“Hmmmm…”
A moment later a square of dark fabric appears on the battered wood of the counter top. “Nothing fancy. Just a good cloth dipped in the waterproof stuff. Probably a little small for the likes of your friend there.” The shopkeeper drops a shoulder toward Brede, who stands before a barrel from which he is extracting small pouches of something. “So I couldn’t ask that much for it. Say… half a silver.”
Dorrin nods. From what he has seen of Candar, he will need it.
“Shopkeeper?” asks Brede in his deep and polite voice.
“I’ll put these over here,” suggests the man to Dorrin. “Yes, young ser?” His voice flattens again as he addresses the tall blond man.
Dorrin drifts over to Kadara. “How are we doing trail food?”
“I thought we’d split the cost for meals. Anything extra you buy yourself. I told Brede that, too.” She smiles. “He did agree.”
“I don’t have that much,” Dorrin says.
“With your father, I can believe it.” Kadara looks back at the barrel.
Shrugging, Dorrin goes back to the other counter, avoiding Brede and the shopkeeper.
… hhhhnnnnn…
With a grin, he walks back over and pets the dog, adding another touch of order and reassurance.
… thump… thump…
Perhaps it is his imagination, but her eyes look brighter. “Good girl,” he adds, before returning to pick out two oblong packages from the cooler, with the words yellow cheese scratched into amber wax.
What else does he need? He has his heavy jacket, a bedroll, gloves, extra boots, what clothes he dares carry, a small pouch of healing goods, and now he has a waterproof and saddlebags. His only weapon is the staff. While he has a belt knife and the carving knife, of course, they are tools, not weapons. He could not carry a sword in any case, not with the conflict an edged weapon creates.
More compressed food, perhaps, he decides, in case he is separated from the others. He adds several blocks from the counter to the cheeses and places them beside the waterproof and saddlebags.
Brede examines the large bags Dorrin has rejected, and the shopkeeper slips along the counter back to Dorrin.
“All together, that’s two silvers and two.”
Dorrin fumbles in his wallet, still not used to the hardened leather outer case, and comes up with.two silvers and a half. He hands the three coins across.
“You want this stuff in the saddlebags?”
“That would be fine.” Dorrin glances back at the dog, who has lifted her head. She struggles upright, then sits and looks back at him.
“Boy, how did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Stella. Poor bitch couldn’t move.”
Dorrin flushes.
“Recluce kid?”
Finding he cannot lie, Dorrin nods.
“Don’t tell anyone. You aren’t wanted.”
Dorrin waits.
“Boy?”
Dorrin looks up. “Here’s your change.” The shopkeeper counts out the coppers into Dorrin’s palm. Then he adds a wooden token. “Give that to Gerin. He’s at the stable. Tell him I sent you. Hertor… that’s me.” He lifts the partly full bags across the counter.
Dorrin nods as he takes the leather bags. “Thank you. I hope she”-he nods toward the stove-“is a little better. Maybe the warmth by the stove will help.”
“Best bird-dog I ever had,” repeats the older man in a low voice. “Tell Gerin. Now don’t you stand on pride, young fellow.”
“I won’t, ser.” Dorrin nods politely and steps back.
At the end of the counter, Brede is holding up the heavy saddlebags.
Dorrin turns to Kadara, who is looking at the dog, as if she has overheard the low-voiced conversation with the shopkeeper. “I’m going over to the stable.”
“I’ll need some coin from you.”
“How much?” Dorrin fumbles in his wallet again.
“I’d guess around five coppers.”
He hands her the coins. “If it’s more, let me know.”
“Those will be two silvers, young ser.” The man’s voice is flat again as he addresses Brede.
Dorrin says nothing as he steps into the chill breeze and closes the heavy oak door behind him. He pauses at the top of the wooden steps. Is it wise to leave the others?
A woman, bundled in a worn leather coat, ungloved hands red from the cold, walks away from him, downhill toward the port, where three wagons creak toward the Ryessa. Across the mud and cobblestones from where Dorrin stands, an older man, heavy and bald, strains to roll a barrel toward a side door.
