by Damien Lake
He pointed out one building that had constructed a low stone wall two feet high between its property plaques. Foot tall, decorative wrought-iron fencing similar to Duke Tilus’ topped the stone, different in that it lacked the lethal spikes.
His eyes open, he saw that many owners had chosen different approaches to their extra space. Very few extended their structures to the edges.
Halsey turned between two of these buildings to take a road that almost could be called an alleyway. “Hey, wait a moment!” Marik cried, holding out an arm to stop Hilliard.
Their guide stopped. “Yes, master? Is there a problem?”
Marik glanced sharply around in a search for would-be cutthroats. “Where are you taking us?”
“Straight to the Swan’s Down, as I promised! This is one of me shortcuts.” He read Marik’s expression. “Take a look around, master. There’s plenty of people walking about. I won’t lead ye’ down any dark alleys. Not Halsey!”
There were several pedestrians traveling the smaller roadway, Marik admitted. Still, he kept his hand on his sword as he acquiesced, following their guide.
Every few steps, Halsey would stop and turn with a grin, demonstrating how safe the road was. The passage emptied onto a new road, one less wide and less crowded than Capitol Highway. Marik lightened his grip. Halsey continued on the way to Swan’s Down.
Dietrik came abreast, asking, “Still jumpy, mate?”
“I want to reach the inn. If Locke follows his pattern, they’ll be expecting us and we’ll have no worries.”
“Then the innkeeper won’t believe our kind guide when he explains he diverted several guests to his hearth.”
“Who cares? That’s his problem.”
Halsey entered a second alleyway. Marik paused, although for only half as long. Once satisfied by the presence of other honest travelers, he followed their guide.
Dietrik brought up a separate issue. “I was thinking. Did you bring your spare coin with you?”
“I left a portion in the lock drawer, but yeah, I have most of it.”
“As long as we’re in Thoenar, why should Kerwin be the only one to profit from the trip?”
“What do you have in mind.”
“Nothing, as of yet. But we can look around the glass shops. Perhaps we’ll find a decent mirror.”
“Tollaf can buy his own replacement,” Marik replied sourly.
“I meant for you. It might be handy to have one of your own around.”
“Maybe. But if I’m going to break another one, I’d as soon it was the old man’s.”
Dietrik continued talking. Halsey led them down numerous alleys while the daylight faded. Marik, discussing the many ways in which coin could be spent in pursuit of comfort, did not notice until, after answering a question from Dietrik, he glanced up and saw no one around them. Including Halsey.
“Where’s—”
“Look out!” Kerwin screamed as men swarmed from the shadows.
Chapter 07
Tranquility reigned where Colbey emerged from a small wood. He searched for enemies anyway. A doe stepped lightly through foot-tall grasses at the mountain’s base. Several birds sang the songs of late afternoon. They would have remained silent if predators or people were present. The scout waited for three minutes until satisfied no one lurked nearby.
He had expected it would be so. Despite the attempted border control along the Tullainian line, the Galemaran soldiers had not seen fit to post sentries this far south. The narrow path had once been an ancient road. Now it was nearly nonexistent in places. It could be followed across the southern Stoneseams mountains with a bit of athletic daring. Also, to the outlanders, it was undiscovered, though it had been ancient when their grandsires were swaddling babes.
It lay several candlemarks outside the Rovasii. The Guardians knew of it from previous generations. Both kingdoms, populated by idiots, had yet to notice the potential security breach over the centuries.
The outlanders’ foolishness served him well. He returned to the fallen tree within the woods where his escapees sheltered. Colbey deliberately snapped a twig beneath his boot when he drew close.
Around jerked the father’s head, his face sallow and flesh taut from the long run, asking the question with his eyes. He tightened his arms around his daughter, still uneasy around Colbey despite their journey together.
“Is all clear,” Colbey told him. “You will cross.”
“You’re certain?” the man asked in Traders Tongue, speaking slowly this time from nervous hope rather than for Colbey’s benefit. “There are no guards?”
Colbey shook his head. “Is all clear,” he repeated in pidgin Traders. Had he not said that in the first place? No, he felt certain his words had been correct.
The woman, who had proven stronger than her husband, rose. She held her baby son to her chest as if she would never let go. “Come, Dammed. Let us leave this accursed land behind.”
She strode in the direction Colbey indicated. The man rose. Tears leaked from his eyes at her words. Colbey escorted the four to the clearing and the birdsong halted instantly when the family broke into the open. He pointed.
“For you, two days east. Then north. Then you find road. Road goes to Nolier.”
The man nodded, started to speak, struggled for words. His wife continued walking. At last he nodded and bowed before hurrying after her. In his arms his daughter began her soft crying again, hungry with no food to satisfy her. They would need to ration what little food remained to them until they could pawn the few valuables they retained.
Their helplessness disgusted Colbey. Food surrounded them but they refused what he had collected for reasons of utter foolishness. A bizarre notion that their bodies were different was one, or perhaps that his was more rugged, and thus they could not handle the perfectly edible sustenance the land offered. Their religion demanded other asinine practices, which proclaimed specific foods ‘unclean’. To starve to death within mere feet of nourishment! Only outlanders could be so astoundingly absurd.
