by H. A. Harvey
David sighed and drew Riona to lay on her back on top of him before covering them both with the cloak. Rowan spent the next hour working on Adair’s wounds. None of the arrows were deep enough to risk pushing through and all the shafts were broken and splintered anyway. Instead, he used the side of his knife blade to ease each tip back out its original path to the best of his ability. Dressing each cut as he got the arrow out, Rowan worked his way down to the spinal strike. He’d left it for last, more out of fear than anything else, even though pulling it could render the rest of his work a waste of time.
Since Adair had stirred slightly at the previous extractions, Rowan was fairly certain the man’s spine was not cut yet. That was only a small consolation, as it meant he could still foul up and kill the wounded man. Rowan was less than certain how to proceed, but decided to open the cut longer on the end leading away from the spine. He hoped the extra damage would purchase him some room to coax the steel point away from where it could do the most damage before he started working it out.
Worming the arrow back out of Adair took longer than the others combined. At first, Rowan didn’t dare breathe while he worked, but it caused his fingers to tremble. Sweat streaming down his brow or his own fatigue blurred his vision a dozen times, forcing him to pause and wipe his eyes or stand and stretch wearily. Finally, the steel barb slid free of the mercenary’s back. Rowan tested his work by pricking Adair’s heel lightly with his knife. He let out a sigh of relief when the foot gave a reflexive flinch.
A bit of bone hooked in a bent portion of the tip seemed to indicate it had struck the man’s spine, possibly what had first stolen his consciousness, but piercing the iron plate had blunted it and depleted its speed enough that it must have glanced off the bone.
Rowan tossed the hateful arrow into the pooled water below the hill and applied a careful dressing to the wound. He coated the wound with salve, then pressed a leaf over it firmly and finally taped it down with the strips of bark. His next patient was easier to deal with. Tombo was already dozing uncomfortably on the hillside when Rowan roused him enough to feed him a cold tea of rainwater with a few blood thistles mashed up in it. It helped that the rain had finally eased back to a light drizzle as Rowan picked his way over the massive creature to find each of his injuries.
When he finished with Tombo, Rowan gauged it was late afternoon. Time was harder to judge in this shadowed valley, but light from the gates had not yet dimmed in the sky, so he was fairly sure Phoenix should be visible to most who weren’t sunk down in a hole. He decided to push a little longer to be certain David was rested enough to keep things quiet while he slept. Gathering a collection of sticks and foliage from the forest floor, he layered them along the underside of the shelter until they stopped sinking into the mud and formed a half-decent floor. He laid out his leather jerkin on the flooring and eased Adair’s torso onto it, balling his shirt up beneath the man’s cheek. After checking with his hand and finding the mercenary breathing, more evenly than before, he turned his attention to Kolel.
At the peak of the hill grew a great, white poplar tree. The frosted underside of its canopy gave the impression of a cloud floating just out of reach. Rowan decided it was as fine a crypt as he was likely to find. He laid Kolel down betwixt two of its largest roots, his head resting upon the cradle formed at their meeting. Rowan laughed sadly to himself and dug in his satchel. He produced the Sattal’s little pouch of silver and folded it into his hands. The nearby river had an ample supply of smooth stone, and it wasn’t long before Rowan had a formidable cairn built at the foot of the tree. He wound the chin strap of Kolel’s jaunty hat tightly around a stone that fit snugly into the brim and left it sitting at the top of the mound.
When Rowan returned to the shelter, David was awake and had shifted up onto the floor, Riona draped next to him against the tree. David had Kolel’s scroll case open and was thumbing through the rolled maps and logs. Rowan decided to check Adair once more before he applied his own dressing.
“Do you read?” David asked simply, seeming to be taking extra care not to sound insulting.
“A little. Well enough I suppose.” Rowan felt no air drifting from the mercenary’s nose. He reached to his throat to check a pulse but immediately hung his head. The man’s flesh was already cool to the touch.
“Did you read the label for this valley when you saw the map before?”
