By the time they had been on the road a few days, Paks felt more comfortable with the other guards. She still did not feel like trusting them in a bad fight, but she found them much like other soldiers she had known. A few outcasts of this company and that militia, but most were reliable and hard-working. Some had never been anything but caravan guards, and had no skills beyond aiming a crossbow. Others were well-trained, and had left respectable military units for all sorts of unimportant reasons. Drinking, fighting, and gambling topped that list.
Days passed. It was hotter on the Copper Hills track than any place Paks had yet been; the others told her this was the hottest part of the year.
“The smart ones take the spring caravans,” said one, hunkered in the shade of a wagon one noon.
“When there is a spring caravan,” said another.
“Yes, well, what can you expect of merchants?”
“High prices.” A general laugh followed this. Paks sweltered in her chainmail, and looked east, toward the distant line of ocean. On some of the higher ground, when the heat haze didn’t blur it, she could see sand and water form long, intricate curves. It looked cool out there. Finally she asked someone why they didn’t travel closer to the ocean.
“Where are you from?”
“The north,” she said. “Northwest of Vérella.”
“Oh. That’s inland, isn’t it? You don’t know much about the sea. Well, if we went closer to the sea, we’d get down in the worst country you can imagine. Sand—have you ever tried walking through sand?”
“I walked on a little bit of beach, between Immerdzan and—”
“No, not a beach. Dry sand—loose sand. It’s—oh, blast. It’s—it’s worse than a dry plowed field.” That Paks could understand, and she nodded. He went on. “So think about these wagons—the wheels sink in, and the mules labor. We labor. And then it’s swamp. Sticky, wet, salt marsh. And more sand. And it’s not cool—it’s beastly hot, and the water is salt, and everything stinks. Ycch.”
“And don’t forget the pirates,” put in another of the guards.
“I was coming to that. Pirates—they call it the robber’s coast, you know.”
“But how do pirates live there?”
“Some people like eating crabs and clams and things. There’s plenty of that shellfish. There are fresh-water springs here and there, so they say. A few miserable shacky villages. And the pirates have ships, and can sail away.”
Despite the ominous name of robber’s coast, and the caravan master’s precautions—or because of them—no bandits showed their faces, and the caravan crawled steadily northward without trouble. Paks practiced the crossbow, and impressed the other guards with her fencing. She, in turn, spent plenty of time spitting out dirt after trying unarmed combat with the others. They had tricks she had never seen in the Company.
Finally she saw a smudge on the horizon ahead, where the Dwarfmounts crossed the line of the Copper Hills. As they came closer, she could see that the mountains ran east of the present coast line, and saw the angle of shore change from sand and mud to rock again.
“That’s the Eastbight,” said a merchant, when he saw her looking. “If you sail, you have to get well out for the best currents.
“And where you don’t ever want to go,” added one of the guards, “is over there—” He pointed to a wide bay that lay in the angle. “That’s Slaver’s Bay. If there’s a robber on the coast, there’s ten in Slaver’s Bay. It’d take a Company the size of your Duke’s to keep you safe in that place.”
“I’ve traded there,” objected another merchant. The guard looked at him.
“Well,” he said finally, “They must not have liked your face—or your fortune.”
The caravan had reached the crossroads, and turned west for the pass through the Copper Hills into the Eastmarches of Aarenis. Paks began to look at her map again, hoping she could find the trail that led to the eastern pass of the Dwarfwatch. The other guards kept suggesting that she find a companion, but she was reluctant to ask anyone; she didn’t want everyone on the caravan to know where she was going. Finally they took it on themselves to look.
* * *
“If you want a traveling companion, there’s another that’s leaving us at the Silver Pass.” Jori, some years older than Paks, had been one of the most insistent that she find a companion.
“Oh?” Paks kept working at the crossbow mechanism. “Who is it?”
“That elf.” She looked up, startled. She hadn’t known there was an elf with the caravan. Jori grinned wickedly. “Proud as elves are, you won’t have to worry about ‘im bothering you.”
