A Cast of Stones

by Patrick W. Carr

  He ate a little more of the bread and cheese and then, using his saddle as a pillow, he slept.

  A shaft of sunlight from just above the western horizon woke him. Midnight grazed, still tied to the tree, but some sound or absence of movement put Errol on his guard. He grabbed the staff and yanked the knobblocks off in haste, searched the trees, peering through the shadows, his heart yammering in his chest, urging him to flee.

  What had set him on edge? Nothing moved. Even the breeze had died. Silence ruled, as though the woods in which he hid were nothing more than a painting.

  He froze. That’s it. There was no sound.

  He turned in slow circles, searching the shadows between the trees. Then Midnight threw his head and gave a soft whinny. The horse looked directly over Errol’s shoulder.

  At something behind him.

  He whirled, spinning the staff.

  The wood parried a thrust aimed at his gut. He jumped, seeking distance between himself and the man whose sword moved back in line, pointing again at his midsection.

  A predatory smile revealed crooked teeth beneath a sharply hooked nose. “They told me you had a demon’s own luck.” The man stepped forward, light and sure on his feet. “But they also told me you didn’t know how to handle a sword. Do you think that stick is going to save you?”

  Errol took a step back, his mind churning, trying to keep pace with his heart. They? Who were they?

  “How did you find me?”

  The man shrugged, blinking. “Once we found the farmhouse, one of us was bound to. That stupid farmer wouldn’t talk. Tough as a boot he was. The captain knocked him unconscious.” The man shook his head. “Too hasty, that. No man can talk when he’s out cold.”

  Errol shook his head. He couldn’t believe Rale would go down without a fight. “I don’t think so. He fought you, didn’t he.”

  Another shrug and a blink began the man’s answer. He circled to Errol’s left. “Aye, he fought. Put down three men before the captain rapped him on the head.” The swordsman nodded toward Errol’s stomach. “I like gut wounds. People scream more, and they take longer to die.”

  He flicked his sword, and Errol twitched the staff. His arms shook so that the staff wiggled in his hands like a live thing. Bile rose in his throat. The man’s sword weaved leisurely figure eights, and Errol moved to the man’s left, desperate to keep himself out of reach. “Rale didn’t tell you where to find me. Who did?”

  For the third time the man gave a shrug and a blink before he answered. A plan formed in Errol’s mind.

  “That farmwife told us.” He punctuated the revelation with coarse laughter. “She would have told us anything when we put our hands on her daughter.”

  Errol’s throat tightened and he fought to breathe. Myrrha.

  A grimace tightened the man’s face. “Captain told us not to harm her. Said we couldn’t afford to leave that kind of trail. Too cautious, Captain is.” He circled back to Errol’s right, dark eyes becoming intense.

  Now. It has to be now. “What’s your captain’s name?” He waited the merest fraction of a second, saw muscles tense as a prelude to a shrug and a blink. The eyelids started down.

  Errol struck.

  He stepped and swung the staff, forced the ash to move faster than he had ever pushed the wood before.

  The man finished his blink, eyes growing wide in surprise, and tried to parry. The staff slipped under the blade. The man hadn’t expected a low-line attack. The crack of wood against bone sounded in the clearing. Using the momentum of the rebound, Errol shifted his hands, brought the staff around as his opponent tried to shift his weight.

  The wood whistled, crying in the air as he brought the staff around its circle to strike the man’s head. Blood erupted. Crimson drops blossomed in the air even as the man’s eyes struggled to focus. With a snarl he hobbled forward, head shaking, his sword still pointed at Errol’s gut. But it trembled now.

  Errol gritted his teeth, changed his grip to slide his hands closer to the end of the staff, and thrust. A groan, deep and tearing, sounded from the man as the wood crushed into his solar plexus.

  The sword fell. The man followed a second later, dropping to his knees.

  Swinging with all the terror and fury his heart couldn’t hold, Errol hit him across the head. He watched, brandishing the staff in readiness as the man fell face forward.

