THe Lich's only reply was a rasping chuckle that carried no mirth. Humans were weak - he'd learned that many centuries ago, as he strove to liberate himself from the frailties of the human mind and flesh.

He noticed belatedly that the caravan had stopped at the edge of a sheer ravine. A dubious wooden bridge spanned the yawning chasm. Cautiously and meticulously, the wagons were being lead across the bridge one at a time. He noted then that the horses were nervously pawing the permafrost. He sidled closer to a pair of guards.

"...on the hunt."

"Aye, ice barbarians..."

At this point they sighted the eavesdropper and hastily moved away. The Lich only grinned and shook his head. He knew about his own aura of dread, but was he really that repulsive?

---------

Ship sighted.

Shading his eyes against the morning glare in the east, Kendath scanned the deep water harbor. A multitude of merchant vessels were anchoring and departing, but he saw nothing indicative of privateers. How exactly was he supposed to distinguish a privateer vessel from all the other ships anyway? He leaped aside as a group of work men bearing crates shuffled past. The port fairly sang with commerce and the temperamental issues of petulant captains. No one spared him or his companions, lounging casually by the warehouses, a second glance.

She's dropped anchor.

Curse it, Gyre, I don't have dragonsight.

Wheeling in the azure skies above the harbor, Gyre seemed to chuckle. The ship's christened The Phoenix, Kendath. Think about it.

Kendath's glare could have curdled milk. But apparently the glare did lend him better vision, for he sighted it then. A caravel among galleons like a falcon among eagles - small but ultimately lethal - she had anchored on the north side of port. Her figurehead was a stunning depiction of a crimson phoenix, wings flared and swan-like neck extended.

"Ship sighted," Kendath reiterated. He glanced at his companions. "We take a roundabout route first to scout for openings." Assuming an insouciant saunter, he started towards the target.

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Merrin needed no innocent mien to appear entirely unassuming as she trotted after Kendath, weaving as they did through the bustling port. This was likely to their advantage, as it resulted in no one glancing twice at them despite Merrin's dragonrider garb and Adanil's less-than-commonplace jeweled scimitar. For a moment she considered asking if Kendath had a plan, but abandoned the idea. Of course he did, he'd had all night while obsessively sharpening his daggers to come up with one. Merrin was tempted to think he never slept.

She had a rather vague concept of what 'scouting for openings' meant, but looked gamely around anyway.

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It was a sad fact of life that people tended to either overestimate or underestimate Kendath. In Merrin's case, she'd blatantly overestimated. No, he didn't have a plan. How could he, when he'd never before seen either the target or the bearer of the target? But he had enough recklessness and confidence to decide that he'd figure one out as soon as he entered the battlefield.

It was another sad fact of the situation that distraction came all too easily once he entered said battlefield. In his case, he was just examining the caravel when his gaze alighted on the work men carrying the ship's cargo off the ramp and stacking the barrels in a wagon. Apparently The Phoenix also doubled as a merchant ship. This in itself was not worth the distraction, and Kendath's subconscious mind had already planned his route right past the loaded wagon and on towards -

Something piqued his peripheral vision. He glanced askance at a work man passing by, glanced at the barrel on his stolid back. Underneath the flowing script Grapewing Brandy was a small symbol of a diving hawk.

The sigil of the hawk.

A barrel of brandy.

Kendath felt like assassinating someone.

Sensing his abrupt explosiveness, Gyre deftly read his thoughts and just as deftly intervened before he got himself arrested, Just keep walking. Don't look back. It's all right, Kendath. Just keep walking...

And Kendath did just that. Shaking with fury, he clenched his fists by his sides to keep them from jerking towards his falchion. He'd run his blade through the first obstacle in his way, which happened to be the work man next in line. As soon as they passed the ship and were back in the shadows of another warehouse, he rounded on Merrin and Adanil. "Damnation! Did you see that?" he demanded.

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Merrin, who had really been quite relieved upon learning that the object they needed to bring back to this dwarf was no extremely valuable thing, was rather startled upon observing Kendath's reaction. It struck her as practically furious. "What?" she asked, bewildered. "Isn't - isn't that a good thing?"

Was it some sort of disguise - ? Merrin couldn't think why it should evoke such irritation in him. "All we have to do is get that barrel now, right?" she asked by way of confirming this, looking mildly anxious.

