Dragonfire

by Charles Jackson

  With her own bag on her back, she bent carefully and collected one of their backpacks; a crude design of stitched canvas with toggles to hold the top flap. The actual pack itself wasn’t large but its outside was sewn with a number of pouches and loops that held two leather-wrapped glass canteens, two smallish daggers and several other small implements she couldn’t identify. Strapped beneath, it also carried the bedroll she’d slept on the previous night, leading her to presume that it was Godfrey’s gear she’d picked up.

  With a few grunts and wheezes to go with her aching muscles, she lugged it outside and around to the same side of the barn the others had disappeared to. There Nev found them to indeed be in the process of hitching up a wagon to the brown mare. The wagon itself was a small, wooden-sided design no more than two or three metres long, with iron ribs rising in loops above the cargo bed supporting a tough, canvas cover as shelter against the weather.

  Leaving the pair to their work, she headed straight for the rear of the vehicle and stood on tip-toes to peer inside over the high backboard. One or two large crates inside lay up toward the front, and there was an open, empty space at the rear that seemed perfect for the luggage. Reaching up with both hands, she awkwardly lowered the pack inside, placing it carefully and resting it against the rear of the wagon. She then shrugged off her own bag and also lowered that in beside the rucksack. With a single stretch, Nev then turned and went straight back to collect the other backpack and a few other loose bits and pieces stacked with it.

  They’d finished by the time she’d come back with the second load, and Lester was already seated up in the driver’s position, feet propped against the buckboard as Godfrey mounted his own horse around and cantered around to join them.

  “All set…?” He asked as Lester loaded his crossbow and placed it down on the floor beneath his feet, out of sight but well within reach if needed.

  “Right enough, Westy,” he replied with a grin. Garry’s left us supplies and a barrel o’ water, so we’ll not starve at least. “Which way you lookin’ to take…?”

  “My first thought was to take the northern road, through Tarwin and on through Stony Waters to Norfoster, but we’ve lost a lot of daylight already…” He shrugged. “I don’t want to push the mare too hard with the wagon and we’ve no time to spare, so it’ll have to be due east to Verlock and Ponder Creek, then on to Norfoster through Fishwaters instead. Straight run through to Welshport after that either way.”

  “First leg…?”

  “Midwin at least, but I’d prefer Fishwaters before we rest: shorter run home after that and the further we can get before break, maybe the longer break we can take. In you get, lass… there’s no room back here on a long ride, and you’ll be more comfortable in the wagon anyway.”

  “There’s the bedrolls to sit on if you’ve a need,” Lester offered helpfully, grinning with less unpleasantness than usual, “or you can sit up here with me if you prefer… promise I won’t bite…” he added, spoiling the friendly mood just a little.

  “There was that old woman in Mowl…” Godfrey pointed out, but she was starting to pick the glint in his eye now when he was teasing “…although, she did mostly deserve it…” he finished, giving a wink to make certain she caught the joke.

  “Last time I do that, n’ all… I think she gave me gum rot!”

  “In the back, I think…” Nev decided, suppressing a smile and moving to the rear of the wagon as the others chuckled loudly.

  “Prob’ly best…” Lester agreed as she tested the strength of the backboard, then hoisted herself up and over in a reasonably fluid movement that surprised both of the others. “You’d have to have yer mask on anyways if you was sittin’ up ‘ere with me, and I’d reckon that wouldn’t be much fun. Sing out if you need to stop for a leak or anythin’… no need to be shy…”

  “Charming…” Nev muttered drily, deciding that a bedroll was an excellent idea and unrolling the same one she’d slept on, spreading it across the width of the rear cargo area and plonking herself down on top of it with her back against one side.

  “Alright, Toadface… let’s be off…” And with that, Godfrey kicked his heels into the side of his mount and took off at a trot as Lester flipped the reins into the mare’s backside, giving it a signal to also move off at a slower pace.

