Deepwoods (Book 1)

by Honor Raconteur

  “It would make for a perfect hiding place,” Siobhan added as she jumped lithely off the cart. The ground made a squishing noise under her boots, and she realized with a grimace she had just landed in mud.

  “These lowland villages trade more with the cities than us mountain people do,” the way Wolf said this suggested he didn’t think much of that custom, “so odds are good that someone either coming to or from the city would find a troubled group and be more likely to help. If they did, they could hide easily and lick their wounds with no one the wiser. Thing is, they wouldn’t be able to contact anyone outside the village either.”

  Yes, and for several reasons. If Lirah had done this, she wouldn’t dare reveal her true identity because if the villagers discovered her ties with a guild, they’d kick her back out immediately. The distaste for guilds ran strong in this area of the country. In Lirah’s shoes, Siobhan would take advantage of any kindness offered to her, lay low until her party was healed up again, and then try to make it back to Sateren. Or even outright retreat back southward to Quigg.

  All of this assumed, of course, that Lirah had even made it this far north. They could be searching little pockets of villages near the main road all the way down to Quigg for the next month and might not find her.

  And oh ye little gods, she hoped that wasn’t the case!

  Praying silently to any god that might be listening, she divided up her people into groups of three and sent them different directions. They had orders to reconvene here, at this exact spot, when they had the information they needed. Or if by some miracle one of her teams found a sign of the missing party, they were to signal via the horn. Most of the time when traveling, the guild stayed together, but on rare occasions, she found it necessary to split them up like this. When she did, she either had a meeting point and a designated time for people to return or she made sure they each had a horn with a predetermined signal. In this case, it was one blast for no sighting, two blasts for solid information, and three blasts for danger. On this flat plain of grassland, the sound of a horn should carry for spans without trouble.

  She, Wolf and Beirly stayed with the cart and consulted a map on the good chance that they would soon have to search more inland.

  Wolf sat next to her on the back of the cart, the map laid out over their respective laps, and bent over it slightly. “Siobhan, can’t you find a better map than this?” he complained for what had to be the thousandth time.

  “Wolf, you say that every time we go into Wynngaard,” she retorted in exasperation.

  “That’s because you haven’t replaced the map yet!”

  “Have you seen a more accurate one?” she challenged, giving him a stink eye. “Because I certainly haven’t. If you feel like this is a sorry excuse of a map, make a better one! You can probably do it from memory, you know this country so well.”

  That adequately shut him up. With a grumble and snort, he pointed at a nearby village. “This is Vakkiod and it’s much closer than the map indicates. Really, if Lirah Darrens made it within sight of Sateren before running into trouble, then this is the place I expect to find her in.”

  Assuming she and her party weren’t in a shallow grave somewhere, that was. The thought hung in the air, unspoken between them. Siobhan cleared her throat to move past that heavy atmosphere. “Fine. Assuming that they didn’t get this far north? What’s the next best bet?”

  “The next village is much farther south, a full day’s travel from here. The Gainsborough, or the Gain’s Furrow, depending on who you ask. They’re not far from the highway, so again the odds of them helping out wounded travelers are fairly good. There’s other possibilities the further south we go, but…”

  She held up a hand to stop him. “Let’s focus on just these two for now. You said Vakkiod is close. How close?”

  “Three hours?” he scratched at his chin as he mulled over distance. “With the cart, at least.”

  “And if I sent Tran ahead?”

  “An hour and half, maximum.”

  Well, that certainly made it clear to her what she should do. She often sent Tran ahead in circumstances like this because he was a fast runner that could go incredible distances. (Not truly unusual for a Teheranian.) But he sometimes would get bogged down because of the landscape or city crowds. Apparently, this wouldn’t be the case here or Wolf would think it would take him longer.

  From Sateren’s gate came a short blast from the horn, followed almost as quickly from the port. She frowned at the reports, but in truth, it didn’t surprise her that Lirah’s party hadn’t been sighted either place. Lifting her own horn from her back, she let out a long note, calling them back to her.