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"We'll have to steal it," Kendath stated. By habit he began furiously pacing, his cloak whipping around him with every step. "Brandy is expensive. We can't - " He realized he was running himself in circles. When had stealing ever bothered him? In any case, he had no qualms over the thought of walking away with another man's profit. His pacing became more manic if possible. "Curse it. Someone gut me. Someone - "

He stopped at last and faced Merrin squarely. His next words issued forth in a growl. "I'm not running errands for a dimwit."

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"But at least it's not something hard to get!" exclaimed Merrin, finally seeing (somewhat) why he was so put out by this discovery. "So he's a dimwit - so what? We take this back and he'll reopen the portal, and that's what we want, isn't it?" Merrin was almost unable to understand how pride might induce such irritation in him - her pride was nearly nonexistent. She paused in perplexity, searching his face.

Said pause made her glance uneasily at Adanil after a moment, and wonder at the questions long in coming that he should have asked by now. They'd mentioned the portal no few amount of times.

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Adanil felt confused. What was the problem with stealing just one crate of brandy? When they came, he had been under the impression that they would have to steal the Sigil of the Hawk regardless. The fact that it was easier to do it should have made Kendath more willing to do it, instead of hesitant, as it seemed.

And then they mentioned the portal, and all of his ruminations of the night before came flooding in again. Time. Them. Himself. Time. Why were they so worried about time? He was far from being anything close to a scholar, but he did wonder about time, and whether he could go back in it, the more so since the destruction of his village. Could they possibly be from another time? A few days earlier, he would have ignored the notion as stupid, like something little Beni Andors would have said, but now he was not so sure. What if they were from another time?

Gritting his teeth, he turned towards Kendath and stopped him with a hand on his chest. "I heard your conversation last night," he said, wondering whether he should be feeling guilty at listening in on what was obviously supposed to have been private. "I haven't asked many questions about you two before now, though the gods know you've raised plenty of them, but now I want to know the answers. Where--no, when are you from, and why?" he asked. If his suspicions were incorrect, he was never going to feel comfortable around them again.

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Caught off his guard, Kendath stared at Adanil. Memories came flooding back - all the times they'd been reckless, mentioning the portal right in front of him. The clever one had always been so quiet. He'd begun taking it for granted that Adanil would never ask.

Face utterly devoid of emotion, he impatiently snarled, "Not now." That settled, he began pushing past. Adanil's hand, surprisingly strong, caught him in the chest again. He leveled a cold glare Adanil's way. The young man matched his stare threefold.

He ground his teeth and glanced from the work work men to the wagon. Their timing for this incursion had to be impeccable. They hadn't the time for this. "We will explain," he promised as patiently as the situation allowed. "Just not now."

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Adanil glared at Kendath for several moments, his mind still churning with questions and impatience, but lowered his hand. They really didn't have time for it at the moment.

"Later, then," he said, adding a bit of heat to his glare to let the Dragonrider know he wouldn't forget. This was not something he intended to let slip past.

He stayed quiet after that, letting Kendath formulate a plan to get the crate. At least, that's what Adanil hoped Kendath was doing. The sooner they got the brandy to the Mage, the sooner the portal would be repaired, and the sooner he could resume hunting the Shadowers.

That was something he doubted would be over before he was an old man, if he survived to complete it. Perhaps Kendath or Merrin knew whether or not he succeeded, if they really were from the future. Not that they would tell him, though--not with their carefulness about changing the past, anyways.

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Kendath's concentrated gaze was darting from The Phoenix, to the laborers carrying the brandy, to the wagon. That same gaze slid down the length of the harbor, then darted to the line of warehouses. He pitched his voice low and turned to his companions. "I will instigate a diversion." He let them follow his eyes to the driver's seat of the wagon. "Take the cart. I'll meet you at the south end of Tavern Street." Without another word, he stalked out from the warehouse's shadow and into the bustling path of commerce.