Rowan swayed between anger and grief, unsure what to feel. He barely met Adair once before, but he’d worked so hard to keep him alive. Rowan had been certain the man was past danger, but in the end it had all proved useless. He closed his eyes and sank back against the elm tree.
“Well?” David pressed, “Did you?”
“No,” Rowan replied wearily, “We weren’t planning on going into Baeden when he showed us. I just remembered there was a forest here. What does it matter what they call it?”
“Probably doesn’t.” David replied, “Kolel labeled it The Brogan Vale, but what’s written underneath explains both why Baedites risk life and war with us and Noorwood stealing lumber when they have this in the heart of their mountains, and why Kolel didn’t want to come down here.”
“Eh?” Rowan asked idly, his mind honing in on the name. He’d heard of brogan before, though never encountered them. They were one of the savage races, remotely related to mortals somehow, but just as closely tied to wild beasts. If what he heard was correct, Brogan were among the most worthy of the title savage. As he reflected on tales about the savage badger-men, he started to note small points of dim red light floating among the leaves of the canopy and scattered between the trunks in the growing shadows of dusk. “Wait. Underneath? What was written underneath?”
“Here, there be dragons.”
11
Meetings on the Road
“Please, you have to eat.” Bridgette begged, holding a small bowl of cold stew to Karen’s lips, “The driver says he’ll stop feeding us if you don’t.”
Karen blinked up at Bridgette. The girl looked tired and older than Karen remembered. Dark lines under her eyes made them look sunken, and her pretty brown hair was a hopeless tangle. Bridgette’s lips had a bluish tinge to them as she smiled pleadingly at Karen. Looking around, she saw that the other girls were huddled together for warmth at the rear of the wagon. Everyone was still shackled, but no longer had chains wrapped around the bars. The floor was covered in new boards, but no nails could be seen holding them in.
Rain poured down, obscuring the world outside behind a curtain of water. The roof of the wagon kept the brunt of the shower away, but several leaks streamed down steady flows of icy liquid, trailing toward the girls at the rear of the wagon. Karen took the bowl from Bridgette’s hands and sipped at the soup. Her dry throat stung with swallowing, but the physical pain pushed back the maddening agony lying deeper. She realized they were all naked, save a woolen cloak wrapped around her shoulders. Karen took the cloak and wrapped it around Bridgette’s shoulders, taking the bowl in exchange. She was incredibly hungry, but even swallowing the broth hurt, so she paused and let a third mouthful drain its own way down. She started to speak, but all that came out was a painful squawk. Karen rubbed her throat while she let another drink of broth trickle its way down before trying again.
“Why is everyone over there?” Karen managed a croak.
“Because you kick and bite anyone who gets close to you.” Bridgette answered almost apologetically, “At least for the last two days since we got back in the wagon.”
“Except you?”
In answer, Bridgette pulled the cloak back from her leg and side. Peering closer in the dim light allowed by the storm, Karen saw dark splotches and scratches along her flesh. Bridgette laughed a little awkwardly.
“No, I’m just a lot stubborn and a little stupid.”
Karen bowed her head, trying to remember anything after they left the campfire. The only images she could conjure were
flashes of her mother, both in her last moments and happier moments of life in Longmyst. She looked over to the four young women huddled at the far end of the wagon.
“Sorry.” Karen whispered miserably. She pulled her knees up to her chest against the cold and sipped sullenly at the soup. Adrienne inched over and carefully wrapped Karen in a hug, kissing her forehead before she rested her ear on Karen’s shoulder. Kelly followed once it became apparent there weren’t going to be any more counter-attacks. The two barmaids shuffled over afterward, likely more to keep warm than any special attachment to Karen. Bridgette surrendered the cloak to the group, and the girls sat clustered together, the wall at the front of the carriage sheltering them on one side while the cloak provided at least a partial shield on the other.
“Where is the blonde girl?” Karen asked.
