Author's Note: Yet more wordsmithing. Not real sure what I'm going to do with the next chapter, which has never pleased me.

Chapter 5…A Chance-Met Acquaintance

It was impossible to travel quietly in the dwarf's company. He stomped along like a giant in his thick-soled boots and although he didn't chatter, he often hummed or whistled as he walked. When he did speak, it was in a booming voice that echoed off the trees around them. Still, he was both tireless and cheerful, and those were good qualities in a traveling companion. Although he liked his comforts, he didn't complain about sleeping in the wild with naught but cold rations to eat. Carona didn't wish to risk lighting a fire and drawing attention to themselves, although Khelgar's attitude was more along the lines of "bring them on and let's get the killing over with".

Although there was no inn in Fort Locke, there was a little-used barracks that the fort commander allowed travelers to sleep in. But when the two arrived, it was so packed with refugees that there was no room to lay even a single bedroll. Fear of bandits had greatly increased in less than a ten-day.

They arrived at the fort around midday. While Khelgar saw about replenishing their supplies, Carona hunted for news. It seemed that the fort commander, who had set out looking for his missing patrols, was now missing himself. His lieutenant had decided to completely stop all patrols and pulled the soldiers back to defend the fort, which meant there was nothing whatsoever to deter bandit raids. While the stranded travelers cursed the lieutenant, this just might make Carona's job easier. Or so she hoped.

"I've got bad news, lass," Khelgar said when they met by the smithy. "Every scrap of food has been confiscated by the soldiers. They're doling it out as they please. You have to have a voucher from the acting fort commander to get so much as a rind of cheese! A voucher!" He huffed and his scowl deepened. "And there's not a drop of ale in the place! Or so they would have you believe," he added darkly.

"You know," Carona said slowly, looking at the sun's position. "I think maybe we should move on. We might do better at one of the nearby farms, don't you think?"

"I'm thinking ye have the right of it." He gave her a straight look under bushy brows. "You have no fear of these bandits everyone's yammering on about?"

"If you're with me, I fear for them."

The closest farm was to the south but neither of them wished to retrace their steps, so they pressed on to the north. They trudged down the first lane that left the road and reached a tiny cluster of farmhouses, too small to be considered a hamlet. At the first house, the heavyset farmer stood on her porch and threatened to put her dogs on them if they came one step closer.

"Those dogs looked half-starved," Khelgar said in the hoarse loud voice he used for a whisper. "Let's move on."

No one answered the door at the second house so they tried the third. An old man invited them in. In exchange for an hour or two of hard dirty labor mucking out a filthy henhouse, they got a couple of bowls of watered down stew, a plate of fried eggs and a scant mug of thin ale each. The farmer, Cled by name, had little good to say of his neighbors, the soldiers of the fort or their new commander but his toothless mutterings were hard to understand. He knew little of the bandits plaguing the area and cared less.

"They won't bother me 'cause I ain't got nothin' worth taking."

He let them spread their bedrolls by the hearth and in the morning, cooked them some more eggs, and then they continued on.

"Don't sound like this Lieutenant Vallis is doing much of anything of use," Khelgar grumbled. "I'm just hoping we run into some of those bandits ourselves." And he grinned.

Instead, they met four soldiers returning to the fort with a prisoner in tow. Carona stopped to stare at her. She was a tiefling, complete with horns, tail and fiery eyes. The girl lifted her head to look at them. Her arms were bound behind her back. Her face was puffy with bruises and her eyes held hopeless despair.

"What is your business on the High Road?" one of the soldiers asked in a bullying tone that raised her hackles.

Khelgar stiffened and scowled. "What business is our business to you? Last I heard this was still a free road."

"Your Lieutenant Vallis told us the patrols had stopped," Carona said smoothly with a slight question in her voice. She would have jabbed Khelgar with her elbow if he had been standing closer.

"Commander Vallis is paying a bounty on bandits. We plan to collect," their leader said. "Found us one today. I'm thinking the commander will pay extra for this demon, once he sees the horns."

"I told you already, I'm not with those bandits," the girl said. The guard at her side cuffed her hard enough to split her lip.

"Shut up, demon, unless you like screaming."

"Let me go! I've done nothing to you."

"Nothing?" The soldier gave her a shove that sent her sprawling into the dirt. And then he kicked her in the side. He wore heavy boots. She gave a sobbing cry.