He headed south down the shoreline, passing both privateer caravel and wagon, until he reached a street ramifying from the harbor. He rounded the corner onto a relatively empty district eventually leading to the marketplace. A row of dwellings punctuated only by a herbalist's emporium stretched on his right. He continued down the street until he arrived at a butcher's shop on his left. Through the window he glimpsed flashes of a hulking man in bloodstained apron, chopping with terrifying vengeance at a slab of pork. Kendath paused, considering the outcome. A taunting grin waxed on his face. He reached into his belt to extract a cord outfitted with a grappling hook. Sidling sideways from the window's view, he swiftly calculated and let fly. The grappling hook snagged on the building's corner.

Leaving the cord dangling there in plain view, Kendath made his way back to the docks. He scaled a warehouse's uneven masonry onto the roof, where he crouched just behind the rim. The last of the laborers were loading their barrels of brandy. Most of the work men were relaxing and flexing their muscles. Kendath reached for his daggers before discarding the notion and picking up a few rocks instead. Best not to leave a blood trail.

The first rock sailed through the air, smashing into a laborer's barrel. Caught by surprise as reddish liquid sprayed, the man dropped the barrel. His profound oath was interrupted by a second rock connecting with his temple. He went down cold. Startled, the laborer behind him turned in time to catch a third projectile square in the face. He gracefully dropped the barrel with an explosion of brandy, but apparently his thick skull served him well. Suitably swelling in high dudgeon, he glanced about in enraged fury.

Kendath leaped down from the warehouse roof. He grinned and waved. And suddenly he found a man twice his size charging his way, no less than ten of his muscular friends in tow.

Grin dissipating in a millisecond, Kendath turned and ran for dear life.

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The instant the burly man's back was turned, Merrin darted from her place of concealment and fought her way through the milling crowds to the wagon, where she was surprisingly not discovered until she sprang into the seat. An air of innocence had its benefits.

However, it only extended so far, and Merrin knew she had to move fast. Seizing the whip that lay idle, she fumbled with it for a moment and managed to get the pair of placid draft horses moving in admirably short order. Slight complications arose when one of the men, distracted by Kendath, turned and gave a shout of alarm, and Merrin was nearly unseated when the duo of alarmed horses took a corner rather sharply as she was looking over her shoulder.

A barrel of brandy rolled off the back of the wagon, but Merrin had no time to glance back and see whether or not it was the one they needed.

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Adanil darted after Merrin, shouldering his way through the crowd with hurried apologies. However easily she made it through the crowd, it seemed to seal up tight behind her, with practically everything that wasn't bolted down finding some way to obstruct his path after her.

So it was that he made it to the spot where the cart had been when Merrin was already turning the corner. Just in time to run into one of the workmen who had attempted pursuit a little late. The man must have been made of rock. Adanil made as much of an impression as if he had run into a wall before he bounced off of him and sat down hard on the ground, his head ringing.

The workman did not much appreciate the crash, less so when he gave up the futile pursuit of Merrin and turned his attention on the person who had done the crashing.

Adanil grimaced. He certainly did not want to have to draw the scimitar at his belt, and he doubted he could do much against the wall-that-was-man. He backed away slowly for ten paces until he bumped into the wall-that-was-crowd, then, in the manner of Kendath, he fled.

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Merrin was just discovering that driving a wagon was really not as easy as it looked, especially when the wagon's propulsion (e.g. the horses) were rather wildly out of control. Evidently she'd used the whip rather liberally and they objected quite strenuously. And where, by all the gods, was Tavern Street?

Helplessly Merrin tried to glance about without flying off the seat, but nothing looked much like a tavern. Coincidentally, however, she caught sight of something that looked rather like a bed surmounted by a crown on a sign as her surroundings flashed by, and came to the conclusion that if the Queen's Bedchamber was a tavern, they must be somewhere near Tavern Street.

Another barrel exploded red onto the cobblestones, but Merrin didn't dare try and secure the others.

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A lifetime of escaping from vindictive sentries has paid off, Kendath reflected as he wove his manic way through the unsupportive crowd. His one asset was his agility, and even that was equaled by the general throngs parting in abject terror before the mob of burly workmen. The second time he crashed into someone, he resisted the urge to slit the offender's throat. The only disadvantage there was that he'd have to leap over the dead body. If only the fat merchants would summon the strength in their pretty stockinged legs to move faster -

He shot around the corner and, to his relief, found the cord still hanging by its grappling hook on the butcher's shop. The second door down on his right was the darkened herbalist's emporium. Assuming an air of nonchalance, he sauntered in. He masked his breathlessness with a bland mien as he strolled over to the shelves and began examining... a leaf? Hearing running footsteps in the street outside, he sidled over to put the partially shuttered window in sight.

