"Piety, dignity, poverty," Braumin Herde recited, his Abellican vows. When Brother Viscenti looked at him and nodded, he added the one word that Master Jojonah, in light of Avelyn's work, had secretly tagged on: "Charity."
There was no fanfare, no general announcement, as the caravan of six wagons rolled through the gates of St.-Mere-Abelle. Four of those wagons carried five monks each, while another, full of supplies, held only the two drivers. The second in line was also manned by two monks, and held Master Jojonah, the maps and the logs.
The three monks in the back of the fourth wagon, including Brother Braumin and another immaculate, worked continually with gemstones, quartz mostly, though the other immaculate also held a hematite. They used the quartz, a stone for distance sight, to scout out all the area around the caravan, and if anything looked the slightest bit suspicious, the immaculate would then use the hematite to project his spirit into the area to better discern the situation. These three were the eyes and ears of the caravan, the guides to keep the wagons away from trouble, and if they failed, the monks would surely see battle, perhaps long before they had even left the so-called civilized lands of Honce-the-Bear.
They rode throughout the morning, traveling the northwestern road toward Amvoy, the small port across the great Masur Delaval from Palmaris. Normally such a large caravan would travel southwest, to Ursal and the bridges over the great river, for there were no ferries large enough to get them across to Palmaris in one trip. But the monks had their own methods; their line to the Barbacan would be as near to straight as possible, and with the magic stones, quite a bit was possible.
The horses, two for each wagon, were soon exhausted, some drawing breath so forcefully that they seemed near to death, for each wore a bridle set with magical turquoise that allowed the drivers to communicate with the animal, to push the beast beyond its limits with mental intrusions. They took their first break at noon, in a field off to the side of the road, an appointed rendezvous. Half the monks went to work on wheels and undercarriages immediately, tightening, straightening, while others prepared a quick meal, and the three with the scouting stones sent their eyes out wide to make contact. The Church was well-prepared for such undertakings as this journey, for all along the roads of Honce-the-Bear were allies, pastors of small congregations, missionaries, and the like. The previous day, several of St.-Mere-Abelle's masters, using the maps and logs provided by Brother Francis, had used hematite to make contact with these strategically placed allies, informing them of their duties.
Within an hour of their noontime break a dozen fresh horses were brought to the field. Master Jojonah recognized the friar leading the procession, a man who had gone out into the world after a dozen years at St.-Mere-Abelle. Jojonah watched him from the flaps of his wagon cover and did not go out to greet the man, for familiarity would breed questions, he knew, questions it was neither this friar's place to ask nor Jojonah's to answer.
To the friar's credit, he stayed no longer than the couple of minutes it took him and his five helpers to make the exchange.
Soon the teams were yoked, the supplies repacked, and the caravan on its way, running hard across the miles. In mid-afternoon they veered from the road, turning more to the north, and soon thereafter, amazingly, the great Masur Delaval was in sight, with more than seventy miles already behind them. To the south lay Amvoy, and across the twenty miles of watery expanse, beyond their sight, was the city of Palmaris, the second largest city in all of Honce-the-Bear.
"Take good meals and gather your strength," Master Jojonah instructed them all. The monks understood; this would likely be the most difficult and taxing part of their journey, at least until the Timberlands had been left behind.
An hour passed, and though Brother Francis' detailed itinerary had only allowed for that much of a respite, Master Jojonah made no indication that he meant to get them going.
Brother Francis came to him in his wagon. "It is time," the younger monk said quietly, though firmly.
"Another hour," Master Jojonah replied.
Brother Francis shook his head and began to unroll a parchment. Jojonah stopped him.
"I know what it says," the master assured.
"Then you know—"
"I know that if we get halfway across that water and any of us weaken, we will lose a wagon, or all the wagons," Jojonah interrupted.
"The amber is not so taxing," Brother Francis argued.
"Not for one to walk across the water," Jojonah agreed. "But to carry such a load?"
"There are twenty-five of us."
"And there will remain twenty-five of us when we exit onto the river's western bank," Jojonah said sternly.
Brother Francis gave a slight growl and spun on his heel, starting away.
"We will travel long into the night," Jojonah said to him, "using diamonds to light the way, and thus make up the time lost resting here."
"And drawing attention to us with our beacons?" Francis asked sourly.
"Perhaps," Jojonah replied. "But that is less a risk, by my estimation, than is crossing the Masur Delaval with weary brothers."
Brother Francis narrowed his eyes and set his jaw, then turned about and left in a huff, nearly running over Brother Braumin Herde, who was on his way up the few stairs at the back of the wagon.
"We are not on his schedule," Jojonah explained dryly as his friend entered.
"He will report this to the Father Abbot, of course," Brother Braumin reasoned.
"It is as if Father Abbot Markwart were right here beside us," said Jojonah with a great sigh. "The joy of it all."
His frown melted into a smile, though, and then that turned into a laugh when Braumin Herde gave a chuckle.
Outside the wagon, Brother Francis heard it all.
