Crier's Knife

by Neal Litherland

  Dirk simply shook his head. Aban was quiet for several moments, his lips pursed in thought. His pipe went out, though he didn't seem to notice. He drew a breath through the stem, and frowned. He reached for another twig to re-light the leaves, then thought better of it. He tapped the ashes from the bowl. They fell into the fire, flaring up before vanishing in puffs of thick, dark smoke.

  “There was a town boy, a farmer's son,” Aban said, continuing his tale. “Caddell was his name, and he was sotted with a girl named Afra. She had been among the missing Hann She'lah, and Caddell was frantic for word of her. He spoke to every runaway, begging for some sign, but no one could give him the comfort that she had escaped, or confirm that she was among the slain. I suspect he never gave a thought to the danger when he set out into the northern hills to find her. He was young, and young men always think they are the hero in the story.”

  A breeze blew through the trees, making the branches sway. The horses grunted, lifting their heads and glancing about. The fire recoiled, flinging strange shadows and snapping as the wind slid past it. Aban shivered slightly, and tossed some more wood into the flames.

  “Caddell left in the night so his mother and father could not stop him. They searched, but he had covered his tracks, and there were no witnesses to which way he had gone.” Aban took a drink, swished the water around in his mouth, and spat into the shadows. “They had almost given up when he returned, though not in a way any had hoped.”

  “Was he alive?” Dirk asked.

  “Barely,” Aban said. “Three men dragged him back, bound and bloody. They were all dressed in white, and carrying old, heavy blades at their hips. They said that the holy woman Lanissara, voice of the ancient whispers, and keyhole of the sky, had decreed herself and her people apart from us. We were not to seek them, nor were we to know them. Wanderers would be turned away by the Hann Dak'ham, the hands of the gods. They would first be turned back with words, but those who came with purpose would pay for their hubris with blood. And though of the Hann She’lah had fled them in the past, they told us that anyone who harbored stowaways from that day forth would be dealt with in the harshest of ways. Then, just to remind us that we lived on at their behest, we were expected to give them food and water if they came and demanded it.”

  “Does that bargain stand?” Dirk asked.

  “It did when I left,” Aban said, shrugging a shoulder. “What has happened since then, I cannot say.”

  Aban tossed a few more sticks into the fire, barely looking at what he was doing. Dirk glanced into the night beyond their campsite, but he saw nothing with his fire-blinded eyes. Dirk shifted slightly. He pulled off his boots, and rolled down his stockings. He flexed his toes, making fists with his feet in the chill grass.

  “The people are not cowards,” Aban said. “But they are not warriors. Over the past year, some have fled. They left their homes behind, and packed what they could into their bucks and buggies before going as far away as they could. Most have stayed, though, because this place is all they know. Beginning their lives again is a greater terror to them than whatever demons lie over the high hills.”

  Dirk nodded, stretching his legs out and lacing his fingers over his belly. He listened to the night breeze, judging its pace as it meandered through the countryside. The talons of his charm rested lightly against his collarbones. He smelled the fire's perfume, and far off, the scent of approaching rain.

  “My thanks for the warning,” Dirk said. “I will take your words to heart.”

  Aban nodded, and got to his feet. He withdrew a sleeping pallet from his wagon, and folded the blanket until it made a pillow. He took off his boots and knelt, facing toward the east and touching his forehead to the ground several times as he prayed.

  “What do you pray for?” Dirk asked, once Aban had finished.

  “I pray to the winds that my wife will see me soon. I pray to the stars that they will guide my daughter, and keep her from harm. I pray to the old mountains of my home for a piece of their strength so that I may endure the tests to come.” Aban stretched out on his mat, and lay with his back to the fire. “I also pray to the night, that she comes to you, and helps you do what you must.”

  “How can the night help me?” Dirk asked, frowning slightly.

  “When I was a boy, my old shama took me by the hand. She told me to offer smoke and kindness to all the spirits, but to never speak lightly to the night. The night, she told me, was dangerous in a way none of her brothers or sisters were.” Aban said.

  “How was that?” Dirk asked.