Colbey paused long enough to strip a handful of acorns from a white oak’s branches. He shucked the nuts while he walked, eating three straight away. The rest he dropped into a belt pouch he kept ready for such. Since he could spare no time to properly cook them, and thus leech out their mild toxins, he would only eat a few at a time to prevent food poisoning. Delays must be avoided at all costs.
Though it had taken him four days to cross the Southern Stoneseams with the fugitive family, he could return in one-and-a-half. He might be able to do it in one, though that meant taking risks. A broken ankle would do more than slow him. It would damn him.
He set into his run. His thoughts returned, as they did every day, to his dream, and what it might mean. Relentlessly the same questions echoed through his head. Had it simply been a nighttime brush with his subconscious…or something else? Again he questioned himself. Again he found no definite answers. If his people’s souls were indeed restless in their unavenged state, then his mission was crucial, with far higher stakes than his desire to kill those genocidal murderers.
If not…
Then nothing changes. For whatever the reason, I will see this to the end.
Colbey nodded firmly at the thought before trying the sentiment a second time, attempting it in Traders. Perhaps he succeeded in the translation, but he could no longer ask the father to correct him. Except he would never have asked the man in any case. Not with this phrase.
Hopefully they would make it to a town and rebuild their lives. The couple he cared little about. It was their children who deserved the chance. Though the odds were against them, the children were still fresh slates and might escape becoming as foolish as most outlanders.
Small hope there. Yet the daughter might overcome the trials. Her eyes were open to the harsh world while still young enough to learn from it, and old enough to remember. This would form the foundation upon which the rest of her ritsu’do would be built.
As for her parents
’ journey though life, well… Colbey supposed they were far from the worst in the lot, possessing guts and willpower where the rest of their town wept in darkened corners, but his charity toward them remained slight. They had cost him nearly two eightdays with their cowardice.
After two days in Jabberzian, studying how the Tullainians walked, ran, ate, slept, talked, sat and worked, he had judged himself ready to imitate them. He had also listened closely to everyone around him, eliminating any accent in the Tullainian he’d learned during scout training. Despite being across the mountains, the scouts occasionally ran into Tullainians roaming the Rovasii. They drove off all outlanders equally, yet inevitably the rare direct confrontation occurred wherein the language came in handy.
During the contract in Tullainia his first year with the Crimson Kings he had never bothered to exert effort on such matters as accents. His hunt had consumed him. He’d focused his energy on finding the first footprints that would lead to his quarry. Now he wished he had exercised proper diligence. Time worked against him, as he’d always feared it would.
One more loss due to insufficient information!
Upon his departure from Faylin-dow’s city, Jabberzian, he’d struck out to the west, angling south. He had wanted to break through the line, learn what he could, then approach Kallied from the south.
The stream of running peasants thinned the closer he drew, until it halted altogether. Information on the enemy was scarce since the creatures held every town they had attacked. If the residents failed to escape during the initial assault, they never would. Every person who came close to the overtaken areas either ran at the distant sight of the monsters or disappeared. Exactly what became of the Tullainians in the occupied towns was the subject of many fearful debates over tankards in dark taverns.
Colbey had called on the skill garnered from both his scout training and the advanced Guardian lessons when he entered the areas of no return. It took every shred of his ability to escape the patrols he soon encountered.
He quickly learned why no one had succeeded in coming back when they came to see what lurked here. Between each red cross on his map, each mark representing known assaults, patrols were run by the enemy. And not merely one every few candlemarks. From well-concealed placement downwind, he counted six go past in one mark.
A fire sparked in his spine when he studied the first patrol. The villagers, with the exception of Thomas and the other two Guardians, had been terrified to even describe the beasts after the raid. He had envisioned the demons every day since while searching under every stone. Three years it had taken, but he’d finally rooted them out.
The first patrol contained nine of the beasts last seen in the Rovasii. Thomas had overlooked no detail in spite of the chaos, and his only chance to study them had been in the midst of unexpected combat. Their bodies were mostly humanoid if one disregarded the head. Two arms, ending in clawed hands, two massive feet, with equally clawed toes, and a broad torso, three feet wide in most cases.
Every aspect of the creatures was larger than a normal man. They stood eight feet, their long, powerfully muscled arms ending in hands that could easily enclose his head. Short hair, mostly of brown or black, covered every inch of skin, making the beasts look furry. Clad only in loincloths, dirty or ragged for the most part, nothing obstructed his study. Their entire body appeared deliberately designed for raw power. Which might very well be the case, Colbey knew.
Their heads were monstrous. They were an unnatural blending of horse and bull. While the heads were mostly bull-like, the muzzle had elongated, bearing closer resemblance to a horse’s. When one opened its jaws to snap at a second wandering closer than it liked, Colbey could see dozens of long fangs lining its mouth, meant for ripping and consuming flesh in the manner of a wolf.