  His chest heaving, he watched the still form on the ground in front of him, ready to strike again at any movement greater than a drawn breath. Finally, he picked up the sword and went to his saddlebags. There was no rope, but there was a long strip of burlap Anomar had used to wrap the food. It would have to do. Cutting it into three pieces, he tied the man’s feet and ankles and used the final piece to gag him. It probably wouldn’t hold for long. He’d never learned how to make a decent knot, but by the time the man freed himself, Errol would be gone.

  He searched the woods until he found his assailant’s horse, took the food and money from the saddlebags, and put the flat of the blade against its rump so hard, it took off with a scream.

  Dusk settled over the landscape, painting the shadows in soothing shades of purple, but Errol’s heart continued to beat against his ribs as if he still fought. He scrubbed away tears as he saddled Midnight and made for the river.

  He needed to get stronger. That the man had still come after him after that blow to his leg frightened him. With knobblocks the strike would have broken the bone and the fight would have been over before it started. As he reached the riverbank and turned to follow the water southeast, he resolved to spend every possible minute working with the weighted staff.

  Darkness wrapped him like a blanket. Only the moon’s washed-out glimmer shining off the water relieved the night. By feel he lifted the staff, fished the knobblocks out of his pocket, and fitted them to the ends of the wood. Careful to avoid hitting Midnight, he moved through the basic staff movements Rale had taught him. The moves felt clumsy on horseback, but he pressed on. When his arms tired and the weapon threatened to strike the horse, he rested and ate. As his strength returned, he forced himself through the forms again.

  At last the sky pinked, and with a sigh of relief, he guided Midnight into the forest away from the river. The cedars and pines still dominated but were interspersed now with hardwoods. He dismounted at the forest’s edge, took the reins in one hand, and searched for a secluded clearing.

  He rubbed Midnight’s nose. “I need to sleep, and I bet you’re tired of the bit and saddle.” Gloom lived beneath the branches of the trees. That was fine by him. Whoever pursued him would find it difficult to see him among the shadows. He unsaddled Midnight, his shoulders trembling with the effort. But after he staked the leading rein to the ground, he took the staff and cudgeled his muscles through the forms for defense and attack for another hour, after which he collapsed to the ground, sweating and out of breath, and slept.

  Every day and night he followed the same routine. Gradually the ache in his shoulders began to subside and his lungs no longer labored as hard during his workouts. Midnight became so used to the swish of the ash staff that he seldom more than cocked an ear when Errol practiced the forms. But the incessant workouts took their toll. A voice in the back of his head told him he pushed himself too hard, needed to take more time for rest and food.

  One morning as the sun peaked over the horizon, he slipped from the saddle, took a step forward to remove the bridle from his mount, and collapsed. He pushed against the ground, tried to rise. The movement caught the attention of Midnight, who pushed against him with his fuzzy nose, whickering.

  “I’m fine, boy,” Errol said. The earth pulled at him, weighed him down. His eyelids took on a weight of their own. “I just need . . . to . . . sleep.”

  He woke to the sightlessness of dark and the sound of crickets and tree frogs. The moon shone from well above the treetops, looking small and isolated as it tracked across the sky. He shielded his eyes from the moonlight and waited for the darkness to fade. Mi
dnight grazed off to his right, still saddled. A long growl accompanied by a twisting cramp came from his midsection. He fumbled with the saddlebags in the dark until he located a wedge of cheese and a chunk of heavy bread to eat on the ride. The moon glowed on his right as he led Midnight northeast, back toward the river.

  He froze.

  A flicker of torchlight winked in and out of sight through the gaps in the trees. The light split, became two. The pinpoints separated over and over again, until eight of them bobbed up and down like corks in a river.

  He stood transfixed as they headed downstream. If not for their lights, he would never have known they were there. What errand or mission constrained them to travel at night? Perhaps he could journey with them to Longhollow. They must surely be traveling more quickly than he, but could he trust them?

  The lights stopped, and in the stillness, as though they were whispers of wind, he heard voices calling to one another. Then they came toward the woods, horses’ hooves crunching through twigs and pinecones.