  Their journey proved completely uneventful for the first few hours, with little sound other than birdsong, the wind and the steady rumble of the wheels along rutted dirt tracks as they headed east. The sky had cleared by that time, and Lester wore a wide-brimmed felt hat to keep the sun out of his eyes as he sat at the buckboard, placidly guiding the mare on and passing the occasional comment as to how lucky they were to have a sunny day… the first one in some time, judging by frequency of his observations. Godfrey would appear briefly every now and then, reining in his mount beside the wagon and exchanging the occasional detail with Lester regarding the road ahead and the lay of the land in general. Most of the time, however, he was away scouting their path and nowhere to be seen.

  The dirt tracks they’d been travelling along had been quite rough and bumpy to begin with but had smoothed out after a few hours. Trees lined the southern side of the road, and apart from the very rare appearance of the occasional farmhouse there’d been little sign of life other than sheep and dairy cattle roaming about the open fields on either side. Although her view of the outside world was severely limited from inside the covered wagon, Nev would nevertheless have thought they’d at least have seen a few other travellers or farmers during the course of two or three hours’ travel.

  Nev had quickly found the rear of the wagon to be quite boring. She was running low on phone battery, which meant no listening to music, and browsing wasn’t going to happen anyway because of that whole ‘no network’ thing, so with nothing else to do she decided to move further forward, finding a seat on a small crate positioned just behind the driver. With the sun streaming brightly down on that warm, spring day, she was now at least able to set up the power-bank her father had given her for her birthday, placing it on the front seat beside Lester and connecting it to her phone to recharge while it at the same time soaked up solar energy to recharge its own internal battery.

  “Is that thing safe?” Lester asked warily, trying not to look nervous as he stared down at the electronic devices beside him but clearly having a difficult time of it.

  “Perfectly safe… so long as you don’t touch them…” she replied, grinning slyly when he wasn’t looking.

  “And if you do touch ‘em?”

  “Hmmph…” she shrugged simply. “How badly do you need two hands?”

  “What…?” Lester blurted quickly, reacting before he could catch himself and before he caught the wry smile on her face. “Oooh, you cheeky cow…!” He grinned in return, not at all offended. “You ‘ad me there…!”

  “I’m a cow now, am I?” Nev asked with a chuckle and a shrug. “Well I guess that’s a step up from being called a witch. They won’t hurt anyone…” she reassured with a nod toward the power-bank and phone. “They run on something called electricity and my phone – the one with the pictures on the front – is running out. The other one can use the power of the sun to get its energy back…”

  “Oh, aye…?” Lester asked with a smirk and a raised eyebrow. “And which bit ‘o that don’t sound like witchcraft?”

  “Would you rather I turned you into a toad?”

  “Happy to go without, thanks all the same… Godfrey would probably reckon someone’s already done it anyway…” he pointed out with a chuckle of his own.

  “When we were leaving the farm…” She began, recalling something she’d heard earlier “…you said something about me needing to wear a mask if I were riding up front with you?”

  “Only ‘cause of the Keepsake Law, ‘course… nuthin’ personal…”

  “The ‘Keepsake Law’…?”

  “You’ve not heard o’ the Keepsake Law?” Lester asked blankly, the concept beyond him.

>   “Should I have?”

  “Well… everyone has…!” He shot back immediately, seeming almost shocked. “It’s one o’ the biggest laws in the Book o’ The Shard: no woman or girl of any age shall travel the open road or walk beyond the walls of her village without the wearin’ of a closed hood or visard, lest they be travelling by walled wagon wi’ out windows.”

  The concept was so archaic and ludicrous to Nev that it took a few seconds before the fact that he wasn’t kidding sunk home.

  “You can’t be serious…!”

  “Do I look like I’m foolin’…?”

  “What on earth for…?”

  “Well… the Keepsakes, o’ course…” he stated simply, as if she were mad to have even asked. “You sees one of ‘em, you’re a witch for sure… dead certain.”

