by Kay L. Ling
Sunday evening after dinner, Jules and Elias consulted foresight gems, and both came away with the sense that Lana was out of danger, but it was unpleasant not to be certain, and Jules wished he knew what had happened to her.
Monday and Tuesday, the team passed villages in even worse condition than Corrustown, and Jules was relieved that no one wanted to stop. He’d had his fill of dangerous old buildings.
After two days of uneventful travel, everyone was bored, especially the breghlin. Elias, Jules and the gnomes lingered after dinner Tuesday evening, talking and drinking fialazza. Ben and Tina Ann went for a walk, and when they returned, Tina Ann was bubbling over with excitement. Ben had found a hole containing a family of filkins, and Tina Ann had claimed one. Jules knew breghlin sometimes kept the giant caterpillar-like creatures as pets, but he didn’t know gnomes universally hated them. Until Tina Ann walked up to Kaff with the creature draped over her shoulder and Kaff started screaming. Parcune beat a hasty retreat, clearly not fond of filkins either, but doing a better job of hiding it.
“Hush, you be scarin’ my filkin,’” Tina Ann ordered, glowering at Kaff. “Ern’t it a beauty?” she asked Elias and Jules. A thin strip of spiky brown-and-black hairs ran down the middle of its back, and the creature was the same size as the one Jules had seen at Shadowglade—six inches wide and a foot long. Thanks to its hundreds of tiny feet, it wasn’t likely to fall off Tina Ann’s shoulder.
“Get that thing out of here!” Kaff screeched, backing away.
“Is it poisonous?” Elias asked, looking surprised at Kaff’s reaction.
“’Course not,” Ben said, and Tina Ann made a face.
Kaff gave them a black look. “Better not take that into our tent.”
“I won’t. You prob’ly kill it,” Tina Ann said indignantly. “I be keepin’ it in our cart.”
Kaff stalked away.
Jules watched him go. “I guess gnomes hate filkins the way humans hate snakes and spiders.”
“If you’re going to keep it, make sure it stays in your cart,” Elias told the breghlin.
“I puts it in a sack. Won’t bother no one. Promise,” Tina Ann said, and they headed toward the cart, steering clear of Kaff.
Elias looked at Jules. “I can imagine worse pets.”
Jules smiled. “At least it doesn’t bite.”
Wednesday, the sunny weather Jules had come to take for granted finally ended. It began to sprinkle as they ate breakfast, mercifully cutting short Tina Ann’s ramblings about her new pet, which she and Ben had named Killer.
As they drove that morning, the occasional patches of blue sky looked promising, but it was impossible to outrun the dark clouds and escape the cold, drizzling rain. By lunchtime, Jules had given up hope; they were doomed to drive through miserable weather all day and camp on wet ground tonight.
Usually, the team took an hour or more for lunch. It was good to get out of the cart and stretch their legs, and they often took short walks before eating. Ben always tended the maraku, providing water drawn from barrels on the supply cart while Elias and Jules doled out the team’s food rations, and then they sat on campstools alongside the cart and ate lunch. There hadn’t been any fresh meat since Ben had shot the bird, so they were back to eating dried fruit, cheese, and jerky. Today, they would have to eat lunch in the cart, huddled under a piece of tarred canvas.
It had begun to rain harder, and even with the canvas draped over them, the wind swept in. The temperature must have dropped twenty degrees since yesterday, Jules thought gloomily, and not for the first time, he wished he were back at Shadowglade. After a week on the road with no privacy, he was sorry he had ever complained about his tiny bedroom.
They ate their meager lunch, and he and Elias tried to get comfortable. Rain pattered on the canvas they had pulled over their heads, and the motion of the cart and the utter boredom of riding began to put Jules to sleep. Soon, he drifted off and began to dream. He was in Shadowglade’s dining room, eating venison steak and potatoes with gravy, and Lana was there, as lovely as ever, her eyes sparkling as they shared some private joke.
The cart hit a rock, jolting him awake. He grumbled under his breath and tried to fall back to sleep, but it was impossible. Kaff was driving, and Kaff had a habit of finding every hole in the road.
