"Didn't you used to ride double?" The demon appeared ahead of him this time, stepping out from behind a crossway cactus. Its face was flat as a pebble, its mouth clay-red and leering. "Pretty little thing. Oh, and the Hand, too."
Gabriel felt the temptation to load the carbine with rock salt and see how the demon enjoyed that but cleaning the barrel of residue afterward probably wasn’t worth it.
"I'll be sure to pass along the compliment to Flatfoot. Gotta warn you, though, the mule'd be more likely to stomp you into goo than play nice." He grinned at the thought, and it wasn’t a nice grin. "And if you were thinking in the other direction, the Hand would scrape you up on her toast."
The demon made a kissy noise and disappeared again behind a rock. Gabriel didn't quite hold his breath, but when Steady had gone several strides further and the air around them remained silent, he may have exhaled a little in relief. If he’d known invoking Isobel would make the demon scamper, he would have done it hours ago.
"Still and all," he said out loud when he felt he might not be jinxing himself, "if something felt the need to harass us, better demon than magician."
Steady's ears flicked back and forth as though in agreement. The horses hadn’t liked Farron Easterly much either, Gabriel recalled, although the mule had been quickly won over. Sometimes Gabriel wondered about Flatfoot, he truly did. Then again, the mule had adored Isobel from the start as well.
"Cozying up to the uncanny, should expect nothing else from a mule," he said, taking off his hat to wipe the sweat from his forehead yet again.
Too much time in the mountains, and then down south; he’d forgotten how warm the desert could become, even in winter. They’d been riding steadily since dawn, the sun keeping pace with them overhead, and a wiser man would have made camp come noon, waiting until the afternoon shadows to move on. And yet Gabriel could not bring himself to stop, feeling as though the world-tree was still just at his back, outstretched branches looming over him. The first few times he'd twisted in the saddle to look; now he clamped down on the urge, grit his teeth, and kept looking ahead.
Not that there was much to see. The trail they were following cut through rolling hills, the higher ridge of a mountain running to their right, tips still blanketed with the grey-white of snow, but the land around him was a green and gray winterscape of grass and stone. The bandit hadn't exaggerated; this was a barren place. Even the animal life was scarce, the occasional rustle of something in the grass or a bird swooping low overhead the only signs of life before the demon had shown up.
He didn't miss the demon at all but suspected that might change if the scenery didn't become more interesting soon. He'd lost the knack of riding alone.
"Think she's all right?" He didn't wait for an ear-flick this time, but went on, "Yeah, she's all right." He took comfort in the earlier reassurance but did not try to reach out again; when you were given an unexpected gift, it was better not to return to that well uninvited. Some things took offense at that.
He tilted his head back, pushing his hat back enough to squint up at the sky. Ink-dark clouds were beginning to form along the horizon, obscuring the edge of the mountains and stretching into the direction they were heading. "Rain tonight. Better hope we find a decent campsite, or we're in for a soggy supper."
He misjudged; the first drop began to fall well before nightfall, thick, heavy drops that found their way down the back of his collar and worked their way up his pants' leg, turning the sandy soil underfoot into a slick mess. Steady lived up to his name, each heavy hoof coming down with deliberate precision, but his head hung low and his flanks shuddered occasionally, indicating his displeasure. They were both Road-hardened, but this sort of cold, wind-driven rain was nothing man nor beast should be out in.
In the mountains there would have been rock overhangs to shelter under, and in the woods he'd have bent branches into protection, but there was no help for it here but to keep moving. Camping now was out of the question: the soil could only hold so much water before it would refuse it, throwing up fierce torrents that could wash a man's camp away before he'd woken and drown him in the process.
It might be suitably ironic for water to kill him that way, but Gabriel had no desire for that to be his epitaph.
At least the sense of the world-tree, like the Mudwater, had finally faded into the distance, or perhaps been washed away by the rain.
