by Kyra Halland
“All right.” It was the warrior’s choice; he had volunteered to come with Silas and Lainie, and it wasn’t Silas’s place to give him orders. They rode on into town, Lainie keeping her gaze firmly fixed on Mala’s neck and away from the gallows.
Discovery suited its grand name. It boasted five saloons, a bank, two hotels, a number of stores and boarding houses, a music hall, a mining claims office run by the miners’ equivalent of the cattlemen’s cooperatives, and a small cattlemen’s co-op office. Buildings of new lumber and even of brick gave the town a look of prosperity. The town’s wealth didn’t necessarily mean it was safe; miners tended to be a hard-drinking, rowdy, troublesome bunch, and the hands with the small herd from Discovery had likewise been troublemakers. Silas signaled to Lainie and Jasik to stay close to him.
When they neared the center of town, two men approached them from a building that was marked by a sign reading Town of Discovery – Sheriff’s Office – Jail. One man was tall and rangy and bore the sword-shaped silver badge of a sheriff; the other wore a finely-tailored dark suit in the manner of any wealthy Wildings businessman. He had dark hair and sky blue eyes set deep in a tanned face that could have been the product of mixed Island and Granadaian blood. Even without checking for power, Silas guessed he was likely one of the mages Lainie had sensed.
“Stand down from your mounts, an’ tell us who you are an’ why you’re here,” the second man said in an exaggerated Wildings drawl that didn’t quite hide the crisp Granadaian accent underneath.
Silas looked at the sheriff, wondering what authority the other man had that allowed him to give such orders in the sheriff’s presence.
“Do what he says,” the sheriff said.
Silas nodded at Lainie and then at Jasik. Better to go along and stay out of trouble while they figured out what was going on. The three of them climbed down from their horses.
“Arrest the blueskin,” the Granadaian said.
“Now, wait just a minute,” Silas said. “He hasn’t done anything.”
“We only just got here!” Lainie added.
“I’m bein’ paid to protect this town from murderous blueskins,” the man said. “An’ from anyone else who wants to make trouble.”
Of course. Keeping most of his power suppressed as Lainie had taught him, Silas reached out carefully with just a touch of his mage senses and found the man’s shield. It was makeshift and imperfectly camouflaged, good enough to hide the mage’s power from a casual search but not enough to evade a more careful examination. Clearly, he hadn’t been expecting any other mages to show up here. Of course, the shield also couldn’t hide him from Lainie when she searched through the magic in the earth. Silas glanced at Lainie and touched his mage ring, on his wedding finger. She nodded once.
“All right, I’ll give myself up,” Jasik said.
“They’ve got no right –” Silas said at the same time Lainie protested, “You shouldn’t have to –”
Jasik cut them off. “It’s all right. I don’t want to cause trouble.”
“Hand over your weapons,” the sheriff said.
Jasik unstrapped his sword and spear from his saddle and handed them over.
Silas restrained more angry words. Again, it was Jasik’s decision, and keeping out of trouble and carrying out their business was the first priority. “We’re only passing through,” he said. “We’ll leave in a day or two, once the horses have rested. As none of us have done anything wrong, I’m sure you’ll let him go with us, and that he’ll be unharmed and he’ll get his weapons back.”
“We’ll see,” the mage said darkly.
“I said,” Silas repeated a little more loudly and slowly, to make sure there could be no mistaking his words, “I expect you’ll let him go, whole and unharmed, and give him back his weapons.”
“An’ I expect folks to do what they’re told if they don’t want to end up in jail or the blueskins attackin’,” the mage answered. He glared at Silas, and Silas met the look without flinching. Despite his hostility, the Granadaian gave no sign that he knew who Silas and Lainie were. Silas would lay his last copper bit he was Hidden Council, though, offering “protection” from the very attacks that the Hidden Council had provoked.
The sheriff took Jasik by the arm. “Come on, you.”
Jasik firmly pulled himself free. “I said I would go.” He followed the sheriff into the jailhouse without resisting.