  “The night would listen, and she would come,” Aban said. “But while her lips might be sweet, her teeth are sharp. Wherever she goes, she always leaves blood behind her.”

  Dirk crossed his legs at the ankles, and looked up at the sky. Clouds were rolling in from the west, blotting out the stars one by one. Somewhere over the hills, a giant took deliberate footsteps, and the echoes crashed across the heavens. He glanced at the corner of the mantle, where he'd settled the small piece of wood with his and Teller's blazes on them. He thought of his elder brother, who left the mountain years ago, and of what Silence would have done if his grandmother had sent him in Dirk’s place.

  “If blood is needed,” Dirk said, closing his eyes and listening to the thunder. “Then blood there shall be.”

  Chapter Ten

  There rain hadn't quite arrived by the time they awoke the next morning, but it was much closer than it had been when they bedded down. Aban drew water from the well to brew a skin of choaua, and when he offered a cup, Dirk accepted. Before he could drink, the trader offered him a small pot of honey, which Dirk took. He stirred in a spoonful, and sipped. He nodded without speaking, and drank the strange brew slowly. Aban smiled without showing his teeth, and continued breaking camp. Dirk brushed the dirt and tangles from Sunset's coat and mane, and she butted him in the chest when he'd finished. He took several slices of trail apple from his pack, and offered her some. She turned up her nose, but when it was clear no other treats would be forthcoming, the horse snapped them up. Dirk put the last few slices on his tongue, and chewed them slowly as he saddled Sunset. When she was ready, he poured water over the fire, and pushed the extra wood they'd gathered beneath a stone overhang. It was good luck, and common courtesy, to leave a little extra for the next traveler.

  They'd been on the road for an hour when the squall finally announced itself. Soft thunder rolled in from the west, almost as if the heavens were apologizing for the fuss. Dirk and Aban donned their oil skins, and rode on. Fat, slow drops fell in ones and twos, but they were soon joined by many of their fellows. While it never reached a full deluge, the rain maintained a steady patter that puddled the road, and quickly soaked through anything left unprotected. The bays trudged on, splashing through the standing pools of chill water. The leather in their harnesses creaked in the wet, and droplets misted from their nostrils when they snorted. Sunset walked with her head down, lingering beneath every overhanging branch that offered even the slightest shelter and grumbling when Dirk put his heels to her to press onward.

  It was late afternoon by the time they came across the first of the outlying homesteads. A long, low building with field stone walls, it had a thatched roof, and closed shutters. Roots and tubers grew in neat rows along one side of the stead, and berry bushes were planted as a barrier along the road. Goats and a few sheep watched the travelers from the doorway of a ramshackle shed. The shed's gates were open, and it looked like the inhabitants had dined freely on the lawns and bushes. Aban raised a hand as they passed, but no one opened a door or shutter to return the gesture. Dirk slowed, staring at the farmhouse. He cocked his head, and listened. Then he pulled Sunset's head around, and walked her toward the break in the hedge that served as a gate. Aban cursed, stopped his team, and half-turned in his seat.

  “What are you doing?” he called out after Dirk.

  “Looking,” Dirk said, sliding from the saddle and hitching Sunset to a strong sapling. She eyed th
e house uncertainly, shifting to face it as if she was afraid the building might try to sneak up on her.

  “Looking for what?” Aban asked.

  Dirk didn't answer. He pulled the hood of his rain cloak lower to shield his face, and approached the farm's yard. No one stepped out to greet him, and no hails came from either the house or the shed. No lights burned in the house despite the dim day, and no smoke rose from the chimney. Dirk walked around the building in a slow circle, looking at the ground, the walls, and the roof. The bedroom shutters on the far side of the house hung open in the breeze, creaking as they swung in and out of the rain. The bed was empty, and though the room was dark, It didn't look like anyone had slept there for some time. Aban came around the corner of the farm house, blowing rain from his mustache. He splashed closer to Dirk, clutching his oil skin closed with one hand, and holding his hood in place with the other.

  “Perhaps the splendor of the season has filled your ears with wool,” Aban said, speaking loudly as he took a wide step over a deep puddle. “But what are you looking for?”

  “This place feels hollow,” Dirk remarked, peering into the shadows beyond the open window.

