Hammon raised his hand to get her attention. “If I may…? Guildmaster Maley, I have an old family friend in the city that runs a stable. We could likely rent horses from him and make it across much faster. His business partner is on the other end in Quigg and will take the horses from us at that point.”
Thereby avoiding having extra weight for Grae to transport. Siobhan perked up at the idea. Horses would make crossing the bridges much faster and lower the risk considerably. “We’ll do it. How much will he charge?”
“Depends on who asks,” Hammon responded dryly. “Miss Waverly, if you’ll do the honors, he’ll surely drop it down to half his usual price.”
Sylvie gave him a casual two-finger salute. “Consider it done. Although it’s not like price is really an issue. Not with that fat purse Darrens gave us.”
Too true. Though Siobhan didn’t intend to squander it little by little with unnecessary expenses either. They had no idea where this trip would take them, after all.
It took a remarkably short amount of time to visit Hammon’s friend, rent their mounts, and get through Converse. In fact, they arrived at the beginning of the bridge before the bell could toll out the tenth hour. Siobhan couldn’t remember a time they’d made it through a city that quickly.
They exited the western gate while leading the horses, nodding respectfully to the gate guards as they passed. Siobhan led them off to a small waiting area off the side of the road and gestured for everyone to gather around. She mounted her horse so that they could all easily see her.
“Alright, everyone hear me? Good. Usual rules of crossing the bridges apply—we go at a quick walk, nothing faster than that. I don’t intend to waste our stamina if we don’t need to. If any of the horses pull up lame or something, tell me immediately.”
Grae raised a hand and pointed toward the bridges. “You did see the storm front moving in on us?”
“I did,” she grimaced, shooting the sky a look over her shoulder. “Getting rained on won’t kill us, so I don’t want to hurry across the bridge unless we absolutely need to.” For one thing, making several horses run on stone could become deafening after a while. But they’d all learned the hard way that a steady pace would get them across faster than trying to run the distance, losing their strength, and stumbling to a near halt.
Shaking off the worry, she finished, “Everyone mount up!”
They all climbed aboard their horses—all except Beirly and Fei, that was. Fei chose (for some inexplicable reason) to not ride but stay in the cart, and of course Beirly was driving. Siobhan watched long enough to make sure they were all ready to go before she kneed the placid mare around and led them off in a steady walk onto the bridge.
Nothing could be quite as cold as the sea with winter approaching. Siobhan rode ahead of everyone else with Tran, leading the way across, and as they moved it felt like the wind cut right through her heavy jacket and cloak. She shivered hard, once, and urged everyone to go a little faster. The sooner they could reach the island, the better.
Not many chose to travel at this time of the year and the scant traffic on the bridge emphasized the season well. Aside from them, only one caravan and a family group with a professional escort traveled toward Wynngaard. Since they all traveled at different speeds, a gap developed between them, and soon it felt as if they were on the bridge alone. Almost no one came from the other direction either. It brought up a question that Siobhan hadn’t thought to ask before. Why had Darrens sent his daughter at this time of the year to negotiate some kind of trade deal? Couldn’t it have waited until spring?
Grae came up from behind to ride at her right side. He usually looked a little brooding, but now he looked outright worried. “Siobhan, do those look like rain clouds to you?”
She looked north, where he pointed, and narrowed her eyes slightly. The clouds did look ominous, although they didn’t pitch and roll like a thunderstorm would. In fact… “No, they look like snow clouds.”
His shoulders slumped. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
Poor Grae. He only hated a few things in the world, but snow made the top of his list. Right now, she rather agreed with him. The bridge they were on had been made so that eight carts side by side could cross with plenty of space in between. She’d been in buildings less solid and the way the grey granite stones had been overlain made it nearly impregnable to anything nature could throw at it. But despite its width and strength, no one in their right mind would choose to be on a bridge during the middle of a storm. They had no shelter available here—nothing but tall railings on the sides of the bridge. If the sea did get stirred up because of the storm, they could easily be washed over the sides before they even knew what was happening.
