If Crows Know Best (Mage of Merced Book 1)

by Aimee Gross

  “And are we sure the Keltanese soldier,”—for he never called him by name—“taught us the proper words to use, and not nonsense that will betray us at once?”

  “Both Wils and I know enough Keltanese to be certain of that,” I said.

  He still seemed wary, and I prayed he would keep silent and out of the way until we stole the cargo wagon for him to drive.

  Wils took charge of the maps, and had relieved me of Da’s sword. I still had my knife, and I saw Annora still had Gevarr’s knife at her waist. She wore a skirt, but had shown me a pair of Wils’s trousers she packed in the event she needed to conceal her gender. She confided that Gevarr had shown her some tricks of hand-to-hand combat, going for the eyes or windpipe, using an attacker’s motion and weight against him.

  “Do you mean he put his hands on you?” I paused, holding a frying pan as I looked for space in the cook box.

  “How else would he show me what to do?” She creased her brows at me.

  “I wouldn’t mention it to Wils. Gevarr’s opinion about you coming along is a sore place between them.” I jammed the pan in the box sideways, and decided to say no more.

  Tock took wing to Guthy’s to carry a message that we were setting out. Gargle and Clock took it in turns to ride on the peak of our wagon hut or circle above, scouting the road.

  We made good time through the village, waving to Bar and Nellen Estegg as we passed. Gefretta ran alongside to hand up a loaf, “for Beckta and Miskin” she panted, then stood in the road waving. I handed her loaf into the back, warning, “Don’t let it drop on your foot,” as it was a brick. If she thought to impress the men with her baking skill, she would have to try again.

  I had been wondering if we would be able to spot the battlefield where our troops fought the invaders near the village. We found it not far west along the road. Though our fallen had been buried long since, the expanse of grass was marked with rock cairns, perhaps a hundred of them, one cairn standing over each grave. At the far end of the field, a bonfire had been made of other bodies, those of the enemy, I guessed. Flame-blackened bones stuck out of the ash. I felt a moment’s gladness that Gevarr’s were not among the bones there.

  I spoke to the others in back. I knew they would want to see. Everyone looked out, and we passed by in silence. Just at the edge, Annora called out, “Wait!” and hopped off to stand in the grass. She raised a packet from her herb bag, and let the golden contents drift away in the breeze, carried over the cairns. “For their peace,” she said when she grasped my hand to climb back into the wagon. I clucked to the team and we rolled on.

  From time to time, Wils stuck his head out to survey the road ahead. “This will be a bit too much like our trip home, I think, though I must say I prefer riding to walking. We will have to camp off the main road, since we can’t all sleep in the back.” Indeed, the interior was stuffed as tight as an egg in its shell. “I have some places in mind.”

  “Will we stay in any of the inns?” I asked.

  “No, that’s where the drivers and guards will be staying. Or, in stretches without inns, they camp in groups. We saw some of them when we made our way back home. We will need to make ourselves scarce until we come to the right place to strike.”

  We swayed and bumped our way along all the day, passing some wagons and being overtaken by others, meeting a goodly number headed east as well. We didn’t see any other Traveller rigs. We ate Gefretta’s bread while we rolled, and only Annora and Joren did not complain it was tough.

  Wils peered ahead, shading his eyes from the lowering sun, until he consulted his map a last time and said we would turn off the main way and continue a couple of miles south to camp by the Cisca River. All the country to the west we had covered was new to me, though it didn’t look too different from home yet. Annora also said she had not been this far west before, and Wils allowed he didn’t think the countryside had much to recommend it. He was still wondering if he had made the right choice in bringing her, I reckoned.

  Wieser had lain in the back with the men when she wasn’t sitting between Annora and me. She looked to be as glad as any of us to climb down and walk out the cramps in her legs. She and I took charge of the horses’ feed and water, and I groomed them while they tugged at haynets. Wils rigged a line between two trees to tie them for the night.

