The Shadowed Path

by Gail Z. Martin

  BOUNTY HUNTER

  “I DON’T THINK I’ve ever met a blacksmith who doesn’t like horses.” Jonmarc Vahanian dipped a piece of hammered iron into the cooling bucket. He glanced up at Conall, the journeyman blacksmith, who was withdrawing another rod from the furnace.

  “Huh,” Conall grunted. “You haven’t met every blacksmith in Margolan, have you? So that doesn’t say much.” He began to hammer the iron, and for a few moments they were silent, since the din was too loud to do more than shout. Conall stood a couple of inches shorter than Jonmarc, but he was a few years older. He had a lithe, muscular build, with shoulders and arms strong from his work. His black hair was tied back in a queue, but it still accentuated eyes that were more violet than blue. Conall wasn’t a big man, but he could put a level of power behind his strikes that Jonmarc hoped he could someday rival.

  “I guess I just figured shoeing horses was most blacksmith’s steady work,” Jonmarc replied when Conall was done with that piece. Today, Jonmarc was on loan to help Conall finish up an odd assortment of tools and barrel hoops. A traveling caravan needed plenty of horseshoes, but it also required tools, weapons, and utilitarian items like barrel hoops to keep nearly one hundred performers, artisans, cooks, riggers, and laborers in business as they made their way across the kingdom.

  Conall shrugged. “It’s kind of a mutual thing with me and horses,” he said, eying the iron bars in the furnace as if debating which one to take. “I don’t much care for them, and they aren’t that happy to see me, either.”

  “You have a horse for your wagon,” Jonmarc pointed out, throwing another log on the fire and giving the bellows a pump. “You seem to like her just fine.”

  Conall grinned. “Lizzie and I have an understanding. She’s different.” He shook his head. “You’re still new in the business. Tell me again how wonderful horses are after you’ve been kicked in the balls, stepped on, had a finger nipped off and nearly had your head taken off with their hooves.”

  Jonmarc grimaced, acknowledging the truth in Conall’s words. Blacksmithing was dangerous work, and adding very large, very heavy and sometimes cantankerous animals to the mix made it that much more perilous. Jonmarc had heard plenty of stories, from the smiths with the caravan and from his late father, about blacksmiths that had been maimed or killed by balky horses.

  “Give me a hand with this,” Conall said, bringing Jonmarc back to the present. At seventeen, Jonmarc was just over six feet tall and strong from working in the forge. A shock of chestnut brown hair fell in his eyes as he bent to retrieve one of his leather gloves, hiding a ragged scar that ran from his left ear down below his collar. His dark eyes glinted with intelligence, and more recently, fresh grief. Every day the caravan traveled took him one step further from the loved ones who lay buried in graves back home in the Borderlands.

  For a while, they worked without speaking, a companionable silence. Jonmarc had been with the caravan now for three months, long enough for the group to meander its way across part of Margolan, stopping near towns and manors for a few days at a time to perform and earn enough money for the next leg of the trip. Jonmarc had hired on as an apprentice blacksmith, and he often worked with Corbin, the head farrier, shoeing horses. But it was just as likely for him to be loaned out to the caravan’s other blacksmiths if there was work to be done, and Jonmarc did not mind the change of routine.

  “The next time you forge blades, can I help?” Jonmarc tried not to sound too eager, but Conall’s grin let him know he had not succeeded.

  “Blades,” Conall repeated. “You know, very few smiths have made more than a handful of real weapons in their lifetime, and some make none at all.” He gestured toward the iron clamps, bridle bits, wagon axles, and sundry tools that lay in various stages of completion around the forge. “This is what keeps food on the table for most smiths.”

  Jonmarc sighed and turned away. “I know that.” His father had been known for his craft back in the Borderlands, and Jonmarc had been helping around a forge since he was just a boy.

  Conall swore under his breath. “Sorry. I forgot. Of course you know that. It’s just that few smiths who aren’t with an army or a mercenary company spend all their time forging swords. And to tell you the truth, I wouldn’t envy them their work.”

  Jonmarc’s father had once said something similar, though he could craft a fine sword, and Jonmarc had the last two swords his father had ever forged back beneath his cot in his tent. “Never mind,” he mumbled.

