What Is It That Makes You Hesitate?

Imoen and Jelena were tipsy with the plum wine, Peri watching them jealously from aside. Sarevok and Winski had contended themselves with tea, and everyone was helping themselves to a basketful of fruit and vegetables. Umikaze's tiny mouth was pinched in determination, as she reached her chubby arms towards the basket and tried to pull it toward her.

- "I think Umi is old enough to travel now," Peri said. "She doesn't have to be changed QUITE so often, and she is not so tiny any more."

Sarevok considered this, feeling again the odd pain watching the infant always caused in him.

- "I would never want to endanger her," he said, "but Chen... commander Tuang, suspects that the new Khan might attack Shou Lung. And if that is the case - then Umikaze would be better off traveling than in the middle of a war zone."

- "Do you believe her?" Winski asked.

Sarevok nodded.

- "I have come to respect her. All good commanders have gut instinct, as it is called, I know this. And you witnessed the attack in the desert yourselves. There was a vast difference between the Khan's men and the bandits we have met before."

- "So perhaps we should get moving then," Imoen said. "This place is getting old anyway. I would miss An Mah, but I want to see bigger cities. There is only so much to do in a little garrison city."

- "I, too, must confess that I am eager to reach somewhere where scholarly endeavors are more central," Winski said.

- "But what is it that makes you hesitate, Sarevok?" Jelena asked, tossing her curls and watching her son with quiet compassion.

Sarevok looked uncomfortable.

- "Well... each day I feel the weight of Tamoko's ashes! Each day would I go through the layers of Abyss again to end her drifting in the ethereal nothingness! And also, if any harm came to Umikaze a lot of me would forever die inside. But... Shou Lung welcomed us and we have stayed in Ankiang for a while now. I do not know what it would make me to abandon the city to its fate, if there is a war in horizon."

- "Perhaps it would make you a rational person who has his own priorities and minds his own business," Winski suggested.

- "People like An Mah would be robbed and killed... how could she defend herself from soldiers like the ones who attacked us?" Sarevok countered, fire in his eyes, and both Imoen and Peri winced at that.

- "I will have to think on this," Winski said, reaching anxiously for Jelena's hand under the table. It was definitely a valid point of view, but when would their obligation to the world in general end, if they helped everyone who deserved their help?

- "Will you take Umi, Winski?" Peri said. "Sarry, come spar with me."

Without waiting for an answer she placed the child in Winski's arms and sprang to her room to fetch the sword. She felt her stomach with another hand - still some loose flesh left, but not that much.

In the inn yard they took stances, Sarevok's pained eyes as intent as Peri's greenish-grey ones.

The swords clanged together, the muscles of the warriors bulging, the footwork precise, the children of Bhaal and their twirling blades like two typhoons from the depths of Abyss or perhaps from the heights of Celestia. The crowd watching them seemed frightened. Somehow they seemed to sense that these two warriors were not quite of this world.

After a successful parry Peri called the spar for a halt.

- "Well?" she wanted to know.

- "You are the warrior you were before Umikaze's birth," Sarevok said simply.

- "That is what I have been aiming for by sparring each day," Peri replied. "I am glad. Now we are fit to travel again. The question is, what do we do and where do we go?"

- "Let us go meet Chen. She is due back from meeting the marshals today."

They sheathed their swords, when Shui stepped out of the crowd and greeted them.

- "Most spectacular show of skill, immortal ones," he said. "Curious weapons you are wielding too - I believe Sarevok's blade is taller than many a warrior of Shou Lung!"

Peri detected veiled hostility in Shui's voice. What was bothering the young man?

- "Well hello to you too, Shui," she said. "Momma home yet?"

Shui shuddered inside at the barbarian's coarse manners, but smiled and nodded.

- "She would be most honored to share a dinner with you, which is why I dared to approach you with my observations."

- "So let's go then!" Peri grinned.