by Daniel Ford
He halted, suddenly focusing on their faces; they were browning again, now in their second day back in the open sun, and their eyes followed him with a kind of fearful awe. They look like a pack of pups waiting for a good word from the kennel master, he thought.
“No time to stand about gawping,” he said gently, gesturing toward the dusty wagon track with one hand. “There are many miles yet to go.” A few of the younger children dashed away, but one of the knot of villagers, an older woman, spoke up.
“This lot was sayin’ that in the stories, s’good luck to touch one what’s been touched by a god,” the woman said, her voice wavering a bit. “’Specially paladins.”
“And where have they been hearing stories about saints or god-touched folk or paladins?”
“Well, they ‘aven’t. Been no time fer stories since we left that rotten town. But the woman, Idgen Marte, she told some of the little ones that. They been sayin’ it all day.”
Allystaire groaned inwardly and started tromping forward again, his boots clouding dust behind him. “Did she now? Well, I have never been good luck before, and besides, the Mother is not Fortune; do not mistake her for that fickle and inconstant deity.” Fickle and inconstant deity? Am I a freezing theologian now? Am I setting dogma? He had the sense of being smiled at, a knowing and puissant smile in an ancient face observing him distantly. I suppose I am.
“Better luck, I would say,” Allystaire went on, as a few of the crowd closed in, “is having a paladin with you on the road home, ready to help you rebuild your village. It is not luck you need now; it is hard work and the willingness to do it.” And luck, that they can get any crops in, or find any game, or that some winter stores are already set by…
That seemed to satisfy them, and they dispersed back among the larger crowd that walked between the wagons.
* * *
In the evening, with a gasp of sunshine left, Allystaire had drawn them into a camp much like the one of the night before—well off the road, up a slight rise and against the treeline, the wagons drawn into an L-shape with a gap between them. Rather, he had suggested they stop, and Idgen Marte and Renard had directed the making of the campsite. He tended to his own horses and watched Idgen Marte and Renard organize the cooking and distribution of food; the stores that the reavers had bought or pilfered as they prepared for their next expedition had been neatly liberated by Idgen Marte when she’d followed Allystaire the day he rescued Mol’s kinfolk.
He drew aside Idgen Marta and Renard with a glance and a jerk of his chin. “If ever I have to move an army,” he said, “remind me to make one of you Quartermaster and the other Chief Bannerman.”
“Which one gets paid more,” Idgen Marte asked, without missing a beat.
“The one who does not tell folk to rub against me like I am some kind of talisman.”
“Beggin’ your pardon, m’lord, but are you lucky?” Renard took half a step forward, a large and gnarled hand reaching out toward Allystaire, before he let out a guffaw. “Just takin’ the piss, m’lord, if I may. Being out among these folk has me feelin’ like a man again, instead of some useless toy soldier.”
“Well, Renard, I have a man’s work in mind tomorrow.” Allystaire’s face was somber in the shadows of oncoming dusk. “I imagine we shall make Thornhurst tomorrow, but something grim awaits these folk—a great pile of their kinfolk burned to ash and bone upon their green. I doubt they have forgotten it, but likely they have not precisely remembered it, either. I mean to gather up men who can hold shovels and take them on ahead in the morning. Find them for me, aye?”
Renard nodded; he only just stopped short of clicking his heels before he trotted off.
“Women and children shouldn’t have to see it, hrm? These people aren’t as weak as all that.” Idgen Marte smirked at him.
“I never said they were weak. But I suspect they are used to burying their dead one at a time,” Allystaire replied, his jaw tightening a little.
“Fair enough,” Idgen Marte allowed, still smirking. “But what are we poor women to do if something should assault the caravan while our brave, strong paladin is away?”
“Pray for the poor bastard before you skewer him,” Allystaire retorted, grinning in spite of himself. He reflected a moment and asked, “What are your thoughts on gods and prayer?”
