A Cast of Stones

by Patrick W. Carr

  Ru’s expression softened a degree. “Go ahead.”

  Errol hesitated, not wanting to reveal his ability in front of Ru. He scolded himself. She would just tell Ru later anyway.

  The caravan master smirked and turned back to Rokha. “It seems the boy is smitten with you. I have the feeling his report is nothing more than an excuse to enjoy your company.” He turned back to Errol. “Well, you will find I have little patience for distractions among my guards. Whatever you have to report to the sixth can be said in front of me. Out with it.”

  He inched closer and dug the lots out of his pocket, shielding them from the view of anyone who might be watching. “Eck is going to attack the caravan.”

  Ru’s laughter caught him by surprise. “Oh ho. Not only have I found a new guard but a prophet as well. Rokha, the lad is inventive. In addition to being a fighter, he’d have us believe he’s a reader as well. Tell me, boy, are all orphans so talented?” He turned to Rokha. “Of course, since there’s nothing on his little balls of pine, there’s no way to check his story.”

  Errol held out a lot for Ru’s inspection. “Look. It’s written right there.”

  Ru slapped his hand away. “Don’t play stupid, boy. No one can read a lot except the person who created it. Him, or an omne. Now get back to work.”

  Errol gaped, clenched his jaws against anything he might say. Of course, not being readers, they couldn’t read the lots, but how had he read Luis’s cast? Putting that question aside, he considered the best way to convince Ru.

  “Wait here,” he said. He ran back to the fire, fetched a twig that lay on the edge, its tip burnt to charcoal.

  “There is a way to prove the caravan is in danger.” He brandished the twig like a churchman holding a crosier. “I’ll mark the lot that says Eck is going to attack the caravan and either of you can draw.”

  The smile dropped from Naaman Ru’s face as if it had never been. Rokha’s expression became a mask. Errol ignored them and dropped the lots in the oversized pocket of his cloak. A couple of shakes later, he gestured to Ru.

  The caravan master reached in and pulled out a lot. There on its side, plainly visible even in the soft light, a charcoal smear marred the pale yellow surface. Rokha and Ru stilled. Good. He had their attention.

  He replaced the lot and shook his cloak. “Now you draw, Rokha.”

  She shook her head slowly, her expression unreadable. “You play at dangerous games, boy.” Disapproval showed in every line of her stance, but she reached into his cloak and withdrew a lot just the same.

  And showed the smear to Ru.

  “Once more,” Ru said, his voice tight. He nodded to Rokha, who circled around Errol, peering over his shoulder.

  Ru hesitated, the muscles of his jaw bunching before he thrust in his hand and pulled out the same lot.

  Errol had just enough time to sense Rokha’s sudden explosive movement.

  Then everything went black.

  He woke, seated on a well-cushioned chair in Ru’s tent. His hands were tied and the back of his head throbbed like a long-forgotten hangover. The lamplight made his eyes hurt. Naaman Ru and Rokha stood in front of him, their expressions hard. No one else was in the tent.

  “Why did you hit me?”

  Ru growled in the back of his throat. “Don’t play the fool with me, boy. If you know enough to cast lots, you know I could go to the headsman for harboring you.”

  “What? Harboring me? You’re not harboring me. I signed on to be a guard until we reach Erinon.”

  The caravan master gave short, jerky shakes of his head as Errol answered. “You’re going to have to do better than that, boy. No escaped reader would dare show his face back in Erinon.”

  Rokha shifted behind Ru. “He’s young. Perhaps he hopes to get back to Erinon and plead for mercy.”

  Ru snarled, turned on her. “I don’t care if he’s a babe at his mother’s breast. You know the penalty for hiding a reader. The church will have my head and that of anyone who knows the boy’s talent.” He spat like a man tasting poison.

  “The church doesn’t know I’m a reader.”

  Ru and Rokha turned to stare at him as if he’d lost his mind.

  Errol panicked. His tongue tripped as he tried to make it keep up with his thoughts. “A man named Luis, they called him Tremus, tested me in my village. Said I’d have to go to Erinon. He showed me how to make lots.”

  “We have to kill him,” Ru said. “I won’t count on the church’s forbearance. Not where a reader is concerned.”

