"I don't care," I said. "Your past, like all of ours, is your own. Share what you like or not. But if you have the gift of knowledge and can help us stop Hunter, you better damn well give it."
"I have past knowledge, because I've lived a bloody long time...much of it bloody."
He chuckled but when no one laughed, he sobered. "I have experience with magical and mystical things, and I've seen a hell hound up close. What I know of the future is sealed in possibilities and I'm terrified to push occurrences toward one plausible event or the other because I've done so in the past and it didn't end well. In fact, it ended with this stunted energy wielder body you see before you. I don't want to go down that path again. It has taken me hundreds of years just to become the insignificant thing that stands here."
He leaned against the table, one foot crossed over the other.
It was the most he'd confessed about himself except to tell me he went into a sort of dead coma now and again and re-animated. He'd confessed to having the ability to charge other things and people, a glorified muster in this world, but he'd never admitted to owning any sort of magic other than that.
I eyed the man standing in front of me, and realized he was far more complex than the facade he showed us of a cheeky youth who occasionally offered advice. He'd lived a millennium or more, and I'd taken him for the upfront person he put on display as a man of the present only.
That had been a miscalculation on my part, and I resolved to remember he was so much more. I had the feeling he had more magic than he was letting on, and that he knew more than he wanted to tell.
I remembered the way he'd set one of Musk's men on fire back in the mine shafts with just a touch of his hand and I had the sense he might be concealing his magic, or because technology had receded, his magics were returning, much the same as the nymphs and dire wolves had.
I sighed.
"I trust you," I said. "If you want to keep your own secrets, it's no skin off my nose. Just don't lie to me."
He canted his head and smirked. "Not even if you smell of sweat and piss and the faint odor of sulfur?"
"You didn't tell me I stank of sulfur," I said with a narrowed gaze. "Or sweat for that matter."
He shrugged. "A man shouldn't be too honest with a lady."
I groaned as the rest of the order looked at us in confusion, and waved off their curious glances.
"What in the hell are we supposed to do with this information that something called a hell hound is doing nothing but guarding Excalibur while the woods are trying to kill us?"
He shrugged. "You're supposed to be the leader. Lead."
If he was trying to get under my skin, he was succeeding. I slapped my hands on my thighs.
"And what do you think I can do? I told you I was not a leader. I told you I would fail you all. I was foolish to think otherwise." I pushed myself to my feet and paced back and forth. "I'm not magical. I have no skills. I'm practically a sociopath for pity's sake."
"I do have one suggestion," Marlin said calmly, ignoring my outburst. "In the spirit of disclosure."
"And what is that?"
"The Lady of the Lake."
"I'm not going back there," I said as I remembered what it'd been like to face her.
She was ethereally beautiful and ugly at the same time. Her frog like voice made my skin crawl. But not just that, everything about the journey to the lake and meeting her was like standing at the very top of a high precipice with crags of broken rocks below and no safe place to land, yet feeling compelled to jump anyway.
"I'll go with you," Lance said standing.
I shook my head. "You won't like it."
"I already don't like it, but I'm not going to let you go with him."
He pointed to Marlin who sagged into a chair and dug behind his ear and up into beneath the beanie as though his whole scalp itched.
I heaved a sigh of resignation. I let my head drop back. I was already exhausted and the day was only midway done. The chandelier above our heads was threaded with cobwebs. I hated that he was right. There was no other real option and I was the leader. If someone was going to go, it was me. But since I was the leader, I was making an executive decision.
"We'll set out in the morning," I said. "But not to see the lady. I want to get into those woods and see what's going on."
My eye traced one gossamer thread from one arm to the other as I searched for the spider that wove it.
"We need to see to those poor people," I said. "Make sure they feel safe here. Get them fed and watered and bedded down. Find out what skills they have that we can use."
I leveled my gaze at those around the table and waited, expecting each would take up a duty, and they did. We made plans to record any weapons they had, any skills they possessed, and what news they had of their cities that we didn't already know. It felt like too little but it was a start.
"Any questions?" I said when we had it all arranged.
Chas stuck up his hand and I nodded at him.
"What's an encyclopedia?" he asked.
-5-
I didn't think it was going to be as easy as to simply ride out from New Denver and magical woodsy things would just happen half a mile out. For one thing: folks had come from farther away than that which meant plenty of time and space sat between here and there. The attacks could occur anywhere along those points. While I'd been too busy going about my usual routine I'd kept in the days before Hunter's arrival, I knew Dallas and his street rats would be gathering information as well as barter items all along the column of the trail up to Old Denver.
If the woods had gone feral, he'd have told me.
At least, I believed he would. I hadn't seen Dallas in days. Not since he'd given up some of his spaces so the residents of New Denver had holes and caves to retreat to when the war came. I assumed he was still out there, getting things ready like he'd said, but what if he wasn't? What if the woods had attacked him and his gang and we were ignorant and vulnerable in ways we didn't even know?
I resolved to have Chas head out toward the hogbacks when I returned. He could take Marlin, since Marlin had lodged with the street rats for a while.