By the time the clouds darkened enough for him to determine the sun had set, Gabriel would have welcomed the demon's return, if only for there to be something other than the weight of sodden cloth and the endless tickle of a sneeze building in the back of his throat to distract him. He might well have bargained his soul for a crackling fire and a cup of warm anything. But the landscape, other than rising slightly, sandy soil turning to slippery rocks, did not change, and he resigned himself to continuing throughout the night and making camp when the sun rose or the rains stopped, whichever came first.
"What the—" Steady had halted, all four limbs gathering square under him, and Gabriel shifted out of his half-dozing state: tension sung throughout the horse's body, telling his rider that he'd sensed or seen something the human could not. "All right boy, I got ya." He gathered the reins lightly in one hand, reassuring the horse that he was paying attention now, and settled his breathing, ears straining to hear anything past the steady beat of the rain.
Just as he was deciding that whatever Steady had reacted to had moved on, there was a shift of shadows to his left, then a voice came out of the darkness, deep, male, and filled with amusement.
"If you've no desire to turn into a fish, you might want to come with us."
Gabriel had no idea who was speaking, or where they might be leading him, but his other options were even less appealing, so he turned Steady toward the source of the voice and moved him forward into a walk again.
Much to his surprise and pleasure, the shadowed voice—which turned into a shadowed figure on horseback, draped in an oilskin that Gabriel was deeply jealous of —soon led him not to an encampment, but an actual shed, complete with a door and a roof that did not leak. The floor underneath was soft, and when the rider reached up to light a lantern hanging overhead, Gabriel saw to his astonishment that it was covered not with straw or grasses, but brownish-green rugs, layered against each other to create a patchwork flooring.
"We're here," his companion said needlessly, sliding down from his own horse, which, Gabriel was able to see now, bore neither saddle nor bridle, just a loose rope halter. The stranger pulled the oilcloth off his body and hung it on a hook, and in doing so reminded Gabriel that he was sitting like a fool, dripping wet. He slid down, wincing as his boots squelched wetly on the rugs.
"Don't worry, they're old. Here," and the man threw him something, Gabriel caught it instinctively. It was a small towel, threadbare but dry. "Won't do you much good, but it'll be enough to wipe yourself down until we can get to a fire."
Gabriel took off his hat and mopped his face and neck dry, studying the other man as he bought his horse to the far end of the shed, where he dumped a pail of grain into a wooden trough. In the lamplight, his savior was a narrow-built man, greying hair slicked against his skull, a sharply pointed beard covering his chin, and skin the color of a well-worn saddle. He turned to look at Gabriel, then grinned, showing several missing teeth. "Looks like we got you before you went all fish-like after all. Well, make your beast comfortable, and come on."
There was a hook in the wall for the bridle, and a wooden ledge below to store the saddle. Gabriel hesitated a moment, then shrugged and left his pack and saddlebags with it. If he had in fact fallen in with bandits, they would rob him will he nill he. But there was no reason to give offense up front in presuming that they would.
Expecting to have to go back out into the rain, he was pleasantly surprised that instead his guide led him through a narrow door at the other end of the shed, and out into a covered walkway. The rain fell in sheets on either side, but the path itself remained dry, the
stones crunching softly underfoot. Through the downpour, he could see other buildings in what looked like a half-circle stretching away from the shed. If this was a bandit's enclave, they were more profitable than he would have expected, this far from anywhere.
"I'm Henry, by the way," his companion said, almost as an afterthought.
"Gabriel."
"Pleasure to meet you, Gabriel. Welcome to Rabbit's Mound."
The path led to a larger structure, a low-ceilinged hall filled with long wooden tables, currently filled with nearly two dozen bodies, adults and children, plus a handful of shaggy-coated dogs lounging about on the stone floor without regard for the humans who had to step over them or risk spilling their meals. A few of the adults paused what they were doing to look at him, but most went about their conversations as though having a dripping-wet stranger appear was nothing out of the ordinary.
From the way Henry was acting, Gabriel decided, it may have been. Did they make a point of rescuing bedraggled travelers? Or had he merely been fortunate that Henry was out in the rain?