Lainie stared after Jasik and the sheriff, her jaw set and her eyes near to burning holes in the sheriff’s back. Silas didn’t like it any more than she did, even if Jasik had gone willingly, but it now occurred to him that the A’ayimat man was probably safer locked in a cell than out in the town, as long as he wasn’t locked in with men who hated blueskins. With a little luck, if the three of them were careful, they would learn something useful and be able to get out of town all in one piece.
“Well,” Silas said to the mage, who remained behind, “we’ll just be on our way to the hotel. Those are surely some fine-looking establishments you have here in town.”
“Don’t make any trouble,” the mage said. “We’ll be watchin’ you.”
We. Lainie had said she had found at least three or four mages. “We wouldn’t dream of causing trouble,” Silas said, and tipped his hat.
He and Lainie led their horses and Jasik’s over to the Grand Hotel, the nicer-looking of the two hotels. The other was the Miner’s Rest; knowing miners, it was probably no more restful than the town of Simm’s Rest had been.
At the front desk of the Grand, they secured a room for two nights. As Silas started to sign the register, he hesitated for just a heartbeat, then wrote, Mr. and Mrs. Vern Fleerstrom. Normally, he had a rule against using fake names; it was too easy to get tripped up by them. But if that mage out there didn’t know who they were, Silas didn’t want to push their luck by relying on a name-slip charm to hide their identity. The name of the chief groom at the family stables when he was a horse-obsessed boy should be easy enough to remember; it was when you had to keep track of a bunch of different fake names that you got into trouble. If Lainie was surprised by his unprecedented use of a false name, she hid it. Likewise, he trusted that Jasik would know better than to reveal who they were.
After Silas signed the register, the desk clerk pushed a second ledger over to him. “For the Defenders,” the clerk said apologetically. “New thing. Full names, where you’re from, your business here, a reference name, and when you plan to leave.”
Defenders? Was that what those Hidden Council mages were calling themselves? Silas picked up the pen again. “A new thing?”
“Yessir. Those men who came into town, offering to protect us from the blueskins – you heard about what happened at Thornwood and Stone Creek, didn’t you?”
“We heard.” Silas shook his head. “Terrible.”
“Well, as you can understand, we was all in a panic, then a day or so after we got word about Stone Creek, these men, the Defenders, come to town, saying they know the blueskins’ fighting secrets and their language and such. Guarantee they can head off a blueskin attack. It’s expensive, but we was feeling pretty nervous. We got good relations with the blueskins in the hills right outside town, with the mining agreements, but the rules are real strict, and sometimes the miners get drunk and rowdy and sometimes they just ain’t real smart. It was a disaster waiting to happen. So we figured better safe than sorry, and hired these fellows on. They put these rules in place to head off any trouble, and they don’t like it when someone breaks the rules. So, you see, I got no choice but to ask you to fill this out.”
“I see,” Silas said. Which wasn’t to say that he liked it. In general, folk in the Wildings didn’t care much for rules, or for letting outsiders interfere in their affairs. The people here in Discovery must have been pretty worried, and these mages pretty persuasive. Apparently, no one thought it strange that these men had shown up offering their services only a few days after the massacre at Stone Creek. A fellow might almost think it
had been planned that way. If a fellow was thinking, and not scared out of his wits. But Silas said nothing as he filled out the second register, putting down that they were from Bentwood Gulch and listing Mr. Brin Coltor as their reference, and giving the date of their departure as two days hence.
“Thank you, sir,” the clerk said with a wavering smile. “Some folks wouldn’t take kindly to so many questions, but I’m the one who’ll get in trouble if they don’t answer.”
“I’m happy to oblige,” Silas said. “I’d hate to make trouble for you over something like this.”
“Also, don’t forget, if you don’t leave on the day you say you will, they’ll make sure you leave in a way that isn’t as pleasant as if you just went on your own.”
“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.”
“It’s a lot of rules to remember, and we hope it won’t have to be this way for long, but at least we’re safe from the blueskins.” The man sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as Silas.
