Her eyes flew wide, “We have to get off the road.” I gulped air and tried to say something, but she was already giving orders, “Turn us around!”
But I reached up and took hold of the reins from the stunned boy (Godwin) that sat there. “There’s a spur closer up ahead… have to hurry.”
Behind her frightened eyes, a thousand questions danced. The one that pressed most obviously against the front of her head was: Can I trust you? Whether she decided she could, or that she had no other choice, I do not know. What she said was: “Onward! Quickly”
I yanked the traces, and Godwin snapped the reins. The huge horses strained to move the overladen carriage fast enough that we had to jog to keep up. I sent the boys ahead to pull from the ruts any branches, rocks, and anything that might suck the speed from our wheels. We reached the side track and we yanked the foaming horses into the darker shade of the smaller road, the rest of the boys using fallen branches to obliterate any tracks.
We brought the carriage a few hundred paces down the road before I waved it to a stop. The horses were wheezing, trembling, and perilously close to permanent damage, but to say I was worried for their health would be a lie. If I thought running them any further would make us any safer, I would not have hesitated to kill them in their traces. If my desperate calculations were correct, however, the sounds of rattling wheels would soon be heard by fleeing westerners on the road behind us. We could only go around the corner, let the carriage rattle to a stop, and pray neither of the chargers made a sound.
Minutes refused to drag themselves by, they would just stagger down the road like bleeding survivors of the conflict. The Lady and the Priestess descended from the carriage and meandered back and forth without any real purpose. The rest of us waited tensely listening to the fleeting sounds of battle near the road behind us as Kingsmen soldiers caught up with wounded invaders. I walked amongst the boys, abused legs tightening at every moment of rest.
“I’m worried about the horses. They need water.” (That one’s Godwin I needed reminding) whispered, “They’re thirsty, and I’m anxious that they might be hurt.”
I patted Godwin on the shoulder as I moved past him, rubbing my thighs hard enough my hands began to ache. Aelia turned an eye to me she meant to be frosty, but was thawing in a way that exposed her fear. She faked a cough to collect herself, but failed. She leaned close and hissed at me, “We must continue.”
I nodded, pitching my voice just as softly, “I appreciate your concern, Lady. Gather whatever you absolutely need. I’ll tell the boys we are moving out light. We’ll grab food and--”
The Lady looked as if I had slapped her, “No! We must keep the carriage.”
I stuttered to a stop for a moment. Gelia had no problem with summoning winter from within her and from over the Lady’s shoulder the old woman’s eyes flayed me alive. I ignored her and tried sanity again, “I advise against it, but we can take the time to have the boys pack up heavy packs from the luggage, and we will continue on foot with whatever we can carry. We will make the oak chest a priority but-”
The Lady had recovered her dignity, but none of her intelligence, “No! We must keep the carriage.”
Something bitter cackled from inside the Fog. When given the choice between a good idea and a bad idea, a noble infallibly reached over your shoulder to find the catastrophically worse idea. I stared at her, catching glimpses of secrets flitting behind her eyes, but I swallowed my arguments, “I will-”
“You will what, Crow?” The lady asked, turning the boys’ name for me into an insult.
“I will range ahead to find the horses water,” I said, picture perfect but wholly affected indignation drawing me up straight, “lest they die in their harnesses.”
She flushed, eyes tracking over my face for any trace of duplicity. I simply brushed past her, and motioned Theo over. I put my palm against the back of his neck and pulled his head close to mine. I whispered orders to him that he probably didn’t need: Be alert, protect the lady, be prepared to fight or run. Then Gelia approached me and handed me two folded leather buckets. I accepted them and licked my lips, “Thank you Reverend Sister.”
She did not sneer, her words did it for her, “How wise is it to have the Lady’s most skilled defender leave her?”
