by Travis Peck
Ifo nodded his thanks, gratefully accepting the steaming mug of kof that awaited him once he sat down at the table. It was a rich and dark brew, and he knew from experience that it had some kick to it. Just what he needed. He saw Trevan raise an eyebrow at the shortsword he carried at his side. Ifo smiled and said, “I hope I don’t need it.” If Arin only knew how many weapons were secreted about all over his body, he might be more nervous about journeying with him than coming across any ravinors.
“I carry an old spear. But to each his own,” Arin said, clearly possessing more experience dealing with the creatures.
“If only… I had not thought there would be any chance of meeting ravinors on this trip, or I would have encased myself in steel,” Ifo said, only half-joking.
Arin laughed with him. “It’ll be fine. I’ve met my fair share of the Taker-spawned devils over the years, though it has been a few since I had to discourage any from feasting on me.”
One of the serving girls carried two overflowing platters to their table. Ifo ordered another kof for himself. Breakfast looked to be as delicious as dinner had been. Eggs, bacon, flappers with berries on top and drizzled with syrup, melon, and some buttered sweetbread all beckoned to him. For this meal, Ifo was able to show some restraint, having mostly recovered from the privation he had suffered during his sea journey.
They both focused on their meals and ate in silence, with Ifo thinking of the road ahead, Trevan reading his book. When they were done, the same serving girl cleared off their table. Ifo waved away Trevan’s attempt to put a coin down on the table, and he made sure he was the one who paid for the meal. He was riding the man’s horse, after all, which saved him the cost of buying his own. The two settled up with Mistress Isel and walked out of the inn, each man with a bulging travel bag slung over his shoulder.
The morning was slightly overcast, but Ifo judged the clouds would burn off by midday. A wind from the ocean carried the salty air to his nose. Ifo would not miss the smell. He and Trevan walked over to the stables, the groom already had the four horses brushed and saddled. Trevan tipped the young man and handed two of the reins over to Ifo.
“Not sure how good a rider you are, but these two are friendly and have been on the road to Styr many times.”
“I’ve ridden before,” Ifo said while he secured his travel bag to the chestnut mare—he would ride the roan. He had ridden horses before but not for long periods of time. Both travelers led their horses out to the yard, then each secured a lead to their trailing packhorse.
“All set?” Trevan asked. “We need to swing by and pick up a few supplies, but it’s on our way out of town. I ordered the victuals last night, so it should be ready for us to pick up.”
Ifo signaled he was ready. The two men mounted up and began to make their way out of Wesin. The rhythm of horseback riding felt so much more natural to him than being tossed about on a lurching ship out on the open sea. They reached the supply shop and were met by the operator who expertly tied the various saddlebags onto each baggage horse.
Trevan paid the man, and when he saw Ifo’s questioning look said, “We’ll settle up in Styr.”
Ifo nodded, and with that, his stay in Wesin was drawing to a close. A quarter candle later, they trotted their horses out from the city walls and were on their way to the capital.
The land rose steadily as they moved farther inland from the coast, and Ifo felt the chill increase as they climbed. The road was well maintained this close to Wesin, and they made good time as their mounts ate up the leagues at a steady pace. They only stopped long enough to grab some dried meat and some cheese from their saddlebags for lunch, which they finished eating on horseback. The terrain ambled by, steadily becoming more heavily wooded.
Around midday, the two travelers took a small trail that forked off from the main route to Styr. Trevan assured Ifo that this way was faster but the path was narrower than the larger, more frequently traveled highway they had been on since Wesin. Ifo thought it best to do whatever they could to speed their journey, so he agreed to the change in course with no reservations.