"Miguel!" Henry veered off to yell into an adjoining room. From the aroma and clatter coming from within, Gabriel determined that it was a kitchen, even as a man appeared in the doorway, a wooden spoon in one hand and a long apron covering him from chest to feet.
"Whatever you're slopping up, make it two, please," Henry said, then looked back at the room. "And someone get us a towel and a rug! Man's dripping to death and nobody wants his haint hanging around the fire, do they?"
Before Gabriel had time to look around more, he found himself seated on a smooth wooden bench in front of the fire burning steadily inside a semi-circular stone fire pit, a narrow chimney bringing the smoke up and out through the roof. There were more rugs here, scattered under the tables, and one placed under his feet. Someone handed him a towel, as worn as the previous one but considerably larger, and stood patiently next to him until he realized they were waiting for him to remove his coat and hand it to them.
He did so, and the jacket underneath, leaving him in dry-but-thin shirtsleeves, and sodden trousers he had no plans to remove just then, no matter what dry replacements they brought him. He did, however, remove his boots and socks, placing them closer to the hearth to dry. He felt naked enough as-was, but again, no-one seemed to notice. The rug was warm under his toes, the wooden floor underneath that smooth and gleaming with wear.
Whatever this place was, they had been here for some time.
The towel was thin, but it soaked the damp from his hair and dried his feet, and by the time he set it aside, Henry had returned, holding two wooden bowls filled with what smelled like spiced lamb. Gabriel was not ashamed to admit that his mouth watered.
"Eat up," Henry advised, sitting down next to him and handing over one of the bowls, plus a tin spoon. "Miguel's cooking always goes fast. You come in on a night when Leah's in the kitchen... not so much."
"I heard that!" a woman's voice called for a nearby table, and Henry flipped a hand dismissively at her. "You hear me, but you're not gainsaying me, are you?"
"You take turns cooking?" The stew was, in fact, delicious, with a hint of fruity sweetness to it that he couldn't place.
"Take turn doing pretty much everything," Henry said. "Some folk got skills that can't be shared out, of course, but for the most part, yeah. That’s how we survive. The Mound got started when a wagon train broke down on the way elsewhere, some thirty years back. Rest of the group went on, but some folk decided they’d rather stay put. Place suited ‘em."
"You?" It was beyond rude to ask, but Henry just chuckled, tucking into his own meal. "Nah. I may look old but I ain't that old. My folks had a steading north of here, part of the Tua tribe lands, but I was never much of a farmer. When they died, we let the land go back to the tribe, and I ended up here. Most of us here now, we wandered in after." He nodded toward the kitchen. "Miguel came from the mountains, one of the mining towns, lost part of his leg in a cave-in. Anna and her brood came after her man died. She's a tanner, we hadn't had one of them before, so we took her in with open arms." He grinned again, the wrinkles of his face falling into position so easily Gabriel decided he probably did that a lot. "We make her work outside town proper, though. Don't know what witchcraft she uses, but it smells like things that died twice over in a heat storm."
"Tanneries tend to, yes." Gabriel's impression of the town, already positive, took another tip upward. They might not fish for travelers, but they were clearly welcoming of them. "And it looks like you've a weaver here, too?" He glanced at the nearest rug, then back at Henry.
"Mmm. The Sperrings. Entire family, for generations." He took another bite of his own stew and swallowed. "We graze sheep and goats—the bastards seem to thrive on cactus and weeds—and they turn the shearings into rugs. Traders take them for sale, all the way to Liberdad."
Liberdad was the Free Town, just south of Red Stick, where no nation claimed jurisdiction. If the rugs made it down there, they might easily be gracing homes in the States or Spain, or even France. Gabriel was impressed and thought that might explain the size of the town, and its apparent wealth.
"Do you have much tillable land?" He didn't know much about farming, but the last he'd been able to see around him, he wouldn't have thought much would grow, worth the effort it took.
