I pulled a glove and put my hand on his head long enough to confirm that the scent of the other sentinel and the man who had taken it had, indeed, grown stronger. I looked back at Gael and Rory before turning to face Bolt with a shrug. “Distances don’t translate exactly, but directions do. The scent is strongest to the south.”
Bolt pointed to the rolling hills in that direction. “We crossed the boundary into Owmead two days ago. He might be making for Andred, but that’s at least four days away.”
I looked at Gael. “Would anyone in your household have sent Branna there?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think Marya knew of anyone, but it’s impossible to say, Willet. If it were me, I wouldn’t stop running until I had my feet planted on the southernmost tip of the southern continent where the sun never sets.”
I almost laughed. “And yet here you are, chasing after this thing.”
She rolled her shoulders in a way that showed the graceful lines of her neck. “Women do foolish things when they’re in love.”
Bolt snorted. “Yes, well, that doesn’t really help us.”
I thought of Laidir and how he’d given his life rather than believe the truth I’d told him about his queen. Despite his foolishness, I saw something noble and pure in his actions. “It might,” I said, looking at Gael. “Love is capable of wonderful and ludicrous sacrifice.”
“It scares me when you get that look, Willet,” Gael said.
I nodded. “I’ll try not to wear it where you can see.”
The wind kicked up, blowing from west to east, and I caught the faint scent of salt on it. “We’re close to the ocean. Maybe Branna did the smart thing and took ship. Not even a sentinel could track her across the Western Sea.”
“If Aer and luck are with us,” Bolt said.
I rubbed my backside and climbed back in the saddle. “He can’t move during the day.”
“But he’s moving faster than us during the night,” Rory said.
“Even so, Wag’s perception of the scent indicates we’ll catch up to him tomorrow,” I said. “We can only hope it won’t be after dark.” That would be bad. “How hard can we run the horses?”
“We can alternate a canter with a fast trot without hurting them, and they’ll rest when we slow down for the night.”
He looked around, as if gaining his bearings. “There’s a sizable city ahead, at the mouth of the Havilah River—Vaerwold. I would guess it’s less than a day’s ride. That might be his destination. In any case, we’ll probably catch up to him there.”
The saddle hit my thighs like a blacksmith’s fist. Unless she had escaped to who knows where, tomorrow we would either find Branna dead or we’d find the man who wanted to kill her, the man who’d forced Robin to kill Elwin. “Let’s go, Wag.”
He resumed his placid trot, his nose twitching as he sifted through a thousand different scents carried on the breeze.
“Faster,” I called to him, a word he knew well now.
He broke into a lope that ate up the ground, and the horses cantered to keep pace. Three hours later we hit the coast road, the sound of waves pounding the chalk cliffs below us loud enough to necessitate yelling whenever we needed to communicate. The sun vanished beyond the sea so fast I could feel time slipping away. Then the wind swirled, alternating between the four points of the compass. It was the first time since we’d left Bunard that it had blown north to south.
Bolt felt the change the same time I did. “In a few minutes we’re going to turn from hunter into prey,” he said. “The other sentinel is going to pick up Wag’s scent.”
I threw one leg over the saddle and dismounted, taking my glove off in the same motion. Wag licked my face with a tongue that should never have been able to fit in his head. I put my hand on his shoulder and closed my eyes, drinking in each scent as it came to him. The wind dried his slobber from my face as I waited for it to change directions and back again. Within Wag’s mind, I could pick up no trace of the other sentinel, only the smell of seaweed and salt and fish. Then the wind shifted, coming at us from the south, the direction of Vaerwold, and an untold number of canine scents came to me from the city. But one brought an image of Wag’s littermate to my mind. Layered beneath it lurked the smell of the men who’d taken her. They were there.
I straightened. “How far are we from Vaerwold?”
Bolt shook his head. “I don’t know exactly where we’re at, but maybe ten miles.”
