Steel and Stone by Ellen Porath Read Free Book Online

wheat flour lay under the table.
    Tanis stood near the split door into the alley. The bottom half was closed, but the top was open. “You can smell the swamp from here,” he said, adding, “The place is deserted, yet obviously someone was here baking recently.”
    “Something’s been preying on the village. It happens at night, a peasant woman told me.” Kitiara related the peasant woman’s story, leaving out her futile request for help. “We should take some provisions and get moving.” Bleached flour sacks protected a few trays, including one on a shelf near her elbow. Kitiara peered under the towel and saw a dozen frosted buns. She pierced one with the point of her dagger and bit into the morsel.
    “Mmmmm,” she said, talking before she swallowed. “Persimmon filling. Want some?”
    Tanis was digging out a coin—payment for the provisions, no doubt—from a pouch at his waist. He looked around, then placed it on a knife-scarred counter. “Someone will find it there. Anyway, how can you eat in this place?” he demanded. “The owner is probably lying dead somewhere out in the swamp.”
    She finished the confection in three bites, licked her fingers elaborately, and took another bun. “If I went off my feed when circumstances were less than perfect, half-elf, I’d starve. And I’m no good as a swordswoman if I’m weak with hunger.” She brushed her hands on her short leather skirt. “Do you see any bread? Check under that towel by the door.”
    Tanis didn’t move. He didn’t say anything.
    “Squeamish?” Kitiara snapped. “I doubt old Jarlburg will mind if we sample his stock. What good are a few biscuits to him now?”
    Tanis still didn’t say anything. Kitiara slipped her dagger into its sheath. She emptied a tray of buns into a towel and tied it in a knot. “These will come in handy later,” she commented.
    “Aren’t you even a little curious about what has happened to everyone?” Tanis asked.
    Kitiara shook her head. “As long as it isn’t me that’s in danger, I have no curiosity.” Tanis watched dispassionately, his expression unreadable. “What?” she demanded.
    “I’m trying to decide something,” the half-elf said mildly, turning toward the alley.
    “What?” she asked.
    “Whether you’re inhuman or typically human.”
    Tanis stepped into the alley, leaving Kitiara standing motionless in the middle of the kitchen, one handclenching a loaf of rye bread, the other holding the towel full of biscuits. Kitiara watched him leave, her blood pounding with anger.
    Damn the man. And damn his arrogant elven blood.
    *   *   *   *   *
    Tanis didn’t say anything to Kitiara as they left Meddow. She pointed out a shortcut she said she’d learned about, and when they reached a fork after a few minutes of riding, she motioned wordlessly down the left path. They kicked their horses into a trot as dusk descended around them.
    Soon the path grew spongy, and the horses’s feet began to make sucking noises as they pulled their hooves from the sodden peat.
    “This can’t be the right trail,” Tanis said, looking back from his position in the lead.
    “The woman said the left fork curved a bit,” Kitiara snapped. “This is the left fork, damn it. Hurry up. It’s getting dark.”
    Tanis nodded. “I’d hate to see the right fork,” he murmured.
    The vegetation changed as they continued along the trail. The trees now sagged under festoons of gray-green moss that resembled tresses of a desiccated corpse. Strange grasses, red, shoulder-high, with clouds of tiny insects around their tips, poked up beside the path. Kitiara touched one and snatched her hand away with a cry. “I’ve been bitten!”
    Tanis reined in Dauntless and leaned over to examine her hand. “By the insects or by the plant?” he asked. Blood oozed from a pair of cuts at the base of her thumb. “They look like teeth marks,” he mused.
    Kitiara’s temper snapped again. “Don’t be ridiculous. Whoever