Barrenlands (The Changespell Saga)

by Doranna Durgin

  No small matter, and no small advantage. Since the Border Wars, traders between the two countries had been forced to circumvent the Barrenlands by swinging east through Loraka— a country isolated by the abrupt and rugged series of ridges between its inner lands and its western border against both Solvany and Therand.

  The mountains restricted travel to that single trade route — from the Therand pass northeast to Lake Everdawn, and then along the Eredon River to the Solvany pass. It was a long trip, and there was a high price for the safety offered by the bevy of Lorakan wizards who patrolled and warded the road.

  But the very difficulty of obtaining Therand products created a demand for them— horses of Shaffron's breeding, or fine, soft woolen cloth— while the Therand-born developed a taste for the salted, north coastal fish of Solvany's fishing fleet. Running goods from one country to the other had become a major source of income for the entrepreneurs of both.

  Ansgare's new route probably cut his travel time in half— an advantage worth the risk of following some youngster's unusual Sight. Ehren fingered the ring on his little finger and thought of Varien's veiled threats, layered on top of one another— the hints that many of the First Level no longer trusted Ehren. That they were looking for a reason to cast him out of the Guard, and maybe into a dungeon.

  The road forward was uncertain. The road back... was rutted and filled with dangers he had not untangled yet, any more than he could untangle the magics ahead.

  He gave the Border Guard a wry crook of his mouth. "It can't be any worse than what waits for me back in Kurtane."

  "Yessir," the guard agreed, patently not understanding in the least. "Can I offer you any provisions to get you started?"

  "That would be welcome," Ehren said, pushing Shaffron's questing lips off his shoulder once more.

