by Kyra Halland
Abenar, Lainie thought. The name of Silas’s horse. Had he really named his horse after one of those foreign philosophers? That seemed like it could get him into serious trouble in Granadaia – which made it just the sort of thing she thought he would do.
“They’ll want your mage ring, as proof,” Silas said.
“Fine.” The stranger pulled the ring off of his forefinger and tossed it onto the ground between him and Silas. “I don’t care about magic any more. I just want to be left alone.”
Lainie stared at the ring in the dirt. Silas had told her, and she had seen for herself, that a mage ring could not be taken from its living owner by force. If a mage gave it up voluntarily, it would cost him much of his ability to use his power. Only a really desperate mage would surrender his mage ring. Carden’s ring had lost its power after Carden died; did a mage ring also lose its power when it was given up?
“How do I know you won’t just make yourself another one?” Silas asked.
The man spread his arms in a wide, innocent gesture. “I’m no lawbreaker. And I’m not like those other renegades. I don’t care about settin’ up my own kingdom out here. Like I said, I just want to be left alone.”
Silas was silent for a long time. “Name?” he finally asked.
“Orl Fazar.”
“What’s your real name?”
“You wouldn’t have heard of my family. They’re nowhere near on a level with yours.”
“How did you know my name?”
“Everyone’s heard of you. The good girls are warned against men like you, the bad boys all want to be you. You should be proud.”
Another long silence passed. “Knife and gun,” Silas said. “On the ground. Slowly.”
Fazar unbuckled his gunbelt and knife sheath and laid them on the ground an arm-length in front of him. He took a second knife out of his boot and placed it next to the other weapons, then stepped back.
Still keeping his revolver trained on Fazar, Silas walked forward and picked up the mage ring and the weapons, then pocketed them in his duster. “All right then, Fazar,” he said. “You help us find this killer and deal with him, and I’ll let you go free. If you behave yourself in the meantime, I’ll let you have your ring back when it’s time to fight him, then you’ll give it back to me or else you’ll be my next bounty. And just so you know, the bounties I catch usually don’t live long enough to go on trial before the Mage Council. Oh, and one more thing.” Silas moved his gun to aim well south of Fazar’s head. “You so much as look at the girl wrong, I’ll shoot your stones off.”
Fazar licked his lips. “Got it.”
Chapter 8
WITH SILAS KEEPING a sharp eye on Fazar, they started off again, following the renegade’s instructions to make their way farther north into the watershed. Even with Fazar’s mage ring and weapons safely stowed away in the pocket of magical space in his knapsack, Silas still didn’t trust the fellow. Fazar was desperate and not very smart, and the combination of desperation and stupidity made a man dangerously unpredictable. Silas hadn’t yet sundered the connection between Fazar’s ring and his power – a little trick every mage hunter knew that hopefully the Mage Council didn’t – because he could very well need Fazar to help him fight the killer. Any man who could single-handedly take down Verl Bissom and Garis Horden, both of whom had been large, strong, powerful, and skilled, was more than he wanted to handle alone. And if there was any choice in the matter at all, he didn’t want Lainie to be involved in the confrontation. But the renegade had a long way to go to prove his trustworthiness, especially after the way he had treated Lainie, if he was going to get his ring back.
After another half a league, they found a place where they could lead the horses across the wash. The storm up in the hills was sending a shallow flow of water down the wash, so they stopped and waited for the danger of flooding to pass. While they waited, they refilled their canteens and the horses’ waterskins in the flowing creek and let the horses drink, all while keeping a close eye on the water level. Eventually the rain in the hills ended and the water in the creek receded, and they made the crossing safely.
Beyond sending some cooler breezes down into the lowlands, the rain in the hills had done little to relieve the day’s heat. The sun, just past three-quarters of the way across the sky, glared down as hot and strong as ever, and by the time they reached the next wash, the bottom was already nearly dry. This wash was formed by the confluence of three smaller washes a short distance upstream. To avoid that tangle and find a good place to cross, they had to go another league or so downstream.
