‘Careless.’
‘Well, let’s just say a little adventure down in Cordence went a bit wrong. Thing is, I need a replacement by the end of the day. Can you do it?’
‘I can do it, Herin. But it will be a day-crafted seax, not a week crafted one like the last.’
‘A day-crafted one by you is still as good as a week-crafted one from anyone else. I can pay you double. Our little adventure in Cordence wasn’t entirely a loss, though we seem to have somewhat less than I thought we might.’
‘You can pay me normal rates. I’ll enjoy doing it. Might well be the last one I make here.’
‘Last one? Are you serious?’
‘Yeah, I think so. Time for me to move on. When I first came to Magnia I was recruited personally by Prince Edric. The south was pretty desperate at that point, and I was needed to ensure that the army was at least properly armed. He turned things around and they fought themselves to a draw and a sort of peace. I’ve got nothing against Edgar, but he’ll never appreciate me in the same way as his father. For him, I’ve always been here; he’s known no different. Anyway, I’m a weapons-maker, Herin, and there’s no great call for it here anymore. But there’s plenty of demand for it elsewhere. I’ve had offers.’
‘I’m not surprised you’ve had offers to go elsewhere. And I’m sure you’d get paid a lot more, too.’
‘That’s right and money’s important. It’s important to everyone, of course. But when you’re a Krykker living with humans you really need it. No real family, no real ties. Someone decides they don’t like you around anymore, you have to be able to leave everything behind, fast. I know, it’s happened to me more than once.’
Rabigar looked around at his forge.
‘Plus, the boy, Ulf. Young man, I should say. He’s more than ready to take this place over now. He’s starting a family, needs the money. The timing’s right.’
Herin looked thoughtful. ‘Where will you go? Empire?’
‘I’ve had offers. The agents of Duke Emeric have come calling.’
‘I bet they have. Plenty of soldiers to arm in Barissia.’
‘I don’t know, though. Sentimental, you might think. But I like to think I’m arming the good men.’
Herin shrugged. ‘The good men. In my experience the good men are the ones asking for their plough to be fixed, not the ones asking for a hundred spears. But I’m not pretending to be the best person to judge. I’m just thinking, Rabigar. You’re handy with a weapon yourself. I can tell.’
‘Of course. When I was younger I was as fearsome as they come.’
‘Then come with us. Edgar is offering a reward to all who take part. Looks like we’re heading towards the Empire. You could stay there, or move on somewhere else if it doesn’t feel right.’
Rabigar puffed his cheeks out. Tomorrow. After all the years working in this forge, just to up and leave tomorrow, leave it all behind? That would be a hasty decision. But why did it sound so tempting?
‘I don’t know, Herin. You haven’t given me much warning.’
‘I know, I haven’t. Not for the sword, either. Tell you what, Rabigar. Make me one last weapon. And while you’re making it, think it over. Sleep on it, if I’ve left you any time for sleep. When I come to collect it first thing in the morning, you can leave with me, or not. How does that sound?’
Rabigar nodded, pursing his lips as he thought through the offer. ‘I’ll think on it, Herin. Thanks for the offer. I’ll think on it and let you know tomorrow.’
VI
A Miracle
So far, so good, considered Belwynn.
As Gyrmund had claimed, it hadn’t taken long to pick up the trail again, and he had the party travelling at a pace that ate up the miles without exhausting the horses. These were roads and paths familiar not only to Gyrmund, but to Belwynn, Soren and Clarin also, and they felt confident that they would make ground on the Brasingians, who would have been less familiar with the territory.
This part of Magnia was prime arable farming land, and they passed through one well-organised village after another, well-tended fields that promised a good harvest. All the farming folk of Magnia followed the same seasonal routine. Belwynn knew it well. Their father had owned a number of estates, and Soren still had one of them, a village called Beckford. Belwynn had lived there by herself for a year and, without much else to do, had got involved in the day-to-day running of the estate: organising the labour, maintaining and upgrading the equipment, trying to improve yields. This time of year, early summer, was hay-making season, a big job which would require the whole village. The crop fields just had to be looked after and weeded until harvest time in late summer.
When they passed anyone, on the roads or in a village, one of them would offer a quick greeting and ask what they knew of the Brasingians who had passed through. Many had seen them, and the collective opinion of South Magnia appeared to be that they were about five hours ahead.
As for the two priests, they didn’t say a word, to each other or to anyone else. Belwynn was used to riding, but she noticed that Elana, in particular, was already showing signs of being saddle-sore. The priestess did not complain, however, and seemed eager to keep up the pace of the pursuit.
As they progressed, they came upon the first patches of woodland which would thicken and become the Wilderness.
The group stopped only once during the day to rest, but as the daylight began to fade, Soren called a halt to the chase.
‘We have to give Herin a chance to catch up to us. There is little point in risking one of the horses in this light. It will give us a bit of time to make a decent camp-site.’
‘Very well,’ said Gyrmund, ‘let me pick out a good spot, then.’
As everyone began to make a camp a few metres from the road, Belwynn walked over to speak to Gyrmund, who was building a shelter for the night while the others fetched firewood and other materials.
‘How far away do you think we are?’
