"Easy, son," Ehren said, disentangling one cramped hand to slide his hand along the horse's neck, sluicing away the foam. Still more than a little dazed himself, he gingerly straightened to look around.
The valley had widened out, its features grown gentler and more inviting, greenery sprouting along the little creek. As Ricasso finally slowed to a walk on his own, Ehren rearranged the knot of fingers, mane, and reins into something that made sense, and rotated the shoulder that must have taken more than one blow. The entire right side of his body was a shout of bruises, and he checked his sudden impulse to dismount and inspect Ricasso.
Once down, he wasn't at all sure he would make it back up again— and he didn't think it was time for that yet.
Ricasso snorted, loud and hard enough to rock Ehren with movement of his body. He snorted again, ducked his head down, and gave the bit a quick cross-jawed chew. "Good boy," Ehren told him softly, offering him another pat and letting the reins slide through his fingers.
Only then did Ehren straighten to attention at what he was finally focused enough to see. Just ahead of them, down below the trail and half in the creek, lay a man. Even from a distance Ehren could see the bright splash of blood soaking the ground around the man's head, almost obscuring the rock there.
Whoever and whatever the man was, Ehren's only clues would be what he could glean from the body. Even the horse was gone, taking its brands and breeding with it. Painfully, Ehren slid from Ricasso's back, clutching the snarled mane when his legs threatened to give way. He glanced back at the settling finality of dust-hazed rocks behind him— Laine, Shette, fate unknown— and went to do his job.
~~~~~
"Get back, get back!" Shette screamed at the mules as the first stone missiles shot past them. The muted roar of moving rock swelled, but the mules struggled to respond. Their efforts fast edged into panic— Laine threw himself off Nell and jerked Shette away from the mules as Spike reared, plunging in the harness and triggering Clang's fear. They fought one another, the harness, and the weight of the wagon as Laine grappled with Shette.
"You can't do anything for them— now run!" He pressed Nell's reins in her hands and gave her a shove. A massive chunk of rock slid into the side of the wagon, and it lurched toward them— Shette seemed suddenly to realize their danger, and lit out for the back of the caravan.
Laine ran for Shaffron, who was tied to the back of the wagon. The horse struck at him, wild with fear, and Laine made several aborted attempts before he finally darted in to jerk the lead rope free— Shaffron wheeled around and galloped away.
Laine wasted another instant for a regretful glance at his mules— but when he saw Clang go down under a wave of stone, he ran.
His whole world became the roar of tumbling stone and the unsteady ground beneath his feet. He raced by another abandoned wagon and its panicking team, and a third wagon whose occupants were still trying to back it. At the fourth wagon he dared to turn around— and there stopped short, overcome by awe at the mass of stone tumbling so inexorably down the hill where he'd only just been. A pebble pinged off his forehead; he scarcely felt it.
Eventually the rock stopped moving and the rumble died away, replaced by several wailing children and an array of horses and mules calling anxiously to one another. The sounds came to him as though through a filter of cloth, and still all he could do was look at the spot where he'd been. Where Ehren had been, and where there was now nothing but jumbled stone, some as big as the mules there were now no sign of.
"Laine." It was Machara's voice, and it sounded far away. He just blinked. Her hand came down on his arm and squeezed it, painfully. "Laine, what the Hells happened?"
"Avalanche," Ansgare said, puffing up on foot behind them and stopping on the other side of Laine from Machara. "This spot has always made me nervous. But surely nothing we did triggered— Laine, where's Shette?"
"Back a ways," Machara said shortly. "With Sevita, crying her eyes out. Better to ask, where's Ehren?"
At that, Laine gathered his wits. "I don't know," he said. "He was on Ricasso. He tried to outrun it."
"If he didn't, I doubt we'll ever find him." Machara's voice was grim, and her grip on Laine's arm had turned into something less urgent, and more consoling.
