by Jordan Reece
And then they went home, the lot of them, to do their chores. They grew up and took over their family farms or trades; most married and had children. Not one had run off to the Great Cities to hunt for riches. The farthest any of them moved from Alming was Dru Seerling, who married a man from Winchistie.
The contagion had killed many of his former schoolmates. Of the company of six to be thrashed for stepping into the Wickewoods, only three still lived in Elario, Dru, and Tanner at’Bees. It was that sobering thought that brought him to the crossroads.
He had timed it well. The first hint of light was gilding the horizon in pink. It was not safe quite yet to walk the Hopcross, so he broke his fast upon a boulder with the provisions Yens had packed for him. Shelling a hardboiled egg over the side of the boulder, he salted the white and watched the Hopcross gradually come into view. As eagerly as the Wickewoods clutched darkness into itself by evening was as reluctant as it was to relinquish it by morning. Long after Elario was counting pebbles in the wagon ruts, the woods were still lost to night. There was no sign of the singed branches on the dragontrees from the burning cloak of that beautiful dervesh. Nor was there any other strangeness to be seen.
As the pink turned to gold, Elario shouldered his heavy satchel and slid off the boulder to start down the Hopcross. A good pace, bar disaster, and he would make Winchistie in the early afternoon. That was where he had to stop; the distance from Winchistie to Jumario was greater than what could be accomplished on foot before evening.
The road brightened beneath his boots, and the rising sun needled relentlessly at the heavy canopy of the Wickewoods. Spears of light forced into the darkness one by one, narrow and unwelcome. What they illuminated, however, was nothing to fear: a jackrabbit pelting away from Elario’s presence, a squirrel chittering as it rounded a trunk, a bend in a burbling stream. The water was clean and running fast, unlike the Muckwater Creek on the other side of the road. Elario kept well away from the edge to put another few paces between him and the stench of the slow-moving, rancid sludge that was one part water and two parts foulness.
He happened upon travelers in time, and they happened upon him. First there was a pair of farm boys in scuffs and bare feet riding on the back of a horse, baskets strapped behind the pommel and laden with eggs. Next was a woman with quick eyes and tied hair, a wolf tail hanging from a capped quiver at her belt. Her bow was unstrung and held within a flimsy, translucent sack sloped over her shoulder. A wolf-catcher! She was going east, surely to one of the towns higher in elevation like Goat’s Peak. Wolves were a greater problem there than in places like Alming or Briars.
Wolf-catchers did not tend to friendliness, or so Elario had heard, and nothing in the woman’s appearance dissuaded him of that. The little boys had greeted him as they passed upon their horse; the wolf-catcher ignored Elario’s wish of good day. She rounded a bend and was gone.
He moved far to the side when a team of two pulling a hay wagon rode up. A glance at the driver and Elario turned away without soliciting him for a ride. It was one of the men who had been eating a meal at the Sixes when Elario picked up the package. The man failed to recognize Elario in his scuffs, two tired eyes only looking farther down the road. His greeting was perfunctory and spoken through a yawn.
No sooner had the hay wagon vanished than a gleaming white carriage painted in trumpet vines replaced it, two tall black horses drawing it along. Several large trunks were strapped to the roof. The driver was a surly-looking fellow with a cap dragged low over his forehead. Elario stayed to the side to let the carriage pass.
A carriage as fine as this was unusual on the Hopcross. The curtain was open over the window, letting him look in to a trio of girls in lovely dresses, and an older woman shushing them as they laughed. A servant girl sat on the hitch in back, her dress stained with dust from their travels. A moneyed family from Ballevue visiting poorer relations in the hills, Elario guessed, and now they were going home.
No opportunity for a ride ever presented itself. All the wagons of harvest crews were going in the wrong direction, as were empty wagons headed to one town or another to pick up surplus crops. The occasional wagons going in the right direction were either hauling heavy farm equipment, or already bore passengers. Another fancy carriage painted in trumpet vines and laden in trunks went by, Elario sure the driver would beat him about the head and shoulders with the riding crop if he came closer to request a seat. But it was no matter. The walk was pleasant, if long.