  We made what Perk said was a fine form of a Traveller encampment, since he had seen some in his journeys. Annora cooked over the fire. Supper was settling fine when Wieser barked gruffly once, and then walked stiff-legged down the track we had followed. I could just hear wagon wheels rumbling and hoof beats. Next a faint chingle of harness drifted on the breeze.

  “Company,” I said. Annora covered her hair, Wils gestured to her to step up into the wagon with the other men, and I sat by the fire. He joined me there, saying, “I thought we were far enough off the main way to be alone.”

  “Maybe just a farmer on his way home from market,” I said. I prayed so.

  A laden hay wagon with lanterns hung on either side trundled into view, the horse plodding with fatigue. A lone man drove, face obscured by shadow under a broad-brimmed hat. He raised a hand to us and reined his horse to a stop.

  “Hallo,” he called. “Are you bound for Everton Lake? There’s work to be had in the fields there. So few of our men folk have come home from the war as yet.”

  “Our way lies farther west, but we’ll tell others we meet,” Wils said. “I thank you for the news.”

  “Don’t know what we’ll eat this winter if we can’t get crops in,” grumbled the driver. “The Keltanese have turned our lives arse uppermost.”

  That made me laugh, and Wils poked me in the ribs to shush me. “Yah,” he agreed. “They have done well at that, it’s true.”

  “Send any and all our way!” the man said, and clucked to his horse. It shook its ears and strained against the collar to get the wagon rolling again, and they creaked on into the night, trailing the sweet smell of hay. When we could no longer make out the swinging lanterns, Wils let the others come down by the fire.

  “Is it the same story through the whole of Merced, do you think?” Perk asked Wils. “Taking the harbour may have been their first goal, but if they’ve dissolved the government and council, that means the enemy is far and away south in the capital, too. There must still be an entire army occupying not just our province, but all others, as well.”

  “It will be years before we know the sum of what has taken place, I fear.” Wils rubbed a hand over his eyes. “I aspire no higher than getting my da safely home, then routing the Keltanes from our home province. I’m not ready to take on clearing the whole country of them. Perk, you have first watch. I hope I haven’t picked us a spot at an all-night crossroads.” He looked at Wieser, then up at the crows perched above the wagon’s door, but they gave no warning of further passersby.

  Wieser and I took our bedroll to a flat spot under the wagon, and it wasn’t long before she fell to snoring. I followed her into dreams soon after.

  ###

  We built a rhythm of daily travel and camping, keeping ahead of the cargo wagon we planned to waylay. Wils told us to expect to travel for three weeks to come to the valley below the fort. He had marked a desolate, hilly stretch of road as the best place to hijack the wagon. We could then drive it into the valley where the tunnel entrance led into the fort high above the valley floor.

  “We better unload and then send the wagon on beyond the entrance,” I said one day as we drove. Wils sat beside me, maps on his knees. “Otherwise we’ll have led any pursuers to our way in.”

  “You’re not wrong there,” he admitted. “I thought to get the sacks into the tunnel as quick as we can, then run the wagon on down here, see?” He pointed to a river that wound across the map of the valley. “We can make it appear we have sent the goods downriver by raft, if they track it there.”

  “We’ll have six horses and two wagons at that juncture. Our team and the heavy wagon’s team, plus the two guards’ mounts. If
Joren takes the cargo wagon to the river, and we hide ours nearer the fort, how will we get back together?”

  “While you’ve been back and forth to Bale Harbour, I’ve been working all this through. My thought is to send you with Joren—”

  “Think again! I’m going in to Da with you!”

  “I have to stay with Annora outside, I can’t bring her into the fort or leave her unprotected in the valley. The others will go in and carry the goods up. If Da won’t come out with the men, I’ll go in to see him and find out what he wants to do next. My suspicion is he’ll want to find a way to close the pass—loose the rocks. He was preparing to see to it when the siege began.”

  “Why didn’t he have you do that when you left?” I wondered.