  Do better to lay in a supply of luck.

  ~~~~~

  CHAPTER THREE

  Laine looked at Shette and blinked. For a moment, she'd been someone else, a young girl with vacant eyes and the look of old Solvany about her clothes and hairstyle, things he recognized from the few precious books his parents had collected. Her expression had been dull; in her hand she'd held some kind of toy— a wand with brightly colored tassels, meant for a child half her age — and she'd been hitting her leg with it in monotonous rhythm.

  And now he saw Shette again. Sandy-haired, light brown eyes, and built like their mother. Not very tall. Definitely not the lithe look she pined for, but instead sturdy and just a little bit broad despite the lack of excess flesh on her frame. And, at this moment, definitely annoyed.

  "What're you staring at?" she demanded, squatting by the fire to reposition the heavy iron fry pan over the hottest coals. Despite the fact that she was the daughter of a beef cattle farmer from west-most Loraka, she had a ribbon woven into the complicated plaits that were all the rage among the Solvany upper class.

  "Not your hair," he told her, knowing that was her suspicion, and then winced inwardly— that'd teach him to get caught off guard.

  She gave him a mighty scowl. "You mean you think it's so awful you can't even bear to look at it?"

  "It's not awful," he said lamely, because, in truth, it was too delicate and fanciful to compliment her strong features, and Sevita, one of the whores who'd been coaxing Shette into friendship, should have known better. "It's..." and then that other girl was back, sitting by a window…looking out without seeing as she slowly, deliberately, brought her head into contact with the brightly painted stone wall of a child's nursery. Again. And again. A smirch of blood stained the paint. Behind her, there was some sort of crest, something he didn't recognize.

  "What?" Shette said.

  He shook his head and stood, although the fried ham was almost cooked, and the sliced potatoes he'd been watching on his side of the fire would surely burn without attention. He felt, suddenly, the need to get away from her, lest she turn into that other girl yet again.

  "You're really getting strange," Shette muttered as he walked away from their fire and down along the string of wagons and fires on the road. Only half a day from the junction with the main trade road and they'd stopped early for Bessney's loose wagon wheel. Plenty of light remained to walk ahead on the road— but not until he told Ansgare he was going out. And Ansgare usually ate with Machara and her sword company of two, whose small wagon brought up the rear of the caravan.

  Halfway there he paused at Sevita and Dajania's colorful, enclosed wagon. They weren't immediately to be seen. Entertaining, probably, although they supplemented that profession by treating the minor ailments among the merchants. Well, maybe it was none of his business if they encouraged Shette to try out fancy styles her life would never have a need for. He was turning away when Dajania popped around the end of the wagon and said, "Laine!" in a delighted voice. He was not surprised to see her hair done up like Shette's

  "You two don't do her any favors, you know," he said.

  Her mouth pursed in an exaggerated pout. Unlike Sevita, who went light on the powders and face paint, Dajania kept a bold appearance. Plump in all the right places, cheerfully inoffensive but not taking any slight without an instant response, Dajania co-owned the wagon she and Sevita worked out of— although Sevita's quiet voice always seemed to have the last say. Dajania trailed her hand along the edge of the wagon and sauntered out to him, hips a-sway.

  "She's a girl, Laine," Dajania said. She stopped directly in front of him and draped her arms over his shoulders without invitation. "Girl's got to play with her hair and face. And she's a lot more grown up than you think she is."

  Dajania was not the person he wanted to hear that from.

  She grinned slyly, reading it on his ever revealing face. "Poor dearie," she said. "Do we make you worry? And here we, of all people, should be giving you other things to think about." She pulled his head down and kissed him.

  And kissed him.

  "Dajania," he said, against her lips, holding his arms out to the side in supplication of sorts. "Mmph. Dajania..." Oh, what the Hells. He let his hands fall on her soft, ample hips and kissed her back. After a moment she came down off her tiptoes and pulled back from him.

  "See?" she said. "You see what you're missing? And that was free. It gets better when you pay for it, dear."

  Laine found himself unable to think clearly right that moment. "Umm," he said. "Right. Um. Have you seen Ansgare?"

  She was laughing, and taking no pains to hide it. "He's right where he always is, with Machara and her two. But he'll be 'round later this evening— why don't you stay and wait a while? I'll make sure you don't get bored."

  Laine wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. "Not tonight, Dajania," he said as he stepped back from her, stumbling a little.

  Another pout, but there was still amusement in her amber eyes. "I'll get you in that wagon yet, Laine-dear. And I'll enjoy the look on that handsome face when I do."

  Not while Shette is in this caravan, Laine told himself quite fiercely. The first year or so with the caravan, Laine had been faithful to his sweetheart at home. She'd gotten tired of his traveling ways and married someone else this spring— but by then the game between Laine and the whores was set, and he figured he enjoyed it as much as he would any single hour in their bed. But sometimes...

  Sometimes they came very close to winning.

  Fortunately, his brain was back in place by the time he made it down to Ansgare, another eleven wagons along. Biggest train yet— and not likely to get any bigger, no matter how the profits beckoned Ansgare. Not with the magics going unpredictable and— as recent experience had shown— more... focused. He wouldn't want to guarantee the safety of anyone at the back of a lengthy caravan, not anymore.

  It made him wonder if their very presence here wasn't stirring something up.

  "Sit and have something to eat," Machara told him, when he'd arrived and said nothing after several minutes. Too lost in thought, even if it was no longer over Dajania's obvious skills.

  H
e shook his head. "Shette's got something going up front," he told her, and let Ansgare know he'd be walking ahead a way, scouting for spells in tomorrow's path. "Not that it'll mean we're safe in the morning," he added. "Not the way things have been going. But I'll sleep better all the same."

  "Go ahead, son," Ansgare grunted around a mouthful of fresh meat— a mountain hare the tin merchant's young son had brought down with sling and stone and presented to the caravan leader. "Just don't go so far a good yell won't bring someone running."

  "No fear of that." He wasn't even wearing his sword. "I leave the fighting to those who do it best."

  "Oh, you did well enough," Machara drawled. Short-cropped red hair, pale blue eyes, and generously freckled skin went far to hide the steel and professional skill that was Machara. Ansgare— a wiry man whose fencing skill lay in words and bargains— was smitten with her, for all that she was a decade his younger. If Machara had thoughts on the matter, she kept them to herself— and Ansgar thought no one knew. "That was quite a pretty kill you made, that monster-that-wasn't-where-he-was."

