by David Drake
Then the only sound was the brook, and a spit of steam that came from the ruins of the cabin.
Sharina considered her surroundings. She wasn't frightened. Rationally she supposed she could trust Hanno to know whether there were any dangers in the vicinity, but her lack of fear went well beyond reason.
What Sharina really felt was irritation at the way the hunter had abandoned her, but she knew she didn't have any claim on his time. Besides, she could read Hanno's behavior as a compliment, proof that he thought she could get along without him.
And so she could.
Rainbow bark—orange and yellow tags flaking from the chartreuse underlayer—marked a nearby eucalyptus sapling that was about the diameter of her upper arm. She walked to it, put tension on the trunk with her left hand, and struck not far below the crotch with the Pewle knife.
The wood was soft with sap. Sharina reversed the angle and struck again. The sharp, heavy knifeblade hurled away a large chip. At home, Sharina's tasks included cutting kindling for the inn's fireplaces. She was used to making strong, precise cuts.
The fourth stroke severed the trunk, though its branches interlocked with those of neighboring trees and kept the sapling from toppling. Sharina pulled and shook the eucalyptus loose, then paused to listen for any change in the surrounding forest.
A tree behind her cried, “Fool you! Fool you! Fool you!” Sharina spun around, then realized she'd heard a bird or maybe a lizard. She grinned. Not that she felt like arguing with the creature's opinion.
She lopped off one of the trunk's branchings just above the crotch, then severed the remaining portion four feet higher. After a few judicious blows to shape the lower end into a paddle, Sharina had a serviceable digging stick.
She dug on the other side of the creek where stream-deposited sediment created a deeper layer of soil than elsewhere in this rain-leached land. The understratum was yellowish clay, dense and difficult to dig even when it was sodden. When it dried, as it did on the roots of toppled trees, it became a coarse, crumbly limestone.
Sharina's family had a real shovel whose hardwood blade was shod with iron, but less wealthy households in Barca's Hamlet did all their digging with sticks like this one. The branch she'd trimmed short made a shelf for her foot to bear down on. A pair of wooden-soled clogs would have made the task more comfortable, but Sharina's determination and calluses between them were sufficient.
She didn't try to make a proper grave, just a shallow pit to hold the fragments of Ansule's body. He'd been killed no more than two days before, but his flesh was already softly ripe in the steamy climate. Sharina gathered the parts without squeamishness, then wiped her hands on the hard, jagged leaves of a bamboo before she took up the digging stick again.
Ansule's bones had been gnawed, then cracked for marrow. Sharina's face was emotionless as she resumed digging, this time a trench between the sprawling buttress roots of a great tree.
It was good to have work to do. Hard work saved you from feeling sick or angry or desperately lonely and afraid.
The Hairy Men had been killed by a broad-bladed weapon wielded with strength. The wounds were terrible: a male disemboweled, another nearly decapitated, and the dead female split all the way from collarbone to diaphragm. The survivors—how many were there in the band Hanno was pursuing?—had left the corpses where they lay. The only sign of kinship with the dead was that those bodies hadn't been eaten.
Sharina levered the Hairy Men into the trench with her digging stick. It wasn't deep, just enough that the corpses lay below the surface level when she covered them with broad leaves and scraped loose dirt back over them.
She didn't owe anything to the Hairy Men, but if she was going to stay here she needed to do something about the smell.
When she'd closed both graves, Sharina carried head-sized stones from the stream and laid them in a simple cairn over Ansule's remains. She didn't know what kind of scavengers lived in this forest, but the cool, black blocks were heavy enough to keep out even pigs.
She didn't bother to protect the Hairy Men. Nothing would dig them up while she was staying nearby, and what happened afterward was no concern of hers.
Sharina leaned on the digging stick, breathing through her mouth. Her shoulders ached, her hands were raw, and the ball of her right foot throbbed even though she'd switched feet at intervals. She must not have used as much strength with her left foot...
Nonnus had planted his garden every year with a digging stick.