The next wash beyond that was a good couple of leagues away across a rocky and difficult stretch of ground. Fazar sighted along the distant line of vegetation and squinted up towards the hills. “Yep, that’s the one. His place is up that next canyon there.”
To get to that next wash, rather than risk the horses’ legs and shoes on the rough terrain ahead, Silas decided it would be better to follow the wash they had just crossed downstream to its confluence with that creek, just visible some three leagues distant, and then head back upstream along that second wash towards the hills. He and Lainie mounted up, to give themselves a break from walking, and rode at a pace that Fazar could match on foot.
As the renegade trudged alongside them, he regaled them with tales of blueskins he’d killed, women he’d bedded, and card players he’d cheated, all using magic. The stories were dubious; in all likelihood, a Granadaian who killed a blueskin would have started an all-out war and wouldn’t have lived long enough to brag about it. Neither did anyone who made a habit of cheating at cards in the Wildings live very long, and only a fool would use magic to cheat. Being discovered as a mage was bad enough; being discovered as a mage who cheated at cards would only get you shot as well as hanged. Fazar might be that stupid, but the fact that he was still alive put the lie to his stories. As for the women, those tales went from unbelievable to outright offensive. From the sound of it, the less willing the women were and the harder they fought, the better Fazar liked it.
Silas gritted his teeth and tried to decide whether to impose his authority right away and make Fazar shut up or save his battles for things that really mattered, while Lainie stared down at her reins, her face flushed in embarrassment and anger. Finally, when Fazar launched into a highly-detailed description of yet another sexual exploit, highly unfit for Lainie’s – or anyone else’s – ears, Silas’s forbearance snapped. “Quiet,” he ordered, cutting Fazar off mid-word. “I’m letting you live so you can show me where the killer is and help me get rid of him. Not to provide entertainment.”
“But I was just getting to the good part!” Fazar whined.
Silas drew his revolver and aimed it at Fazar’s head. “Shut up.”
Sulking, Fazar fell silent. The rest of the long afternoon, he only spoke to ask for a drink of water – his own water flasks were empty and he had neglected to refill them in the flowing creek earlier – and when they were going to stop for the night.
Silas took advantage of being able to hear himself think to consider the situation. Fazar was the Granadaian mage Lainie had sensed; that much was clear. Which meant that the Wildings-born mage must be the killer. Now, in the face of the evidence, he had to agree with Lainie that a Wildings-born mage might very well be willing to do the Mage Council’s dirty work, if he’d been mistreated and afraid for his life out here. He also had to admit that the Mage Council might indeed trust a Wildings-born mage with this highly sensitive assignment, if he had been twisted and molded in the Granadaian schools to become loyal to the Mage Council and the established order of things in Granadaia. And it did make sense that the Mage Council would choose a Wildings-born mage, with his unique powers, for the advantage he would have over the Granadaian mages he was sent out to kill.
Which led to the uncomfortable fact that if the killer was indeed Wildings-born, Fazar’s help might not be enough and Lainie would have to get involved, after all. He was going to have to give some
hard thought to that possibility, and try to figure out a way around it.
Just before sunset, they reached the place where the wash they were following and the one they were aiming for met. The point of land there proved to be a good place to camp, sheltered by thick-growing brush and relatively smooth and level. Silas and Lainie tended the horses, then sat down to eat a supper of jerky, flatbread, and dried fruit from their provisions. Fazar hunkered down near them, staring longingly at them as they ate.
“What?” Silas growled. “Don’t you have your own food? That you stole from the old hermit?”
“I already ate it all. I was using a lot of power, hiding from that killer.”
“Well, don’t look at us. We’ve barely got enough for ourselves.”
“Okay.” Fazar stood up and disappeared down into the wash, where Silas could hear him thrashing around. He didn’t like letting Fazar out of his view, but as long as he could hear him, he supposed the little bastard couldn’t be getting into too much trouble.
