“You should ask Johnas Tygus to send some reliable people,” Temmi pressed, “if the lady will not ask him. They had a grand estate at Gilflors Pools that was closed.”
“I’m not one to fancy such a play by the count, or want to see it happen to be free of my obligation,” Wayland remarked. “What you consider is too much for him, and too much for others to bear, so it will not happen. Wenslig has won, and he did not seem an entirely bad or vengeful man. He has sons to carry on, and Sunnil is no threat to him. If something happened to her though, it would be an outrage and give Grotoy the reason it needs to start a fight, which they will not do right now, it is hoped. It’s a bit dirty, to have to calculate of such things. I blame my upbringing, my prior service, and my present company.” Temmi shook his head and chuckled.
“I was born in Rydol, and I know what they can be like there sometimes. We’ll get on a few men, and send to Grotoy for some servants the Lady knows. We’ll make a few at Berize pack for the palace at Rydol, and get one or two of theirs in exchange.”
“Aye, that seems the right thing to do,” Wayland agreed. “It will look like we have done a great deal, and it will accomplish nothing. The lady must sort this out for herself. Tomorrow, I’ll send a letter up the road with my two men to catch Johnas Tygus, to explain fully what well lodged means to me. But I’ll not do it today.” They shook hands and split apart, to get things ready for their own departure.
Later Wayland found Lady Sunnil and Brigha sitting at a table at one end of the hall, eating broth and bread, talking so quietly he thought that it must be gossip. He gave her a little bow as he came up on them.
“I’ve got an idea I think you need to hear my lady, because your opinion on this matter is better than my own.” The two women exchanged an odd look, which was better than her having no thought at all, or immediately sending him rudely away. He wondered if she would be game for his advice.
“Get to what you mean,” she said to him, setting aside her spoon.
“I think we should leave tomorrow, or on the day after for Berize, while the roads are still mostly dry. When we get there I want to have a few of the servants replaced. Is there a town nearby?”
“There is Zinsy you fool, only ten miles away. You know of it. There are also several villages less than a mile away from the estate, through the woods.” Each one of those has about thirty families.” It seemed she was very familiar with the whole place.
“How long did your uncle hold the estate?” he asked her.
“For twenty five years. What servants there do you want to replace, and why?”
“I think you need new cooks, a hunter, and the stable hands,” Wayland said. “I assume it will have been stripped of its guard, and we would be smart to get rid of any that were left behind. Why would he leave such a man, unless he is trouble in some way?”
“You don’t trust my uncle very much,” she said.
“You must excuse my excess then, if there is one. I am of the Isles, and intrigue comes natural to us. Wouldn’t you feel better with some people from Gilsflor Pools? I have heard that the estate there has been closed by your uncle Grotoy.”
“Yes,” she said. “It was looted and partly burned by the goblins and trolls. Yes, I see what you are saying. It will send a message to my uncle Wenslig. No accident or otherwise can happen to me with Grotoy’s servants about.”
“I will be there also, my lady,” Wayland reminded her.
“You’re just some failed Tolly spitfire, I’ve found out,” she said, dropping it on him bluntly. “And stop calling me your lady. I am your prisoner,” she added with a snap, her voice ending on a high note.
“Yes, Lady Sunnil,” he answered. “I will go and make ready for our departure. Bring me a list tonight of the servants you would like Johnas Tygus to send to you, and I will have my men go out with a dispatch tomorrow and catch him on the road.” He walked away, angry at being so easily discovered and dealt with, and he left the hall.
“False knight,” he heard Lady Sunnil say over to Brigha too loudly, right before he went out the archway.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
KULITH
THE FOREST OF KHAAST
Kulith had gotten some food from the bandits he had killed, but it was now all gone. He had made use of the bows and the arrows they had carried and shot a deer, hung it from a tree, cleaned it, then cooked and eaten most of it. Kulith had then wandered farther away from the West Lands, to the north-east through the trees and glades of the Khaast, and finally passed all together into the unknown, smaller holdings of the lords and knights that ran along the road through the forest. He had found a network of smaller roads and track ways that ran parallel to the main one and the large holdings. The most outer paths were just used by animals, woodcutters, hunters and bandits. Three days after killing the four men he had put on a hood and gone into a tavern on one of the most remote roads.
They had been shocked at such an openly armed and dangerous looking fellow coming in among them, but the humans had been too afraid to say no to him and try to kick his out. He had drunk and ate a troll’s share, and then paid for it using the bandits’ coins. He had then staggered out, and the rest of the patrons and the owner had probably let go a collective sigh of relief. He had moved farther east after that, raiding chicken coops and the barn yards of the farms that lay in his path. Sometimes he left a coin, and sometimes he did not. He had a feeling that a sheriff’s men, or the local knights must be searching for him, but they did not encounter each other because he had by then moved on.
One day he smelled something he remembered, and he had to think about when and where he had smelled it before. It was the smell of tanned leather, but in a different way than the regular leather as it was done in the West Lands. With it he smelled a sweet scent, cloying like some flowers, and he thought immediately of a woman: a rich stone man’s woman. He was close to the main road, and so he ventured out to it to see what he might find.