  Conall’s expression softened. “You know, once we get the barrel hoops done and a few of the tools finished up, I don’t imagine Maynard would mind if we made a few knives for sale at the next market.” He shrugged. “Maybe when we get closer to Principality, we could do some swords—the mercs up there will buy.”

  “Thanks, Conall,” Jonmarc said, kicking at the dirt. “That sounds good.”

  Conall grinned. “Tell you what. After dinner, Trent and Corbin and a couple of the others are going to get together to play cards, maybe some contre dice. It’s not like any of us have more than a few skrivven to wager, but there’ll be ale, and maybe some of Lissa’s jerked meat if I ask nicely.”

  Conall was one of the caravaners who traveled with his family, a wife—Lissa—and a young daughter named Brietta. When the caravan was camped for a show, some of the crew hunted small game for extra meat. Maynard Linton, the caravan master, didn’t mind so long as no one poached on the king’s land. Lissa and Conall were usually lucky in their hunts, and Lissa’s jerked meats were in demand among their fellow travelers.

  “You sure Lissa won’t mind?”

  Conall clapped him on the shoulder. “Someday, when you settle down, you’ll learn the rules to a happy marriage. I’ve already gotten her blessing on it,” he said with a hearty laugh. He did not seem to notice the shadow that passed across Jonmarc’s features.

  “I’ll be over after supper,” Jonmarc promised, trying not to dwell on Conall’s comment. Few in the caravan other than Linton and Trent, the head blacksmith, knew about his murdered family, the wife and child he had commited to the flames just before he had joined the traveling show. Still, the words seemed to conjure a mood, and Jonmarc knew it would take a while to shake it off, or at least, he thought ruefully, to push back the dark memories that never actually left him.

  “Then let’s get the rest of the work out of the way so we can at least start on one of those knives,” Conall said with a conspiratorial grin.

  Jonmarc’s dark mood had mostly lifted by the time he and Conall banked the fire and closed up work for the day. The sound of the bells from a village down the road carried on the evening air, ringing the eighth hour. The caravan had chosen a place to pitch its camp and unfurl its banner in between two middling towns, not far from a grand manor house. Business was good, and if the weather held, it would be a profitable week or two.

  Though the spring days had grown longer, it was already dark, and small fires dotted the caravan’s camp. The evening was cool, and Jonmarc pulled his cloak around him as he headed toward the cook’s wagon for supper. Linton’s camp was set up with the public areas toward the front, with the tables of artisan’s wares, the tents where the acrobats and contortionists performed, and the cages filled with exotic beasts from across the Winter Kingdoms and other oddities for which visitors paid a coin or two to see.

  Behind the line of exhibits and tents, the caravan crew pitched their tents and parked their wagons, making their home for however long the caravan stopped. Horses grazed in a hastily assembled corral, and Jonmarc spotted the dogs, goats, and chickens that were kept by some of the workers and performers. The cook’s wagon was in the center of the camp, and a crowd had gathered, eating and trading stories. By the smell of it, there would be rabbit and bean stew tonight, and maybe if he were lucky, some of the hard biscuits if they hadn’t all been eaten.

  “Jonmarc! You’re eating late tonight.” Kegan, a healerin-training, hailed Jonmarc from where he sat with several other apprentic
es. Like Jonmarc, Kegan was in his late teens. Why he was traveling with the caravan, Jonmarc never asked. Most of the people in the band of musicians, performers, and workers were as interested in leaving the past behind them as they were concerned about where the future led them. And since Jonmarc had only the vaguest of plans himself, it made for comfortable companionship, as if it were an unspoken agreement.

  “If the riggers and the hired hands didn’t break so many tools, Conall and I would have been done long ago,” Jonmarc said, settling in after he had gotten a portion of stew and a biscuit, along with a tankard of ale to wash it down. Linton’s pay was fair but not overly generous, but employment included food and the promise of some kind of shelter for the night, as well as the chance to see the kingdom. Jonmarc considered it a good bargain, especially when it came with decent traveling companions like Kegan.

  Kegan rolled his eyes in response. “You only have to fix their tools. Ada and the rest of us have to put their bodies back together after they get torn up in a drunken brawl or they get themselves kicked by one of the mules.”