“If he’s the Granadaian mage I found,” Lainie said quietly under the cover of Fazar’s noisy absence, “then the Wildings-born mage must be the killer.”
“Sure looks that way.”
“In that case, you’ll need me to help you fight him.”
“If he was just Wildings-born, I’d let you. But there’s also no doubt he’s been trained in Granadaia. The Mage Council wouldn’t have hired him, otherwise. I’ve been giving this some thought. When we find him, if there’s something I want you to do I’ll tell you exactly what it is. Otherwise, I want you to stay out of it.”
She drew breath, looking like she was about to argue, then a rustling of brush announced Fazar’s emergence from the wash. He was holding three decent-sized ground squirrels by the tail and grinning. “Here’s supper.”
Silas couldn’t help but be impressed. Ground squirrels were quick and hard to trap. It looked like Fazar might be good for more than just helping him find the killer. While the renegade skinned and cleaned the critters, Silas built a fire; a small campfire in the lingering light of sunset probably wouldn’t give their position away. They spitted the ground squirrels on sticks and roasted them, then ate them down to the bones. The sparse meat was gamey and stringy, but the hot, fresh food was a welcome change from the dried provisions they’d been living on since they left Ripgap.
“Thanks,” Silas said to Fazar when they were done eating.
The renegade grinned again. “Least I could do, in exchange for you bein’ a decent sort and letting me tag along with you.”
“I’m not that decent,” Silas replied. “So don’t push your luck.”
“I’ll be good, honest. Here, I’ll take the first watch. You get yourself some sleep.”
Silas wasn’t about to sleep while the renegade kept watch. He fully expected that as soon as he wasn’t looking, Fazar, with no horse or provisions of his own, would try to make off with theirs, killer or no killer. But he also didn’t want Fazar to know that Lainie would be keeping watch alone later on. He had no illusions that his threat of severe bodily harm would keep Fazar away from Lainie if he thought he could get away with something. In truth, he didn’t want to let her watch at all, but he had to sleep sometime if he was going to be of any use.
“Sounds good to me,” Silas said. “Wake me at midnight, and I’ll finish out the night.”
Lainie looked at him, eyebrows raised in silent question. No doubt she was wondering if he really intended to not have her take a turn on watch, but she didn’t say anything, and he could explain later. While Silas put out the campfire, Lainie spread out their blankets a safe distance from where Fazar was settling in for the watch. She bedded down in the blankets and Silas stretched out beside her – on top of the blankets, not in them with her; he didn’t want to give Fazar’s filthy mind anything more to think about.
Silas feigned sleep while keeping his eyes slitted open and his ears pricked, watching and listening for any signs of trouble. Fazar sat singing bawdy songs to himself in a reedy, off-tune voice and idly scratching in the dirt with a stick. At one point he started looking towards the horses in a manner that was a little too interested for Silas’s liking. Silas made a show of being startled awake, and sat up. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Fazar looked around nervously. “Is something there?”
Silas pretended to listen for a moment. “No, I think I imagined it.”
“Good. It gives me the creeps, knowing that murdering sheepknocker’s out there somewhere.” Fazar returned his attention to his drawing in the dirt, and Silas lay down again.
A short while later, well before midnight, Fazar shook Silas’s shoulder. “Your turn,” he said. From his knapsack he took a ratty blanket, so filthy Silas could smell it from two measures away, then lay down in the spot where he’d been sitting. Within moments, he was snoring loudly.
Silas’s watch passed quietly. From time to time, Fazar would mumble unintelligibly to himself, then roll over and fall silent, and then the snores would start up again. Silas still didn’t like the idea of leaving Lainie awake by herself with the renegade around, but, a few hours before dawn, he finally couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer. He checked to make sure Fazar was still sleeping soundly, then woke Lainie up to finish out the night. She sat up yawning and stretching, but looked well-rested enough. “Why –?”