“Slow, now. Fallen tree ahead,” Parcune called.
“I see it,” Kaff snapped, as he always did when Parcune tried to advise him.
As far as Jules was concerned, Parcune was not only a good driving instructor; he had the patience of a saint. Kaff had narrowly avoided a few mishaps, thanks to Parcune’s intervention, but Kaff insisted there had never been any danger and driving came naturally to him.
Jules reached for his canteen and took a sip. Had he been that proud and headstrong at twenty? He certainly hoped not. He pitied his father if he had. Kaff was annoying, but on the whole, he wasn’t a bad sort—just too ambitious. He wanted to become an elder, but that would never happen unless he was willing to serve others. Elias had finally told Kaff to stop fawning over him and following him everywhere. He was making a nuisance of himself. Kaff had been sulky ever since, but he’d get over it.
The last couple nights, after dinner, Kaff had donned his green robe and gone to the supply cart to hold the mysterious wooden relics. He was intent on learning their secrets since Elias continued to believe there was more to them than met the eye.
Jules and Parcune had walked by the cart, and Parcune had whispered to Jules, “He’ll give himself slivers handling those all the time. They’re fascinating gnome relics, but without gem powers, I’m not likely to solve the mystery. I lay awake thinking about them, but nothing makes sense.”
Jules came out of his reverie when the cart rolled to a stop and Parcune called, “We’ll need a hand with this tree.”
Jules said to Elias, “Stay here. We can manage.” He crawled out from under the canvas and jumped off the cart.
The rain had turned to mist. Dense fog cloaked the wood in an eerie gloom.
The supply cart came to halt behind him, and Jules called to Ben, “Help us drag the tree out of the road.”
The land on his right dropped steeply away, and he couldn’t tell how far down it went due to the fog. The land on the left was fairly level, and the tree had fallen from that side. It had branches with leaves, so it wasn’t dead.
“It’s a wonder you saw it in time,” Jules said as the three of them began to drag it away. It was as heavy as he expected, and it took a couple minutes to get it completely off the road. Jules wiped his hands on his pants. “Fog settles heaviest in the low spots. It may be some time before we drive out of this.”
“Miserable weather,” Kaff grumbled. “I’m chilled to the bone.”
Kaff and Parcune wore canvas ponchos with hoods, which did a good job of shedding the rain, but even so, hours of driving in this weather took its toll. Ben wore a hooded cape made of animal hide.
“We should call it a day and set up camp early,” Parcune said. “Obstacles smaller than a tree are hard to see in this fog, and sharp curves are treacherous.” He glanced to his right, where the land dropped off into a void.
A dry shelter sounded very appealing to Jules. “I’m sure Elias won’t object.”
“All right, then. I’ll find a safe place to pull off the road. I don’t think we’ll get stuck. This ground looks stony.”
Parcune found a level area that wasn’t heavily wooded, and they drove the carts well off the road and began to set up camp.
Tina Ann and Ben erected the tent with a little help from Parcune. They used extra canvas and posts to make a dining fly in front. Kaff carried buckets of corrustone, and Elias and Jules reheated last night’s leftover vegetable soup.
A hot meal, however simple, was soothing, and sitting around glowing corrustone felt wonderful after hours on the cart. Even so, no one was talkative. The team’s mood was as dismal as the weather. Elias said his back was sore and blamed it on sleeping on a bedroll.
Jules felt stiff and achy too. They hadn’t had a bath in days, and by now, the breghlin weren’t the only ones with body odor.
After dinner, the wind and the rain picked up, and between the fog and the overcast sky, it seemed much later than it really was. Jules wanted to turn in early and get a good night’s sleep. He hoped the tent didn’t leak.
The team had packed their bedrolls in wooden boxes to protect them from the rain. When he went into the tent, there was only one box. He was in no mood to walk back to the cart, but someone had to go.
The land was stony, with patches of groundcover, and despite today’s rain, the ground wasn’t muddy. Jules trudged to the carts and checked on the maraku. Ben had watered them and tied them to a tree. They looked up briefly and then went back to grazing.
