I ought to have been angrier with Boreas. But gods knew I’d have done the same were he the one collapsed in the muck, wailing that fire-eyed Magrog himself could not make him take one more step. And I was certainly in no fit state to forcibly reclaim my belongings.

“Just get me down to the gate,” I croaked, another wave of chills washing me closer to the grave. “My share ought to pay you for that at least. And leave me one luné for an offering.”

“I daren’t. The baldpates’ll have me swinging ere I kiss ye farewell. No worry, lad. One of ’em’ll pass by here and see to ye. And their Karish god teaches ’em to give alms to them with naught, so you’re better off with no silver in your pocket.”

He shook his head and shrugged his massive shoulders as if the entire mystery of the holy universe was puzzling him at that moment. Then he pulled one last bundle from my rucksack—a flat, squarish parcel, two handspans on a side, wrapped in multiple layers of oiled cloth—and peeled open one flap.

“Have a care; the rain will ruin that,” I said, attempting to draw one knee up high enough that I could slide my foot underneath me. If I could just get back to my feet, find a thick branch to lean on, perhaps I could stagger down the hill a little farther on my own.

“Is it plate?” he asked, shaking the bundle and getting no sound. “Heavy enough, but it don’t feel right. I don’t remember nothing this shape.”

My left boot squelched into place under my hip, jarring the festering wound in my thigh, shooting bolts of white-hot fire up and down my leg. “Aagh! It’s a book. More valuable than plate. More valuable than those daggers to the right people. And I can send you to the right people if you’ll just get me to a leech.”