“Yes, my lord. I am truly sorry, my lord.”
Balint’s tone softened, and he once more clamped his hand onto Andras’s shoulders. “You’ll get your dog back. Won’t your boy—Ruven, I mean—be relieved? He must be sick with worry to see the beast run off with someone else.”
“Very true,” Andras admitted.
Balint nodded and slowly removed his hand. “Tankred, give him your sowen, or whatever it is you do. The ratter is right about one thing—the longer we wait, the longer your chase will be, and I need you back here before we face Zoltan’s idiots in battle.”
The crowlord stepped back and rubbed at the stubble on his chin while the firewalker approached the ratter. For a moment it seemed as though something was shimmering in front of Tankred’s face, and when he reached out with both hands, Andras felt something warm emanating from them. He tried not to flinch as the firewalker placed his fingertips on his temples. Tankred closed his eyes. Not knowing what else to do, Andras followed his lead.
Ratter. Rat man.
Andras stiffened. It felt like something was in his head, a rat, in fact, scratching and trying to escape. He shuddered and tried to pull away, but couldn’t move, as if something had taken control of his limbs.
Find your dog.
The scratching faded. An image of Skinny Lad appeared in his head, tongue lolling. The lurcher drew in his tongue, cocked his head, and sniffed at the air. Andras couldn’t hear the animal, but saw from the little movement in the dog’s head and throat that he was whining. Then Skinny Lad turned toward someone—another dog? a person?—who was to one side, just out of view, as if for comfort.
The vision faded, and Balint’s great hall came back into view. The two old hunting dogs sleeping beneath the table had lifted their heads and were staring at him through watery eyes, their ears cocked, alert. Slowly, they lowered back to the ground with long sighs and closed their eyes.
Tankred slowly withdrew his fingers. “Which direction is your dog?”
Andras rubbed at his temples. His pulse throbbed in his head, and there was a strange metallic taste in his mouth that made him want to spit to get it out. In fact, he had the urge to bathe in the river. No, better yet, find the town baths and pay good coin to wash with hot water and soap, an indulgence he rarely engaged in. He felt dirty somehow.
“I don’t know that,” he said. “I only—”
He stopped, as something tugged on the edge of his consciousness. Turning slowly around, he stopped when he faced the far corner of the great hall, where torches sat unlit in wall sconces. Something was stirring in that direction.
“It’s that way, isn’t it? I can feel him. Like hearing him on the other side of the wall and yet. . .well, not so close.”
Balint grunted with something that sounded like surprise, but Tankred only nodded. He stared over Andras’s shoulder, as if his thoughts had already skipped away.
“So all I have to do is follow that feeling, travel in that direction until I find him?” Andras asked. “And then what?”
“Then you present yourself, your boy, your dogs,” Tankred said. “Make up some story about running into them or hearing a dog bark or some such.”
“Ha!” Balint cut in. “They’ll never believe it. It’s a big land, and a chance meeting is preposterous. The bladedancers are trying to hide—the ratter would never stumble into them like that. Tell the bladedancers you were sent to find them. Then you were put on their trail by outriders who caught sight of the goat.”
“That will make them suspicious,” Tankred said. “Put them on alert for these supposed outriders.”
“They’re already on alert, you dolt. That’s the whole point.”
The firewalker’s face flushed with anger, then quickly smoothed out again. “Yes, of course. So, then. . .what is the story? Why was your ratter sent to find them?”
“Does it matter? Because I want more weapons. Because I want to know why they ran. Obvious stuff. In fact, it’s better if the ratter admits that he was my agent and spy all along. Give them something, throw them off the scent. A little truth to disguise the lie.”
It seemed that Balint had a more devious mind than the firewalker sohn, no doubt honed from a lifetime of mutual backstabbing with his fellow crowlords. Balint looked at Andras expectantly.
Andras took a deep breath. “Narina will be angry when she learns I was spying on her.”
