by Jenna Rhodes
“But na caught them yet, aye?”
“No.” He shook his head. “But there’s no time to waste. The ild Fallyn have taken Nutmeg Farbranch’s child. Children. Two children, Merri and her playmate.”
“No! It canna be.” Joniah frowned heavily.
“Yes, and if you see them, they have to be stopped. I don’t want to be putting this on you and you alone, but we can use any help. Send word to Calcort if you spot their tracks. Or double back and find me, I’ll be ranging northwest, bit by bit.”
“I will. I can track you by Bessie’s shoes. Handmade, y’see, by my brother.”
Dayne found a smile at that. He’d taken up her reins and left them, the Dweller warming a pot over a spit to boil up some grain for the horse and nurse him a bit.
• • •
He rode Bessie in a swinging circle, much slower than his former pace, and caught up with the rest of the trackers the next midday, with no one having found anything of use. Despair screwed its way inside his chest. He could not even think of returning to Nutmeg without some sign, some token of hope, if he could not find the children themselves. The despair crawled deep within and carved out a space for itself there, and he felt it with every breath. When they made camp and he took the watch, his thoughts chased each other around like a pack of street dogs after a butcher’s bone.
He heard a click in the night. Stone against stone or maybe a shod hoof against stone, and it brought him awake and alert, taking him out of drowsy memory. Any other night, he might have called out a warning hail, but not this night. This night he left the shelter of his tree and moved quietly, lethally, into the foliage in search of the noise. He moved as quietly as he could until he thought he reached the noise and put a hand up carefully to pull a branch down, and felt something hard in his shoulder blade as he did.
“Don’t be moving.”
Dark as it was, tired as he was, he could not mistake the voice.
“Tolby. You’re getting slow, I thought you’d catch up with us by last night.”
The sheathed knife moved away and Tolby grunted. “And I never thought I’d catch you snoring on watch.”
“I wasn’t snoring, just thinking deeply. Was I?”
“I won’t be telling Nutmeg, never fear. Let her find out for herself.” Tolby Farbranch moved past him, leading his mountain horse, its head lowered in weariness, toward the small river. He tossed the reins to Dayne. “Hobble him up for me.”
With Tolby’s tired mount joining the others, the two of them sat by the dimming fire drinking a last bit of soup, talking quietly so as not to wake the others: Brista and a Galdarkan who had also found them on the road, sent by Bregan and Abayan Diort, he claimed.
“No sign.”
“Not yet. They could have gone in any direction.” Dayne sat back with a weary sigh. “Though I think she’ll probably have sent them to the fortress. It can be impassable, if she brings the bridge down.”
“She won’t be doing that.”
“And why not?”
“Because she can’t march her forces out without a bridge, and have no doubt, she wants t’ bring war to Larandaril.”
Dayne rubbed the back of his hand over his forehead. “I confess, I don’t understand the hatred between the two families.”
Tolby refilled his tin cup with soup and blew across it. “I’m no Vaelinar, but this I know. Old Sinok Anderieon caught the ild Fallyn slave trafficking, after it had been settled amongst the high elven that the natives of Kerith were to be respected. Sinok rained his wrath down upon them, and when he was done beating them to a pulp with Bistel’s help, he confiscated their Holds. Drove them to the ocean, where the ild Fallyn clung like th’ stubborn barnacles they are. The ild Fallyn have never forgotten and vowed they would one day take Larandaril as their due.” He sipped for a moment. “I’m a bit surprised that wasn’t among your history lessons.”
Dayne could feel his face growing warm. “I was never good in history. It seemed so long ago, all of it.”
“To one like myself, aye, but you . . . you’re going to have life spans on me.”
“I know, I know. The only history that caught my attention was the aryns. I grow them. Sometimes even dream them. They’re real to me.”
“And now the ild Fallyn are real to you, as well.”
“Tree’s blood, too real.” He stood. “I’ve a bit more on my watch, so I’ll be making rounds.”
Tolby rinsed his cup out. “And I’ll be sleeping’, lad. Never doubt it.”