“I know I’ll sleep easier tonight,” Silas said as he put down the money for the room.
He and Lainie turned to go upstairs to the room, then the clerk said, “One more thing – you won’t mention to anyone I was complaining, will you? These fellas don’t like it when people complain. Maybe you saw those folks hanged outside of town? That’s what happens to folks as complain.”
A cold, sick feeling twisted through Silas’s gut. “We won’t tell,” he promised.
Chapter 17
ON THE WAY up to their room, Lainie almost felt like she would bust from all the things she wanted to say to that clerk. People being hanged for complaining, that outsider – the mage, though she was sure the townsfolk didn’t know he was a mage – taking over the sheriff’s authority, the strict rules. That wasn’t how things were supposed to be in the Wildings.
But saying so to the clerk wouldn’t have helped. It wasn’t his fault, except as far as it was the fault of the people here in Discovery for rolling over belly-up for these outsiders, these so-called Defenders, and letting them take over. And anyhow, he couldn’t do anything about it. She would only get him in trouble, and herself and Silas, too, and they couldn’t stop Elspetya Lorentius if they were in jail or dangling from the ends of a couple of ropes.
Even now, in the privacy of their room, she restricted herself to a grumbled, “I don’t like this.”
“I don’t like it either, darlin’,” Silas said in a curt way that told her he was holding back as much as she was.
It felt awful, not being able to speak freely. They had some nerve, these Defenders, using the name of the god to cover their wickedness and make people trust them. Lainie knew of one hell they were sure to be spending time in after they died, and the thought gave her a little satisfaction.
For dinner, they went to the second most expensive-looking saloon in town, the Rat Trap. The Grand Hotel had a dining room, and Lainie would have preferred to eat somewhere quiet, away from the smells of alcohol and tobacco and house ladies’ perfume and sweaty, unwashed miners. Besides feeling queasy, she’d had her lifetime fill of sweaty, unwashed miners when Carden had held her captive. But the hotel dining room was nearly empty, and she and Silas wanted information, which meant they had to go where folk were gathered.
The Rat Trap was crowded, but, despite the hammerbox being played in one corner, the multiple card games in progress, and the flirting between the house ladies and the miners and handful of ranch hands in the saloon, the place wasn’t as rowdy as would be expected. There was no joking, no arguing, no shouting; the only talk was terse exchanges about the weather, how the mines were producing, how the cattle were faring. And no one appeared to be drunk. Which wasn’t a bad thing in itself; at least the smells of cheap beer, rotgut whiskey, and drunk men’s vomit weren’t making Lainie’s sickly stomach even sicker. But it felt all wrong.
Lainie and Silas sat at the bar and ordered up plates of steaks, beans, greens, and biscuits. Lainie’s stomach churned at the very idea of food, but Silas was right; she had to keep her strength up.
“So,” Silas said to the barkeep while they waited for their meal, “I hear these fellas came to town to protect it from blueskin attacks?”
“Yep,” the man sitting next to Silas said. “An’ it’s a good thing, too. We heard tales of what those savages did over to Stone Creek and Thornwood.”
“We passed by Stone Creek on our way here,” Silas said. “Looked bad.”
“Well, now we got those Defender fellas here, that say they know the blueskins’ tricks and ways, we don’t have to worry so much.”
“Don’t have to worry at all,” another man put in eagerly. Too eagerly, Lainie thought. As though he wanted to make sure no one thought he lacked confidence in the Defenders, who hanged people just for complaining.
“We heard some folks say that they thought wizards might have provoked the attacks,” Silas said.
An uncomfortable silence fell over the people at the bar. The cook brought Silas and Lainie’s plates out from the kitchen, set them down hastily, and fled back behind the swinging doors. The barkeep glared at Silas. “There’ll be none of that kind of talk in here,” he said. “I don’t want trouble in my place.”
Now that was mighty strange indeed, Lainie thought. Normally, people would have been all over the suggestion that wizards were causing trouble like flies over dead meat.
