“But there are plenty of mixed-bloods in Allanmere,” Tanis said. “None of them have ever lacked part of their soul, not that I’ve heard.”
“Farryn told Aunt Shadow that Kresh aren’t born with their souls,” Jael told him. “They’re given to them in a ceremony when they become adults, kind of like the elven passage ceremony I tried last year. So I’ve never been given the Kresh part of my soul, and it’s missing.”
“How can someone else give you a soul?” Tanis asked skeptically. “More to the point, how can someone else give you part of a soul?”
Jael shrugged.
“I don’t know. But unless I want to go through the rest of my life wrecking spells and looking half-grown, I’d better find out.”
Tanis was silent, but Jael could sense the unasked questions—If Jael and Tanis could find the Kresh, could they indeed give a Kresh soul to a half-breed Kresh? And if they could, would they? Would Farryn, if he was still alive, welcome the arrival of his mixed-blood daughter, or would she be an embarrassment to him? Thankfully Tanis asked none of these questions; Jael had no answers, and she didn’t particularly want to consider the idea that even if she could find the Kresh, her whole journey might be for nothing.
But what choice did she have?
As if reading her thoughts, Tanis squeezed her shoulders comfortingly, and Jael sighed and buried her face in his shoulder. She’d been wretched for years not knowing who or what she was—walking the dagger’s edge between elf and human, Aunt Shadow had once told her, took good balance and like as not left you with sore feet anyway—but learning the answer hadn’t solved her problem. Now she was teetering on the dagger’s point between three peoples, and every step cut to the bone.
Tanis’s arm around her was warm and solid, and Jael was glad that Tanis had suggested moving the pallets together, even though she had nothing to give him but her friendship and she knew he wanted much more. Tanis snored slightly, and Jael grinned in the darkness, unaccountably comforted by the sound.
The dagger’s point wasn’t quite so sharp when you had a friend to hold you in the dark, even if he snored while he did it.
They awoke to the farmer’s good-natured cursing in the dim near-dawn light as he fed the livestock and milked the cows, and a pail clanged at the foot of the loft ladder. Jael snuggled deeper into Tanis’s side, then turned on her back abruptly before her nose could drip on his tunic. Gods, she could hardly breathe!
Hay and fur, Jael realized disgustedly. They’d been sleeping all night on hay in a livestock barn.
“They’s bread, milk an’ hot parridge,” a gruff voice announced. “Ye younglin’s eat up an’ begone with ye. ‘S a fine day lightin’. Hear?”
“We hear, and thank you,” Tanis called down. He carefully eased his arm out from under Jael with a grin of apology. The grin turned to a grimace as Tanis felt his arm, then shook it, wincing, rubbing his hand as he stumbled to the ladder.
Jael stretched and sneezed several times, then grimaced herself. She’d been so comfortable against Tanis’s side last night, but this morning her left arm, wedged between them all night, was half-numb and as stiff and prickling as Tanis’s apparently was. She rifled desperately through her pack for a kerchief to mop her stuffed nose, then poured a few drops of her potion into a cup of water.
“Milk, bread, and porridge as promised,” Tanis said cheerfully, setting down a tray holding a cloth-wrapped loaf, a small jug, and a deep bowl. “That half-Moon seems like a better price this morning. And the rain seems to have moved east. Fill your stomach, because if we’re going to catch that caravan, we’ll have to dine and sup, too, as we ride.”
Jael was not at all fond of porridge, but she ate heartily, reminding herself that things could be worse—such as having to live on herbal teas and boiled greens for days on end, as she had before her elven passage ceremony. This time Jael and Tanis packed for rain despite the clear sky, tucking everything that could be damaged by water deep into the packs and covering each bundle with waxed hides.
The rutted wagon track was sodden and slick, and Jael and Tanis rode in the grass at the side of the road rather than force the horses to flounder through the mud. The sun rose in a perfect cloudless sky, Argent’s potion had wondrously cleared Jael’s nose, and Jael wanted to shout with joy. Now this was what a journey should be—the road, the great wide world before her and the open sky above her, a wonderful horse to ride and a good friend to ride with. Who needed caravans and cities?