The nearest town was Old Denver but we'd be bypassing that in favor of pushing past it into other towns. I couldn't say I was sad about it; the place had lost much of its luster for me once I knew the types of creatures that had probably been watching me every time I'd rummaged through the library for a new book.
By dawn the next morning, even more people had swelled the streets. The early morning barter stalls like the baker's and the butcher's were doing a brisk business, and I noticed both of them had taken on more chickens than I knew they would want.
"Wait here," I said to Lance. "I'll be right back."
I held out my satchel of smoked ham and apple meat pies to him and hoisted Excalibur's scabbard into the space between my shoulder blades. It was new and stiff and hadn't quite gained the suppleness it needed to sit there unnoticed. It dug a stitch into my back that annoyed me.
Lance took the satchel from me with a long look that indicated he understood what I planned to do and approved.
"I'll go get Gentry and Lily saddled," he said. "Just don't take too many," he said.
I shrugged. "I make no promises."
The butcher might be happy to have a dozen extra chickens to barter with because it was his stock and trade. He took in vegetables and clothes and the occasional jug of moonshine, but the baker could only make so many chicken pies and sell them. Eggs were always useful in his trade, but most of the fowl skittering about his stall were roosters.
Both stalls were overrun by fowl and they pierced through the early morning bustle with their squawking as they got traded by the migrants for bread or jerky.
"I would have figured chickens to be a tough travel," I said as I drew near to a crowd of six or seven new-comers who had gathered around the baker's stall, hoping for a quick fix for their grumbling bellies.
A young woman with dull brown
ish hair held up a gold locket.
"That's what I figured," she said as the chain weaved in the air above her head. "Left all those damn things in my yard and took stuff that was easy to carry."
I laid my palm behind the locket to stop it's swaying. It felt cold against my palm as it glinted in the early rising sun.
"Pretty," I said.
She set her mouth in a grim line. She smelled of sweat and pine and campfire smoke.
"Pretty gets you nothing here, apparently," she said, bobbing her chin toward the baker. "What's he gonna do with all them chickens? Wouldn't his wife like a lovely trinket?"
"I ain't got a wife," the baker said. "I told you that. And at least the hens will give me eggs to bake with. That thing's useless."
I heard her stomach grumble and I eyed her quietly as those around her successfully bartered for small buns and loaves. The stall was swelling with barter and growing less laden with baked goods by the moment. A good day for the baker all around, even if I knew he was taking the surplus of fowl just to be kind.
Over her shoulder, I caught sight of a tall, brooding man watching us, and realized she wasn't alone after all. The dark, scruffy bearded bloke was studying us too closely to be a stranger to her. I wondered if he had given her the locket and what it might have cost him, how he felt about having to give it away for a bit of bread.
I elbowed my way closer to the baker.
"Listen," I said. "You can't use all these chickens. Only about three of them are hens anyway. How about I take them off your hands. Send them to the Musk estate. There's a lot of folks up there to feed and we're running low."
"What's your barter?" he said.
"I'll stop off at the big library and bring you back a load of cookbooks. Last time I was there, I saw some recipe books by Julia Child and quite a few French pastry books."
"Can't read," he said.
I chewed my lip.
"Did I tell you they had pictures? Directions step by step with drawings. Bright, colored pictures of finished cakes and breads."
I noted the hungry look on his face. He might not read, and things he could prepare to increase his barter power was one thing, but pictures of things you were passionate about was entirely different. He was an excellent baker, but there was an artistry to his work that I knew came from something other than the desire to earn barter.
"What about my necklace?" the woman said. "It was my grandmother's. It's real gold."
I turned to her. Her face was grimy and unwashed but she was beautiful under the dirt. I could see why the man, who had edged closer, watched so intently. He was handsome, with broad shoulders that looked heavily muscled beneath his black leather duster. His jaw was a bit sharp, with a nose angled very close to the jut of his jaw, but for some reason both suited his face. The stubble on his jaw reminded me of black smoke. His gaze was unnerving as it met mine.
Green, I thought. Green like the algae in a dead pond.
I pulled my eyes from his and settled back on the woman. I didn't want her to let that man down.
"Keep the necklace," I told her and turned to the baker.
"I'll give you those books and in return I'll take the roosters you don't want off your hands, plus a loaf of bread."
"Done," he said and reached to shake my hand.
I turned to the woman. "Pick your loaf."
The locket disappeared into some pocket in her threadbare clothes and her eyes went hard like small pebbles as she studied my face. But she didn't argue. Just reached past me to pluck a loaf of soft-crusted herb bread from the stall.
The fragrance of yeast and oregano wafted over me as she slipped it beneath her shirt to keep it from getting stolen by anyone around her. She'd lived hard, that I could tell. The distrust and frenzied look to her face was evident the moment she grabbed that bread.
I watched her turn on her heel and elbow through her traveling companions. She bumped back and forth between them until she was free.
I expected her to meet up with the partner that watched her and I so intently. I expected his face to look relieved as he realized he didn't have to barter the locket for a chance to break his fast with a bit of warm and freshly baked bread. I expected him to smile at me.
But he wasn't there.
