A third invader stomped up the street in plate armor, with red braids and beard, grinning. He dragged Yohann Gordon under his right arm, and balanced a battle axe on his left shoulder. "This one came at me with his bare hands." He threw Yohann down in the street. "You've got courage, whelp. You'll make a fine warrior one day."
Yohann sat up, dazed, and spat blood and dirt from his mouth. The red-haired man laughed, lifted his axe off his shoulder with both hands, and lopped Yohann's head off. Blood sprayed clear across the street.
Simon's scream caught in his throat. He was dizzy with terror. Yohann had been a prince among bullies, but no one deserved that!
Uilleam scowled at the axe-wielding killer. "Food, Cadogan. And at speed. Or Tyrus will have your ears."
Cadogan looked petulant. "Where is Yolaf? In the bar?"
"We've no time."
"There's plenty here. Why don't we stay for a bit? Zane would approve."
Uilleam shook his silver hair and beat his javelin on his shield. "Gather food. Now!"
Cadogan spotted Simon in the alley and leveled his bloody axe at him. "What about that one? He's little more than a morsel--"
Simon was on his feet and sprinting down the alley. Cadogan's laugh echoed after him.
#
"I hid after that." Simon's chest felt tight, and he didn't say any more. He only looked at the buckles on his shoes. There was more to tell, of course, but Simon wasn't ready to tell it. The memories were too painful, and his recall seemed to drag under the strain and finally give up, like an old horse run ragged, or a poorly oiled printing press, shrieking and grinding until the air stank of burning metal.
Bogg had wandered around the camp as Simon spoke, and Simon wondered if he had even listened. Bogg scraped some gray lichen off a rock and nibbled contemplatively. "The blue unicorn. You know it?"
Simon had read plenty of stories from the old world. "Freelance privateers. Pirates that sell their booty to any crown that hires them. The unicorn symbol is supposed to be more regal, more refined, than the death's head and crossed bones." Simon frowned. "That's all I know. Bogg... have you ever seen a unicorn?"
Bogg pulled up a small green fern and tore off a leaf. "Ain't no such animal. Just stories about a regular horse with a whale tusk on its head."
"A whale with tusks?"
Bogg blinked. "Now, when you put it like that... maybe's there's unicorns somewhere after all. But I don't take stock in them." He chewed the leaf, made a face like it was bitter... and kept chewing. "As for our quarry, it don't answer. They should have a war galleon off the coast."
Simon nodded. "Full of sailors. The fighters fight, the sailors sail. Where's their crew? What are they doing on land?"
Bogg stuffed the rest of the fern in his mouth. "Why are they taking food and not booty? And where are they headed?"
Simon grinned. "Let's go ask them."
Bogg stopped chewing. "What's wrong with you, pup? Ain't you tired, or scared, or nothing?"
"No. Not anymore."
"It's been easy so far. You just dwell on that."
"I know."
"What do you want from this? Vengeance for your pa?"
Simon thought a moment. "Of course."
"Horsefeathers."
"Well... what do you want?"
"You heard your maven Minder. There's a bounty on them boys. I aim to collect."
"Money? You?"
"Don't sass me, pup. Truth is, we're on the same page. Algolans are unsavory, and pirates are downright bastards. Hell must be so full of the sons of bitches that you can see their feet sticking out of the winders. Right now, those five are marching sept and laying a trail of waste. I'd like to catch them before they reach another town."
That sounded right to Simon. He didn't know how he would help -- he didn't know how he would survive -- he only knew that this path was more noble than the basement of the printshop. Maybe Bogg was right. Maybe Simon would get scared and run, like he had when Cadogan came at him yesterday morning. Or maybe he wouldn't run (or starve or freeze) and he would fight his way to the blue unicorn privateers until, at last, Cadogan or one of the others chopped off Simon's head. "I don't know about the same page, sir. But at least we're reading the same book."
"Never was much of a reader. I look at pictures, though." Bogg spat a glob of green goo that splashed neatly on Daisy's hoof. The horse whinnied and stepped back, and Bogg chuckled.
Simon worked up some saliva in his mouth, aimed at Daisy's other hoof, and spat. It drooled down his chin.
