A Cast of Stones

by Patrick W. Carr

  Conger smiled. “You didn’t listen. His guard still lived. The horde captain thought it would be amusing to make them watch their new king slaughtered like a pig. He tossed Magis’s still-bleeding body aside and started for the guard, but when the last of the king’s blood left his body to soak the ground, the horde fell dead. Thousands upon thousands of the accursed ones dropped in their tracks on the plains of stone and near the steppes. The guard stayed, paralyzed, thinking it a trick of some kind to give the demons sport. They huddled there through the night. When dawn broke and the dead remained, they were convinced. They fashioned a litter and carried Magis over the piles of dead and back to Erinon. The journey back proved to be nearly as hazardous as the battle. Too few men remained in the kingdom to uphold the law. But each night, shamed that their king died while they lived, the guard stood watch over his body, fighting any that came at them out of the darkness. Always they kept watch. When they reached Erinon, they refused the recognition of friends or kin. Forsaking their names, they called themselves the watch and traded in the marks and banners of their houses for mourning black. They swore an oath never to outlive their king in battle again.

  “Magis purchased the barrier with his blood, boy. That was the deal he made. And as long as one of his descendants sits the throne, no one in the kingdom may call on the malus.”

  A memory clicked into place. Errol’s stomach turned, trying to flee through his legs. “Rodran doesn’t have any children, and he’s dying.”

  Conger didn’t speak as he nodded.

  16

  THE SHAPING OF WOOD

  ERROL SQUINTED against the afternoon sun as he rode with his staff across his saddle and worked a piece of dried beef with his teeth. Grub made it on the salty side, but it gave his stomach enough to keep it from complaining. He ripped off a piece and stuck the rest in a pocket before turning his attention back to his staff. Splinters jutted from the formerly smooth ends, and small cracks fissured the end grain.

  Soon or late he would have to make a new one, but he didn’t know how. When Ru called a halt and directed the caravan to a clearing beside the road for the evening, Errol decided to seek out Rokha. The woman made him nervous. Her resemblance to Karma, the woman possessed by the malus in Windridge, still filled him with the desire to flee at times, but her storehouse of knowledge impressed him.

  Jhade would have seemed a more logical choice for him to ask for help, but the strange woman didn’t engage in extended conversation for any reason. She did, however, spar with an indefatigable enthusiasm that bordered on obsession. When she discovered Errol to be a willing staff partner, his every free moment became spoken for. His first lesson had proven to be quite educational. He rubbed a shoulder at the recollection. From the outset it was obvious she’d learned an entirely different way of fighting with the staff than he had. While Errol concentrated on attacking and defending with the staff, Jhade had attacked with wood, hands, and feet. He wore numerous bruises from her heels and hands.

  So he decided it would be best to ask Rokha for assistance. Whether the topic was weapons or weather, she either knew the answer or knew where to find it. As he approached her, he shifted, rolling his shoulders under his tunic. “Rokha.” He held his staff out for her inspection. “Do you know anything about making a staff ?”

  She cocked her head and looked at him with her dark eyes that always held a hint of fire. Every now and then she would flash him a smile that pulled the breath from his lungs. Now she just shrugged.

  “Shouldn’t you ask Jhade? She’s the one who fights with the staff.” Rokha patted the slim blade that never left her side. “I prefer steel myself.”

  Errol shrugged. “Jhade is a great sparring partner, but she doesn’t talk much, and I need someone to teach me how to use a knife.”

  Her delicately curved eyebrows rose a fraction. “You don’t know how to use a knife?”

  He sighed in frustration. “Of course I know how to use a knife.” He moved his hand. “You thrust and twist to keep the wound from closing.” He let his hand fall to his side. “But I don’t know how to carve.”

  “Everyone knows how to carve. What did you do with yourself growing up?”

  “I drank mostly.” The admission didn’t bother him the way it once would have, and he thanked Rale in the vaults of his mind. “When I wasn’t drinking, I was hunting plants for the herbwomen around my village. They paid me and I bought ale.”