He laid a finger over her lips. “Quiet,” he whispered. “I don’t want him to know you’re on watch by yourself.”
“Has there been any trouble?” she asked, her voice barely sounding above Fazar’s snores.
“No killers,” Silas said, “and Fazar’s behaving himself. But I still don’t trust him more than half as far as I can throw him.”
Lainie glanced at the scrawny figure snoring in his tattered blanket, then gave Silas an assessing look. “I think you could throw him pretty far. I’d say, don’t trust him no more than a quarter as far as you could throw him.”
Silas chuckled under his breath and kissed her, then lay down and pulled the blankets around him. They were still warm from Lainie’s body, and smelled like her. She settled herself sitting cross-legged next to him, her knee just brushing his shoulder. “Keep your gun handy,” he said, “and wake me if you see or hear anything at all or if there’s any trouble.”
“Okay.” Then she went on, looking down at the ground, away from him. “Is it true what he said? That everyone knows you like women better filled-out than me?”
Damn Fazar, anyway. Silas thought he had already settled Lainie’s worries on that score. “I don’t know what everyone knows. What I do know is that you’re the bravest, strongest, and prettiest woman I’ve ever met.”
The little crease of worry between her eyebrows eased, and she leaned over and kissed his mouth. “You sleep, now.”
* * *
THE NEXT DAY, they started following the new wash, the one Fazar said would take them to the killer’s hideout, back towards the hills. The going the first few leagues was easy; the day was still reasonably cool, they didn’t have to cross any other washes, and Fazar was quiet. Lainie didn’t trust Fazar any more than Silas did, but the way he was leading them seemed to match up with where she’d felt the Wildings-born mage’s power. She wanted to try looking for the killer again, just to be sure, but she didn’t need Silas to tell her it was too dangerous for her to use any magic at all around another mage.
At length, they came to the meeting of the creek bed they were following, on their left, and a feeder wash from the right. Fazar said they should bear left and stay with the same wash they had been following. To do that, they detoured upstream a good half league along the wrong wash until they found a good place to take the horses across, coaxed the reluctant horses down the bank through the gap in the prickly brush and back up the other side, then backtracked to the main wash. Over the next several leagues, more smaller washes fed into the one they were following, which meant at least five or six more crossings through the afternoon. Lainie l
ost count around the fourth or fifth.
The day got hotter, and though the air was humid and a few clouds built up over the hills, no storm broke. The buzzing of insects, the sticky, gritty feeling of sweat and dirt on her face, and her worries about Fazar and the killer all wore on Lainie’s nerves. The thorns of the low trees growing along the washes had something on them that made the sticks and scratches from them itch worse than a dozen biter-bug bites, and Lainie thought she was either going to scratch her arms to shreds or lose her mind.
As the miserable day dragged on, Fazar got more talkative, telling his revolting stories about women he had raped and blueskins he had killed. Silas finally managed to shut those up, by threatening to bury him up to his neck and leave him for the killer, so Fazar switched to boasting about card games he’d won by cheating with magic. Lainie would have laid money that he’d never won a game of Dragon’s Threes in his life.
By the time they stopped for the night, they had covered only a third of the distance back towards the hills. At least two more days in Fazar’s company, Lainie thought wearily as she dropped to the ground, exhausted and aching. And then they would have to face the killer. She just wanted this whole ordeal to be over with, to have Silas safe and be rid of Fazar. She couldn’t wait to go back to Ripgap, which after the last few days seemed like a very haven of comfort and civilization. Fazar caught and roasted some more ground squirrels for supper, and while the hot supper was an improvement over cold, dry rations, as Lainie chewed on the stringy, strong-tasting squirrel meat she thought longingly of the delicious meals they had eaten at the Dusty Demon. And what she wouldn’t give for a bath about now… When this was over, if she never saw Orl Fazar or the Bads again for the rest of her life it wouldn’t be nearly long enough.