  He sketched her a noble bow. "Kind Machara. Just don't stop listening for that yell."

  She raised her meat-tipped knife in acknowledgement, and he grinned back. But he thought, as he walked back along the line of wagons, that he would pick up his sword before he left Shette again.

  He stopped long enough for some of the ham and potatoes— Shette had managed to keep them from burning despite his precipitous exit— but not any longer. "I'm going to walk on a ways," he told her, sticking his dish in a bucket of water to soak a while. Strapping his sword belt on in an act that was finally beginning to feel natural, he headed out.

  Shette's voice followed him. "I want to come, too."

  Spike snorted loudly, as though in emphatic agreement.

  "Shette..." he started, and fortunately stopped before saying, It's you I'm trying to get away from tonight— because no matter what he really meant, he'd never explain his way out of that one. But over his quick meal, that vacant-eyed girl had returned yet again, replacing Shette's presence as she allowed her limp limbs to be dressed by kind hands, and he didn't want to see it again.

  This sort of thing had never happened to him before. It had to be the vestiges of some strange spell, maybe one that had eroded into something other than its original form. In any case, it was distracting, and... disturbing.

  "Shette," he said again, and firmly this time, "it's your turn to do the dishes." That, at least, was true. And by the angry mumbling behind him, she knew it as well.

  Laine stepped out onto the path ahead. It was clearer here, for it wandered through a thick grove of sumac. The first year of the caravan, Laine and Ansgare had spent no small amount of time and effort cutting through it, and every time they came this way they had to take hand axes to the stubborn, quick-growing saplings. But the sumac soon gave way to grassy, scrubby rock— and not long after that, the path intersected the main Trade Road just shy of the Solvany border.

  He'd nearly reached the end of the sumac grove when his eyes got that strange, hard-to-focus feeling. He eased to a stop, tipping his head; there was a sharp feeling to this spot. Laine rubbed his arm appreciatively; the skin was still pinkly shiny from the creature at the last spell with this feeling to it. There was a certain subtle clarity to the feel of magic at both places— a feel he'd not encountered in the previous two years of travel.

  Feeling just a little silly, he drew his sword. Ordinary sumacs stood before him, the tallest of which was perhaps twice his height, dripping elongated spears of leaves and a few dried, leftover berry bunches from the previous fall's seedfest. And then...

  Not.

  Darkly reaching branches suddenly writhed before him, just out of reach— stretching, creaking— and by the Hells, they wanted him, grasped for him, the stiff wood turned to flexible tentacles and oozing... something.

  Laine took a step back, his face scrunched in revulsion. An odor drifted out to him, a thick, gagging smell; he brought the back of his hand up to cover his nose and mouth. Something flittered across his vision, darting among the trees.

  He didn't think it was a bird.

  Laine stumbled back a few steps— and then a few more— before he dared to turn around and trot away. He moved up the hill a few feet and sat, only then discovering his sword was still in his hand. He laid it on the hill, rescued it when it started to slide, and found a bit of grass hummock against which to rest the forte of the blade, his hand clumsy with the shock of what he'd found. With the implications of it.

  Think, Laine. Think. Tomorrow we've got to get a caravan through here.

  Or probably not.

  Until this trip, the spells had been limited to one or two per caravan— spells worn from years and miles of wandering the mountain currents. And they weren't site-specific; they might trigger nasty, unworldly creatures, or they might bring down blindness upon all within the influence of the spell, or they might make everyone too heavy to move. They rarely had a direct effect on the environment.

  Rarely isn't the same as never.

  But never, he had to admit, had the spells felt so... anchored.

  In the distance, a loud snort. Spike, Laine thought, distracted. But then the noise repeated, and it held the edge of alarm. Scrambling to his feet, Laine realized that the mountains had twisted the sound on him, and that it had come from the sumacs. Someone else on their road, coming from the other side? Who would dare it, without a guide?

  The shout of alarm he heard was human, and he didn't hesitate any longer. He scooped up his sword and ran for the sumacs. And this time, when he reached the spell, he didn't have to make any effort to see it. It was fully triggered— and there were figures within the odiferous, magicked sumac, thrashing against the twining limbs that reached for them, ducking the swirl and loop of a darting, airborne horde of... Laine squinted. Of... something really ugly with teeth and claws.

  He set his jaw and ran into the dripping trees, heading for the man and his two horses. His sword ran interference, and he ducked and slashed, creating enough noise so the man heard him coming and froze an instant, focused sharply on Laine. Then the heavy-boned horse beside him screamed a challenge— a branch had draped over his poll and oozed down his neck, spiraling a tendril around the rein that rested there— and the man was in motion again, leaving Laine with the impression of economical deadliness.

  "Let me help!" Laine yelled over the huff-huff-grunt of the lighter horse; it reared, kicking its hind legs out behind before its front legs touched back to the ground. Something grabbed his ankle— Hells, were the roots doing it too?— and Laine hesitated just long enough to slash it away; when he straightened he had to duck a flurry of leathery wings and grasping talons. But he was still moving, and as he reached the besieged trio, the man said, "Take him!" and flung the big horse's rein at Laine, pausing at the last minute to shout, "It's safe!"

  Laine was about to shout, "No it's not," as if that hadn't been obvious, harried as they were by tree and creature, when the big dark horse snaked his neck forward and snapped, lips peeled back on fierce teeth. Laine back-pedaled furiously, smacking into a tree and then reflexively leaping forward out of its unnatural grasp.

  "He's safe, dammit!" the man said, and smacked the horse's haunches as it passed him, still on its way to Laine. The horse pinned his ears, shaking his head in threat— but when he snapped again, it was at the creature flapping above him.

  Laine reclaimed the rein he'd dropped and turned for the edge of the sumac, hauling the horse for only the first few steps. As soon as the beast realized he was heading for safety, he spurted into a powerful pounding trot, dragging Laine the last thirty feet. The sumac clung to Laine, ripping his shirt— a noise which only spurred the horse on. Once on a clear path, the horse snorted loudly half a dozen times, and when Laine would have turned to check on the animal's companions, he discovered the horse had other ideas. He scrambled to stay on his feet as the lead rope jerked him onward, and was u
nable to stop the horse until the man's "Ricasso, whoa!" rang through the air from behind.

  It seemed, then, that they'd all made it out. But Laine suddenly felt like he was getting into something just as dangerous.