I tried to figure the sums in my head, but I was a reeve who’d been an aspiring priest. If there was a talent for the mathematicum, I didn’t have it. Giving up on the problem, I said, “We have to make a run for it. It will put us in the city in the middle of the night, but we don’t have much choice.”
I mounted, and we rode at a gallop as the light turned from orange to crimson to charcoal. I couldn’t see more than a dozen feet ahead, and Bolt still ran the horses, chasing after Wag, who bounded along the road on padded feet that never made a sound and barely kicked up dust.
Then Bolt’s horse stumbled, the head jerking downward in a prelude to the roll that often crushed the rider. I yanked back on my reins with my heart in my throat, watching Bolt’s horse fall and knowing I could do nothing to stop it.
In the space between one panicked heartbeat and the next, I saw Bolt shift his weight to the hindquarters of his horse, hauling on the reins to lift its head. The sound of his mount’s hooves striking the road sounded like the breaking of bricks as the horse fought to regain its balance—and it worked. After another clumsy stride, it righted itself and Bolt brought it to a stop, its breath blowing through its nose like a bellows.
Wag came out of the darkness to stand, peering at the four of us as if to ask why we’d stopped. “We can’t see as well in the dark as you can, my friend,” I said. I didn’t know how much of that he understood, but he sat back on his haunches and waited, his tongue lolling out of one side of his mouth.
“How’s your mount?” Gael asked.
Bolt didn’t bother to dismount but nudged the horse forward a few strides and back again. “Well enough, but we’re going to have to go slower.”
Rory pointed to Wag. “Since he can see in the dark better than we can, why not have Willet use his eyes?”
The three of us looked at Rory, then back at Wag.
Bolt looked at me. “Can you do that?”
I started to nod then thought better of it. I settled for standing there like I was lost and needed directions. “I don’t know. Has it ever been done?”
He shrugged. “I don’t think anyone has ever needed to.”
“Why can’t you do it?” Gael asked.
I caught an undercurrent of something else in her question, perhaps a desire to understand just what Elwin’s gift had done to me, but we couldn’t afford the time I needed to answer all the unspoken questions so I settled for the one she’d asked out loud. “Delving someone is like becoming them,” I said. “I’m sure any of the others could do this better, but the memories and the feelings become my own and I retain just enough of myself to pull out when I’m done.” I shook my head. “Wag would have to ride with me, and I would have to delve him and guide my horse at the same time.”
The sentinel looked at me with his tongue dangling in the breeze as if the entire conversation were for his personal amusement.
“I’ll try,” I said, “but he’s put on a bit of weight since we found him.” I dismounted again and went from horse to horse, putting my hand on the head of each mount.
“What are you doing?” Rory asked.
“Braben’s stable hands can tell more about a horse with a glance than I could if I had all day, but I’m trying to decide which of them is best suited to carry both Wag and me.” It didn’t take long. All of the horses were blown. Bolt’s horse wasn’t favoring the right foreleg yet, but it wouldn’t be long. Of the three remaining, Gael’s was in the best shape to carry a double load.
We swapped and I whistled to Wag, motioning. He took three li
ght bounding strides and alighted in front of me. My new mount tossed his head and shifted, but settled quickly. “All right,” I said. “Let’s see if this works.”
I gripped the reins in one hand and buried the other into the thick fur just behind Wag’s head. As before, the world shifted from one dominated by sight to one defined by smell. I could see the flow of his memories, short strands of differing colors that flowed past me, but I knew them as well as my own. I ignored them to concentrate on Wag’s sense of sight.
And nearly fell off my horse as two sets of vision jarred and clashed with each other in my head. I gripped my horse’s mane and squeezed my eyes shut so that only Wag’s remained. The world at once appeared brighter, but less colorful, the tones muted so that only blue, yellow, and gray remained.
“Wag, look at the road.” I spoke out loud for the benefit of my companions, but I thought the command as well, planting an image within his head of what I wanted. His vision in my mind dipped until I could see the hard, dusty trail beneath our horse. Directly beneath our horse.