‘About five hours still. They’re travelling just as fast as we are; they’re not stupid. As soon as they’ve left Magnia they’ll begin to feel safe.’
‘Do you think we can catch them up?’
‘That depends,’ he said with a grunt, shoving a log up against the tree trunk he had picked out for the camp. ‘They’re not making their route obvious; they could be heading to Cordence or the Wilderness. We’ll find that out in the morning. I think Salvinus will choose the Wilderness. A large force wouldn’t be able to follow them there without stirring up the vossi. He could be relying on that to avoid an army coming after them.’
‘The vossi. I’ve never seen one. Don’t wish to, either.’
‘I’ve had a few encounters,’ said Gyrmund, now stacking branches against one side of the log to make a walled shelter. Belwynn began to help. ‘They’re strange. Not what you might expect. Usually, they don’t attack unless they feel threatened. But if they do, it’s an all-out attack that doesn’t stop. With a group our size, they’re likely to just leave us alone.’
‘That makes me feel a bit better. I was trying to think from their perspective. Whoever planned this, that is. If they choose to go to Cordence, there’s always the possibility that the Cordentines will interfere on the side of Edgar somehow. If they get through the Wilderness, they’re home.’
‘True. I hope you’re right.’
‘Why? We don’t want to go into the Wilderness, do we?’
‘Yes, we do. If they choose Cordence, we’re still five hours behind them. If they choose the Wilderness I can catch them up.’
‘You’re pretty sure of yourself.’
Gyrmund shrugged, a hint of a smile on his face. ‘I’ve been through the Wilderness a number of times. Not many other people have. If one of those Brasingians knows the place too, fair enough. But it’s not very likely.’
‘If no-one else would want to go in there, why have you?’
‘To test myself,’ he said, his half-smile turning into a grin.
‘To test yourself,’ she repeated sarcastically. ‘What kind of a crazy person would do that?’
He laughed, holding out his hand.
‘Gyrmund. Pleased to meet you.’
Belwynn shook hands, shaking her head as she did.
Elana and Dirk came back to the camp with an armful of sticks each, which they dropped down by the proposed site of the fire. Following behind came Soren, who had collected some stones for the fire pit.
‘Gyrmund reckons that we’re about five hours behind,’ Belwynn explained to the others. ‘If we enter the Wilderness tomorrow morning Herin won’t be able to catch us up.’
‘He’ll catch up,’ answered Clarin, barging into camp with a clump of green branches he had chopped off. When ready, he would add them to Gyrmund’s structure to create a bit of waterproofing and insulation. The fact that Clarin never seemed to experience anxiety of any kind annoyed Belwynn, who often found herself worrying twice as hard about things in order to make up for it.
‘Well, he’s your brother,’ she said.
Clarin just chuckled. As he and Gyrmund finished off the shelter, the others gathered round to get the fire ready.
‘So... Dirk. Wulfgar said that you were from the Empire—whereabouts, exactly?’ asked Belwynn, trying to start a conversation.
‘I’m from Barissia. A town called Magen, near Coldeberg.’
‘What made you come to Magnia and join the Temple of Toric?’ probed Belwynn.
‘Serving Toric is the highest honour one can have,’ Dirk replied, jutting his chin out somewhat.
Belwynn noticed Elana frowning at that comment, but the priestess said nothing.
‘I am under His direction,’ Dirk continued. ‘He has chosen me to return the Dagger to its rightful place.’
It wasn’t really a satisfactory explanation, as far as Belwynn was concerned, and she sensed that Dirk wasn’t too comfortable with the questioning. Whether he had something to hide or whether he was a private person, it wasn’t easy to say. She supposed that being a Brasingian may not have made him too popular back at the Temple, and he was perhaps a bit nervous on that score.
‘How about you, Elana? Where are you from?’
‘Kirtsea. It’s a fishing village, just north of the border in North Magnia.’
Belwynn nodded. ‘I’ve heard of it, never been there. Nice place?’
‘It’s beautiful.’
‘Do you have family there?’
‘Yes. I’ve had to give up a lot to serve Madria. I hope that one day I can go back.’
Another cryptic response, thought Belwynn. Maybe that’s just priests.
‘Where is your home?’ asked Elana.
Belwynn thought about it. Our home?
‘Soren owns an estate called Beckford, right in the middle of South Magnia.’
‘We both own it,’ said Soren.
‘By Magnian law, he owns it,’ she said to Elana. ‘Still, I’ve certainly spent more time there than him. Our father was a nobleman with lands all over Magnia once. But Beckford is all that’s left of them.’
‘What happened?’ asked the priestess.
Belwynn sighed. She looked at Soren, who shrugged his acceptance.
‘Our mother was killed when we were ten. A raid from North Magnia on one of our houses. My father was away, fighting in the war.’
Belwynn’s voice faltered a little. She still got emotional telling the story.