Bogg chuckled on as they mounted and continued the pursuit.
#
The sun dropped beyond the hestern mountains, setting all in cool shadow. Bogg knew it was time to stop, any minute now. The boy was still behind him, and he hadn't complained a whit. Bogg tried to imagine that the boy weren't with him. Indeedy, Bogg saw himself riding into the thickening wilderness alone, master of his domain… but there in his ears was that second set of hoofbeats. He couldn't make himself believe it.
They were fairly deep in the sticks. The narrow trail they followed wasn't used by much other than deer, mountain men like Bogg, and the occasional lost soul and the hidebehind that et him. "Hey, pup."
"Yes sir?"
"You ever heard of a hidebehind?" This story, Bogg reckoned, might help send Simon packing home.
"No, sir. Is it a kind of shelter?"
So the lad was thinking of stopping for the night after all. "No, it's a kind of critter. Only I can't tell you what it looks like, because nobody's ever seen one."
"Not even you?"
Damn the boy's sass. "Not even me. Folks get to walking lost out in the woods. Out of food, out of courage. Walking on, not knowing the way. The fear, it changes them. Changes their tread, you see. Changes their breathing, changes the kind of noises they make. Probably changes their smell. The hidebehind gets wind of that and starts following."
Bogg let that image take root, as the horses picked their way along. "The hidebehind makes noise, but only on purpose. It'll snap a twig, rustle a leaf, to let the feller know it's there. Feller looks around, but sees nothing, because the hidebehind ducked back of a tree or suchlike cover. Wicked fast, you see. The feller scoots on, more scared, and the hidebehind stays on him. Every time he looks back, he don't see it. But he hears it all the time. Pretty soon, he panics and runs himself ragged. And when he's got no more strength, the hidebehind saunters up and eats his entrails."
Bogg waited for a reply from the lad. He was quiet a long time.
"Sir?"
Bogg grinned. "Yeah?"
"Have you ever seen a vivet?"
Bogg frowned. "A what? You mean a greenie?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, of course I have! They're only scattered from here to the Starry Mountains and back."
"What are they like?"
Bogg drew his hand down over his face, straightening his beard. After his scary story, the lad just wanted more. "What are they like? They're like all kinds of things. I reckon all the stories about them are true, even the ones that don't set with each other. See, greenies live in flocks... or herds--"
"Tribes?"
"Tribes, that'll answer. Families. Some are friendly enough. Some'll kill you soon as look at you. And some are probably so deep in the wild that they ain't seen nothing like us in their wildest dreams. Yeah, I reckon they dream. They're wee critters -- your size, near enough -- and green as swamp water, and they practically walk up and down trees. I seen them riding elks like they were horses. And I hear tell some of them ride red rhinos and four-legged hills."
"Do you think we'll see any?"
"I hope not. I hope to catch our quarry before that. When greenies get the notion to kill you, that tends to settle it. They use slings for weapons, and rather than sling stones, they use little pellets of gold. It don't have no worth to them, other than being twice
as heavy as lead, and with those slings, they can get those pellets ripping near as fast as a firelock ball. A number of ferocious folk have gone after the source of that gold, but none ever come back. I reckon the greenies just et 'em."
"Vivets don't eat people." The boy rode quiet for a bit. "Do they?"
Bogg grinned. That was the sort of thing he wanted to pup to wonder about. "This here is a prime spot to make camp."
#
Chapter 6
At last, in the final year in the reign of Erikus III, the Hawk, prison ships were sent to Mira to create a penal colony. No one expected the prisoners to survive, and this was a tolerable situation for Erikus II, who in the midst of the Great Rebellion, had more prisoners than he could house.
To everyone's surprise, one of the empty prison ships returned, the Stiletto, and it is from her sailors that we have the first reports of the land of Mira.
Excerpt from the Introduction to Survival in the Miran Wilds
by Dugan Wisefoot
#
Simon's stomach groaned and constricted, desperate for anything. Once he stepped down from Jouster, he could barely stand. He staggered bow-legged, aching from the ride, over to a knee-high rock and sat down.
