Druz had experienced several combat situations during her years as a mercenary. Though she was only twenty-five, she'd battled orc hordes and bugbears that had tried to take merchant convoys she'd signed on to protect. During the last year, before an injury in Alagh?n had separated her from the mercenary group she'd signed on with for the previous three years, she'd fought in the Serosian War.

That war was a year past, but employment for mercenaries willing to battle the pirates, the shark-worshiping sahuagin now freed throughout the sea, and the nations that battled each other for shipping lanes, salvage from the battles above and below the sea, and trading rights with the newly re-discovered city of Myth Nantar burgeoned. It was one of those battles between shipping guilds that had drawn Druz to Alagh?n.

Studying the slim elf before her, Druz felt certain that her luck had completely soured. That man, dressed as he was in hide armor, his wild black hair pulled back to lay on his shoulders and festooned with sprigs of wood and blossoms of a half-dozen plants, might look like a vagabond or a madman, but the mercenary felt certain she knew what the man was. Trying to kill him would amount to a death wish.

"Feather the damn dandelion-sipper and be done with it," Tethys growled again. "I won't have any man threatening to kill me."

But that won't stop you from threatening to kill another man, will it? Druz mused.

The crossbowmen stood on either side of Druz. One of them was Ennalt and the other was Kord-brothers who had signed on with the ragtag outfit. Both of them held their weapons pointed at the forest warrior.

"Don't," Druz commanded.

In her days she'd sometimes served as a unit commander. She'd learned how to pitch her voice so that it garnered instant respect and attention. Kord hesitated and raised the crossbow to aim into the star-filled sky.