He turned on boot heel. “I met a lad a bit back, traded my horse for his. Says to tell you his name is Joniah Barrel and his family is back farming on the Silverwing.”
That brought a spark to Tolby’s eyes. “Are they, now? That was a good family. Don’t know of any Joniah, though.”
“He says his grandfather has passed, but he knows of you.”
“Ah. See, lad. His grandfather knew my father. History again.” Tolby gave a sad smile. He unrolled his blankets and was good to his word in minutes. Dayne looked in on him after his third circle and watched him a moment, trying to decide which of her father’s features Nutmeg had, and what of her beauty came from Lily instead. He hadn’t made a decision when it came time for him to pass the watch and go to sleep himself. He did not think even a moment’s peace could find him, but he was wrong.
He awoke to the sharp smell of a revitalized campfire, smoking and snapping, and the aroma of a breakfast spitted over it. Others had been awake far sooner and gotten busy, he thought, as he leaned over to pull his boots on. The Galdarkan, Egarth by name, knelt by the spit, testing the carcass for doneness as he stood to join him.
“The others have ridden out already. This is the second hopper we’ve spitted this morning. They split theirs and this awaits us.”
“They will catch us on the road later, then, as we’ve been doing.”
Egarth nodded. He took a stick from the fire, blew out its leaping flame on the tip, and sketched in the dirt. “They are headed thusly.”
Dayne nodded. “And we in the opposite direction.” And by the time they both weave their way back to the main road, they will have covered a great deal of territory, in a grid fashion. He scrubbed his hands. “Smells like breakfast is about ready. I’ll go wash up.”
When he returned, the Galdarkan had removed the spit, scattered the coals so they would cool before he doused and buried them, and had cut the carcass in two, laid out on plates. Dayne grinned and sat down for a hearty meal with his stomach growling a welcome.
With four of them, they worked a faster spiral, one on the faint road and the other three riding to the fore and then circling, back, spiraling inward, until they met upon the road again. The off-road searchers had a tougher ride, through bracken and last-summer tangles, gazes sharpened to spot whatever they could, so the three of them traded off. They covered a lot of ground with no results. When a late-summer light drizzle began one darkening afternoon, he rode up to see Tolby had a canopy put up amongst the trees and a good smelling soup simmering over the fire. Tolby’s attention snapped to him, and he shook his head as he dismounted and drew the reins over.
“Nothing and more nothing.”
“I’ve had thoughts on th’ direction, but even though Tressandre would be a fool to send the children to the fort, I think she’d have them hid somewhere nearby, at hand. She’s taken them as hostage against Lara, so it would do her no good to have them so far out of sight she couldn’t get to them fairly quickly.”
“I agree.” He patted Tolby’s shoulder as he passed to the patch of grass and hobbled Bessie so she could graze there next to Tolby’s horse.
“So why are we failing, lad, if we should be so close to their trail?”
Dayne hunkered down and filled his cup with fresh-steeped klah. It would taste better with a touch of cream and honey, but it was fine without as he sipped
it gingerly. “I can’t go back to Nutmeg with empty hands, but it’s not just that. Those are my children as much as they’re not. I helped birth them with you. Steadied their first steps. Wiped the jam off their hands and cheeks. Sang them asleep. They’re a part of my heart, and I can’t leave them out here.” He cast a gaze to the sky, the sun now gone but the last of its rays still a faint glimmer among the shifting gray clouds.
“It’s possible that Tressandre has sent demands to Lara. We’ve no way of knowing.”
“And equally possible she hasn’t, that she will withhold her taunts to hurt us that much more.”
“Aye, lad, that woman has no heart. Just fury knotted inside her.” Tolby stirred his soup vigorously. “She’ll peel the skin off them if it would help her cause.”
“If she finds out Evarton could be a Maker . . .”