“That’s too close. Look up a bit.”
His vision jumped to a spot about fifty paces away. “That’s too far.”
“Maybe we should all dismount and walk,” Rory said. “It might be faster.”
“Give him a moment, boy,” Bolt growled. “As far as I know, no one’s ever done this before. We can spare a few moments if it allows us to push the horses to a trot.”
Wag’s head swung back and forth, and my stomach rolled over as my vision kept changing while I remained perfectly still. When we settled on a spot in front of the horses about fifteen paces away—enough time and distance so that we could stop if needed—I breathed a sigh of relief. I nudged my horse into a trot, my mind filled with the world as seen through Wag’s eyes.
Night slipped past in a timeless focus on the road as we tracked the scent. When the waning moon rose, the road in front of us sharpened into greater clarity and we increased our pace. And soon we rounded a broad promontory and began the descent toward the lights of Vaerwold.
The port city lay tucked into a natural harbor, a broad circle of water miles across, with an outlet to the sea no more than half a mile wide. Piers filled the expanse of its arc, and hundreds of boats and ships thrust their masts into the air. Time and weather had contrived to carve out a broad shelf of land a few hundred yards wide next to the harbor, and every inch of it had been claimed by the city.
From our vantage point on the road we looked over a massive keep that had been carved out of the heavy rock cliffs that overlooked Vaerwold. Its catapults stood ready to defend the harbor. A chasm hundreds of paces wide and nearly as deep separated the keep from the back side of the cliff.
“The hold of Duke Marklin,” Bolt muttered to me. “If you think the Orlan family is ambitious, you haven’t traveled enough.”
We nudged the horses forward and came to a fork in the road. To the right, the road, paved with bricks on the slope, led down to Vaerwold. The road to the left tracked the cliffs, looping around the keep before it continued south.
I felt the change in Wag at the same instant the image of his littermate snapped into focus. The fur on his neck stood on end, and he growled.
“They went down there,” I said, “and they’re close, almost close enough to see.”
Bolt sighed. “I’d really prefer to have encountered them during the day. It would have been so much easier to find him hiding in a building or cave. That way we could just burn it to the ground and watch what happens to him when we force him into the light.”
I nodded, even though Bolt probably couldn’t see my agreement. “We have a bigger problem.”
“I’m not sure how that’s possible,” Bolt said.
“We’re counting on our enemy to lead us to Branna, but I doubt he’s going to give us much of an opportunity to stop him before he kills her.”
“I would have thought going into a strange city at night when he knows we’re coming would have been the bigger problem,” Rory quipped.
“Boy,” Bolt growled, “one of the things you’ll get used to as a Vigil guard is the fact that circumstances will almost always work against you. ‘Never ask how things might be worse . . .’” he quoted.
“‘Because you’ll find out,’” Gael finished.
Rory lapsed into silence, and I grunted my disgust. “That’s not one of my favorites.”
“Probably because you get to live it all the time,” Bolt said.
“Willet,” Gael said softly, “you can’t wait for him to find her. That’s like using her as bait.”
I sighed. “I agree. He’s not going to find Branna and then take his time about killing her.” I looked over my shoulder to the east, but the sky remained resolutely dark. “Aer have mercy, I wish the sun would come up. Let’s go, Wag. Find your sister.” I put my hand back on his neck and closed my eyes.
We descended the road, a sandy cut in the hillside that switched back and forth on its way to the harbor. At the edge of the city, the road leveled out, and beneath my hand I felt Wag bristle, then start trembling. I looked around with his vision, the world awash in barely perceptible blues, yellows, and grays.
“He’s close,” I said. I pulled my hand away to check the east, but stars still shone overhead.
The city of Vaerwold didn’t have branches of a river to separate its classes, but the wealthiest merchants had congregated at the edge of the water in the center of the city in massive well-lit stone keeps. Farther inland were the smallest dwellings for the city’s poor. The wind coming off the bay swirled, and my mind filled with Wag’s frustration as the scent of his littermate came at him from every direction. I breathed a sigh of relief. That swirling wind might be the only thing keeping us safe.