"Hey, now, there's no call for that," Khelgar said. His hand went to his weapon belt, a move that was noted by all four soldiers. Suddenly their stances changed from half-hearted aggression to combat readiness.

"You know, Vallis don't ask a lot of questions," said the soldier who had kicked the tiefling. "Maybe he'll pay us bounty on these two, if we bring him their ears."

Carona suspected this was a casual threat, meant to cow them, but Khelgar's temper never stopped to count the odds. In an instant, his axe was in his hand. Carona stepped away and let her hand hover near her dagger.

"Start something with me and I'll end it here and now," Khelgar said.

"I don't take that kind of talk from a runty dwarf."

"Runty dwarf! Those are mighty big words from a dog low enough to kick a defenseless woman." The soldier drew his sword, and an instant later, so did the other three Greycloaks. Carona waited for the leader to call back his men. He didn't. He shrugged.

"Kill them all then," he said. "We'll sort out the tale later."

Four trained soldiers against two weary travelers—the soldiers started out confident of the outcome. Khelgar was equally certain and his confidence was fully justified. Sometime during the fight, the tiefling managed to roll to her feet. She crouched, eyes wide, as they wiped the blood from their blades.

"What do we do now, lass?" Khelgar asked, pointedly ignoring the tiefling. "Didn't think it would come to this and now they're dead."

Carona gave him a look. If you don't want bloodshed, don't wave your weapon around, she thought but she didn't bother saying so. She gestured for the tiefling to turn so she could untie her hands. The knots were pulled tight and it would have been quicker to cut them but she had been raised from childhood not to waste a rope.

"Let them be just another missing patrol," she said with a shrug. She had to use the point of her dagger to pick the last knot loose. The tiefling, finally freed, rubbed her wrists where the cord had cut into them. "Let's pull their bodies off into the bushes and leave it at that." Khelgar frowned.

"Check them for valuables first," said the tiefling. "They took my pack and my coin purse."

Khelgar continued to ignore her. "You want to just leave them here for the vultures? Don't you think we ought to go back to Fort Locke and say something to their commander?"

"Like what? Sorry about your dead men but they started it? Doesn't sound to me like this Vallis much cares what his men do," Carona said. "And I don't want to be strung up on the gallows because of their stupidity."

"Vallis doesn't care," said the tiefling. "The soldiers kill whoever they please and call them bandits so they can collect the bounty. It's safer for them to kill travelers than to go after the real bandits."

"You're kidding," Carona said. "Has this been going on long?"

"No, just since the old commander disappeared. Vallis doesn't like to leave the fort to see what's really going on out here. He's afraid he'll get his uniform dirty."

"How did they come to take you prisoner?"

The tiefling launched into an airy and nonsensical tale of how she was trying to sneak by the soldiers and her invisibility potion wore off. Carona broke into what was working up to be a lengthy diatribe against the honesty and reliability of some alchemist in Highcliff.

"Caught you going through their gear, did they?" The tiefling gave her a wounded look which Carona met with raised brows. The silence lasted a moment and suddenly the tiefling laughed.

"Something like that," she confessed. "My name's Neeshka, by the way. Thanks for saving me."

"Well, you can thank Khelgar for that," she replied. "He's the one who stuck his axe in, so to speak."

"Humph," he said. "Lucky for you those soldiers were a bunch of hot-headed idiots." Neeshka exchanged looks with Carona and her lip twitched. "Anyway, we'd best be off."

"Do you think…can I come with you?" Neeshka asked. "I won't be any trouble, I swear. It's just…I don't think I can make it on my own out here." She bit her lip and gave Carona a hopeful look. She seemed so young and frightened at being alone, and it was probably an act, but it was good enough to sway her. Carona remembered what it was like.

"You may join us for now," she said. "But if I catch you going through my gear, you'll wish you'd never met up with us."

"Thanks! You won't regret it, I promise."

Khelgar protested in a voice possibly meant to be an undertone and the tiefling started bickering with him. Carona ignored them and rifled through the soldiers' pouches and pockets. She took all of their food and the two cleanest blankets out of their packs. The soldiers' armor and swords bore the marks of the fort's smith and so she left them with the bodies but they were carrying more gold and trinkets than she would have expected. Since Greycloaks were notoriously poorly paid, she figured this was stolen from the travelers they'd killed. She grimaced when she opened a leather pouch and found a grisly collection of ears. She held the pouch for a moment and wondered what the bounty was worth. I don't need coin that badly. She dropped the pouch.