In his year of apprenticeship at the Guild of Thieves (and probably during his tenure as an acolyte at the Temple of Baaros, too, although Jael would never suggest such a thing), Tanis had learned a good many bawdy songs, and Jael knew as many more, so they spent most of the morning singing and laughing helplessly as they rode. By noon, however, the laughter rang a little hollow as they both grew stiff and tired of riding and the unclouded sunlight became hot and glaring instead of bright and pleasantly warming. Despite Tanis’s morning advice, they were forced to stop; having packed the load for rain, Jael and Tanis now had to unpack several of the bags to reach the rations they had tucked away underneath their other supplies. Jael had chosen elven journey cakes for the trip, and the cakes of dried ground meat, nuts, and dried fruit, held together with rich rendered fat, were tasty, but Jael wished wistfully for fresh, cold water instead of the tepid liquid that had sat in her skins all night and under the sun all morning. Another mistake—they should have refilled their waterskins from the farmer’s well while they’d had the chance. Tanis complained bitterly because all the wine had soured. He blamed the hot morning sun, and Jael held her peace; it was far more likely that the wine had been protected by an aging spell, which Jael had ruined when she repacked the food that morning.
Tanis was not pleased at midafternoon, either, when Jael insisted that they stop to rest the horses.
“We’re not going to catch that caravan like this,” he grumbled, uncorking another skin of wine. He sipped, grimaced, and poured out the wine on the ground.
“I can’t help it,” Jael sighed. “They’re hot and tired and upset. I can’t ride another step feeling that.”
“By Baaros’s purse, Jael, I’m hot and tired and upset, too,” Tanis said bitterly. “And none of us are going to feel any better if we’re attacked by bandits tonight while we sleep. Including your poor, hot, tired horses, who will be stolen and ridden and likely treated somewhat less kindly by those bandits.”
“Well, why don’t you tell them that?” Jael said irritably.
“Why don’t you?” Tanis snapped back. “You’re the one who’s so concerned with how our three horses feel.”
“If I had enough control of my beast-speaking ability to tell our horses anything at all,” Jael said between clenched teeth, “I would tell them to shut up and stop griping, which is the same thing I’d like to tell you. So shut up and stop griping.”
Tanis glared at Jael, who glared back. At last Jael half-smiled—as close to an apology as she was going to get—and Tanis sighed and smiled back.
“Think your friends are about ready to go?” he asked.
“I think I can bribe them with a couple dried apples,” Jael said. “Know any more bawdy songs?”
“Do you know the one about the three priests, the courtesan, and the goat?” Tanis grinned.
“You do the verses, I’ll do the chorus,” Jael chuckled.
Occasionally they passed farmers in their fields despite the mud, most of them picking rocks out of the soil in preparation for plowing or planting. Jael deemed it wise to keep a distance, since these farmers were still close enough to Allanmere to trade their crops in the market there, but Tanis did not hesitate to hail the men and women as they passed by, asking how long it had been since the merchant caravan had passed. When Jael and Tanis rode near another farmhouse, Tanis asked for and got permission to draw water from the farmer’s well to rinse the wineskins, replenish their water supply, and water the horses. After speaking with one of the children runnin
g in the yard, Tanis re-lievedly reported to Jael that the caravan was no more than two or three hours ahead of them.
“But it’s almost dark,” Jael said doubtfully. “Even if we just keep riding until we find them, what will they think, us riding up to them in the dark?”
“They’ll think we’re riding front for a troop of brigands,” Tanis sighed. “That’s what I’d think. But they’d rather have us where they can see us than drive us away and wonder where we are and what we’re doing. So they’ll take our coin and watch us very narrowly all the way to Westenvale. But when we get there, if we can find another caravan soon, they can inquire of this one, and at least they’ll know we’re not highwaymen.”
Cheered by the proximity of the caravan, Jael took the lead so that when the sun descended below the horizon, her elven vision could help them avoid bad spots in the road. At last they saw the fires of the caravan ahead. Almost simultaneously, a voice boomed out of a thicket.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Caden, and my elven friend is Acorn,” Tanis said. “We’re bound for Westenvale. We were hoping to join your caravan in Allanmere, but were delayed in leaving and then slowed by the storm yesterday. May we speak to the wagonmaster?”
