Fugitive of the Sky

Chapter Thirty: Set Fire to the Forest

Natan's feet itched as he scrubbed another crusted dish with a rag. He cast a glance around him, but no one was watching. Hetterah. If they waited like this much longer he'd almost welcome someone trying to stab him in the dark. At least it would be better than Firot finding and cornering him again.

Most of the aspiring hunters from Liron had long since left when the Larkwing hadn't emerged from the Fonten Forest. Kintzon and his clan, unfortunately, hadn't, and they were suggesting increasingly ludicrous plans to flush the Larkwing girl out, and that was after four of them had been shot down by the Liktof crossbows or found dead in the forest. He was beginning to think madness as well as fire flowed alongside their blood.

Natan flicked another glance around the room and at the hunter scrubbing beside him. There were eyes on him. He could feel it, but he couldn't find the source. It was scraping his nerves rawer than the rag he was using. Liktof had been less than welcoming to a small army's worth of hunters pouring after a single Larkwing, especially when they started taking residence in the city. He was sure they would be more than glad to accept the disappearance of some of their unwanted visitors. Even when he had been at the height of his trade, he'd avoided this hostile, isolated city-state. Liktof and Liron had a long history of soaked, spilled blood.

He finally reached the end of the pile of caked dishes and shook his hand out with a sigh. Four more to go. But it was a small price to pay for room, board, and a steadily growing supply of pebbles, as long as no one attacked the scrubbing room. With how packed it was in here, any fight would soon become a killing ground. By the shifty looks around him, the other nearby hunters knew it too.

How long were they going to wait for the Larkwing?

It was high time he moved on from this city. Firot would surely have caught wind of the hunt and his whereabouts by now. Sooner or later, he would appear and demand his fifty gold stones. Currently, he'd collected about enough for two.

For all his efforts, no Liktof dweller had any interest in striking a bargain with any man from Liron. Apparently, his accent gave him away every time, though he suspected it was actually something else. Most of them walked away before he spoke, not after. It irked him that he couldn't figure out what the difference was. So long as he could figure it out, and procure something a Liktof man would want to trade, he could sell at a profit. All he needed was a beginning. But he hadn't managed to find anything, even after all this time!

A gust of wind blew through and relieved some of the suffocating heat. Natan wiped the sweat off his face and checked the door once more. Nothetterah, where was that hidden watcher? With him watching he couldn't even follow his own thoughts in peace! Natan threw down the washcloth with a thump that turned a few heads. "I'm going to relieve myself." He stalked out the door.

The afternoon sun did not beat down on the city like it had in the morning, but without the tall wall shading the clay houses they were nearly as hot and stuffy as a bad day in Liron. Some of the one-story houses had tents pitched over the roofs, but the guest house and its scrubbing room bore the sun's full heat. The roof was painted white, which cooled it down somewhat, but Natan definitely thought Liktof hadn't wanted to go to much trouble for newcomers.

He swung around its corner and held his breath as he headed for the refuse pail. Quickly, he glanced behind him. There'd definitely been someone around the corner. Caught at last. Natan stepped around some drying filth and squeezed his way through to another street. If that fruitless chase with Tampul had taught him anything, it was to never underestimate the power of shortcuts.

Now, all he had to do was circle around and find out who was watching him and why. Natan straightened and brushed his shirt, looking around. A couple of women glared from under the THING they were sitting. One, gold piercing flashing in her nose, gave an elaborate cutting motion with her fingers. Natan nodded without smiling and turned, hiding a shudder. Gold belonged in jewelry and stones, not in your body. Another peculiarity of the Liktofs. He hadn't seen the practice anywhere else in the east-south.