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the edge, listening for a rattle or splash, and heard nothing. She had stayed very near the mouth of the cave that night. Better off a little wet and cold.
                  That was two days ago, but it might as well have been two lifetimes. The relentless pounding of the rain was starting to drive her to the edge of madness. Iron gray clouds crested the tops of the tallest trees and everything was gray. The sky, the clouds, and her mood, all gray. Nightwind tossed his head, spraying her with water from his sodden mane.
                  “I said I was sorry,” she said glumly. Nightwind didn’t respond.
                  Lightning flashed, so nearby that Tiadaria’s vision turned to purple sparkles. The crash that followed seemed to come from directly overhead. Nightwind, normally a stolid warhorse, reared with a frightened whinny. Tia was bucked from his back, landing on hers in the mud. The breath left her in a rush, her bottom smarting from the sudden dismount. She struggled to her feet, realizing when she finally managed it that Nightwind was nowhere to be seen.
                  “Great Gatzbin’s gonads,” she swore, still trying to catch her breath. The bolting horse had run off with nearly everything she brought with her on this ill-fated trip. She had her belt knife and her purse. The knife could come in handy. The purse was less than useless in the middle of nowhere. Fantastic. She dropped her hand to the butt of the knife and gave it a tug, ensuring the strap still held it fast.
                  “You can take that out and toss it over here, slave,” a gruff voice cut through the sound of the rain. Tiadaria whirled toward the voice and came face to face with a dwarven hand cannon. The muzzle of the weapon was inches from her face and the bore seemed enormous at that distance. She slipped into sphere-sight and cast out beyond the cloaked man. There was a wagon behind him, drawn by two huge draft horses. Two men stood on the wagon deck, similarly armed. She’d have taken her chances against one, three on one was more than she’d bargained for.
                  Withdrawing from the Quintessential Sphere, she dropped her hand to the butt of her knife and tugged the strap free. She drew it slowly out, between her thumb and forefinger, and tossed it on the ground at the stranger’s feet.
                  “Is this how you welcome all your visitors?”
                  The hooded man knelt to retrieve the dagger, the barrel of his pistol never wavering. “When the ‘visitor’ is wearing a slave collar and carrying a pig-sticker? Yeah, that’s how we welcome all our escaped slaves.”
                  “I’m not an escaped slave,” Tiadaria sighed. This conversation had become more and more common the farther from Dragonfell she rode. She was beginning to wonder if she shouldn’t just have Faxon remove it and be done with it. Still, it was a part of her, one of the few parts of the Captain she had left. “I have my papers they’re in my…”
                  “In your what?”
                  “In my saddlebag,” Tia threw her hands up at the fruitlessness of the conversation. “Which is strapped to my horse, which is who knows where since he bolted after that last lightning strike.” She shook her head, brushing the wet hair out of her eyes. “I don’t suppose you’re likely to wait for him to come back?”
                  “Not likely, Miss--”
                  “Tiadaria,” she supplied helpfully. “So what do we do now?”
                  The hooded stranger eased the hammer down on the cannon and dropped it into a holster hanging at his hip.
                  “You wouldn’t be the Tiadaria, would you? The Tiadaria who fought at Dragonfell? The Tiadaria who gave the eulogy at the Captain’s