An hour later, with a proper landing found along the banks of the river, and the sun riding low in the western sky, they were on the move again. Now Master Jojonah, the most seasoned and most powerful with the magical stones, led the way, with two first-year novitiates beside him and only a single driver up front. Eighteen of the twenty-five monks, all except for the actual drivers and one whose duties remained scouting with the quartz, were divided equally among the six wagons, the three in each joining hands in a ring about a piece of enchanted amber. They pooled their powers, sent their energy into the stone, calling forth its magical properties. Amber was the stone used for walking on water, and as each wagon rolled off the landing and onto the river, it did not sink, horses' hooves and the bottom of the wheels making only slight depressions on the liquid surface.
The eighteen monks fell deep into their meditative trance; the drivers worked hard, constantly angling their teams to compensate for the current. But this part of the journey proved easy going. The ride was so very smooth, a gentle reprieve on the wagons, on the horses, and on the monks.
Less than two hours later Jojonah's driver, using diamonds to light the course ahead, found a smooth and easy slope along the western bank and put his wagon back on dry ground. He went back then to inform the master, and Jojonah came out of his trance and moved outside for a good stretch and to watch the other five wagons come ashore, one by one. To the south, a handful of miles in the distance, the lights of Palmaris could be seen; to the north and west was only the darkness of night.
"The line will be tightened for our evening drive," Master Jojonah informed them, "with no more than a single horse's length between the back of one wagon and the noses of the team of the next. Go easy on the turquoise intrusions and take your rest and your last meal in the seat. We will ride long into the night, as long as the horses can take it, but at a comfortable pace. I wish to put twenty more miles behind us before we set a proper camp."
He dismissed the group then, except for Brother Francis. "When do we next exchange horses?" he asked the young monk.
"Not until late afternoon," Francis replied. "We may be taking a dozen fresh ones in exchange for only six who will ever be able to pull a cart again."
&n
bsp; "As it must be, so it shall be," Master Jojonah said, and headed back for his wagon, truly regretting having to work the poor animals so hard.
CHAPTER 6
Underestimated
He thought it curious to find powrie sentries on the outskirts of Caer Tinella this late at night. Usually the dwarves and goblins moved back into the town proper soon after sunset. While the goblins, in particular, did favor the cover of night for their misdeeds, with the town secured, they normally used this active period to play their gambling games, drinking and shoving each other until fights inevitably broke out among them.
That was before Mrs. Kelso had supposedly been turned into a tree, though, an action the monsters attributed to their god figure, the demon dactyl. So now they apparently meant to be more vigilant, just in case the dactyl showed up to personally scrutinize their work.
Roger smiled; he was glad his little ruse had caused so much trouble for the wretches. As for the guards, he wasn't overly concerned. He had come this way to go into Caer Tinella, and so into Caer Tinella he would go, whatever the powries might try to do to stop him. Oh yes, the guards would slow him down, he realized, but not in any manner they had foreseen.
The two powries stood calmly, one with its hands in its pockets, the other drawing deeply on a long-stemmed pipe. Roger noted that their caps shone a crimson hue, even in the dim light. These were seasoned veterans, he understood. Powries were called "bloody caps" for their practice of dipping their berets, hats fashioned of skin, often human, in the blood of their enemies. The berets were treated with special oils that would allow them to retain the color of the blood, with each new victim's essence brightening the hue. Thus, a powrie's standing could often be determined by the color of its cap.
Roger was repulsed by the sight and the implications of those shining berets, but he was not deterred. If anything, the realization that this pair had dipped their caps often only made him more determined. To his thinking, this little action would avenge those killed, at least a little bit. A low fire burned between the powries, and they had set three torches out a dozen feet in a semicircular pattern, leaving open only the short path back to the nearby town. Roger slipped beyond that semicircle, moving as silently as a cloud drifting across the path of the moon. As he passed by the circle, the town was open to him, but he turned about, moving in behind the dwarven pair, sliding down behind a hedgerow a few feet away. He waited there a few moments, making sure the powries were off their guard and that no others were in the immediate area. Then he slithered around the edge of the bushes, belly-crawling for his prey.
"Could use a draw myself," one of the dwarves remarked, and it pulled one hand from its pocket, holding a pipe of its own.
Even as the dwarf's hand came out, Roger's fingers slipped in.
"Weed me up," the dwarf said, handing the pipe to its companion. The other powrie took it and lifted a packet of pipe weed, while the first moved its hand back to its pocket—even as Roger's hand came sliding out with a pair of gold pieces, the strange, eight-sided coinage of the Weathered Isles.
Roger smiled widely as the dwarf retrieved its pipe—with its other hand, thus opening the second pocket.
"You are sure?" Belster O'Comely asked for the tenth time.
"Saw them myself," the man, Jansen Bridges, answered. "No more than an hour ago."
"Big?"
"Could eat a man with room left in their bellies for his wife," Jansen replied.
Belster stood up from his tree-trunk seat and walked to the southern edge of the small clearing that was serving as a base camp for the refugee band.
"How many went to town?" Jansen asked.
"Just Roger Lockless," Belster replied.
"He goes in every night," Jansen said in a somewhat derisive tone. Jansen had come from the north, with Belster's group, and had never been enamored of Roger Lockless.
"Yeah, and we all eat the better for it!" Belster retorted, turning about to regard the man.
