by M. M. Perry
“It is. We’ll make camp here. I’m going to go back out and gather some wood. Gunnarr will stay here while you set up the tents,” Cass said.
Gunnarr watched her back with some concern as she headed back into the gloom. Callan hopped off of his horse and called over to Nat.
“Boy, help me with my tent.”
“Yes, sir,” Nat said. He stopped working at pulling a huge trunk out of the little wagon Inez was riding in and headed towards Callan, leaving the trunk stuck almost half out of the cart.
Inez glared over at Callan.
“He’s my boy to be ordering about, not yours, you overstuffed turkey,” she said angrily.
Callan addressed her dismissively, “You know, now that I have warriors and am on the way to Oshia, I’m not certain I really need you around anymore. Selina may have been right to press you. My seer said I needed to find you, not that I need to adopt you. If you don’t like the way I do things, you’re free to leave at any time and you can take your boy with you. I can always hire a new boy somewhere along the way, one that doesn’t come encumbered by an annoying nag.”
Inez scowled ferociously at Callan, taking an angry bite from the carrot she’d been intending to give Barnaby.
“That’s as I expected,” Callan finished before turning to Nat.
“Boy,” he began.
“Nat, sir.”
“Yes, Nat. Start with this bundle,” he pointed, and began instructing Nat on how his tent should be assembled.
Inez watched for several minutes, working on her carrot, growing increasingly incensed as Nat put together the king’s massive tent, with Callan not offering to help once. She wondered how many people he planned to house in the thing. She tossed the butt of the carrot to Barnaby, and then rummaged through her cart, pulling out the wooden poles she’d need. Once she’d located them all, she drove them into the ground around her wagon using a hefty looking mallet. Just as she was gathering the canvas to toss over the top of the wagon, she paused to see how far along Nat and Callan had gotten. Nat was unrolling a down filled mattress. Inez gave Callan one last dirty look before she disappeared behind a billowing wall of cloth, muttering something incoherent. Callan hardly noticed her attention.
“Would you like the lamp hung, sir?” Nat asked helpfully as he finished setting blankets on the mattress.
“Yes, I should like to read a little before I sleep,” Callan said.
He watched Nat pull a lantern out of a trunk, then work to get it started. In a few moments, a soft golden glow lit up the rich red fabric of the tent. Nat set the lantern on a peg sticking out of the tent’s central pole. As Nat stepped out of the tent, Callan pressed a coin into his hand.
“Good lad. I’ll call on you if I need anything else,” Callan said, dismissing Nat before moving in to his tent.
Nat looked down in his hand and grinned. He turned to thank the king only to watch the tent flaps slap together in his face. Gunnarr watched the whole scene with an amused smile on his face. Nat walked over to him, holding the coin up to the moonlight.
“Good pay just for putting up a tent,” Gunnarr remarked.
“Sure is,” Nat said, clearly pleased.
Nat deposited the coin in a little pouch at his waist and then went back to his pony. Gunnarr watched as Nat pulled a much more reasonable tent out of his own bundle and began busying himself putting it up. By the time Cass had returned with a bundle of wood, Nat was almost finished.
Cass regarded the large red tent, glowing from within, with a raised eyebrow.
“Just in case we run into a harem he’ll need to house?” Cass asked as she approached the fire pit Gunnarr was working on.
The large man chuckled as Nat approached, his tent complete.
“If there’s something I can help with, I’d be happy to,” Nat said cheerfully.
“I think we’re almost done here, young warrior,” Cass said, “but feel free to join us here at the fire if you like.”
“Will you be telling tales of your adventures?” Nat said excitedly.
Gunnarr and Cass exchanged an amused look.
“If you like,” Cass replied.
Nat settled into a place on the ground near the fire pit. By the time Cass had situated herself, Gunnarr was scraping flint over tinder.
“Before I share a tale, I like to know a little about the warriors I travel with. What’s your story, Nat?” Cass asked casually.