A few candles later, dusk was approaching. The steadily sloping ascent had plateaued, and Trevan led them to a campsite he must have known from his previous travels, as it was a little way off from the road. It was a small clearing, enough for a fire to be built, but the rest of the area was covered with thick branches that would keep the rain off—though it did not look like it would rain tonight. Tomorrow, maybe. The two men set about with the unspoken duties of readying camp. Ifo tended to the horses, while Trevan gathered wood and started a cook-fire for their dinner. In short order, the camp was made up, the horses loosely tied to a nearby tree and chewing away happily at the oats and millet from their feedbags. The two men dragged two logs over to the fire and sat down on their makeshift benches.
Ifo was pleased. They had covered a lot of ground and, to his relief, hadn’t seen any ravinors or any sign of the foul creatures.
“I have a surprise,” Trevan said with a wide smile.
Ifo watched his companion pull out two large jugs and handed one over to him. “Merovian?” He laughed with delight. Sure enough, it was the highly sought-after brew the two had availed themselves of the night before. “Well, this journey is going better than I could have hoped for,” Ifo said, grinning.
“May it continue to do so,” Trevan toasted, then the two each took a long and satisfying pull.
Dinner was typical trail fare: a few potatoes and a generous portion of venison fried together over the fire, along with some bread to sop up the juices. A typical meal, but in conjunction with imbibing their favorite beverage, the two were in high spirits with the auspicious beginning of their trek to Styr.
After dinner, Trevan helped himself to his pipe and had a smoke. Ifo did not partake, but the heady scent of the smoke reminded him of his father, or at least a foggy remembrance of pipe smoke and an indistinct figure that he knew instinctively was his father. One of only a handful of such vague memories he had of the man.
The two talked for the rest of the night about trivial things. Neither man probed too closely with personal questions as they respected the other’s privacy. Ifo found himself more and more liking Trevan. In his line of work, there were few opportunities to strike up a mutual friendship. And certainly never while on the way to fulfilling a contract.
They elected to forgo setting a watch that night. Trevan believed that the horses would be good enough sentinels as they had not seen any sign of ravinors, or even other travelers after they had taken Trevan’s shortcut. The men rolled out their blankets and settled in for sleep. Arin began snoring almost as soon as his head touched his bedroll. Ifo was tired but didn’t know how long it would take him to find sleep. Obviously, Arin was not worried about anything, but Ifo still didn’t like to leave the sentry duties to four horses. He managed to fall asleep, eventually.
Snap.
Ifo’s eyes were open, and his hand had a firm grasp on longknife still under the blanket.
Snap.
He lay perfectly still, not wanting to let whatever was coming know that he was alert. Something was coming this way, breaking twigs as it approached. The horses had yet to make a sound. What great guards, he thought.
It was louder now, Ifo jumped from his blankets, his arm flashed backward to throw the longknife as soon as he found his target.
“Easy, friend!” Trevan warned, holding his hands up. “It’s just me.”
Ifo let out the breath he had been holding. “Sorry.” He had not been able to see over to the other side of the fire where Arin had been sleeping because of the glare from the flame.
“So, that’s why the horses did not make a sound,” Ifo realized, thinking that perhaps he should trust more to their senses.
“Aye, they know me, and they know I’m too old to go all night without relieving myself,” Trevan said good-naturedly, though he had to have noticed the speed and purpose of movement that Ifo had demonstrated. His reflexes migh
t raise questions. Arin did not seem to have noticed, though. Perhaps his own form had been obscured when seen through the fire as well.
Trevan returned to his blankets and said, “Try to get some sleep. We should be able to make good progress tomorrow if the weather keeps on like this.”
Ifo settled back down to the ground. His heart was already slowing, and his breathing returned to normal. He would have to force himself to react more slowly if he was to continue the guise of a merchant’s agent. But he didn’t know if he could pull that off. Reflexes he had spent most of his life keeping at a razor’s edge sharpness could not be dulled so easily.
He struggled to find sleep again.
