A Play of Shadow

by Julie E. Czerneda

  None came. She looked along the Tinkers Road, this way and that, and even checked the old trees for shed snow or sagging branch, not that Wisp, when he chose to hide, would leave such telltale signs, but sometimes he did, for her.

  He’d left. On business of his own or, more likely, because he’d helped all he would, being a dragon.

  The rest was up to her.

  Jenn wandered the field, among sculptures she hardly saw, delaying the inevitable. For each new plan she came up with, she found one flaw, then another, until her mind whirled with possibilities that chased themselves into dread.

  Until she couldn’t think at all. Was this how a soldier felt, before a battle?

  Not that she knew, exactly, how that was. There’d been a book. Plagued by Roche and Allin, Master Dusom had produced a war account written by one of his ancestors. His students had hoped it would be exciting, with gory descriptions and a grand victory, but it proved packed with charts and formulas—from provisioning to how to predict travel time over varied terrains. There’d been a section on tactics, but dry and dealing with what hadn’t worked—in the opinion of the author—because those in charge hadn’t done the appropriate calculations beforehand. Master Dusom had been delighted to set them problems afterward.

  Uncle Horst wouldn’t speak of his life before Marrowdell, not even to Riss, according to Peggs, who’d become closer to the older woman since both had newly revealed loves to compare.

  She could ask Tir, Jenn thought, then shook her head. He’d tell her all manner of stories, without doubt, but since he loved most to tease her, how many could she believe?

  Leaving Bannan Larmensu, but not really. He wasn’t so far from that life that she’d willingly remind him of it, having seen the pain on his face when others did.

  She wasn’t a soldier anyway, when it came to it, nor was gaining Werfol’s trust in any sense a battle.

  At least . . . she truly hoped not.

  Jenn had started for home, to consult with Peggs, only to realize a significant problem. What had she been thinking? Her clothing lay strewn along the road. Yes, her simples were in the commons where she could dress unseen, but the rest were within the village. Leaving two equally unsavory choices: walk through the village almost naked . . .

  Or as turn-born.

  A sensation either way, with neither having a good outcome. Few of the villagers had seen her other self. Or her naked self.

  It was all most embarrassing.

  Fine time for her dragon to leave on his own business. Though Jenn had little doubt Wisp would find her predicament highly entertaining and not be helpful at all.

  She wandered into the field of sculptured snow to delay having to make that choice and to ponder what to say to Werfol. Semyn seemed to take his lead from his brother. Hopefully, he would in this as well.

  Once, Jenn thought practically, she had clothes. Definitely not a soldierly problem. Unless . . . she laughed, imagining the dignified author of Master Dusom’s book arriving in camp in skin and naught else.

  As if her laugh had been a signal, whispers broke out all around her.

  Efflet.

  “Is this your work?” Jenn spread her arms and turned. She hadn’t been paying attention. Now she did.

  The wind might have scoured that hollow in a snowdrift, then laid a sharp line atop its curve, but no wind she’d seen would add a pig’s snout or curly tail. Beside the snow pig was the neck and head of a horse—a good likeness of Perrkin—while beyond that was something less familiar. Something she could have sworn hadn’t been there an instant before.

  She stepped around the horse head to take a closer look.

  Heavy forearms bent across a broad chest. Above, a head, flatter and wider than any she’d seen, held low. Round eyes, set within thickened lids, stared back at her, while two pairs of wings stretched down into the surrounding snow.

  Whispers slipped by and away, returning in greater and greater number, as if her attention to this one of many had sent efflet swirling like a flock of little birds. Soon, she felt herself surrounded by an ever-moving cloud.

  Yet not a snowflake tipped or toppled.

  Jenn turned away from the sculpture and the whispers fell silent. She turned back, and they began again.

  How curious.

  So she went closer still. Like any child, she’d shaped snow and been proud of the results.

  This was different.

  From a distance, the efflets’ snow sculptures had seemed almost crude, easily mistaken for the wind’s accidental artistry. As she approached, Jenn was astonished. For each step she took shifted the light glinting from the flakes, adding exquisite new detail.