He saw then that Jansen's tone was more wrought of frustration than of any anger aimed at Roger, and so the gentle Belster let it pass.
"If any can get by them, it's Roger Lockless," Belster continued, talking as much to himself as to Jansen.
"So we all hope," said Jansen. "But we cannot wait to find out. I say we put another five miles between us and the dwarves, at least until we see how dangerous these new additions might be."
Belster considered the notion for a short while, then nodded his assent. "Go and tell Tomas Gingerwart," he instructed. "If he agrees that it is better we are on the road this very night, our group will be ready to march."
Jansen Bridges nodded and moved off across the clearing, leaving Belster to his thoughts.
He was growing tired of it all, Belster realized. Tired of hiding in the woods and tired of powries. He had been a successful tavern-keeper in Palmaris, a town he had called home since the tender age of five, relocating with his parents from the southland near Ursal. For more than thirty years he had lived in that prosperous city on the Masur Delaval, working first with his father, a builder, and then on his own in a tavern business of his own making. Then his mother had died, peacefully, and less than a year later, his father, and only then had Belster learned of the debt his father left behind, a legacy that fell squarely on the large shoulders of the man's only son.
Belster had lost the tavern, and was still in debt to the point where he would either have had to accept a decade of indenture to the creditors or go and rot for a like period in a Palmaris jail.
He had created his own third option instead, packing his few remaining belongings and fleeing for the wild north, to the Timberlands and a place called Dundalis, a new town being raised from the ruins of one destroyed by a goblin raid several years earlier.
In Dundalis, Belster O'Comely had found his home and his niche, opening a new tavern, the Howling Sheila. There weren't many patrons—the Timberlands were not heavily populated, and the only visitors who passed through were the seasonal merchant caravans—but in the self-supporting lifestyle of the wilderness town, the man didn't need much money.
But then the goblins had come back, this time with hosts of powries and giants. And so Belster became a fugitive again, and this time the stakes were much higher.
He looked back to the dark forest, in the direction of Caer Tinella, though the town was too far away, and beyond too many hills and trees, to be seen. The outlaw band could not afford to lose Roger Lockless, Belster knew. The young man had become a legend to the beleaguered refugees, their leader of sorts, though he was rarely among them, and even more rarely ever spoke to any of them. Since Roger's daring rescue of poor Mrs. Kelso, that status had even increased, if possible. If Roger was caught and killed now, the blow to morale would be heavy indeed.
"What do you know?" came a question. Belster turned about to see Reston Meadows, another of his fellow Dundalis refugees, standing behind him.
"Roger is in town," Belster replied.
"So Jansen told us," Reston replied grimly. "And he told us of the new additions, too. Roger will have to live up to his reputation and more, I fear."
"Has Tomas spoken on the matter?"
Reston nodded. "We will be on the move within the hour."
Belster rubbed his thick jowls. "Take a pair of your best scouts and make for Caer Tinella," he said. "Try to determine the fate of Roger Lockless."
"You think that three of us might get in to save him?" Reston asked incredulously.
Belster understood the sentiment; few in the camp wanted any encounters with Kos-kosio Begulne and his tough powries. "I only asked you to learn of his fate, not to determine it," the portly man explained. "If Roger was taken and killed, we will have to concoct a more fitting tale of his absence."
Reston cocked his head curiously.
"For them," Belster finished, motioning his chin in the direction of the encampment. "It did not break us when the Nightbird, Pony, and Avelyn went off for the Barbacan, but how h
eavy might our hearts have been if they were slain?"
Reston understood. "They need Roger," he reasoned.
"They need to believe that Roger is working for their freedom," Belster replied.
The man nodded again and scampered off to find two appropriate scouting companions, leaving Belster alone again, staring into the forest. Yes, Belster O' Comely was tired of it all, particularly of the responsibility. He felt like the father of a hundred and eighty children, and there was one risk-taker in particular who kept his nerves tingling.
Belster dearly hoped that one troublemaker would return safely.
His booty secured, Roger began to slither away. As he crossed back into the brush, though, he noticed a length of coiled rope, one used by the slaves to haul logs. Roger couldn't resist. He looped the middle of the rope around a sturdy tree trunk, then took both ends with him as he returned to the oblivious pipe-smoking powries.
He was back in the woods soon after. He decided that he would come back this way on his departure and startle the pair. If, as was usually the case with powries, they had not moved much in the meanwhile, they would find a bit of trouble, and Roger would find a bit of fun, when they took up the howling chase and the loops he had put about their feet tightened and they fell flat to the ground.
He might even be able to get back to them and snatch one of their precious caps before they managed to extricate themselves.
Roger filed the thoughts away for a later time; the town was in clear sight now, quiet and dark. A couple of goblins milled about, but even the central building, usually used for gambling, was quiet this night. Again Roger considered his ruse about the dactyl and Mrs. Kelso. The monsters were on their best behavior, fearing that their unforgiving master was about.
Given that on-guard stance, Roger almost wished he had used a different explanation concerning Mrs. Kelso's disappearance.
The Demon Spirit - Book 2 of the Demon Wars series Page 11