Lights dotted the city in clusters, like fireflies in the summer. I offered a prayer dredged up from my days as an acolyte.
“I hope the girl has sense enough to be someplace well-lit,” Bolt said.
“Wag can find her,” Rory said.
“I wish he could, lad,” Bolt said, “but not even a sentinel can find what he hasn’t smelled.”
“But he has,” Rory said. “He had to. He just doesn’t know it’s her scent.”
Wag turned his head to look at the young thief, and his face, blurry and overlaid with his earthy scent, appeared in my vision. “Tell me.”
“Wag’s been following the scent of his littermate the whole way out of Bunard,” Rory said. “But his littermate has been following Branna. Wag’s been smelling her the whole time.”
Bolt sighed his disappointment. “That’s a good idea, boy, but thousands of people must have taken the road over the past few months. Wag has her scent, but he doesn’t know which one is hers.”
“But he can,” Rory said. “Out of the thousands of scents in his mind, how many of those has he smelled here in Vaerwold, on the road, and in the city of Bunard?”
I looked at my guard. “‘Never ask . . .’” I said.
“‘Never know,’” Bolt finished.
I didn’t have any idea how many people might have trekked from Bunard to Vaerwold in the past few months. I put my hand on Wag’s head and waited for his enthusiasm to subside. To Wag, a two-minute absence wasn’t much different than two weeks. He seemed to like having me in his thoughts.
It took some coaxing and explaining for me to tell him what I wanted, but less than I feared. His canine instinct to catalog the world according to smell was exactly what I needed. When I pictured Bunard, the road we traveled, and then Vaerwold, his mind brought forth the memories of scents in each, overlaying them.
“How many are in all of these places?” I asked.
Wag’s thoughts jumbled before he gave me the answer. He didn’t understand numbers in the same manner as a man, instead dividing the world according to life in the pack. One, he understood as a lone sentinel. Two, he pictured as a male and his mate. After that, his thoughts tended to think of numbers in terms of “small pack” and “larg
e pack.”
“How many?” Bolt asked.
“Large pack,” I said and then shook my head. “Sorry. That’s his way of counting. As best I can tell, something more than ten. Probably less than fifty.”
Bolt shook his head. “That’s not real helpful. It’s going to be difficult to be discreet.”
After a moment, I heard Gael laughing softly. “It’s less. Far less.”
She looked at me. “It’s odds or evens that a merchant might be a man or woman,” she said. “At least in Collum. Roughly half the merchants are women.”
“I don’t see how that helps,” Bolt said. “That still leaves us with two dozen possibilities. The city watch isn’t going let four armed strangers do a house-to-house search in their city. This is Owmead, girl. King Rymark sees threats everywhere, and he makes sure his soldiers hold the same viewpoint.”
She shook her head. “A merchant might be a man or woman, but the porters are all men. I haven’t seen a dog yet that couldn’t smell the difference between male and female.”
I put my hands into Wag’s ruff and pictured Branna, Gael, Constance, and every other woman I’d ever known. It could have been coincidence, but I thought I detected a definite note of amusement in Wag’s thoughts. I focused on the large pack of scents we’d culled before. “How many are women?”
Within his mind, scent after scent dropped away until only the picture of a male sentinel and his mate remained, the scents here in the city fresh. I stood, smiling at Gael as if Laidir had raised me to the nobility all over again. “There’s only two. I chose so very well.”
“We don’t have to wait, Willet,” Gael said.
I stared down the curving road that led into the city, waiting for the wind to settle, straining my eyes for some hint of dawn. “I know. How can one night last so long?” I muttered. I didn’t get an answer, but I didn’t really expect one. Beneath my hand Wag still shook as if he might launch himself from the back of my horse any second.
The Shattered Vigil Page 47