“She’d have no way of knowing that! And they may be little more than babes, but both are sharp. They have old souls in them, I’ve seen them looking out at me. They know more than a child does, even though our Meg would have them stay babes forever. Tressandre will turn them inside out to look them over. No, she has ’em stowed somewhere while she is out and about tending to her schemes and her Returnists. They’re not under her nose yet, and that’s a worry off our minds.” Tolby lifted his head. “Here comes Egarth. And he’s got a bag wi’ him.” Tolby stood quickly, dusting his hands on the seat of his pants.
The rain had slackened, and the last rays of the setting sun set the Galdarkan’s skin to even more of a golden glow; he looked molten as he tossed his bundle down to them before dismounting. “I found a dead woman to the south. Gave her the honors, and gathered what I could for her relatives. Might you know her?”
A hand-dyed scarf had been stuffed with items and knotted. Both men knew it the moment they held it between them. The woman known to them as Auntie Corrie had worn it often, a present from her family before she’d come to work for Nutmeg.
“We know her.”
“How was she killed?”
“Attacked from ambush. Archers from trees, it looked like. I took three of these out of her,” and Egarth handed Dayne three arrowheads. They looked lethal but gave no hint as to their making. Dayne rolled them over a few times on the palm of his hands to see if there was anything he missed.
“South?” Tolby repeated.
“Yes.”
“And traveling alone?”
“Except for her killers, yes.” Egarth turned his horse out with the others, dropping his gear to the side under the canopy.
“Her family farm was to the south, near the coast and the great salt bay, the haunted one. Hardscrabble farming there, which is why she left it to become an auntie.”
“And I’d say she was heading back, quick as she could.” Dayne watched as Tolby sat to untie the bundle and reveal its contents. What the Galdarkan had thought important enough to retrieve might not be worth anything at all or it might have been quite telling. Tolby sorted through quickly. He stopped at the three brilliant gold coins shining up from the center of the goods.
The finding shocked Dayne. There was no way Corrie had earned that working for them, which meant she’d earned it elsewhere.
“Blood money.”
“But not a lot of it.” Tolby sorted the coins back and forth with the tip of his finger. “Hawthorne coined, so no ild Fallyn marking here. Easy enough to obtain from the exchange. Bandits killed her on the road but ne’er thought to take her coin from her?” He snorted.
“Wait—what’s that?” Dayne leaned over and found something buried in a rolled handkerchief. He tapped it on his palm. “Message tube.” Its contents, rolled tightly, had to be pried out. He picked at it carefully with nails that had grown ragged during the ride. Unrolled, he read the message aloud:
Abandon your post when you see the horses. Your family is free.
“The horses. Tressandre’s tashyas being brought to market, though we didn’t spot her, and that makes her hand clear in this. They had to have taken Corrie’s family for leverage. They excel, it seems, in taking small children. The coin must be for spying on them.” Tolby watched him restore the missive to its leather tube, his dark eyes bright.
“That gives our auntie some rationale for her treason, although it would have been better if she’d come to us at the first with her trouble. We might have saved her grief as well as her life.” Dayne tossed the tube back into the scarf at Tolby’s feet.
“I know the southern farmers. They trust little. The weather is against them, the traders drive hard bargains for their goods, and they dislike outsiders.” Tolby knotted Corrie’s goods back together. “I’ll stow this for a bit, but if it takes up precious room, I’ll be leaving most of it by the wayside, just like she left my grandchildren.” He set his jaw.
The drizzle continued through Dayne’s watch and even lulled him into a deep sleep when he finally fell into his blanket, but the day dawned with crisp, sharp rays promising to dry the trail out soon. Tolby had all the horses saddled and ready, and the campfire already kicked out, his portion put to the side on a warm rock.
“I’m going to have Egarth take me to where he found Corrie.”
“What do you expect to find?”
“Nothing but I want to backtrack, if we can. This rain was light, it might have straggled through, hitting only here and there.” He swung up. “If it was ild Fallyn who hit her, and I’m sure it was, it will be worth knowing where they came from. You go on with Brista, and we’ll meet in a day or two.”
“Unless you find the ild Fallyn first.”
