by Jenna Rhodes
“I’m going and that’s it.”
“No, Tolby, you are not. You’re needed here to guard your home and Nutmeg, especially if either of the children finds a way to send word or come home themselves.” Verdayne put his hand on Tolby’s pack, gently lowering it to the floor. “I will not tell you, sir, that you’re too old to ride this trail because you alone know that, but I will tell you that no one is in a better position to protect your daughter than yourself. Hosmer has his duty owed to the city guard, and Keldan has his duties with the horses. Garner is . . . roaming. That leaves you to do as you’ve done so well, be the head of this household and hold them together.”
Tolby glared up at him before shaking himself like a water-soaked dog. “You make a certain sense.”
“I do. And, besides, our work on the books is nearly done and could be vital if the ild Fallyn and their alliances declare war on the rest of us. There’s tincture to make for the Library, and we can’t fall behind on that.”
Nutmeg stood, her arms crossed over her bosom, her hair tied back and her eyes flashing more cinnamon than golden-brown. “Lara’s visit set her off. I knew that was ill-omened.”
“Lariel had never seen her heirs and you declined to bring them to her. The queen needed to see the children. They’re the only family she has left.”
“And in trouble because of that. We took them away before because of the danger.”
“And it followed you here.” Verdayne held his hand out to her. “I promise you I’ll find them.”
She looked at him, and her teeth grazed her lower lip as if to stop it from trembling. “But you can’t promise me you’ll bring them back.”
“I can only vow that I’ll die trying. So will all of us here.”
They held gazes for a long moment before Nutmeg looked away with a sigh, a movement of her hand indicating the search party. “You’re not taking any Farbranches with you.”
“Am I not as much a Farbranch as any of you?”
She turned back slowly to him. As busy as the room had been, the great room now seemed cleared of all persons but the two of them. “You should be,” she answered, her words slow and faint.
“Then send me away, telling me that I am, that I am as much a Farbranch as you are—and you will be as much a Vantane as I am.” His half-smile stayed frozen on his face. His hand stayed held out to her. “Your answer won’t keep me from going and searching, nor will it bring me back any faster, but will be something I carry with me, a hope to make my heart lighter.”
Keldan paused by the front door, looking much like a wild pony or tashya caught for a moment in mid-gallop, his hair falling about his face like an unruly mane and his eyes askance. “I don’t under—”
“Shush,” his mother told him. He clamped his lips shut.
“Verdayne.”
His hand never wavered nor did his gaze into her eyes.
“Are you asking me what I think you’re asking?”
“You’re the only one here who wonders.” His half-smile grew a little wider. “Except for Keldan.”
“I just . . . I just wanted to be sure.” Her eyelids fluttered a moment. “Yes. I . . . yes. I will be waiting for all of you to come home to me.”
Tolby dropped his pack and grabbed Verdayne about the ribs. “About time you found the courage!”
But he only had hold of Verdayne for a moment before Nutmeg tore him away to fill Dayne’s arms, her head on his shoulder, her tears wetting the collar of his shirt thoroughly before he tilted her face up to his and they kissed.
A cheer went through the house as they did, and Keldan’s voice could be heard saying, “Now that I understand.”
Before letting her go, he said fiercely to the curve of her ear, “I will do all that I can to bring them back safely. You know that.”
“Yes. And take care of yourself, too.”
“For you, I will.” He let her go reluctantly, and smoothed away the tears on her cheek with the ball of his thumb. “And you must promise the same.”
Nutmeg made an inarticulate sound that he took for an answer. It filled his heart for all of that, and he took that joy with him when he went out the door. Brista fell in step behind him.