  Rokha nodded, but Errol couldn’t tell if it was in agreement or simple acknowledgment. “That’s pretty harsh, Ru—even for you.”

  Errol felt the deep thrum of fear in his ears. “I’ve never been to Erinon. Everyone thinks I’m dead. I fell off the bridge at Windridge and got washed downstream. None of my friends ever came looking for me.” He clamped his teeth on the half truth.

  “What if the boy is telling the truth?” Rokha asked.

  “Don’t tell me you believe him.”

  The sixth shrugged. “Think, Ru. Have you heard news of the church looking for a missing reader? Have you seen or heard a writ describing the boy?”

  Ru shook his head. His color receded from purple to red.

  Rokha pressed her advantage. “There’s no law against having a guard who’s going to become a reader.”

  “You’re splitting hairs, Rokha.”

  She shrugged. “Have you considered the possibilities if you have your own reader?”

  Naaman Ru gaped at his sixth. Then his eyes narrowed with unconcealed greed.

  And then Errol heard it.

  The sounds of fighting in the camp.

  17

  NAAMAN’S TALE

  ROKHA SLIPPED BEHIND HIM and drew her sword. Errol ducked his head and tensed, waiting for the blow against his neck. Instead a soft tug pulled at his wrists and his hands came free. Rokha darted to the front of the tent and in one smooth motion tossed him his staff before she rushed out into the night.

  Errol found Ru looking at him with his sword drawn. He clenched the wood in his fists.

  “Move, boy. What do you think I pay my guards for?”

  The night air cooled the sweat on his face as he lunged from the tent. His palms caressed the ash grain. Outside Ru’s tent chaos ruled. Two of the fifteen, Norad and Jesper, were down, arrows jutting from their chests. Every other guard fought, pressed by one or more attackers.

  Sven swung a massive sword, keeping two men at bay despite the shaft sticking from his thigh.

  Errol watched as the massive Soede clubbed one man in the head. The man collapsed to lay in the dirt and shadows. Sven parried the frantic rush of the remaining attacker as he stepped on the fallen man’s neck.

  A sharp crack of breaking bone rose above the din.

  Without warning a man leapt at Errol out of the darkness.

  Eck.

  The whine of steel cutting the air sounded. Eck’s punja sticks ended in four-pronged blades.

  “Miss me, boy? I said I’d be back.”

  Errol moved left and parried, lashing out with one foot as Jhade had taught him. His heel caught Eck’s kneecap with a crunch. He ignored the cry of pain, turned off the parry to strike Eck in the head and kicked the other kneecap.

  Eck fell face-forward, thrashing against the ground, screaming.

  Errol struck him behind the ear for good measure.

  He wheeled, searching for his next opponent.

  There were none.

  The fight had ended as quickly as it began. Silence covered the camp, as if the attack had never happened. Except for Norad and Jesper. Rokha knelt by each man, feeling at the throat. She gave a shake of the head and aimed a savage kick at an attacker who lay facedown in front of the two dead guards.

  Sven sat on a crate, his hand pressed against the flesh around the arrow embedded in his thigh. “Grub! Get your lazy bones over here.”

  The cook came running. Blood traced a rivulet down one
side of his forehead, across his eyebrow, and down his jawline. “You want me to pull that arrow, Sven?”

  The Soede put his hand on his sword. “I wouldn’t trust you to lance a boil. Rokha will pull it. Bring me something to eat. I’m starving.”

  The cook laughed and turned for the supply wagon.

  “And don’t forget the ale,” Sven yelled after him. “I’m thirsty.”

  Errol moved around the camp. Most of the guards bore only minor injuries, but a few were major. On the far side of the wagons, a line of bodies gave mute testimony to the path Skorik had taken during the fight.

  Errol counted them. Six. The first had killed six men in the space of a minute. He reminded himself never to challenge the first.

  Ever.

  A hand on the back of his arm startled him, and he ducked and whirled. His staff struck Rokha’s sword at the same moment he met her gaze.

  “Easy,” she said. Her eyes burned with their own light and Errol could hear the deep intake of her breath. “That’s it, boy.” Her smile, predatory and radiant, lit the night. “But let’s save it for the right people.”

