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and hissed again.
    “Mmm, I reckon you’re right, Abri.” Gull shook his head, a look of deep regret shadowing his fine features. “These two must be Hanish spies.”
    He glanced toward the large tattooed man and amended his previous order. “Kill them slow.”

3
    A s Rath listened to Captain Gull order their deaths in such an offhand tone, he sensed the strange little man was more truly dangerous than the outlaw Vang Spear of Heaven, with all his bluster.
    He should never have brought Maura here, Rath chided himself. He should have left her somewhere safe while he’d come in search of the smuggler. In truth, the notion had crossed his mind, but he’d worried what harm she might come to if he was not there to protect her. Instead, he’d hauled her into danger from which he would be hard-pressed to protect her.
    If she could give him the slightest edge by casting her spell, he would try to fight their way out of here…though he didn’t fancy his chances.
    “Kill us if you must and if you can!” He hurled the challenge at Captain Gull. “But do not let it be because you believe us Hanish spies!”
    Though it made him feel unbearably vulnerable, he bent forward, baring the back of his neck for them to see. The fleshstill felt tender where the Han had branded him, almost a fortnight ago.
    Rath heard Maura suck in her breath through clenched teeth. He had not told her about the brand, though he knew she could have compounded a salve to soothe and heal it. Once or twice, when she’d thrown her arms around his neck too eagerly, he’d had to bite back a grunt of pain.
    “Well!” Captain Gull sounded shaken out of his amused indifference. “I have never seen one of those marks on a living man, inlander. How did you come by it?”
    “The usual way.” Rath straightened up and shot a look around at Gull and his men. “It is the first thing they do to you when you’re sent into the mines…after a whiff of slag to dull the pain and sap the fight out of you.”
    “How do you come to be here, then?” Gull’s dark eyes narrowed. “No man has ever escaped the mines…unless he made a bargain to spy for the Han in exchange for his freedom.”
    “You disappoint me, Gull.” Rath hoped the insult would not cost him his head.
    “Do I?” Gull sounded intrigued rather than enraged. “How so?”
    “I took you for a man who makes it his business to know what’s what in the world. There have been escapes from the mines, though not many and not much talked of. The Han try to keep word from spreading, in case it should inspire more miners to try. And the men who escape are not eager to call attention to themselves by bragging.”
    The hillcat rubbed its head against Gull’s cheek. He reached up to pet it, but his gaze never left Rath’s. “Do not flatter yourself that I let you see all I may or may not know.”
    Perhaps the time had come for Rath to try a little flattery. “It does not take a clever man to guess that the first must far outweigh the last, Captain.”
    Gull chuckled. “Believe it, inlander. A man like me does notsurvive in this town unless he is well armed with the right knowledge.”
    “Then you must have heard rumors of a revolt at the Beastmount Mine. A successful revolt.”
    “Amazing if it is true.”
    “It is true.” Rath could not keep a ring of triumph from his voice. “And it was amazing.”
    Feeling the hold on his arms loosen, he tugged them free, but made no rash move to draw his weapons. “I led those men and now the lass and I have been summoned to the Vestan Islands. If you cannot take us, let us go so we may seek passage elsewhere.”
    Gull took some time to reach his decision…or to announce it, at least. While everyone stood waiting, he sauntered around the room, petting the cat and feeding it small scraps of what looked like raw fish from a heaping platter on the table.
    At last, when Rath had prepared himself for another casual death order, Gull looked up at him and Maura as