  Revealing the mastery of the efflet.

  The eyes had pupils, slit with a softly ragged edge. The eyelids had stubbled lashes and the head a mouth, lips pressed hard against rows of teeth, their tips flat and just shown. What she’d assumed skin seemed now more likely fabric, as if eyes and mouth peered from within a hood.

  Or mask.

  Muscle corded bare arms, reminding her of Davi Treff at his forge. Over the broad chest lay a chain, with others depending from it. Whatever hung at the end of the smaller chains was covered by the arms, as if being protected.

  Or hoarded.

  “It’s very well done,” Jenn offered, then frowned. Why this, in a field studded with snow pigs and horse heads and—she blinked—more than a few piles of nyphrit corpses?

  At closer inspection she could see the wings belonged to a pair of other creatures, possessed of clawed hands. Creatures she’d glimpsed, at the turn. Efflet. The sculpture was cleverly set into the surrounding snow, as if those with wings sought to pull free the one without.

  Or attacked it, Jenn reminded herself; efflet being, in Tir’s terms, bloodthirsty little scoundrels who tolerated no threat to their beloved grain.

  Yet were brave and had fought for Marrowdell. So many things true at once could make a head spin, she decided, understanding Werfol a little better.

  More whispering, as if impatient for her opinion. She walked to one side, to better see the snow efflet.

  They weren’t helping or harming the masked creature. Each was shown caught in a net, body twisted, wings sticking through. Beneath each were scattered other efflet, crumpled where they’d fallen.

  She’d seen their bodies like this before, when efflet had died in terrible numbers so she could reach the trapped sei.

  This sculpture, gruesome as it was, looked fresher than the others. Having noticed her presence, had the efflet made it for her? But why?

  In Avyo, there were sculptures of stone or metal to commemorate important people or events, most commissioned by Prince Ordo. In Aunt Sybb’s opinion, they were of use only to pigeons, but Jenn had thought, to herself, they sounded remarkable. She’d wanted to see for herself.

  It seemed she had one of her own to puzzle over. “These are efflet,” she said, pointing to the winged creatures.

  The whispers intensified, then died away slightly.

  Her gesture went next to the larger creature. “This is not.”

  More whispers, then less.

  “Your enemy?” Jenn hazarded. “From the Verge.” For surely nothing like this had ever walked in Marrowdell.

  A solitary whisper here. Another there. Silence.

  It wasn’t disagreement. It seemed . . . confusion.

  As the silence wore on, Jenn decided it was more than that. Frustration. She’d failed them, somehow. “I don’t understand. I’m sorry, but I don’t. Maybe Wisp—”

  Snow flew as the sculpture was torn apart, flakes going hither and yon until she stood in the midst of a head-high blizzard and saw nothing but white.

  “Wait! You don’t have to—” She stopped, because they had.

  The larger creature, shown trapped in the snow, remained untouched. />
  The efflet in the nets and the corpses around were gone.

  And in their place, something else struggled within a net. Something larger, made not just of snow, but wearing clothing.

  Familiar clothing. Hers.

  Jenn took a step back, hands over her mouth. No monument, but a warning! Whatever this was, it hunted her too.

  Or would, she thought grimly, if it could. Wisp and the turn-born had told her the Verge was filled with perils; here, it would appear, was one. “Brave efflet. I will be on my guard. Thank you,” Jenn said with all her heart and whispers spread and grew until she might have stood midsummer amid delirious crickets.

  Happy, incomprehensible whispers.

  “Though it would be easier if I knew what this is or where I might find it.”

  She’d hoped for another sculpture. Instead, the whispers dropped to a concerned muttering.

  She was going to have a long talk with Wisp.

  On the bright side, Jenn thought, eyeing her clothed snow-self, the efflet had solved her predicament.

  Frost clung to lashes and beard; what skin showed was the faint blue of a plucked fowl. Small things had begun to feast, as Tir predicted. The lips were gone, and the tongue. The remaining eye was useless, its color impossible to tell.