“If we do, I’ll still be meeting you. I’ll not let the bastards go without an accounting.”
“Watch your back.”
“Aye, that’s why there are two of us going.” Tolby tipped his hat and rode past. Dayne threw Egarth a look that said all he could without putting words to it. Bring Tolby back.
Abayan Diort’s man gave him a solemn nod as he pushed his mount past them, and Brista merely shrugged into her all-weather coat, tightening the hood about her face.
When they met again days later, they had no further answers, but their horses were all thinner and trail worn, as all four of their riders looked. No luck and no sign. He wondered what he could possibly tell Nutmeg when they returned.
He dismounted as Bessie seemed a bit off and waved the others ahead. “I’ll catch up for dinner.”
They left him running his hand down her legs, looking for heat, and finding none. Then he lifted each hoof and carefully inspected her feet. A tiny pebble was just about to work its way into her frog, and he plucked it out. That might account for a bit of the soreness, or not. Like it or not, the hard riding could be just as troublesome. He didn’t want to have to go looking for another mount replacement. He surveyed the area. They were far from any settlement he knew about, though he did not know this area well, but any quest for additional mounts could take him far from the search.
Dayne patted the mare on her shoulder. “How about I just walk you a bit? We’ll catch up soon enough.” Her answer came by a flip of her ears. She fell in beside him as he went after the faint trail, and her walking seemed steadier. The late afternoon murmured quietly about him, punctuated only by the creak of the leather tack, the sound of Bessie stealing an occasional hunk of grass, and the thud of his footsteps. Insects circled them lazily, drawn by the scent of the sweat drying on their bodies and both her tail and his hands swatted at them now and again.
Dayne composed in his head the letter he knew he should write to Nutmeg yet could not find the words for. How could he encapsulate his disappointment in finding no trace and repeat his promise not to come home without them in the few words a bird messenger could carry? She already knew, he believed, had to know, because if Merri and Evarton had been found, she’d have word, no matter how many horses he broke getting them back to her or how many Vaelinar magics he’d call
ed upon to let her know the news. There would be no aching emptiness.
Dayne rubbed the side of his head where a dull throb pulsed as if his thoughts wanted to pound their way out. He scrubbed an ear where one of the insects, somehow or other, had delivered a sharp bite and it now itched like crazy. His ear rang as he rubbed it harshly and when he stopped, he realized he couldn’t hear anything.
No, not exactly true. He could hear Bessie plodding along. But the small noises of the countryside around him had fallen into a hush. Earth sense, one of his Talents, rose up. Riding alone, it hadn’t been dampened by the presence of others, which often tended to drown it out. Now he knew he wasn’t as alone as he thought himself. He quickly took in her reins, his fist under her chin, and turned her off the broken track and brought her into the shade in the shelter of a tree. And he waited.
He waited after Bessie’s head dropped and she fell into a light slumber, while his quickened heartbeat steadied and the headache that had been threatening tailed off, and only his ear still stung. He waited until he thought he might have been mistaken save that the everyday clicks and clucks and rustles and wing beats and bird call and insect buzz did not return. The wildlife, like himself, had hunkered down in caution.
Then he caught the faraway sound of an approach. Two sets of hoofbeats, hitting leisurely upon the ground, two riders not at all in a hurry. Dayne tied Bessie to a stout-looking branch and made his way through cover for a closer look. To his astonishment, two mules tied together walked sedately toward him, the lead with an empty saddle and the second with packs lashed securely across its back. He blinked at the sight, trying to decide what to do, when the smell of wildflowers rose about him, strong and clean. He looked down at his boots, wondering what late summer patch he’d wandered into, and felt the knife edge at the side of his throat.
“Stand slow.”
A strong yet guttural voice, one which had trouble with the sibilant sounds. Dayne did as he was told. A bold, musky aroma came to his senses. A Bolger hulked behind him.
“I never caught wind of you,” Dayne said, thinking that he’d be dead already if he was meant for it, and if the knife wielder was thinking, too, maybe conversation would change his mind. His captor grunted.