  “It may well be, by now,” Aban said, jerking his head toward the bedroom. “Jestin's wife passed a full five years ago, and his youngest was married off last spring. He kept saying he was too old for what was happening here. His board is gone, along with the old mare he kept for pulling it. Mayhap he finally hitched her up, and took his old bones a more comfortable distance from here.”

  “And leave his crops and stock to fend?” Dirk asked.

  Dirk grasped the shutters, stopping them in mid-swing. He gently swung them closed, holding them in place with his fingertips. Shallow grooves ran across the wood, digging deeper around where the shutters were latched in the center. It looked as if something clumsy, but determined, had tried to get inside without anyone being the wiser. The grooves were deep, and looked almost as if they had been made by human hands. Neither Dirk nor Aban said anything for a time. They simply stood there in the rain, feeling the damp soak through their boots. Dirk released the shutters, and walked back toward the front of the house as they started swinging in the wind again.

  “We should go, my friend,” Aban said, trudging along next to Dirk. “This place has no welcome for us, and what it does have is growing sour. We are not far from Barrow Fields, now. Let us press on to somewhere with a warm fire, and dry beds.”

  “Wise words,” Dirk said, giving the front door of the farmhouse a final look. “Let us turn them into wiser action.”

  They mounted up again, and put heels and whip to the horses. The beasts made the best time they could, but as the rain came down hour upon hour it became impossible to maintain more than a slow plod. Aban's wheels grew mired several times, and Dirk had to climb down, putting his shoulder to the back of the cart as the team strained to pull the wheels out of the sucking muck. They passed more houses, many of which boasted split-rail or stone fences along their borders in addition to wild bushes. A number of the yards were dark, and had the same, hollow feeling as the first house they’d passed. One house sat with its front door wide open, and another whistled as the wind blew through the unlatched windows. In the dying light Dirk could just make out the raking patterns of thin, sharp claws along the eaves and shutters. After several miles, though, the yards grew brightly lit. A few folk raised hands in greeting from their porches, and Aban returned the gestures. He didn't slow, and in the rain no one tried to stop him for conversation. Several of them gave Dirk hard glances, though, watching his back long after he'd passed on by.

  It seemed like hours since the stead when a shape loomed out of the gloom ahead of them. It was a high, elegant archway of pure, white stone. The two halves rose to a perfect, symmetrical point, and as he rode closer Dirk saw the surface of the arch bore no joints or mortar. The stone was ancient, though, and the gateway was wide enough for several carts to enter abreast should the need arise. It was an arresting sight; so much that, at first, Dirk didn't see what lay on the other side of the colossal archway.

  Barrow Fields was, as Aban had told him, little more than a wide spot in the path. There were perhaps a dozen wooden buildings facing each other across a single, dirt street. A stone well stood in the center of the gathering, with a small roof over the top to shelter the cross-beam and bucket. Only one of the buildings in the town proper was higher than a single floor, and it was also the only one with stone walls. All the buildings bore thatched roofs, and from what Dirk could see, not a one of them had glass in its windows. He heard the occasional lowing of a milk cow, and in the shadows of some of the buildings he saw what looked like chicken coops.

  “The Sheltered City,” Aban said, gesturing with one hand toward the tall building. “A dozen rooms, all told, and the only inn for days this far afield.”

  Dirk nodded, both to what Aban had said, and to what he'd left unsaid. If Teller had come north, as those who'd seen him at the mire had said he had, then this was where he would have come to stay. If he was still there, then Dirk's journey would be at an end. If he wasn't, it was as good a place as any to rest his head before picking up the trail once more.

  Aban rode through the arch, and Dirk followed. The trader pulled his team and cart beneath the inn's overhang to get them out of the rain, and Dirk dismounted nearby. Aban stepped onto the stoop, and pulled a bell rope. The bell was bold and brassy, and the sound set Dirk's teeth on edge. When the toll faded, shuffling steps approached the other side of the door. The steps were accompanied by the heavy thump of a cane. A bar drew back in fits and jerks, and the door opened until an iron chain snapped taut across the narrow space.