“Leave your horses and your weapons here and I’ll take you to Wagonmaster Nezed,” the voice said from the thicket, but a second figure appeared from the other side of the road. A tall woman armored in leather and carrying a crossbow approached them.
“I’ll hold your horses,” she said.
“I’ll talk to the wagonmaster, and Acorn can stay with our horses and our weapons,” Tanis corrected.
This was apparently acceptable, for a man, also armed with a crossbow, emerged from the thicket and wordlessly beckoned Tanis to follow him to the cluster of wagons. The woman stayed where she was, crossbow still in her hands.
“Acorn, eh?” she said. “Sounds like one of those local elves near Allanmere. You look it, too. Is that where you’re from?”
Jael nodded.
“My mother’s mother was Silvertip,” she said briefly. Jael knew something of the history of the Silvertip clan from Mist, who had Silvertip ancestry; she could even manage the Silvertip accent in her Olvenic if she had to.
“I’m Reda, second in the guard company,” the woman said, lowering the crossbow slightly. “I’ve met some of the elves in Allanmere. They’re honest enough folk, a jolly lot, too, not so distant and puffed up on their own wind as the ones from the el-ven cities to the east. Is this your first time out from the forest?”
Jael hesitated, then nodded again.
“Caden’s traveled,” she said. “So I decided to come with him this time.”
“Wagonmaster’ll let you come,” Reda said after a moment’s thought. “But he’ll charge you dear, unless you can do anything useful. Can you?”
“I’m good with horses,” Jael said. She could break spells, too, but she was hardly going to say that. “I can cook.”
“We’ve cooks aplenty,” Reda told her. “And two grooms. But several of our horses are limping a bit—not exactly lame, but it’s slowed us up a good bit. Groom says it’s just stone bruises, but in this mud? Have a look, and if you can do anything, I’ll give the wagonmaster a word to slip back some coin to you and your friend.”
“I’ll do that, when Caden returns,” Jael said relievedly. She did know a fair bit about horses, mostly from the many times she’d been given stable chores as punishment, but also from a genuine interest; most horses didn’t much care how clumsy Jael was or whether she made the palace mages’ silver-polishing spell tarnish the goblets instead. If the horses were indeed stone-bruised, Jael’s beast-speaking sensitivity (if it happened to be working at all at the moment) would tell her that quickly enough, and she could recognize a poorly shod hoof if she saw one.
Tanis returned presently, attempting to look irritated, and Jael guessed that the wagonmaster had, as Tanis predicted, charged rather more than the impoverished younglings they were pretending to be would have been glad to pay.
“We can travel with them,” Tanis said when he reached Jael. “They’ll feed us, and we can sleep under one of the wagons if it rains, but we’re to make our own camp a little away from theirs otherwise. Which assures we don’t sneak into their wagons and rob them blind at night, and makes us sentries of a sort, too, and they don’t even have to pay us.”
“Reda wants me to look at some of the horses,” Jael told him. “If you’ll pick a spot for us to sleep and see about supper, I’ll go with her.”
Tanis agreed, and Jael could see that he was actually as pleased with the arrangement as she was. He might feign disappointment that their camp was to be separate, but they both were relieved. Their isolation would mean less contact with the merchants and therefore less need to construct a more and more elaborate lie. Jael preferred to avoid the merchants for another reason—any of the merchants might be annoyed, or worse, suspicious, if his firestarting spell or soupstone suddenly failed when Jael walked by.
Jael was relieved to find that the horses were, on the whole, healthy and contented creatures, preoccupied with their food and well accustomed to handling. Aside from their natural weariness from the day’s work and one horse’s bad tooth, however, none of them were feeling any pain that Jael could sense, nor were any of the horses Reda indicated favoring a sore hoof. When Jael touched the first affected horse, however, she was surprised by the familiar tingling sensation she immediately felt. Jael’s beast-speaking might be rather one-sided and unreliable, but her magic sense was usually correct. But why would there be magic on the horses? Surely the merchants would not have fetter-spelled the horses, as they were securely tethered.