  Bannan could see enough. Another stranger. He brushed snow from the front of the corpse. Tir had taken the coat and weapons, making it easier to reach inner pockets and belt pouches.

  Davi, Anten, and Tadd were busy freeing boxes from the snow; Kydd had climbed onto the tipped wagon to locate more. They left him to this work.

  As they should, Bannan thought. He was well used to searching the dead. They’d lay like cordwood, after a skirmish, or need to be fished from a stream. Sometimes they’d find bodies like these, frozen and abandoned; at others, they’d dig open fresh grave pits to count numbers and look for their own.

  And for answers. Soldiers died from more causes than battle. It was worth knowing if your enemy sickened or starved. Especially before you could suffer the same fate.

  Corpses meant information, not to mention newer boots and possibly coin, though the Ansnans who’d patrolled the marches were, as a rule, no better equipped than those of Rhoth. His fingers closed over a purse, half-full. Rather than waste effort to free it, Bannan took out his knife and sliced the leather, gathering the contents in his hand.

  Coin it was. Two chocks with their middle hole, a couple of dozen sprats, and, lo, a large and still-shiny drogue. The sprats were next to worthless, but a chock would buy a round of drinks in one of Vorkoun’s seedier inns.

  Where the drogue would get your throat slit. The clumsy coin was worth three months’ pay for a soldier and rarely the risk of carrying it. An advance payment. It had to be. The truthseer tucked the coins into his pocket, to be Marrowdell’s gain.

  There’d been something else. He sat back on his haunches, staring at the tangled clot of gray wool.

  “What is it?” Kydd leaned over his shoulder.

  “A soldier’s luck.” No surprise, Bannan thought. The treaty had put more than a few out of honest work. He teased apart the wool, expecting the usual trio of mother’s hair, enemy bone, and cork.

  Instead, tied along the strand was a tiny black vial, a rolled scrap of parchment, and a small reddish piece of metal. “These aren’t the tokens my men would carry.” He held out his hand to show the beekeeper. Tokens were used by the credulous—or knowledgeable, he thought suddenly—to perform Rhothan wishings.

  When they worked, they were considered magic.

  Had whomever sent this man, and paid him, given him these tokens as well?

  Bannan got to his feet. “Can you tell what these were for?” Kydd being one of the knowledgeable sort.

  “Perhaps.” The former student of magic took the wool and tokens gingerly. “But not here.” He secured them inside his coat and nodded at the dead man. “If you’re done, Davi’s set to right the wagon.”

  “Tir killed three. There’s another corpse.”

  Kydd shook his head. “Not anymore. The horses are gone, too.” He pointed to the confusion of deep tracks and scraps of hide near the wagon. “We’re lucky to find anything left. A winter bear.” As Bannan looked a question. “That’s our name for them. Bears like the one Scourge killed on the road are asleep in their dens by now. These stay awake. In winter, they come down to the valleys to hunt—Heart’s Blood.”

  By the look on his face, he’d been struck by the same horrible thought as Bannan. What if the bear had found Tir and the boys?

  “Sennic can tell you more, if you’ve a mind. Come,” Kydd said, lightening his tone. “Let’s see if Davi’s as clever as we hope. That’s a fine wagon.”

  “Fine” wasn’t the word Bannan would have used to describe what Lila had provided for her sons’ transport. Barely any paint remained on its thick wooden sides, sides that sloped to a narrow bottom. That slope kept goods from shifting or falling out, while the wheels, wide of tread and taller than he was, could handle the poorest road. A practical design, when your business was smuggling goods through the mountains to either side of the marches, for this was an Ansnan-built freight wagon.

  With modifications. Some were to allow the use of horses, faster than the Ansnans’ preferred stock, oxen, the rest to accommodate passengers. Four walls and a roof with cargo racks sheltered those inside. No seat for a driver. The reins went through an opening at the front. A strong ugly box.

  They’d arrived to find it lying on one side. Logs had been placed to flip the wagon even as the four horses were dropped in their traces by arrows from ambush. Quick. Efficient. Brutal.

  The attackers had not, however, been responsible for ripping free the door and half a side.