I took a deep breath, swallowing the bile that I yearned to spit into her face. When I spoke, I was amazed how calm and level my voice was, “If thirty barbarians come up this road, my blade will make no difference to the outcome. On the other hand out in the woods, I’m the only one that can disappear if I wander into a knot of westerners.” I fixed her with a deadly serious stare, “But if you swear before your God that you want me to stay, I will stay.”
Gelia’s jaw locked in place, and she shook her head sharply before blessing me angrily and stalking away. Theo, bobbing in the storm swept surface of our conversation, looked back and forth between the priestess and me. I smiled at him and shrugged. Minutes later, I was back into the comforting silence of a forest that smelled of distant, but fresh, blood. I could say it spooked me, but that would be a lie. My only thoughts were not for myself, but stray thoughts kept slipping back to the carriage party. The Dark Thing at the back of my mind swatted at these worries but they continued to buzz between my ears.
I walked for half an hour, but once the road passed a series of hilly meadows, grasses sheared short by the teeth of herds, the flow of dirt became a stream, then a path-like trickle. There was no escape this way, and no water, either. Without thinking it through, and without knowing why, I turned around and walked back. Despite the hollow hurt in my legs, the release of tension created a definite ache in my shoulders. I felt old doors inside creep open and flush the musty halls of my soul.
I reached the carriage party, but they were not alone. Fifteen Kingsmen soldiers and what was obviously a noble of some kind surrounded them, but the scene was distorted, tense, and paranoid. Instantly the Beast caught scent of impending murder and snuck out of the Fog. I felt my skin go cold as I scanned the forest on every side, picking out many places where a man could secret himself. The Beast chose one at random, and I disappeared into the tree line.
Even off the path, my boots made only the softest of coughs on the wilting carpet of limp leaves. The silence of hiding birds and cowering mammals utterly refused to mask any movement around me, but the Kingsmen appeared to be more interested in the boys than the woods. The noble was faced away, and I could not understand his softly pitched words. I got closer and closer, melding with the trunks of trees and shadows of thick branches. Ahead, the boys gave up their weapons, and I wanted to scream inside.
During the commotion, I darted forward, within a handful of paces from the back of the noble’s soft, unprotected skull. Then, Aelia’s eyes caught mine. She inclined her head sharply, once. Telling me it was over, telling me to run.
I kicked the Beast screaming into the Fog, and reached deeply into the mental closet filled with masks. I screwed a stupid looking smile onto my face and wandered down into the midst of the group. The noble jumped, several soldiers cursed and drew weapons, so I held the buckets up high and ratcheted my voice up a few octaves, and took on a lilting, poncy tone, “I apologize, Milady! There is no water to be had for your noble beasts. But I see we have been saved!”
The noble, at least the man in the best armor and wearing the stupidest expression, sneered and hit me hard on the jaw. It took everything I had to let the blow land, but at least collapsing into a heap was easy. I tried to ignore how close his dagger was to my hand. I tried to ignore how exposed his neck was. I tried to ignore his horrible breath as he leaned close and said, “My name is Captain Andrew O’Conner, Scion of the Imbel line. Do not speak in my presence again.”
After being struck by Captain O’Conner, the boys and I were disarmed. I clamped down on the Beast as O’Conner himself took the Phantom from me, his eyes already claiming it as a prize for himself. Her Ladyship and the Nanny were bundled back into the carriage with the Captain,
and we were turned around to head back to the battlefield. The low-born amongst us were discouraged from speaking, as being clubbed across the face is a great discouragement. Soon, corpses hanged from the trees said that we were approaching the decided battlefield.
We were stopped before we ever reached open ground, and only the smell on the wind, increased presence of blood spatters, and macabre tree ornaments told of how close we were. One of the fifteen guards left with O’Conner.
The world has a lot of injustices. Nobles love to pretend they do not exist, but usually only for themselves. Any poor sod who gets caught on the battlefield can look to a short hard life inside of a mine, or perhaps a quick hanging, or a knife across the throat. Nobles, on the other hand, are whisked from the battlefield and treated as, well- nobles. I would note genuine disgust at that, but I think it might be hypocritical since that this self delusion is the reason I’m not being hanged, stabbed, or enslaved. It was especially useful, since winter came down upon us with the subtlety and kindness of a hurled anvil.