  Tran’s group came back first, as they had simply gone to the gate, and she motioned him closer. “Tran. Wolf thinks it’s a good possibility for Lirah’s party to be in Vakkiod, which is here.” She pointed it out on the map, waiting for him to give her a nod before removing her finger. “He estimates it’ll take you about an hour and a half to get there from here. Will you go ahead and check?”

  “Vahh,” he shrugged in agreement, although a smile lit his face. Tran loved a good run, and after days and days of either being on a cart or on a horse, he had to be itching to stretch out some. “Same signals?”

  She thought about it. The same signals should work, but… “Do four blasts if they’re actually there.”

  He tapped his heart twice in non-verbal understanding before turning on his heel and taking off at a fast clip.

  Hammon watched him go, the only one that looked concerned, and asked, “Is it safe for him to go off alone like that?”

  Siobhan snorted. “I pity the fool that tries to attack Tran. It would make his day.” She sat back on the wagon a little more, getting comfortable as she waited for her port people to return. As they had a little further to go, she expected it to be another half-hour before they could make it back to the cart.

  Once everyone did return, and because they didn’t have anything better to do, they broke out the cooking gear and made lunch. Some might have wondered why they didn’t just go into Sateren for lunch—after all, the city was little more than a stone’s throw away—but she didn’t want to breach the walls yet. Sending even a few people to the gates and asking after Lirah’s party was enough to signal that there were people searching. She didn’t want to alert the possible assailants more than she already had by actually going into the city.

  Besides, out here she had no noise to camouflage Tran’s horn when he chose to use it. The city’s din would surely cover up the sound if she went inside.

  Hammon broke the companionable silence with a soft clearing of the throat. “Man Lei, do you mind if I ask you a question?”

  Fei looked up from scraping his plate clean. “Go ahead.”

  “I’ve noticed you add honorifics to people’s names. What do they mean? I mean, what do they signify?”

  Fei’s brows rose slightly. “There’s quite the list. It would perhaps be better if I told you the ones you will actually hear me say, as some of them are so old that no one uses them anymore.”

  “That’s fine,” Hammon assured him as he pulled his leather notebook out of his side pouch. “Are these ones that I will encounter during trade as well?”

  “Some of them, yes.” Fei seemed pleased at the respectful way Hammon asked and he set his plate aside to focus more fully on the conversation. “From most formal to least formal, it is in this order: zhi, jia, gui, ajie, ren, jae, xian.”

  “Wait, wait, repeat that please,” Hammon requested as he scribbled frantically. “Zhi, jai—”

  “Jia,” Fei corrected, pronouncing it more carefully. “Gui, ajie, ren, jae, xian.” He shifted up onto his knees briefly to check Hammon’s writing, but not finding anything to correct, he gave a brief nod of approval before relaxing again. “Zhi is something you use when speaking to an older person of great importance. Someone such as the leader of a town, city, or guild for instance. Jia is for a person of higher status than you,
such as a master tradesman or an older relative. Gui is for a stranger that has no special significance. Ajie is for an elder sister or relative.”

  Hammon looked up at that. “I’ve heard you call Guildmaster Maley that.”

  “Yes.” Fei softened into a slight smile. “I have been in this guild for eight years. At first I referred to her as ‘zhi’ but she is now my sister more than my master.”

  Siobhan couldn’t help but lean over and hug him. Fei chuckled indulgently and patted her on the head. “Yes, ajie, thank you.”

  “He’s the sweetest thing,” she told everyone and no one in particular.

  Fei waved her off and went back to the explanation. “Ren is for a kind elder brother, or an older male friend.”

  “You call most of the men in this guild by ‘ren?’” Hammon’s tone made this a question.

  “They are all older than I,” Fei explained patiently. “I am twenty-six, and one of the youngest in the guild. Only Denney is younger than I, I believe.”

  “Not anymore.” Hammon grinned at him. “I’m twenty-five.”