There were ten or more rocks like this one at the site, gray and rough, and each big enough to serve as a chair or stool... or a hiding place for a crouching vivet. The trees grew closer together than earlier on the trail, barely six feet between them here. All the trunks and branches blended in the distance, obscuring everything that was more than a dozen yards away. The ground was soft, dense with brown tree litter and deadwood.
Simon listened for a hidebehind in spite of himself. He heard mockingbirds, and under that, an occasional gust of cooling breeze whispering through the branches.
A scratching sound came from the tree behind him. He whipped around--
-- and saw a gray squirrel scampering up the trunk.
His uncle threw a leg around Daisy's rump and stepped down. He watched Simon closely. "Ain't you had enough?"
"I'm fine," Simon said.
"These horses won't stay the night. There ain't enough here to graze. You could ride them back."
Simon's jaw tightened. Try, uncle, he thought. Try to get rid of me. "No, thank you."
"We'll be walking come morning. That's harder."
"I imagine it is."
"Damn it, lad--"
"Are we going to start a fire? Or is that too risky?"
Bogg blew out a surrendering breath. "It's safe enough. Why don't you gather up some kindling?"
As Simon gathered sticks and broken strips and shells of bark, it occurred to him that Bogg was another master who had just given him an order. Simon rejected the thought. Bogg didn't need Simon. Bogg was desperate to be rid of him! So Simon was perfectly free.
The armload of kindling Simon gathered was dusty and teeming with bugs. The dust itched his nose and the thought of beetles and spiders creeping inside his shirt made his skin crawl. He dumped the armload at Bogg's feet with a dull clatter, watched Bogg for a moment as he cut branches down with his fang-dagger, and went to gather more. When he came back, Bogg had set up a lean-to and was scooping out a hole at the base of a tree.
The lean-to was just a straight branch run between the crooks of two trees, with more branches leaning diagonally on the first. It was little more than a wind break. But if Simon stepped a few feet back from it, the lean-to vanished, its branches blending with natural branches and trees. Bogg had hung the two saddle blankets from the horses on the horizontal branch as well, to close off the shelter. He had spread tree litter and leaves around inside, and spare clothes and gear on top of that, to make a comfortable floor.
Bogg dug away at the base of the tree, making a deep, narrow hole, about the size of a milking pail. He worked quickly, almost automatically, with no time spent assessing or deciding or wondering, and Simon tried to imagine how many shelters like this one Bogg had built in his life.
What was the hole? A latrine? Simon hoped not; it was awfully close to the lean-to.
Bogg began a second hole beside the first. "See this? This is how greenies make campfires." The second hole was only half as wide and once it was a foot deep, he reached in and scooped out more soft earth until the two holes were connected. "Dump some kindling in there," he said, pointing with a filthy finger at the bigger hole.
Once Simon did, Bogg placed a wad from his tinderbox on the kindling and brandished his flint. Bogg struck at the flint with a shining bit of steel that looked familiar to Simon...
It was the severed blade from Marshall Dunster's knife. Bogg must have picked it up at Fort Sanctuary. When Bogg saw Simon staring, he said, "Don't ever abandon something useful. This world is a goose, and them that do not pick will get no feathers."
A spark lit the tinder, and as Bogg lowered more wood into the fire pit, Simon saw how the second hole provided air flow, how the fire was below ground level and could not be seen from a distance, and how the branches of the tree above would disperse the smoke.
The fire glowed yellow-bright and warm. The sticks and dead leaves twisted up and were eaten.
"That didn't take hardly any time at all," Bogg said, warming his dirty hands. "We've got enough daylight for a snare or two." He disappeared inside the lean-to, muttering, "Snatch me a squirrel, catch me a coneybuck..."
"We packed food," Simon said. "Why do we need to--"
"A goose, do you hear?" came his rumble. He emerged with three notched sticks, all sharpened on one end and flattened on the other. The bark on them was nearly worn away. "These sticks have provided me many a fine meal." They looked like they had been carved years ago.
Bogg passed them to Simon. "Fit those together."
Simon frowned. He could tell that the point of one stick fit into the notch of another, but he couldn't see how all three could connect. While he struggled, Bogg mixed some of the hominy with water to make a bit of samp, and sprinkled a pinch of salt in it. "They tend to like this stuff as much as me. Hand me the pointy one."