“Not spying,” Balint said. “You won’t put it like that, exactly. Watching to make sure enemies weren’t trying to steal weapons. Which they were. Will the woman run you off when she finds out—that’s the question.”
Andras thought of Ruven, and the boy’s connection with the bladedancer sohn. She’d looked after him, and he’d practically worshiped her in return. A twinge of guilt twisted low in his belly.
He had been trying not to think too hard about what Tankred intended, but it was impossible now. He meant to murder all three. Was there a way he could slip Narina a warning of some kind without betraying his oath to Balint?
“I don’t think she’ll run me off. You want me to travel with them, then? Until your lieutenant can catch up and then. . .well, whatever he’s planning to do.”
Tankred sighed as if this had been a stupid question. “How would that help? If they keep traveling, if they’re moving quickly once they reach the foothills, they’ll be in the mountains before I catch up.”
Obviously, Andras thought, dangerously, although thankfully he stopped just short of voicing this aloud. That’s what I already said, you idiot.
The firewalker rose and reached into a pocket on the lining of his coat. He fished out an object about the size of a quail egg and handed it to Andras, who turned it over with a frown. It looked and felt like a hardened clump of hay, ground up, pressed together with some paste, and formed into a ball.
“For the goat,” Tankred said.
“I don’t understand.”
“Feed it to the goat. The animal will get sick. Slowly, but inexorably. It might take two days, maybe three, but the beast will eventually die. The bladedancers will waste time caring for it, trying remedies. It will stop them in their tracks.”
“What if Brutus doesn’t eat it?”
Tankred snorted. “Please, have you ever known a goat that wouldn’t eat whatever was put in front of it?”
“True.” Andras turned to Balint, who stood at his other shoulder, looking down at the poisoned pellet. “And this is your wish, my lord?”
Balint shared a glance with Tankred, who returned a curt nod. “Do this, do it well, and you’ll be well rewarded, my friend.”
Chapter Five
The first night in the hill country, Narina had a nightmare. In the dream, she’d returned to the temple to find the surrounding forest on fire. Flames were devouring the mill and armory, and when she reached the smithy, a fire demon worked the bellows while another forged an enormous metal trident from a single piece of molten steel. She fled before they could spot her, and arrived at the shrine to find Katalinka and Abelard sparring.
She shouted at them to stop training and help her drive off the demons, but they paid her no attention. To her shock, both of them were armed with their master blades, going at each other for real. Katalinka had a deep wound across her chest, and Abelard had suffered cuts to his right shoulder and left thigh.
There was another wound, this one in his belly, but Narina knew somehow that her sister hadn’t caused it. It was partially healed, for one, twisted into scar tissue that seemed to run like a rope toward his heart. For another, it seemed to have bound itself into Abelard’s sowen.
Even as this thought occurred to her, the pair of sohns spotted her. They stopped fighting, shifted their posture and swords, and charged her with bloodcurdling shouts. She made to draw her swords, but the sheaths were empty.
You don’t have swords. Only your father’s, and he took them back.
Narina woke in a sweat, her heart pounding. Her hands were at her side, still groping for h
er weapons, even as she realized it had only been a nightmare, and she was in a small tent with her companions, tucked into a notch between a pair of hills where their campfire wouldn’t be spotted. She fought to control her sowen, which was a sloppy mess.
Kozmer lay on one side of her, a light wheeze in his breathing, while Gyorgy murmured in his sleep on her other. The boy mumbled something about holding his sowen; her student was dreaming of his training, apparently.
She needed air, and made for the tent flap. Brutus barely stirred as she stepped outside, but Skinny Lad sprang to his feet and whined. She hushed him and called him away from the tent so he wouldn’t wake the others.
As she led the dog across the rough, pebbled ground, the ugly sensation of her nightmare began to fade. The slivered moon overhead gave just enough light to see the humped shadow of the hill ahead of her, which in the evening had blocked a view of the plains below.