  ~~~~~

  The big dark horse jigged beside Laine on the way back to camp, and Laine kept an ever-wary eye on it as they finally approached the wagons— he and the oddly familiar man from the sumacs. His own little wagon seemed innocuously out of place compared to the horror they had just run through. It sat at the head of the caravan, square and solid, a sturdy four-wheeled box with a springed seat up front; deep compartments lining the outside edges held provisions and equipment and still left room for passengers or hay in the center. All very homey looking, and far too calm to be perched this genteel distance away from the hellish sumacs.

  This particular camping spot offered an unusually wide section of the narrow valley. There was even room to picket Spike and Clang between the wagon and the mountain rising abruptly to the west of the trail. The couple dozen merchants and wagons strung out in a line behind his own were barely visible along the curve of the trail; only the everyday supper time noise and clatter gave them away.

  Shette was nowhere to be seen. Spike's head jerked up from the hay Laine had spread out for him, his ears perked at full forward. He gave a challenging snort loud enough to pop Laine's ears; there was a clatter from behind the wagon— Shette, no doubt, startled by the noise. That'd put her in fine fettle.

  In a moment she came out from behind the wagon, their half-empty laundry bag still in her hands— but her purposeful strides immediately faltered. Laine didn't think he'd ever seen that stunned look on her face before.

  He rather enjoyed it.

  It was easy to put himself in her place, to see himself leading the big, handsome horse— to see the stranger behind, leading that spirited, high-crested chestnut with its flaxen mane and tail. He was taller than Laine, and despite the bulk of the leather, metal-studded brigandine he wore, it was clear he was broad-shouldered, lean-hipped, and long-legged. His boots were faced with metal greaves, and his strides long and self-assured.