“Crazy rune,” muttered Grimehug.
“That would account for both us and this group, and even Grimehug as well.” He nodded to the gnole. “She was speaking about demons in her territory. If you accept that she thought the Clockwork Boys are demons and that columns of them had gone through the Vagrant Hills before us…” He spread his hands.
“It makes sense,” said Slate slowly. “A kind of sense. But how would she know we had anything to do with the Clockwork Boys?”
“She could read minds,” said Caliban.
Slate stared up at him. “Really.”
“Yes. She…ah…plucked a memory from me, when we were speaking.” It was hard to tell with his voice so wrecked, but she thought he sounded embarrassed. “And tried to convince me to work with her. I doubt she could have such a great influence on minds at a distance, but if we entered her territory with thoughts of the Clockwork Boys uppermost in our minds…” He trailed off, coughing. Slate tossed him a waterskin.
“But what did she want?” said Slate, frustrated.
Unexpectedly, it was Brenner who spoke up. “Isn’t it obvious, darlin’? The same thing the Captain wanted, and all the rest of us. She wanted to get the Clockwork Boys out of her territory, and she didn’t know a damn thing about them. She’s probably been pullin’ people in ever since they started stomping through the Vagrant Hills, tryin’ to find somebody who knew what they were and where they came from.”
It made sense. It made a lot of sense. Slate exhaled slowly.
Learned Edmund finally looked up.
“There is no doubt,” he said. “This is the journal. And it is in Brother Amadai’s hand, and with his codes.”
Slate raised an eyebrow. “Can you read it?”
“Not here,” said Learned Edmund, gesturing to the wonder engine and the valley and the woods. “I need to work out a key and for that I need paper and ink—more than I have with me—and time and a surface that isn’t a mule or a flat rock!”
“Fair,” said Slate. She thought about trying to forge a document while sitting in the middle of the wonder-engine’s valley and shook her head. “Yes, that’s completely fair. Well. I suppose we’ll need to leave the Vagrant Hills for that.”
“Believe me, darlin’,” said Brenner, with great feeling, “it can’t be soon enough.”
* * *
Slate had two private encounters before they left the valley, both of which were either damned odd or inevitable, she wasn’t sure which.
The first was Caliban, who caught up with her when she was off changing the bandages, which, out of a sense of mercy, she was doing out of sight of Edmund.
She was sitting at the rear of the wonder-engine on what looked like a giant ivory hip bone. She’d spread rags and a waterskin over the hip bone and was trying to re-bandage her raw shoulder wound one-handed. It wasn’t going well.
Who knew it was so hard to patch your own arm? Possibly if I hold this end in my teeth…
Sword-callused hands reached in and held the square of cloth flat. She got it wrapped and he tied off the end, then sat down on the hip bone next to her.
“Thanks,” she said, wondering what he wanted. You better not be thinking of lecturing me about last night’s rescue, buddy… “How’s your leg?”
“Fine,” he said, in that creaking whisper. “It only grazed me. My throat’s in worse shape, but Learned Edmund thinks I’ll get my voice back in a day or two.”
“That’s good.”
“Mmm.”
They sat together in silence for a moment. Swallows skimmed low over the green hillside, picking up insects from the grass.
“I haven’t thanked you,” he whispered finally. “You saved my life.”
Slate choked back a laugh. It had surprisingly sharp edges. “You don’t need to thank me.”
“I’m not sure what else I can do,” he said.
Slate opened her mouth to say something—she wasn’t sure what—and caught a sly gleam in his eye. Was that a joke? Good lord, if he develops a working sense of humor, I’ll start to worry he got possessed again when we weren’t looking.
She had a sarcastic response all thought out, and then she caught a wave of rosemary from him and sneezed violently instead. By the time she stopped sneezing and managed to pry her eyes open again, he already had a handkerchief out and was dangling it in front of her.
“Thangks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“How many of these things do you carry?”
He lifted his chin. “Leave me some small mysteries.”
She snorted.
“Actually, I buy a dozen any time we stop at a town large enough to have a dry goods store.”
“I always lose them.”
“I know. That’s why I keep buying them.”
He helped her gather up the bandages. She started to rise, but he held out his hand.
“Slate…”
“If you apologize again, you’ll probably make a hash of it and then I’ll let Brenner kill you,” she warned him.
He shook his head. “It’s twice now,” he said. “You gave me my death back in that cell. Last night you gave me my life back.”
Slate hunched up one shoulder. He shouldn’t be able to do the voice with his throat like that. Dammit, how is he still doing it?
He stepped back and unsheathed his sword.
Slate looked down the length of the blade and raised her eyebrows.
He drove the point into the earth at her feet and dropped to one knee.
“Oh god, no,” said Slate involuntarily.
It was Caliban at her feet, but the Knight-Champion looking up at her. “The church cast me out. The city locked me away. And I prayed, when I was in the cell,” he said. “I prayed for weeks. And no one came and I knew the Dreaming God had turned his back on me.”
Slate swallowed hard.
“But you saved me,” he said. “And I no longer have a church to serve. So I will swear to you, instead.”