Chapter
Forty
RUFUS WATCHED as his mule flicked his long, glossy ears forward and back, his swinging pace easy and yet unhurried, even as it covered ground. Bolgers seldom rode horses. Horses objected to their beastly scent and their somewhat awkward carriage when mounted. The scent he could do little about; it was part and parcel of being a Bolger. Rufus had developed a saddle that was more suited to the Bolger frame than other skeletons, it was deeper and more canted in certain areas and proved vastly more comfortable. The stirrups hung differently as well, and were shorter. The headstall and reining system remained the same, but with a mule it hardly mattered. They knew a road when they saw one, even a path, and were hard to convince to take a more difficult route. They had sense where the well-being of their legs and hooves were concerned. This one fellow Rufus called Butter because his stride was so smooth, one of the finest mules he’d ever cut out of a herd. He had tashya blood in him as well as the dunka that made him the mule he was. The pack mule following was Kernan draft and dunka, a blockier mule with hooves like frying pans, giving her a tough gait to ride but a lot of stamina on the trail. He didn’t know if they’d survive the trip any better than he would. He’d been days already and no nearer knowing what his dreams had sent him to do.
Summer heat beat down on all of them, and the mules snorted at him when he drove them through a small brook after they’d gotten their fill drinking and decided to stand a while in the cool, sluggish water. It made more sense to them than continuing down the dusty trail, headed for the wider caravan roads. He growled at them and clapped his boot heels to sleek flanks. With a shake of their heads, they followed orders. When he had started on his ride, he’d had only a vague idea of where he wished to go, but with every swinging stride of his mule, he headed toward Calcort. Rivergrace would not be there; no one had had a sign of her since she’d followed Quendius. Others told him he would know if she were dead, their bond being so close, but he knew that to be false. How many times at Harvest Meetings had he joined with other tribes and found to his surprise that this chief or that tribesman or shaman had passed and he’d had no inkling? No, the world of death did not bow to him and let him know when friends and loved ones had gone to it. He had no idea if Little Flower and her man still lived anywhere because there was no sense he carried which would give him that truth. But he knew that Spice did, and if anyone might understand his dreams, she might. If she stopped talking long enough to listen to him.
A growl of laughter welled up in him, momentarily stilling his thoughts. It was then he noticed what he might have noticed earlier had he not been trapped in memories. Butter’s stride had shortened. He snuffled with suspicion every few steps, his head slightly tilted, ears back and nostrils flared. Something lay ahead that he did not like, and he showed it by his reluctance to approach. Mules had good sense, and Rufus pulled them to a stop, stretching his legs in the shortened stirrups a bit, and standing in them.
He could hear scavenger birds, muted and faraway, but clacking and cawing to one another from somewhere on the road ahead. He knew if he rode closer, he’d smell the metallic tang of blood and torn flesh on the air. The only question left to him was not whether someone or something had died—but how many. He dismounted and looped the reins about the front slope of the saddle, snugging them under a leather hook made for that purpose, and tied the pack mule’s reins in as well. He smacked Butter on the neck. “Stay.”
The chestnut mule rolled an eye at him as if to agree emphatically. No way was he going where he could smell blood and carnage. Not even if hit with a stick. Rufus patted him again as he slipped past, off the trail and into the high brush which had been lushly green with spring and new grow
th and now had begun to turn a golden brown. The chaff rose as he did, and he rubbed his nose roughly to keep from sneezing. The noise of scavengers grew louder as he drew nearer, and the smell of death on the air grew unmistakable. He touched the pouch hanging about his neck once or twice as he stalked closer. This seemed nothing like his dream, so he did not worry overmuch, but taking care seemed prudent as always. He had not gotten to this old, inconvenient age by being careless. Dust and dried foliage rose about him, spiraling about like snowflakes, and he slowed to little more than a crawl, unwilling to set off the birds when they spotted him. It was not the dead and dying he feared. It was the combatants who could lie among them, waiting for a fresh attack.