“Does this caravan have a mage?” Jael asked Reda.
Reda shook her head.
“We’re not carrying magical goods,” she said. “Hiring a mage to accompany our caravan would drive the prices up. Why?”
Jael ran her hands slowly over the horse’s body, neck, and head. The tingling sensation continued until she slid her hands down the horse’s front legs to its fetlocks. Abruptly the sensation ceased under her touch as the spell was disrupted. Some variation of a fetter-spell, then. But why?
Jael checked each of the horses. All had been bespelled, although on some of the horses the warm tingling was fainter than on the others; the spell had likely been cast by an amateur mage or a very inept one. She checked each horse again, making certain that her touch had dissolved the spell.
“I’m not a real mage,” Jael said, thinking fast, “but I believe your horses have been hinder-spelled. I have a little of the mage-gift, not much, but I believe I’ve broken the spell.”
Reda narrowed her eyes warily.
“I’ll have to speak to the grooms and the wagonmaster,” she said. “You should’ve gotten permission before using magic on our horses. Go back to your camp and stay there.”
Jael sighed and obeyed. Tanis had already laid out their bedrolls and built a small fire—the merchants had brought peat for fires, as there was no wood to be found on the open plains—and he shook his head when Jael told him what had happened.
“The wagonmaster’s going to be furious, but not necessarily at us,” he said. “The possibility that there was a hinder-spell on the horses means that either someone in the caravan now, or more likely someone back in Allanmere, wants this caravan delayed. It could be a competitor, but it’s probably an organized band of highwaymen.”
“Why would highwaymen want the caravan slowed down?” Jael asked him. “It’s not as though the spell’s enough to stop the wagons completely, and they can’t travel all that fast to begin with. What’s to be gained?”
“If the highwaymen are setting up an ambush, they need a certain amount of time for their henchmen in Allanmere, who know when the caravan’s leaving and what it’s loaded with, to ride all the way around the caravan well out of sight, reach the rest of the band, and prepare the ambush,” Tanis told her. “I’ve heard of such plans
before. Any band of highwaymen willing to dare a caravan this size and this well guarded would have to be fairly well manned and organized.”
“Are you going to warn the wagonmaster?” Jael asked.
“I doubt I’ll need to,” Tanis said, shrugging. “Anyone who’s been in this business for a few years will know how these people work. What he’ll end up doing, much though it hurts him, is thanking you kindly for the warning once it’s obvious tomorrow that the hinder-spell’s gone. As things stand now, though, it’s just as well I’d already claimed our supper, or likely we wouldn’t get any. It really would have been better to ask permission first.”
“I couldn’t do that,” Jael sighed, and after a moment, Tanis nodded his understanding, although neither wanted to voice their thoughts, as someone from the caravan might be within earshot. Of course the hinder-spell would have been broken as soon as Jael touched it, and if there had been a mage or even another magic-spotter in the caravan who later examined the horses, he would find no spell, and the wagonmaster would either assume that Jael had been lying or that she had already broken the spell. Either way would have earned Jael and Tanis the same suspicion they were already receiving. At least this way the horses’ improved pace on the morrow would prove Jael’s honesty.
Despite her weariness, Jael found that sleep eluded her. She felt safer with the guards and merchants nearby, but the ground was hard and uncomfortable, and she missed the soft hay of the night before, even if it had made her nose run. When she spent the summers with Mist in the Heartwood, they’d stayed in his comfortable hanging bower in a tree near Inner Heart. Even on their frequent journeys through the Heartwood they’d woven sleeping nests in willows when they could, or at least piled leaves or some such to soften their bedrolls. Here there was a lump the size of a small mountain under her hip, and the bruises from her last sword practice ached.
The small fire, too, had been good enough to cast a little light and warm the roast fowl for their supper, but the ground was cold, unlike the hay in the barn the night before. Jael squirmed uncomfortably, remembering the warmth of the shared blankets and of Tanis’s arm around her the night before. She wriggled around onto her other side, scrabbled under her bedroll, and tossed the offending rock aside. Now there was a hollow where the rock had been.
Dagger's Point (Shadow series) Page 6