“Scared, mostly,” she replied. “That choiron, for instance. A right cold one, and with real power put into his hands. Urdaran’s priests, when they aren’t frauds, which is rare, are useless. Might as well be eunuchs. If I ever went into a temple, it was Fortune’s.” She hooked her thumbs into her swordbelt. “Life of a sword-at-hire, I suppose. Take any edge.”
“And the Mother?”
Idgen Marte grew quiet, brown eyes sliding toward the dusk-shadowed grass and dust at their feet. She kicked at a tuft with the toe of her boot. “I know what I saw in the wagon last eve. And I know I’ve heard tell of priests or magi could do that if conditions were right.”
“Idgen Marte, look at me,” Allystaire said softly. She raised her calm, wide, knowing brown eyes to his. “I am what I told you I am. And you know the truth of it. You feel Her yourself, or you soon will, I think. I need to know if you are with me. Beyond all stories, links, or coy answers.” He extended his right hand, the same one she’d taken in contract but a few nights ago, though it felt like a lifetime had passed.
She considered a moment, but she took his forearm with her warm, rough hand and nodded once, curtly. “I am.”
For Allystaire, the moment felt heavy, but comforting, like sliding his arm through the straps of a shield made to fit his height, weight, and reach. He pumped her arm once, nodded. “Good. Now, I suppose I ought to go set some more dogma.”
“Just don’t write anything down,” Idgen Marte suggested, in a helpful tone. “Then no one can examine any contradictions later.”
Allystaire laughed a little and paused to inhale deeply before setting his shoulders and walking toward the central-most cookfire. A few seconds later, all eyes were turned to him. Just like giving orders to soldiers. Only these folk are not about to die. “I thought perhaps I should speak a bit more about the Mother,” he began, as soon as their chatter had died down. “I do not mean to bore you with sermons or hound you with teachings. But I want to say something bluntly: the next few days will be hard. You will have to rebuild and bury not only many of your kith and kin, but much of the lives you knew.” He waited for his words to sink in.
“I need you to understand that the Mother will be with you. With us,” he continued. Yet She will do no work for you; She will make no needful task vanish with a puff of magic.” He turned slightly and raised a hand toward the last bit of sunlight left in the western sky. “The sun is not always above you; it does not always warm your back or light your way. But you know it will always return. I think the Mother is like the sun in this regard; She will see to it that we have what we need, and occasionally more. It was fitting last eve that we prayed to Her as the sun set. I think we should do so again, if you would.”
He turned back to them and raised a warning hand. “First rule, if we must have rules: the Mother compels no man, woman, or child to worship Her. Come to Her freely or not at all. Try to bring a man to Her by coercing him, or bribing him, or forcing him, and his will be no true faith. Nor will yours. If you would pray with me, then let us do so. If you would not, I will speak no ill to you or of you.”
With that, he knelt, peering through his brows to watch who else knelt—Mol and Gram wormed their way through the crowd, as children will, and a gaggle of other youngsters followed them; they all knelt around him. Idgen Marte, Timmar, and Gram’s parents knelt, followed by a veritable wave of kneeling, and if any of the folk in the small caravan remained standing, they did so in silence and shadow, where Allystaire could not see them.
CHAPTER 16
The Last Reaver
“Allystaire. Wa
ke up.” Renard’s voice had a rough timbre that sawed sleep into pieces, like a bad knife cutting into a stale loaf. Allystaire’s mind sprang to wakefulness, his body feeling a bit sawn as well. The hooded lantern dangling from Renard’s hand did him no favors; in the pitch darkness its light was far too bright for just-woken eyes.
“What is it?” He winced as he pushed himself to stand and took up his hammer.
“Someone sneakin’ into the camp. Idgen Marte caught him. He was armed.”
“Is he still alive?” Allystaire asked, half-fearing the answer.
“Dirtied a bit maybe, but alive. We’re not sure what he was after, but men don’t skulk about with knives and darkened faces for no reason.”
