If Crows Know Best (Mage of Merced Book 1)

by Aimee Gross

  I looked feverishly for some lesser track to turn off the road, away from what lay ahead of us. Nothing—no other roads to take. “Give me Wils’s horse and I’ll go crosscountry,” I said, grasping at any idea, now.

  “I do not want us separated. Climb in back.” Da kicked his mount ahead, cantering around a curve. I clambered over the seat to join Perk in the hut.

  “What can you see?” Perk asked, for he could see ahead only a little from inside.

  “We’re headed into some kind of foul weather. It seems like what the sorcerers would call up.” I licked dry lips. Wieser crept in to curl beside me. I could feel her shiver from time to time. If she is frightened, I’m done for, I thought. Wieser had shown no fear, in any of our adventures.

  Perk held a cocked crossbow along the length of his good thigh, aimed toward the back door, and his sword lay next to his side. I started to pull my bow toward me to do the same, but he put out a hand. “I’m worried enough I’ll shoot you or myself bouncing over a rut. Let’s have just one ready,” he grinned.

  “Have you been in lots of battles?”

  “A fair few. Mostly minor scrums with brigands and thieves until I was posted to Fort Hasseron. There I trained as cavalry.”

  “I can see why the fortmaster didn’t want you to leave, being trained and all.”

  He grinned again. “He didn’t oppose your da in sending me with Wils the first time. So, maybe I wasn’t as good as all that.” He continued to peer out a slit in the back door.

  We rolled on accompanied by rumbles and crashes from the clouds, and a heaviness to the air that made me as twitchy as Wieser. When Gargle and Tock set up a chorus of caws, I had to poke my head out to see what stirred them.

  We drew up to a Traveller encampment, set up among trees just off the road. The crows were loudly directing our attention to a grouping of five wagons similar to ours, with a large fire in the center under a jutting rock overhang. Horses stamped, tied to lines in the shaded woods. Da waved Wils to steer off the roadway toward the men gathered at the largest wagon. Wils gave me a push to send me into the rear again, but I could hear Da address the men when we stopped.

  “You are well met, with this storm brewing. Do you object to us joining you to shelter here?” Did Da sound like a Traveller? I would have liked to see the men’s faces, but had to settle for hearing them grunt assent. Our rig was no more colorful than theirs, in my brief glance round. Perhaps we would fit in with the group, to Keltanese eyes. Then I had the chilling thought that maybe Zaffis had stolen our wagon from these Travellers. Gods forefend.

  Da and Wils sussed out who the leader was, and soon walked off with the man and his two sons. Annora found a young mother by the fire who had a fretful, feverish baby. That was her means of making herself useful; she boiled a tincture and rocked the dosed infant to sleep while the mother drowsed over a dish of porridge. Perk, balanced carefully on his good leg, chopped fuel for the fire, shedding his shirt in the sultry heat. This won him admiring glances from some of the girls, for he was well-muscled and fit. I stood about like a chicken with thumbs after caring for the horses. Wieser still quivered and panted at my side, and the crows glowered from branches above our wagon. The storm hung overhead, bringing early darkness to the heavy air. Lightning began to flash from cloud to cloud.

  The Traveller women were roasting several fat ducks, and Annora was quick to contribute what we had left of our root vegetables. An old woman cackled as she mixed flatbread with bent and twisted hands. Annora became the center of attention for the half-dozen younger children, who clustered round her feet and stared silently as she chopped and stirred.

  The clouds broke open just as Da and Wils returned with the other men. Even impeded by the trees, so much rain sluiced from the sky that we could scarcely see the wagons scant feet away. The group huddled under the rock overhang, watching muddy water run over the lip above and splash on the ground at our feet.

  “The road may wash out to the south,” said the wiry leader, lighting his pipe with a twig from the firepit. “We’ll make for the stone bridge at Nygaard. I do not trust the wooden bridge at Egorace to survive this. Debris will likely take it out, even if there is no flood.” He offered Da a clay pipe, accepted gladly. Soon they were both puffing.