  Fei blinked in surprise. “I had thought you older.”

  “Hence why you called me ‘jia?’” Hammon asked, not at all offended.

  “Well, and that, yes.” Fei scratched at his cheek, somewhat nonplussed. “In truth, I suppose I should be calling you Markl-xian.”

  “Xian meaning younger brother, or younger male friend, or something along those lines?”

  “Exactly so,” Fei agreed.

  “Then do,” Hammon encouraged him. “I realize I’m here provisionally, but it might be years before I finish my goals. I can be here a long time, and because of that, I don’t want to be considered a temporary guest.”

  Siobhan felt in that moment as if he were not speaking to just Fei, but to everyone. They all had adopted the pattern of calling him by his last name, a formality that no one used with the rest of the guildmembers. Had she really been treating him as an outsider, in spite of what she instructed the rest to do? Shaking her head at herself, Siobhan answered in Fei’s stead. “We’ll do that, Markl.”

  He flashed her a sunny smile that stretched from ear to ear. “Then can I do likewise? I realize it’s rather awkward at this stage to ask permission.”

  “It is,” Fei acknowledged ruefully, “but I for one am glad you asked. Formality should not exist among friends.”

  Some underlying tension that had hovered in Markl’s shoulders eased upon hearing this. “Thank you. I’m glad.”

  Fei inclined his head in understanding. “The last honorific is ‘jae’ which is used for younger sisters or close female friends. I call Sylvie this, despite the fact she’s my age.”

  “He called me ‘ajie’ only once,” Sylvie explained with a dark pout.

  “She threw something at me,” Fei explained in a stage whisper. “I never dared to do it again.”

  Markl’s mouth formed in a silent ‘ahhh’ of understanding, eyes crinkling up in a silent smile.

  The culture lesson ended there temporarily as they focused on finishing lunch and getting ready to move. They’d eaten, cleaned everything, and packed it all back in without hearing a single sound. In fact, they were debating on rooting through the bags and finding their ever trusty deck of cards when faintly the sound of a horn carried through the air. Siobhan sat up abruptly, ears straining. “I counted five blasts.”

  “As did I.” Out of the bunch, Grae had the sharpest ears. He turned so that he was half-standing in the cart. After a long moment, the horn sounded again. “Five blasts,” he confirmed with a bemused look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Something unexpected happened?” Markl offered. “Something that the previous signals don’t cover.”

  Siobhan grimaced. It looked like sending Tran ahead had not been the easy solution she hoped for, for whatever reason. “Beirly, hook Kit back up. Let’s go to Vakkiod.”

  ӜӜӜ

  Tran met them at the village entrance, as impassive as a stone statue carved out of black rock. Siobhan couldn’t quite figure out why he looked that way.

  Her eyes took in the village in a quick sweep. From what she knew of Wynngaard, this village seemed to be rather normal. Houses built haphazardly with no real clear-cut roads, corrals and stone fences branching off to encircle the village as a whole, most of which was filled with different types of sheep, pigs, and cows. The place looked sturdy with its brick and wood buildings, although where they had gotten enough wood to build this place was anyone’s guess. She hadn’t seen a stretch of woods for quite some time. But the place looked quiet, not at all rife with trouble or tension.

  She hopped off the front seat of the cart as it moved and jogged ahead, meeting Tran half-way as he loped toward them. “What by the great stars does five blasts mean?” she demanded of him.

  He gave her a quick, impish grin. “It means come to me, Shi-maee. And look, without even knowing what I meant, you came! It’s like magic.”

  She growled and grumbled but couldn’t refute his logic. Curse it. “Alright, what’s the problem? They wouldn’t talk to you?”

  “Nearly got stabbed just coming near the entrance,” Tran admitted, casting a dark look over his shoulder.

  For a moment, Siobhan looked at him from a different perspective instead of as someone that knew him well. With him so tall, so covered in scars, with that dark skin of his and long braids, he probably screamed danger to someone from a backwater village like this. Of course no one from Wynngaard would automatically trust him enough to answer his questions.

