win."

Cassia glowered at him. She wasn't used to the hired help taking that tone of voice. On the other hand, he had a point.

"Assuming that you win," she said. "What happens if you lose?"

"Other, less pleasant things become clear."

She cocked an eyebrow at him.

"We die," he said. "Well, I die right away. You get escorted out, and given your current situation, that's not even much of a delayed sentence."

That was actually less unpleasant than she had expected. But it still wasn't pleasant. She gave a small snarl, and sank down into a corner. It had been some time since she had a chance to sit. Beronal stretched out on the bench, using his haversack as a pillow, and was soon snoring.

A soldier, she thought. Or a sailor. Someone used to taking sleep where he could find it. It was a useful trait, she supposed, but not something that she had ever managed to pick up. People in her line of work tended to have a sufficient amount of time to sleep, if they wanted it, and a sufficient quantity of stimulants to keep them awake, if they didn't.

It was only around two hours later, that there was a knocking at the door. Cassia had been spending the time cleaning her sword and her knives, and she looked at Beronal, wondering what it would take to wake him. But he was already up and moving. He had a brief conversation with the man at the door in muttered Dexan, and then turned to her. "Oshan here will take you to the gallery. The bout should start in ten minutes or so."

She took a last look at the blade she was working on, and slipped it back into its sheath at her wrist. "Good luck, then."

"Thank you," said Beronal.

Following Beronal's advice, she didn't try to start a conversation with Oshan. Wordlessly, she followed where he led. It turned out to be a balcony over a fairly large, square chamber. The crowd there, for all that it was exclusively Dexan, was of a type that she recognized intimately. The men were drinking, a thick black stuff that came from leather flasks that were being passed from hand to hand.

There weren't many women that Cassia could see. One or two flashes of hair in the crowd, nothing more than that. Despite that, the Dexans near her seemed amiable enough, smiling, and passing her flasks of whatever it was that they were drinking when it came to hand. She smiled politely, and just passed it along, without sampling. It wouldn't be a good idea to get drunk, even if she wasn't bothered by the hygiene issues involved in drinking from the same flasks as a crowd of none-too-clean fight patrons.

Which is what they were. The forms would be different, but there's a sort of energy to a crowd prepared to see blood spilled, and this one had it. There was gambling, too. She didn't recognize the code phrases, but the sort of betting that was going on was something that she had grown up around.

If it hadn't been for Beronal's warning, and her own intuition that avoiding conversation was the safest possible course, she would have bet what money she had on him winning the fight. If he lost, it wasn't as though she would have much use for money, but if he won, a good store of cash never hurt. Particularly given that most of her war-chest had been in the safe house by the docks, and the ruinous rate that Beronal was charging for his services.

But it seemed unwise to risk causing everything to go wrong without giving Beronal a chance to put his plan into action. She hadn't been expecting much in the way of thinking out of the man when she had hired him, but she could recognize ability when she saw it. It was entirely possible that the way out of the city he was engineering was not actually for the "us" he kept talking about, but rather for him alone. But there was nothing that she could do to keep him from taking that course if he so chose, and there was always the chance that he was playing things straight.

Further thoughts along those lines were forestalled when the area below them started to fill up. Three Dexans, wearing black robes came out with brooms, and set to sweeping the floor. Following them was the hetman that had met Cassia and Beronal at the gate. He was wearing the same sort of robe, but without the silver chain around the waist.

He stepped slowly out to the center of the floor. "We are here to settle a matter of [cherkoth] through the trial of the [strat-iraii]," he said. There was a stamping in the crowd at that. It seemed to be a sort of applause, as the men stamping were smiling broadly.

The hetman raised his hands for silence, and it came quickly. "As you know, our champion Tashoi has recently achieved the [chobal mies] rank." Another bout of stamping, with some hollered cheers. Again, a raised hand quieted the crowds. "This puts quite an obligation on us if he does not prevail. Are there any here who would challenge our use of this champion?"