“You can’t. I mean, you really can’t! Dear god! A paladin swearing to a forger?”
“You are my commander,” he said, unruffled, and bowed his head.
Slate sank back down onto the wonder-engine’s hip bone, trapped.
He spoke a few words only, in a form of the language so old that she’d only read it in books. It seemed she had been wrong about half the pronunciations, too.
Am I supposed to say something?
Apparently not, because he sheathed his sword and knelt at her feet and said “I am yours to command.”
Shit. Shit. Shit.
“What does that even mean?”
He looked up at her again and even if he was using the voice, he had a small, sardonic smile.
He knows perfectly well that I don’t know what the hell to do now. Dear god, I think he thinks this is funny.
“I would give my life for yours. Your enemies are my enemies.”
“They already were your enemies!”
“Well,” he admitted, “that’s true. But I’ll be here if you make any new ones.”
Slate gripped her skull in both hands. “Wait, you’re not going to go around trying to defend my honor, are you?”
“…I am a paladin.”
“Yes, but I haven’t got any honor!”
“I’ll try to keep the duels over your virtue to a bare minimum, then.”
This was even worse than she’d imagined. “Um. Uh. Okay. Go take care of the horses, I guess?”
The former Knight-Champion, now, evidently, her Knight-Champion, rose to his feet.
“Caliban?”
He looked over his shoulder. “My liege?”
She winced. “Don’t you dare call me that in front of Brenner!”
“As you command.”
Slate groaned. “Maybe you could have just apologized.”
The paladin’s smile grew just a little.
“I’d only have made a hash of it,” he said, and went to take care of the horses.
* * *
The second encounter was rather different. Slate had wandered out to the tree-line to take care of certain private business, and was wandering back when someone grabbed her from behind a tree.
Slate slapped a hand to her dagger. Shit, shit, it’s the rune, I didn’t hear them coming, shit—
Strong fingers clamped hers to the hilt, keeping her from pulling the blade out, and then Brenner had pulled her tight against him and covered her mouth with his.
The strength of her physical response startled her. Instinct took over for a heartbeat—it had been a very long time, and Brenner, whatever his many faults, was warm and solid and there.
He had been an…interesting lover. Her mother had always said you could tell a lot about a man by the way they conducted intimate business. The ones who thought they were amazing in bed, the ones who were afraid that they weren’t, the ones who expected you to do everything…
Brenner had been none of those. Brenner had made a very careful study of what her body responded to and then he had done it, quite ruthlessly, until Slate could hold nothing back at all. Then he would take his own pleasure, just as ruthlessly.
It had been exhausting and oddly transactional, very much like Brenner. It left her sated and a little bitter afterwards, as if they had used each other.
Her body remembered it differently. Her body felt his palm on the back of her neck and his teeth against her lips and was instantly, shockingly ready.
Right here. Right now. I am alive and I want to feel…something…
Brenner let go of the dagger hilt and slid his arm around her waist, pulling her off balance, just a little, just enough so that she had to either grab at him or step back.
And then, for no particular reason, she remembered Caliban holding her up in the streambed, until she could get her feet under her.
Slate stepped back.
“What was that all about?”
Brenner grinned down at her. “Just sayin’ thank you, darlin’.”
“You could just say it, like normal people.”
“Ah, where’s the fun in that?” He wiped his mouth. “And you were right there for it, too. For a moment, anyway.”
“Yeah, well…” She glanced away. “Old habits die hard.”
“Can’t blame a man for trying. Still dreaming about tall, blond, and guilty? It’s a bad idea. Never date a man prettier than you, it never ends well.”
Slate snorted loudly. “Are you daft? I never come between a man and his self-loathing.”
“You’re a poor liar, darlin’. I’d say stick to figures, but that was a pretty sweet rescue the other night, even if you should look before you leap.”
She dug an elbow into his ribs. “I looked for a good twenty minutes! It’s not my fault that they were all tucked around the edge of the building like that.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m not complaining.” He slung an arm around her shoulders as they walked back down the hillside. “Just want you to know, you ever find yourself getting cold at night…”
“With Grimehug sleeping over my legs like that? I’ll let you know.”
“You do that.”
They were halfway back to camp, where Learned Edmund was trying to do the dishes without Grimehug helping, and Caliban was doing something obscure to the horses’ tack. Brenner began rolling a cigarette. “One other thing…”
“Hmmm?”
“Our paladin.”
“What abou—gaah!” Slate sneezed several times in rapid succession. “About him?”
“You okay, darlin’?”
Slate rubbed at her nose. “Dunno. Allergies, probably. But what about the paladin?”
Brenner shrugged. “Probably nothing. But that demon-rune was awfully interested in him. She was muttering into his ear in god-knows-what kinda language for a good few minutes before she started strangling him.”
“Yeah, I saw some of that. Well, and so?”
He put the cigarette in his mouth. “Like I said, probably nothing.” A match hissed, and he lit the end quickly, then shook it out. “But he didn’t talk in his sleep last night.”
Slate had her sleeve over her nose, but looked up startled.
“You think something happened to his demon?”