Siobhan looked out over the railing and toward the sea. The water looked green-grey and choppy, the waves coming up into white peaks. It even smelled like a storm, air heavy and moist. Hardly a good sign. “Maybe it’ll blow past us,” she offered with weak optimism.
“This is why I hate bridges,” Grae grumbled, glaring at the sky. “There’s no natural power in structures like these. Even if something happens, I can’t open a path and carry us out of safety.”
“I know,” she soothed. “But all we can do now is pick up the pace and hope we make it to the island before that hits us.”
Grae’s eyes cut to her in an exasperated look. “Siobhan…doesn’t anything ever rattle you?”
“If I was easily rattled, you and Beirly wouldn’t have unanimously decided I had to be the guildmaster,” she pointed out dryly.
From behind, Hammon asked in a carrying voice, “Is that how you became the master?”
She twisted around with a slight creak of leather to answer. “That’s how. I actually had no ambition to be guildmaster. But for some reason, everybody likes for me to be one.”
“It’s because she’s tolerant of the boys’ antics,” Denney explained to Hammon, not untruthfully. “As long as they don’t kill anyone or bankrupt the guild, she won’t throw them out.”
“I do have a few more limits than that,” Siobhan protested.
“No you don’t,” at least five people said in unison.
Hammon bit his bottom lip in an obvious attempt to keep from laughing. “That lax, eh?”
Siobhan opened her mouth to object and paused when she couldn’t automatically think of a good argument.
Conli, ever helpful, started ticking things off on his fingers. “Wolf caused a riot in the Blackstone’s main hall and you only fined him for the damages.”
“That was an accident!” Wolf protested. He didn’t sound at all defensive with that wide smile on his face.
“Tran nearly killed three men only a month after he joined the guild,” Conli continued, not fazed by the interruption.
“They were hassling the pretty girl that serves at the Three Crowns,” Tran explained to Hammon, completely unworried about this open airing of past sins.
“The pretty girl he had a crush on,” Sylvie explained further and smirked when Tran shot her a warning look.
Conli ignored that byplay too. “Fei got drunk from that apple cake and went around the town scrawling bad poetry on all of the walls with red paint.”
From the back of the cart came a soft warning, “Conli-ren, another word on that and you will not sleep peacefully tonight.”
The doctor gave the cart an uneasy look. “Well, ah…you get my drift, Hammon.”
“I do,” Hammon agreed, although he looked torn between being flabbergasted or amused. “I just have one question, Man Lei? If you don’t mind.”
Fei lifted up just enough for his eyes to appear over the cart’s edge. His black hair looked a bit mussed from his nap and stuck out slightly on the right side. “You want to know how I got drunk from apple cake.”
Hammon shrugged and gave him an expectant look.
He ducked back into the wagon, voice ordering, “Conli-ren, you explain.”
With another wary glance at the cart, the doctor complied hesi
tantly. “He’s allergic to sugar. Odd, I know, but that’s the only explanation I have for how he reacts to it. He acts drunk after he’s consumed any real quantity of it. Natural sugars, such as those coming from fruits, seem to be fine. It’s the processed cane sugars that his body can’t seem to handle.”
“So don’t offer him any food with sugar in it,” Siobhan half-pleaded. “He’s a truly unmanageable drunk.”
“I will be careful,” Hammon promised her. “But I now see their point. I’ve never heard of a guildmaster as tolerant as you.”
“It’s why they won’t let me quit,” she complained, half-serious.
“We never will, either,” Beirly promised her.
Resigned, she turned back around and faced forward. “Let’s just get to the island, alright?”
Alas, the snowstorm overhead did not care about the puny humans traveling along the bridge, or their travel plans, or the fervent prayers about them making it to shelter before the storm unleashed. Before their party had even made it halfway across, the sky opened up in a steady stream of snowflakes. The wind howled over the sea, sending the snow flying about in whirls and eddies, cutting through all layers of clothing and making everyone shiver.