  The rain pounded down while we ate, and while we cleaned the pots. It never let up throughout the bottle being passed man-to-man while the women mended clothes by the firelight and the children played at Stone Toss. The sick baby awoke with a cool forehead and a fresh appetite, fixing Annora’s acceptance into the family group. I still could not relax.

  My mind worried at the rain like a ratter at a nest. Did the mages know we fled, and so drenched the road to slow our progress? Would that not also slow pursuers? Did our presence endanger the Traveller band, and had Da told them we were wanted by the enemy? I could not think he would deceive them, or that they were not shrewd enough to see we were not really Travellers. We were maybe three days ride from home, if we turned toward it now, longer with the wagon to drive. How I wanted to go home—and how I feared to!

  Winds lashed the rain this way and that, blowing wet gusts to invade our shelter. Gargle and Tock blew in on such a burst, and found a ledge to perch on, splattering me as they shook out their feathers. The old woman stared at the crows and hummed to herself, rocking slightly. That would have my sanity as its price, if I had to listen to her every night.

  The men usually kept watch by the fire, while the women and children bedded down in the wagons of a night. Thus, Da and Wils settled by the fire with Perk and the other men, and Annora and I made a dash through the deluge to the backdoor of our wagon. Wieser came with us, so to contribute the odor of wet dog to the close air within.

  Over the noise of the rain pelting the roof, I told Annora that Wieser and I would sleep closest to the door. She nodded, and shifted the load about to make room for herself toward the front. The rain continued drumming, but the thunder and lightning began to sound more distant as we made ready for sleep.

  I knew the men were on watch and not me, but still I could not make myself close my eyes. I spoke into the dark, “Annora? What if we cannot go home?”

  “I know you don’t mean because of the rain,” she answered.

  “No, because of the magic folk being rounded up. It may be uncharitable of me, but I do not think Gefretta Estegg will waste any time telling the Keltanese you and I do magic. She is still smarting that Wils didn’t choose her to marry, despite how you see her making over Miskin and Beckta.”

  I could hear a smile in her voice, though I could not see it in the dark. “I cannot say I would put it past her, though her father and mother would be mortified if she did betray us to the enemy.”

  “I expect she would conceal it from her folks if she did tell.”

  “My aunt and uncle are others who might speak about me, to deflect trouble from their own door.”

  “Would you come with me, take Wils’s and Da’s mounts, and ride away to another route to the harbour? We could meet up with Wils and Da there, or get away to the underground with Orlo’s folk.” I was spinning out my thoughts. Looking for any path at all out of our current quandary.

  The only sound was the rain thrumming for a bit, then, “Do you mean leave now? Because they are on watch, and in the storm and dark, we’d never get horses saddled and away without them knowing.”

  “No, no. At dawn perhaps? We’ll have to convince Da and Wils to travel with this group while we break away, just the two of us to confuse … the searchers.”

  “How do you think to get into Bale Harbour?”

  “No one is looking for a boy and a young woman. Then maybe Da and Wils can come to town with seabags and seem sailors …”

  “They would have to go home to get the bags, no? And if Fenn is sought at his home, he’ll be taken. As paladin, not for magic-work. You’re worried about Virda and Morie, too, I know. But Cobbel and Gevarr will take them to safety as arranged, if enemy soldiers have come to th
e mountain.”

  “I don’t know enough!” I burst out. “I do not know how to fight the mages. I only work magic in lurches and spurts. What good am I?”

  “Enough good to shoot their hawk out of the sky. How did you come to the fort on the one night when the mages’ magical attack would burn our men out—after months of the siege being at a standstill? The apostate told you he believed the gods are on our side. I think they are using you to fight the mages.”

  “Then they must be finding me wanting. Where is the Goddess of Sea and Water? And the God of Air, while the weather-workers wring the clouds dry? We do not have unrelenting torrents like this here. Da has books that tell of places far away where rains like this come every year, but not here.”

  “I do not think the gods reach into the world with their own hands. I think they empower us with magic to do their work here.”