  Rokha looked like a hawk after the kill, brilliant and fierce.

  She stepped close, so close he couldn’t focus. His skin flushed with heat and a delicious mixture of excitement and fear.

  “Don’t tell anyone that you’re a reader.” Her breath caressed his ear like a kiss. A hint of her perfume came to him, and he inhaled deeply. He turned his head, brought his face even closer to hers. Fire pounded through him.

  He lived.

  Light-headed and burning, his pulse roaring in his ears, he leaned forward toward the sixth.

  She smiled, threw her head back, and laughed. “You feel it, boy? Now you know what it means to live.”

  Her lips met his, soft and warm. Hands found the sides of his face.

  Rokha laughed deep in her throat as she pulled away. Her eyes danced. “You would have made a fine Merakhi, Stone.”

  Not boy or lad.

  Stone.

  He swayed on his feet. “My name is Errol.”

  When his eyes at last obeyed his command to focus, Rokha was gone.

  He found her in Ru’s tent with the caravan master and the first. Eck, quieter now, sat bound in the chair. He wore a swelling over one eye that Errol hadn’t given him.

  Skorik stood over him. “How many are trailing us?”

  Eck smiled and spat. “All of them.” He added a curse so foul Errol winced.

  Skorik pulled his fist back, but Ru raised one hand to stop him.

  The caravan master regarded Eck for a moment with his lips pursed, then walked over to the brazier and retrieved a glowing coal with the tongs. “Since your tongue doesn’t seem to be particularly useful, I don’t imagine we’ll miss it.”

  Eck paled. “Twenty. There were twenty. That’s all I brought. I didn’t think I would need more. I shouldn’t have needed more. That’s it, I swear.” His words sounded as if they were fighting each other to see which could be first out of his mouth.

  “Check the camp, Rokha,” Skorik said. “Count the bodies.” He nodded at Errol. “Take the boy with you.”

  “Hardly a boy.” She laughed and her eyes danced with mischief.

  Errol’s face tried to compete with Ru’s brazier.

  Naaman Ru held up one hand. “He stays.”

  Skorik nodded. They waited in silence.

  “Ten,” Rokha announced upon her return. “There are horse tracks leading back to the west, but it’s impossible to know how many in the dark. They may try us again.” She paused to wet her bottom lip, looking uncertain. “There’s something else.”

  Ru turned at the catch in her voice but stopped on the verge of asking, and his eyes tightened. “Show me.”

  Errol trailed behind, unnoticed. The sixth moved with abrupt strides to the attacker’s body that lay next to Norad and Jesper. Extending one foot as if she feared getting too close, she flipped the body over.

  Ru cursed.

  Errol edged around the first to see. Red surrounded the thrust wound in the attacker’s chest, but the stain faded from his awareness as his gaze traveled up to the dead man’s face. No, not a man—something else. Very nearly it looked human, but the nose flattened against the cheekbones and the nose bridge hardly existed. The mouth, gaping in protest at death, revealed pointed, dagger-like teeth. The furred ears, close against the skull, belonged on a wolf, not a man.

  The first drew his sword, turned as if searching, waiting for enemies to come at them from the shadows.

  “What is that thing?” Errol asked.

  Ru appeared on the verge of sending him away before he spoke. “Rokha, go get Conger. Only Conger.”

  They waited in silence. The light from the first’s torch sent flickering shadows that made the thing on the ground look alive.

  Rokha returned, followed by the eighth.

  “Rokha said you had something you wanted me to look . . .” The words died on Conger’s lips as he caught sight of the thing on the ground in front of Ru. He knelt, his eyes wide with wonder as his fingertips brushed the creature’s ears. “I’ve never seen one, but the historian Florian describes these in his Examination of Peoples.” He straightened. “It’s a ferral.” Conger caught his confused look and went on. “It’s a remnant.”

  Errol pointed a finger in accusation at the eighth. “You said all the malus died.”

  Conger nodded. “They did. This isn’t a malus, exactly. It’s a ferral, offspring of one of the fallen ones and an animal, a remnant of the time before Eleison.” He shook his head, wiped his nose on his sleeve. “It looks almost human.”

