Harbinger

by Shae Ford

  Kael spent all day long trying to find someone to loan him a dagger, but no one was willing to give one up without some sort of payment. He grumbled to Kyleigh about it all through dinner.

  “I’d be happy to give you some coin,” she said.

  He shook his head. “No, I’m going to figure this out for myself.”

  “You could always use Harbinger.”

  He watched as she polished the sword’s dangerous, curving edge with a rough bit of cloth. The white blade glowed in the firelight and hummed while she stroked it. The song wasn’t unpleasant. “Thanks, but I think I’d just end up cutting my finger off.”

  “Hmmm, well there’s an idea.”

  “You think someone would buy my severed finger?”

  She laughed. “No, that’s not what I meant. Didn’t Garron say you’d be hunting with someone?”

  “Sort of. He said he wanted me to teach my skills to his men. But what does that have to do with anything?”

  “Something for something — that’s the rule of trade.”

  He hated riddles. “But I haven’t got any coin, that’s the point.”

  She looked up, and her eyes caught with the sparks from the fire. “It isn’t only about coin. You’ve got skills, and Garron’s men need them. In fact, we all need them.”

  Ah … now he understood. Hunting was just as important in the caravan as it was in Tinnark: if Garron’s men didn’t find food, they wouldn’t eat. And Kael was the key to making sure they stayed fed. He would help them hunt, they would help him skin, and then they’d split the coin. It was a perfect plan.

  Little did he know just how much help Garron’s men would need.

  His hunting companions turned out to be a pair of brothers — a matched set of noise and mischief. Claude, the youngest, was hardly twelve and was far more interested in collecting rocks than tracking game. And Chaney, the eldest, couldn’t have been a day older than fifteen — yet he carried on like he knew everything worth knowing. They admitted outright that they weren’t very successful hunters, and it only took him a few minutes to figure out why.

  “Oi Kael! Look at this plant. What do you think it is?” Claude shouted from across the grove, startling a turkey from its roost just as Kael locked an arrow on it.

  Chaney turned around and squinted at the flower in Claude’s hand. “That’s bandit’s beard, you dolt! No don’t eat it. You’ll spend all day in the latrine if you do.”

  Claude took the plant out of his mouth. “Oh. Hey, Kael! Do you think if I ground it up real small, and maybe put a little water with it, that I could get Jonathan to think it was soup?”

  “Even Jonathan isn’t that dim-witted,” Chaney said. And he knocked the plant out of Claude’s hand for emphasis.

  The resulting brawl was loud enough to scatter every animal that hadn’t already run away.

  There was no shutting them up, and there was no losing them. No matter how early he woke or how quietly he tried to sneak away, it wasn’t long before they’d materialize at his side — squawking about whatever dragon-shaped leaf or green acorn they happened to find. Kael realized that the grass might turn blue before the brothers quit talking, so he decided to try something different.

  The next day, he woke them long before the sun and taught them how to trap. He showed them how to turn briars into snares, how to bend tree limbs in neck breaking arcs and use food for bait. It didn’t matter how loudly they cackled while they worked: by the time they turned around and followed their route back to camp, the traps were full. At midmorning they caught up with the caravan — toting a rucksack and a half of small game.

  Claude turned out to be better at skinning than he was at making traps, so he volunteered to clean the kills. Chaney, on the other hand, had a real talent for trapping. He could find a likely looking patch of briars and turn them into a snare no rabbit could escape.

  When Kael mentioned how well he was doing, his face lit up with excitement. “Do you really think so?” Then he looked at the ground and scuffed the toe of his boot absently against a rock. “But I’m not as good as you, of course. Your traps always have something in them.”

  Kael didn’t think that was anything special. As long as he made the trap correctly, he didn’t see why he shouldn’t catch something every time. But Chaney and Claude spread the word around the caravan, telling anyone who would listen that his traps never failed. And it wasn’t long before he was flooded with all sorts of odd requests.