“Dead, at least we think so, miss.” Bridgette replied without any remorse. “Riona finished workin’ out that board you started an’ slipped out when the driver was talkin’ to some soldiers. He set them to runnin’ her down. Said they could do what they wanted if they caught her an’ rolled on into some town where they chained us in the stables while the wagon got fixed. They nailed the extra boards from th’ bottom so we couldn’t pull anything loose again.”
“She might have gotten away.” Karen replied hopefully, “She could send help.”
Adrienne shook her head, “They had crossbows. One hit her before she even got out of sight from the wagon. After what she did, even if she could get away naked and hurt in the woods, she’d just look out for herself and keep going.”
The other girls all nodded agreement quietly. Karen leaned her head back against the hard wood of the wall and listened to the rain. She sighed to herself and turned to watch the dreary landscape crawl past them slowly.
“I can’t hate her for being afraid.” Karen finally admitted, “I hope she got away, or at least it ended quick.”
“But she turned on us, miss.” Bridgette argued, “If she had kept her mouth shut, they-“
“They would have found everything anyway, Bridgette.” Karen interrupted, “Addy, you even asked me to stop. If I had when you asked, perhaps they wouldn’t have noticed. And we know for sure by now that nobody was following the trail anyway. I got my mother killed more than she did.”
“Nuh-uh.” Kelly’s soft voice joined the argument. “I mean. Okay, I was more scared then than I’ve been before or since . . . so I can’t say I wouldn’t a done the same thing if they’d started gropin’ me before her. But if Riona isn’t to blame for it, you sure aren’t for tryin’. I know Missus Cartwright, she’d a told you to keep goin’ an’ spit, an’ bite, an’ kick while you had breath. If you can come back from wherever you were . . . I’m bout done bein’ scared.”
Karen blinked in surprise at little Kelly as the girl stared expectantly back at her. Karen glanced around at the other girls. Each woman nodded solemnly in turn.
“I want to see my son.” Adrienne declared firmly.
The rest of the day, the girls huddled together not simply for warmth, but to form a plan of escape. First, they needed to know as much about their captors and location as they could. The girls had counted four guards plus the crotchety old wagoner who seemed to be their employer. The guards carried short blades, most had knives for certain, and one that rode up front with the old man carried a short bow. The storm made it hard to tell their direction, but most seemed sure they had steadily headed Clockward since the wagon had stopped for repair.
The old man kept the keys on him for both their shackles and the cage door. Two guards stood by him the only time he’d opened the gate, which had been to unload and reload them for the wagon repairs. He seemed to have a lot of experience transporting slaves. He took few chances, and fed them just enough to keep them from thinning, but still keep them too weak to run or fight effectively.
Karen had driven enough carts to know the wagon was moving slower than it needed to, and Kelly said it had slowed down the day before when a rider had overtaken the wagoner and spoken to him briefly before returning up the road. To Karen, that meant they were waiting for someone to catch them. Whatever their plan, it had to be quick before they had more guards to deal with.
“We’ll have to get the key.” Karen muttered, “We won’t have time to scratch through the boards even if we could keep from being discovered.”
“We could lure him to the bars,” Bridgette offered, “Then grab him with our shackles ‘round his neck so he can’t shout.”
“He’s old, but sharp.” Karen shook her head, “It’ll be hard to get him close to the bars, especially alone. And even then, if even one guard sees us, we’ll never get the gate open and the shackles off.”
“What if one of us got close to him another way?” Suggested Rita, the barmaid with dark chestnut hair. “I mean, Dawn, Bridge and me, get our tips from flirtin’. He’s still a man.”
“No good,” Dawn answered, sweeping the tangle of her auburn hair from her face. “He doesn’t look at us like that. More like a greedy barkeep counting coins.”
“He won’t risk devaluing his merchandise.” Karen agreed. More than that, she was rather sure that flirting would go further than expected.
“Only a maiden loses any value,” Adrienne whispered, “He might be tempted if he knew one of us wasn’t.”
“You mean you.” Karen answered, horrified. “I can’t let you do that.”