Chapter Ten
THREE DAYS AFTER THE ravinor dream, Moira again woke with a pounding headache and heavy-lidded eyes. The first night after the dream she had not been able to get any sleep, and the days following had been a blur. She had stayed in bed; she couldn’t get up or scarcely even move with her head feeling like it would burst. Her father had checked on her a few times, and she had told him that she was ill. And in a way she was. Moira was not feigning her terrible three-day headache, nor her inability to sleep, which made her recovery even slower.
Lying in the darkness of her bedroom, drapes closed tight against the sun’s glare, she had gone over every detail of the most harrowing ravinor dream she had ever had. If only she could change the outcome of the souls’ struggle in the ravinor dream. Moira had felt close—so close—to being able to reach out to someone and warn them. Lerius. She had never before been awoken from the dream before all of the victims were dealt with, one way or another. She didn’t know if Lerius had made it or not, but she desperately hoped he had. She would not add his name to her journal yet. She did, however, have plenty of other names to add. Depression, sadness, and guilt washed over her as it always did after experiencing the horrors of the ravinor dream.
This had been the worst dream of her life. So many people; every one of them turned. Except, possibly, the young man with one of the brightest auras she had ever seen. Unfortunately, there were no means of discovering his fate. She prayed to the Giver that he had resisted that last onslaught from the queen and that his soul had returned to his body from that terrible place, whole and human still.
A light knock at her door brought her back to her waking life.
“Mole?” her father asked in warning as he opened the door and entered her bedroom. He paused when he saw what state she was in. Her eyes must have been puffy from crying, and the dark circles under her eyes revealed another sleepless night. “Are you still ill?”he asked, concern written plain on his face.
“I don’t know,” Moira said, lying. “I did not sleep well again.”
“This is why I don’t like you hearing about these ravinor attacks. It always seems like you sleep poorly for days after I tell you about them.”
Moira had the ravinor dream whether or not her father informed her of one occurring. She suspected that the attacks her father told her of were the more devastating ones; on those nights, she would have a particularly unpleasant night and would be unable to hide her distress the next morning. She still had the dream many nights—even without the aftermath of a large scale ravinor attack. Only a few ill-fated souls were involved in those so the dream ended sooner, making it easier to handle, though, having to put a single name in her journal was terrible.
“It was just another bad night’s sleep, Father. No one sleeps well when they’re ill. And I would still rather know about these attacks than go through life sheltered from anything unpleasant happening in the world.” She failed to mention that she preferred to be told about these attacks so that she could prepare herself for that night’s dream.
“Well, your mother is asking for you,” he said, leaving unmentioned that she was likely wroth at her for being abed for so long—illness or no.
She groaned, and her father chortled. He knew that the two had not been getting along for the last couple of years, but really it had been longer than that. She did not have the heart to tell him. Her outlook brightened as she remembered her promise to Prayg. She assumed he would still accept her help—albeit a few days late. She told her father of the agreement.
Her father laughed in response. “You are the only young lady I know who would rather muck out the stables than spend time inside the manor with the other ladies.”
Moira snorted. I would rather do almost anything than spend time with those two, she thought. Lara and her mother would sniff disdainfully at her needlepoint and cackle like a pair of rabid foxes at some shared witticism at her expense. She could not remember the last time she had wanted to spend time with her mother.
“I know you and your mother have different interests, Mole, but she really does love you. You’re just at that age where you don’t get along with each other,” her father said, attempting to console her.
She nodded, not trusting herself to say what she really felt. Just at that age? It felt like she had been “at that age” for her entire life. Her mother had never approved of anything she had done. Moira knew if she didn’t have her affliction, her mother would love her and be kind to her. But her disfigurement was a constant reminder to her mother, and anyone else who laid eyes on her, of her mother’s indiscretion with one of her father’s former business contacts.
Moira thought her father was reminded of that too when he saw her. With him, though, it was different. He saw her disfigurement and was upset that it had happened to her, and he certainly blamed her mother for it, as she had been in early pregnancy with Moira at the time of the tryst. But her father never directed that anger toward her like her mother did. Sixteen years of anger. She knew it, even if her father did not. She and her mother would never get along.
