She had to admit it to herself. The gordath was closed. Lynn trudged back to the house and around the front to her car. She opened the door and let herself in, wincing in the baking heat. She sat there for a moment and then started the engine and pulled away. Only then did she allow herself to acknowledge her sadness.
Joe was right on the other side. And Crae might not even still be alive, though she shied away from that thought. She could never know and would never find out. Damn that thing, she thought. The gordath hadn’t opened, but it had awakened a terrible need. Maybe that’s what it does, she thought bitterly. Opens the hole inside you first. She knew one thing for sure: If she ever approached the gordath again, she would be like Lady Sarita. She would find a way to disappear.
Drav, the big Brythern guard, aimed a kick at a skinny dog that skulked near camp, and Joe rolled his eyes. Drav was the camp enforcer, intimidating Joe and Arrim whenever he could, trying to beat the shit out of them when he thought he could get away with it. Lord Hare rebuked him when he thought his man had gone too far, but it was never as soon as Joe could have wished for. Mark tried to egg Drav on, too, but it soon became clear that it was the quickest way to make Drav stop. Mark might have thought he was Hare’s right-hand man, but whenever he tried to give any orders, he was pretty much ignored. He mostly sat around in camp holding his rifle and pretending to sight it and sulking.
With Joe and Arrim off-limits, Drav took out his frustrations on the dog. It was obviously lost and looking for hand-outs. It scuttled around with its tail between its legs, flinching when it got a kick or a rock thrown at it. It had belonged to someone, because it kept expecting kindness. No kindness here, Joe thought. Nothing sadder than a lost dog.
Well, he and Arrim were pretty sorry and sad right now. They had been bound and driven by the Brythern soldiers for two days deep in the forest, with little pity for their pains. They were kept apart so he and Arrim couldn’t talk, and when he asked, no one, not even Mark, as hard as it was for him to keep from boasting, told him a thing except they were captives, they were to keep quiet, and if they made trouble, they would be killed. Hare kept the handgun in a holster at his belt, along with a sword and several wicked knives.
The dog whined and hid in the shadows outside the camp, and Drav cursed and threw a stick at him. A yelp came from the dark, but the dog kept itself hidden. Good, Joe thought. He sat on his haunches; his hands, bound behind his back, were tethered to a tree. As always, Joe tried to work his hands free, but though the rope slipped up and down his wrists, it was clear it wasn’t going to untie itself.
“Hey,” he yelled out to no one in particular. “I have to piss!”
“Piss your trousers,” someone growled. Ballard laughed.
Asshole, Joe thought and settled back. His guards had fallen into a routine anyway. They would be let up in an hour and be able to relieve themselves. It was the one time their hands were untied, but there was no chance for escape, not with three Brythern swords at his throat while he went about his business.
Even without any answers he could figure out some things. They had been kidnapped because they were guardians, and so he was pretty sure that they weren’t going to be killed, no matter how much trouble they made. It looked like Mark was up to his old tricks. Joe wondered if he had convinced Hare to cross the Aeritan border just to pick up the cash, and he and Arrim were a bonus catch, or if they were the point of the raid.
The last thing Arrim had said before they were captured was that they were trying to close the wrong gordath. Joe hadn’t had time to figure out what it meant. Now it looked as if Hare and his buddies had a portal of their own. And since Mark was involved, chances were that he was making another bid to run guns across this new gordath. Was Garson standing at the ready at his end with another stockpile, or did they have a different game going? Dammit, he thought. Lynn could be in danger. She might not know about Garson’s connection to the gordath and the guns. He wished he could get a message to her, wished for a moment that he could have sneaked through the gordath back at the old house. Gone visiting, maybe even gone home. But he was a guardian, and guardians keep the gordath closed.
Well, he thought, at some point Hare had to let his two captives work together, and then they could turn the tables.
For instance, they could open the gordath and duck through, and close it from the other side. Maybe. He sure wouldn’t want to open it up here and then find out it couldn’t be done. He glanced over at Arrim and caught the guardian’s eye. At that moment he got slapped on the back of his head, bringing tears to his eyes. When he could focus again, he saw it was Hare who had given him the wallop with his gloves that were made of hard leather and sewn together with metal rings.