  That had been the dragon.

  The quarters inside had been tight, for Lila hadn’t stinted. Cargo—wooden boxes and barrels—half-filled the wagon, formed into a floor and seats. Removed and added to the rest, they formed an impressive stack by the sled, more than it could handle. Righting the wagon so it could be taken to Marrowdell was, Bannan abruptly realized, more than the villagers’ frugal nature.

  Without it, they’d have to abandon the remaining supplies to Tadd’s winter bears.

  “Ancestors Witness. This is a sturdy wee cart,” Davi declared, though the wagon was neither, being half again the length of the villagers’, and if you asked anyone in Lower Rhoth, a proper farm cart having two wheels, not four plus a fifth at the tongue.

  Likely no one in Marrowdell had known the difference, when they’d first arrived, being neither farmers nor carters. They certainly didn’t care now. Davi called things what he wished to call them and so, Bannan felt upon time with the big smith, he should. The man had a gift for metal craft and engineering bordering on magic, and twice the strength of anyone else.

  “The lads, Tadd, if you would.” The draught horses had been taking their ease with the others, bags of feed over their heads. Tadd brought them, still chomping noisily, to where the chains lay waiting, hitched them up, then signaled they were ready.

  The traces had been torn apart by whatever had taken the horses. Davi set them to collect every scrap, then shook his head in disgust at the result. “Ancestors Wanton and Wasteful,” he cursed, whether at the bears or those who’d killed the horses Bannan wasn’t sure.

  They waited as the smith stood, his brow creased in thought.

  Tadd swung his arms to keep warm. “We could bury the extra. Come back tomorrow.”

  Davi’s frown disappeared and there was a gleam in his eyes. “I’ve a notion, my good friends. Remember the Eld?”

  “Ancestors Willful and Witless!” Covie, who rarely lost her temper, was furious. She paced from one end of the kitchen table to the other, eyes locked on the woman sitting across from her. “I never took you for a fool.”

  Lorra glared back. “I took
you for an excellent healer. That was my mistake! Stick to your cows, Covie Ropps.”

  “Would you care for a cuppa, Jenn?” Cynd asked politely, taking her basket.

  She’d prefer a discreet and rapid exit, but having stepped into the Treffs’ kitchen mid-argument, Jenn knew she was stuck in it now. “Yes, please.”

  Covie having fallen silent, Lorra turned her glower on the new arrival. “There’s no need for tea, Cynd. Jenn’s come for the boys.”

  So they were still here.

  Putting aside, for the moment, the mysterious requests of toad and efflet, Jenn had followed Peggs’ seemingly excellent advice on how to approach Werfol and Semyn to the letter. She’d changed into better clothes and left most of her hair loose down her back, though the difference attire made to children was, in her opinion, debatable. There was no doubting the value of cookies and sweets, and she’d added her little book to the basket.

  She’d not been sure about the jar of pickles, but her sister had assured her with all seriousness that there was no telling what the Treffs had in their glass jars and Jenn should have some way to explain herself at hand.

  As a jar of pickles?

  They’d both smiled at that, which was Peggs’ point.

  She’d taken the last part of her sister’s advice too. Don’t wait for Bannan, Peggs had urged. Act now, so when he’s home again all is well.

  Which it wasn’t, not at all. “If they’ve been a bother,” Jenn began, prepared to apologize.

  Cynd’s “Of course not—” was drowned by Lorra’s “Yes!” But Covie’s blunt, “They’re staying,” seemed to end the matter.

  Lorra huffed. “They are a nuisance and intrusion and unwelcome. I want them out of this house!”

  They were children who’d sought shelter. Jenn bristled.

  Covie flattened her hands on the table and leaned into Lorra’s face. “Frann’s smiling. Telling them stories. Ancestors Blessed—she’s some appetite at last! Taken broth and tea—hasn’t she, Cynd?”

  “And a buttered biscuit.” Cynd carefully avoided the glare from her mother-by-marriage as she set a cup of tea before an empty chair and beckoned Jenn to sit. “Frann’s enjoying the company.”