Henry made a back-and-forth gesture with his hand, and a pursed lip, before saying, "Enough. We've the fortune to rest in the bend of a creek, Rabbit's Kick. Legend is that Rabbit shat here so many times on his way elsewhere, seeds sprouted and grew. That's where the town's name came from."
Henry shrugged, putting his now-empty bowl and spoon on the floor under the bench. "It's not much, but we grow and we hunt, and we make do. There's some silver that runs through the creek, Miguel taught folk how to scoop for that, and a road-trader comes through every year or so and takes up whatever we've to spare. It's makeshift and chancy, but it's home."
Gabriel looked around, noting the number of children in the room, wondering if this was the total population of the town, or if others took their meals elsewhere. "And you bring strangers into it without a thought as to the risks?"
Henry snorted. "You're one man, surrounded by dozens. That knife at your side might be sharp, but I misdoubt it could take us all, all at once?"
"I might have been a magician..."
"A magician would not have accepted the offer of aid."
Gabriel allowed, with a sideways tilt of his head, as that was likely true. Magicians were not only mad they were arrogant in their madness.
"Still. You should not be so trusting. I might be bearing a sickness."
"Then all the more reason to bring you here. We have an excellent healer, and even a priest if you feel the need to be shriven."
That raised Gabriel's eyebrows. Preachermen were not uncommon in the Territory, jumping from town to town for their keep, but a priest was far rarer. Something about close proximity to the devil made them uneasy, did not encourage them to build their churches here, although to the best of Gabriel's recollection the devil himself had never objected to their presence as such.
"I've told you before, Henry, I was not a priest, merely a brother of contemplation."
Gabriel had an excellent memory for voices. And he knew that one.
The newcomer had come up from the right side, stopping just shy of in front of them so as not to block the warmth of the fire. Stocky-built, his appearance was not particularly bettered by the brown robe he wore, but Gabriel's eye slid past that to the round, sallow-skinned face, and the close-cropped hair that emphasized surprisingly delicate ears. The last time he’d seen the man, the pate of his skull had been visible, the hair a shaggy ring around it.
"Welcome to Rabbit's Mound," the monk said, offering a hand to shake.
Gabriel set aside his bowl to take it, giving a firm grip. "Thank you.... Zacarías, yes?"
The monk's jaw dropped, and Gabriel waited, amused, as recognition stirred behind his eyes. "The—"
There was no reason for him to deny his connection to Isobel, if that was what the monk had been reaching for, but there had been a simple enjoyment to being nothing more than Gabriel for the moment, and he was not quite ready to give that up.
"Gabriel. Yes."
Henry had leaned back slightly, his gaze rising to Zacarías and then dropping back to Gabriel. "So... I have no need to introduce you, then."
"I met Gabriel on my travels before coming to the Mound," Zacarías agreed, looking far more placid than he had the last time Gabriel had seen him, in the aftermath of their battle with the spell-creature nearly a year before. A spell-creature caused by magic the Spanish King had sent across the Knife, in an attempt to undermine and unnerve the Territory. It had backfired badly, but not before several monks had died, and Gabriel had taken some nasty scars.
Gabriel mapped the Territory in his head from where he'd last seen the monk and his kin, frowning at the results. "I had thought you planned to return home?" Home across the Mother's Knife to Spanish-held lands, and not lingering in the Territory.
"God had other plans for me," the monk said with a shrug. "My brothers continued on without me, if you were thinking to ask. Only I felt the call to remain."
"He's one of ours," Henry said, the warning quiet but clear. A Spaniard in the Territory was not unheard of—travel across the Knife was difficult, but determined settlers came through nonetheless—but there were tensions nonetheless, due to that nation’s overt hostility, and stated intent of expanding their borders northward.
"I've no offense with Zacarías," Gabriel assured his host. "If he felt the... call to remain, then he's as welcome as any here." That was the base of the Devil's Agreement, after all, to allow those who needed the Territory to find it, while keeping out those who saw it only as a thing to be conquered.
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