  “Keepsakes…? What are they…?”

  “Well…” he blustered for a moment, taking on the high-pitched air of a young man knowing all there was to know about a particular subject without actually having ever needed to explain it. “They’re… they’re... Keepsakes…!” It was a question no one in The Osterlands would ask, and as such there’d never been a need for an answer. “No one really knows what they look like – no man does, anyway – and they turn up anywhere… on the side of the road… in the middle of a field… sometimes they wash up on a beach somewhere…” He shuddered visibly. “They’re bad omens, them, and its only witches can see ‘em… that’s mostly how y’ tell someone’s a witch in the first place.”

  “So…” Nev began slowly, trying to get her head around the whole thing as she went over what he’d just said in her mind. “…Only witches can see these… Keepsakes…?”

  “Yup…”

  “Then why is it only women need to be blindfolded…?”

  “‘Cause they’s the only ones that can see ‘em…!” Lester shot back, staring directly ahead, and she could near the hint of frustration in his tone now.

  “Why…?”

  “Because… they’re… witches…!” He spelled out slowly, making it as simple as he could manage. “Only women can see Keepsakes… anyone who sees keepsakes is a witch… so: only women can be witches… stands to reason!”

  “And these laws are written in this book… the Shard book…?”

  “Aye – that’s it…”

  “And this Church of the Shard or whatever it is…”

  “Brotherhood…” he added helpfully.

  “So this brotherhood runs the whole deal…?” Nev asked shrewdly, thinking she could see a pattern emerging. “…And this Brotherhood of The Shard – spoiler alert – is made up completely of men, I’m guessing?”

  “It were the ‘brotherhood’ bit that gave it away, right…?”

  “So: why can’t men see them?”

  “…‘Cause they’re not witches…”

  “Silly me…” Nev nodded sagely, happy Lester was sometimes a little slow in picking up subtle sarcasm “…sorry I asked…”

  Godfrey arrived a few minutes later, having ridden hard from somewhere up ahead, reining in sharply beside Lester as the boy brought the wagon momentarily to a halt..

  “We’ve got Blackwatch on the road… half a mile, just north of Ponder Creek!”

  “How many…?” Lester asked quickly, all business.

  “Small troop – no more than three or four, but enough to cause trouble and they’re headed our way.”

  “Run or hide?”

  “No running with the cart,” Godfrey shook his head. There’s a copse of trees up ahead where the creek crosses the road – we can turn off there and take shelter… wait for ‘em to pass by. There’s that farm track a bit further on that runs south of the main road: we can use it to cut below Ponder and get back onto the main road on the other side.”

  “That’s not an easy road…” Lester pointed out. “We’ll lose an hour going that way – maybe more…”

  “Not my first choice, but if there’s Blackwatch on the prowl there’s bound to be others, and that damned Harmon is well-known to be sweet with ‘em – there might even be a few patrols watering at his keep, north of Ponder. Losing time’s better than not arriving at all – we’ll just have to make it up later if need be. Follow me…” he added, calling over his shoulder as he turned his horse away. “We’ll be turning right up ahead…”

  Lester urged the mare on, picking up the pace and bringing the wagon up to a jarring speed as Godfrey forged on ahead. Nev was forced to quickly collect her phone and the power-bank as they started rattling their way across the wooden seat toward the open side opposite the driver. The phone was only at fifty per cent but it was better than nothing, she decided as she stuffed both devices back into her jacket pockets.

  “Are these bad guys up ahead?” She asked nervously, her voice trembling in time with the jarring of the road.

  “Bad as they come…” Lester answered grimly, concentrating on the road ahead as the mare continued to gather speed. “Blackwatch: same bastards as what were chasing you last night.”

  “The same ones…?” She gasped, suddenly much more afraid. “Will Percy – uh – the witch be with them…?”