The thought twisted Sharina's mind out of the safe channels she'd been keeping it in. She knelt on the ground, sobbing uncontrollably. After moments, minutes—time no longer mattered—she began to pray to the Lady; and as she did so, she felt the placid, sturdy presence of Nonnus close by her.
Sharina raised her eyes. The forest chirped and hooted to itself, but the only movement she saw was mites whirling in a stray beam of sunlight.
She wasn't alone. Her friend Nonnus had died, but he hadn't left her. It was easier to remember that here in the immense green peace of the forest.
Sharina got up, smiling again. She'd seen fruit growing out of the trunk of a smooth-barked tree as she followed Hanno here. Bright-colored birds had been squabbling over the red pulp, so it seemed likely enough a human would find it safe to eat. If she didn't like the taste, well, going to bed hungry was no terrible thing.
The sun had been past zenith when she and Hanno found the cabin. It must now be low, but she should have time to weave a simple booth of leaves and saplings against the rain she expected.
She'd smooth a slab of wood, too, and carve the Lady's image on it for Ansule's grave. The headboard wouldn't last long in this climate, but it was what she could do.
Sharina whistled a soft tune, a lullaby that her father had brought with him from Ornifal to sing to his children.
The words were nonsense, but they soothed her mind as no others could.
She needed to set a network of lines and pebbles to rattle if anyone tried to creep up on her in the dark. The inner bark of the eucalpytus would strip into suitable fibers.
Sharina wasn't really worried about being surprised in the darkness, though. Nonnus would be with her.
And nobody ever took Nonnus unaware.
Ilna had expected difficulty in finding a ship sailing direct from Erdin to Valles, since the Earl of Sandrakkan and King Valence were as hostile as they could be without open warfare. There was no difficulty at all: a lounging stevedore had immediately directed her and Maidus to the Pole Star, leaving on the ebb tide tomorrow afternoon.
The stevedore hadn't propositioned her—or the boy—after he took a good look into Ilna’s eyes. She knew her duty to her brother and she'd do it of course; but she was nevertheless irritated at being dragged from the path on which she'd set herself. Shadows from the low sun might have made her look angrier than she really was.
Ilna grinned. Or again, maybe they just underlined the truth.
Her nose wrinkled. Erdin was a river port. Though people in Barca's Hamlet weren't overcareful about what they dumped in the water, there weren't enough of them for their sewage to have the impact Erdin's did.
“I don't think I'll ever get used to this smell,” Ilna said. “Well, if I don't return, I won't have to.”
“Mistress,” Maidus said miserably, “don't talk that way. You've got to come back!”
If Ilna had wanted to, she could have woven a tapestry that displayed her entire future and the lives of everyone she knew. She smiled, a grim expression even by her own standards. As if things wouldn't be bad enough when they happened, without worrying about them beforehand as well!
Ilna glanced down at the boy. “You'll be fine with Captain Voder,” she said. “Better than you would with me, at any rate. Just remember to do what he says the first time. He's not one to threaten, that one.”
Maidu's sniffed. “You think he's scary, Mistress Ilna?” he said. “Ask anybody in the Crescent who they'd rather go up against, Voder or you!”
“Then they're fools,” Ilna said mildly. “Though if more people behaved properly, Voder and I might find our lives quieter.”
She wondered if that was true. Well, it wasn't a notion that was likely to be tested in her lifetime. Ilna had bargained for nearly an hour to get passage for three at twelve Sandrakkan silver Earls—new-minted so that the earl's head and the wheat sheaves stood up sharply from the unworn surface. The Pole Star's captain had first demanded a golden Rider, twenty-five Earls in value, for each passenger.
Ilna sniffed. She could have paid the extortionate price; paid it a dozen times over, if she'd chosen to. That wasn't the problem. For a moment her anger that a worm of a sailor thought he could cheat her had almost overwhelmed her. She'd reached for a tuft of rope yarn to bind the fool's mind to whatever purpose she chose—
And then caught herself. The bargain took longer by haggling in normal fashion, but it was fair on both sides when Ilna and the captain spat on their palms and shook hands.