With a deep breath, the young man shrugs his pack into place, steadies the saddlebags that he carries on one shoulder, and, staff in hand, heads down the steps and to the right, toward the stable.
Thweeeeett… The sound of a whistle drifts uphill from the harbor. Dorrin studies the storefronts he passes until his eyes and nose agree. Despite the chill, the stable smells like a stable, and Dorrin looks as much for where to put his feet as where to find Gerin, wherever the man may be.
Gerin is wrestling round bales of hay from a stack at the back of the stable onto a flat cart.
“I beg your pardon…” begins Dorrin.
“You want something… give a hand,” grouses the thin sweating figure.
Brede and Kadara are not around.
“Are you just going to stand there?”
Dorrin sets his gear on a half wall to an empty stall and hoists a heavy bale onto the cart. “Here all right?”
“Fine. Put the next one crossways.”
Dorrin lifts two more bales into place.
“That’s fine. If you want it, the job’s yours.”
Dorrin shakes his head.
“What do you mean? You don’t want it? You work good, but jobs aren’t that easy to find.”
“I’m sorry, ser. But I was really looking for a horse. Hertor sent me. Are you Gerin?” Dorrin flushes at the misunderstanding.
“And you hoisted hay?”
“You looked like you needed help,” Dorrin admits.
The thin man shakes his head. “Takes all kinds.” His face stiffens. “Lots of people say Hertor sends them.”
Dorrin fumbles and finally produces the wooden disc.
Gerin shakes his head again. “You’re too young to be buying ahorse.”
“I really don’t have that much choice.” Dorrin reclaims his pack, staff, and saddlebags.
“And too damned young to be traveling alone.”
“I have two friends. They’ll need mounts, too. They’re still at Hertor’s, getting some supplies.”
“Stupid… should get the mounts first. How are they going to carry all that crap?”
Dorrin has no answer.
“Come on. I’ll show you what’s here. You ride much?”
“I can stay on a horse. That’s about it,” Dorrin says, feeling very inadequate at having to admit shortcoming after shortcoming.
“Hmmmmph…” The thin man heads back toward the front of the stable, ducking around a stall door that has fallen off its pins and dug into the packed clay floor.
Dorrin follows Gerin, wondering what is he doing alone in a strange country in a strange stable with a scarcely friendly liveryman. Still… what choice does he have? Lortren hadn’t said much, only that Dorrin can’t return until at least the following summer, and not until he has visited Fairhaven and until he knows why he had to leave Recluce. Dorrin takes another deep breath, and wishes he had not as they pass an open drain.
“Watch your step there.”
Watching his step is all he has been doing, it seems, but he steps even more carefully in skirting the sloppy mess around the hole in the clay floor.
“Here. Two golds is the best I can do, even for Hertor.”
Dorrin follows the man’s hand to the horse that stands in the stall-black with what appears to be a white patch on the forehead.
Wheeee… eee…
T
he horse tries to nip, but Dorrin casts his senses at the beast, attempting to calm it, and discovers that she is a mare. She settles down and lets him stroke her neck-the little he can reach over the stall door.
“Thought you didn’t know horses.”
“I don’t.”
“Why did Hertor give you a token?”
“I’m not sure.”
“He gave up a token, and you don’t know why?”
“His dog,” Dorrin admits.
“Stella?”
“I don’t know her name. She was by the stove.”
“And?”
“I helped her a little, I think.”
“She’s still alive?”
“She was sitting up when I left.”
Gerin shakes his head. “You a healer?”
“Just an apprentice.”
“That explains it.”
Dorrin remains bewildered. What is so strange about being a healer? Surely, there are healers in Candar.
“Maybe I could go a gold and a half, but I’d have to take the other for a saddle and blanket.”
“And a bridle?” Dorrin asks tentatively.
“That, too.”