He raised himself to one knee and the palms of his hands, peering through the tops of the waving grasses. The scattered remains of a vast caravan littered the road beyond. Broken wheels and shattered cart beds. Carcasses of the massive forkhorns bloated, torn open, and being savaged by the birds, so many skraws their black feathers blanketed the naturally dun hides. Blood had been spilled, much blood, but the cargo seemed to have vanished. Rufus ran his tongue along one of his corner tusks. From the size of the caravan, he decided it must have been carrying grain. Grain precious enough to kill in wholesale slaughter. Not a trader remained alive, drawn and quartered, their body parts thrown about, making the bodies near unrecognizable. He listened for long moments, trying to hear if someone yet moaned, yet lived. Nothing came to him.
Rufus stood then, rising slowly out of the grass and weeds, setting off a few of the nearest scavengers, but most were too busy eating to be deterred by one mobile body amongst them. A few of the birds swooped at him, talons out and beaks open, screeing and cawing, but they flopped away when he swung at them with a growl. They perched not far away, eyes blinking in surprise that he was yet among the living.
He stopped at the side of the nearest wrecked caravan, its buckboard bottom belly-up to the sun and sky. He rubbed a finger along the wood, catching bits of grain, confirming his guess as to the cargo.
Rufus raised his gaze, eyeing the long row of devastation. Someone had decided to murder and steal what they could have bought in the marketplace. Grain was not yet so dear that a mortal life should be traded for it. He wondered at the piracy. It was not until he had traversed nearly the entire length of the twenty caravans making up the trading train that he found a scrap of a clue which stood out among the traders’ bodies and artifacts. The sleeve of black with silver workings on the cover glittered dully in the sunlight.
Rufus’ lips curled back from his teeth and tusks. Ild Fallyn. He’d heard that their hard-won farmlands had not produced well this season or last. He wondered how they could be short of coin with the hot-blooded tashyas they were famed for breeding or their fur and mineral trade. Such things could be chancy. His own people lived on the fortunes which rose and fell without warning, but then, his own people lived far less ambitiously than did the ild Fallyn. He tucked the sleeve inside his leather apron. There were some who would believe his story, even without the sleeve, but there were more who would not believe a word he said. Such was the worth of a Bolger among the other races of this land. He could not change it although he had spent his whole life trying. If Little Flower were here, she would take his evidence and understand. They held much respect for each other.
He didn’t hold much hope that Spice would do the same, but he would try.
Rufus eyed the road ahead. It did not lead to Calcort but cut across the road which did. This was a main trading route, from out of the warehouses of the capital Hawthorne, and into the East, traveled for moving vast volume without stopping on the way until it reached its journey’s end, with less chance of spoilage by doing so. A bold move had been struck here, one of desperation and planning. If the ild Fallyn had struck once, and killed all who might have witnessed, they would strike again and do the same. He would take backroads—hunting and migratory paths—not easy riding but out of the way of whatever traps the Vaelinars might have laid. It would be safer to do so.
He touched the pouch at his neck again, a habit he had begun to develop. These were his death herbs, to be spread upon his funeral pyre; if he died alone, they would be smothered in their essence but still guide his soul to where it should go. He told the pouch he had things to handle first, and that his destiny must wait.
Dropping his hand, he strode back into the bush to retrieve his mules, leaving as little evidence of his passing that way as he could. His animals flicked their ears back and forth uneasily and breathed hard, disturbed by the smell of blood spilled upon the earth and the noise of the feeding scavengers, but they went willingly, eager to get away from the massacre. Even as their hooves quickened, his reluctance grew. Something nagged at him, something he’d seen but not recognized or had not looked for. He twisted in the saddle’s frame, looking back to what he could not see, remembering what he had seen.
He reined Butter to a halt. “I am a crooked and foolish old Bolger.” Glossy chestnut ears flipped forward and back. He swung his leg over and got down, this time tying both animals to strong bushes where they could crop the grasses but not pull themselves loose easily.
This time he did not sneak up, and the birds fled in a great cloud of dark and cawing annoyance at his appearance. He waved his arms and growled as the greedy ones who did not wish to fly took off sullenly, one or two diving at his face and darting away as he swung. Feathers scattered.