  The face looking out from the crack made Dirk think of a fine ship, smashed hard onto jagged rocks. The nose had been broken badly, and set even worse, twisting the man's features out of true. Scars seamed his forehead, and his cheeks were gaunt, testifying to sickness, broken bones, missing teeth, or some combination of all three. His ear was notched as if it had been badly torn, and a deep fork of purple skin bisected one eyebrow like a bolt of lightning. The green eyes set in that face were sharp, though, and his words had soft, rolling edges when he spoke.

  “I expected you earlier,” the scarred man said.

  “I was delayed,” Aban said, gesturing at the downpour. “By this, and by other things as well. What I lack in timeliness, though, I make up for in harvest. Will you let me out of the rain to show you what I bring?”

  The innkeep's gaze flicked over Aban's shoulder, lingering on Dirk for a moment. When his eyes returned to Aban, they held a question.

  “A companion,” Aban said. “We traveled together from the Bracken. He needs a place to stay the night.”

  “Just the one?”

  “Mayhap more,” Dirk said.

  “Have you lucre?”

  “I have trade,” Dirk replied.

  The innkeep's lips spread in a thin smile, before he nodded stiffly. “Take the beast round the side, then. Once you have her seen, come in, and we shall palaver.”

  Dirk nodded, and led Sunset around the side of the inn to the bulk of a small stable. She didn’t want to go back into the rain, but there wasn’t a great deal of fight left in her. Dirk pushed open the stable door, and ushered Sunset inside. His lantern revealed a small staging area, as well as three stalls; two small, one large. Dirk glanced over them, but none of the stalls appeared to have seen any recent use. The troughs were empty, and the straw on the floor was brittle. There was no dung to be seen, nor smelled; just the dry, dusty scent of a stable left out in the summer sun. Dirk closed the door behind Sunset, and hung his lantern on a nail. Sunset shook herself. Droplets of water sprayed everywhere. Dirk wiped the dampness from his cloak, and pushed back the hood so he could see clearly.

  “This place will have you safe enough,” Dirk said.

  Sunset narrowed her eyes, but if she had any other disagreements she kept them to herself. He stripped her of saddle, bridle, and accout
erments, hanging them on a narrow rack. Then he dried and brushed her as best he was able, the same way he had every night of their journey. The ritual helped ease her, despite the unfamiliar surroundings. Once she was as comfortable as he could make her, Dirk slid open the larger stall, and led her inside. The straw was old, true, but it was serviceable enough for all that. Sunset investigated, pawing at the ground, and decided it was better than making due with a mud puddle in the rain. Dirk searched for the stable’s lock bar, and found it leaning against the wall. He slid it into the brackets, and pushed hard against the outer door. It groaned, but didn't move. Once he was sure the small stable was secure, he picked up his pack, and took his lantern down from the wall. He rapped three times on the inn's side door.

  “See yourself in,” came the innkeep's muffled reply.

  Dirk entered, casting a wary eye. The place was cool, and surprisingly dry. Wooden kegs stood behind a stout bar, sharing the space with several, cloudy bottles. A fire burned in the fireplace, lending a ruddy light to the room while taking the edge off the night's chill. Aban stood at the bar, and several, small crates rested atop the dark wood. The lids had been pried off, revealing bottles packed in gauze and linen. The innkeep hefted one. His eye was critical as he examined the haul. A smoky gray cat with heavy jowls and a bottle brush tail looked up at Dirk from where he lounged on the bar. In the firelight, the cat's eyes shone a dull amber. He stood, and meowed at Dirk. Dirk offered his hand on instinct. The big cat sniffed his hand for a moment, before rasping his tongue over Dirk's knuckles.

  “Thicket, come away,” a woman's voice said.

  Dirk glanced up. At the other end of the bar, past both Aban and the crippled inkeep, stood a woman. She was doe-eyed, dark-haired, and full-figured, dressed in what looked like a sleeping gown with a shawl across her shoulders. She pulled the shawl a little closer, and watched Dirk. The frown between her brows matched the one on her lips, but she said nothing. The cat gave Dirk a butt of his head, before turning and walking down the bar. The woman stroked her thumb across the mouser's head, and he began purring.