He patted one on the flank as he passed. “You fellows don’t seem to mind the rain and the cold.” Their dense coats shed water and kept them warm.
After rummaging about under wet canvas, Jules found the box of bedrolls and started back to camp with it.
Their tent looked ghostly and insubstantial as he approached, and voices didn’t carry far in this weather. Elias was saying something Jules couldn’t quite make out, and Ben gave a bark of laughter.
“There you are,” Elias said, as Jules pushed through the tent flaps and set down the box. “We wondered where you were.”
Ben said in a low voice, “Tina Ann said you was carried off by ghostes.”
“Did not,” Tina Ann protested.
“Ghosts,” Kaff muttered derisively under his breath, shaking his head at their foolishness.
A couple nights ago, Tina Ann had wanted to tell ghost stories, and Elias had indulged her since he found breghlin superstitions fascinating. Breghlin believed in a variety of ghosts and supernatural beings, and Tina Ann’s storytelling abilities were impressive. Her low, raspy voice combined with her breghlin dialect made the eerie tales all the more chilling. The worst of Tina Ann’s spooks was a being called a guggerpatcher that only came out on moonless nights. She demonstrated what it looked like, screwing up her already-ugly face in a fierce expression, her jaw jutting forward, and her lower teeth sticking out past her upper lip.
“We may as well turn in,” Elias said. “If the weather is better in the morning, I would like to get an early start.”
It was good sleeping weather, and there was nothing else to do, anyway. The team laid out their bedrolls in the customary spots: breghlin in the rear, Jules and Elias in the center, and Kaff and Parcune in the front. Ben and Tina Ann crawled into theirs and began to snore almost immediately.
Elias was the next to fall asleep.
Kaff never snored, but he made funny whistling noises, and Parcune let out long breaths that sounded like a horse’s whinny. Jules had become all too familiar with their quirks and tried to get to sleep before the nocturnal symphony began.
He was sleeping lightly when he heard a noise, and he opened his eyes long enough to glimpse Parcune with a lantern, slipping out of the tent.
The next time Jules woke, he had a full bladder himself. The patter of rain had stopped, but he dreaded leaving the tent. Reluctantly, he threw back the covers. Kaff’s sleeping form was blocking his path, but Parcune’s bedroll was empty. Was Parcune outside again?
Jules activated his lightgem, stepped over Kaff, and opened the tent flaps. The air was fresh and cool and smelled like damp soil. Insects whirred. The fog had lifted, and through the trees, a soft orange glow heralded the approach of sunrise.
Jules went outside, ducked behind a tree to relieve himself, and then stood shivering in the cold, looking for Parcune. After a few minutes, he started to worry. He had seen Parcune leave with the lantern quite some time ago and there was no reason he’d still be outside. Even if he’d gone to check the maraku, he’d be back by now.
Jules went back inside, dressed, and grabbed his knife.
Searching the immediate area around the tent, checking the ground for footprints, he came to a clump of trees and found the lantern, dented as if it had been stepped on—and several footprints—too many to all be Parcune’s. Fear squeezed his heart and he cursed himself for sleeping so soundly. Long scuffmarks in the dirt between sets of footprints suggested strongly that someone had dragged Parcune away.
Jules walked faster, eyeing the trees and listening for sounds in case Parcune’s attackers were still around. The telltale footprints angled off to the left, and he gritted his teeth when he realized the footprints led toward the carts. Breghlin were notorious scavengers and thieves, so in addition to seizing Parcune as a slave, they’d try to steal whatever supplies they could carry. Now that S was a beetle, the days of gnome slavery were over, but news traveled slowly among the outlying breghlin clans, and they might not know it.
Something suddenly occurred to Jules—the fallen tree. It hadn’t been diseased or dead, so why had it fallen? Had ambushers intentionally tried to block the road? He hadn’t given that possibility a passing thought. Anyone hiding along the road would have seen the team move the tree. They would have noticed that the group included gnomes, breghlin, and a human. Most breghlin had never seen a human. They might be wary enough to wait for a more opportune time to attack.
Jules stopped short. His heart sank at the scene before him. Canvas lay on the ground, and someone had clearly taken supplies from the cart.