He stood at the head of the caravan now, rather than the end where he’d approached before. He looked among the debris and savaged bodies, uncertain what it was that had bothered him. Not one attacker had been left behind, if indeed any had been taken down by the defense. He toed a drawn sword here and there.
Then Rufus squatted low to take a closer look at the caravan guards to the fore. He put a finger to an exposed blade to be certain. He stood, walked down a few strides to the next downed guard and noticed the same thing. Crisscrossing the massacre for nearly half the length of the caravan train brought the same observance.
They’d gone down fighting, but none of them had a single bit of blood on their swords and knives, except for one near the very front. They had, to a man, done a poor job of defending the caravan and themselves. As he strode back to the front of the line, he noticed something else and again, squatted low to inspect it. He straightened and began to walk back and forth, avoiding the drying pools of blood and bits of flesh the scavengers had thrown about. Then he went to the wagons, which were stripped and battered apart but not burned as they might have been. Wheels lay apart from the axles, but no one had stripped the metal from them, valuable he thought, or at least to his tribe: cogs and nuts, screws and bolts. Great water bags were empty as well, hanging loose off their hooks or tossed upon the ground, and that told him more than he could have guessed. The only reason to have emptied every waterskin, bag, and barrel would have been to dispose of their contents. He pulled one of them up and hoisted it to his nose. Nothing to smell, even though Bolger noses were, in his opinion, superior to any of the Kernan, Dweller, or Galdarkans. He put his tongue to the wet interior.
The tiniest of buzzes along with moisture tickled the end of it.
Drugged. Not a strong drug. No one would have fallen from their saddle or cart in a stupor, but strong enough to have impaired anyone who drank from it. Other tongues and noses would not have detected it until too late. He dropped the water bag. So now he understood why the guards could not mount a decent defense.
This caravan had been sabotaged before even leaving the Guild warehouses. As his gaze scanned over the dead once more, he noticed one last remarkable, damning thing: there was not a Guild trader in the lot. All—every single man and woman on this caravan—had been hired help. He knew that because of the flesh and muscle left on the corpses: tanned, muscled, wiry. No soft bodies such as belonged to traders, not even those who traveled with the caravans frequently. Not a one of them walked or sat a horse
when they could ride in a wagon. Not a one of them held harness to callus their hands or cared for forkhorns or draft horses. Not a trader could be found with the scars and hardened hands to wield a sword. They hired others for all those hardships. He’d known one who cooked, once, but the busty Kernan did it because she liked good food, even over campfires.
No trader had been lost in this savage attack and he knew theft had not likely lightened any trader purse: that was what insurance was for. No questions would be asked when the remains of the dead were found. Banditry happened. The sabotage would go unnoticed, even as he’d first overlooked it. He stopped at the one body who’d managed to draw any blood at all from the ambushers and looked down. A familiar line to the jaw caught his attention. He stooped down, trying to make sense of the beak-savaged face. Then he saw the necklace laced tight about the neck.
He knew this one. This one was Spice’s brother, the one called Garner, the one who wandered so far from home, sometimes a guard, more often a gambler. He pulled the necklace loose, sad that he would have to bring her this news. Of all the dead here, he’d done well, but he should not have been here at all.
Rufus searched Garner’s pockets, clothing drenched with drying blood, stiffened and awkward. He found the letter of hire, and another letter, waiting to be mailed to Tolby Farbranch of Calcort, and knew that he had not mistaken the identity. He shoved all these into his apron. If another Bolger had found them, they would have been of little value, for he was one of the few who knew his letters and writing well. This knowledge told him that it had been foreordained he be the one who found these ruined lives. This one he said the chant of farewell over, a respect from his tribe, a lament and salute for the family. But he could not burn the body as required. It had to be left as it was.
Rufus walked back to his mules. They stamped back a step, at the smell of fresh blood on him and he spoke roughly to them about their nonsense before gathering the reins and lead, and mounting. He tapped the pocket on his leather apron a last time to ensure he still had the items, and then turned the mules southwest, toward Spice’s home.