Passage tsk-3

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  Dag recentered himself and ground-ripped a pea-sized hole in skin and bone. A spurt of blood trickled out, making a slippery mess of Chicory’s black hair, seeping through Dag’s fingers. As the pressure in the bulging pocket lessened, he found the bleeding inside starting up again. Not good. Groundlock, you’re risking groundlock… He drew back out, still holding Chicory’s head in his spread hand, and looked around woozily.

  A few paces away, a man with a knife wound to his gut choked out his last breath and died. Bandit, Dag hoped, although he was blighted if he could tell the difference between bandits and boatmen from this confused vantage.

  “Lakewalker…?” said Bearbait.

  Dag shook his head. “Skull’s busted, but you knew that. It’s too soon to say if he has a chance.” He surreptitiously dropped another general ground reinforcement into the brain flesh around the blow, and blinked at his own dizziness. A big figure trod past; Dag called, “Wain!”

  The boat boss wheeled around. “There you are!” He thrust out a suspicious chin. “What are you doing?”

  “Best as I can,” said Dag wearily. “I can’t leave off here just yet. You find that Crane by now? If he’s not here, find out where he’s gone, and if there are any more bandits missing with him. Get exact numbers, get names. Don’t let them hold out on you.” Wain had wanted undisputed leadership of the boatmen—but to his credit, not at such a cost to his rival Chicory. The boat boss chewed his lip briefly but decided not to argue; he cast Dag a curt nod and moved off, bellowing for his lieutenant, Saddler. If Dag wanted questions answered, Wain was the man for the job, he was pretty sure. Most of the captives would be surly and hopeless, tight-lipped, but amongst a group this large, there were bound to be a few babblers. Beguiled or not.

  Skink and Alder, blight them, had both claimed Crane was at the cave, and Dag would have sworn neither had been lying by that time. But they had been camped on their lookout for more than a day. Dag had seen good-once-but-too-old-now information devastate plans before this. Blight.

  The little hole in Chicory’s skull was clotting off. With his ground projection, Dag teased the clot out, letting the blood keep trickling. Was this right? When would it stop? He wanted to go back in to find the source of the flow and pinch it off, but didn’t dare yet. One more of these deep ground-explorations, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get up and walk, after. Let alone fight. This fight did not seem finished.

  Whit had been drawn off to help the Raintree men secure prisoners. He returned to Dag’s side and draped a blanket around his shoulders. Dag smiled up gratefully. Whit stared wide-eyed at the gray-faced Chicory. “Is he going to die?”

  “Can’t say yet. Can you find me Remo or Barr? Where the blight have those two gone off to?”

  “Back of the cave, I think. I’ll go check.”

  “Thanks.”

  Whit nodded and picked his way through the rubble. Dag thought his young tent-brother was holding up well, thrust into scenes of such lethal brutality for the first time in his life. He wouldn’t have sent Whit to assist Wain, though. Dag grimaced at the ugly thumps and yells from the interrogation going on over at the far side of the cave, cutting through the moans and groans.

  Whit brought Barr and Remo back in a few minutes. The pair looked black indeed, and not only from their first experience with putting down farmer bandits.

  Remo held up a sharing knife. “Look what we found back there.”

  “Yeah, there’s a cache piled to the ceiling,” Whit put in, sounding amazed. “All the most valuable stuff, I guess.”

  Dag squinted. The knife was unprimed. “Could it be Crane’s?”

  “I found it in amongst what has to be a whole narrow-boatload of furs,” Remo said. “Looks like Crane’s crew didn’t always avoid Lakewalkers.”

  Dag carefully set Chicory’s head between his knees and raised his blood-soaked hand to take the knife. Remo recoiled to see Dag’s sleeve wet with darkening red, but he reluctantly released the knife to the gory grip. Dag held it to his lips. Unprimed, yes. And with a peculiar stillness in its embedded involution.

  “Whoever this knife was bonded to is dead now.” So, probably not Crane’s, though Dag supposed he could hope.

  Barr, startled, said, “You can tell that?”

  “My brother is a knife maker,” Dag said vaguely; the two patrollers’ brows rose in respect. “Keep this aside.” He handed it back.