Paks ignored that. “What’s he leaving for?”
Jori’s smile faded. “Oh—says he’s going to the Ladysforest. You know, the elf kingdom. But he’d be going part of the way with you.”
“Huh.” Paks set the crossbow down and stood up, stretching. “Where is he?”
“Over there.” Jori cocked his chin at the group around the big fire. “I’ll introduce you, eh?”
“Not yet. I want to see him first.”
“In the gray cloak, then,” said Jori.
He looked to be a fingersbreadth shorter than she was, Paks thought, and he didn’t look like the elves she had seen, but for something a little alien in the set of his green-gray eyes, and his graceful way of moving. His voice held some of the elven timbre and music.
“No, I have business in my own kingdom,” he was saying to a merchant of spice.
“But don’t you fear the high trails alone?” asked another.
“Fear?” His voice mocked them and his hand dropped lightly to the golden hilt of a slender sword. The merchants nodded and murmured. Paks looked closely at the sword. Very slender—a dueller’s blade, she thought. If he had not been elvish, she would have suspected bravado rather than confidence in that word. He was slender and moved lightly. She could not tell, for the strange billowing style of his tunic, whether his shoulders were broad enough for a practiced warrior. His hands were sinewy, but she saw no training scars or calluses. Was it the firelight, or did elves not callus? One of the merchants looked up then and noticed her.
“Ho, a guard! It’s that tall wench—come to the fire, girl, and be warm.” He waved an expansive arm. Paks grinned and stayed where she was.
“’Tis warm enough here, by your leave. But I heard talk of the high trails, and came near to listen.”
“What do you want with that? Are you planning to skip the caravan and go north?”
“I’d heard of several trails,” said Paks. She didn’t want to say exactly how much she knew. “And I knew someone who’d been over Dwarfwatch. But if there’s a shorter way—”
“Oh, shorter,” said another merchant. “That’s with where you’re going in the north—” He looked closely at Paks, but she didn’t say anything. After a moment he shrugged and went on. “If you go straight across at Silver Pass, you come out between Prealith and Lyonya, but there’s a good trail on the north side that will bring you west again and out near the southeast corner of Tsaia.” Paks nodded. She felt rather than saw the elf watching her. “That trail meets the one crossing from Dwarfwatch; there’s a cairn at the crossing, and a rock shelter. If you’re headed for Tsaia, the distance isn’t less, but you can travel faster alone, and the passes themselves are easier than the Dwarfwatch route. That high one—” he broke off and shook his head.
Paks followed this with interest. “I thank you, sir,” she said. “I have no great knowledge of mountaincraft; I had heard only that the pass was short.”
The merchant laughed. “Aye—it’s short enough. If you get over it. Ice in midsummer, and blizzards—dangerous always, and for one alone—well, were I you, I’d take the eastern passes, the ones we spoke of. You’ll be in mountainous country longer, but none of it as high or as cold. Does the Wagonmaster know you’re leaving?”
“Of course, sir!” Paks was angry, but she saw by the reactions of the others that no insult was meant.
&nb
sp; “I would ask him to free you for the eastern pass,” said the merchant seriously. “Especially since you’re traveling alone.”
Paks nodded and said no more. The merchants returned to their usual topics: what product they had found in this or that port, and how well they sold; who ruled what cities, and what the recent war would do to the markets.
“What I worry about,” said one enormous man in a heavy yellow cloak, “is what it will do to the tolls. They say the Guild League spent and spent for this last year’s fighting—they’ll have to get it back somehow, and what easier than by raising the tolls?”
“They need us too much,” said another. “And they were founded to give trade a chance. The Guild League won’t rob us, take my word for it.”