By midday, hunger was gnawing at his stomach. His nervousness and his fears in the night seemed wholly unfounded in the bright light of day. There was little upon the road that he had not seen plenty of times before. Just farmers and hunters, crop drivers and peddlers, laborers and travelers going about their individual business, and none of which had anything to do with Elario.
The Muckwater Creek was like the lash of a giant cat’s tail, swinging close to the road and away from it in turn. Once it was well away, hunger at last got the better of him and he stepped off the Hopcross to eat his lunch upon a stump. Unwrapping a slice of the meat pie and some cheese, he feasted upon them in pleasure.
A scant handful of miles now separated him from Winchistie. It was a much larger town than Alming and sported no less than three inns, though he had only ever stayed at one. Nor had he done much work there as an herbal knacker, since the community had its own in a woman named Betena. Elario was only summoned there when she was traveling or ill.
Slim chance that anyone would recognize him in Winchistie, but a better opportunity appeared in the road. A stout old man in the driver’s seat of the wagon shouted, “To Jumario, you?”
“Well met!” Elario scrambled off the stump, jamming his half-eaten meal into the satchel. The two horses drawing the wagon looked strong and rested, capable of bringing their cargo to Jumario by late afternoon.
The driver pulled on the reins. “Jurra at’Sprang. Five coppers, fair deal?”
“Fair deal, Master at’Sprang.” Elario pulled out his coin purse but the driver shook his head.
“Pay me there, boy! Get in back now, no time to waste! Let’s ride on while the sun is shining.” He jerked his head to the back.
Elario rounded the wagon and jumped up. Once his backside grazed the wagon bed, they were moving. He finished his lunch there, one hand on the post for balance and legs hanging over the side. Dozens of baskets of swollen blue lateberries sweetened the air behind him. This driver was from Briars, the only place lateberries grew in quantity.
“Don’t pick up travelers, they tell us!” the driver called back in good cheer. “Just drive the crop. Drive the crop. But hardly worth the pay, is it?”
“It never is!” Elario said.
“Can’t pay drivers more with the kingstax raising, they say. Well now, it’s always raising! When has it ever not been raising? Can you remember a time when it went down? All us drivers can do is pick up a passenger here and there to cut the difference. You put in a sixth copper and you can have two fat fistfuls of those berries. They’re good this year. Just two fistfuls, mind you that.”
“I’ll put in a sixth copper.” Elario helped himself to the berries.
They passed the crossroads to Winchistie within the hour. The sun slid from its crown as the horses trotted on, the stout man greeting everyone they passed and eventually breaking into the Song of Shaylene to spell the tedium. His baritone boomed joyfully over the Hopcross. “Ba-rum, ba-rum, the drums they did beat! Ba-rum, ba-rum, flew the maids’ feet! And there on the table did sweet Shaylene dance, and down by the fire did the lords prance! Ba-rum, ba-rum . . .”
Shaylene was the goddess of travel, and one to sing homage to as a crop driver upon the road. One of Elequa’s loveliest children, she was twin to Orakel, the god of home. Elario hummed along with the song, wiping his berry-stained fingers upon his scuffs and hoping there wasn’t juice on his chin.
Jurra’s voice cut off as if severed by a knife. The wagon slowed.
The booming voi
ce of the driver and the clopping of the horses had overridden a dull thumping. Elario craned his neck to see over the top slat of the wagon, believing it was axes hard at work over a fallen tree in the road. If they could not make swift work of it, the wagon would have to turn around and retreat to Winchistie for the night.
But there was no fallen tree. The breeze was teasing at a banner held aloft upon a long pole, two banners upon poles, both of them crimson and striped diagonally with three jagged black slashes. Although he had never seen banners like these before, he recognized the insignia immediately.
The Red Guard? Here on the Hopcross? It could not be! He crouched to see better between the slats of the wagon side. The poles were being held aloft by two men in uniform. Their high-collared red shirts were embellished with golden embroidery on the sleeves. Each had on a stiff vest all in black, but for a ruby-colored medallion at the chest. The medallion bore the same slash marks as the banners. Trousers tucked into tall boots, helmets with a topknot plume of black, they marched in perfect unison.