  The smith needed goose plumage for his arrows, and only a certain breed would do. He gladly traded his best hunting dagger for three pounds of feathers. Garron mentioned that he was fond of wild turkey, and there was a new suit of clothes in it for Kael if he could catch a dozen — which he did. Then the tanner needed more wolf pelts and the jeweler needed lions’ teeth, for which they paid in silver.

  Tales spread like colds in the caravan, and soon the word was out: that scrawny boy from the mountains could catch anything.

  “I don’t understand what all the fuss is about,” he said to Kyleigh. A group of merchants hailed him as they walked by, and he gave them a quick nod. “Plenty of people can trap.”

  “It’s a fuss because most people who trap usually come back empty-handed,” she said, as if it should be obvious. “And they certainly don’t come back with exactly what they were sent for. But with you, it’s like oh, I think I’ll go out and trap three white squirrels today. And you do.”

  He thought her impression of him was a bit ridiculous. He didn’t sound like that at all. “The white squirrels were just luck.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Was it?” She put a finger on his chest. “Or was it skill?”

  He knocked her hand away. “It was luck,” he said shortly. Perhaps if he’d had the gift of craft, everything he built might do what he wanted it to. But he wasn’t a craftsman, he reminded himself, he was a healer.

  A few days later he had more copper than he could count, but absolutely no peace. Everywhere he went, people hounded him with their requests, wagering their earnings on whether or not he’d be able to find this or that. And he began to think very seriously about packing his rucksack and running away. He might have done just that had it not been for Horatio, the caravan’s cook.

  He was a chubby man with ruddy cheeks and a tuft of brown hair that sat on his head like a rooster’s comb. He watched over his food with the protective eye of a mother hen — and attacked anyone who lingered in his cart without mercy.

  On more than one occasion, Jonathan would burst out the cart door with an armful of whatever food he managed to pilfer. And Horatio would tumble out behind him, brandishing the large wooden spoon he wielded like a sword and crowing for Garron to stop that stringy snake of a fiddler!

  One day, Horatio caught Kael taking refuge behind a barrel of apples, and he thought he was as good as dead. But instead of flattening him with his spoon, Horatio took pity on him.

  “How would you like a job?” he said.

  Kael wanted a job badly. He finished his trapping early in the day and after that, there was nothing else to do but try to avoid his companions. Besides, he thought it might be fun to learn how to cook.

  Horatio knew almost as much about cooking as he did about eating. He liked to keep his recipes crammed into odd nooks — away from the eyes of anyone who might wander in.

  “Make yourself a pie and there’s always a dozen crows waiting to snatch it up,” he’d rant as he tugged a clove of garlic from its braid. “I’ll not have my hard work ruined by halfwits and copy-cooks.”

  After he pledged his life to protect them, Kael got to read the recipes. It was tough to see the words through the many brownish spatter stains, and a great deal of the ink had been ravaged by spills. The words bled nearly to the point of being illegible in some places. But he eventually managed to figure them out.

  The cook’s cart had a shallow iron bowl set into the floor and a hole cut out of its roof. Every morning, Horatio shoveled the bowl full of hot coals and u
sed them to cook.

  “Hold on a moment. I think the carrots go in first and then the onions,” Kael said.

  Horatio looked up when he spoke, his hand hovering over a pot of boiling water, and frowned. “Kael m’boy, this is my dear mother’s recipe. I’m quite positive I know how it’s made.”

  He shrugged. “The recipe said the carrots go in first because they’ll take longer to cook. Drop the onions early, and you’ll end up with a soggy mash.”

  Horatio’s cheeks puffed out in a frown. “How could you possibly remember that? You barely glanced at mother’s recipe last week, and here you are spouting it off like it was in your hand.” He shook his head and crammed the onions back in his apron. “Young people have such a gift for being right — at the most annoying of times.”

  As he passed Horatio a handful of carrots, an odd feeling twisted in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t know how he remembered the recipe. The words came to him as clearly as the light of day, rising up in his mind the moment he needed them.