"Um, that's mine," Neeshka said when Carona found a purse in the pocket of the guard who had kicked her. A dainty design of Tymora's coin was embroidered in red silk thread on the belly of the purse. Carona opened it over the tiefling's protests and looked inside. In addition to the stash of copper and silver coins, there was a neat little bundle, surprisingly heavy for its size. Carona didn't have to open it to know what was inside. Lock picks. She put the purse into Neeshka's outstretched hand with a knowing smile.

"I think we should take a lunch break," she said. "But let's move down the road a bit, away from this spot." Away from the blood and the stench, she meant.

They ate quickly. While Khelgar repaired a couple of broken rings in his chain shirt, Carona made a poultice for Neeshka's bruised face.

"It stinks," she complained.

"That's how you know it's working," Carona said. Gods, she thought, I sound exactly like Retta Starling.

Neeshka frowned and in a lower voice, she said, "I know who you are. Your name's Carona, right? I've seen you around the Merchant Quarter."

"Is that right?" Carona asked coolly. "That's interesting, Neeshka, because I haven't seen you around and I think I would have remembered you."

"It's the horns, isn't it? Everyone remembers the horns. But I can stay out of sight when I want to. You're not bad yourself, you know."

"Oh?"

"Aw, don't get all stiff on me. I won't rat you out. Fact is, I could show you a thing or two."

"Like you showed those soldiers from Fort Locke?"

Neeshka grimaced. "That was bad luck. Anyway, what brings you way out here?"

"I could ask the same of you."

"Yeah, see…the thing is, I had to leave Neverwinter for awhile. Had a little problem with an old partner of mine. Seemed best to let him simmer down, you know? Anyway I thought I might find work in Highcliff but everything's such a mess there right now, what with merchants going missing and lizardfolk attacking the ships—"

"What?"

"Yeah, haven't you heard? There's nothing going in or out of the harbor and no one knows where all these crazy lizardfolk are coming from. Now I'm not sure where to go. Doesn't sound like anything's too safe around here these days." She gave Carona a curious look. "So, what about you?" Neeshka asked. "Where are you headed?"

"Neverwinter. I was planning to take a ship out of Highcliff, but now I don't know. I hadn't really planned on walking all the way back home but there might not be much choice." Even with the coin she had taken off the soldiers' bodies, she still couldn't afford a decent horse, not that she knew much about horses. Besides, moving quickly might get her away from the next bladeling attack but a horse would make her a more tempting target for bandits.

"I'm not sure that's a great idea," Neeshka said, echoing her thoughts. "Especially with all these bandits about."

"I don't suppose you know who's leading them or where they come from?" Carona asked idly, but at Neeshka's expression, she sat up and leaned forward. "What do you know?"

"Actually, it occurred to me that you might be planning to join them," the tiefling said. Her eyes were sly. "Or maybe just—check them out." She leaned forward. "I know who you work for," she whispered.

"Do you?"

Neeshka nodded. "And maybe I could help you, if you help me, once we're back in Neverwinter."

"What did you have in mind?"

Something in Carona's tone made Neeshka hold out a nervous hand. "Nothing much, I swear. I just thought that if I helped you now, maybe you'd put in a good word for me with those people you work for. I told you I'm having problem with my old partner but he'd think twice about pushing me around if I had someone behind me. You know what I mean?"

Carona understood this motivation completely. It was the reason she herself had joined the Thieves' Guild, after all. Of course, a good cover story ought to sound plausible. She might be a spy for the bandits.

"Tell me what you know and I'll see what I can do for you later."

"They have a camp east of Fort Locke," Neeshka said. "I haven't been there but I, uh, got some directions on how to find the camp. As far as their leader—I haven't heard much about him. They call him Sarter or something like that. Not one of your guys, I take it." Her eyes brightened. "You know, maybe we could sneak in there and loot the place! They must have loads of good stuff by now."

"Got any idea of their numbers?"

"No, not really. I heard there are a lot of them. They've taken over this old farmhouse, I hear, and they're turning it into a fortress." Her face fell at the thought of the three of them raiding a fortress. "But maybe that's just big talk."

"I think we should scout it out."