Not a bad thing, honestly. The whole eastern horizon had been aglow after dusk, and she hadn’t been able to avoid thinking of all the villages and farms burning as Lord Zoltan’s army fought its death throes against Lady Damanja’s continued push from the south.
She’d expected to see people fleeing north, but word seemed to have reached people of Balint’s invasion across the fiefdom’s northern frontier. Pinned between two invading armies, there was nowhere safe to go. Many peasants had fled into the hill country, and the bladedancers had met others hiding among the valleys and crevices, taking refuge in the brush, but the reputation of the brigands was sufficient to stop most of them from going higher. Instead, they were simply fleeing from one area of conflict to another.
Skinny Lad whined again. Narina rested a hand on his neck, trying to comfort the dog, but he only turned his muzzle and shoved anxiously at her hand.
“Do you smell smoke? Is that it? Or are you worried about your master and the other dogs? About the boy? You are, aren’t you? They’ll be on the other side of the river. Safe with Balint.” This brought another whine, and she wondered how much the dog understood. “You’ll see them again, I promise.”
Skinny Lad kept whining and nuzzling her hand. Brutus was stirring behind them. If the goat woke up and wanted to be fed or something, Kozmer and Gyorgy would soon be awake, too, and then the night’s rest would be done for. There were still a good two hours or more until dawn.
So she continued away from camp by starlight until she’d led the dog out of the hollow. The glow to the east had diminished somewhat, as fires had burned down during the night. It had possibly rained, as well, as leaden clouds had been gathering most of the day in the direction of the sea.
On the other hand, the glow to the southeast was stronger than it had been. Of a deeper, duller red than the man-made fires, these glows showed that several of the volcanoes of the lower range were erupting. That had probably triggered the early part of her nightmare—the bit about demons at the temple forge—but she didn’t know what to make of Katalinka and Abelard fighting, the man’s strange wound, or the way they’d tried to kill her.
Skinny Lad lifted his head and barked.
Narina gave him a light slap on the rump. “Shh, you silly thing. There are bandits around, and—”
An answering bark sounded from the darkness, about a quarter mile away. Skinny Lad stood still and rigid next to her.
There were wolves in the hill country, and stray dogs wouldn’t last long, which meant the answering dog must belong to someone. If brigands, she’d better fetch her swords and wake her companions, as they were likely to come looking for Skinny Lad, having come to similar conclusions about barking dogs. But first, she wanted to know who they were dealing with.
Her sowen was still shaky after her dream, and it took several minutes to locate the barker and its companions. Two people, five dogs. They were coming straight this way. Very close.
“Andras?” she said as a man emerged from the gloom.
The ratter had been holding back, but now let out a low whistle, and several dogs came bounding forward, whining and sniffing and licking Skinny Lad’s muzzle. The boy appeared, and rushed forward.
“Narina!” Ruven cried. He threw his arms around her, unabashed in his greeting. He pulled her down and kissed her cheeks. “Where’s Gyorgy and Kozmer and Brutus?”
“Shh—keep it down. They’re in the tent sleeping. Well, not the goat, the others.” She gestured over her shoulder, then eyed the boy’s father, whose face was unreadable in the darkness.
“I should be happy to see you,” she said. “And I am. . .to an extent. Thank the demigods you’re alive. But it’s a little. . .strange to see you walk out of the darkness like that. How did you possibly find us?”
“Riders spotted you two days ago and pointed the way for us to follow. From there, a little guesswork. It seemed obvious you were east of the post road, so I followed what paths I could find, asking all the way. Yesterday, we came across some peasants huddled in the ruins of a village you’d passed through, who mentioned a goat and three foreigners. They pointed me toward the hills. And here you are.”
Ruven looked up from wrestling Skinny Lad away from the other dogs so he could hug him. “We kept looking ’cause we wanted our dog back!”
Narina wasn’t entirely convinced. Andras’s aura was disturbed, rumpled with exhaustion and worry—typical of anyone she’d spotted over the last couple of weeks, even soldiers—but there was something else there, as well. A knot of internal conflict.