If only the sequence of events made sense.
Hour after hour passed, and though discipline became more lax, there wasn’t any kind of opportunity at escape that included the Lady and her carriage. The runner returned with food, bread for the boys and I as well as a cold repast of roasted fowl and fruit for her nobleness. We were all watered, and to Godwin’s relief (did I mention relief?) the horses were included and began to recover.
It was near night by the time O’Conner returned, a self satisfied grin firmly in place. I weighed his traits and decided that if I did anything next it would be met with violence. I took a guess at how much.
I stood up and put myself between he and Aelia, voice lilting, “Captain-”
I forced my hands to stay at my sides, I locked my legs to keep from moving, but I couldn’t stop myself from leaning away from the blow as he hit me again, this time across the cheek with a riding crop. The blazing column of pain caused the entire world to dissolve into bright white. I had planned to fall down, and it was a good thing too. I missed what he said to Aelia, but there was some shouting. Inside of my ringing ears, everything was confused.
At least I was able to get up by the time we were being collected to move on. O’Conner walked back by me, tantalizingly within reach when he paused.
“The next time you sully the memory of my noble lineage with words directed at me, fool,” O’Conner smiled grimly as he made what he thought of as a joke, “One of us is going to die.”
I bowed my head, meekly, but inside the Beast roared a promise loud enough to shatter mountains. There was no doubt that we were prisoners, but there was no explanation yet as to why. We had a cell large enough for thirty more people, and it was even out of the wind, though only through a quirk of history, and not due to any kindness of our captors.
The King came to power twenty years ago in The Reunification War between the Grand Dukes and Duchesses of the Kingdom. The civil war had raged for fifty years, enough for the Kingdom to be well on its way to considering itself a series of separate fiefdoms. That’s when the last of the great raids of western barbarians flooded over the Northern Ridge Mountains. They made it half way through our nation, laying waste to whole regions and demanding tribute from everyone else, before they were stopped.
A simple knight from an ancient family rode into the conquered territories and began organizing the people. Defeated knights, bow carrying woodsmen, and footmen wielding hastily forged spears became a tide behind him. He resurrected a tradition of our ancient fathers: The castra. It is a military discipline wherein, every night, soldiers cut down trees, raise a palisade, dig a dual-purpose trench and latrine around the walls, and fill the trench with sharpened stakes. Where there are no trees they use dirt, or snow, or even stacked rocks. Within these impromptu walls they are allowed to pitch their tents. It slows down the progress of an army by as much as a quarter, but it always means they have a place to retreat to, or to fight off a midnight assault by barbarians.
For three years he waged war from his home near The Gray Forest all the way back to The Northern Ridge Mountains, crashing through the barbarians, traitors, and even the warring nobles ensconced in their private lands. He was brilliant, ambitious, and ruthless. Thus being the biggest bastard with the greatest talent for making living men dead men, he became King Ryan the First, sovereign of Noria. Eventually he lost his interest in the welfare of his people behind mountains of tax money, but the resurrected tradition of the castra lived on.
That’s where we were. Inside one of the most settled-in castra I had ever seen. Apparently, someone knew the barbarians were coming, and had mobilized almost three hundred troops to meet the raiding army. I was willing to bet they had begun construction on this wooden fort weeks ago, waiting here as the mountain keep and the people of River’s Bend died. It was good ground to meet a barbarian assault, even if it cost hundreds of innocent people their lives. At least they had time to complete some rough log-construction barracks. The barbarian horde had crashed against the walls and their fists had sundered. Now the army had left for home, with only our fifteen jailers left behind.
Thankfully, we were inside one of the officers’ quarters, and I was enjoying just being alive and indoors as the sky spilled sleet from angry clouds. The boys and I were still living on bread and water, the fire pit in the center of the room could use a few more logs before our breath stopped fogging in the air, there was no latrine for our use in here and the doors had been hammered shut so there were no opportunities at escape, and my sword was at least fifty paces away… but you can’t have everything.
