The Temple of Yellow Skulls Read Online Free Page B

thing, what would you have done if you’d agreed to help him, then didn’t like what he told you? Would you have walked away? Maybe keeping your word doesn’t matter that much to you, but it does to me.”
    Her words stung. Albanon felt his cheeks flush. “I keep my word!” he protested, but Shara didn’t stop.
    “He didn’t give us one piece of information of any significance. He dodged all of my questions, even when I gave him opportunities to answer openly. So he’s been a hunter and an adventurer. So he’s been to a lot of different places. He didn’t give us any specifics.”
    “He said that he’d come to Fallcrest looking for treasure,” Uldane pointed out.
    “And that’s all he said.” Shara looked straight at the halfling. “You should know that question, Uldane. It was one of my father’s favorites. Anyone who wanted to hire us, he’d ask that question. The answer doesn’t matter so much as what comes after it. Raid didn’t say anything about the treasure or why he wanted to find it—he just told us how rich it would make us.”
    “Uldane asked how much treasure,” said Albanon. “Raid was just answering him!”
    “What about how he reacted when I turned him down?He took it like a personal insult, as if I’d laughed in his face.”
    “He came all this way looking for us and you said no. I’d be disappointed, too.”
    “Would you be angry like he was?”
    “Probably.” Albanon felt more than a little angry already.
    “Trust me,” Shara said. “We’re better off staying right here.”
    Albanon inhaled slowly and tried to call up the discipline that had kept him calm with Kossley Varn’s face shouting in his face. This time, however, it eluded him. A hot sense of disappointment burned in his belly. The feeling of isolation and displacement he’d managed to overcome only a short time before came crashing back over him. He looked back up at Shara.
    “I don’t think we are,” he told her. “I think we need to get out of Fallcrest, but there’s nothing else to do unless we want to strike out on our own. You’ve just scared off our best chance at an ally.”
    Shara scowled. “I don’t trust him,” she said curtly.
    “Well, I liked him,” muttered Uldane. “I think Borojon would have felt the same. So would Jarren.”
    Shara sucked air through her teeth and whirled on him. “You don’t know what my father or Jarren would have felt,” she said harshly. “You like everybody!”
    Uldane flinched as if she’d struck him, but Shara had already turned to glare at Albanon. “And what do you know? You think being a wizard’s apprentice then falling in with a bunch of adventurers by chance makes you a good judge of anything? I know what I’m doing.” Shara thumped her chest. “My father taught me more than just how to swing a sword. He taught me what to look for when I’m choosing my allies.”
    The declaration was too much. Albanon’s face burned hot.“I wish he’d taught me, then,” he said, “because I’ve clearly made a mistake in choosing mine.”
    He stood up, his chair scraping across the floor. Shara finally winced in recognition of her harsh words, but it was too late. “Albanon, no—that’s not what I meant.”
    “Really? I wouldn’t know. I’m not a good judge.” He turned away from her and from Uldane, curled down in his chair and watching them in sullen silence.
    “Stop acting like a child!”
    Albanon stiffened and looked back at her. A wide swath of the alehouse had gone quiet again, listening in on their argument. Shara’s face was taut and hard. Albanon raised his chin.
    “Don’t bother coming back to the tower tonight,” he said. “I’m raising the wards behind me when I go in.”
    He walked out through the staring crowd with his head held high and his heart beating like a running dog.

    A steep bluff cut through the middle of Fallcrest, dividing the upper town from the lower and creating the high cascade in the Nentir River that gave