"Who's this contact of yours at the inn?" Soterius asked Sahila as they rode.
"Alle's from Margolan," Sahila said. "Came east following the rumor that Prince Martris had survived, dead-set on joining up with a rebellion. Brought out a group of bards when Jared tried to kill them. The story I heard said Alle slit a couple of guards' throats when the group was ambushed. Won't say a word about family, but I'm guessing there's some blue blood, wrong side of the blanket or not. Joined up with Lemus, the tavern-keeper. The innkeeper's been running a regular ghost carriage for the last several months."
"Ghost carriage?"
"It's a Nargi term." Mikhail's appearance, moments after the sun set, startled them all with its suddenness. "In Nargi, the Crone's priests persecute and destroy any who get in their way, or who stray from their idea of 'purity.' Those with a gift for magic, or for music or art, can find themselves taken for the Crone's service or dead. Worse if they're found to be vayash moru, or any of the other things that the priests have decided for the Lady should not exist," he said with distaste.
"Over the years, brave souls have taken it upon themselves to spirit away as many of the persecuted as they can save. It's only a fraction of the ones who are imprisoned or die, but it's a remnant at least. They operate in secret, using false names, hiding
their identities even from each other. It's said that they have way stations all across Nargi, inns and caves and farmers who look the other way. And so a lucky few disappear from under the noses of their persecutors, as if they stepped aboard a ghost carriage and vanished into thin air." Mikhail smiled. "It's another case where the Blood Council chooses to stick to the letter of the truce and not mind the small details. And more than one of the Blood Council has been known to fund such things privately."
"So this Alle is helping the fighters?" Soterius asked.
"Alle is one of our best spies," Sahila said with a grin. "Overhears plenty from the troops that like to get their ale at the tavern. Never supplies a bad bit of information."
It was barely a half-candlemark's ride to the inn. Tadrie and the others secured their horses in a barn behind the inn rather than in the stable to stay beyond the prying eyes of guests. Sahila and Soterius scouted both the stable and the front of the inn before they approached the tavern's back door. They could hear raucous singing in the front room, and the smell of venison and potato pies carried on the cold winter air.