  “The other one…?” He shot back with a faint grin, not able to help himself. “Not the same mob as yesterday – probably – but riders from the same army. Harald’s Blackwatch is everywhere. They’re cavalry, policemen and bully-boys all rolled into one, and they roam all over the Blacklands, keepin’ the ‘peace’… even where there weren’t any trouble to begin with. Only a small troop of ‘em, Godfrey reckons, but that’s still enough to give us trouble we don’t need. We’re gonna try hiding out up ahead where the bush is thick and see if we can wait ‘til they pass by. Here he is…” he continued, nodding toward the road up ahead a hundred metres or so, where Godfrey and mount waited patiently near a particularly thick line of trees that appeared to veer off across the fields in a crooked line.

  He began to ease the mare back down to a less hectic pace and had the wagon at a slow trundle by the time they reached Godfrey’s position. With no more than a nod between them, Godfrey turned the stallion and walked him in between the tall trees, and Nev could now see a small creek ahead, crossing the road at a narrow ford. Heavy growth followed either side of the water as it ran off to the south-east, and once anyone was within that thick bush they’d likely be very difficult to see from the road or the surrounding countryside, even from a relatively short distance.

  Short and slight-of-build as he was, there was no denying that Lester was an excellent wagon driver. With careful precision, he worked the reins and flicked them encouragingly to turn the mare off the road in the same direction, allowing the horse to find its own way between the trees in pursuit of Godfrey. With just one very minor scrape against the rear corner of the wagon, the whole set up was secure within the dark cover of the scrub within seconds.

  “This should do us here,” Godfrey decided with a soft voice, dismounting and tying his reins to the rear of the wagon. Lester also dropped to the ground, and each dragged a large feed bag from the rear cargo bed which they then hung over their respective horse’s noses. With the prospect of a meal presented to them, both animals promptly forgot all about whatever else was going on, rendering them about as silent as they were likely to get.

  “Hope they’ve no dogs with ‘em,” the boy observed quietly as he climbed up onto the front bench and he drew out his crossbow, laying it across his lap.

  “We’re done for if that happens,” Godfrey admitted without emotion, clambering over the backboard and taking a knee in the rear of the wagon, “although I’ve not seen any hounds out this far from the larger towns for many a season now… they don’t venture far from easy food, and times are tough out here in the countryside; farmers have prob’ly been eatin’ ‘em, if y’ ask me… If they do have one, take it down first… those evil sods will have your throat out soon as look at you.” As he spoke, his eyes never left the direction of the road they’d just left, barely visible in the distance through th
e intervening undergrowth.

  “So, we just wait?” Nev hissed softly, her voice shaking with nerves now rather than the rattle of the road.

  “”Nothin’ else for it,” Godfrey shrugged. “At least it was rainin’ last night, so there’s no dust on the road to give us away. The fresh wagon ruts might be a problem if they’ve a smart bugger with ‘em, but they’re fragile little swine at heart: there’s not a single Blackwatch rider I’ve seen who’ll get his boots dirty unless he has to. Unless we give ourselves away or they’re on the hunt for us in particular, we should be right enough. Hark, now…!” He added in a hushed warning. “They’re coming…! Not a sound…!”

  The faint rumble of approaching hooves rose in Nev’s ears a moment later, and she held her breath, actually clamping a hand over her mouth in a movement that was equal parts fear and precaution. The sound seemed endless, growing louder and louder until finally the troop were there beyond the trees, cantering past in tight formation, heading west.

  It was difficult to see much, craning her head around Godfrey and the bush beyond, but she did catch fleeting glimpses of black-clad riders who were indeed very much like the man Percy had accidentally killed the preceding night – the man Kane and the others had come to collect. Each man held the reins in one hand and a long, curved sabre in other, the shining blade held vertically with its tip pointing skyward as if they were all in the middle of some formal, military parade. They were gone again in a moment, the sound of their movement receding now as they carried on along their merry way, seemingly completely oblivious to the fugitives they’d just passed by.

  “No hounds, at least,” Lester observed softly, allowing himself to relax a little.