  The caravan master nodded. “Skorik, get rid of it. Don’t let the other guards see it.”

  The first dragged the body deeper into the woods.

  Ru turned on his heel back toward camp. “I think I’d like to continue the conversation with my former guard.”

  As he entered the tent Ru asked, “Well, Loman, are they coming back?”

  Eck licked his lips and shook his head. “I don’t know. If you let me go I’ll . . . I’ll try to find out or . . . or I’ll trick them into going somewhere else.”

  Ru’s cold laughter filled the tent. “No. I think you can be much more useful right where you are.” The caravan master leaned toward Rokha, whispered instructions Errol couldn’t hear.

  Her eyes widened. Then she nodded and left the tent.

  “I think we have things in hand here, Skorik,” Ru said. “You can go attend to your duties. Tell the guards they’ll get the bonus agreed upon for combat.”

  The first nodded and left the tent.

  Ru retrieved a chair from the far side of the tent and set it in front of his prisoner. He sat and regarded Eck with a look of patient concern. “Now, Eck, I’m going to ask you some questions. I won’t bother asking you to reply truthfully. I’m sure you see the necessity of convincing me of the veracity of your answers.”

  Sweat beaded on Eck’s face, shining against the pallor of his skin.

  The caravan master held up a finger. “First, whose idea was it to attack the caravan?”

  “Mine.”

  Ru shook his head and sighed. “Please, Eck. Although I have the highest regard for your fighting skills, you’ve never impressed me with your intellect. Someone planned this attack and provided you with the men to carry it out. Let me make this easier for you. Was it another caravan?”

  Eck nodded without speaking.

  “Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. Which one?”

  The silence stretched as Ru waited for an answer. Rokha entered the tent, exchanged nods with her employer, and stood to one side.

  “You’re not answering, Eck.”

  The prisoner’s mouth worked and he strained against his bonds. The cords of his neck stood out against his skin with his effort to speak.

  “He can’t answer you,” Rokha said. “Someone’s put a compulsion on him—prohibiting him from speaking of the attack’s sourc
e.”

  The master’s head jerked in surprise. “Why would the church want to attack my caravan?”

  “It might not be the church, Ru,” Rokha said.

  Ru paled. “There aren’t any Merakhi in the kingdom.”

  Rokha gave an exaggerated shrug. “I’m here.”

  “That’s different, and you know it. And you’re only half Merakhi.”

  “Do you think the ferral attacked us by accident?”

  Errol struggled to follow the twists and turns in the conversation. His heart skipped with each jolt of news. In the pit of his stomach, he suspected the abbot of tracking him. If Morin could descend to using a malus, what would prevent him from sending demon spawn after him as well? Rale’s admonition to hide among the caravans now seemed weak protection.

  “There are Merakhi in the kingdom,” he said. Ru and Rokha turned, eyeing him as though they’d forgotten his presence.

  A smirk stretched his employer’s face without quite reaching his eyes. Ru became very still. “You seem to be possessed of a remarkable cache of information for one so young.” His right hand drifted toward his sword. “Suppose you share with us how you know this.”

  Errol wet his lips and looked at Eck. Ru’s tone held threats. Only moments ago he had been the one tied to that chair.

  His gaze darted to Rokha. He pulled in a shaky breath. “The abbot in Windridge had a Merakhi woman in his cells. She had . . . there was something . . .” The words stuck in his throat.

  Rokha closed the distance between them, knotted her hands in his tunic, and pulled him close. She ground out something in a language he didn’t understand. “Did she have a spirit, boy?”

  Errol nodded. “The abbot and the priest called it a malus.”

  Rokha wheeled on Naaman. “They’ve found me. They’ve sent a ghost-walker to take me back.”

  Ru’s facade of self-control dropped away, and he let forth a string of curses that would have impressed Conger. In four quick strides he crossed the tent and struck Eck so hard his head whipped to the side. “If I don’t think you’re telling me the truth, I’ll kill you with more imagination than you can conceive. Since you can’t tell us who paid you, simply nod or shake your head when I ask you a question. Was the man who paid you to attack us at Longhollow when we left?”