“No signaling,” the man ordered. Mark and the guards laughed. Joe sat back, his head still stinging, but he kept his silence.
All right, he thought. There has got to be a way out of this. I’m a guardian, dammit! I have to be able to do this.
He couldn’t think of a damn thing. Even if he could fight, he couldn’t fight armed men. If he could get his hands on the gun—Joe knew how to shoot a gun as well as the next good ol’ boy, but he sure didn’t know how to fight with a sword. It was all moot anyway, since he was trussed the way he was. He glanced over at Mark. Mark just watched like Hare while everybody else made camp. Hare didn’t know it—or maybe he did—but Mark was a liability. His brand of cocky put him at a disadvantage, because he always thought he was smarter than everybody else.
I’ll have to play him, Joe thought. It was hard when Hare kept a no-talking rule for his captives, but Mark couldn’t shut up about his schemes. Joe could be patient and wait for Mark to spill. He’d wait for the gordath, too. He felt out for it. It was stronger here, and it thrummed along with his heartbeat. It didn’t feel any different for all that it was a foreign gordath, but he could tell there was something different about himself, something darker, something harder inside of him.
Hare got up and disappeared into the woods. Joe hoped he fell in his own shit.
Drav caught his attention. He had a bit of meat and was holding it out in the direction the stray had disappeared, making kissing noises to call in the dog. Joe jerked up, sickened.
At length there was movement in the woods, and the dog crept out. Joe saw the man’s other hand reach up to his knife hilt. The dog cringed but kept coming.
“Drav, leave the dog alone,” Joe said. He jerked at his bonds. Anxiety rose in him.
“Shut up, Aeritan pig wife,” the guard said. He went back to luring in the dog, which inched slow step by slow step to sure pain.
“Yeah, shut up, Joe,” Mark said.
“Drav, hold,” said one of the other guards, disgust clear in his voice.
“Piss off.”
“Drav, let. The dog. Be.” The disgusted guard stood.
“Why don’t you let Drav be?” someone else shouted righteously.
“Yeah,” Mark said. “It’s just a dog. Christ. Let him have some fun.”
Joe held his breath, but Drav’s sadism warred with his dislike for Mark. He gave him a disgusted look and continued to sweet-talk the dog.
The rest of the guards were standing now, some on Drav’s side, some for the dog.
Joe got up and angled closer. He glanced at Arrim across the camp. The man was on one knee, and he looked sick to his stomach. Joe gathered up as much slack as he could in his tether.
“There’s a good boy, come to play,” Drav said in a falsetto. The dog touched its nose to the meat.
Joe jumped.
The rope pulled him short but not before he rammed into Drav’s side, taking him off balance. The knife flashed up into the air, and Drav landed on top of him as Joe was jerked back.
Drav roared and thrashed, and the rest of the men jumped in, kicking and hitting. Joe grunted with pain, but he could do nothing to defend himself. He curled around himself, but they just took it out on his back.
“Hold!” It was Hare. He made himself
heard over the me-lee. The beating slowed, but Drav took the opportunity to get up and kick Joe in the ribs one last time. Joe cried out as he felt something crack.
“I said hold!” Hare raised his gun and shot into the air, the report rolling away into the woods.
It got their attention, and the forest went dead silent. Joe rolled over to his good side, trying not to cry, blood streaming from his nose. He couldn’t see, couldn’t move beyond that, but he could listen.
“What part of hold, Drav, don’t you understand?” Hare’s voice had gone soft.
“He jumped me!”
“And he was punished. But I can’t have him killed. Now, I know you are one of the best men I have. Loyal, brave, a dirty fighter.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“But these two men are more valuable to me alive and uninjured than dead—and if I have to shoot you to keep them that way, I will.”
Another deep, ringing silence. Hare raised his voice. “And that goes for the rest of you. Mensare, fix him.”
Mensare was the small band’s medic. He said, “Yes, sir,” and Joe felt him drop to his knees next to him.