  “Do they also empower the mages, those who use their power for ill?”

  “I do not know what bargains mages may make with darker forces, in order to feed their ambition for conquest. Both good and ill exist in all worlds.”

  Wieser sat up with a thump of her tail on the floor of the wagon, and I heard a knock at the door. I opened it on a sodden Wils, who stuck his head in to say, “We have to move to higher ground, the waters are rising. Da wants us up the hill ahead.”

  The Travellers readied to move as well, and we aided one another as we could. I began to wonder what it would feel like to be dry as the chill water overtopped my boots.

  “All in all, I believe I prefer tending goats,” I told Wils as we put our shoulders into the back of a Traveller wagon.

  “You used to complain about that, too,” he grunted.

  Dawn found us on top of the hill, wagons scattered this way and that with horses tied wherever we could hitch them in the dark. The rain spluttered to a stop as I stood watch with Da. I did not figure I could get any wetter, so might as well be outside.

  “I am thirteen today, did you remember?” I said, watching the sun struggle to shine through thinning clouds.

  “Yah, in fact I did. If we were home we could celebrate your coming of age properly. As it is, I will tell you I have something of your mother’s for you at home. Have I told you I could not have done a better job of rescue myself?” I shook my head, throat catching. “Well done, Judian.”

  Wils came up, scratching his neck. “What’s he done now?” he asked on a yawn.

  Da and I laughed loud at that. “Make ready,” Da said, wiping his eyes. “We roll for home today. We cannot go further south, I know the country that way. There will be flooding and mudslides to block our path.”

  “Are they herding us home, then?” I said.

  “If so, I have surprises in me yet. Call me one of your messengers,” Da said, with a grim smile.

  We parted from our friends of the wet, wild night. The baby Annora helped was bright-eyed and sassy, and batted its arms at us. The old crone hobbled to my side still humming, and pressed a circle of pale stone into my palm. A looped leather thong threaded through a hole in its center, and she gestured I should put it around my neck.

  “For the strong magic,” she quavered as I picked it up from my tunic front to look at it closer.

  “It gives me strong magic? Or it protects me from strong magic?”

  She smiled and tottered off. Queer old thing, I thought. “Thank you!” I called after her. I showed it to Annora when I climbed onto the wagon seat beside her.

  “Oh, a moonstone,” she said at once. “Powerful talisman. She gave it to you? Did she know today is your birthday?”

  “How would she know that? I didn’t know you knew.”

  “I’ve been saving back some cherry mead for you, now you are of age. I’m thinking she knew you had magical gifts because of the crows and Wieser.”

  “Do you know what this is for?”

  “Protection mostly, such as keeping you from the sight of those who would do you harm.” She touched it and murmured a few strange words. “Keep it always with you. Good fortune to have it now, I would say.”

  To be sure. Da told me to settle in the back, and Perk took the reins with Annora by his side. Wils rode ahead to scout, and Da rode his stallion, which I named Storm in honor of what we had weathered. We set out north toward home.

  ###

  As miles passed, I noted we were headed more toward the coast than to our mountain. The first night’s camp, I dreamed of a snow-white owl circling and searching. I was told to stay in the wagon, but the voice came from inside my own head. I held tight to my moonstone and obsidian knife. As a dream, it somehow made sense that I was sleeping curled within the wagon and also watching the owl wheel above fields and treetops with wings silvered by moonlight.

  When I woke at dawn I found Annora sitting beside me. Warding signs chalked on the floorboards surrounded us both. “Was I dreaming the owl?” I asked first thing.

  “Not a dream, a vision. I saw her, too. She could not see us, between your stone and my spell.”

  I pulled my leather booklet of magic-lore from my tunic and set about copying the signs from the floor. “If sorcerers can send creatures to seek us, why not send gangs of them in all directions? And by day as well as night?”

  “One mage for one creature at a time, I think. And they cannot ride too long or they risk losing themselves to the wild nature of their mount. However many sorcerers are in Merced, I do not think all are solely occupied with finding you. They communicate with one another by Sending. They must have done, to explain the speed with which your capture is their goal, and the soldiers told to seek a boy and his father.”