“If they do, there’s the river,” suggested another. “Now Alured’s settled down to play Duke, he’ll be letting us use the river again—”
“Ha! That old wolf! By Simyits, you can’t believe a pirate’s changed by gaining a title—can you? And what have we ever got, come to that, from the noble lords and their kind? They want our gold, right enough, when a war’s brewing, but after that it’s—oh, those merchanters: no honor, no loyalty—tax ‘em down, they’re getting too proud.” Paks found herself laughing along with the rest, though she, too, thought of merchanters as having no honor—like the militia of Vonja. It had never occurred to her before to wonder what the merchanters thought.
When she came off watch that night, and stopped by the guards’ fire for a mug of sib, a cloaked figure rose across the circle of light to greet her. She caught a flash of green from wide-set eyes.
“Ah. Paksenarrion, is it not?”
Paks stood stiffly, uncertain. “Yes—it is. And you, sir?”
He bowed, gracefully, but with a curious mocking style. “Macenion, you may call me. An elf, as you see.” Paks nodded, and reached for the pot of sib. “Allow me—” he said softly, and a tin mug rose from the stack beside the pot, dipped into the liquid, and rose to Paks’s hand. She froze, her breath caught in her throat. “Go on,” he said. “Take it.” She looked at the mug, then her hand, then folded her fingers gingerly around the mug’s handle. She nearly dropped it when it sank into her grip. She let her breath out, slowly, and sipped. It tasted like sib—she wondered if he had put anything into it. She froze again as another mug rose from the pile, filled itself, and sailed across the fire to Macenion. He plucked it from the air, bowed again to her, and took a sip himself. “I apologize,” he said lightly, “if I frightened you. I had heard you were a warrior of some experience.”
Paks drank her sib, wondering what to make of this. She certainly did not want to admit being frightened of a little magic, but he had seen her reaction. She set the mug down firmly, when she finished, and sat down slowly. “I had not seen that before,” she said finally.
“Evidently,” he replied. He brought his own mug back to the stack and sat near her. “When I asked,” he began again, “everyone assured me that you had an excellent reputation.” Paks felt a tingle of irritation: what gave him the right to ask about her? “You were in Phelan’s Company, I understand.” He looked at her and she nodded. “Yes. One of the other guards had heard about you. Not the usual sort of mercenary, he said.” Again Paks felt a flickering anger. “And this evening past, you said you were going north over the mountains before we reached Valdaire. Alone, I assumed—?” Paks nodded again. “I might,” he said, looking down at his hands clasped in his lap, “I might be able to help you. I know those trails—difficult for one with no mountain experience, but safe enough.”
“Oh?” Paks reached out and refilled her mug.
“Unless you prefer to travel alone. Few humans do.”
Paks shrugged. “I have no one to travel with. I’d appreciate your advice on the trail.” She was remembering Stammel’s warning about those who might seek to travel with her.
The elf moved restlessly. “If you are willing, I thought we might travel together—as far as the borders of the Ladysforest, at least. I could tell you about the trails from there.” He sat back, and looked at her from under dark brows. “It would be far safer for you, Paksenarrion, and a convenience to me. While the trails are not as dangerous as these caravan roads, all trails have their hazards, and it is as well to have someone who can draw steel at your back.”
Paks nodded. “I see. It is well thought of. But—forgive me, sir—you seem to know more of me than I of you.”
He drew himself up. “I’m an elf—surely you know what that is.”
“Yes, but—”
His voice sharpened. “I fear I have no relatives or friends nearby that you can question. You will have to trust my word, or go alone. I am an elf, a warrior and mage—as you have seen—and I am returning to my own kingdom of the Ladysforest.”
“I’m sorry to have angered you, sir, but—”
“Have you been told bad tales of elves? Is that it?”
Paks thought back to Bosk. “Yes—some.”
His voice eased. “Well, then, it’s not your fault. You must know that elves are an elder race, older far than men. Some humans are jealous of our knowledge and our skills. They understand little of our ways, and we cannot explain to those who will not listen. But elves, Paksenarrion, were created by the Maker himself to be the enemy of all evil beings. It is elves that orcs hate most, for they know their destiny is on the end of our blades: the dark powers of the earth come never near the elven kingdoms.”
