local Ahbiren.
His eyes narrowed on Wolf, then switched to Siobhan with the same suspicions. “Who might you be?”
Siobhan took in a breath before she faced him squarely. “Siobhan Maley, Guildmaster of Deepwoods. This is Erik Wolfinsky.”
“Deepwoods?” he repeated without any recognition.
“We are a guild from Goldschmidt,” she explained bluntly and without apology. “We have been looking for Lirah and her people for the past week.”
His lip curled slightly in distaste at the word ‘guild.’ “Then take them away.”
“We cannot at this time. They are too injured to move yet.”
He slammed the staff in his hands on the ground—which was not for support, but a bo staff—and repeated, “They are to leave! They are not welcome here. They misled us, abused our hospitality, and brought a threat upon this village. I do not want them here!”
“Ahbiren, respectfully, this is not a matter of wanting to move or not wanting to. We cannot move them. We risk killing these men if we do so. Would you have innocent blood on your hands because you feel misused and taken advantage of?”
“I do not believe that they will die just moving them back to Sateren! You should be in a city—that is where the guilds belong. We of this village do not deal with the guilds. This woman has abused our trust by pretending to be a normal traveler and—”
Stubborn, arrogant, old— “Ahbiren,” Siobhan said firmly, cutting him off mid-rant, “have compassion. Lirah is far, far from home in a land that she does not understand. She’s in a culture that is confusing, with no allies or friends to rely upon. Worse, she was attacked by hired professionals with no warning, leaving her stranded here with wounded people to take care of and no way of knowing who attacked her or why. Why do you blame her for keeping her identity secret? Why do you judge her so harshly for trying to protect her companions? She had no choice but to keep her identity secret, not only for her own safety, but also for the fifteen lives that are depending upon her!”
The Ahbiren looked uncomfortable at her scolding and he flushed red, eyes not quite meeting hers. “What she did was a betrayal to us.”
Siobhan resisted the urge to start beating sense into him. She took in a long breath and blew it out again. “I understand that your feelings are hurt and that you are not pleased with her choice. I can see your point as well as hers. In the interest of improving relations between the two of you, and letting her stay until her people are well again, is there anything we can do to make amends?”
At ‘amends,’ he looked up again with a light in his eyes that scared Siobhan. She knew, instinctively, that she would not like what he would say next. “You offer to take one of our troubles as your own?”
Trapped by her own words, she put on a game smile and said through gritted teeth, “That’s right.”
Like a fox that had found a way into the henhouse, he gave her a smug smile and pointed to a far off lean-to. “Then I ask that you deal with that.”
She turned to look. In between a dozen buildings, down a weaving, narrow path, she could barely see the kneeling figure of a person, although she couldn’t tell whether it was a man or a woman. “And what is that, exactly?”
“An assassin that came here to kill me several weeks ago.”
She blinked. An assassin?! “You look remarkably well in spite of the attack.”
“He never reached my home,” the Ahbiren told her with satisfaction. “My people prevented that.”
Riiiight. “And, ah, he looks uninjured as well?” After trying to kill their leader, she would have expected someone in the village to kill him.
The Ahbiren cleared his throat again but this time he looked more irritated than before. “He’s quite skilled. It took all we had to subdue him.”
Skilled enough to evade death even when in a Wynngaardian village? It made her wonder just how good this man was. As good as Wolf, Tran or Fei? Better? (Although she couldn’t wrap her head around the idea of someone better.) “I see. And the reason he’s still alive even though he’s in chains is because…?”
“He comes from one of the dark guilds of Sateren.” The Ahbiren probably didn’t mean to sound nervous when he said this, but he looked like a scared rabbit. “We do not wish to invite their wrath by killing