"We didn't cause this, Ansgare," Laine said suddenly, turning away from the avalanche for the first time. Another large stone ricocheted down the hill before them, triggering a trickle of tiny slides at its impact points. "There was someone here working magic. We surprised him, and he started the avalanche. I'll bet it was the spell he was setting up in the first place. If we hadn't seen him..." He met the shorter man's gaze, settling his odd-colored eyes on Ansgare's suddenly flinty blue ones.
Ansgare took a slow, deep breath, controlling everything but the flare of his nostrils. "That's it, then. We're a caravan of merchants, not warriors and magic users. We can't fight this. We'll stick to Therand for a while. That Sherran of Grannor keeps her country safe for the likes of us."
"But there's got to be a reason!" Laine burst out. "No one would go to all this trouble for nothing!"
"Son, I don't care about the reason. It's obvious enough that we're stepping on someone's toes. The old wandering spells didn't keep us out, so someone's upped the stakes. If we'd triggered this slide while were in the middle of that section, we'd have lost more than—" He stopped short, looking ahead to assess just what they had lost.
"My mules," Laine said, really realizing it for the first time. Hardly loveable, they were still companions. And they'd spent their last few moments in terror, anchored to a wagon in the path of several tons of deadly rock. "And..."
And maybe Ehren. But he wasn't going to say that out loud yet.
His feelings about Ehren sometimes ran up against one another— admiration for the man tangled with the understanding of just who he was…what he was. He'd ever been aware they didn't really know Ehren's business here... and he'd never shaken the menace of the threatening aura he'd once seen at Ehren's chest. He'd caught the occasional stray expression on Ehren's face aimed his way, as well— a consideration too deep to be casual.
But undeniably, despite or perhaps because of it all, he'd begun to think of the man as friend. A friend who didn't deserve to die like this.
As if any one does, even mules. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and looked at Ansgare. "Keep Shette here. I'm going to see... what's left."
"It's probably not safe," Machara said, though her voice made it clear she knew he wouldn't listen.
"Probably not."
They walked with him to Bessney's tinker's outfit, the new leading wagon of the caravan. There was a pile-up of smaller rocks on the uphill side of her square, enclosed wagon; its right wheels were tilted off the ground ever so slightly. The two stout ponies that drew it were tangled in the broken wagon tongue and their traces; they stood together and trembled, and the offside pony bled freely from a dozen cuts. The nearside pony had a serious gash in its leg from the broken tongue, and at first glance, Laine wasn't sure it could be saved.
"Have Shette run back for the blacksmith," Ansgare said to the tinker sharply. "She's at Sevita's wagon. Kaeral and Dimas will help you. We'll get you squared away."
Bessney trembled as hard as her horses. She nodded mutely and trotted unsteadily back down the line.
"It'll give them both something to do." Ansgare's voice held resignation as they stepped over the first of the rocks in their path. A few more steps and there was no path, just rocks, scrunching, sliding over one another, squirting out from beneath their feet and blocking their way. Ansgare went a few more steps and stopped.
"I think it would be better to wait. We've got repairs and people to see to. Let's make sure it's stable before we walk here."
Laine shook his head. "You see to things, Ansgare. I've got to find the mules. I want to make sure they're... not suffering. And I want to look ahead— see if Ehren's there."
"I'll stay with him," Machara told Ansgare. At Laine's sharp
look, she shrugged. "No one should have to do this alone."
He hadn't expected it of her. Efficient, good at her job, kept to herself... as if she read the thoughts in his expression, Machara shrugged again, and walked out onto the scree of the avalanche.
She was the one to find the smashed remnant of the wagon. Most of the goods within it were strewn through the rocks; Laine picked up a bent plate, turning it over in his hands as he made his way to where Machara stood.
"You can probably salvage some of it," she said.
Laine didn't respond— not with Clang's twisted body just below them and riveting his attention. Machara moved onward, sliding downhill while Laine resolutely turned his back on the mule and pried loose one of the slats of the wagon, reaching into the storage area to see what was left.
When he looked up, Machara was straightening from a crouch, her knife by her side and her expression grim. She said nothing when she joined him again, and he didn't ask. Some things, he could live without knowing.
He stood, dropping Spike's riding bridle back into the wagon. "I can get these things later," he said. "Let's find Ehren." If we can.