  Coming toward him. Searching.

  He pulled his eyes from the hypnotic bounce of their torches and led Midnight away, deeper into the forest. What followed became the strangest game of seeker-and-lost he’d ever played. Casting glances behind, he discerned their strategy. Somehow they must have known where he’d camped. There was no other way to explain the precision with which they’d been able to locate not only the woods he slept in, but his campsite as well. Now, they fanned out in an arc to scoop him up like a minnow caught in a pool.

  How had they known where he was?

  He cursed himself for a fool. They had a reader with them.

  With a shake of his head he thrust the thought away. There would be time for speculation later. His only chance lay in flight. Silence rested on the wood. No tree frogs, nightingales, or owls broke the quiet. The slightest noise could be heard a hundred paces away. Errol scooted his feet forward along the ground, trying to push aside any sticks whose sudden crack might give away his presence. As much as Midnight meant to him, there was no chance the horse would miss every twig in the dark. He led the horse, pushing aside the branches with his shins.

  Behind him the arc of riders advanced, but the constant interruption of trees kept Errol from knowing whether they gained or fell farther behind. Sweat beaded on his brow. The silence took on life, pressed against him, and an insane desire to make some kind of noise to dispel it pestered him. He clenched his jaws and continued leading Midnight with his shuffling gait, trying to move faster.

  He conjured Rale’s face, tried to recall everything the farmer ever said about the terrain between his farm and Longhollow. There wasn’t much. Stick to the river, he’d said. Sleep in the woods each night.

  But how big were the woods? If Errol didn’t cover enough distance to conceal himself by dawn, he’d be caught. If he could find a way out of the dense growth before his pursuers caught up to him, Midnight might be able to carry him to safety. Did the trees even have an end? He might be looking for something that didn’t even exist or, if it did, would take him days of travel to find.

  The torchlight seemed farther away now, mere pinpoints among the boles. He decided to risk a little noise for the sake of speed. He picked up his feet, increased his pace to a quick jog. A large crunch sounded beneath his boot as a stick snapped in two. He stopped, held his breath, and strained his ears for any sound that he’d betrayed his whereabouts. Errol cursed himself for a fool. He’d been building a lead on those who chased him.

  The forest remained silent. He resumed his stiff-gaited shuffle and moved ahead. His eyes strained to make use of the splintered moonlight that penetrated the canopy of foliage overhead. The torches fell farther behind, but always they came on, never completely lost to sight.

  Time passed, and Errol found he could see through the gloom with less difficulty. Shapes held more definition as the moon ascended. Hints of shadows across his path showed him where the sticks were. He thought back. It had taken Luis twenty minutes to cast a pair of lots. Even if it could be done in half the time, he could escape as long as he kept moving.

  Fatigue dulled his brain. His feet had been working through thick grass for ten paces before he realized he’d left the forest. Tiny specs of light, mere pinpricks, still moved in the forest. They would not catch him now. Errol hugged Midnight’s neck, then gave the big destrier an apple before he mounted and set off in a fast trot.

  Two days later he entered Longhollow, stepped into mud and chaos.

  14

  THE CARAVAN MASTER

  THE CITY of Longhollow seemed more a massive collection of caravans interspersed with buildings than a city. It squatted atop a low bluff overlooking the river. A palisade of sharpened logs served as a barely definable boundary between the exterior and the interior. The few buildings, some of which leaned over the street on tilted supports, were made of unpainted wood rather than stone.

  Porters sweated and cursed their loads into position, then cursed some more when instructed to remove what had just been moved. Dozens of trader emblems flapped in the breeze, each caravan fighting to get their goods and begin their journey to profitability. Stock that didn’t come in by the four roads that converged on the city came floating in by barge or boat on the river.

  Errol fought to keep his hands from twitching the reins and fleeing back to the quietude of the forest and the river farther west. The color and cacophony of the press assaulted his senses. He looked down, convinced by the smell that Midnight must be stepping through sewage.

  A voice intruded on his disgust. “Move, boy. This isn’t getting any lighter.”

