“Wake up, lazy bones.”

  Rori didn’t bother lifting an eyelid, if the voice wasn’t enough, the foot shoved into his side confirmed it was Nolan.

  “It’s good to see you too.”

  “I’ve got a mug in my left hand and your breakfast in the other. You can either get up and take them from me or I can pour the mug on your head and eat the food myself. Your choice.”

  “Fine,” said Rori sitting up and holding out a hand to Nolan. Nolan took hold of the outstretched arm and pulled Rori to his feet. The fire pit from the night before had burned away to nothing and the other clanmates who had spent last night by this fire had gotten up long before. As seemed too often be the case, Rori was the last to rise.

  “Where’s the food?” asked Rori looking at Nolan’s empty hands.

  “I lied,” said Nolan. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  The pair walked away from the circle of wagons and ended up back at the same hillside Rori had been lying on a few days before when he’d had his conversation with the strange man.

  “I’ve come for an update and to discuss some info we’ve gathered. First, you tell me what’s going on here.”

  “Right now, not much,” admitted Rori. “I’ve gotten Jaelle and the others to explain how to have a conclave but like most things it turns out to be more complicated than you might otherwise think. We need at least three clans to agree to host it and it is the duty of those clans to bear a lot of the expense.”

  “Have you found any other clans willing to host?”

  “We’ve gotten a semi-positive response from Clan Orrich.”

  “Semi-positive?”

  “They say they will be one of the hosts, but only after they know for sure who the other hosts are. Also, they either don’t have or don’t want to commit a lot of money to the conclave. It’s my understanding that these things sometimes get a bit out of hand and the hosting clans can end up on the hook for a lot more than they expected. They want to limit how much they will have to pay.”

  “Okay, that sounds reasonable. What else?”

  Stolen story; please report.

  “We are trying to get in touch with Clan Giselle. Orrich said he thought he knew where they could be found and that they were a clan he would gladly co-host with. We sent some scouts to try and find them, but they’ve yet to return.”

  “Dade is anxious to get things rolling. We should get Trill to try and contact the scouts, or I’ll see if Dade will spring for some scrolls with the sending spell on them.”

  “Speaking of paying for things, how much money would Dade give us to host the conclave?”

  “How much will it cost?”

  Rori shrugged. “It depends on how much we want to spend. The more we spend the bigger the party and the more clans will likely show up. If we are stingy, it could just be us and the other two host clans.”

  “I’ll talk to Dade. Assuming he will pay, how soon can we have the conclave?”

  Rori shrugged again. “Again, it depends. We could have it sooner, but that limits the number of clans that can get to the location in time. The longer we are willing to wait, the more people can get there. Of course, put it too far into the future and people’s interest wanes again.”

  “Is that it?”

  “Yep. What did you guys find out?”

  “Wergen managed to track down Reibar and it turns out he was our man, or rather dwarf. He would not reveal anything about the identity of the assassin that was attacking you, but he did tell us two other pieces of information.

  “The first is that the bounty the assassin was trying to collect was three hundred thousand gold.”

  “Why?” Rori said clearly flabbergasted.

  “Why what?”

  “Why so much? Why is my death worth three hundred thousand gold?”

  “I’ve got a few ideas, but equally important is who is offering the bounty.”

  “And who is that?”

  “The phren.”

  “The phren are willing to pay three hundred thousand gold to have me killed?”

  “Actually, it’s recently gone up. They are now offering five hundred thousand.”

  “Why?” Rori said again, his voice rising again.

  “Why did it go up? I guess because they aren’t getting the result they want. Offer more money and more people will try to kill you.”

  “No, I get that part. I’m still stuck on why do they want me dead? I could be wrong, but isn’t half a million gold an awful lot of money?”

  “You are not wrong.”

  “Then what did I do? Are they mad because I saved Kedra?”

  “Doubtful.”

  “Then what? I’ve had a few run-ins with them but that hardly seems worth the money.”

  “I agree. Maybe it’s for something in your past. Maybe they don’t like Meredith. Maybe their religion requires it. Maybe they found out about your being able to speak phren. Most likely it’s for some reason we know nothing about.”

  “Should I go into hiding or something?”

  “You mean like move out into the country, wander around and keep away from towns and cities? I think you’ve already managed to make yourself about as hard to find as possible.”

  “You found me.”

  “True, but I, or more to the point Kedra, knows you personally and we knew where to look. But just to be safe you should probably keep on the move. Sitting still makes it easier to pinpoint your location and plan attacks.

  “We can’t move on until the scouts get back, but hopefully they will arrive any day.”

  “I also won’t be surprised if Dade increases the number of soldiers guarding you. But like I said earlier, if Trill can get in touch with Clan Giselle, then we can end this sitting around a lot sooner.”