Frostflower and Thorn

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  “I know wounds better than you sorceri do!” said Maldron’s warrior. Then she glanced at Frostflower and softened her voice. “We think his Reverence intends to let you live in one of the cottages, sorceress.”

  Frostflower shuddered, rose, and hurried on to the wagon. Thorn threw down Snaste’s sword. “Maybe Snaste will survive. Or maybe she’s named somebody to get it.”

  “Don’t let them take you alive, Thorn,” said Silverstroke.

  “Get someone to take you inside before the storm gets here.” Thorn sprinted to the wagon and hoisted herself onto the driver’s seat beside Spendwell. They had better get out of here before Frostflower thought of the other warriors and wanted to bandage them, too. “All right, merchant, get moving!”

  He did whatever it was drivers did with the reins to make their animals go forward. By the time they passed the last building and turned up the incline back to Straight Road, they were going pretty well…for donkeys that had already been worked the whole day. Outrunning Maldron and ten warriors on fresh horses was another bloody bowl of mush. Thorn climbed back inside the wagon tent.

  “Where are you, Frost?”

  “Here.”

  “Where’s the grub?”

  “I have him. Dowl is here with me, too.”

  “Unh.” Thorn could imagine them there together, Frostflower hugging the baby to her chest, Dowl hunched up beside her with his head in her lap. Already the swordswoman could see them in outline. She crawled past her friend, found Slicer in his sheath, and belted him around her hips.

  “Thorn…they will probably be ahead of us as well.”

  “Unh?”

  “One of Maldron’s runners passed through Gammer’s Oak today. The townsfolk think he was going to a farmer north of here, to Duneron or Allardin.”

  “Hellbog!” It came as no surprise. “Probably Duneron. He’s Inmara’s brother, and closer to us.” Thorn crawled to the front of the wagon again. “Turn off the road, Spendwell.”

  “What? I can’t turn off.”

  “Maldron is coming up behind us with ten warriors on horseback, and Duneron’s either coming at us from ahead or blocking Straight Road North with gods know how many more.”

  “I can’t turn off here. There’s no wheelpath through north Beldrise, and on the other side of the road the ground’s still a mudtrap from the last storm.”

  “Risk going through Beldrise.”

  “In the dark? How many trees do you want to smash against?”

  “Damn your loose guts, would you rather try crashing through Duneron’s warriors? How soon can you turn off?”

  “When we get to the stretch between Beldrise and the Rockroots.”

  “All right. Get us there before Maldron catches up and Duneron comes down, if you have to screw your donkeys to do it.”

  “Blast you, Thorn, you don’t have to talk to me like this! First in Gammer’s Oak, now here—”

  “I’m going to scream my bloody guts out at you every time we’re—even maybe—in anybody’s hearing, and if you want to go on peddling cloth after I’m dead, you’d better take it all and act scared green of me.” Thorn crawled back inside the tent, found a candle, discarded it and groped for Spendwell’s lamp as easier to balance. Some things even a warrior couldn’t do in the dark.

  She unstoppered the lamp and inserted the wick, then hesitated. Having light now would mean extra time afterwards for her eyes to readjust to the night, and heartbeats might count if Maldron caught up with the wagon before they turned off. On the other hand, if Maldron overtook them before they reached the Rockroots, how much could she do against his warriors, anyway? She got out her firebox and ignited the wick.

  Frostflower gasped. “You’re hurt—”

  “Hey!” shouted Spendwell. “No lights in a moving wagon!”

  “It’s your squatty lamp, merchant, and I’ve got it in my lap. It’ll burn me before it burns your damn cloth. Just a few nicks, Frost. Most of the blood came out of somebody else.”

  Frostflower returned the grub, very carefully, to his improvised cradle, got a flask of water and some clean rags, and crawled over to Thorn. “Your face! Is it dirt or…”

  “Dirt or bruises. Not the only part of me. You might as well take off your damn eyepatch for a while.”

  Frostflower took it off and slipped it into her pocket. Her braid of hair, already loosened, slid from its coil around her head and hung over her shoulder, the end unplaiting. She flipped it back out of the way and began to dab at the warrior’s face. “Thorn…you would not really have burned the wagon?”