Worse, both maraku were gone.
Within minutes of hearing Jules’s report, the team was outside looking at the trail of footprints.
“Gnomes wouldn’t haul Parcune away,” Kaff said angrily, bending down to examine the tracks, “so it had to be breghlin.”
“And someone stole our supplies,” Jules added.
“Gnomes are as likely to need maraku and supplies, but they aren’t thieves,” Elias said. He fell silent and his eyes took on a distant look. Finally, he said heavily, “I received an image just now . . . a group of breghlin. At least half a dozen.”
“A breghlin scouting party,” Ben growled. “Hurry.”
“How long Parcune been gone?” Tina Ann asked.
“I’m not sure. An hour or two,” Jules told her.
“Six breghlin can’t ride two maraku. Some of them must be walking,” Kaff said.
Jules nodded. “And their trail should be easy to follow.”
“Bet they took our weapons,” Tina Ann said.
“Who needs weapons,” Kaff said with a scornful laugh. “Elias can make the ground open and swallow the breghlin . . . or something like that.”
“Only as a last resort,” Elias said drily. “We want Parcune back unharmed, along with our maraku and supplies. We don’t want vengeful breghlin following us all the way to the Amulet barrier.”
Ben said, “Wonder if they know S be a beetle.”
“Must be not,” Tina Ann said. “They took Parcune for her work camps.”
Just as Tina Ann had predicted, the swords and spears were gone. Upon further inspection, Jules discovered the breghlin had helped themselves to food, wine, and beer, but had left the fialazza. They had also ignored cookware, corrustone, tools, rope, and other supplies. Holding his breath, Jules opened the box that held the strange wooden relics.
“The gnome relics are still here,” he said, relieved to find them safe.
The team’s long faces said they’d rather have food and weapons than relics. The situation was dire, and not just because their food was gone. Without maraku, the team might never reach the Amulet barrier. Jules straightened his shoulders. “I have my knife, and we have gem powers. That will have to do.”
Staring at the supply cart wouldn’t bring back their stolen weapons, and stopping to check the carts had delayed their search. There was no telling what the breghlin would do to Parcune before the team found him, so it was best to resume the search immediately.
Now that the sun had risen, it was easier to follow tracks. Jules drew infused powers to boost his energy, and seeing Elias’s long strides, he had a feeling Elias had done the same
. Kaff didn’t need extra energy—his determination to outpace everyone, particularly Ben and Tina Ann, kept him in the lead.
The scouts couldn’t hide their trail, nor did they try. They probably thought they’d be safe once they reached their clan, but they were in for a few surprises, Jules thought with an inward grin. It was safe to say they’d never met a human, much less a gem master. Yes, this should be an interesting confrontation. Hopefully, Parcune was safe, and the team could rescue him without any bloodshed. In the past, Jules wouldn’t have cared how many breghlin were injured or killed, but these days, he pitied them for being Sheamathan’s pawns.
The team walked for miles, pausing only briefly, and Kaff began to grumble about Parcune putting the team to so much trouble. Finally, they heard voices and laughter.
“Ben and Tina Ann stand the best chance of getting Parcune back safely,” Elias said. “They should go ahead of us and talk to the clan. Kaff, you’re a primary target like Parcune, so you should stay out of sight. Should Ben and Tina Ann need assistance, Jules and I will intervene.”
At first, Jules thought Kaff would object to not playing a role in the rescue mission, but he didn’t seem to mind. His eyes flicked distrustfully to Ben and Tina Ann. “If you ask me, you should go first,” he said to Elias, “but I guess you know best.” For the first time, his expression was less than worshipful.
“Yes, I do,” said Elias curtly.
Ben and Tina Ann moved into the lead, Jules and Elias followed, and Kaff trailed at a leisurely pace as if indifferent to Parcune’s fate.
Through the trees, Jules glimpsed a crude, wooden longhouse.
Elias gave Ben and Tina Ann final instructions. “Say you’re with a scouting party from Shadowglade, and the gem masters who defeated Sheamathan are with you. Ask them to release Parcune and give back our property.”
Jules said, “What if they haven’t heard S was defeated.”