Not that she doubted his tale of asking after them. Ruven seemed to confirm that part, at least. But that wasn’t the entire story.
“Go find the camp,” she told Ruven. “Stay in the gully, keeping the hill on your right, and you’ll stumble right into it. But keep the dogs quiet, will you? And watch out for Brutus—he won’t like being disturbed, either.” When the boy was gone, she said, “So let me get this straight. You decided to travel through brigand-infested territory in the dark?”
“It’s because of the brigands that we’re moving at night,” Andras said. “I’ve had some ugly experiences in these parts.”
“Then why risk it in the first place? It’s not just Skinny Lad, is it? There’s something else that brought you back.”
“No, it’s not.” Andras hesitated and glanced after his son. “Lord Balint sent me, gave me help tracking you down. Those riders had been looking for you, and sought me out to share their information.”
“We’re done with Stronghand. If he thinks I’ll give him more weapons—”
“No, it’s not that. He only wants information. I’m supposed to find out why you didn’t cross into Riverrun.”
Narina let her skepticism sound in her voice. “He either knows already, or he’s a fool. Tell me exactly what he said.”
“Could we talk in the morning? I’ll tell you everything, and I want to hear what happened with Lord Zoltan’s riders, but I’m exhausted and ready to collapse, and need to see to my son and the dogs before we bed down.”
“All right,” she said. “Go on, then. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Andras followed the others, who were making a good deal of noise in spite of her exhortation. She heard the goat grunting a cranky greeting, then Gyorgy’s sleepy voice, asking what was going on. Finally, Kozmer irritably telling them all to pipe down.
Narina ignored the others and worked on gathering her sowen. She didn’t like hearing that Andras was reporting to Lord Balint, but was relieved to have Ruven safely in her presence. It wasn’t only soldiers dying in this war; she’d seen crows picking over the corpses of numerous innocents, including children, these past few days. The boy wouldn’t be one of them, she vowed.
But what about that dream? A lot of it seemed nonsense, but the part where she’d found her sheaths empty was obvious enough. She was still carrying her father’s swords. It was time to leave aside her failed attempts, she decided, and forge her own.
It was the first thing she’d do when she returned to the temple.
#
> “I still don’t understand how you found us,” Narina told Andras the next morning after they’d eaten breakfast, broken camp, and set out.
“But I told you—”
“I don’t mean Balint’s riders or the peasants from the village. It’s those last couple of miles—you’d have had a hard time finding us in full daylight, but somehow you stumbled into us in the middle of the night?”
They’d got a late start, thanks to Brutus balking when it came time to leave. The goat didn’t have a cart to pull, had been traveling at a slower pace these past days, and was well-fed, but this was the day he’d apparently decided to be stubborn. He was still acting grumpy a half hour later, although he picked up the pace when they regained the dirt trail they’d been following since leaving the plains. The road would carry them south toward the juncture with the post road, which they could follow west into the mountains and toward the temple.
“It was Skinny Lad,” Andras said. “When you gave him a connection to your sowen, it must have worked the other way, too. I felt him out there when we got close. From there, I just followed him in.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Kozmer said. The old man left Gyorgy with Brutus and pushed forward to join the pair out front. The dogs were ten or fifteen feet ahead, scouting the trail. Probably looking for squirrels to chase down and eat, too. “Narina created a connection with your dog, nothing more or less. You wouldn’t have felt that.”
“And the effect has worn thin by now anyway,” Narina said.
The trail was rising, and Kozmer wheezed as he levered himself along. “That’s right. If Skinny Lad had run off in the night, and we’d set off without him, he’d have had no way to sense his way back except his nose and what little common sense rests in that thick skull of his.”
At that very moment, Skinny Lad was sniffing the backside of one of the terriers. It was Notch, who seemed to be the leader of the entire pack. It wasn’t until that morning that Narina had realized one of the terriers was missing. She’d already asked about and learned of its fate.
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