“Oh,” Nat said awkwardly, “Not much really. I grew up in Faylendar. My dad passed before I was born. Never knew him. My mum took care of me. She was a baker’s assistant. Not very exciting, I know.”
A small tongue of fire lapped up from the tinder. Gunnarr began feeding it larger twigs.
Nat looked at the ground in an embarrassed way. He picked up a stick and began drawing in the dirt, trying not to meet the warriors’ eyes. After his talk with Gunnarr, he had worried he might just be left behind after his particular task was finished, a thought he did not relish. He couldn’t imagine how these warriors would possibly want a scrawny nobody like himself to drag along behind them.
“Pretty brave of you to strike out on the plains, even with two warriors,” Cass suggested, sensing the young man’s mood.
Nat smiled weakly, “You don’t have to do that. I know I’m not a warrior yet. I know why I’m here now. And I don’t mind. This has been the most exciting thing I’ve done in my life.”
Gunnarr and Cass exchanged a look.
“You want to be a warrior?” Gunnarr asked.
“I will be,” Nat said, “but I know I have a long way to go.”
“Warriors,” Gunnarr said, “do not leave each other behind. If you want to come with us to the end, then we welcome it.”
Nat looked up, guardedly hopeful, and asked “You would? Then yes. I’d like that very much.”
“Well then, that settles that,” Cass said as she pulled some dried meat from a nearby saddle-bag and began doling it out, “you’re coming with us. Now, young warrior, what would you like to hear about?”
“You talked about the Wandering Village,” Nat said as he took a piece of the meat she offered him. “I’ve heard about it, even have a cousin who claimed it stopped outside of Faylendar once. But so far as I know, I’ve never even been close to it.”
“Your cousin may be right,” Cass said, taking a moment to chew through a particularly tough piece of dried meat, “there are a couple of places around Faylendar the village visits. I can tell you all about the village if you want, but I think you’ll be disappointed.”
Gunnarr had finally worked the fire up to a respectable blaze, and he settled down between Cass and Nat.
“I don’t think I could be disappointed in any of your tales!” Nat said, leaning forward to warm his hands at the blaze.
Cass and Gunnarr chuckled at the young man’s enthusiasm. Both remembered a time when they were just as eager to soak in the tales of all the older warriors, no matter what they were.
“Don’t ever say that in the pub. Old man Wordfrey would grab hold of you and talk you to death,” Gunnarr warned.
Cass, laughing, added, “I think he’d prefer him dead. Corpses don’t interrupt!”
Both of the warriors laughed, leaning into each other in a feeling of camaraderie.
“People. Are trying. To sleep. Do keep that in mind,” Callan’s voice filtered out through his tent.
Cass leaned over and covered Gunnarr’s mouth while trying to suppress her own laughter. Once they’d managed to stop, Gunnarr stood up and dug a large jug out of his pack. He popped the cork out and took a big swig of the contents before he handed it to Cass. Cass took a gulp for herself and then offered it to Nat. Nat took the jug carefully, the contents sloshing about as he held it to his mouth. He poured a small swallow in, gulped, then coughed a bit as he handed it back to Cass.
“Right, I think we’re properly provisioned for this tale now. Shall I start at the beginning or skip to the part where I’m already at the village itself?�
� Cass asked looking from Gunnarr to Nat.
“The beginning, of course,” Nat said emphatically.
Cass took another huge swig, and then handed the jug back to Gunnarr. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
“It started with a cobbler,” Cass gathered her legs under her as she began.
“I went to him every three or four months to have him work on my boots. He always loved repairing them. Whenever I dropped them off, he’d point to some hole or tear and ask, ‘and what happened here?’ or scrape some red mud from them and ask, ‘and where does this mud come from?’ Like you, Nat, he loved to hear stories, but he always said he wanted to know the story of my shoes.
“One day he came to me and said, ‘I’m tired of just hearing about all the adventures of the shoes I repair. My shoes need to gather some stories of their own to share.’