Dorrin is saddling the black mare, under the eyes of Gerin, when Brede and Kadara march in.
“Those are my friends.”
“I don’t know as I have much that will carry a young giant.” Gerin’s voice is hard again, though the words are polite, as he steps over to address Brede. The horse dealer’s glance takes in the long and heavy sword.
“I am not as heavy as I look,” Brede answers softly.
“Anything you could do would be helpful,” adds Kadara, and her voice is gentle. Not manipulating, just gentle.
Gerin looks from Dorrin, who looks spindly even beside the broad-shouldered Kadara, to Brede and back to the apprentice healer. Finally, he adds. “I have a big gelding. Strong, but not too bright, and another mare.”
XIX
“Oooooo…” As HE dismounts, Dorrin winces. He will never be able to sit on a hard surface again. He slowly fumbles with the straps on his pack.
Brede vaults off his gelding in a fluid motion, ties his mount, and begins to unstrap the packs.
Whheeeee…
“Sorry.” Dorrin apologizes to the mare.
Kadara has already unloaded, tied her horse to the post at the south end of the way station, carried her packs to the hearth inside the windowless square building, and returned. “You should have spent more time with exercises and horses, instead of carving machines that will never be made.”
Dorrin clamps his lips together, then continues to unstrap his pack, laying it beside Brede’s and following the taller man’s example by leading the mare down the stone-walled ramp to the stream.
With the sun behind the hills, the temperature has dropped. Despite the heavy wool-lined jacket, Dorrin shivers, and his legs seem to alternate between the hot aches from riding and the chill of the late afternoon.
“How much farther?” He stops beside Brede and lets the mare drink the chill water.
“We’ve just started, Dorrin. It’s at least another five days at this pace just to Vergren.”
“I still don’t understand why we have to go to Fairhaven.”
“Because,” answers Brede, “Lortren said Kadara and I did. I don’t know what she said to you.” He halts the gelding’s greedy slurping. “Don’t let your mare drink too much at once.” The tall man steps back, leading the gelding up the ramp and across the chopped ground that is beginning to refreeze.
Lortren had only told Dorrin he must visit Fairhaven and find himself, whatever that meant.
It takes Dorrin an effort to pull the mare away from the icy stream that gurgles across rocks long since worn smooth. Clearly, the watering space has been man-made, since the stream banks above the watering spot are steep and rocky, while the space where Dorrin and the mare stand slopes gently into the stream and is flanked by rough stone walls on all sides-except for the ramp itself, which rises through the walls to the higher ground by the way station.
As Dorrin struggles back up the ramp, his eyes lift to the southern horizon and trace out the outline of the hilltops. He stops on the uneven ground above the ramp and sniffs the air, but it seems only chill and damp, with the faintest odor of wet leaves and decaying matter. His senses go out toward the hills.
Whheeee… eeeee… The mare protests.
Dorrin’s brow furrows as he struggles to focus what he feels. Finally, he walks to the way station, part of his mind still in the low hills above the road.
“Dorrin, can you find some brush, small sticks for fuel? AH they have here is logs.” Kadara gestures toward the pile of wood by the simple open hearth. The stew pot she had bought in Tyrhavven is before her.
Dorrin smiles faintly. Certainly, he never would have thought of bringing a stew pot, strapping it on a mount.
“Dorrin? I asked about fire starters…”
“Sorry… We have problems.”
“Problems?” asks Brede, sounding, for the first time, somewhat dense.
“There are three bandits on the hill. They’re watching us. I don’t think they have bows, but they’re waiting to catch us unaware.”
“How do you know-” begins Brede.
Kadara motions for silence. “What are they doing now? Right now?”
Dorrin squints, struggles in his efforts to sense the brigands. “They’re beginning to move downhill, I think, toward the horses. Just three of them.”
“Do they have horses?”
“I didn’t feel any.”
“Let’s go out and check the horses, Brede. That’s what they want.”
“But…” protests Dorrin.