  To her credit, she nodded as she gave him a look of simple acknowledgment without a trace of pity. “I wondered why you were so careful to avoid Grub’s ale barrel.”

  He shrugged. “Can you teach me?”

  Rokha nodded. “But I’m not going to teach you in ash or oak. It would take too long. Take an axe and find a piece of fir, or better yet, pine. I can teach you on that and then you can make a staff out of whatever you want.”

  Errol’s search took him farther into the wood than he expected, and before he realized it the clamor of Ru’s caravan faded and disappeared. Cedars populated this part of the forest, with an oak or maple thrown in here and there, but he found no pine or fir. He turned from the path he’d chosen, climbing a hillock that might offer him a better vantage point.

  When he crested the hill, a small stand of pines presented itself at the bottom of a nearby hollow. He crisscrossed his way down the slope, lugging Grub’s hatchet with him. Minutes later, with the tang of pine heavy in the air, he held a straight length of wood about two spans long. Green, it would be far too heavy to wield as a staff, but he only intended to practice carving on it anyway.

  A few well-placed chops pruned the branch. He sighted along its length and congratulated himself on his choice. Already, he could imagine the outcome, smooth and white, whirling in his hands as he moved. Practicing with the pine might not be such a bad idea after all. The greater weight of the unseasoned wood would help him build the strength he needed to wield an oak staff someday. Errol hummed a tune to himself as he started the trek back to Ru’s caravan.

  He tried to retrace his steps, but each stand of cedar trees looked much like the others. By the time he heard the distant sounds of Sven arguing with Grub, only a sliver of sun showed above the horizon. He approached the camp with his branch tucked under one arm.

  And stopped.

  Errol held his breath and slid behind the bole of a large maple. The raised bark scratched him through his tunic, but he ignored it, used a breathing technique Rale had taught him to quiet the pounding of his heart.

  He listened, taking slow, shallow breaths, but only Sven’s insistence came to him through the trees. Errol cursed himself for leaving the camp without his real staff. What kind of caravan guard walks through a strange forest without his weapon? The whole reason Ru had guards was because people tried to rob caravans. He looked at the pine branch with disgust. He might as well try swinging a bar of iron. The hatchet made a handier weapon if he could catch his enemy unaware, but one twig snap and he’d find himself facing the point of a sword. With a long, slow breath, he leaned his pruned branch against the tree and edged around the trunk to look again.

  They were gone. The two men he’d seen crouched behind a thick growth of laurel were nowhere to be seen. Had he imagined them? Possibly, but he didn’t believe it. He held his position as the forest darkened, but nothing moved. Errol left his hiding place, forced by the encroaching darkness to make his way back to camp in the last of the dusk’s light.

  He skirted the fire, ignored the food Grub had laid out, and made for Rokha, who stood at the edge talking to Skorik. The first didn’t look pleased at the interruption.

  “It’s about time,” Rokha said. “I thought you’d decided to grow the tree first.” She looked at the branch he held. “That’s not too bad. It looks—” She broke off at the look on his face. “What is it, boy?”

  Errol stammered under the first’s glare. Had he really seen them or just imagined it? What if he was wrong? The sunlight played tricks with the shadows. In the end he shook h
is head. “Nothing. I just got a little spooked in the woods.”

  Rokha leaned forward, her eyes boring into his as if she meant to pry his concerns from him by strength of will, but at last she leaned back with a shrug. “You’re one of the most nervous people I’ve ever met. Whatever it is can’t be as bad as you think. It’s not like you’ve got the watch hunting you.”

  Errol’s laughter sounded shrill in his ears, and a couple of the guards seated by the fire looked up. He dug out a knife Grub had loaned him and offered it hilt first to Rokha. She took it, frowned, and handed it back. From within her cloak she proceeded to bring forth an astonishing assortment of knives. Seeing the look on his face, she gave him a smile that made it difficult to breathe.