  Remo slipped the bone blade back into its sheath and hung the thong around his neck. As he hid it all inside his shirt, his voice hushed in outrage. “They must’ve murdered a Lakewalker without even letting him share!”

  Or her. Dag didn’t want to think on that. There would have been women amongst the boat victims from time to time, but there weren’t any around now. Can’t let any run off to tell, Skink had claimed. Should Dag hope that they’d died quickly, and were his hopes worth spit?

  Chicory’s drainage was clotting off again, blight it, the pressure in the blood pocket growing once more. “Did you find any sign at all of Crane?” Or of those mad Drum brothers who seemed to have become his principal lieutenants; Dag definitely wanted to locate them—dead, alive, or prisoners.

  Barr shook his head. “Not within half a mile of here, anyway.”

  “We have to find him. Take him.” And not only for his monstrous crimes. If the Lakewalker leader was not tried with the rest, perfunctory as Dag suspected the trial was going to be, the boatmen would always suspect the patrollers had colluded in his escape. “Blight it, what’s taking Wain so long…?”

  As if in answer, Saddler crunched across the cave to stare down at Dag, shake his head in worry at Chicory, and report that all the bandits were accounted for but five. Two, it seemed, had left the night before last, cashing out their stakes and quitting the gang permanently, unable to stomach the Drum brothers’ grotesque cruelties any longer. Crane and his two lieutenants had left separately early the next morning, some hours before Alder had flagged down the Fetch. It had been a chance to the boatmen’s benefit, it seemed, because the bandit crew, bereft of their leader’s supervision, had broached some kegs Crane had been saving, and had been a lot drunker than usual this night.

  So, up to five bandits still loose out there, including the worst of the bunch. Have we left enough men to guard the boats? Dag suddenly didn’t think so. But he dared not move his two charges yet, and besides, there would be no point jostling them up over the hill in litters when the boats had to come downriver anyway. The convoy could float around the Elbow in the morning and tie up below the cave, carrying them smoothly. But I can’t wait that long.

  Dag wet his lips. “Anyone on our side killed?”

  Saddler looked dubiously at Dag’s two patients. “Not yet, seems. Nine of the bandits are goners. Twenty-one here left to hang, though there’s one that might not live for it.”

  Dag stared in frustration at Chicory’s drained face. He must bring the Raintree man to a point where he could be left for a while, because Dag had to start moving after Crane. But in what direction? Haring off the wrong way would be worse than useless. He did know he wanted Copperhead under him to speed the search. Barr and Remo might be mounted on a couple of the bandits’ horses—they’d found a dozen or so hobbled not far from the cave.

  “Saddler, go back and see if you can find out anything at all about which way those five fellows might have gone. Barr, take a turn around the perimeter again—they might be coming back, and we want to spot them before they spot us. Remo…stay with me. I need you.”

  Whit, unassigned, tagged off after Saddler. Remo knelt beside Dag.

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked quietly.

  “Break me out if I appear to groundlock myself. I need to do some deeper groundwork inside Chicory’s poor bashed head, here.”

  Remo nodded gravely. Trustingly. Absent gods, did Dag look like he knew what he was doing? Surely Remo should know better by now. Dag sighed and dropped down into that increasingly easy, ever more familiar le
vel of ground-awareness.

  The inner world expanded to fill his horizon, as vast and complex a landscape as the Luthlian woods. No wonder that, once a fellow had done this, any other sort of making seemed trivial and dull. A calling, indeed. But his elation was short-lived. These injuries were subtler by far than Hod’s knee, the groundscape deeper and much stranger. Far beyond Dag’s understanding.

  I don’t have to understand everything. The body is wiser than I’ll ever be, and will heal itself if it can. Let him just start with the obvious, mend the biggest broken vessels. He’d done that before. Maybe that would be enough. It had better be enough.

  He continued the inner exploration. This end went with that one, ah. A little shaped reinforcement would hold them together. For a time. Another, another, another. Ah! That torn artery was the main source of the trouble, yes! Dag brought it back into alignment, reinforced it doubly. And then blood was leaking into the pocket more slowly than it was leaking out, and then it was hardly refilling at all. This time, when the bulge deflated, it stayed shrunken. Another push to position the shell-cracked bone. The squashed brain tissue expanded back into its proper place, still throbbing. Another ground reinforcement quelled its distress…

  In his exacerbated sensitivity, Remo’s little ground-bump felt like a blow to the side of Dag’s head. He gasped and fell, disoriented, upward into the light.

