Looking into his eyes, Marta realized he believed he saw her for what she really was: a scared girl far removed from home. And embraced in his gaze, Marta certainly felt that way, her mission and her family’s expectations entirely forgotten as she soaked his stare in. Caught in that moment, Marta wondered if she could give it all up and forsake her family to fully fall for him.
Chapter 10
Winterfylled 18, 567
Marta hated horses and had a strong suspicion they felt the same about her. Perhaps it was because she had eaten some of their kind, the beasts still able to smell their fallen kin on her skin. More likely it was because they could sense how much she distrusted them.
As of late, children avoided her as well, but not this girl. Caddie seated on the horse before her, Marta could feel the child’s steady breathing in the dark. It felt strange to have her arms around someone again, the posture one of comfort. Marta could not give herself fully to the pose though. Soon she would kill the girl’s father, probably before her very eyes, so it made little sense to get attached. But detachment was suddenly hard while holding the girl so.
Marta chewed her pipe as she followed the form of the silent Mynian woman in the dark ahead of her. The woman certainly knew her way through the scrub of squat trees, then the grasslands that overtook them. Having ridden out of Naddi by the back roads with the man in the lead, the woman then took over, picking through the terrain with a practiced eye. A few miles out they made their first turn, then another a few miles farther. Then they doubled back, riding over their tracks before heading out in yet another direction. Even with her Cildra training to notice minor details, Marta was impressed at how the woman could pick out the barest hint of a trail in only the moonlight.
The man rode behind her, Marta giving him another backwards glance. He favored her with another grin as he had done the other dozen times before. He remained as mum as the woman though, shutting up entirely after leading her and Caddie to the awaiting horses. Many miles from Naddi now, they were more than likely safe to speak again, but if her new companions chose to hold their tongues, Marta would as well. Although she had seldom won against Carmichael in these waiting games, she felt she had better odds against these Covenant Sons. Her goal was to wait out her time in silence until she and the girl could escape. The two had proven themselves useful in the moment, but the moment had passed, and her cover as a Covenant Sons sympathizer might not stand the additional scrutiny from two actual members.
Marta slowed to a stop as the woman ahead reined her horse in. There, she listened to the night, finally turning back to approach the man behind Marta. For the first time since the city, Marta was not boxed in by their horses, her opportunity to flee suddenly very real. She had no idea where they were though, the landscape utterly foreign to her, so Marta gigged her horse and moved closer to the two to hear their conversation.
No words passed between them, the woman instead making several quick gestures with her hands. The man looked up at Marta with another smile as she drew near. Closer to them, she examined the two with more scrutiny. The man wore no hat, his shirt thin and jacket more suited for the city, as was the kerchief bound round his neck. He was older than Marta’s 25 years, though probably not by much. His dark hair had a bit of a curl to it, and if he wore it much longer, it would probably turn to locks.
The woman was several years younger than Marta, the white voluminous skirts of the Mynian dress she wore having proved to be a lie. Once they reached the horses, the woman pulled her bottoms into two halves to reveal that the skirt was split up the middle. The two halves she tied around her legs, making two puffy leggings that allowed her to ride like a man. Her dark hair was straight and now pulled back into a long plait. The braid was a simple thing, without any of the intricate patterns favored by those in Nahuat and now the Auld Lands. The style did not match what Marta gleaned from her mother of Mynian fashions, the women there preferring stark layers to their black hair. And though the woman’s skin was deeper in hue than those of Newfield, upon closer inspection it did not seem dark enough to deem her Mynian. Her hazel eyes were also a giveaway, Marta deciding she was of mixed stock, like herself. With the hatchet and small, but heavy bag at her belt, Marta had a good idea as to where she hailed from.
The man nodded at Marta, his voice cheery despite the news. “Think someone’s following us. Isabelle’s going back to check.”
Isabelle gave Marta one last look, her eyes narrowing a bit before departing, the soft clomps of her horse’s hooves disappearing into the dark.
The man took the lead, heading straight along their previous path. Although he rode well, Marta suspected the outdoors were not his domain, but Isabelle’s. Perhaps he too had been playing the waiting game with her, because now that their silence was broken, he called out over his shoulder.
“What should I call you?”
He had been waiting outside her hotel, so Marta decided it was best to give the name she used on the ledger. Caddie’s identity proved thornier, however, Marta having signed her in as her daughter, Donna. But if he was from the Covenant Sons, he was sure to know the girl’s real name.
“May Oles. And this is Caddie Hendrix.”
“Luca Dolphus,” he responded, nodding as if this had been the answer he expected all along. “Been waiting for you since we heard about the break out. You do that all yourself or you have help?”
“Why Naddi? How did you know we’d be there?”
Luca laughed at her lack of an answer. “We didn’t. There’re dozens of groups waiting at all the train stops. We were just the lucky ones. Well, and you. Not so much that Render bug.”
He continued rambling on, the sound of his voice apparently pleasing to him. Marta paid his words no mind though, considering his companion instead.
“Isabelle’s Ingios, isn’t she?”