“I asked him if I could help him in some way to fulfill this wish. He told me he wanted to travel to the Wandering Village, and that he would greatly appreciate it if I would guide him. I told him not only would I take him, but that I’d do it at no charge. After all, I needed him to keep my very favorite boots in working order. You may not know this yet Nat, but a young warrior soon learns all too well the importance of a good pair of boots.”
Nat grinned, wondering if she was pulling his leg. Cass took another swallow of ale.
“It’s true,” Gunnarr interjected suddenly, nodding sagely, his eyes slightly droopy from the ale.
Cass passed the jug to Nat and continued her tale.
“Of course most people think finding the Village is pure luck. But I know different. I once met a man that had been charting the course of the village for years. And he had figured out that it wasn’t really random. The village goes to two hundred eleven different places, one after the other, all unique. But then that pattern repeats. This cartographer was also convinced the places the village appeared had some special significance. He went on and on about his theories of magical confluence or something to that effect. Another one not to let corner you in a pub. But he was exactly accurate when it came to charting the course of the Wandering Village. Once you have one of his handy maps, it’s only a matter of planning your trip to make sure you are at the right place on the right day.
“After consulting my special map, I took the cobbler to a small village on the southern coast of Centria. It was the only location for the next several weeks that would be close enough for us to arrive at in time. Still, after we arrived we had to wait nearly a week for the village to show up. Now, I had never seen the village appear myself at this point, and thought it would be an interesting thing to watch. In the pre-dawn on the day it arrived, we travelled a few miles east of where we expected the village to appear and waited for the sun.
“The village, so we’d both heard, pops in house by house at dawn, a real wonder to actually witness. It makes this strange noise, kind of like the sound of a bubble bursting, only really loud. First the fountain in the center of the village appeared, then a circle of houses around that, then another ring of houses around that. Finally, a great big barn appears, a cacophonous menagerie of animal noises rattling around inside it. I’d heard that if the villagers aren’t in their houses when the village moves, they get left behind. I’ve also heard about people occasionally coming upon entire fields of cows, in the middle of nowhere, not a farm around for miles to account for them, nor a drover in sight. I always suspected they belonged to the Wandering Village, and pictured the poor farmer who didn’t put his cows away in time, or properly, coming out to find an empty barn the next day, realizing he wouldn’t be back to where he left his cows for the better part of a year.”
Nat smiled when he imagined it, a field full of cows, alone in the middle of nowhere. He could feel his own eyes growing droopy as Cass continued to talk.
“What would you even do with all those cows,” Nat asked.
“Have a damn good dinner that night,” Gunnarr rumbled as he tore at a thick, leathery piece of jerky, then, around a cheek full of meat, “Let’s have that ale Nat, you look like you need a break.”
Nat passed him the jug clumsily.
“As soon as the entire village appeared,” Cass picked up again, “the villagers all came out and began their business. My cobbler was so excited to move in that within an hour he’d bought a small house from the first villager he met that was willing to part with their home. It cost him almost his entire life savings.
“I decided to stay at the village for a while, so I took a room at the inn. It was entertaining waking up in a completely different area every day. I was having a great time. I was sure that the cobbler must be loving it. I found out how wrong I was when I finally stopped by to check on him. It turns out he’d discovered quickly, that the villagers that live in the Wandering Village really live quite ordinary lives. They keep track of where they are going, and know when to gather which things from each location to get the best in trade at one of their upcoming stops. Other than that, what they do from day to day is pretty much what any villager would do each day. Get up, do their job, come home, do their chores, sleep, and then start over the next day.
“But for the cobbler, it was worse than simply realizing living in a magical village didn’t make your life magical. He found, in fact, that his life was even duller than it had been, since he no longer fixed the shoes of adventurers. And he couldn’t leave now, since he’d spent all his money. He knew it might be years before he could find someone that would want to buy his house, freeing him to go back to his old home. I told him I was very sorry that it hadn’t worked out like he’d expected, and left him to his work.