Paks said nothing, but wondered. She had heard that the elves were indeed far older than men, and that elves never died of age alone. But she had not heard that elves were either good or evil, as orcs and demons were clearly evil, and saints like Gird and Falk were clearly good.
In the next few days, she found out what she could of elves in general and Macenion in particular. It was not much. But as the higher slopes closed in on the caravan track, she saw how easy it would be to miss her trail. Traveling with someone who had been there before seemed much wiser.
* * *
Paks saw the last of the caravan winding away to the west, higher into Silver Pass, with great relief. She had not felt at home with the other caravan guards; she had not been able to give them her trust, as she had her old companions. But now she was free—free to go north toward home, to adventure as she would. She imagined herself, as she had so often, riding up the track from Three Firs to her home, with gifts for everyone and money to spend at a fair. She could almost hear her mother’s gasp of delight, the squeals of her younger brothers and sisters. She imagined her father struck silent, awed at her wealth and the sword she bore. She turned to grin at Macenion beside her, whose longsighted gaze lingered on the caravan’s dust.
“Well, they’re all gone but the smell. Let’s get moving.”
He turned his gray-green eyes away from the pass and glared at her. “Must you be in such hurry? I want to be sure no thief drops out to trail us.”
Paks loosened her sword in its sheath. “Unlikely now. And with your magic arts, and this sword, we shouldn’t have much to fear. I wanted to find a good camping spot before dark.”
“Very well. Come along, then, and keep a good watch. Move as quietly as a human can.”
Paks bit back an angry retort. It wouldn’t do to quarrel with her only companion for the trip across the mountains; she had no other guide, and elves made dangerous enemies. She turned to the sturdy pack pony she’d bought from the Wagonmaster, and checked the pack a last time, then stroked Star’s neck, and started up the narrow trail that forked away from the caravan route. She hoped Macenion would mellow as they traveled. So far he had been scornful, sarcastic, and critical. It seemed obvious that he knew a great deal about the mountains and the various trails across them, but he made his superior knowledge as painful as possible for anyone else. Now he walked ahead, leading his elven-bred horse whose narrow arched neck expressed disdain for the pack on its back.
But at the campfire that night, Macenion seemed to have walked out part of
his bad temper, and regained his original charm. He lit the fire with one spell, and seasoned their plain boiled porridge with another. He set a spell to keep the horse and pony from wandering. Paks wanted to ask if he could not set one to guard the camp, so that they could both sleep through the night, but thought better of it, and offered to take the first watch instead.
Hot as it had been in the afternoon, it was cold that night, with that feeling of great spaces in movement that comes only on the flanks of mountains. Nothing threatened them that Paks could see or hear, but twice the hair on her arms and neck stood straight, and fear caught the breath in her throat. Macenion, when she woke him at the change of watch, and told him, simply laughed lightly. “Wild lands care not for humans, Paksenarrion—neither to hunt nor hide. That is what you feel, that indifference.” She surprised herself by sleeping easily and at once.
For two days they climbed between the flanks of the mountain. Midway of the second, they were high enough to see once more the caravan route below and behind them, and the twist where it crossed the spine of the Copper Hills. Paks could barely discern the pale scar of the route itself, but Macenion declared that he could see another caravan moving on it, this time from west to east. Paks squinted across the leagues of sunlit air, wavering in light and wind, and grunted. She could not see any movement at all, and the brilliant light hurt her eyes. She turned to look up their trail. It crawled over a hump of grass-grown rock—what she would have called a mountain, if the higher slopes had not been there—and disappeared. In a few moments, Macenion too turned to the trail.
To her surprise, the other side of the hump was forested; all that afternoon they climbed through thick pinewoods smelling of resin and bark. Paks added dry branches to Star’s pack. They camped at the upper end of that wood, looking out over its dark patchwork to the east, where even Paks could see the land fall steeply into the eastern ocean. Macenion gazed at it a long time.
The Deed of Paksenarrion Page 51