If he was annoyed at being interrupted, Luca showed no sign as he switched topics without a moment’s hesitation. “Half. Father was a Newfield citizen.”
It made sense, the stones in the pouch at her belt surely for the sling that the Ingios favored. Their tribes were already on the Soltera continent when the first colonists from Acweald arrived, watching the settlers from a distance as their cities sprung up. Though they had their own Blessed, the Ingios did not possess the technology of the Auld Lands, had not harnessed the ley and had no Tinkers among their number. In fact, they avoided the ley, and as such had little interactions with the new colonists that soon founded the nation of Newfield. As the nation expanded the Ingios retreated south, deeper into the interior of the continent and inhabiting the grasslands there to graze their herds of sheep and goats.
Oan had belonged to them until nine years ago when it became the latest state in the nation. The Ingios were welcomed, so the Newfield government said, but they preferred to keep their herds far away from these invaders. Finding an Ingios in the states was said to be as rare as discovering a beautiful mudbird, though Marta did not know the odds of finding a half-Ingios.
“She doesn’t speak Acwealt?”
“Feel free to ask yourself. I’ve never gotten a word out of her personally.”
More than his companion, Marta wondered after Luca’s accent. It lacked all the lilt she expected from Eastern sympathizers in the Covenant Sons. It sounded a bit like those she had heard in the Auld Lands, though she could not quite place it. He was not a fellow Easterner though, of that Marta was sure.
“You’re not a part of the Covenant Sons. You’re a freebooter.”
She expected some reaction from the vile term for his profession, but Luca turned in his saddle to grin at her again. “And what do you call your line of work, May Oles? A job’s a job, and Eastern lucre is good as any others. So long as they pay in hard Newfield cash.”
Marta heard the approach of Isabelle’s horse, but her mind remained on Luca. Though he had readily owned up to his initial lie, Marta trusted him even less at his new truth. Freebooters were no better than harriers, taking what t
hey wanted from those weaker than they. In fact, they were worse, many harriers former farmers and Eastern soldiers whose homes had been destroyed by the war and therefore taking to the sword to survive. Freebooters instead chose their lots and enjoyed the bloodshed. Not for the first time, Marta considered staving Luca’s head in, taking his horse and departing before his companion reached them.
As if sensing her unease, Luca nodded towards the approaching Isabelle. “Might want to wait on letting out until you hear what she has to say.”
With her arrival, Isabelle again boxed Marta between them. She feared the woman more than the man, so Marta turned her horse towards Isabelle. The dark-haired woman remained mute though, Luca joining her silence until Marta could not stand it any longer.
“What is it?”
Isabelle’s eyes flicked to Luca at Marta’s inquiry, the man still not saying a word as Marta’s anger flared. “Go on! Spit it out!”
Isabelle opened her mouth, Marta expecting her to indeed spit. Instead she held her mouth agape, Marta noticing the void within. Where the woman’s tongue should be only a stump remained to wriggle like a worm torn in two.
Marta had seen worse wounds during the Grand War, but having the mutilated stump brandished before her caused her to flinch. At the motion Isabelle barked, her eyes sparkling at the utterance. Another bark followed it to be joined by Luca’s own laughter.
“That’s the best you’re going to get, I’m afraid. Won’t get a word out of her now, not since the glassman.”
Marta’s mother would have touched her forehead with two fingers to ward off the invocation of a glassman. No better than ghuls, and far more dangerous since they were not bound by the ley, glassmen had been eradicated in both the Auld Lands and Newfield. But the city-states of Myna to the east had been ruled by these monsters for centuries, going to war with Newfield not twenty years ago over the territory that became the state of Lacus. Though the single pass between the Bone Ridge Mountains separating the two countries was now held by Newfield, the Home Guard scanning the minds of any who tried to pass through to weed out glassmen, there were said to be secret pathways still. Tales of terror by glassmen insurgents were common in her mother’s home of Lacus, Marta wondering if Isabelle appreciated the irony of disguising herself as Mynian when it was a Mynian glassman that had maimed her.
Neither Luca nor Isabelle seemed to care about the irony as Luca inquired, “Posse?”
Isabelle shook her head side to side.
“Dragoons?”
Isabelle sneered, revealing her front teeth. One was slightly askew, giving her a momentary rat-like appearance as Luca exhaled heavily.
“Posse would have been better. Probably the sixth regiment, they’re stationed out of Naddi. They won’t be on our trail, not yet. Breaking into squads to see if they chance across us. Means they’re spread thin. Might be able to slip on through in the night, but come daylight they’ll be riding us down.”
At his announcement Isabelle again rode to their head, picking up the pace as she led them through the grass and scrub. Luca’s horse fell into step behind her, Marta left alone in the night. Her chance to bolt again presented itself, but Marta pressed her heels into the horse’s sides, coaxing a short gallop as she caught up to the two.
***
Fatigue set in as the night wore on. Marta was sure she felt it more keenly than the others, both Luca and Isabelle continuing on without complaint. Caddie never complained either, her hand now covering the woman’s finger and resting lightly on her woven ring. Her arms still around the girl, Marta could feel each inhale and exhale through her thin body, realizing that the girl still had not yet slept. Letting one of Caddie’s fingers slip between her own to ensure physical contact, Marta whispered.