  “Are you all right?” asked Remo.

  Dag gulped and nodded, blinking and squinting. “Thanks. That was timely.”

  “Seemed to me you’d been in that trance for an awful long stretch.”

  Had he? It had seemed like mere minutes to Dag. Whit appeared at his side; he handed Dag a cup of something, and Dag, unsuspecting, drank and nearly choked. It was nasty, sickly sweet, but it burned down his throat in a heartening way. Some sort of horrible fruit brandy, he decided, from the bandits’ stores. His stomach, after a doubtful moment, elected not to heave.

  Dag had done all he could think of for the skull fracture, for now. They were into the wait and see what happens part. He set Chicory’s head down gently, cradling it in a folded blanket, and clambered to his feet. His stiffened joints moved like chalk scraping over a slate. Bearbait reappeared—when had he gone off? — and earnestly took in Dag’s brief instructions about keeping his leader warm and lying still till Dag got back. For once, Dag had no objection when Remo grabbed his arm to steady him on his feet. Weirdly, the tiny ground-rip he’d taken from Chicory seemed to be giving him a spurt of strength, even as Whit’s vile liquor quickened the blood in his veins. He suspected he’d have cause to regret both later, but now…

  “Whit, give me another drink of that skunk syrup. Barr, where’s Barr…?”

  “Here, sir.”

  “Find anything outside?” Dag lifted the cup again and sipped with an effort. The fumes did clear his sinuses.

  Barr shook his head. “Not yet.”

  “Any other word which way our missing bandits all went?”

  “The first two had evidently talked about heading back toward the Beargrass,” reported Whit. “Nobody knows about Crane and the Drums.”

  They need not have all gone the same way. Only the latter trio really concerned Dag, so that northerly hint was not too useful. It occurred to Dag suddenly that Alder had been Crane’s lieutenant before the Drums, and might possess clues that were beyond the rest of the bandits. Which gave Dag an excellent excuse to ease his heart and go back to the boats first, even better than his need for his horse. Alder hadn’t been very forthcoming before, but he could be made to be, Dag decided grimly. One way or another.

  Supported by Remo, Barr, and Whit, Dag stumbled out of the reeking cave into chilly predawn dew. The sky had a steely cast, the stars fading, the half-moon turning sallow overhead. He could find his way through the foggy woods with his eyes alone, now. He sent Barr and Remo off to pick out mounts for themselves from the bandits’ string, then made his way back up the hill behind the cave. His stride lengthened despite his exhaustion, so that Whit was pressed to keep up.

  Fawn had lain down fully dressed in her lonely bed nook, despairing of sleep, but she must have dozed off, because she woke dry-mouthed and grainy-eyed. Grayness in the shadows hinted of dawn. A tall shape eased past, slipping through the stores—Dag, back? Her relief was so great that she relaxed again, almost letting her exhaustion draw her once more into precious sleep. But no, she had to hear his tale. She lay a moment more, listening to faint clinks from the kitchen. Muttering. The scrape of the rings of Berry’s bunk curtain being pushed back, the red flare of someone turning up the oil lantern burning low on the table. Berry’s voice, sudden and shocked: “What—!”

  Fawn’s eyes flew fully open, and she started up in bed. Thumps, bangs, crashes, a wrenching groan—Bo? — a yelp from Hawthorn, Alder’s cry: “Don’t hurt her!”

  A strange voice, curt and cruel: “No? How about this one?”

  Fawn swung upright, uncertain which way to run. She darted toward the kitchen a pace or two, craning her neck, and skidded to a halt. Alder was loose, swinging around and onto his feet with his chains still dangling from his wrists. She saw the back of a tall man—a Lakewalker patroller, by his clothes and the dark braid down his back—but it wasn’t Remo. Bo had fallen to his knees, clutching his stomach with reddened hands, and Hod crouched with him, white-faced and frozen with fear. The tall man, she saw, held the squirming Hawthorn tight to his chest. A knife blade gleamed in his other hand.