  “I like knives,” she said. Her husky tone brought heat to his ears. She selected the largest blade from the pile at her feet. “We’ll start with this one. It’s heavy enough to pull the bark and cut through the small knots.”

  One of the knives on the ground caught his attention. It looked just like the one Luis used. The flat, triangular blade was no longer than his shortest finger. He pointed. “Shouldn’t we use that one?”

  Rokha shook her head. “That’s a carving knife. It’s for detail work. What we need here is something a little heavier.” Seating herself on the ground with one end of Errol’s branch resting in her lap, she wrapped a cloth around the blade end and drew the knife toward her in a smooth motion. A long curl of bark slid off the blade showing the pale wood underneath. She repeated the motion a couple more times, then stood and gestured.

  “Now you do it. Don’t angle the knife too deeply or you’ll splinter the wood.” She gathered her cutlery. It disappeared into the pockets lining her cloak and she left.

  He sat and tried to imitate her, but despite her warning, he buried the blade into the wood half a dozen times before he schooled himself to patience. It took him the better part of an hour to reach the point where he could draw a curl of wood from the pine as she had. When he saw her next, a pile of shavings, some fine and curled, others embarrassingly thick, littered the ground.

  Rokha knelt with a smile, fingering one of the jagged chunks of pine. “It may take you a while to learn. Fortunately, there’s a lot of pine between here and Erinon.” She took the heavy blade from his hands and stashed it into her cloak. “You have first watch tonight.”

  An impulse bordering on need drove him. “Can I use your carving knife while I stand watch?” He tried but didn’t quite succeed in keeping the pleading from his voice. Why was he acting this way?

  Rokha considered the question before reaching into her cloak and pulling out the small-bladed knife. “Don’t use it on that wet pine. Find something dry or you’ll hurt the blade.”

  He nodded, having no idea where he would find seasoned wood. After pestering Grub and half the guards in the camp, he finally found a source of dried blanks. Norad, the fourteenth guard, carved as a hobby. He surrendered two fist-sized cubes of wood to Errol with a wry look.

  “You never challenged me for my spot, Errol.”

  Not knowing what to say, he shrugged at Norad’s observation.

  “Someone must have told you that Eck was fifth. I think you could have challenged up to eighth without breaking a sweat. Most of us have never fought a staff bearer.” The fourteenth gestured toward the lead wagon, where Naaman Ru stood discussing the next day’s route with Skorik. “You know Ru pays his guards according to their rank. You’d make a lot more money.”

  Errol shrugged, hefting his staff. “I love working the staff.”

  Norad nodded and smiled.

  “But I haven’t fought very much,” Errol went on. “I think there’s more to fighting than just knowing the staff. Fights seem to be pretty unpredictable. I’d like to avoid them if I can. Grub gives me as much to eat as I want, so I don’t really need a lot of money.”

  The fourteenth added another block of wood to the two already in Errol’s hand. “You’re uncommonly wise for someone so young, Errol.” He chuckled. “I think you just made friends with at least seven of the guards.”

  Errol retreated to his post at the back of the caravan and considered the cubes he’d received. He lifted the first one and took an exploratory whiff. Pine. No mistaking it. The second one also proved to be pine. The third block appeared altogether different. Dark and strongly scented, it weighed more while possessing a rougher texture. Hardwood. He’d save it for later, after he acquired some measure of skill.

  He pulled Rokha’s knife from his pocket to work on the first block. There had never been any question about what he would carve, not since he’d watched Luis that day next to the river. So he would try to craft a sphere, but how did a reader put the essence of his thoughts into the lot?

  Errol didn’t have the least glimmer of an idea. Luis had never told him.

  He gripped the knife in his right hand and shaved a curlicue from one of the sharp edges of the cube. Maybe if he tried to envision a sphere hidden within it would go better. He turned the cube and stroked the knife against the blond grain again, repeated the process until he’d broken each of the twelve edges. The cube didn’t look much different. It would be more difficult to get a splinter now, but it was still undeniably a cube, not a sphere. The urge to attack the block with quick, savage cuts nearly overpowered him. He had never done anything so mind-numbingly boring in his life. How did Luis stand it?