A column of soldiers followed each banner, numbering about twelve to a side. All of them stared straight ahead. They were mixed arms-men, marching in pairs so that two swordsmen were trailed by two archers, who were in turn trailed by more swordsmen. They were young, by and large, their faces unlined except for those graced with scars. This company of the Red Guard had seen battle.
Elario was awed at their presence, and then embarrassed at himself. For the striking picture that they conjured, what had brought them to this uniform did not flatter their characters. They were horse thieves and murderers and arsonists and robbers, these folk, forcibly giving back to the Crown what they had taken in crime. Knowing this full well, it was still hard not to be dazzled by them.
Their pace was fast. Jurra edged the horses closer to the side of the road to get out of their way. The banner-bearers reached the wagon first, never slowing their march nor taking note of them; a few of the soldiers in their wake gave cursory glances to the horses, the old man, the baskets, and Elario.
Marching behind their lines was another man, his plume all in red. Without a bow or sword at his waist, he had instead holsters to either side upon his belt. Protruding from them were the tan-colored butts of aithra pistols. Real aithra pistols! A shot from one of those wounded a person, but killed a dervesh.
This had to be their officer in charge, the only one who was not a convicted criminal but a true warrior through and through. The oldest of the company by a decade, he cast a penetrating stare to Jurra and Elario. That dark-eyed stare stripped Elario down to his smallclothes, memorizing every feature of his face and form, piercing into his brain to read the contents. For one wild moment, Elario feared that the officer saw the small box with the eye hidden in the folds of his clothing.
Then the stare moved beyond him, to the Wickewoods at his back. Elario released the breath trapped in his lungs once the officer marched by the wagon.
Four pack horses were being brought along behind the soldiers. Loaded down with panniers, each had a boy striding along with the reins held in a fist. The children looked weary from keeping pace with the soldiers. They were dressed in tattered gray scuffs and shoddy boots rather than those glorious uniforms.
What crime could these children have possibly committed? None was any older than Nyca, and one was at least four years younger. The Red Guard was not the punishment for a crime like filching an apple from a market. It had to be most grievous for a town or city judge to condemn a boy or girl to the Red Guard. The presence of the children in the company disturbed Elario greatly until he thought they might not be criminals but hired on as help. Yes, hired on cheaply for a few days to tend the animals and rations, not to run into battle with dervesh. That was why they had no uniforms.
But what did Elario know about any of it? This was not how problems were dealt with in the shadow of the Daine mountains. Each town had a quorum of respected men and women who listened to accusations and meted out punishment when necessary. A highwayman had lurked about the Hopcross some time ago, robbing passerby from Piper Hollow to Jumario. It was near Briars that he was caught, and the Briars Quorum tried, convicted, and sentenced him. Trussed like a pig, the man was rolled down a ravine into the Wickewoods by late afternoon. In the night, a scream was heard, and in the morning, he was gone with justice done.
His eyes as wide as saucers, Jurra shifted in his seat to stare after the Red Guard. “Merciful Elequa! Are my eyes dreaming, boy?” he said in a hushed voice.
“If they are, so are mine, and they behold the same vision,” Elario replied.
“Has it gotten so bad, the dervesh? Have they grown so bold as to cross the road somewhere? I thought they could not. Help us all if that has changed!” Jurra glanced upwards to the position of the sun. Then he snapped the reins, the horses returning at once to their previous speed.
They reached the bridge to Jumario with time to spare. Jurra heeled at the inn and waved off the stable boy. There was no need for him to pay for a room or pallet at the inn, as he had a married brother living just outside town. It was only Elario who got out. He gave over the six coppers with gratitude and the wagon rolled away. The long travel and the poor sleep of the night before were catching up to him; he was blinking over grains of sand.
He walked into a crowded common room. The air was bright with chatter and music. Unlike most inns along the Hopcross, this one always had a merrymaker or two to provide entertainment. They juggled or sang or played instruments upon the stage in the corner, and the last time Elario was here, one wandered amongst the tables telling jokes. Today a pianist was playing a rollicking tune.