Siobhan grimly told herself to keep the horses to the quick walk they’d been doing for the past two hours. Any faster of a pace than this, they’d be spent by the time they reached the island. That said, she really wanted to at least go at a trot.
Fei, Denney and Conli rearranged the cart to clear out a hole near the front of it so they could huddle together and share body heat. It must have been working, as those three were the only ones who had the energy to talk. Everyone else grimly hung onto their reins and kept moving forward.
With the storm clouds blocking the sun, the only difference between day and sunset was a slight darkening. Siobhan lost all track of time because of it. But they had to have made good time, as the water had only come up to the bridge’s base level by the time Island Pass’s gates came within view.
Island Pass had existed before the bridges had been built. It had probably been nothing more than some line shacks then, but now the city sprawled out over almost every square inch of the island and proceeded to grow up on top of itself. Under the heavy layer of snow, it looked like a fairytale ice castle more than anything. What little she could see of it, anyway. The storm and the encroaching darkness obscured most of her vision.
Everyone perked up when the main gate came into sight. Siobhan anxiously peered ahead, trying to see through the falling snow. The gates stood massively tall, with thick granite walls and stairs that led up on either side so that a person could climb to the very top. A ramp led up from the bridge so that the bottom of the gate never had seawater touch it unless a wicked storm passed through. But what she really wanted to see were the lights. Someone had designated a coded system for travelers to know how much time they had to get to the gates before the tide rose to a dangerous level. Three lanterns on either side of the gate burning meant they had all the time in the world. Two lanterns meant they had about two hours. One lantern: one hour. If no light could be seen in the gates, you’d better run like your life depended on it.
Right now, she saw two lanterns…no, wait. One of the lanterns bobbed and moved as if—wind and stars! Someone up there had just snuffed the lantern. Only one remained burning now.
Siobhan eyed the distance between them and the main gate. She’d traveled this way often enough that she knew the distance well. They should be able to make it with a little time to spare, but… “Pick up the pace!” she called over the storm, the air freezing in her mouth.
As tired as everyone had to be at that point, they moved up to a trot and started covering ground more quickly. The rattling of the wheels and the clacking of hooves against stone became louder, almost loud enough to penetrate the wind howling in her ears. Really, with the storm’s roaring, it was amazing anyone had heard her. Or maybe they had seen the light go out for themselves and guessed what she must have said.
They stopped at the gate with a slight huff of mixed relief and exhaustion. The granite pillars on either side almost had enough width to them to make the wall of a house, and the roof loomed high overhead, blocking most of the storm. It still felt unreasonably cold, and the guards had a hidden brazier on either side of the gate so that they wouldn’t freeze. She felt sorry for them, but not sorry enough to stay out here and keep them company. Siobhan reached into her shirt pocket and took out the leather encased seal with her guild’s mark on it and flipped it open to show the two guards on duty.
“Deepwoods Guild. Party of ten.”
They’d been through here so many times that the guards nodded in recognition, one of them jotted down their arrival in a large book that leaned in a wall alcove, and the guild was waved through.
Despite it being such a late hour, the streets were lively. People of every possible age, gender and profession seemed to be out and about, scurrying from one building to another, bundled up against the snow. But through the glass windows came a great deal of light, and the faint tones of raised voices and laughter.
The main road they traveled on went straight through the island and served as the main causeway. Because of that, the governor of the island had deemed it illegal to encroach on the road with any building projects and make it narrow. They had an easy time going up into the city, heading for the inn they habitually stayed at. The trouble came when they had to turn onto a side road. People had been fighting with limited space for so long that they’d gotten creative in their building habits. Now, little add-ons jutted out from the sandstone walls here and there, while brick overpasses and second-story levels arched over the street. Anyone that had a problem with enclosed spaces would have found it unbearable to travel down this street.