  “Did I ever say I’d burn the blasted wagon?”

  “No…perhaps not.”

  Thorn looked at her friend. What is Frostflower thinking? That anything I threaten to do, I’ll do—or that now I’m quibbling with words the way I used to sneer at her people for doing? “Well, I wouldn’t have burned it until we got Starwind out, anyway,” she said. “And Dowl, and my sword.”

  The wagon lurched and a few drops of hot oil splashed from the lamp onto Thorn’s leg. She cursed and blew out the flame. “Hell, what’s the use of cleaning a couple damn nicks and bruises now? Azkor’s claws!” She restoppered the lamp, pushing the wick down inside as she rammed in the cork. Frostflower found one of Spendwell’s jars of ointment and Thorn salved the new burns by feel; fortunately they were small. She’d know they were there, but they would not cripple. Hell, she’d gotten a lot worse in Maldron’s tunnel. “Spendwell! Any signs of that bloody storm?”

  “A little lightning. Off to the north.”

  “Any chance it’ll hit before we get to the Rockroots?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Hellbog.” The storm might have hurt Maldron more than them. They would only have had to drive through it avoiding him; he and his warriors would have had to search with the rain in their eyes and the wagon tracks rinsing away in front of them.

  The donkeys seemed to be slowing; but every time Thorn shouted to Spendwell, he replied that, if anything, they were going a little faster. The brat started to cry. While Frostflower fussed with it, Dowl crept over to Thorn and put his head on her leg, whining. The warrior was surprised at herself for rubbing his neck so gently. Good thing he hadn’t plopped his jaw down on her burned leg. “When we get to the Rockroots,” she said, “we’re going to leave the wagon and find someplace to shelter in the rocks.”

  Frostflower was silent.

  “Well, damn it, we can’t sit waiting for them in a green silk wagon tent, storm or no storm!”

  “I nodded, Thorn. There are many crevices and sheltering boulders in the Rockroots.”

  At last the wagon swung off the road. Immediately the ride got a lot rougher. If they didn’t want to be jounced right through the tent cloth on some bump or other, they would either have to abandon the wagon as soon as possible, or slow the donkeys to a walk. Thorn preferred to abandon the wagon. “Drive it behind the first good rock you find, merchant.”

  Almost at once he swerved sharply, bringing them to a stop as he finished the turn. They went out the front of the wagon. It was closer, and Spendwell was right there to help Frostflower down with the baby, and to hold the blankets and basket of food that Thorn grabbed on her way out.

  “Spendwell,” said Thorn, “I probably got blood on some of your cloth. Add it to your other expenses, and pray the Merchants’ God to help get me through this and find you again someday to pay—”

  “Later.” Spendwell slung the blankets over one shoulder and slid the handle of the food basket over the crook of his elbow. “I’m going with you.”

  “No, you bloody ass, you’re staying here! Go with us now and—Hellbog, what would I do with you now if I’d been forcing you so far?”

  “You’re wasting time, warrior.” The merchant took Frostflower’s arm and started off with her. Dowl went a few steps after them, turned back to look at the swordswoman, and whined. Cursing, Thorn cut off the leather reins near the harness and took them along.

  M
ore used than the others to getting around in the dark, Thorn took the lead. The large rocks were fairly easy to avoid; but the smaller ones beneath their feet, combined with the patches of mud, made walking hard. They were going deeper into the Rockroots, and that was something; but if it had been more important to cover ground than to find a hiding place, they might have been better off riding the donkeys.

  “I should have a few candles in the basket,” said Spendwell.

  “One candle would be enough to show them where we are,” Thorn observed.

  “We could snuff it at the first sound of horses.”

  “Damn it, merchant, by the time we heard their bloody horses, they could have seen our light! Our only chance is that they don’t even notice we’ve gone off the road until Maldron meets Duneron.”

  But if Maldron stopped in Gammer’s Oak, he would learn they knew he was on their track. He would expect them to turn off Straight Road at the first opportunity. Silverstroke might not tell him, but that rotten spy Slapdust would.

  “Thorn,” said Frostflower a few moments afterward, “it will soon be time to feed the child.”

  “Feed him on the walk or let your breasts drip.”