  Almost, he threw the block away. Frustrated at his lack of knowledge, Errol took a deep breath and let his attention wander back to his experience in the woods. One of those men resembled Eck. What would he be up to, skulking after the caravan? Did he mean to confront Ru? Or perhaps the former guard intended a more personal revenge. Revenge or attack? Errol turned the question over in his head, the knife and wood forgotten. Why else would the former guard follow the caravan?

  “I thought you didn’t know how to carve, boy.”

  He jerked at the warmth of Rokha’s voice.

  “Better not let Skorik catch you daydreaming on guard duty, boy,” she said. “His methods of encouraging attentiveness are painfully direct.”

  “Sorry.” Errol tucked the knife away and noticed for the first time the small mound of shavings at his feet. He stared at his other hand.

  There, resting in his left palm, lay a sphere of pine. He tilted his hand, felt tiny splinters of grain tickle his skin as he rolled it back and forth.

  Rokha sniffed. “What game are you playing at? If you can carve that well, why go to the trouble of asking me how to make a new staff ?”

  Errol shook his head. “I don’t know how I did this. I’ve never really carved before.”

  He left Rokha and edged around the wagon of skins to a deserted spot. When the campfire came into view, he stopped and held the sphere so that the light bathed one side. Slowly, he rotated his carving and searched the grain. His hand trembled and he held his breath.

  There.

  Yes glimmered in the flickers of firelight. What did that mean? Errol continued his search for another moment, but nothing more appeared. He returned to his place of watch.

  Rokha was gone.

  Luis had said his thoughts would create the lot. The question framed the answer. He cast back, trying to recall what he’d been thinking as he carved. Attack. That was it. He’d been thinking Eck would attack the caravan.

  Errol dug the other cube of pine from his pocket. He needed the other side of the question, needed to somehow carve a lot that said No. Air filled his lungs as he breathed deeply. What had he been thinking about before?

  He let his eyes relax to a near close and moved the knife along the grain. No, he repeated to himself, Eck will not attack the caravan.

  The awareness of time slipped from him.

  A distant rustle of sound brought him back to himself, and he looked down. There in his hand lay a wooden sphere, twin to the one that rested in his pocket. He walked back to the fire without a sound, unsure of what instinct drove him to secrecy. When he held the lot
up to the light, No flickered with the dance of the flames.

  Could it really be that easy?

  He retreated back to the shadow of the carts but still within sight of the fire. Luis had used a simple canvas bag to choose lots, but Errol had never heard him attach any importance to how they were chosen. The only requirement seemed to be a choice made at random. An oversized pocket had been stitched to the inside of his cloak. He emptied it of the food he’d gotten from Grub and placed the two pine lots inside.

  The balls rattled softly as he shook the cloth. He reached inside, his fingers tingling.

  He held the ball to the light of the fire.

  Yes.

  Air whispered as he exhaled. He replaced the lot, shook his cloak, and drew again.

  Yes.

  Again.

  Yes.

  On the fifth draw the lot said No. But then he drew Yes twice more before drawing No.

  And then Yes three more times.

  Would that be enough to satisfy Ru? Luis had only begun to teach him how to read. During those lessons on the way to Windridge, the reader had hinted at the study of chance, but Errol didn’t have the slightest idea what that entailed.

  Rokha would know.

  Errol held the lots so tightly his fingers ached as he went in search of her. The sixth stood next to Ru. The caravan master leaned toward her, the smile in his expression a mixture of affection and pride. Errol stood three paces away and waited for one of them to notice him. At last Ru’s gaze broke from his contemplation of the Merakhi. His smile slipped away to be replaced by annoyance.

  “What do you want, boy?”

  Errol cleared his throat and stepped closer, bowing from the neck. “I’m sorry to interrupt you, caravan master, but I need to report to the sixth.”