  “Don’t move, Berry, he’ll do it to Hawthorn same as to Bo!” cried Alder desperately. “He never bluffs!”

  Fawn turned and sprinted.

  She banged through the front hatch, sped past the animal pens, and thumped across the gangplank, drawing breath for a scream to wake the whole row of boats. A huge shape in the clinging mist lunged at her, smacking her so hard in her gut that she was thrown backward, and her scream sputtered out half-voiced. She wrenched and bucked violently as the man-mountain pulled her off her feet and whipped her through the air. One sweaty hand grabbed her face, spanning it nearly from ear to ear; the other clamped her shoulder. The grip tightened like a vise, and she realized he was about to snap her neck. Abruptly, she went limp.

  A gruff voice growled, “Huh. That’s better.” Her captor felt down her body as he repositioned her. “Ah, a girlie! Maybe I’ll save you for Little Drum.” He strode forward, holding her half by her head, half under his arm, like a wet cat carried by its scruff. Over the gangplank and past Copperhead, who laid his ears back and snaked his neck but, alas, didn’t whinny or squeal.

  Dag, Dag, Dag, help me! If he was within a mile, he must sense the terror in her ground. And if he isn’t, he won’t. She struggled for air against the pressing, stinking hand, thought of biting, thought better of it. The light of the lantern seeped around her blocked vision, then she was twisted upright and set on her feet, both hands held easily behind her back by just one of the big man’s paws. She managed one sharp inhalation before the other paw clamped over her mouth once more. The back of her head was jammed against a warm chest—barely winded, to judge by its steady rise and fall. She peered down over her nose at a log-like arm in a frayed sleeve stained brown and red-brown, reeking of sweat and blood.

  Berry, Hod, and Bo had all been forced to kneel around the post that had lately held Alder, who was securing their wrists one to another with a length of line. He had to jerk Bo’s hand away from his stomach. Blood soaked the front of the old man’s shirt. His face had gone gray, looking worse than any hangover Fawn had ever seen on him, and he squinted as if in bewilderment, panting for air. Berry’s terrified glance jerked back and forth between him and Hawthorn, still held tight by the stranger.

  The man turned half-around. He had black brows and a craggy face shadowed with beard stubble, and his eyes gleamed darkly. Fawn wondered if they would be a different color in daylight, like Dag’s. “So what’s this?” he inquired, nodding at Fawn.

  “Two girlies!” said the man-mountain. “One
for me and one for Little Drum, I figure.” He grinned, gap-toothed and sour-breathed.

  The Lakewalker said wearily, “Haven’t you two had enough fun for one night?”

  “Not the yellow-haired one!” said Alder urgently. He hesitated. “They can split the other if they want, sure.” He added after a moment, “She claims to be married to one of the Lakewalkers we surprised on this boat, but she’s really just a farmer.”

  The black stare narrowed on Fawn. What the man was thinking she could not guess. “Seems to me they surprised you, Alder,” he drawled after a moment. “What happened here?”

  “It was Skink’s fault,” said Alder, still knotting line. “We went up to check out this boat like usual, but the Lakewalkers were all inside and we didn’t spot ’em, except for the odd one that didn’t look like a Lakewalker, see. They got the drop on us. The odd one, he did something, some groundwork, and Skink began spewing like a waterspout. Told them everything about the cave, everything.”

  Alder wasn’t telling everything, Fawn realized; he’d left out how he had been recognized by all the folks from Clearcreek. Did he imagine he could lie to—this had to be the renegade Crane, yes. And the man-mountain was Big Drum. So where is Little Drum?

  “Those patrollers, they stopped every boat coming down the river and got up a gang to go jump the cave. Hours ago. They could be coming back at any time.”

  “Only if they succeeded,” murmured Crane, raising his brows. He didn’t sound terribly disturbed by the news.

  “They had sixty or seventy fellows. And that one-handed Lakewalker—he had to be at least a patroller captain. Acted like this was all in a day’s work, he did. It’s all up with us now.” Alder sounded almost relieved. “We’ve got to cut and run.” His voice went wheedling. “You told me yourself you didn’t expect the Cavern Tavern to last out the year. Those Tripoint fools was the warning, you said. Best we heed it.”