  “Thorn!” said Spendwell. “We’re going to have to rest soon, anyway. You as well as the rest of us.”

  To their right was a stretch of open space, bare ground with a few knee-high rocks and some low, straggly bushes. To their left was a huge, dark mass of rock. Thorn yielded at last to Spendwell’s suggestion of a candle, though she did not light it until they were at the base of the rock formation. Climbing up to explore, she found an overhanging ledge that sheltered a crevice about five paces deep and eight or nine long. The lower rock extended maybe a pace beyond the overhang and then dropped off. The ledge was roughly shoulder-high from the ground. A number of smaller boulders and chunks of broken rock hemmed in the crevice at both sides and along part of the front at both ends, leaving narrow places to climb up. Thorn did not much like the wide stretch of open ground between this rock and its nearest neighbors to south and east; it would let them see the enemy approaching, but it might also give the enemy a better chance of seeing them from a distance. She would also have preferred a crevice completely blocked to view from below. Nevertheless, to go on and hope to find another hole as good just before the storm broke would be to demand a near-miracle from the Warriors’ God. Thorn stuck the candle on one of the waist-high rocks in front of the crevice, and let it burn until all her party, with the blankets and basket, were safely up.

  Frostflower settled down on one of the blankets and began to nurse the baby. Dowl stretched out near her, thumping his tail slowly against the rock. “All right, Spendwell,” said Thorn, feeling very tired, “make yourself comfortable and put your legs together in front of you.”

  “What?”

  Thorn unrolled the leather reins. “If you had stayed with your damn wagon, you could have persuaded the priest I had forced you to take us as far as you did and then abandoned you when I couldn’t use you any longer. You insisted on coming with us. Now, if Maldron finds us, it’s going to be pretty blasted hard to convince him I made you come along.”

  “Can’t you wait? They may not even come close.”

  “If they do come close, I may not get the chance to make it look convincing. Damn you, merchant, I’m too tired to argue, and I want to rest. Would you rather be tied up now, or have the stones working their way through your guts in a day or two?”

  He grumbled, but let her tie him. By tying his ankles with one strip of leather and looping another round his chest and a convenient rock so that he could not bend over and reach his feet, she was able to leave his hands free and still make it look reasonably convincing. Maybe she ought to gag him or give him a gag to slip into his own mouth if Maldron came? No, her mind was getting fuzzy. With so much done already, she should have time to tie his hands and gag him if they heard horses coming. Or say she had been holding his mouth shut.

  In the morning, if they were still around, she would have to figure out some other way of tying him, to make sure he could get himself loose eventually, but not until she and Frostflower were out of sight. For now, she said, “You’re a good fellow, merchant,” exchanged a kiss and a few squeezes with him, and then crawled back, stretched out flat near the sorceress, and shut her eyes.

  The brat’s sucking sounded loud. “I’m surprised your milk hasn’t gone sour for him after all this,” said Thorn.

  “No, he is feeding very well.” Frostflower paused, then added, “It would have taken much more than this to sour your milk, would it not, Thorn? Or would yours have been sour from the first?”

  It was a weak attempt at a joke, but at least it was an attempt. The swordswoman chuckled. “He would have gotten pure vinegar if he tried to suck me.… Did you smile?”

  “I smiled.”

  The dog got up, turned around, and settled down again with his head on Thorn’s ribs. She did not push him off. Frostflower resettled herself slightly.

  “Thorn…I’m afraid.”

  “Good. That means you’ve come back to life.” Thorn rolled out from beneath Dowl’s head, turned over, and propped herself up on one elbow, putting her other hand on her friend’s knee. “Remember what that swordswoman said back in Gammer’s Oak, Frost. His Reverence isn’t going to hurt you again. He’s going to give you a little cottage to live in. And Spendwell should get off easily enough; all you’ll have to do is keep quiet and let him lie his own way out.”

  “And you?”

  “My problem will be whether to give the final honors to Stabber or Slicer. Probably Stabber. He’s a good size for it.”