I watched the smoke from the fire pit lurch up against the wind and slip out of the hole in the center of the ceiling.
Not yet, anyway.
7
A Shard of Night,
Alive and Hungry
Aelia sat in the corner, somewhat walled off from the rest of us by a few of her trunks brought from the carriage. One would think that allowing myself to be captured and struck on behalf of on my employer, her crew of beardless youths, and her damn cat would bring some amount of praise. One would be dead wrong.
I lay on a pallet rolled out on the hard, cold dirt floor, Aelia casting me glances that had been stropped to an edge that could shave rain out of the clouds. Godwin and Jonathan were sleeping. Miller and…I can never remember his name, the stinky kid were talking furtively next to the fire. Theo had come over to ask me a barrage of questions I could not answer until I sent him across the room to sulk. Now was not the time for teaching a boy about getting into the head of an opponent. Now was for the three most tactical events in a fight: Resting, eating, and napping beforehand.
I leaned back and closed my eyes when the rustling of silk, fine linen and whalebone raced at me like a dog attacking. There was another flurry of activity, and the other conversation in the room ground to a halt. I ignored the implication of floral perfume and the alluring scent of a woman who has gotten slightly sweaty. I ignored it because there wasn’t much to talk about, not to mention there was a second scent there and it was as alluring as a steel gray hair in a severe bun and romantically caustic holy robes.
Then I heard what I had been dreading, “Crow? Crow?”
One eye snapped open and swiveled across the room. Next to me the Gelia’s wrinkled hands lay primly on her knees. Just beyond, Aelia’s hands twisted themselves on an expensive expanse of silken clad lap.
My eye slammed shut and I attempted to ignore her, a plan that only worked for about as long as it took to exhale before she hissed again, “Crow!”
I huffed and sat up, resentment moving from my stomach to just behind my eyes. I turned to speak with the Lady, but she resolutely faced forward. I immediately thought I was lost in a badly written comedy, Aelia speaking to me covertly across the stiff shoulders of her chaperone. This was another example of noble in-breed-ery, since even now it was just as important that she not be seen being too friendly with a commoner (who was in a
bed of sorts- for shame!) that we discussed escape right now. “Crow, speak to me, damn you!”
I took a deep breath, and felt out the thousands of conversations just beyond our tongues. I saw all the deviations and switchbacks, and sought to chart a course to the end I desired. Like a crown-princess picking through gowns before a ball, I decided on just the right amount of hoarfrost to edge my words, “Yes, Lady?”
Three sharp breaths of increasing indignation preceded her next, “By what right do you address me so?”
“You must excuse me, for I am greatly perturbed, Lady.” I turned away from her, lying on my side and casting my face in shadow, “A noble lady is found by a small group of Kingsmen. Instead of giving her safe conduct through an area rent by strife, they virtually guarantee their execution by taking her into custody and holding her. Stranger yet, not only is she not ravaged; no word is made of ransom for her safety. I am quite certain that the only people that shun from spilling royal blood are royal themselves.” I measured the pressure between us, waiting until I heard her draw breath to speak and then said, “It is a riddle, Lady.”
“Crow…” I turned back around to face her, and saw the fear there. “Captain O’Conner recognized my family’s crest, knew who I was. He knows of the bidding, and knows if he holds me here a few days it will make things easier for his kinsmen to compete.”
I felt truths lingering like shadows behind her words, “Tell me of the bidding, Lady.”
Her voice was tinged with panic now, “My father has sent me to stand against many noble families and merchantmen. Any one of them would pay well to keep me from the table.”
I closed my eyes, desperately recalculating the odds of reaching Carolaughan alive. At the edge of my mind, I heard the beating of wings. In the corner Leoncur, Aelia’s cat, yowled.
I Know Not: The Legacy of Fox Crow Page 8