Siobhan blessed the crazy building habits at this moment simply because it blocked a large majority of the snow and wind. Despite being surrounded by stone on all sides, she felt almost warm in comparison to being on that thrice-cursed bridge.
The cart had to squeeze through in a few places, but they made it to Sunrise Tavern without a problem. The inn’s windows in the front had light blazing out of them, and through them she could see quite the crowd huddled around the two large fireplaces on either end of the main room. Hopefully they still had a few rooms available. Siobhan forced her half-frozen hand off the reins and slowly creaked out of the saddle, dropping heavily and hissing as pins and needles shot through her legs at the impact. She hadn’t frozen to the point of frostbite, but it had been a little too close for comfort. With any luck the storm would blow over tonight and it would be clear tomorrow. She didn’t think anyone would be able to travel through a storm like this again. Herself included.
“Siobhan?” Wolf came over and hunkered down slightly to see her face. “Your lips are turning blue.”
She turned a glare on him. He looked fine, and the unfairness of it rankled. That Northern blood of his made him almost immune to weather like this. “Wolf, don’t you ever get cold?” she demanded, almost whining.
He grinned at her in a quick flash of slightly crooked teeth. “Not like you do. Let me see to the rooms, alright?”
“Make absolutely sure they come with hot baths,” she insisted.
Patting her shoulder lightly in reassurance, he opened the door with a slight creak of hinges and pushed through, bellowing as he went, “Master Gramms! We need rooms!”
Gramms, looking as burly, surly, and round as ever, turned from where he stood near the bar and bellowed back in a rough voice, “You best be willing to make do with three of ‘em! It’s all I’ve got left!”
“They come with baths and dinner?”
“They do.”
Wolf turned slightly and cocked an eyebrow at her. She nodded confirmation. They’d make do. They’d done so before. If Hammon hadn’t gotten comfortable with their party yet, he would need to do so quickly, as he would be bunking down with at least two of them.
“Stop hover
ing in the door, then, and letting in all that cold air!” Gramms commanded, bushy eyebrows pulled together.
Beirly stayed in the driver’s seat long enough for everyone to scamper off and gather their bags before he went through the narrow pass with the cart to the inn’s stable yard in the back. Two young boys, Gramms’ sons, came out and took their horses and led them the same way, letting the cold and weary party enter the inn. The close confines of the tables, already loaded with customers, made it hard for them to cross the room without bumping into anyone. A few gave them curious glances but did nothing more than that.
Everyone had plates of food in front of them and the sight and scent of it filled her head in a sweet, intoxicating way. The aroma set her stomach to rumbling petulantly, reminding her she’d only had cold fare for lunch several hours ago. But the thought of food came in a distant second to the idea of soaking in a large tub of scintillatingly hot water.
By the time Siobhan made it across to Gramms, her skin tingled painfully. Gramms had three keys in his hands, but he watched her instead of handing them over, dark eyes looking her over carefully. “Hot baths before dinner, I think.”
She managed to move her frozen muscles into a semblance of a smile. “That obvious?”
“With you, at least.” He gave the keys over and pointed up the stairs. “Back three rooms on the left. Women’s and men’s baths have hot water in ‘em, and towels and soap, so come down when you’re ready.”
Never before had she felt like kissing the innkeeper as much as she did now. “Bless you.”
“I’ll have Maddie bring up pallets and such,” he promised, shooing her on her way.
She trudged up the stairs, her pack bumping along on her back, sorting out the keys in her hands as she went. They were simple black cast-iron keys with a ring on them and a small leather square with a number embossed. It didn’t take any brains to put the right key to the right room, and when she did, she left the key in the doorknob to let the boys sort themselves out. She would take the far back room, the one that sat over the kitchen. She had absolutely no intention of being cold tonight.
Deepwoods (Book 1) Page 5