This time, there was absolute silence. It stretched on for a few seconds, and then the hetman brought his hand up. "Let the champions approach," he said, and there was thunderous stamping and yelling in response.

The men who had swept the floors had taken up cross-legged seats in a row at the side of the room. The hetman left the arena through a door at one side of the room, and Beronal entered through another. He was bare to the waist, barefoot, and wearing flared black trousers fastened with a grey sash whose ends fluttered with his steps. There was a stamping of approval, but to Cassia's ear, it sounded a bit half-hearted -- polite applause, not genuine approval. He took up a position facing the door through which he entered, and settled down into a low, wide stance.

Then his opponent came in, and the crowd exploded into stamping and cheering. Tashoi was tall for a Dexan, though not as tall as Beronal, dressed in a similar costume, and built like wall. Wide shoulders and hips, massive musculature; compared to him, Beronal looked flabby. And his arms -- considerably longer than Beronal's, for all that Tashoi was the shorter of the two. Cassia's heart sank. She had seen Dexan wrestling before, and Tashoi had a build that seemed tailored for the sport. And it wasn't as though Beronal could possibly have as much practice in the ritual movements as a clan-champion.

The dances started, and she leaned forward, watching carefully. Beronal and Tashoi started circling the arena, moving through stylized positions. At their most primitive levels, those dances were an attempt to frighten a potential opponent by a demonstration of skill. With modern Dexan wrestling, those dances were highly ritualized. There were a limited number of acceptable dances, of various levels of difficulty. A sufficiently great mismatch, either in the level of difficulty or mistakes in execution of the chosen dances would often disqualify a contestant before the actual match started.

While she had seen Dexan wrestling before, Cassia was far from an expert on the subject. However, it did not appear that Beronal was going to be disqualified by his performance of the combat dance. While his dance did seem to be somewhat simpler than that of his opponent, he moved with a certain ponderous grace, and he didn't seem to lack assurance about where his feet were supposed to go.

He was moving a good deal slower than she had seen him move when they were attacked. Either he was exhausted, or he was planning a surprise for Tashoi. The fact that he wasn't stumbling in his dance seemed to indicate that it was the latter; if he was worn out, she expect to see other signs of it. It might work. It all depended on how seriously the champion underestimated his opponent. If it worked, Beronal would have one, maybe two opportunities to pull it off. The surprise would wear off quickly, with an opponent as dedicated to his calling as Tashoi seemed to be.

The dances finished, and they both bowed to the judges. There was a brief conference, and the center judge nodded. The fight could proceed.

The two fighters nodded to each other, and took up low and wide stances. Then Tashoi flung himself at Beronal. If Beronal was hoping that Tashoi would underestimate his speed, Cassia was certainly surprised at Tashoi's. He had covered the space between him and Beronal, a distance of several paces, in less than a heartbeat.

He was grabbing for Beronal's leg, but Beronal managed to get it up and away in time. Off-balance, Beronal swatted at Tashoi's head. He scored a solid, open-handed hit just above Tashoi's ear, a hit that seemed to affect Tashoi not at all. Tashoi then drove his shoulder into Beronal's midsection, knocking him off his feet.

Before he could capitalize on that, one of the judges let out a piercing yell. Tashoi snorted, and walked back to his starting position. There was a fair amount of grumbling at that development by the other spectators. A foul had been called on Tashoi. Cassia wasn't sure what he had done that was illegal, but she was far from upset about the call.

Beronal regained his feet, and made a show of dusting off the leg of his trousers. A quick twist of his head popped the joints in his neck. Then he settled back into a fighting crouch. Tashoi had taken a similar crouch earlier. One of the judges said, "resume," in Dexan, and Tashoi did, moving toward Beronal with the same uncanny speed. This time he was aimed higher, looking to start a grapple at Beronal's upper body.