  Maybe … no, it was probably nothing.

  Chapter 13

  Women’s Undergarments

  From sunup to sundown, Kael stayed on his feet. It took all day to keep the caravan fed, and sometimes the hours between breakfast and dinner passed so quickly that he didn’t even remember having lunch. But occasionally, they would get their work done early.

  Those were the days that Kael enjoyed the least — because the extra hours gave Horatio the time he needed to try out one of his new recipes. They were bizarre things: like apple pie with mushroom sauce, or mice tail soup. Horatio called them experiments. Kael thought they were more like poisons.

  “What shall we try today, m’boy? It’s got to be something really fantastic — something to warm the heart,” Horatio said. He sat on a small stool in the back of the cart, his elbow propped on his sizable belly and his chin balanced pensively in his hand. “The fried turkey liver wasn’t exactly a hit,” he mused.

  It certainly wasn’t. Half the people who tried it spent the night out in the woods, voiding everything but their innards. The recipe became so infamous that Garron had it outlawed. Jonathan even wrote a song about it — but the lyrics were not repeatable.

  “You know, I think we ought to try the tortoise and almond crumble —”

  “Or not,” Kael said quickly.

  “Why?” Horatio said, narrowing his eyes. “A good cook must experiment if he ever wants a chance at becoming great. The distance between the mouth and hand is short, and hand to pocket even shorter. There’s a mine to be had for the meal that makes the mouth water — and I intend to discover it.”

  Kael had to think quickly. He felt like someone ought to save the caravan from tortoise and almond crumble. “I was just … uh, I have an idea. And I wanted to give it a go, if that’s all right.”

  To his surprise, Horatio looked delighted. “Now there’s a thought. Yes, what this kitchen needs is a pair of fresh hands. So,” he clapped his palms together, “where do we start?”

  Kael gave him a list of supplies, making it all up as he went. They killed some of the chickens and plucked them. While Horatio cut the meat into strips, Kael worked on making a sauce. He only put things he liked in it: apples, garlic … and a few other seasonings he thought went with them. He’d pop the cork out of one of the spice bottles and if he liked the way it smelled, in it went. And while the chicken roasted over the fire, he smothered it in a good portion of the sauce.

  The meat was still cooking when the carts rolled to a halt, but Horatio offered to serve dinner on his own while Kael finished up. By the time it was ready, the sauce had formed a crunchy layer around the chicken. He took a bite — just to make sure it wasn’t horrible.

  When Horatio returned, he tasted it for himself. While he chewed, his eyebrows climbed. They were in danger of disappearing into the tuft of his hair when he finally declared:

  “Brilliant! An absolute triumph!” He shook Kael’s hand so hard he thought it might come off, then scooped the chicken into a bowl and waved him to the door. “Come along, m’boy. We can’t keep our customers waiting!”

  The first few people who reached into the bowl did so with no small amount of reluctance. They grimaced when they took a bite and chewed lightly, like they thought it might be the last thing they ever ate. But when the flavor hit, their eyes lit up. And word spread like wildfire.

  A large crowd swarmed Horatio, clamoring for seconds. He disappeared in the crush and held the bowl high above the many grasping hands. “One apiece! I said one, Claude. Not twelve!”

  Kael couldn’t stop himself from grinning, and so he didn’t try. In the dark, no one could see how happy he was. He could smile all he wanted to and no one would ever know.

  It wasn’t long before his growling stomach sent him away from the crowd and in search of some dinner. Everyone in the caravan was assigned a fire for meals and sleeping. He shared his with the youngest group at the edge of camp. Tonight, they were pitched under the branches of a wide oak tree — which would be good if it rained, but also meant that he was likely to find a small family of spiders living in the foot of his bedroll.

  Kyleigh was sitting alone by the fire, scratching at a piece of beech wood with a dagger. He checked his belt and discovered that she’d nicked it from him again.