“You stay a little behind. Let us know if they have anything besides blades. Or if more show up.” Kadara straps on both blades and looks at Brede, whose hands reach for the big sword, as if to make sure it is still in place.
By the time they reach the horses, three figures are emerging from the leafless trees across the frozen clay strip that is the road to Vergren. Brede continues toward the three, Kadara at his shoulder. Dorrin grips his staff and follows. Brede stops.
“No trouble, travelers,” rasps the center figure, a brown-bearded man almost as tall as Brede and easily two stones heavier, with a protruding gut. “You just let us have the horses, and we’ll let you alone. Even the lady, and that’s making things easy for you.” His sword gestures toward the horses.
Kadara snorts softly. “Why don’t you just set down those toothpicks and get out of here?”
“Oh… maybe we won’t leave you alone. Women with spirit are rare… these days.” He leers, showing blackened teeth.
The two smaller men, also bearded, one with matted blond hair, and the other with greasy black hair, raise their swords.
Snick…
Brede’s big blade glitters in the fading light. Equally quickly, if silently, Kadara’s blade has left its scabbard.
“You really don’t want to do that, youngsters. You Recluce types just can’t kill when it gets right down to it.” The big bandit laughs harshly.
Dorrin, standing three steps behind Brede and Kadara, holds his staff, wishing that he had practiced more with it. But how could he have known that so many people actually enjoyed killing? For a long moment, the cleared area before the way station is quiet, except for the raspy breathing of the black-haired bandit.
“So… you really aren’t going to give in.” The big bandit shrugs, half-turns. “Well, it was worth a try.”
Whhsttttt…
The heavy man swings through the turn and thrusts toward Kadara.
Brede slashes, not toward the big man, but toward the smallest, the blond man in the tattered blue surcoat. In two strokes, Dorrin marvels, the blond bandit is dead, and Brede is pressing the black-haired brigand. The big sword flashes as if it were only a toothpick.
Dorrin’s mouth opens, for the sword has dropped from the heavy bandit’s hand, and he sways in the t
wilight, like a rotten oak, before pitching onto the ground.
Kadara swings toward the black-haired man, who has circled away from Brede and is now closer to Dorrin than either Kadara or Brede.
Dorrin regrips the staff, waiting, swallowing, knowing what is about to happen, and hoping that it will not.
“… healer!” The bandit ducks and lunges toward Dorrin.
“… ooohhhh…” A line of fire lances across Dorrin’s shoulder even as the staff drops the bandit onto the frozen ground. Dorrin looks stupidly as Kadara’s blade flashes once again.. Three bodies lie strewn around them.
“You’d better practice with that staff some more, Dorrin,” observes Brede.
Kadara glances at the big man, and Brede closes his mouth. “Are you all right?” she asks.
Dorrin looks at the slash in his sleeve, and the red line. “It’s just a surface cut, but the jacket won’t be the same.”
“The leather and quilting probably saved your arm.”
Dorrin rests against his staff, still wondering at how quickly things happened. Kadara is kneeling by the black-haired man, examining the body.
“Not much here. A gold necklace, silvers, and a few coppers.” Brede has already stripped the valuables from the other two, including the swords.
Dorrin squints. Looting the bodies makes sense, although, somehow, the thought burns a line across his brain. He rubs his forehead, but the throbbing remains.
“The blades aren’t much, but we can sell them-or teach Dorrin how to use one.”
“The staff… just need to get better…” Dorrin straightens. “What about the bodies? The ground’s frozen.” Brede smiles crookedly. “I’ll dump them up in the woods. The big cats are probably hungry.”
Kadara gives Brede another sideways glance as she cleans her blade on the tattered blue surcoat before replacing it in the scabbard. “Dorrin? Could you see if anyone else is lurking in the woods?”
The healer takes a deep breath, but he sees the wisdom of her request and sends his senses beyond the road and the nearby trees. With the headache, mild as it is, the effort brings tears to his eyes. He sways as he returns to himself. “Nothing… nothing nearby.”
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