‘The village had already been raided once, and my mother went back to help the people. She’d brought them seeds, animals, and equipment so they could start up again and feed themselves. But the raiders came back. They killed everyone, took everything and left. They could have got a ransom for my mother. My father would have paid anything, but they just killed her. He never recovered. When the war ended he just drank. He got into debt and sold off half his lands and kept on drinking. He died five years after our mother. We sold off the rest of his lands to pay off his debts, but he had more debts than he did property by then. Prince Edric had to help us. He was our uncle, you see. He let us keep Beckford. So, anyway, that’s our home now, I guess. I lived there for a year. Soren’s never been back. Not much of a home, really.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Elana. ‘It must have been difficult for you to lose your parents like that.’
‘It was, I guess. But we weren’t alone. We’ve always had each other.’
Gyrmund and Clarin came to join them.
‘Well,’ Belwynn said, deciding to change the subject, ‘things are likely to heat up tomorrow, especially if we’re heading for the Wilderness. Gyrmund, I don’t imagine that everyone here is entirely familiar with it. Perhaps you should tell us what we’re letting ourselves in for.’
‘The Wilderness is dense. If that is where the Brasingians have gone, we’ll have to leave our horses behind at some point. There are tracks, but unless you know what you’re looking for, it’s easy to get lost. Then you’ve got the inhabitants. There are the vossi, primitive but potentially very aggressive. If they think we’re a threat to their territory, they will come after us and they won’t give up until we’re all dead. There are humans living there as well, but not in big numbers and unlikely to take us on, especially if your friends arrive. Outlaws are able to make a life for themselves on the edges of the forest. If you want to survive in there, you’ve got to be fit, quick, and silent.’
‘What do the vossi look like?’ asked Elana.
‘About five feet tall. Their skin is brown and hard, tough like leather. They’re fast and persistent. Hopefully we won’t meet any of them at all, but...’ Gyrmund let his sentence hang there, emphasising that, once they entered the Wilderness, the course of events would be out of their control.
‘Sounds fun,’ suggested Clarin.
It didn’t look like anyone agreed with the big warrior, but equally no-one looked like they wanted to argue the point.
‘Well,’ said Soren, ‘we’d better try to get some rest. Might be the last night we get a peaceful sleep for some time.’
‘I’ll take first watch tonight,’ added Clarin. ‘Always pays to play safe. Now, come on, Gyrmund, are you gonna get this fire lit? I’m starving.’
It had been a mild summer’s night, and Belwynn hadn’t been asked to keep watch, but she still felt as though she hadn’t slept. Gyrmund got them all up at a ridiculously early hour and got them moving again at the crack of dawn, despite Belwynn’s complaints that they had to wait for Herin and the others anyway. Soren left a written message for Herin under a rock at the camp site, explaining the route they were likely to take. Clarin shook his head at the scrawly lines he left on the paper, as if the purpose of reading and writing was beyond him, which perhaps it was.
Clarin’s alternative form of communication was to cut a slash into the bark of the tree they had slept under. To Belwynn, this could have meant anything or nothing, but the big man nodded to himself with satisfaction, as if he had solved some weighty problem.
They rode all morning, eating while on the move, stopping once only for a toilet break. The roads of Magnia became tracks on which they had to ride single file. The Magnian villages which they had passed so regularly yesterday became less frequent as the rich farmland increasingly gave way to woodland. Settlements became smaller, isolated hamlets which had been cut out of the forest, or the odd wooden shack that blended into the trees from which it had been built. The people here were warier, alarmed at a second group of riders passing through so soon after the Brasingian soldiers. But they were communicative enough to say in which direction they had gone, and that was all that mattered.
Belwynn’s excitement from yesterday had not reappe
ared today, and she slumped in her saddle, trying to keep her eyes open. No-one else seemed to be in the mood for talking either; Gyrmund was focused on the terrain ahead, and the two priests were trailing behind, their thoughts concealed.
In the end, just to help her stay awake, she asked Clarin to recount one of his war stories. It did little good, since Clarin tended to dwell on marches and formations and long, involved anecdotes about people she’d never met, his voice becoming a background drone which threatened to send her to sleep at least as much as complete silence would have done.
By mid-afternoon they were in the no-man’s land between the state of Magnia and the lawless Wilderness. Officials could draw lines on maps, subdividing the world into neat parcels, but there was no neat border here. This was territory over which Prince Edgar couldn’t offer his protection, and was therefore a land of bandits and outlaws.
Gyrmund had stopped to gather them together.
‘I’ve detoured a bit from the route they took. In the next clearing is effectively the last outpost of civilisation around here: Hallaf’s Home. Hallaf and his extended family are all outlaws, but he can be reasoned with if he can see a profit to be made. This is the last place we can leave the horses in safety, other than just abandoning them in the Wilderness, which is presumably what Salvinus has done.’
Belwynn patted her horse.
‘Well, there’s no way we’re doing that. But won’t that give them an edge in terms of speed?’
‘Not really. Either way, we’re walking from here on in. The Wilderness is rocky and treacherous; a horse will break a leg before too long in there, and that causes unwanted attention.’
‘Let me handle the negotiations,’ said Soren. ‘Clarin, just look scary and don’t speak.’
‘Righto, captain.’
They guided their horses downhill through the trees until they saw the roofs of Hallaf’s Home below them.
Toric's Dagger: Book One of The Weapon Takers Saga Page 7