Wary of being recognized, he scanned for familiar faces. The serving staff changed too quickly to know Elario from anyone. The bartender was the same, so Elario should not sit at the bar. As for the innkeeper, he was old and half-blind. Sitting at a table close to the pianist, the man was smiling vaguely to the stage. He had not remembered Elario from visit to visit before. After dinner, Elario would approach him and request lodging for the night.
Serving girls wended amongst the long tables, where he found a seat at the edge of one and tucked his satchel between his feet. Coppers from his coin purse went into the hand of a girl, who soon came back with a plate of sliced beef in gravy, fried tubers and greens, and a mug of ale.
It was a generous portion of meat, and piping hot. Elario downed the first bites quickly. Then the conversation of the pair of men beside him caught his attention. “And all of them were marching in time, with two dragon-slashed flags at their fore.”
The speaker had a long brown beard that hovered just above his dinner plate, and the listener sitting next to Elario had a graying beard so long it dipped below the lip of the table. Both were nearly done with their meals, and they were wearing dirty scuffs. His voice tinged in disbelief, the older man said, “And they stayed here in Jumario?”
The first man nodded. “That’s what I heard. They stopped in for a meal but had no need of rooms, and made camp near the crossroads with tents and pallets. Broke camp this morning and brought one of their horses into town. It threw a shoe halfway from Ballevue and the lead officer was unhappy, yes, that the farrier was gone the day before. The shoe went on and they were on their way to Winchistie.”
“Are you speaking of the Red Guard?” Elario asked.
They turned to him. “Did you see them?” asked the first man eagerly.
“We passed on the Hopcross between Jumario and Winchistie this afternoon,” Elario said. “Quick stepping to reach it. Did you see them?”
“No, only heard. I stepped onto the dock in Ballevue two days ago and the first words to touch my ears were that they’d gotten off a cutter just hours before. I thought it was a load of cock and bull. Red Guard? Here?” He laughed incredulously. “When last was there Red Guard even as far south as Penborough? I’m a Penborough man; I can count the times I’ve seen Red Guard on one hand, and the Dragons of the Blood in their tan-and-greens and silver p
ips less than that. Red Guard don’t come to Ballevue. Everyone knows that. But then I heard the same a second time, and a third and fourth, before I’d even made it to the street fair. It was too many hearings for it to be cock and bull. They’re here for some reason.”
“I’ll tell you the reason: King Crucien has had it,” said the older man, his disbelief changing to conviction now that Elario had confirmed the younger man’s story. “We’ve all had it! All this land that nobody can use, that nobody can farm or hunt. All this land that sits wasted from the Hopcross to the Argonauth. What do you do when you’ve got a fox stalking your henhouse? You bring in a trapper! You don’t abandon the henhouse. We’ve had five hundred years of abandoning the henhouse and I’d say he’s right done with it.”
“You’d say nothing because no one knows what the king thinks but the king and his council,” the first man squabbled. “And maybe the queen. Nobody’s telling you what the king thinks.”
Annoyance set the older fellow’s lips to be spoken to so disrespectfully. “We could be rich, I tell you, all of us here, all of us below the Hopcross. We used to be rich. Even the poor were rich in the Great Cities! No one went hungry back then. No one went cold. No one crowded four generations to a house and three to a bed. Nobody pinched coppers like we do. We should be rich right now! How many parcels of good land are out there unused? Instead of toiling upon this mountain-scrape, we could have fields going out as far as the eye can see.”
The eye. Elario slid a hand under the table to check the box in his pocket. It was still there.
“So if I’ve got the sense to see it,” the older man persisted, “then the king has ten times the sense to see it. That’s why he sent the Red Guard down from Ruzan. You flush them out, those dervesh. Get all the legions of Red Guard to fight into the Wickewoods from one direction, and drive the dervesh into all the legions of the Dragons of the Blood standing in wait in the other direction. Close in on them like two slices of bread in a sandwich, and they’re yours for the taking!”