Brenner shrugged and flicked the match away. “What do I know about demons? Just thought I’d mention it, darlin’.”
More unsettled than she wanted to admit, Slate kept an eye on Caliban’s distant figure all the way back to camp.
* * *
“Well,” said Learned Edmund, their second night in the wonder-engine’s valley, “I have the proverbial good news and bad news.”
They were sitting around the fire. Grimehug was stretched out full-length on his back, looking like a hearthrug designed by incompetent weavers. Brenner was sharpening his knives. Caliban was oiling his scabbard. Slate was starting to feel a little uncomfortable with all the small deadly noises going on to either side of her, and was wishing she had a harmonica just to drown them out.
She seized on Edmund’s pronouncement instead. “So what’s the good news?”
“I’ve figured out more or less where we are in relation to the rest of the world,” said Learned Edmund.
“And the bad news?”
“There’s a lot of the Vagrant Hills in the way.”
“How did we get that far off track?”
The scholar sat back, rubbed at the back of his neck. “Well…we should never assign to malice what we can assign to our incompetence…”
“Hear, hear,” muttered Brenner.
“But near as I can tell, the Vagrant Hills reached out and grabbed us.”
“Can they do that?”
“Apparently so.”
“There’s another possibility,” said Caliban. His voice was still hoarse, but had most of its timbre back. He had been staring into the fire, but he looked up now. The flames left his face backlit with orange, and woke unpleasant highlights in his eyes.
“Yes?” said Slate.
“The rune demon. I don’t know how much power it had, but it’s possible that it might have warped the landscape. It felt my demon as soon as we entered the Hills. Perhaps it wanted to bring it closer.”
“Might be right, big man,” said Grimehug. “Don’t know where your smuggler’s road is, but clocktaurs went in maybe twenty miles from Anuket City. Only cut a little through the hills when a gnole fell off and rune caught me.”
“And we were nearly sixty miles away from Anuket City,” said Slate. “So—what, the rune-demon managed to make the horses run forty miles in five minutes? Or she pulled the landscape out from under us like a rug? That can’t be possible.”
Caliban shook his head. “I don’t know. Some demons are supposed to be able to twist the world around them. It’s how they levitate and do some of the other tricks. And she was incredibly strong, and for her kind, very subtle.”
“Couldn’t do much about a slit throat, though,” muttered Brenner.
“I don’t know if that’s what happened. I’m just saying that it’s possible she was behind it.”
“The Vagrant Hills are notoriously malleable,” Learned Edmund said. “A demon might not need as much power here, in order to change things. It may even account for why we did not encounter any great oddities once we entered. She may have wanted to bring us as quickly as possible, and smoothed the way.”
They all stared into the fire in silence for a while.
“Still,” said Slate finally, “the demon’s gone, right?”
She was looking at Caliban when she spoke. He nodded, slowly, the fire painting shadows under his skin.
Brenner caught her gaze and jerked his chin a quarter-inch toward the paladin.
Yes. I know.
Slate gnawed on the edge of a fingernail. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. Might even work as a shortcut, if we’re only twenty miles from Anuket City now. Learned Edmund, can you get us to the road?”
He met her eyes. Despite everything, Slate w
as pleased.
If I can get a scholar of the Many-Armed God to at least make eye contact with me, surely the rest of the world can’t help but fall into place.
“Probably,” he said. “I don’t promise it won’t get, um, strange.”
“Stranger than it already has?”
“Oh, yes. In fact, I think the wonder-engine is…hmm….grounding some of the oddities, like a lightning rod. Once we leave here, some very odd things might start to happen. Or nothing at all might happen. There’s no way to tell.”
“Okay. Good to know, I guess.” Slate sneezed, started to dig in her pockets for a handkerchief, and took the one the knight handed her instead. “Okay. We’ll move out tomorrow, and we’ll follow your best guess.”
“Are you sure you’re ready to travel?” asked Caliban, glancing at the rag tied around her shoulder.
“I’ll be fine.”
“We could wait another day—”
“I’ll be fine, Mother. I’ll wear a sweater and I won’t go home with any strange boys.”
Brenner snickered. The paladin’s lips twitched, and he turned back to the fire. “Very well.”
Slate woke up in the middle of the night, at some small sound. She lay awake listening to the people sleeping around her.
The fire popped and crackled. Learned Edmund snored. Grimehug made faint doggy noises where he lay draped across her legs, scuffling at the blankets occasionally with his feet.
From Caliban’s bedroll came no sound at all.
Bad enough when he’s gibbering, but when he’s not…now I really am worried.
Slate stared up at the stars. They crept slowly by overhead, and had no voices either. It was a long time before she got to sleep.
Chapter Seventeen
They were less than two hours from the wonder-engine’s valley when things did indeed start to get strange.
Caliban took point, with Learned Edmund just behind him to call directions. Slate and Brenner followed with the pack mules. It was a cool, pleasant day, blessedly free of insects, and they followed the road for an hour, before reaching a point where Edmund said that they should split off and head southeast.
Clockwork Boys: Book One of the Clocktaur War Page 22