But Beronal was faster. He sidestepped, caught Tashoi just above the eye, and twisted him down, hard. It was a throw that put a lot of pressure on the neck and back, but Tashoi had a neck like twisted anchor cables. Tashoi bounced up, grabbed for Beronal's legs. Beronal brought his elbow down on the man's head, and the judge's yell of foul was almost lost in the thunderous roar of the crowd.

Against all expectations, this was going to be a match, not Tashoi mauling an outsider. For all that Tashoi was their champion, the Dexans seemed to enjoy the prospect of a fair match more than simple victory. There was a burst of new life in the betting, too.

Tashoi regained his feet somewhat unsteadily. Cassia wasn't sure if it was the throw, the elbow, or some combination of the two. She also wasn't sure if it was going to be enough to tilt the scales in Beronal's favor. For all she knew, it could entirely feigned.

The two took up their fighting crouches again, and the judge told them to begin. This time Tashoi didn't rush in right off, and neither did Beronal. They circled each other warily for a few seconds. Cassia bit her lip. There was a good chance that Beronal was throwing away what advantage he had gained, by letting Tashoi regain his composure. She wasn't the one on the floor, so even if she was right, there was nothing she could do about it.

There were a few feints by either side, and then Beronal went in low. He didn't get a very good grip; Tashoi sprawled downward on him. Beronal pulled back, getting out from under Tashoi. There was a brief moment where the two men were locked, hands looking for better holds on the other man's neck and shoulders. Beronal's bruises stood out - he had won a similar fight, under different rules, earlier that day, after all.

There was a sudden roar from the crowd as Tashoi broke the hold, and twisted around Beronal. Beronal kicked out backwards, catching Tashoi on the inside of the hip. No call of foul from any of the judges, though they had a clear view of the kick. So kicking was allowed, at least in some circumstances. Tashoi stumbled back, and Beronal twisted around, back into a crouch.

Tashoi didn't get back down quickly enough, and Beronal was under him, bringing him down backward. Another thunderous crash as Tashoi landed. Beronal moved back off him, not going for a pin or any other sort of attack. Cassia grimaced. It looked like an opportunity to end the fight. But then, she didn't quite know the rules of the game.

Tashoi rolled over, came up in a three-point crouch. He wasn't making the same mistake a second time. He came forward at Beronal in a stamping rush. Beronal moved forward with equal speed. They both were trying for some sort of throw or strike, but their speed and size made that mostly irrelevant. It was like watching a pair of rutting elks - they slammed into each other with incredible force, and then both staggered back.

Beronal recovered first, and charged again. Tashoi managed to put his hands up in time, but Beronal sidestepped, and caught him at the side of the head with a backhanded blow. Tashoi staggered. Beronal's second punch caught him square in the face, and he fell like a stunned ox.

There was a pause, and then all three judges let out simultaneous yells. A foul? If Beronal had done something to get himself disqualified at that point . . . . Tashoi had stopped trying to regain his feet, and was simply resting on his knees, head hanging down and drenched in sweat. Beronal bowed to the judges, and raised his hands over his head. There was a shout from the crowd, and foot stamping. No, he had won. Cassia let herself relax a little. Whatever else he was, Beronal Mantar was one hell of a fighting man.

Soon after the fight ended, Cassia was led to find Beronal. In addition to the bruises that he had gained earlier in the day, the bout with Tashoi had left Beronal with a whole new set. He hadn't changed out of the outfit he had worn to fight in, and she entered the room he was waiting in a few steps ahead of the hetman.

The hetman carried a cake of salt and a flask of water. He passed them over to Beronal, who broke off a finger-sized piece of salt, and ate it. He then took a healthy swallow from the bottle of water. "None shall fault your clan's obedience to the laws," he said. Cassia was amazed to see him able to say anything after eating a chunk of salt that size. It didn't seem like it was a good idea to point that out.

"Is there aught else you desire," said the hetman, a bit sourly. "For to truly be in obedience to the law, we surely must give some reward for a spectacular [iraii]."

Beronal smiled. "Well. If you must. A cart, two dogs that will be dead within a day from our departure, and the bodies of a pair of people who match our general appearance."