“Very early the next morning, before dawn, I stopped by to see him again. He was already up, or still up, I could tell from the light coming out of his front window. I knocked on the door, and he invited me to come in and asked if, perhaps, I wouldn’t be willing to let him work on my shoes. Before he could take my cloak, which he was reaching to do, I let him know that I would be leaving town soon, and my boots didn’t need repairing. I guess that was the last straw for him—that his last pair of interesting shoes was leaving him. He abruptly pushed me out of his house roughly, and slammed the door just as the dawning sun hit the top of the roof, and it disappeared. And that is the whole story of my encounter with the Wandering Village. As I told you, not as entertaining as all that,” Cass said, looking over at Nat.
“No, no. It was perfect,” Nat said drowsily.
Cass and Gunnarr chuckled together.
“Perhaps you should lie down now, fellow adventurer,” Gunnarr said kindly.
“That sounds,” Nat said, yawning, “like a good idea.”
He stood up jerkily, caught his balance, and then walked, weaving a little, to his tent. He stumbled to his knees and crawled inside the small tent until just his feet stuck out one end. He began to snore almost immediately. Cass and Gunnarr smiled at each other.
“You should get some rest too,” Gunnarr said turning to Cass, “I’ll wake you when I’m too tired to watch any longer.”
“Which means you plan on letting me sleep until morning,” Cass responded with a sly look.
Gunnarr smiled sheepishly.
“I thought so,” Cass said grinning, “Well, it won’t work. I wake every four hours, like clockwork.”
Cass pulled a tunic out of her pack and bunched it up. She put it under her head and stretched out near the fire.
“See you in four hours,” she said, closing her eyes.
Gunnarr looked out into the darkness. The fire still flickered brightly. Embers rose high into the sky above it, dancing around the moon before dying out. Gunnarr sighed contentedly as he turned around and settled in to a comfortable position, his back to the fire. Had anyone else still been awake, they might have heard as he hummed a tune from his homeland.
Chapter 4
Callan rose stiffly and stretched. His mattress, he mused, though a far cry from sleeping on the ground, certainly was no replacement for a
real bed. He poked his head out of his tent to be greeted by a brilliant morning sun just cresting over the horizon, casting long shadows from the statues of the dead gods that peppered the landscape all the way to their little camp from where they vanished in the sunrise. He could see Gunnarr snoozing peacefully beside a low fire, leaning up against Cass. Cass, however, was awake and alert. She had one elbow, from the arm unencumbered by Gunnarr, rested on a cocked knee, her chin resting on her fist, her gaze directed toward the stretch of forest beyond them. Callan scanned the camp for the rest of the group. The little wagon where the old woman slept looked undisturbed. Nat’s feet and ankles were sticking out from the end of his tent, the toes out away from the tent, feet flat to the ground. Callan was able to pin down the source of the steady snore he was hearing to Nat’s tent.
Callan blinked away the morning sunlight, then stepped out of his tent and let loose an impressive yawn. Cass started at the noise and immediately swung around to see Callan approaching her with a pillow in one hand, and a small satchel in the other. He was wearing silk pajamas, open enough at the chest that Cass was able to get a good look at the locket he wore around his neck as he approached. It was, she considered, a rather plain looking bauble for a king; made of silver, not gold, and without a single jewel adorning it.
Callan tossed the pillow down on the ground next to Cass and flopped down onto it.
“Your highness,” Cass said quietly with a flourish of her hand and a bow of her head.
Callan nodded to her and rummaged through the little satchel he had brought out with him. He pinched out two little green leaves and popped them in his mouth.
“We are fully provisioned, you know. I could get you something more substantial to eat,” Cass said.
“Perhaps in a moment. I must get this taste out of my mouth first,” Callan said as he chewed.
Cass caught a whiff of a minty scent on the king’s breath as he spoke. She shook her head.
“I have travelled with my fair share or princes, kings, potentates, and nobility of all ranks. But you are the kingiest of them all,” she said before turning her attention back to the woods.