“Everyone needs a hobby, Renard,” Allystaire quipped, as he followed the tall, bearded soldier to one of the dampened fire pits. His eyes had adjusted, and Renard let a little more light from his lantern. A man lay sprawled on the ground, his hands bound behind him, feet knotted together with rope, his face blackened with ash and clay. Idgen Marte stood above him; her silhouette and the short, heavily curved bow in her hand were unmistakable in the darkness.
Allystaire walked up to him, just out of lunging reach, and went on one knee to get a close look; he made sure to drop the head of his hammer, conspicuously, into the dirt not far from the man’s knee, and to wrap his hand around the haft as he studied the intruder.
Behind the darkened face, Allystaire could see fear masquerading as anger, and he realized that the man in front of them was a beardless youth. Tall for his age, but too young, Allystaire thought, for dark business.
“What is your name?”
The young man paused, licked his dry lips, eyes darting side to side. “Gerold.”
Allystaire knew—with a certainty akin to the way he knew the feel of his own hammer or how to take Ardent into a charge—that the young man lied. He considered this odd certainty for a moment, thinking over the Goddess’s words to him. He studied the youth’s face and focused his will upon him. He felt something gather like a hammer blow that stopped just above the lad’s head, then dissipated and flowed into him, and Allystaire could then feel a connection between them, like a cord joining their minds. He tugged on it.
“What is your name?”
“Norbert,” the lad answered, seeming startled by the sound of his own voice.
Allystaire focused more intently, narrowing his eyes in concentration. “Why were you sneaking into our camp?”
His eyes wide with alarm, the lad answered fast, “I thought I could kill you. For killin’ my crew.”
“You were one of the reavers then, who razed Thornhurst?” Allystaire heard the sound of a bowstring being drawn, of creaking wood. Idgen Marte had nocked an arrow and now trained it on the bound form. “We are not murderers,” he hissed at her. She lowered the bow and let up on the string, but the arrow remained nocked. “Why were you with those slavers?”
“I had just joined ‘em; I weren’t really a part of the…the job. I was lookin’ after the horses. Captain left me and another new fella out here w’ some spare mounts and supplies, said we were t’watch fer pursuit and meet back in the warehouse in three days. Other fella lost ‘is nerve and ran but I went into Bend only to find it all in an uproar, everyone on about how the crew were killed by some mad knight, and I been followin’ this caravan since last eve.” As the youth spoke, his face grew more and more pale, more strained; his eyes bugged out, the whites of them huge in his face.
Allystaire looked up at Idgen Marte’s shadowed face, and she shook her head very slightly; the young man had managed to stay hidden from all of them until tonight. He tried to push himself away from Allystaire, his face set in a mask of terror, but he couldn’t go far before brushing up against the stones of the firepit.
“What’ve ya done t’me? I’ll not say more,” the lad all but whimpered, turning his face away. Suddenly he seemed very much a child.
“I have two more questions, and you will answer them if you want to live to see the dawn,” Allystaire said quietly, leaning forward and reaching out for Norbert’s jaw, turning the lad’s face toward his with carefully exerted pressure. Norbert could turn to face him, or his jaw could break. He turned, albeit slowly.
“You will find, Norbert, that you cannot lie to me. My first question is this: did you kill any of the folk in Thornhurst?” Allystaire released his jaw, and the lad worked it as though it hurt.
“I didn’t, m’lord, I didn’t,” he said, all in a rush. “I cared for the horses and was just learnin’ the rest.”
“Good. And my second question: why had you joined with the reavers?” Once again, he mentally gave the cord that linked them a hard, sharp tug.
The lad swallowed a few times, looking hard at Allystaire, breathing heavily. Finally, he said, “I watched my da and his die with bent backs from cuttin’ peat up in Oyrwyn. I couldn’t face it, m’lord. Gods help me, I couldn’t. Thought joinin’ a warband were better, even if it meant I died younger’n them, even if the band were brigands. I knowed they were, m’lord, I did. But I took a long look at the bog and decided that brigands looked better.”