"Is that all?" asked the hetman.

"If it's not to much trouble, a full load of [karas], three barrels with false bottoms, and it's a bit late to get started, so we'll need lodging here for the night."

"Is that all?" asked the hetman.

"Well, if I think of anything else I'll be sure to let you know . . . oh, right. We'll definitely need full packs - food, water, supplies, that sort of thing."

The hetman nodded and left. He did not appear particularly happy.

"Not planning on letting them off easy," said Cassia as she settled into a chair. For the first time since she saw the guardsman waiting by her safe house, she started to get the feeling that she might actually survive this.

"Actually, I am. Bastards put me up against a [chobal mies]. And all I asked for was salt and water. I could ask for the whole damn clanhouse, and be entitled to it."

"They'd give it to you?"

"Of course not. They'd cut me up for the dogs. But they'd feel bad about it afterward."

"So which of us is going to be riding in a barrel with a false bottom?"

"You are. But neither of us is going to enjoy the trip."

"Oh?"

"Are you familiar with the fermented onion/garlic paste thing that Dexans use as a condiment?"

"Yes. Nasty stuff."

"Well, [karas] is sort of like that. Only it smells bad."

"Ah."

"Really, really, really bad."

Looking to change the subject, Cassia looked around the room they were in. It was somewhat larger than the room they had rested in before the fight. It wasn't much more elaborately furnished. Two long wooden benches, some chairs, and a small basin full of water. "Is this where we're staying?" she asked.

"Unless you've an objection, yes. There's a lavatory just down the corridor." Beronal got up and started to unfasten the sash wound around his waist. Cassia beat a hasty retreat towards the lavatory. For all that her family was Aurian, she was born in Riend, and she had an Riendian's sense of modesty; nudity offended it. Not that she was a blushing virgin. It just wouldn't do to let Beronal take liberties of that sort. She had known him for less than a day.

When she came back, Beronal was already asleep on one of the benches. He was dressed as he had been when she first met him, though without the vest. She sighed, kicked off her boots, and lay down on the other bench. It had been an extremely long day, and it didn't look as though the next was going to be any shorter.


###


The next morning a knock on the door woke them early. Beronal must have spent some time cleaning his swords and clothing the night before, while Cassia was asleep, and he was getting dressed seconds after the knock came. Cassia hadn't made much of an effort as far as cleaning her clothes went -- If Beronal had been even close to accurate in describing what karas was, it wasn't as though changing into fresh clothing in the morning would be much noticed in the afternoon.

It was the hetman at the door. He lead them out to a sort of courtyard. There was a cart there, and the odor of what was in the cart made Cassia's eyes water even from twenty feet away.

There were a pack of Dexans waiting around the cart. "Supplies are in the cart, in packs," the hetman said. "The two bodies are in barrels in back, the third barrel is empty. The dogs will be coming along shortly. Is there anything else we can give, to pay your [iraii]?"

"There's no need to hurry with the dogs. We don't want to look to eager to get out of town. I'll want a mirror, and a bucket, with water, soap and a razor. Some putty, no, better, redthorn berries. A half bucket of redthorn berries. Also, I'd rather like the barrels with the false bottoms to be slightly closer to the middle of the cart. Still toward the back, but not at the very back."

"As you say," said the hetman. He did not seem particularly pleased to carry out Beronal's requests, but he went off anyway.

The Dexans who had been waiting around got to work rearranging the barrels. Beronal arranged the cushions in the cab of the cart, trying various configurations. Cassia simply stood on the side of the courtyard and waited. She wasn't going to be getting into a barrel with a false bottom until the last possible moment. Not with barrels that smelled like those did.

When the hetman came out with the various items that Beronal had asked for, he got settled, and turned to Cassia. "You might want to take an inventory of the supplies; if there's anything missing that you think that we'd need, let me know," he said.

It sounded like sensible advice, but it did involve getting closer to the odor coming from that cart. It was something that she had to face sooner or later, though.