He heard rustling, and then Hare knelt, too. The Brythern leader reached out and turned Joe’s chin, forcing him to look up. Joe made himself open his good eye—the other one had already swollen shut.
“If you try that again, I will have your friend beaten as badly as you just were,” the man said. “We won’t kill you. We’ll just make you wish we did.”
Shut up, Joe told himself. Shut up, don’t say anything, just shut up.
Instead, he rasped out, “You can stick your gordath up your ass.”
Hare didn’t say anything. He stood and walked back to the fire. Mensare ripped away Joe’s thin T-shirt and began working on him, wiping away blood, salving his wounds, and wrapping his torso to bind his ribs. Joe gasped or grunted, depending on whether the medic stung or hurt him, but the pain settled to a steady throb. Mensare caught his eye. In a low voice the man said, “You aren’t very bright, are you?”
Joe couldn’t laugh so he settled for a snort. “Yeah.”
Mensare grinned quickly and rummaged in his bag. “Trying to save a dog like that. You know he’ll do his best now to kill that dog in front of you.”
“I know.” His sense of humor faded.
Mensare said, “Eh, doesn’t mean we’ll let him do it.”
“Have Ballard order him to,” Joe managed. This time Mensare full-on laughed and then covered it with a cough. He began smearing Joe with a liniment of some nasty cream. Joe got a whiff of something that almost smelled familiar, as if the ingredients in the cream were the same as something on a drugstore shelf. Mensare caught his expression.
“Bruisewort,” the man said. “You’ll still hurt like hell tomorrow, but the bruises fade faster.”
Joe remembered his mother’s mother, his abuela, putting arnica on his bruises and singing a charm over them. How did that song go? He closed his eyes and let himself fall into the memory as Mensare finished his efficient ministrations.
He slept fitfully, the pain waking him periodically. It was full dark, the fire banked. He could see the shapes of men standing guard. The stars shone down through the narrow spaces between the trees, and the night had gotten cold. Joe shivered. He couldn’t move much, and he ached from head to toe. His vision blurred, and he felt nauseous. The bastards gave me a concussion, he thought woozily.
He heard the smallest sound behind him, a tiny footfall here and there. Joe froze. The guards never reacted as they talked softly to one another. They remained facing outward. The footfalls came closer, and then he felt a wet nose nudging his back.
Oh God. Joe kept still, willing the dog to go back into the woods. Instead the dog settled at his back, and warmth spread into him. Joe still had his hands tied behind him. He used his fingers to stroke the dog’s rough fur. The dog licked his fingers once. Joe’s fingers found a rough rope around the dog’s neck. So maybe it had been someone’s pet. He managed to grab a scrap of T-shirt behind his back and rip it off at the seam where it had been hanging by a thread anyway. He twisted the scrap under the dog’s rope. The dog whined, and Joe stilled. One of the guards turned toward him, but then turned back. Joe let out his breath and pushed at the dog, but the dog just licked his fingers and settled at his back.
A gordath wants to be open. It goes out of its way to lure lost and lonely travelers, calling them through curiosity or homesickness or a combination of the two. Joe pushed the dog away as roughly as he could with his hands restrained. The dog resisted its exile from the one kind man it had found, but Joe elbowed it hard. The dog whined again, and then, as if it understood, Joe heard it creep off. Good, he thought. Go. Let the gordath find you.
Joe didn’t know what Lynn could do if she got his message, but he felt comforted that she would know he was here, alive, and in trouble. She’ll come, he thought, looking up at the stars between the dark branches of the trees. She’ll come.
He woke to the hustle of breaking camp before the dawn. Joe knew right away from the cold at his back that the dog stayed gone, and felt relief. Even if it didn’t find the gordath, maybe it would stay out of Drav’s reach. He could barely move, and Mensare had to help him to his feet. He staggered like an old, sick man, barely able to keep his body straight. Drav sniggered, and Mark looked at him in disgust. Movement helped, though, and he loosened up. His hands were released so he could eat the bread and meat they gave him and drink his cup of vesh, the spiced drink everyone took to here, even Brytherners, apparently.