There was a village there, and a stone keep rearing up with guards walking atop the wall, looking down and watching in a very diligent manner. He put his hood up over his head and watched from the side of a barn, as close as he could get to the keep’s gate. He identified what he had smelled. It was the stone man that he had traveled with out of the Priwak. His saddle and tack produced the smell, perhaps cured in a different manner than what was done in Gece, or it was perhaps something he carried. He knew that Little Toad might be traveling with him, and so he waited to see if she would reveal herself.
It was not her, and a tall knight later took off his helmet and shook out a great mane of yellow hair, to reveal it was a woman. It was Krolo’s wild daughter who he also now smelled, carrying the scent of a rose, and of polished iron, it becoming stronger now. Several of the other men he had seen come to Warukz with the stone man were also there.
He waited there for some hours until it started to get dark and they shut up the gates of the keep. He withdrew to think about what to do next. He ate a couple of potatoes that he had cooked that morning, and wondered what had happened to Little Toad. He decided to sneak back up the next day and lay in one of the barns, and watch to see what the stone men did.
He woke early and got water, then made his way quietly back into the village. People were already up, doing their chores, and he had to be careful to avoid them. He found a barn with no animals inside and he climbed up into the loft. He squeezed back between the sheaves of hay to pop a knot out of a length of board, and then peer out.
He could see down the street and watch the front of the keep, where the gate was just opening for the day. The guards paced back and forth on the walls, and a man came and stood outside near the road, holding a long pole axe with one hand. They stared around, doing their jobs in an irritating, forthright manner, perhaps because of the stone men having come there the day before. They began bringing out wagons and harnessing up teams, and he watched them put together a group of them, and roll them off to the east, further into the k
ingdom of Gece.
As the last one had passed down the road, Kulith saw that a group of horsemen and soldiers stopped at the gate, talking with the stone man Wayland, who had come out with the warrior daughter of Krolo. He watched them, hoping to see a Little Toad, but she did not appear. Instead Wayland and the Krolo children saddled their horses and left with the others, riding back west toward that castle. He turned over from the hole in the board and rested there in the loft, waiting until night to go back out into the forest. He started to doze, and turned over and used the hay as a bed. When he awoke with a start it was hours later, and he was in a partial darkness. Someone was moving below, with a lantern.
He stayed still, waiting to see if the human would discover him, listening as someone went back and forth, opening up the stalls and taking out feed from bags and putting it into wooden feed pails. After about an hour, the person left the barn and went back over to the farm house. It was a roadside farm with a long, narrow yard and the barn sat back on the tip of the lot, with access to a smaller lane. There was now something moving below, and Kulith figured it to be domestic animals now put back into their stalls.
He moved across the loft and lowered himself down onto the floor. A cow looked up at him, let out a moo, and moved back further across its cage to stand against the far wall. It lifted up its legs in a feeble kick, the hooves moving through the air as he passed by in front of it, and went out the small side door. He made his way slowly back into the woods, feeling well rested and in full control of his situation. If Little Toad was not with the stone man who had rescued her, then she must be still back at Krolo. He felt again the strong need to be near her, and to make her fulfill her promise to him. He went back along the trails, past the lit or unlit farmsteads and small manors, skirting the walls and pastures, keeping well away if there were dogs, and avoiding the barns and other easy food sources. He needed to plan what he would do now, to try and find Little Toad again.
The next day found him back at the small cave he had located under a deadfall. He retrieved his bow and quiver, and the bag of food he had gathered earlier, and he ate heartily before he set his plan into action. He went back into the forest and walked for a day to the east, then came out and inspected the road. It had become narrower here, and the patches of trees thicker on both sides, with the farms and stone men houses placed farther away from each other. Fields had been cut and cleared at some time in the past, but they were scattered, and trees stood on the edges like walls.
It was an ideal setting from which to watch and see if Little Toad passed by. He erected a shelter from the remains of an older one built by some earlier traveler, or a hunter, and then went to look for food. This included checking to see who would prevent him from taking that food, or come after him once he had taken it. After about three more miles on a trail, he came to a stone man’s manor, belonging to one of the local gentry, probably a knight or at least a squire. As he looked at it and watched the people move around the estate, the dogs caught wind of him and began to bark. He cursed them and moved back into the forest, to think about what he would now do.
He wanted to stay and watch at the narrow point in the road, where the trees were thick. If he went over to the north side of the road he would be out of the wind, and might miss them if they passed. It would also go bad if there was word of him eventually spread on the road by travelers, as Little Toad’s guards might hear of him and decide to stay at Krolo, or just go a different way. He knew he had at least two days before she could possibly pass by, because of the distance to and from Krolo. So he waited until dark, and then crossed the road when there was no one on it. He went off into the trees to the north and found another set of roads, and he stumbled on a peasant village after about an hour, built around a group of fields that had been cleared from the forest.