  “It’s not like tripping the string on a deadfall trap. There are boulders along both sides of the pass held back by giant timbers and networks of iron chain. You need a crew of a dozen men on each side to let it loose.” He sighed. “It has to be done, for it will take them many months to clear, and require a great many men. Plus, all their trade would have to go miles and miles out of the way to the southern trade routes.”

  “They won’t be able to use the northwest pass by us for any of it?”

  “Not for wagons, only pack trains. Just a trickle compared to what’s going through this pass ahead of us.” He nodded toward the western horizon.

  Annora put her head out of the back, and handed us each sacks of dried fruit and nutmeats, then a jug of mead. Wils leaned round and brought her hand to his lips as he took the jug, and she smiled up at him.

  “Maybe you could act that sappy when I don’t have to watch,” I suggested, but I smiled, too. Wils gave me a poke in the ankle with the toe of his boot, though I saw he was grinning when he turned to face front again.

  ###

  In due time, and after a bout of sloppy weather that seemed endless but was actually three days all told, we came to the stretch of road where Wils planned to lay our trap. The way had started to narrow and climb, so drivers had to be attentive to what lay over the next rise or curve, being unable to see far ahead. There was room for two wagons to pass side-by-side, but only just. Drivers could only go ahead, not turn around anywhere.

  We arrived a day ahead of our quarry, according to our messenger crows. Wils scouted a high place for Annora and me to be situated so we could see the approach of a dark red wagon drawn by a gray and a sorrel. Wils planned to hide our wagon off the road where the valley opened out farther ahead, and walk back with all our men to wait hidden in the trees and brush on the slope below the roadside. Gargle was to fly above and squawk when Annora and I saw the target come into view. She and I would then work our magic to stop the team and the guards’ horses, and our men would attack. Once the wagon was commandeered, and the soldiers’ uniforms taken, Joren would drive the team on, while Beckta and Miskin donned the stolen uniforms and rode alongside like guards. On past the ambush, Wils showed us where the wagon was to turn off and make for the tunnel entrance in the valley. Annora and I were to climb down and drive our wagon to the tunnel entrance following the stolen wagon. If we were lucky, we could get all accomplished before another wagon came upon our skirmish; if we were unlucky, we would have even more men, and horses, to contend with. I prayed to all the five gods, Earth, Fire, Water, Air and Ether, for good fortune in our plan and its execution. Smile on us this day.

  Wils armed me with a crossbow, and asked me to be careful not to shoot anyone on our side. I said, “Mayhap I could chalk a big “X” on your rump, so as to remind me.” He was past joking, though.

  “Are you killing the driver and guards?” Annora wanted to know.

  “If I have to. If I can get them away and trussed up so they’ll raise no alarm for a while, that is another possibility.” He frowned as she turned to rummage in the cookware box. She took from it a long length of braided cord and held it out to him.

  “This is strong, and enspelled to knot tightly and resist fraying or cutting. If you use this to secure them, they will be kept out of the action for some hours. Maybe even a full day.”

  Wils played it out between his hands. “Enough for how many men?”

  “Six at least. Judian will have to lend you his knife to cut it, though.”

  Both of them turned to me. I reached into my boot and grudgingly withdrew my knife in its sheath. “You’d better return it as you found it.”

  Annora shook her head. “No, you have to give it willingly, Judian, or trouble will follow. You can let another wield it if you lend it with the proper intention, but the kavsprit magic can come back on those who are greedy or act with malice.”

  “It’s not malice to attack men and steal a wagon?”

  “It’s not malice to tie men up instead of kill them,” she said.

  I held out my knife to Wils. “I loan you this gladly so it keeps you from being haunted the rest of your days by doing murder.”

  “I accept it and will remember who I borrowed it from,” he said with equal solemnity. “But you understand,” he said to Annora, “I’ll do what I have to do.”

  She handed him cloth for gags from her cook-box. “I know.”

  All of us were wound up too tight to sleep that night. I lay awake and reviewed horse-lore in my mind for hours. We’re coming to help you, Da I thought over and over. I was still awake at dawn when Wils came to get me.