She gritted her teeth and headed forward. It wasn't a smell that she had much experience with; it wasn't onions, or garlic, or anything like that. The only thing she could think of that was even close to that smell was a midden heap. But relative to karas that was a fragrant alternative. The sort of things that some people would put on their food would never cease to amaze.

The supplies were in sturdy leather backpacks. Fairly standard stuff - blankets, dried food, some knives, that sort of thing. Even though she wasn't sure about what she would or wouldn't need, she was as thorough as possible about taking inventory. She hadn't spent all that much time outside of a city, but she had worked jobs where equipment had become an issue. Even if she couldn't guess at what they might need that wasn't there, she could get a clear idea of exactly what they had.

"I don't know what they haven't given us that we might need," she called to Beronal when she was done, "But they seem to have given us a fair amount of stuff."

"Fair enough," he replied.

Cassia pushed through the cloth separating the covered back of the cart to the cab, where Beronal was sitting. By this time he had completely shaved his head, and had set to work on his beard. She could see the effect that he was going for, and while it was a decent idea, close up he wasn't going to be that convincing as a Dexan - without the beard, his mustache might be about right, but his features were a bit too wide, and she had never seen a Dexan with grey eyes.

At a distance, he might pass. Sitting down, the greatest problem -- his height -- was fairly well masked.

"This isn't going to work," she said.

"Perhaps not. But it's all we've got."

Cassia had nothing to say to that. But even if the stink kept the guards from searching every barrel, which it probably would, Beronal was going to have to get out of the cart. And they'd figure out who he was, then.

"Was there clothing in the packs?" he asked.

"Yes, two changes for each of us," replied Cassia.

"That's about right; thorough people, the Dexans."

When he finished shaving off everything except for his mustache, he rinsed off what soap that remained by dunking his head in the bucket of water. Then he got to work with the redthorn berries, breaking them open and spreading the juice in blotches on his face, his arms. Maybe it would work after all.

Blood fever left marks that looked somewhat like that. It was seldom an immediately fatal disease, but it left a man permanently marked, and usually impotent. A conscientious gate guard could still end everything. But the odds of finding a guard that conscientious had just gotten a good deal lower. And if they noticed anything less than perfect about the blotches . . . . "It's still going to be chancy," said Cassia.

"True enough," said Beronal, studying his reflection in the mirror. A few more dabs of redthorn juice. "For it to even have a chance of working, you're going to have to be able to stay in one of those barrels without vomiting, or making any noise at all. Do you think that you can do that?"

Cassia considered. This wasn't the sort of question that it would be wise to answer with false bravado. On the other hand, the sort of work that she had done had given her a fairly strong stomach, and a good understanding of the importance of keeping quiet. "Yes, I think so." And she headed back to the rear of the cart.

"Before you climb in, there's two hundred and forty in silver, which is to say, two in gold, for the last two days," said Beronal.

Cassia sighed, and handed him a Caladorian gold mark. It was about the right weight, a little bit lighter than two Riendian marks, but of purer metal. Beronal took it without a word. She didn't have enough gold to keep paying him at that rate, but this did not seem an ideal time for renegotiation.

The Dexans had been moving the barrels around while she had been taking an inventory of the survival tools, so she had a good idea which of the barrels had false bottoms, and which of those three was the empty one. Taking off the top, the aroma of the cart was increased fifty-fold. She gagged, retched, fought for control.

If she couldn't handle herself, Beronal would probably leave her behind. That's what she would do if she was in Beronal's place. Hells, if their places were switched, she might very well have ditched Beronal quite some time back. Her gold might be what was keeping him from doing that, which was just part of what made renegotiation a poor idea.

Fighting down her gorge, Cassia looked for the catch. It was a good one, well hidden. She flicked it, lifted the shelf full of karas up. The space inside was tight, but not too tight. She could stay there for hours - which was for the best, as she would probably have to do just that. Beronal came to the back. "It's fine," she said, settling into the barrel.