It was the type of target that a group of goblins could run through quickly: killing the inhabitants, able to loot and burn in the small part of day, but it would give him trouble. So he waited until night fell, then went out and helped himself to part of a smoked ham, some corn, and a small keg of beer that looked about ready to drink. He left two silver coins, and ran with his haul out into the forest, back across the road, and did not stop until he reached his shelter. He baked the corn under a thick layer of leaves set on coals, the darkness concealing his smoke.
It occurred to him then that he might have to sit by the road and wait for several days to catch Little Toad. If he was constantly foraging for food he would have to leave the road at least for a day at a time, and thus he might in these periods miss her. He thought about this for awhile, as he ate the smoked ham and the corn, and drank the beer. He thought that the best thing to do was to thus go out now, and in a single incident collect enough food to last for a week or more. He tried to calculate what this would amount to. He could cook meat at his camp, but the smoke might be seen, or it smelled. There were rabbits on the edges of the fields, but not enough to sustain him, and it would take time to trap the little beasts, to hunt deer, or to fish, though he had not found any water big enough to do that in.
After the cask of beer was drunk off he went to the stream nearby and filled it with water, creating a supply closer at hand, that would last for a couple of days. These were all old raiding tricks, and he lay later on the boughs and leaves he had piled up in the shelter to sleep, and it was the most he had felt like a bugger in a long time. He imagined himself out in the Priwak, having just having raided a farm house and eaten the pig with his old pot mates. In the morning, he would figure out what he needed to do.
He was woken up in the early light by the sounds of humans nearby. This was a bad position for a troll to be in, he knew, and he carefully made his way out of the shelter, looking around through the forest. A few minutes later he crept forward to the road and saw that a great caravan was passing by on it, of knights and their levies, of marching archers and wagons loaded with supplies. The banner of Kassal passed by, and then five others he knew of or could guess at. The rumors of a war in the east must have been correct. There was a major mobilization going on in the human lands, but he didn’t think it would affect him, in fact he thought it might aid his aims.
They soldiers were carrying pikes and pole arms: the weapons of massed foot combat, and some were singing songs in their ranks. This let him follow them easily, and they eventually all passed beyond him, and went down the road toward the county of Rydol. He turned to the south and went back into the forest, to range about and find a place where he could bargain or steal what he needed. In the afternoon he came to a large farm, and he waited on the edge of a field there, to check and see if there were any dogs, and how many men. A farmer eventually came back across the fields, with two medium sized hounds in step with him, smelling at his hands and at his brown pant legs, as if he’d just handled food.
Kulith had come in upwind, and by the time the dogs had gotten to the farm yard they had smelled him. They stuck their heads up and barked out, unsure of what they smelled. When he came out of the woods carrying a stick in his hand to use as a club, and they both began to make an alarm and move back and forth, but they were still unsure of what to do. The man was shouting for them to heel, but then he saw Kulith, and he broke and ran back into the farm house. One of the dogs advanced now, growling as it ran at him. He waited until it launched itself up at his face, and then he struck it hard with one swift pass of the stick, sending it back the other way and knocking the life out of it with the blow.
The other dog whined and shuffled back and forth in the yard, as Kulith advanced on toward the house. It was a rough place, with just two or three rooms of clinker logs and a chimney, but a veritable palace to a goblin. The man came back out with a hunting bow, an arrow already knocked across it. He stood his ground as Kulith stopped and looked at him, and then over at the remaining dog. The beast decided it was time to attack and ran toward him, and the man also then fired his arrow. Kulith had moved to the left, as it was harder to track a target that disappe
ared behind the wooden shaft of the bow.
The arrow flashed by his face, a few inches away, and he then used the stick to catch the jaws of the dog. It bit down and used its front claws to rip at him, and he jerked the stick sideways in a quick twist and broke its neck. The dogs had been very brave, but this was the consequence of combat, and in trying to attack such an obviously dangerous foe. The man was fitting another arrow to his bow, and after the dog fell off the stick, Kulith threw it forward and hit the man, spoiling his aim. The arrow just skittered off across the ground. Kulith bounded forward and grabbed the bow and the next arrow, and he broke them both in his hands.
A younger man rounded the corner of the house with an axe upraised, and he swung it down at his head. Kulith drew the Tuvier Blade in a blur of motion, and caught the axe on the head, which was not something a normal man could have ever done. He embraced the impact and then pushed it back, and he kicked the man down, not quite breaking his knee. He pointed the tip of the Tuvier Blade at his throat, and the blade resisted him, jerking away a little before he made it stready. Kulith looked back at the farmer.
“Your farm is very nice. It appears you may have had trouble with the local knight or bandits, but fortunately I am neither of those.” He pulled back his hood and showed him what he meant. The man was appreciatively shocked, as Kulith had enough non-human features that anyone who was close could tell what he really was.
“I will pay you for the dogs I killed,” Kulith said, “for food. I need other things too, to begin my journey back across the West Lands.” It was a part of his ploy, to create a believable story that told them he would soon depart, and not come back here again. He began listing the things he wanted, to be put up in sacks, as he pushed the man now on into his house. His women screamed out alarmingly, but as he put the blade of the sword back on their man, they then the yfroze and did as they were told.
A War of Stones: Book One of the Traveler Knight Page 67