Her powers would pave a road straight back to Hell if she ever let her anger rule her.
“If I'd known what those wizards were planning,” Maidus said, “they'd never have—”
“They came to tell me my brother was in danger,” Ilna said sharply. “Would you have concealed that information from me, Maidus?”
The true answer to that was “Yes, in a heartbeat;” but the boy had the decency instead to mutter, “No, mistress.”
Halphemos and Cerix had been smart enough to realize after a few preliminary inquiries that there were people in the Crescent who wouldn't want Ilna os-Kenset to leave. Instead of trying to find her by asking directly, Halphemos had worked a series of small locating spells, coming closer with each one.
“I wish I could come along,” Maidus said.
“To get in my way?” Ilna said. “No thank you.”
That wasn't true, but it was a reason the boy would accept with only an occasional sniffle of despair. Maidus had proved himself a clever fellow and a determined one.
The truth would have been “I don't want you with me because anything powerful enough to swallow Cashel is too dangerous for me to involve you with.” If Ilna had said that, the boy would have managed to come along even if it meant tying himself to the blade of the Pole Star's steering oar.
Erdin's port didn't shut down completely when the sun set, but most of the remaining activity was from crews stowing the last of their cargo for a departure at dawn. Lanterns and the light of flaring torches were a poor substitute for the sun, and the risk of sparks on sun-dried wood and fabric made late work dangerous as well as difficult.
The sky was still bright enough to reflect from the brick wharfs. Delay in hauling or loading meant that some goods remained on the docks, piled under nets to deter pilfering. Each mound was guarded by a watchman with a lantern. Well before dawn the tallow lamp candles would have burned down and the men would be dozing in crevices among the bales and barrels, but by then the thieves would likely have gone to sleep also.
Ilna chuckled. “Mistress?” Maidus said.
“Laziness prevents more crime than conscience ever did,” she said. The boy looked at her with a puzzled expression.
They were nearing a moderate sized ship, much the same as the one which Ilna had watched carry her friends away. This vessel had a tin plaque nailed to the curving stem; the pattern punched onto the white metal was a gull touching a wave top, though Ilna doubted she'd have known that except for her familiarity with equally stylized designs in fabric.
Most of the docked vessels had a crewman on watch to rap the deck with a cudgel if anyone passed nearby. This one was silent. Either the watch was asleep, or the vessel was in such bad condition that the captain didn't worry about anyone stealing his cordage.
“I'll be back as soon as I can, Maidus,” Ilna said in a gentler tone than she'd used on the boy previously. “My first duty's to my brother. Though—” She threw back one wing of her cape and examined the sash cinching her tunic. Despite the poor lighting, she could see that the pattern remained smooth and unharmed.
Ilna laughed without humor. “My first duty,” she corrected herself, “I should rather have said, is to Liane bos-Benliman. I treated her worse, and with less cause, than I did most people in the recent past. But Liane seems quite capable of taking care of herself.”
“Mistress Ilna?” the boy said in a small voice. He was staring at his feet. “If I promise to—”
Four figures leaped from where darkness had hidden them in the bow of the adjacent ship. They weren't men, though they wore sailors' clothing and were manlike except for their bestial features and the faint shimmer of scales where their skin was exposed. Ilna hadn't seen the creature her brother had found in a cider royal cask, but she could recognize Scaled Men from his description.
The noose was free in Ilna’s hands before she was consciously aware of danger. The Scaled Men carried hardwood belaying pins from the ship's furniture. All of them had daggers as well, and a curve-bladed sword was tucked beneath one's leather belt.
Maidus gave a shriek of anger that stopped with the toonk! of a head blow. Ilna turned, casting the noose as she did. There were two more Scaled Man behind her. She didn't know where they'd concealed themselves. Maidus was on the bricks, bleeding from a torn scalp, and the Scaled Man who'd struck him was raising a belaying pin for another blow.