Allystaire nodded slowly. He stood, picking up his hammer, but making sure the heavy iron head dangled more or less at Norbert’s eye level. “We have a volunteer for the morrow, Renard.”
“M’lord? That wise?”
“The more hands, the lighter the work, no?”
“Is this because he’s from the freezin’ moors?” Idgen Marte snapped, slipping the nocked arrow back into the quiver at her hip.
“It might be,” Allystaire said. “He spoke truly when he said he killed no one in Thornhurst.”
“How do you know?” He could feel her anger, hotter and brighter than the fire in Renard’s lantern. Renard took a careful step away from them.
“I told you, Idgen Marte, that you would see the Goddess’s other Gifts in time. Did I not?”
That gave pause; the spark of her anger dimmed, but did not extinguish. “He should hang,” she insisted, though a little uncertainly.
“He may yet. But not tonight. All of you, get some sleep. I will take the remainder of the evening watch. It should not be very long.”
She was still angry, but Idgen Marte knew he’d brook no further argument; she and Renard retreated, leaving Allystaire alone with the hog-tied, would-be reaver.
“I don’t suppose you’d untie my hands, m’lord, so I might sleep?” Norbert ventured quietly.
“If I do, will you try to work your feet free and do a runner?
“Yes.” A pause. “Dammit!”
The rest of the night passed in silence, Allystaire wearily walking the perimeter of the camp until dawn.
* * *
Allystaire, Renard, Norbert, Timmar, and a half-dozen other village men left the camp as the first grey light of daybreak fell over it. Most of the men shot dark looks at the newcomer and grumbled when Allystaire fastened a rope around Norbert’s neck and tied it off on Ardent’s pommel.
Rubbing the horse’s neck, and reasoning that he wouldn’t stand being left behind anyway, Allystaire said loud enough for all to hear, “Ardent, if the man on the end of the rope tries to run, snap his neck.” The horse whinnied in agreement.
Norbert paled, and he wasn’t the only one. “Uncanny animal,” Allystaire heard one of the village men mutter. Let them all think so, Allystaire thought. When he caught Renard’s eye, he winked lightly; the soldier’s beard parted with a small and secret smile. He cut Norbert’s legs free, so he could walk, and then the group of ten men set off at a brisk pace. They bore shovels and mattocks, more fruits of the slavers outfitting themselves at Allystaire’s expense. Only Renard and Allystaire carried weapons; the former his spear and the latter his hammer, and both had opted for leathers instead of armor.
They reached the outskirts of Thornhurst not long after the sun had crested the tr
eetops to the east, but Allystaire could smell it long before the road turned and opened on the first buildings—the huge stink of fire, the appallingly familiar-seeming scent of charred flesh, like a great outdoor cooking pit, but wrong in a way that weighed heavily on the mind as well as the stomach.
Help them, Mother, he suddenly prayed, inwardly. They have never seen the like before. Give them the strength to bear this task. May they never face another akin to it. He could see their steps falter, slow, and then stop, the telltale tinge of bile growing in their cheeks. “Renard,” he said suddenly, “the vinegar.”
The bearded man nodded and swung a sack off one shoulder. “Gather round now lads, in a line and quick.” The men snapped to the note of authority in Renard’s voice; he handed each of them a large square of cloth, then produced an earthenware jug.
“Fold ‘em like you would to keep the dust out of your mouth and nose in a bad summer. Come on now.” Farmers all, they needed no instruction, and soon each held a folded rag. “Hold ‘em out!” He thumbed open the jug, its cork hanging by a length of string, and poured generous measures of vinegar over each man’s rag, then one for himself, and all except Norbert and Allystaire tied a soaking rag over mouth and nose.