“Go to sleep.”
The girl did not, her eyes wide and breathing even as ever. As the hours rolled on, Marta noticed the girl’s rhythm was in time to her own, as if this was an unconscious game of Refrain as she had played with her sister all those years ago. Her face soured as Marta realized the girl was about the same age as Oleander had been when she saw her last. So she shifted her own breathing pattern, the girl falling into synch after a few inhales. Marta considered changing it again, but decided against the effort as her exhaustion deepened.
Suddenly a bugle cried out behind them, distant and haunting. It was soon answered by another, far to the north, and Marta suspected there were more blaring in the night she was unable to hear. The sound reminded her of when her father took her and her siblings hunting with a pack of his famous hounds to run down rabbits. If they were out for sport, he would only release one dog to allow the hare a chance. But if he had a hankering for rabbit meat, he would release all the dogs and the hare would not stand a chance against the pack working in unison.
Isabelle instantly shifted their course perpendicular to the sound of the horns as Luca called out, “They haven’t found our trail, not yet. Still just whistling in the dark.”
The dragoons would discover the trail soon enough though, dawn not a long way off by the look of the horizon. Marta blinked her tired eyes again to realize the glow up ahead was not the threatening sun, rather the flickering of a nodus. Isabelle’s path aimed them right for it.
Again, Marta’s suspicions of the pair were raised. A nodus meant strong lines of ley in the area, a city sure to be abutting it and offering additional reinforcements for the Newfield troops.
“Not to worry, they won’t follow us there. Tolmen.”
Marta was now sure they deserved to be in the Lindaire Sanitarium more than Caddie had. Tolmens were blighted areas where the nodi spewed forth ghuls by the dozens, the evil emets destroying all life within. No one in their right mind would enter one, save a powerful Render, probably aided by several Weavers. Only when destroying a tolmen would those Blessed sects stoop to working together, the only other exception being battling a glassman.
There was another more glaring issue with Luca’s obvious lie though: all the tolmen in Newfield had been destroyed long ago to make the land habitable.
“It’s a new one,” Luca said as if sensing her doubts, “not even a year old. Been five of them sprung up since the end of the war, Sol’s punishment for all the bloodshed. Or perhaps Waer working her mischief again. So far they’ve all been in Ingios territory, so no one’s been too bothered clearing them out.”
Marta still doubted their sanity, but the hunting horns bellowed again, much closer than before. Luca and Isabelle spurred their horses at the blare, Marta with no choice but to do the same as she followed them towards the cursed tolmen.
Chapter 11
Marz 11, 562 (Five Years Ago)
Marta swirled the wine in her glass, afraid to take another sip lest she become tipsy. The bottle she opened for dinner deserved to be savored since it cost more than what a common citizen made in a week, and she wanted to remember this evening perfectly without the alcohol’s added haze. Richard still had not arrived at the restaurant, had been acting strangely all week, and Marta had a good idea as to why. Five days ago, he asked to examine her woven ring, gently teasing her about her attachment to the tarnished thing on her third finger. Although he thought he was being surreptitious, Marta easily spied him slipping it over his own finger to mentally mark how far it slid.
He was appraising her ring size, marriage on his mind.
Richard had every right to be considering this eventuality. They had certainly been courting long enough to have raised the specter of matrimony, a fact Marta desperately reported to her father in her nightly letters with the hope he would send a speedy reply. He did not though, Marta maintaining her contact with Richard as normally as she could despite her trepidation. For the hundredth time that day, the thousandth time that week, she wondered if she could be happy as Richard’s wife.
It was a pointless consideration though. Richard was not Blessed and her father zealously guarded the bloodline of the Childress. There was no way he would allow their superior stock to be su
llied by Richard’s inferior one.
Her mind still on the absent Richard, Marta noticed the entrance of the Home Guardsman, his bear-headed pin polished and shining far from the rigors of war. Since the conflict began, their numbers had swelled in the nation’s capital as they ferreted out potential traitors and Eastern sympathizers. Though he took the table next to Marta, she was not worried as she put her refrain into place. She played the part of the young girl expectantly waiting her potential fiancé, and fortunately there was a spoonful of truth to make the lie easier to swallow.
The deeper part of her mind also returned to Richard. He had proven to be an overflowing fount of information, so it seemed a waste to shut this resource off. Perhaps her father was also still considering this fact, allowing Marta to wed him to ensure their source remained secure. Not for the first time, Marta wondered if her father would demand that she marry Richard, if she would be expected to bear his children to maintain her cover.
More importantly, she wondered if she would obey.
The host led another guardsman inside, this agent believing himself undercover due to his civilian attire. Marta instantly recognized him for what he was though, his rubber-soled boots a dead giveaway. They were the pride of the Home Guard, allowing them to move quickly and silently, and few but the guardsmen wore them. Honestly, it was an amateurish effort at disguise, Marta’s Cildra training teaching her how to seamlessly infiltrate—
The Woven Ring (Sol's Harvest Book 1) Page 12