“If it gets us home,” Her friend countered, “I’d do that with an ogre. Besides, what do you think will happen to all of us if we don’t get away?”
“It won’t work.” Kelly inserted. The rest of the girls looked like they wanted to slap her, but Karen felt like she’d kiss the girl if she could come up with some excuse to keep Adrienne from going through with her plan. “There’s only two keys on that ring. Even if you swipe it, how would you get it back to us without him knowing? He’d need to unlock the cage to bring you back, so he’d notice even if you got the one for our cuffs off.”
Adrienne and the others wilted. They sat in silence for several minutes. Finally, Kelly made an odd sound that Karen’s mind immediately compared to a squirrel or some other rodent and cocked her head to the side.
“W-what if we didn’t need a key?” The girl asked cryptically.
The eyes of the other five women all turned to face little Kelly, who turned beet red.
“Ah,” She hesitated a moment, “I used t’ like t’ slip int’ the inn’s cellar t’ sneak some o’ yer mom’s candied fruits. When Nian started lockin’ the cellar door out back . . . I kinda worked out how t’ open the lock. If we could get a thick pin, like from one o’ the soldiers’ cloaks . . . I could try.”
Karen was stunned. Little Kelly Brighthold had been the one creeping into swipe sweets from their cellar. Nian had her convinced she just was lousy at keeping records and didn’t track her own sweet tooth well. The little scamp!
“Alright,” Adrienne nodded, “That can work.”
“No, we can come up with another plan.” Karen’s mind raced to dredge up anything else, but nothing was occurring to her. The inside of the wagon had no nails they could reach and stay hidden, and it took her a day and a half to work one out with constant attention.
“I’ll do it.” Rita interrupted coarsely, “I . . . qualify, and I don’t have to look a husband in the eye when this is over.”
There was a weighted silence among the huddled circle of conspirators. Karen still didn’t like it, but she couldn’t think of a better plan. Finally, she sighed and nodded, “Alright, so I guess our next step is to make this believable.”
. . .
“Ya two make a cute couple.”
Nian’s eyes fluttered open to the sight of a small green and black figure standing over his feet with its arms crossed. As Autumn stirred next to him and his vision cleared, Nian recognized Amalthea the Goblin smirking at them.
The rain had finally stopped and the clouds were clearing overhead, but the day’s light was fading with them. The last rays of Phoenix’ plumage set the dark clouds ablaze with the fiery hues of orange, gold, and crimson.
“Thea?” Nian wiped sleep from his eyes, lamenting internally when Autumn quickly stood and brushed herself off. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you.” Amalthea replied, eyeing the mound. “We’d guessed the chaos at the far side of the army was you doing something stupid. I’m guessing this is Mitchell. Did anyone else make it out?”
“How do you know who that is?” Nian asked, a little mystified.
“You’re holding that giant rusty toothpick o’ his.” The Goblin responded, giving a toothy grin. “I don’t think that rusty old sword left his side to bathe or make love.”
Amalthea’s mouth full of thin, sharp teeth was extra disconcerting on the rounded, rather attractive features of her face. In fact, Nian found the entirety of the little goblin to be one endless collection of contradictions. Her features were that of an athletic, decidedly attractive woman, but her stature of just beyond four feet in height matched a young child in his head. This made him especially uneasy with her light, flirtatious manner around almost any male.
Amalthea’s manner in general added to the confusion. About camp, if she wasn’t flirting, she was nice, benevolent even. Her speech stood out in sharp contrast to the other Orcs Nian had met, all of whom seemed to be gruff, stand-offish, and more often than not, rather limited in vocabulary. Thea was chatty, sociable, and Nian had the distinct impression she was better educated than he was, though she never spoke about schooling as a child, or a childhood in general. Yet, despite her constantly sunny disposition, there was a dark lethality to her that chilled Nian at times. There was the fawning adoration she held for her array of wickedly serrated knives, and the surgical precision she’d displayed in their fight with the slavers combined art and science into death-dealing that unnerved him.