The woman pushed right through the crowd and found a spot to sit alone on the stone wall around the front of the brothel, where she pulled the loaf out and bit down into it.
She chewed ravenously, eyes darting about and my heart ached to see the almost feral look in her every movement as she gobbled each crumb without saving any for her partner.
"You about ready?"
I pulled my gaze from the woman to see Lance leading both of our horses across the street toward us. Gentry's whiskers were long and they twitched as he saw me. I realized it had been days since I'd visited him.
"I'm so sorry, old man," I said and ran my hand down along his neck. "I should never be too busy to come see you."
Lance slapped the horse's rump with a cupped hand and Gentry's hide quivered in pleasure.
"He's a good beast," he said. "Didn't complain when I loaded him up with blankets and supplies."
I ran my hand along my horse's chest, massaging the places I knew he liked best.
Lance was watching me. I felt it.
"I know, old man," I whispered. "You're not a pack horse. I promise we'll find some good graze for your trouble."
"And what about your trouble?" Lance said. "What will make you happy to say it's all worth it?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that was good of you, what you did for that woman. What you're doing now. What you've been doing."
Good. Not a word I would use to describe myself. I didn't know what to say. Everything about the words of praise felt uncomfortable.
"Dues," I said without facing him. I knew those eyes would be too compassionate. Too ready to drink me in and let me feel swallowed whole the way you enjoy a drink of cold water on a blistering day.
"I'm practically a sociopath, and I'm living in an estate. If I don't provide for people, I'll be back in my hovel, or worse, run out of town. I like it here. I want to stay."
"And the woman?" he said, and I felt his hand grip the back of my neck the way a man might a comrade.
I closed my eyes at the feel of those callouses on his palm, at the thought that they might run down my clavicle on bare skin.
"That woman might be useful later. She had a companion. A man. We can use all the men we can get when Hunter and his army comes. Feed them, they stay healthy enough to fight."
His hand slipped down my back to rest briefly at the base of my spine before letting go.
"Right," he said so low against my ear that I thought it was my own mind for a moment. "Totally sociopathic."
"Damn straight," I said, pulling away out of nervousness more than anything else. He'd struck a chord and I wasn't sure what tone it made in my psyche.
We mounted up and rode in silence for hours without incident. I kept expecting a stone to lift from the earth and hurl itself at us from nowhere, for roots to grab at the horses' feet, for a branch to slap us across the face.
None of it happened. It was a gorgeous day and the ride was glorious. The leaves had begun to change color. The air was brisk but warm. The sun even teased us from behind a billowy cloud cover without scorching our skin. That we rode for a while without speaking, side by side, felt natural and comfortable. It was easy to forget there were people a few miles away who were preparing for war, and heaven only knew how many ahead of us, heading our way for the same reason.
Lance pulled a meat pie from his satchel and broke it in half. He passed half to me. I took my time eating my half, savoring the bite of apple and taste of smoke in the meat.
At the back of my mind, I wondered if the hell hound was nearby. I certainly felt a strange sort of prickle at the back of my neck off and on, but I made no comment about it to Lance. It was enough to just feel alive next to him, to feel his leg
brush against mine now and then when our horses ranged too close.
It wasn't until we were nearly into Old Denver that the first evidence of the migrant stories showed itself, and even then it was just a shudder of a bush when there was no breeze to move it.
I wasn't sure Lance had seen it and I doubted myself at first, assuming I was hyper aware.
But when a root from a spruce tree at the edge of the trail broke free of the ground and slithered toward us, I knew the movement of the bush had been magic and not my imagination.
Too late, I tried to rein Gentry in and too late, the root grazed his calf.
The next instant, Gentry reared back in a panic.
I toppled off his back and landed with a thud sideways on the dirt path.
Dust coated my tongue as I pulled in a sharp inhale. Debris flew into my eye and I swiped frantically at them to clear the dirt.
By the time I managed to force enough water from my eyes with a hell of a lot of rubbing, Lance was standing over and Gentry was bolting back down the trail in the direction we'd come.
"Crazy Horse," I said, rolling over painfully. "No doubt he's headed for home."
"No doubt," Lance said, reaching down so that I could grasp his forearm with my hand. He hoisted me back to my feet and I rubbed my ribs where they hurt.
Nothing felt broken. I tried a hearty inhale and though my lungs burned, they didn't plead with me to hold my breath. Thank God.
I was shaking it off, twisting my torso to test the muscles when I noticed more branches moving toward us.
"Shit," I said. "Don't move."
"Don't worry," he said with a grim look on his face that indicated he saw the same thing over my shoulder. "I don't intend to."
I wasn't sure if what he saw was doing the same thing as what happened on my side, but whatever it was, it wasn't just moving branches. The trees seemed to be leaning away from the trail, spreading apart with the branches lifting upward like a curtain rising.
I expected them to recoil and let go in a forceful assault the way the migrants had said happened to them. My hand was on Excalibur's grip and I was easing it free of its scabbard. I hated using the spelled weapon for something so awful as hacking at tree branches but I wasn't about to let one toss me into next week.
Queen of Skye and Shadow complete box set : Queen of Skye and Shadow Omnibus books 1-3 Page 26