They were all pointed, but Simon noticed that one was stained and crusty with old dried samp. He handed Bogg that one. Bogg stuck a blob of the corn paste on the point and dabbed it up and down the stick. Then he took all three to a pair of boulders twenty feet away, and arranged them. Simon stared.
Two made a cross, and the third fit diagonally to them, making a perfect number 4, with the bait on the projecting right end of the horizontal piece. No part of it really snapped together. Instead, the whole thing sort of rested together, quite fragile. Bogg set the 4 on the ground, placed his feet, and lifted one of the boulders on top of the other. He let it roll down the side a bit, and propped it up with the sticks.
It took Bogg a minute of shifting and grunting to get the contraption to balance. Once it did, the bit of samp hovered under the boulder, which was held up by the diagonal stick. If the horizontal piece was nudged even a little, all three would come apart and the boulder would squish the hungry creature into a furry bag of stew.
Bogg stood, admired his work, and strode proudly back to the fire. "Deadfall, they call it. With luck, we'll call it breakfast."
Simon's hands probed his slender torso. "Can we eat now?"
"Now we eat." Bogg broke out the pork and venison, and opened the waterskin to mix more samp, splashing a little water on his dirty hands first, Simon waiting politely all the while, crouched by the fire.
Then Bogg's fingers froze. His face turned grim, almost frightening, and his beard wiggled as his jaw worked back and forth. "You ain't eating."
Simon's throat was suddenly dry, and he struggled to swallow. "Pardon?"
"No food for you. Nope. I could hog-tie you. I could set you on your horse and give it a wallop. There are numerous methods I could employ, were I a crueler man than I am. But I figure that sort of thing ain't right, seeing as how you're such a little whelp and can't hardly defe
nd yourself. I ain't a bully. At least, not on most occasions. So I won't drive you away. But you're far more likely to get killed on this trip than me, and I don't want to see that. And you'll distract me with looking after you, which could like as not get me killed. I don't want to see that neither. So I won't abet. You stay or you go, but you'll get no help from me. I've had all day to give it a good think. I will not abet."
Bogg stared into the fire and nodded to himself. "That's right. It's proper. And you'll have to sleep outside the lean-to. Wouldn't be right, otherwise. 'Sides, there ain't enough room in there to cuss a cat without getting hair in your mouth."
Simon's hunger and fatigue faded away to cold numbness. What could he do? Fight Bogg? Reason with Bogg? Nothing! It was hopeless. Simon stood, and the motion made his head swim with weakness.
Daisy and Jouster had wandered a dozen yards away. Their saddles were on a couple of rocks, but Simon would need a saddle blanket from the lean-to. He could find his way back. He would ride all night, and reach Fort Sanctuary by morning.
But wasn't there another way?
The horses' heads were down, their big nostrils snuffling the ground, their heavy lips pulling up weeds.
Simon watched them. He reached down and pulled up a green fern, tore off a feathery leaf, and ate it.
It was horribly bitter. Simon chewed. He wanted to spit so badly, it was as if his body would kick it out of his mouth. With a great effort, he swallowed. It was like swallowing a rock.
Bogg's blue eyes were on him.
Simon tore off another leaf and popped it in his mouth.
Bogg laughed. "Bracken fern. Pretty bad, ain't it?"
Simon didn't answer. He turned to the boulders that littered the site, steering clear of the deadfall. One boulder had some of the gray lichen Bogg had eaten earlier. Simon dug at it with his fingernails and ate the scrapings. It was chewy and bland, not as bad as the fern.
"Soldier's lichen," Bogg said. "Right palatable."
Simon ignored him. He searched other rocks, but couldn't find any more. The twilight was getting deeper, the colors of the woods fading, the gray lichen becoming difficult to see.
Bogg stood, passed Simon, and stopped at a tree with a small boulder beside it, about ten yards away. He dug at the soil at the base of the tree with his boot, making a shallow hole. He stretched, loosened the rope belt at his waist, dropped his trousers, and pressed his back against the tree, sliding down until he looked like he was sitting in an invisible chair. Unlike the tan, weatherbeaten skin of his face, his thighs were pasty white.
New World: a Frontier Fantasy Novel Page 3