Walking across the rocky detritus quickly tired them; they slipped constantly, and were bombarded at random by loose stones from above. The wizard's overhang had collapsed over the path in several giant pieces; Laine could only hope Ehren hadn't stopped here. They struggled forward, sweating from heat and effort, when Laine spotted Ricasso's dark form in the rocky greenery of the widening valley bottom.
"There's one of them," he said. Even if it was only the horse, Laine felt real hope for the first time.
"Two of them," Machara responded, wiping the sweat out of her eyes and pointing with the same hand. "Or is it... three?"
Laine couldn't tell. There was a figure on the ground, all right, not moving much, and it could be that the dark blob beside it was a body as well. Panting, he increased his pace; the going became easier as they escaped the edge of the avalanche. Soon enough he was jogging, Machara beside him— though it had turned to more of a stagger by the time he reached Ehren.
For Ehren it was, kneeling stiffly beside another man with a little pile of belongings on the ground next to them both. Ehren's leg stretched before him, his pants soaked with blood; his shirt was torn and the skin beneath deeply scraped. He gave Laine a wry sort of grin and said, "Glad to see you made it in one piece."
"I'd say the same about you, if I thought it was true," Laine retorted, uneasy at the blood on the ground. "What happened to this fellow?"
"Looks like his horse tossed him." Ehren shifted so Laine and Machara could see the man's smashed head.
Laine made a face. "Can't say he didn't deserve it."
"I'd have preferred that he met his fate after I questioned the Hells out of him, but I've found some things that tell us more than he probably would have, anyway." Ehren poked at the items beside his bloody leg.
Machara crouched by the things and sifted through them. "Lorakan dagger," she commented. "A badly drawn map— looks like our route. But what's this?" She held up a tightly stoppered, thick glass vial, turning it in the sunlight. The liquid within left a viscous coating inside the glass, staining it an odd light blue.
At least, that's what Laine saw at first. Then his Sight took over unbidden, blurring the vial with an intense blue light. He winced, looking away.
"Magic, I take it," she said, hefting the vial thoughtfully. "But nothing I've seen before." When Ehren shrugged, she handed it back to him, and turned back to the one item she still held. "And isn't this interesting."
"What is it?" Laine said, leaning closer.
"Part of a letter," Ehren said. "Pretty cryptic; I doubt we'll decipher it. But I can tell you this paper is damned expensive. It's meant for the largest type of courier bird— the ones that no one has unless they're Upper Level."
Machara looked sharply at him. "Upper Level— that's Solvany's structure, not Loraka's."
"That's right," Ehren said evenly. "And it's Solvany's paper, too. I've seen Lorakan missives. They're made with a different process."
Laine just stared at the paper Machara was holding. Solvany and Loraka, tied together in this one man who'd just tried to kill them all. Who, for all they knew, had been setting all the dangerous new spells they'd encountered. When Laine met Ehren's grim gaze, he saw the same conclusion echoed there.
Lorakan soldiers at the Solvan border, Lorakan wizards setting deathly spells in the mountains— and someone in Solvany tied to it all.
~~~~~~~~
CHAPTER NINE
With Laine's help, Ehren managed to get up on Ricasso's tender back. They'd towed the dead wizard out of the stream— no use in letting him foul the water— and deposited him behind a grouping of rocks on the other side of the valley from the caravan trail. Then Machara had sliced up half the man's shirt and used it to pad and wrap Ehren's leg. By the time they were ready to go, Ehren found himself in a light-headed sweat of pain.
Ricasso recovered enough to snap at Machara when she reached for his trailing reins; without comment, Laine swept them up and offered them to Ehren. Ehren shook his head tightly; he'd have enough trouble simply staying a-horse.
Machara took the lead, picking them a slow path through the rocks, back past the remains of the overhang. Laine spent a long moment looking down the hill at the remains of his wagon and his team, and then they reached undamaged trail— such as it was.
