The most obvious consequence, of course, was that the borman might get kicked out. And he well deserved it. No argument there.
But what then?
What happened to the krynn and the selder if the borman was removed from the guild? Would that hand the shaman even more power to do as she pleased with them? If it did — how would that backlash onto Yu?
Those thoughts held only if the group was independent, meaning that the borman and the krynn had no ties to the syndicate. Because, naturally, they could only be exposed if they were not already working with the raider-guards. The shaman’s reading strongly suggested they were not aligned. But Deltington’s apparent failure to notice the forged document suggested precisely the opposite.
What if the human was for them?
What if the borman had brought the human for the raiders?
He and his companions could still be an unaffiliated group, individuals who needed to be evaluated by the shaman, while simultaneously serving as hired hands. They could be working for the syndicate without knowing it. If their only job was to deliver a human to the guild, they would not need to know anything of the raider-guards’ larger motives. There would be no reason to tell them more than necessary, only risk.
But … why?
Surely not for … borman things.
Surely
Hopefully
But then,
why?
Who else would want to see a human,
hidden amidst the Albweiss?
The Shaira.
Yu stopped and stared at the running water. He was still re-cleaning the dinner stuff. Well, he had been.
What if the raiders needed the human as an offering to the Shaira —for some bargain, some exchange, some wretched ritual? Yu had no idea how that wandering witch played into this, but if the raiders had any plans for using the human, that would no doubt explain why Bubs was so fixated on treating her, and why he had tended to her even before tending to the selder.
It was a disturbing thought.
Tonight seemed full of those.
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