Her mood grew even darker with thoughts of her mother and the dream. This would be a long day.
Her father left her, and she saw Evin standing outside her door waiting for Lord Geryn. She gave him a wave, and he returned it with a kind smile. She was happy that her father would be around today; his presence meant that her mother wouldn’t be too nasty toward her. And besides, she would stay at the stable until she was summoned back. She felt her mood brighten as she quickly dressed, tying her hair back to keep it out of her face for her work in the stables. Moira went downstairs and made her way to the kitchen.
“Ah, there you are dear,” Mistress Arina greeted her. “I thought you might be late, so I saved you a plate.” Arina had been one of the manor’s cooks for a over a decade, and she had always fussed over her. She knew that the kind-hearted cook pitied her and that was why she was nice, but Moira liked that better than the scorn and thinly veiled contempt that she received from her mother and Lara.
Not to say that all the people on the estate were mean to her. When she was a child, the other children her age had been cruel. As they aged, a few seemed to genuinely accept her despite her unsightly scarring. Others were nasty to her for a different reason now that they knew more about the world in which they lived. Now they were nasty to her because they knew that she was the heiress to the richest man in Styr. They used her affliction as an unimaginative reason why they deemed her unworthy of such.
Moira thanked the cook and took her plate to the small kitchen table to eat. A simple breakfast, but it was delicious, as usual. She shoveled it down as quickly as she could so she would not be late to the stables. She bid Mistress Arina goodbye when she was done, and the cook waved at her with one hand, the other was occupied pulling out a loaf from the oven. A cook’s work was never done on such a large estate. Some of the workers who were married and had families would eat at their homes for most meals, but Lord Geryn still provided food for those who wanted it.
Moira used the unobtrusive kitchen door so she would be less likely to run into her mother or her mother’s maid. She thanked the Giver when she saw neither and made a straight course to the stables.
Prayg greeted her with a smile on his wizened old face. “Good morning, lady,” he
said as he doffed his wool cap. Moira performed her best curtsy to the oldest man on the estate, and he crowed in delight. Her mother would have a fit if she saw her making a perfect curtsy to Prayg, which is mostly why she did it, but also because she knew he would appreciate it.
“My grandchildren have already cleaned all the stalls, what with you ailing. But I saved you Helia’s,” Prayg said with a grin. “If you’re feeling well enough?”
“I thank you, kind sir. I do feel better, and I think some work will do wonders.” Moira executed one more flawless curtsy and grabbed a shovel hanging on the wall.
Prayg chuckled one more time and exited the stable, no doubt going out to check on the morning exercises. It took a lot of work to condition and train these horses to live up to the famous Geryn breed, and if a horse did not pass muster, then it was trained until it could or put out to stud with a lesser breed.
The old stablemaster was a tireless worker and—other than his family—the horses were his life. Moira loved the dear old man and thought of him as her grandfather. She had never met her own, or her grandmother. They had both died of an illness that had swept through Aerilyn when her father was her age.
Moira greeted Helia with a carrot from a bin next to the stalls. The mare was grateful for the treat and her company, just as she was happy to see her spirited mare. She could spend all day with Helia, preferably out riding, but even just standing next to her and stroking her mane would content her just fine. After a few moments, she led the mare to a temporary enclosure so she could do her job. Moira set to with a will and began cleaning out the stall.
Two candles later, Moira was laying down fresh hay and only had to refill Helia’s trough and she would be done—with what she had promised to do. But she was hoping Prayg would find more chores around that she could help with. Anything to delay or prevent her from having to go back to the manor. Three trips to the well outside of the stable, and six heavy, sloshing buckets later, and the trough was full of fresh, clean water. As she went to fetch Helia back to her stall, Prayg was entering the stable with a horse. Daeris walked beside him.