  In the distance, a wolf howled, and another answered its cry. The moon overhead was waning, and the shadows were deeper than usual across the camp. “Damn wolves.” Sayer, one of the assistant carpenters, frowned at the noise and shivered. “I hope they’ll keep their distance.”

  “How was the crowd today?” Jonmarc asked with a mouthful of food. “I didn’t get out of the forge. Good enough Linton will stay on a while?”

  Dugan, a rigger, nodded. “Aye, it looked good from where I was. Plenty of people buying from the traders, and carrying off food and ale. The tents were full of folks watching the jugglers and the acrobats. I thought Zane would likely get a swelled head from all the applause for his knife-throwing act.”

  Jonmarc was in no particular hurry to move on. He had considered looking into signing on with a merc group in Principality when they reached the neighboring kingdom, but that still seemed distant and unreal. For now, the caravan was home, and it boded well for all of them if the crowds were heavy and inclined to part with their coin. “That’s good to hear,” he said. “We’ve still got some wagons to patch.”

  Jonmarc lingered a while, finishing his food and listening to the day’s gossip. As usual, it was talk of trysts revealed and confidences betrayed, petty fights, and overheard arguments. Dugan’s comment roused him from his woolgathering.

  “Who’s the bloke wandering around asking questions?” Dugan asked. “Squat, ugly little man, oily blond hair—did you see him?”

  Sayer frowned. “Toady little runt? Yeah, I saw him. At first, I thought he was with some friends and got separated, since he seemed to be looking for someone. Now, I’m not so sure.”

  “Do you think he was with the king’s guards?” Kegan asked, and for once, the young healer looked nervous. Whatever Kegan’s reason for not wanting to come under the guards’ scrutiny, Jonmarc was sure his friend was not alone in his concerns. Everyone here seemed to be trying to forget who they had been before they signed on.

  Dugan barked a laugh. “Not unless the king’s let down his standards! I can’t imagine him passing muster in any army.”

  “Maybe he’s a tax collector,” Sayer leaned forward, and dropped his voice. “I’ve heard that sometimes, they’ve been known to wander around poking their noses into things.”

  “And I’ll bet Linton makes short work of them if they do,” Kegan replied.

  “If you’re talking about the shifty little troll I saw, he didn’t look smart enough to be a danger to anyone,” Dugan said.

  The group bantered for a little while longer, then went their separate ways. Jonmarc meandered back toward Conall’s wagon. The night was cool but not cold, pleasant enough if there was a fire. Perfect for a card game with friends. His mind was on what he would do with any winnings when he caught a glimpse of a shadow moving furtively from wagon to wagon. That was unusual, because the area where the caravaners made their camp was regularly patrolled to keep out intruders.

  Jonmarc frowned and drew his knife from its scabbard. He moved quietly to close the gap between himself and where he had last seen the shadow. The figure moved again, and now he realized it was a short man in a hooded cloak. The man seemed to be observing the caravaners around their campfires, but made no move to come closer.

  Is he a thief? Jonmarc wondered. If so, he’s a stupid one. Linton and the merchants are the ones with the money. The rest of us don’t have enough coin to buy a round of ale for our mates at the nearest pub.

  The figure darted to another wagon, and as Jonmarc followed, he began to wonder whether the man intended to circle the entire camp area. Maybe he’s not looking to steal something, Jonmarc thought. Maybe he’s looking for someone. But why?

  Had the man been tall and thin, Jonmarc would have been certain it was the vayash moru mage with whom he had broken a bargain. But the man’s build would be right for the stranger Dugan and Sayer had seen, and Jonmarc began to suspect that the newcomer’s appearance here, after questioning workers that day, could only mean trouble.

  The more he thought about it, the angrier he got, and he picked up his pace, closing the gap between him and the short man. The stranger must have sensed he was being watched, because he turned suddenly and spotted Jonmarc.

  “Stop right there!” Jonmarc ordered, beginning to run.

  The squat man took off running, and he was fast for his size. Jonmarc caught up and grabbed the man by the shoulder, but the newcomer swung at him with the small club he had in his other hand. He caught Jonmarc on the temple, and Jonmarc staggered back, fighting to remain conscious.