The silken loop settled over the neck of the creature who'd knocked the boy down. Ilna jerked the Scaled Man into the path of its fellow, ducking as she did so. The club aimed by one of the quartet from the ship slashed past. The noosed creature flailed like a headless chicken, choking as it tangled its fellow.
Ilna snatched Maidus up by the sturdy tunic she'd given him. Her own cape pulled away, delaying her for an instant she couldn't afford. She dropped the noose and had her paring knife half out of its bone case when scaly hands caught both her wrists.
The creatures were silent. The Scaled Man on her right didn't make a sound even when Ilna drew her sunbeam-sharp blade across its arm.
Hands gripped her hair. She squirmed and bit flesh as dry as a snake's skin.
She didn't feel the club hit her, but she heard the hollow ring of the blow. The night went white. She was as blind as if she'd been staring into the noonday sun.
Ilna hadn't called for help. No one was likely to run to a frightened woman on the docks, except perhaps to demand a turn for himself. She would be damned before she wasted breath on a vain exercise.
Hands lifted her. She thought her wrists and ankles were being bound, but she wasn't sure even of that. She could hear voices, and they weren't human.
She was lowered again. She lay on a wooden grate, smelling bilge water below. She was sure her limbs were bound, but the light behind her eyeballs still blinded her.
Mooring lines thumped on the deck. Wood squealed, a sound Ilna identified after a moment as sweeps being fitted into oarlocks. She felt the ship rock.
The River Erd was unbuoyed as a defensive measure: no enemy could sail up its winding reaches by night to take Erdin unaware. To attempt it was to go aground on a mudbank or nose into a blind slough.
But the Scaled Men were unquestionably under way, taking Ilna os-Kenset with them.
The 20th of Heron
Garric hadn't been blindfolded, but the lanterns on the arched gateway were only orange sparks as Royhas' coach pulled into the enclosure. They must have been just extinguished.
The coach pulled around the back of a mansion and halted. The two guards who'd ridden as postillions threw open the vehicle's left door.
Lord Royhas was opposite Garric, facing the rear of the compartment; the remaining guards sat on the outside of both benches.. The nobleman's hand, a pale blur, flicked toward the opening. “Quickly,” he said to Garric. “And don't make any noise.”
Garric's hands were still bound, but he didn't need King Carus' insight to know that Royhas didn't plan to have him killed. Not just yet, at any rate. He stepped down without com
ment and followed the guards into the house.
A servant opened the door but hid behind it as the passengers from the carriage entered. Garric saw only a vast stone bulk as his guides bustled him inside, Royhas and the others were close behind.
The corridor was unlighted, but a candle glimmered through an open doorway at the end. The floor creaked underfoot like the puncheon floors of his father's inn. The walls were paneled to waist height and frescoed above that, though in this illumination they were differences in shading rather than pictures.
Or again, maybe he was mistaking water stains for art. He grinned.
The chamber was intended as a winter dining room, but the broad windows along the south wall were now covered by heavy velvet. Not drapes, Garric realized: the fabric had been tacked to the casements so that no one could possibly look in, nor would any gleam of light escape.
Royhas was taking no chances anyway. Only a single wax taper was lighted in a wall sconce holding nine.
The table and twelve chairs were of a dark wood Garric didn't recognize, but from growing up in an inn he could appreciate the amount of rubbing required to bring out this luster. A man wearing an outfit of mauve silk—sober to look at, but it must have cost the price of a good horse—waited inside the door with his hands crossed over his plump belly. From his combination of obsequiousness and wealth he was of the better class of servants, probably the majordomo.
The guards led Garric inside, then turned to face their master. Garric looked over his shoulder.
Royhas said, “Loose him,” to the guards. He spoke with a tinge of irritation as though it was their fault Garric was still bound. One of the men tugged at the cord. The knot slipped open immediately, though Garric's surreptitious twisting during the coach ride hadn't gained him so much as a hair of slack.
“Maurunus,” the nobleman said to the servant, “some other gentlemen will be arriving shortly. Show them here when they arrive.”