Joe looked over at Arrim, but the man didn’t look at him. He was worried about Arrim. He hadn’t been as badly beaten as Joe—yet—but Joe knew that Arrim wouldn’t be able to take it, even if his body survived. The guardian lived for the gordath and the woods. Even during his sojourn in a mental hospital last year, he had survived by dreaming of his beloved forest. Bastards, Joe thought bitterly. Arrim didn’t deserve this.
“Stay still,” Mensare ordered. He checked over Joe’s bandages and bruises, his hands brisk and thorough. He poked at Joe’s ribs, and Joe stifled a groan. “Sorry,” Mensare said under his breath. He raised his voice. “He’s fit enough, Lord Hare.”
Joe didn’t know exactly how bad off he would have to be for Mensare to tell Hare he couldn’t walk, but he didn’t want to have to find out.
“Good. Everyone on the move.” At Hare’s orders, the guards broke camp, retied the captives, and headed out.
They took it slow for Joe’s sake, and he staggered along with limping steps. The trail they had been following took them out of the woods. The forest thinned, and the trees became sparse while the underbrush got thicker, now that the plants could see the sun. Soon they were walking through bright meadows, the morning sun growing stronger than he was used to in Gordath Wood or around Red Gold Bridge. The land rolled away from them, the sky got big again, and the dirt was gold, baked in the hot sun. Yellow grasses blew in the breeze, and for a second Joe thought he could be in Texas, even down to the stubby pines that dotted the landscape. A range of hills caught his eye, and the lowlands looked like they folded in between them. Here and there he could see settlements, the houses square and low-slung, not like the round little stone houses of the forestholders in the woods outside Red Gold Bridge. Livestock grazed, mostly sheep but a few head of cattle. No people, but he had no doubt their passage was being watched very closely. Probably these folk knew better than to mess with the little band.
The land’s familiarity made him homesick. You could plant cotton here, Joe thought, scuffing at the trail with his boot. Maybe need some irrigation, but the soil here looks good . . . He caught himself up at the irony. He couldn’t get out of Texas and leave cotton farming behind fast enough, and here he was.
Well, you can’t take the country out of the country boy. Even if he becomes a guardian.
The sun was high overhead when the trail began to rise toward a pass through the hills. The ground grew rocky, a
nd the grasses grew sparse until soon they walked on dirt and rock. They ate on the go, sharing the water and letting the prisoners have their ration. Joe was weakening, though. Hare kept a steady pace, and Joe finally had to stop, all of his injuries throbbing, especially his ribs. His head ached, and his nausea grew.
As the rope grew taut between him and his guard, the man yanked at it. “Move!” he growled. Instead, Joe went to his knees.
They all gathered around. Mensare rolled him over on his back, and Joe kept back a groan as a rock dug into his side.
“He’ll have to rest,” he said. “He went farther today than I thought he would.”
Lord Hare made a disgusted noise. He glanced at Mark. “Lord Bahard,” he said with scarcely disguised contempt, “you carry him.”
“Me!” Mark protested. The guards all exchanged eye rolls and a few snickers.
“You. It’s time you pulled your weight around here.”
With a sulk Mark slung his rifle over his back and put Joe’s arm over his shoulder, heaving him up. It was almost as painful, but the support helped.
“Thanks, buddy,” Joe said, mindful of the forced and unwelcome embrace.
“Screw you,” Mark said, for once keeping his voice low. Resentment leaked through. Just as Joe expected, he couldn’t keep quiet. “What the hell are you doing here anyway? How did you become a guardian?”
“Just luck. What about you? How is it being lord and master?”
Mark was too stupid to even know he was being laughed at. He swore again, half dragging Joe up the steep, rocky trail. The sun beat down, and Joe felt faint and nauseous. “Fuck Hare, and fuck the rest of them. I swear, once you open that gordath, I’m going straight through and never coming back.”
“So what’s the deal?” Joe prompted. “They have a gordath over here now?”
Mark couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Once he had a chance to vent his frustration, he let loose. He struggled up the trail, supporting Joe and ranting under his breath.
Red Gold Bridge Page 9