"There's a catch on the bottom of the shelf; if something happens, you should be able to get yourself out," he said, putting the shelf of karas back in.

Cassia said nothing, getting used to the dimensions of her chamber. Not that bad, all things considered. The walls of the barrel were thin enough that she could hear Beronal walking back out to the front of the cart. The smell wasn't quite as bad inside the barrel as she had feared. It wasn't pleasant, of course. But no worse than being locked in a closet with a three week-old-corpse. A three-week-old corpse that had been rubbed with rotten garlic. Not that much worse than sharing a closet with a three week old corpse that had been rubbed with rotten garlic. A lot of rotten garlic. Was she ever going to get clean?

There was growling and deep throated barking. Dexans tended to use giant dogs, rather than horse or oxen, as their draft animals. They were expensive, and ate too much, but they had their advantages. It certainly cut down on theft, and the big dogs made respectable time. Of course, given their sensitive noses, dogs were not the creatures Cassia would have chosen to pull a cart full of karas. She felt the jolt when the dogs were eventually harnessed. Well, at the very least, they'd be doing their best to get away from that smell.

In the distance, she heard Beronal talking to the hetman. Her Dexan was fair, but she couldn't quite get the sense of what they were saying from inside the barrel. There was a certain sense of good humor in that talk, though. Then Beronal was back in the cart, and from the sound of it, checking various fittings.

It didn't take long before the cart made its jolting way down out of the courtyard into the street. The Dexan warren had been around a half hour, maybe an hour's distance from the gate. It took around half an hour before she started hearing the sort of yelling and grumbling that told her they were near the gate, and another four before they were stopped for inspection.

That delay meant that the Duke's soldiers were inspecting those leaving the city extremely thoroughly. That wasn't a good thing. Cassia wasn't certain how long thornberry stain lasted. For that matter, Beronal looked to be the sort of person who would be showing signs of his hair growing back before too long.

Not that worrying about this sort of thing was helpful. All she had to do was stay motionless and silent, and she did that.

When she finally heard the voices of guards, it was quite a start; she had slipped into a sort of trance at that point. "What is your cargo, sir?"

"Is aught wrong with your nose, lad? It's karas; prime stuff."

There was laughter at that, from several sources. "Go ahead, inspect the barrels, Lucath."

"It's your inspection, Lucath." "Make sure you dig in deep; could be that they're hiding them halfway down. . . ."

"Shut up. Bandon and Carn, get to work checking under the cart. Tiros, interview the driver."

"Ah, sir." Another voice, as feet clomped up into the back of the cart.

"Aye, lad?" Beronal's Dexan accent was put on a bit thick, but it was a good one. Figured.

"Where's this cargo headed?"

"The clan-holm up in Norrager, up the coast road." They weren't asking him to step out of the cart, so it looked as though things were working as planned.

There was the sound of a barrel lid coming up, followed shortly after by the sounds of vomiting.

There was another burst of laughter. "Fuck off. Carn, finished underneath already? Good; get to work on the barrels."

"Awww. Izzum too stinky for lil' Lucath?"

Tramps of another set of feet up on to the back of the cart. There were two ways that this could go.

Sounds of a barrel being closed, sounds of another being opened. Cassia counted off the seconds. When the lid went back down, she almost sighed in relief. For all the man's talk, he wasn't too anxious to examine the karas. The false bottoms would probably remain unnoticed.

The rest of the inspection took only a few minutes longer. If all the others heading out of the city had been passed as quickly, there would have been hardly any wait at the gates. If there had been a senior officer watching, he might have noticed that, and held the cart over for additional inspection. But there didn't seem to be anyone with enough intelligence or experience to notice something like that.

Beronal cracked the reins, and the dogs set off again. Inside her barrel, Cassia had to keep from hollering in triumph. They weren't clear yet, but she was finally willing to hope that Beronal was going to get them away, and safe.

Beronal gave the dogs their head, and they pulled the cart along at a good clip, trying to outpace the stink of the cart.