  Annora dressed in the trousers she had packed, with a hooded cloak to cover her hair, since a shawl and trousers didn’t do together. She handed me a skin of water, and more of the nuts and fruit to carry up with us to our perch. Beckta, Perk and Miskin shouldered quivers and swords, while Joren and Wils checked knives and crossbows were ready to hand. I set Wieser to guard our wagon and hobbled team, and signaled Gargle to come with me. Clock hopped up and down on the wagon roof. “You wait,” I told him. “We’ll have a message for you to carry back later, if all goes as planned.”

  Annora and I clambered up the rocks to overlook the road. The sun grew warm before long, and black flies began to plague us without mercy.

  “Eat a few of these, can’t you?” I said to Gargle, as I waved them away from my head. He watched them buzz for a bit. “Wieser would try, if I asked her.”

  He looked at the flies, considering, then shrugged his wings and hunkered on the rock. As if to say, “All right for some, not worth my time.” Too much trouble to catch, perhaps, for a lazy bird.

  Six wagons we didn’t want rumbled through by midafternoon. Then Annora pointed—it was the red wagon mounting the rise. I dispatched Gargle, who flew down into the hollow where Wils and the others waited, cawing as loud as I’d ever heard him.

  Annora and I had agreed she would stop the guards’ horses, while I concentrated on the team. That way, mine were harnessed together so if I got one to stop, the other would stop perforce. I licked dry lips and tried to bring my mind to bear.

  The guards’ horses took several increasingly stiff-legged strides before halting altogether. Their riders sawed at the reins and cursed. When struck on their hindquarters with quirts, the two mounts laid back their ears and twitched tails in fury, but did not pick up their hooves.

  My team slowed as if distracted by deep thought, and did not quicken to the driver’s clucking and waving the whip above their heads. But they did not stop. I cursed under my breath and redoubled my effort. If I could not halt my pair, the wagon would be too far away for Wils and the men to attack the driver and both guards all at once. I could not be the cause of failure, of failing Da … and as my doubt in myself grew, the team below stepped livelier again.

  Blast all! I covered my eyes, and drained my mind of any vision except the sorrel and gray standing as if carved of stone. I called on all the gods to make my mind’s eye true on the road beneath us. With a deep breath, I drew my hands away from my face, and dared to look. The pair stood still, gazing placidly around while mouthing their bits. The driver rose and cracked his whip, but they ignored him utterly.

  Wi
ls and the others burst from cover. First they dragged the two soldiers from their mounts, before either could draw a weapon. Perk hauled the driver down by the belt while Joren climbed the other side of the wagon and swung into the seat. When he took up the reins, I released the team, which startled and drew the wagon forward as if they woke from a daydream, with much head shaking. Annora kept the outriders’ mounts standing still while their struggling riders were carried into the bushes. Some minutes of muffled shouting ensued, before Beckta and Miskin emerged dressed in the Keltanese tunics. I saw they had appropriated their boots as well. The gods were smiling on us so far, as everything seemed to fit well enough. Both men mounted the standing horses, Miskin smoothing his rumpled sleeves, and Annora released the two to follow after the wagon.

  It wasn’t until our crew paced well up out of the hollow that another wagon crested the rise.

  We had done it!

  Annora and I clasped hands wordlessly, and she gave no sign of awareness that I had struggled so hard to do my task. I decided not to say how near a thing it had been, and we began our climb down the rocks. Gargle appeared in front of me, and received a congratulatory hunk of cheese from my pocket. Much tastier than flies, it appeared from his eager pounce.

  Wils and Perk had the three men trussed with the enspelled cord and gagged. They lay in the shade under the brush, well down the hill from the road. The soldiers glared, but the driver looked resigned to his fate. I saw Wils and Perk had kerchiefs tied over their faces to disguise their features, and thought belatedly that Annora and I should have done the same. Of course, it had just now occurred to me that I should have practiced stopping horses while someone else was trying to get them to go; it was indeed the gods’ pleasure that everything had gone as well as it had. A near thing, truly.