  Fool. Why hadn’t she thought of that?

  Siobhan raised a hand while giving a long sigh. “Sorry, Tran. Didn’t think this through. If the villagers here are really that cautious, then of course they’re not going to speak readily to a Teheranian. Let’s try this again.” Turning, she looked over the people behind her. Really, when it came to approaching the villagers, she only had two options. Either Wolf, who looked so obviously native, or Denney, who was half-Wynngaardian herself. Well, no, probably not Denney. She was also half-Teheranian, so they might not know how to react to her either. “Wolf?”

  “I’ll try.” Wolf strode forward and to the thick wooden gates ahead, careful to keep his hands away from any weapon.

  Blowing out a breath, she rocked back on her heels and watched him go. Hopefully this worked better, although really, even though he was Wynngaardian, Wolf was intimidating in his own right, too. Perhaps Markl would be the better choice, with that quiet, unassuming air of his. Besides, he had the strangest talent for charming people into talking to him. He might succeed where no one else could.

  “Are they normally this paranoid?” Tran muttered under his breath, dark eyes scanning the area keenly. “I know Wolf said that they were unusually cautious when it came to foreigners, but I couldn’t even get a word out before they were coming at me with swords bared.”

  That bad? Oh dear. “His description didn’t lead me to believe they were so wary. No, wary isn’t even a strong enough word.”

  Wolf stopped at the gate, speaking to the group of men that had gathered there. He shook his head several times, hand raising in gestures, his right hand carefully kept behind his back the entire time. She couldn’t hear from here what they were saying, and probably couldn’t have understood anyway with her limited knowledge of the language. In a few minutes, he came back at a half-trot, a dark scowl furrowing his face.

  “So?” she asked him.

  “They were hit by a sneak attack a few weeks ago and so are not very forthcoming with information,” Wolf explained, irritated. “They wouldn’t even tell me they were attacked, I had to figure that out from what they carefully weren’t saying. They want to know who we are, and why we’re asking, which makes me think that they’re hiding something.”

  Siobhan rubbed at the bridge of her nose in a pained way. “We can’t move on from here simply because they don’t want to talk to us. One way or another, we need to confirm it. Alright, Plan C.
Markl?”

  Markl hopped lightly out of the cart and came to her side, head cocked in question.

  “You go,” she ordered.

  “Me?” he objected. “My understanding of Wynngaardal is limited at best.”

  “They speak some Robargean,” Tran offered. “It’s how I was able to talk to them, or at least, understand the curses they were hurtling at me.”

  Robargean? Well, that had become a semi-universal trade language over the past few generations. She hadn’t expected them to speak any of it here, though, so far away from the trade routes.

  “Oh. In that case…” Markl trailed off, looking at her askance.

  “You’re the least assuming of us that doesn’t look completely foreign,” she explained to him. “Sending in Tran and Wolf might have given them the impression that we’re mercenaries, but your mild manner and way of speaking will dispel the notion. You’ve got a better chance of getting answers.”

  “Ahhh,” he intoned. “In that case, I’ll do my best.”

  She waved him on and watched as he strode confidently forward, his weapon still in the cart. Brave thing, wasn’t he, to go in unarmed against hostile natives. Markl got stopped at the gate, no surprise, but he lingered far longer there. Siobhan perked up, straining her eyes to see clearly. “Is it my imagination, or are they sheathing their weapons?”

  “They are,” Sylvie said in amazement. “One of them even smiled for a moment!”

  Siobhan made a mental note right there. From then on, she would send Markl in first.

  Markl gave the men a short bow and made a staying motion with one hand before he turned on his heels and came back to the group. The expression on his face made her think he had not only succeeded in getting an answer, as he looked strangely triumphant.

  “You found them, didn’t you?” she demanded as soon as she was within earshot without needing to yell.

  “I did,” Markl assured her. “They’re all here.”

  “Your tone says there’s a problem, though.”