  “Thief!” Jonmarc managed to shout. The squat man was at the outskirts of the camp, heading into the forest by the time two of the caravan guards arrived in answer to Jonmarc’s shout.

  “A thief was prowling the camp. He went toward the woods.” The guards took off after the stranger, but Jonmarc guessed the man was long gone by now. He raised hand to his temple and his fingers came away bloody.

  “What happened?” Conall, Trent, and Corbin appeared, followed by several other men from around the camp who had heard his shout.

  Jonmarc told them about the stranger, and his suspicions that it was the same man Dugan and Sayer had seen. Trent and Corbin looked angry, but for an instant, before he regained control, Jonmarc thought he saw a flash of fear in Conall’s eyes.

  “We’ll go out with the guards,” Trent said, and Corbin nodded. Trent looked at Conall. “Do you think Lissa would have a rag to put on Jonmarc’s face before his eye swells shut? We’re closer to your wagon than to the healers’ tent. Neither of us will get much work out of him if that happens,” Trent added with a grin and a wink.

  Conall’s concern for Jonmarc seemed to war with something else, making him hesitate. “Sure,” he said. “Come with me.”

  “Sorry to bother Lissa,” Jonmarc said as he followed Conall back to the wagon. “I could go rouse a healer.”

  “It’s already swelling shut. They’re on the other side of camp, and by that time, your eye will be a mess,” Conall replied. “We’ll get you a cold rag and a glass of ale, and then I’ll go find someone to fix it for you.”

  Conall led Jonmarc to an enclosed wagon, the kind many of the caravaners used both to live in and to carry their supplies, instruments or merchandise. It was nondescript and a little shabby, a snug fit for Conall and his wife and daughter. Jonmarc would have felt more embarrassed about inconveniencing them, but his head had begun to throb so badly he was having difficulty seeing straight.

  Jonmarc had only been with the caravan for a few months, but even in that short time, he knew that the evenings playing cards and dice at Conall’s wagon were quite popular among the group’s tradesmen. Some nights, the wives and girlfriends came as well, gathering with Lissa as they sewed or knitted, watching as the children played in the firelight. Brietta, Conall’s daughter, was quite fond of Jonmarc, no doubt in part because he often brought her small figures o
f animals he had carved from bits of wood. It was an old habit, something he had done to amuse his younger brothers, and making the figures for Brietta made him feel a little closer to the memory of his brothers.

  Brietta peeked out of the wagon. She was four years old, with dark ringlet hair and the same violet eyes as her parents. Brietta also had a clear resemblance to her mother. “Daddy?” she called. Then she saw Jonmarc and smiled. “Hello, Jonmarc. Do you have an animal for me?”

  Jonmarc chuckled, and reached into his pocket. He had finished carving a small dog that morning. “Just for you,” he said, presenting her with the gift.

  Brietta squealed and jumped up and down. Lissa stepped up behind her and took Brietta in her arms, admiring the small wooden dog. “Jonmarc spoils you,” Lissa admonished, but her tone indicated that she didn’t mind at all. Lissa glanced at Jonmarc, and gasped at his injuries.

  “What happened?”

  “Go into the wagon and keep Brietta quiet,” Conall said before Jonmarc could reply. “I’ll be there in a moment to get that rag.” To Jonmarc’s ear, Conall’s voice had an odd urgency.

  “Wait here,” Conall said, indicating that Jonmarc should take a seat near the fire on a log. He brought Jonmarc some ale. “I’ll be right back.”

  Conall disappeared into the wagon, and Jonmarc could hear him conversing in low tones with Lissa. Jonmarc concentrated on staying upright, since the pounding in his head made him feel as if he were swaying back and forth. Although he was not trying to eavesdrop, he could not help overhearing a few words of their conversation.

  “—leave now,” Lissa urged.

  “Wait,” Conall replied. Jonmarc lost the next few words. “—reach family.”

  “What if he knows?” Lissa’s voice was a bit louder, and Conall hushed her. Jonmarc heard Conall speaking in soothing tones, while Brietta had begun to wail.

  “Soon. I promise. Linton will—” Again, Conall’s words were lost.

  “Can he?” Lissa challenged. “What if—” Brietta’s crying drowned out the rest of her words.