  “You shouldn’t take things that don’t belong to you,” he said as he glanced in the pot hanging over the fire. It was empty.

  “You shouldn’t keep your knife in your belt,” she retorted. She picked up a small burlap sack and held it out to him. “This didn’t belong to me either, but I thought you might be hungry. Of course I can always put it back, if your conscience won’t allow you to eat it.”

  He took the sack out of her hand and ignored her smirk as he sat next to her. “How did you get into the food cart without Horatio spotting you?”

  “I waited until he left, of course. I was just going to pop in and say hello, but you seemed so … focused, and I didn’t want to disturb you.”

  He’d been chomping on a piece of dried meat and wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly. “Wait, you were in there while I was working?”

  She nodded.

  Well that was disturbing. There wasn’t a lot of room in the cook’s cart and, short of turning invisible, he didn’t see how she could have snuck past him.

  “I swear I can hear your wheels turning,” she said, and he realized she was watching him, an amused smile on her lips. “Give up, mountain man — you’ll never guess it.”

  He had no intention of giving up, and her taunts only made him want to learn her secret more. But he pretended to surrender long enough to finish his meat. At the bottom of the sack was an apple, a slice of bread and a wedge of cheese.

  He made sure no one was within earshot before he scolded her. “You shouldn’t have done this,” he said, holding up the cheese. “Horatio says it’s hard to get in the Valley, and our supplies are running low.”

  “Oh please,” she muttered as she dug at a knot in the wood, her brows bent in concentration. “He’ll just get more tomorrow. And besides: they’re swindling you senseless. You’ve earned a cart full of cheese.”

  Kael knew the merchants were cheating him. Chaney told him to never take the first offer, but he didn’t care enough to bargain for more. The coin just made his pack heavy, anyways. “What’s tomorrow?”

  “Market. We’ll be in Crow’s Cross by evening, which means you and I will get our wages,” she said with a grin.

  His cheese caught in his throat. He was excited about market, but he’d also read that towns attracted Midlan patrols. Large collections of people meant more taxes for the crown, after all. “Did Garron say what he expects us to do in Crow’s Cross?”

  She shrugged. “He’ll just want us to look out for thieves. But I doubt we’ll have anything to do. We haven’t found so much as a bandit the whole time we’ve been here.”

  She was right about that. During a few trapping excursions, he’d come
across what looked to be a bandit camp. The coals from their fires would still be hot and their weapons would be leaning up against their tents, but there wasn’t a soul to be found. It was strange … almost like they’d disappeared.

  It made him wonder if there wasn’t something in the Valley worse than a gang of bandits. Perhaps that innkeeper had been right about the monsters.

  “So besides trapping and cooking, what else have you gotten yourself into today?”

  He tore his eyes away from the fire long enough to answer her. “Nothing, really. What about you?”

  She sighed. “Let’s see … well, when I’m not fighting off Jonathan, I’m hiding from Aerilyn.”

  Poor Kyleigh. Her duties had turned out to be less like a personal guard and more like a personal canvas. Aerilyn cornered her nearly every evening and forced her to sit still while she applied large amounts of paint to her face. It was meant to darken her eyes or to brighten them, redden her lips or flush her cheeks. Whatever the paint was meant to do it usually did, but he didn’t like the way she looked with it. And he knew she loathed it.

  “What has Jonathan gotten himself into?” he asked, hoping the change in subject would brighten her mood.

  She returned his dagger and leaned back, propping herself up on her elbows. “Oh, the usual foolishness. Today he mostly followed me around, abusing that horrible fiddle.”

  Jonathan kept his instrument notoriously off key. He claimed the screeching notes added an artistic element to his many bawdy ballads. But most people could agree that the only thing it added was swelling on top of an already enormous headache.

  “The kick of it all is that I think he can really sing,” she continued. “Just this afternoon I heard him humming when he thought no one else was around, and you know something? It sounded really lovely.”

  “Oh? And where were you hiding that he didn’t see you?”