One ticked off brawn man plus a few friends. They paused right outside the emporium, and Kendath ducked his head. In his peripheral vision he glimpsed the ticked off one pointing and excitedly calling his comrades. They bounded right past the emporium, straight for the butcher's shop.

The ensuing events were actually a bit amusing.

Kendath turned halfway around to see the laborers tugging on the secured cord and swearing profusely. Two of them actually went as far as to attempt scaling the wall. No damage done. Concussions inevitable. They began debating, a few voting to condone the offense, to which the ticked off one shouted something decidedly unfriendly.

Kendath realized a millisecond later that he'd never seen a butcher's knife of such frightening proportions.

Bloody apron flapping, muscles flexing, the hulking leviathan of a butcher exited his door in time to see a mob attempting to scale his wall. Roaring something incoherent, he raised his battle axe of a butcher's knife and charged. The intelligent ones cheerfully fled the scene. The obstinate ones were gifted with a headache certain to dissipate next month.

"Do you want the idyllipherum or not?"

Kendath turned to see the herbalist, a petite woman with her graying hair in a bun, fixing him a piercing stare. He blinked and cleared his throat. "The what?"

She curled her lip and spoke as though she was addressing someone mentally challenged. "The idyllipherum. Erinessa's Bract. Do you want it or not?"

Kendath glanced blankly from her to the green object in his hand. "The leaf?"

Her eyes narrowed. "No. Your buttocks."

It was now his turn to narrow his eyes. "Keep your leaf. I never wanted it," he snapped irritably, handing it back to her. Shaking his head in bemusement, he walked out the door.

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Merrin, having begun desperately trying to slow the horses down upon receiving the first hints that Tavern Street was near, had very nearly succeeded when a crate of squawking chickens made a foray across the road very suddenly and spooked the silly animals. Off they went again. Merrin found herself fervently wishing for Wyvern beneath her, who shied at nothing and was reliable as a rock.

This sentiment was amplified when, upon turning a corner, they were confronted with a dead end. Up went the horses, and Merrin landed sprawling on the cobblestones, winded. Fortunately the wagon was narrowly saved from tipping, which meant that more brandy did not spill, but it was with extreme irritation that she hauled herself upright, gasping, and clambered back into the wagon seat. Scrapes, nothing serious but quite irritating, decorated the palms of her hands and smarted fiercely.

The horses were somewhat calmer now, calm enough to be wrestled into submission, but Merrin imagined them snickering quietly to themselves and it improved her temper not a whit.

Carefully maneuvering the battered cart back onto a main road, Merrin began attempting to retrace her steps to this Tavern Street.

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Adanil dashed down an alley, dodging the crates and odds and ends that were in it. It was incredible what people would throw into an alley. He tripped over a bench that someone had had the absence of mind to leave in the middle of his running space, but scrambled to his feet and kept running as fast as he could.

By now, he had been running for quite some time, but the wall-that-was-man was still keeping up, somehow. They were in a part of the city that Adanil, Merrin, and Kendath hadn't been through yet, and Adanil could only hope that he would be able to find his way out.

As he reached the end of the alley and turned onto another, larger street, he heard a crash behind him, along with a heavy thud. Well, if the workman had knocked himself out, then it was that much better for Adanil.

He was a good ways down the street before he stopped short with a grimace. A wagonload of crops barely missed him, it's driver cursing him profusely, but Adanil shut that out of his mind. He really didn't know the way back to their warehouse. A few questions to a resident of the Port would normally solve his problem, but he had let Kendath lead them through the city, with never a thought about what part they were in.

He could at least go back to the docks, though, and hope that he would be able to pick his way back from there. With the myriad of warehouses that they had passed, he would be more than lucky to find theirs by nightfall--in the dark, he hadn't even been able to see if there were any distinguishing marks on it, let alone what they were.

Forcing the grimace off of his face, he headed towards the sea, which was discernable by the dozens of masts that were visible above the rooftops. In a port this big, his luck likely would never find him.

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