  Errol turned to see a young man about his own age with a huge sack of grain thrown over each shoulder.

  “Sorry.” Errol moved Midnight aside.

  The man took a step, slipped, and dropped his burden with a curse. “Look what you made me do.”

  Errol dismounted. “I’m sorry. Here, we can load the sacks on my horse.” He picked one up with difficulty and plopped it on the saddle.

  The young man looked at him, suspicion written across a freckled face under dark red hair. “Your first time here?”

  Errol nodded. “I came to sign on as a guard.”

  That earned him a laugh. “Well, at least your horse looks the part. I’ll wager he’s not used to carrying sacks of grain.” He hefted the second bag onto Midnight. “I’m Etann.” He caught Errol’s look of disgust and grinned at him. “Not many people stay here for long. Not even the harlots or blacksmiths. Soon or late the noise and the smell drive everyone away.”

  They walked toward the southern edge of the town. The noise never lessened.

  Etann’s hand on his shoulder brought him to a stop next to a stable that looked as if it had been hastily built the day before. “Thanks for the help.” He shouldered his grain.

  The chaos of the town was just as daunting as at first glimpse. “Can you tell me how I should go about becoming a caravan guard?”

  Etann gestured with his chin toward a heavy man in robes that matched the standard under which a dozen porters labored. “That’s the merchant master. With the smaller caravans, it’s the merchant himself; with the larger it’s usually his factor, the man responsible for the hundreds of small decisions that make the merchant train profitable.” Etann smirked, his green eyes twinkling. “One of those small decisions includes who guards the goods.” He lumbered away.

  How did one address a merchant or his factor? For that matter, how was he to know the difference?

  Not knowing what else to do, Errol led Midnight to the merchant master and opted for the general honorific. “Excuse me, sir?”

  The man rotated to face him, his bulk making the yellow and black horizontal stripes of his robes wave and distort around his middle. He looked like a giant bee. Errol hoped his smile would be misinterpreted.

  It hadn’t. The merchant curled his lip. “What do you want, boy?”

  He leaned on his staff and tried to fix a confident grin on
his face. Maybe the factor would think him experienced. “I’m looking for work as a caravan guard.”

  The man laughed so hard Errol could feel the puffs of his mirth. Then the man’s face hardened, though the redness of his laughter remained. “Get out of my way, boy. I have all the guards I need, and I don’t have time for jokes.”

  He moved to turn away, but Errol stepped around and forced the man to face him again. “Do you know of any caravans that are looking for guards?”

  The man glared at him for a split second before the look melted away to be replaced by a smile as ingratiating as it was false. He tapped a sausage-like finger against his chin. “I think I heard Naaman Ru say he needed a new guard or two. He’s got a couple that like to drink too much.” The merchant master leaned toward him, draping a thick arm around his shoulders. His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “You can’t have that, you know. What if the train gets attacked while the men are drunk?” He clucked. “That would never do.”

  “Where do I find him?” Errol itched to shake the man’s arm off. He didn’t trust the fat bee any farther than he could haul him, but he couldn’t afford to let an opportunity, any opportunity, to get to Erinon undetected pass him by.

  A striped arm pointed across the chaos. “Ru’s at the far end of the camp. Look for purple and black diamonds.” The grin returned, looking almost savage. “He has some strange ideas about how he picks his guards, but that should be no trouble for you. I can see you’re an experienced fighting man.”

  Errol nodded, certain the man must be making sport of him and doubting any such merchant existed. Not one of the flags that fluttered weakly in the breeze bore a diamond pattern, purple or otherwise.

  Fifteen minutes later, still walking with Midnight trailing behind in the direction he’d been sent, he began to hope there was no such man. The buildings and camps on this side of the town reeked of petty and not so petty crime. Men stared at his horse and belongings with hungry looks, and more than one fingered belt daggers as they did so. Errol paused just long enough to put the knobblocks on his staff. The looks continued, but the faces appeared more wary. Good. Right then he only wanted to get back to the better side of Longhollow. If he had to ride alone to Erinon, so be it.