“Go easy, Voss,” the man next to Silas said. “They’re new in town. They might not know the rules.”
“Then I’ll explain it to them.” The bartender set down his towel and the glass he was polishing and rested his meaty forearms on the bar, leaning towards Silas and Lainie. “It was blueskins that attacked the towns. Looking to blame it on anyone else will take our eyes away from the true danger. We can’t never let our guard down. This Defender crew is here to protect us, but everyone needs to do their part. Wild rumors and speculation will only confuse matters. And there’s to be no complaining about anything the Defenders do. Not if we want to have a chance against the blueskins. We all got to stand together and do what they say. All comings and goings from town have to be okayed by them, and curfew is at nine o’clock on the dot. No one’s to be out of their houses between then and five in the morning. That’s to make sure no one sneaks off and does something the blueskins might take as a reason to attack. Groups of more than three people aren’t allowed to talk together, lest they be plotting to stir up trouble. And no rumor-mongering. You got all that?”
“I think we can remember all that,” Silas said. He forked up a bite of steak. “We weren’t planning on leaving our bed all night, anyway. Right, darlin’?” He nudged Lainie’s arm and gave the bartender a big, idiotic wink and grin that didn’t quite hide the coldness in his eyes.
Playing along, Lainie forced a smile, then stared down at her meal. What little appetite she had was gone. This was only a start, just a small taste of what her grandmother had in mind for the Plain folk of the Wildings. People who were afraid would give up almost anything to feel safe and protected. By the time the Hidden Council was ready to move in and take over, no one would lift a finger to stop them – and everyone who might have tried to stop them would have been silenced or killed.
She and Silas weren’t just going to have to fight the Hidden Council, she realized. They were also going up against all the Plain folk who saw these so-called Defenders, named in mockery of the god, as their salvation, who were willing to do whatever was asked of them by anyone who promised to protect them.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING, after a quiet breakfast in the hotel dining room, Silas and Lainie set out for a walk around town, hoping to pick up some news or gossip about who was in charge of the Defenders and what other towns they might be working in. Silas was certain that Bentwood Gulch would be targeted, but there had to be others as well.
Lainie was right; this scheme had the feel of Elspetya Lorentius making her big move, laying down her best cards. In fact, he would lay mo
ney, and Lainie had agreed with him when they talked it over in their room last night, that Elspetya herself and her closest advisors and allies were probably in the Wildings, overseeing the scheme themselves. After the raid on their headquarters, even if they were allowed to get away free, they probably would have found it inadvisable to remain in Granadaia. And the snow-blocked Gap would pose little problem for a large group of powerful mages. Any information on where the Defenders had come from and where else they might be operating could lead to Madam Lorentius.
The streets of Discovery were eerily quiet on this cold but sunny morning. People hurried about their business in silence, their heads down as though trying not to attract attention. There was no laughter, no arguing; no groups of gossiping townsfolk loitered along the wooden sidewalks.
The tight knot of anger inside Silas grew. This wasn’t the Wildings he knew and loved. Life in the Wildings was hard; the realities of hunger, illness, hard work, and death were never far from anyone’s mind. But there had always been a sense of freedom along with the hardships. The Plain folk of the Wildings had no need to keep quiet for fear of offending someone more powerful than they were. But now, after only a nineday, these “Defenders” had the people of Discovery cowering in silent fear.
“This is wrong,” Lainie whispered. “I hate it.”
“Me too, darlin’,” Silas replied, keeping his voice low as well.
Activity up the street caught Silas’s attention. The mage who had ordered Jasik’s arrest was standing in front of the sheriff’s office with a man Silas didn’t recognize.
“People of Discovery!” the mage called out.
Everyone on the street stopped what they were doing and looked at him; more people crept out of the doors of stores and offices. A crowd started to gather, keeping a safe, respectful distance between them and the two men. Silas reached out carefully with his mage senses; the second man was also a mage, his power barely concealed.