Machara hesitated beside the tinker's wagon, where Bessney and the blacksmith grimly examined one of Bessney's ponies. The other was tied to the back of the wagon, still trembling. "I think we should just go straight to Sevita's," Machara said to Laine, glancing up at Ehren but no longer including him in the conversation. "It's where he'll probably have to travel, and Dajania's going to have to look at that leg anyway."
"Shaffron," Ehren said, suddenly struck by the realization that his horse had been tied to Laine's crushed wagon.
Laine looked back up at him. "I got him loose," he said. "I don't know where he is now."
Relief. "He'll be back," Ehren said, more of a mumble. "He'll find Ricasso. Thank you." Laine merely shrugged, but Ehren knew what he'd faced with Shaffron. Fear-maddened, trained not to let anyone but Ehren handle him... no. It wouldn't have been easy.
They moved on, and Ehren lost track of things for a few moments— until he realized Ricasso had stopped. Laine stood by his side, waiting. "C'mon, Ehren. Dajania's going to take a look at you." Machara appeared, too, lending her wiry strength to the process of getting Ehren down, but Laine took Ehren's weight with ease. "I'll see to Ricasso," Laine said with a grunt, pulling Ehren onward in a world that was suddenly turning grey. "Whoops, whoops— get him—"
Vaguely aware of being handed from person to person, of his head bobbing, of Shette's gasp in the background, Ehren still had a small, crystal clear awareness in the back of his thoughts, one that coldly observed he must have lost more blood than he'd thought. Then he settled on a soft bed, and the small spot of awareness drifted away with the rest of him.
Until someone prodded his leg, and brought him up with a spitting oath of pain.
"Lie back," Machara said. Dajania sat beside her, looking pale in the bright air of the wagon. They'd thrown open the back and side panels for the afternoon light, but the ceiling remained undeniably low and oppressive, the wagon crowded. Laine sat at the back of it, leaning against its wall and looking extraordinarily tired. Dried blood smeared on his face and shirt; Ehren didn't remember it being there before.
"You're supposed to know better," Machara said briskly, nodding at Dajania, who resumed her work with Ehren's pants, splitting the leg of them. "You should have told us you'd lost so much blood. Hells, you should have bound it yourself before we got there."
"I lost track," he admitted, feeling stupid.
Biting her lip, Dajania cut carefully at Machara's sodden makeshift bandage. She pulled it off with an expression of great distaste and tossed it out the side of the wagon. Then
she looked at him and made a sound of dismay.
"Nasty," Machara agreed. "You did this how?"
Ehren didn't answer, instead propping himself up on his elbows to see the leg— at which he promptly swore another heartfelt oath. "Something sticking out under that overhang."
"Lovely," Dajania muttered, some of her usual self-confident bite returning to her words.
Ehren snorted. He was clear-headed again— more than he preferred as Dajania cleaned the leg. Mercifully, no one required conversation of him.
It took far, far too long. She finished up with a sigh of relief, and leaned over to give him a startlingly heartfelt kiss. "You're lucky I've got so much of the pain-slip mix with me," she said when straightened, leaving him stunned anew. "I only picked it up at the border because of the troubles we've had." She backed out of the wagon.
Machara put a hand on his shoulder and rested it there a moment. "She'll take care of you," she said, and then thought about her words and grinned. "Any way she can." She turned to Laine. "Come to Ansgare's wagon as soon as you're through here. We've got a lot of talking to do."
The wagon shifted as she jumped out and Laine moved closer, sitting on the narrow bed along the other side of the wagon. After a moment, he said, "Sorry you got caught up in this. It's caravan trouble, not yours."
Ehren shook his head. "It's got Loraka and Solvany written all over it," he said. "Loraka's everywhere, Solvany's suddenly under-defended...."
Laine looked skeptical. "And it could simply be an unofficial protest to our presence here."
It suddenly struck Ehren how well-spoken Laine was, that he rarely used the coarser dialect of the region. And why that should seem significant to him now, with Dajania's kiss lingering on his lips and his leg pulsing with a fire that made it feel bigger than the entire rest of his body, he didn't know.
Barrenlands (The Changespell Saga) Page 15