Page 13 of Fortune's Blade

“She’s got you there,” he wheezed. “Of course, she already did, didn’t she? ‘Oh, oh, you’re very real to me!’”

“Shut up!” Ray said.

“Or what? What the hell do you think you’re going to do? We’re about to be dinner—”

“The fey aren’t cannibals, you fucking idiot—”

“And we’re not fey!” Brown eyes glared at him out of a mask of mud and worse. “So, no cannibalism is required, is it? And who is the idiot? You were my only chance of escaping, but instead of helping me, what have you been doing? Mooning over another monster—”

“Call her that again,” Ray said, gripping Marlowe by the front of his shirt.

“And what?” Marlowe spread his arms, as far as the cage would allow. That wasn’t very far, which was probably why he scraped his knuckles on the rusty bars and cursed. And then did it again, only louder, when the ward attached to them, which was what was really keeping us all in place, shocked him.

“Goddamnit! You’ve killed us all!” he raged. “Why didn’t you two just get a room—”

Which was when Ray belted him.

It was a good blow, enough to rock Marlowe’s head back, which was not easy to do to a first level master. But Marlowe had been shocked half a dozen times during his impromptu concert with some of the feared electric spears, which the locals had either purloined from the Svarestri—the light fey clan who had invented them—or jury rigged for themselves. And as I knew from experience, those blasts were not easy to throw off.

As a result, the fight wasn’t nearly as one-sided as it might have been, although a lot of the cursing was probably due more to repeated shocks from the ward whenever the two of them rolled into it rather than the blows they were delivering. There just wasn’t enough room for a proper fight in here, which was why I didn’t try to intervene. I watched the woods pass by instead, eventually start to thin, and finally give way to rolling fields, a gurgling brook and a view into a large valley, which appeared to be almost covered with fey encampments.

All sorts of fey.

“What is this?” I asked a passing troll girl.

She was young, but already tall enough to look me in the eye despite my perch atop the crab. She was also green, although a brighter hue than the crab’s mottled greenish-brown, which was true of many of the caravan, most of whom appeared to be related. There were also a scattering of other colors and shapes—dark purple and skinny instead of her soft green roundness, or short with a pinkish hue and tusks like an ogre’s. Or perhaps they were ogres; I wasn’t sure.

There were even a few light fey villagers who had come along, packing up bedrolls and wagons and wheelbarrows after we skittered through their towns and following us. The conveyances they drove or wheeled along were mostly full of food but sometimes also contained homespun blankets, carefully made quilts, and baskets of reeds with hinged tops on them. There were so many items that they looked like trade goods more than personal comforts, although I hadn’t seen anyone trading.

I wondered now if they had been waiting for a bigger customer pool, but didn’t know whether my curiosity would be satisfied. I was a felon, after all. But the troll girl had brought us dinner the previous night, in thanks for me helping her with some laundry at the last river we’d encountered, and she seemed to have a bit of goodwill left.

She also seemed to be in a jolly mood, picking wildflowers as she walked to twine into her many braids. In fact, the spirits of everyone in the caravan was lifting, with more than one person humming a tune far more pleasant that Marlowe’s had been. That did not tell me much considering my very inadequate knowledge of the language, however.

“She said it’s the Turl uh Talat,” Ray gasped, from underneath Marlowe’s arm. Or at least, that’s what it sounded like.

“What is that?” I asked, because there had to be thousands of fey in that valley, perhaps tens of thousands, bustling about setting up tents and tables or making fires, as if they planned to stay for a while.

“The dark fey . . . who’ve lost their lands . . . are nomadic now,” Ray gasped, as Marlowe pummeled him in the ribs. “Some try . . . to head into our world . . . but a lot don’t want . . . to go. This was their land . . . from time immemorial. Instead of leaving it . . . they just resumed the old . . . way of life . . . before everybody settled down and got civilized—”

“Hunter gatherers,” Marlowe said, right before Ray bit his hand. “Ow, you bastard!”

But he didn’t retaliate, although I saw his fist clench, because he was now staring past the bars at the colorful tents, distant laughter, music and vendors’ cants drifting to us on the breeze, along with the smell of roasting meat. My stomach woke up to complain loudly at the latter, causing Ray to grimace. And then to finally give Marlowe some of the answers he had been demanding.

“No, not like that,” Ray said. “More like an extended shopping trip. The Old Path was all about trade: pick stuff up in one place, sell it at another. The light fey had towns, hamlets and cities long before the dark did, maybe ‘cause they got some help from their godly benefactors. The same ones who threw the dark fey out as failed experiments who could go hang themselves.

“Only they didn’t hang. They traded instead. Each band had a set path they took, and customers who bought from them. Then, once a year, all the different bands met in a central location to exchange news, swap stories, and let the young ones have a go at courting outside of their family group. It only lasted for a few weeks, ‘cause the surrounding countryside could only support that many for so long, but it was a hell of a time for as long as it did.

“The Turl uh Talat was the name of the meeting. It’s started up again with so many dark fey back on the road thanks to the war. I tried to come here once to do a little wheeling and dealing of my own, but was told that only fey are allowed.”

“Then why are the three of us being let in?” Marlowe demanded.

Ray shrugged. “Well, since we aren’t fey, my guess would be . . . we’re the merchandise.”

Chapter Five

Dory

Despite everything, we still went to dinner. Claire said that we had to. But none of us were happy about it, including her.

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