Thomas had insisted these beasts did not come from within the Rovasii’s inner reaches, despite such a creature being more at home there than here in the outlands. They snarled and contended for dominance while they walked. Clearly they were pack or herd beasts. Colbey wanted to slash them all to ribbons until they were reduced to bloody chunks in the dirt.
No!, a voice within his mind screamed. This is not the time, nor is it the place! You have important duties! You must study the enemy, you must learn all there is to know. Only then can you strike most effectively! It spoke with Thomas’ voice, and Farr’s, and his other instructors.
Yet with his targets in sight after so long, remaining motionless had not been easy. He continued his study through gritted teeth.
Accompanying the bull-creatures were men, obviously army, though their uniforms were a mystery. Neither Galemaran, Tullainian nor Nolier, their style bore no resemblance to what he knew of Perrisan. A northern kingdom then? Or a militia out of Vyajion’s city states? He required further information.
Wherever they hailed from, they would be no problem. Observing a few steps revealed all he needed to know. Whatever military they belonged to took no greater care in training their soldiers than the other southern kingdoms. In the face of such powerful carnivores, Colbey wondered how mankind, as a species, had survived so long.
Two women and one man were in white robes. Hoods attached to the robes fell unused across their backs. That attracted Colbey’s attention though he could not pinpoint why. Trained about such matters, he stored the fact away to let his subconscious play with it.
They walked in the center of the soldiers and yet the white-robed three were clearly apart from them. Colbey detected the subtle clues. Soldiers were soldiers; friends, shieldmates and comfortable with one another. Though none spoke, their marching postures revealed the ties of friendship between certain individuals. At the same time, none drew quite so close to the three robes in their center as with their own.
Meaning the robes are the heart of the patrol force. And the soldiers serve the function of protecting them. And the creatures?
Colbey reviewed Thomas’ account from that long ago survivor’s meeting. There had been magic users present, contributing to the overall destruction, but fewer spells exploding as should have been accounted for, given the number of supposed mages.
When the patrol passed he noticed the three white-robes ignored their surroundings, unlike the soldiers casting their fierce gazes everywhere. Instead they focused on the nine bull-creatures before them. Ah. They control those beasts after a fashion. That might prove useful.
He held to his position until he felt he understood their routine five patrols later. Each passed at regular intervals.
Always the same, he thought, stepping from his cover after the sixth patrol. Military minds think alike the world over. It must never have occurred to them to vary their patrols in order to prevent intruders from stepping through their line. It is time to move deeper. Fortune favors the bold, after all.
Comfortable in his superiority, Colbey passed between two patrols and moved into enemy territory. Ten minutes later, while silently moving along a rocky ravine, he suddenly found cause to wonder who might be the smarter after all.
From the patrol line, what must be the combined roar of several bull-creatures shattered the silence. Colbey froze in mid-step. He focused his senses to quickly determine his situation. One patrol, stomping, clumping and continuing its roars, approached from the east.
Those long muzzles! Those wide nostrils! They must be able to track by scent! Fool!
No time to berate his overconfidence. He was on the run, and he prayed he would stumble into no other patrols in his haste.
His bouncing leaps sent him flying down the ravine in a series of moves designed to confuse his pursuers. Doubling back, grabbing low-hanging branches, jumping from stone to stone, he drew on his scout expertise to fool the creatures.
Except it failed to do so. Despite every trick he threw at them, they remained on his tail, drawing inexorably closer. He had been forced to resort to speed, as preposterous as such a turn of events could be. On the flat ground outside the ravine he unlocked his Guardian’s stamina, increasi
ng the distance before they could find him.
His feet pounded over the dusty earth as the bull-creatures worked toward the point where he had broken. Colbey picked apart how the creatures could possibly have discovered him. How had they immediately distinguished his scent, assuming that was indeed what they’d done, from the scents of the previous patrols? And how could they determined him to be an intruder rather than one of their number?
Questions for a later time. Colbey angled for a distant wood after a fast glance back. With his vision enhanced, he found the bull-creatures hot on his tail. Exhaustion would not flag them. They pounded along as quickly as he. Nostrils flaring, they ran with their mouths open, long tongue flapping across their teeth with each leap. Three in the rear each carried one white-robed figure. The soldiers had been left behind.
Trees meant water. He hoped it flowed close to the perimeter. Colbey plunged into the sylvan world, instantly feeling at home while navigating trees and thick underbrush. In this arid land, plantlife wasted no opportunity to feast on even a modest water source. The sounds from his pursuers chased away any natural ambient noise. Their crashes echoed through the woods while he ghosted between trees.
The water he eventually located enabled him to lose his followers. Neither deep nor wide, Colbey ran into the shallows without slowing and turned downstream. That direction was always the easiest to follow, which was why experienced trackers hunting clever prey would usually go the other way.
Yet he believed his previous tricks had impressed the three humans on his trail. If they recognized his skill, they might assume he was too smart to go downstream. They would outguess themselves.
After two-hundred yards, he paused to lay flat. He submerged his body under the flow for several moments. It would wash only his major scent away, lightening the traces he left behind. Further downstream he found large stones piled by the bank.