  “To live within Maldron’s walls, like a candle in a narrow dish, its wick smothering in its own wax…to die quickly or to live on until the memories dull and I might grow resigned…”

  “Well, why not? Maybe he’ll let you keep my jewels. Stabber’s garnet might just about cover Spendwell’s expenses, and you can keep Slicer’s sheen-amber for yourself, pass it on to the grub in time. Maybe Silverstroke would take the rest of Slicer.”

  “I had thought I could not be frightened again.” The sorceress put one hand on Thorn’s fingers and pressed tightly.

  “Frost, look—our gods, yours and mine, they haven’t cleared the way for us so far just to let the damn farmer get us in the end.”

  “You talk as if there could be such a thing as fate, such a thing as an omen…as if the future already existed and we had only to walk from scene to scene as if each moment were a room with only one door. But there is no future, Thorn—there is only an empty void, and not even God knows surely how it will be filled.”

  “Then I know more than God,” said Thorn, “because I know I’m going to spend the next few moments sleeping.”

  She rolled over again on her back, closed her eyes, put one hand beneath her head, and rubbed Dowl lazily with the other hand when he curled up to her. She slept.

  The first crash of approaching thunder wakened her. Gods, she thought drowsily, no more sleep for the damned. Well, at least the rain’s coming. She lay still for a while longer, listening to a few rolls of thunder that sounded more distant than the first, and wondering if the rain was really so close, when Frostflower touched her shoulder.

  “Thorn! Listen…horses.”

  Thorn sat up and listened, then tried putting her ear against the rock. Yes; either horses or ambitious donkeys—and Frostflower had heard them first. Gods, a sorceron’s senses were even keener than a warrior’s. Who else besides Maldron and his bitches would be out here tonight? Duneron and his party? Duneron would stay on Straight Road until Maldron told him otherwise; besides, one farmer would be almost as bad as the other. Robbers looking for shelter at the last moment before the storm? With Maldron, at least Spendwell and Frostflower had a chance of surviving. Robbers might let them all go, but were more likely to slaughter them all, baby and dog included. Odd, that none of them had thought of robbers before now.

  Spendwell app
arently got the same fear at the same time. “Thorn! I’m helpless—if they’re robbers…”

  “Shush!” The warrior crawled to his corner. “They aren’t robbers.” She listened again. “Too many of them. Too many damn horses for a pack of robbers. Give the bloody farmer this, he keeps down that kind of scum in his neighborhood.” Yes, that was why the fear of robbers had not occurred to them until now. One or two sneaks might get away with a few robberies, but not a whole rotten pack together. Maldron was clean about that, at least—cleaner than some priests Thorn had known.

  “Yes. Yes, you’re right. Thorn, maybe we could still run before—”

  “Where?” Damn it, this was no time to change plans. “We won’t find better hiding. Now shut up. I’m going to gag you and tie your hands.”

  Frostflower crawled over to them. “No, Thorn. Let him hold Starwind.”

  “You hold Starwind. Make sure they don’t kill you.”

  “I held him once, in the middle of warriors. It did not save me. I would rather die with you, here, tonight.”

  “Do you want to get Spendwell hung, too? How would it look if they found him half-tied and holding the brat? Get back behind your rocks and let me finish the job.”

  Frostflower retreated to her corner. Spendwell already had a napkin folded for his own mouth. Thorn finished in a few moments, but not soon enough to get back to Frostflower. The first horses were so close by now that there was nothing to do but stay quiet and hope the sorceress kept brat and mongrel quiet, too.

  They were coming at a slow trot…too slow a trot. They were not merely chasing, they were looking. They must have found the wagon, they must also have found tracks. It wasn’t likely they had come this close by accident. Thorn was too cramped here to have used her sword without some risk to Spendwell, but she drew her knife, sliding it out with hardly more noise than that of her own breathing.

  Now reflections of light, as well as the sounds of hoofbeats, were reaching them more clearly. Through a chink in the rocks, Thorn could see Maldron and his warriors approaching. Maldron and a scrawny priestling were in front—yes, Silverstroke had said Maldron was bringing along his nephew, gods knew why, maybe to start training him early in how to track people down. The two priests carried small torches, and leaned down to study the ground as they rode. Only farmers could ride horses well enough to carry torches and lean down like that. Some of the warriors seemed to be having trouble simply staying on the animals’ backs.