  “They overestimate me. I am sure of that, if of nothing else.”

  The second night, a white wolf appeared in my dream. Where’s the owl? I wondered in my sleep. The wolf made a more restive host for a mage, and whipped about with snapping jaws as if to dislodge something from behind its ears. More time was spent chasing its own tail than loping through the firs. I could almost sense the frustration in the sorcerer’s mind, and thought, Do not pick the pack leader, then. He chooses his own path.

  By day we began to encounter cargo wagons flanked now by four Keltanese outriders rather than two, all journeying south to find a way to Keltane beyond the mountain range. “They will have far and away to go,” Da said with satisfaction. “The Aganetha Mountains run more than a thousand miles along the borderlands, and passes are few.”

  The closer we came to the West Road, the more squads of Keltanese troops appeared, setting up checkpoints to question any wayfarers besides those accompanied by their troops. Once, we were ordered to climb down and stand beside the road while they searched the back of our rig, but between my moonstone and whatever Annora was humming under her breath, none of the soldiers took particular notice of either of us. One of the officers coveted Da’s horse, until it bit him on the ear when he tried to feel its foreleg. We were waved on our way while he pressed a cloth to his bloody cheek.

  “Did you make Storm do that?” I asked Annora.

  “He wanted to, anyway,” she smiled in return.

  Clock came to us at the campfire the third night, and Da and Wils translated the message he brought with barely contained glee. I longed to know what was afoot, and received sympathetic glances from Perk and Annora as I moped about my day’s end chores.

  My dream vision that night was of a broad-winged heron, bluish in the starlight, with long legs trailing as it flew. They pick mounts poorly, I thought in my sleep, for the bird beat its wings rather than stretching them to ride the wind currents, and only looked down when going over lake and river. Perhaps finding me has been relegated to the least adept among the mages. Still, I took comfort in my talisman and ring of protection. Tonight I had renewed the symbols myself, with Annora’s guidance.

  Da sent a message away with Gargle at first light, and we traveled on toward the coast. I was granted a reprieve, and allowed on the wagon seat instead of in the back, thus able to see an approachi
ng red cargo wagon drawn by a matched pair of golden horses. Perk was driving our wagon, his eyes alight with mirth when he glanced at me. I made out Joren Delyth’s face as the other wagon drew near, and he winked at me from the driver’s bench. Four in Keltanese tunics accompanied the rig; in addition to Miskin and Beckta, Cobbel and Gevarr rode alongside. Gevarr raised an eyebrow at me when he passed, but his expression betrayed no recognition beyond that. I saw their horses were some of Bar Estegg’s from the smithy; so the villagers were in on whatever Da had set in motion. The tarp spread taut over the wagon bed, tied securely to the cleats. What were they hauling?

  Once past us, Joren swung the wagon about in a wider section of road, and followed us from some distance back. Wils reined in his bay to come beside us and tell Perk to pull off to the south at the next creek crossing. Once under the trees and out of sight from the road, Da ordered the teams switched between the wagons. It was short work with so many men, and when we were ready to set off again, Da told me, “We make for Bale Harbour. Wils, Perk and I will walk in through the gate with seabags Joren has brought. Our horses will be tied behind your rig, and you and Annora will follow the other wagon to a warehouse on the waterfront. Drive the wagon within and stay there until I say different, understand?”

  “I’ll do as you say.” But I wouldn’t say I understand, exactly.

  Da and Wils dismounted about a mile from the harbour town gates. Perk handed the team’s reins over to me, and I asked him quickly, “Do you think you are healed enough to walk a mile?”

  He pulled his crutch out from beneath the seat and clambered down. “I’ll hobble in or they’ll carry me. Don’t worry.”

  “The enemy has built such a fine wall for us, I hear,” Wils said softly to Perk as he tied the horses to the back. He chucked the saddles through the back door, and the three of them shouldered their seaman bags. Though the canvas sides bulged, I did not think it was with sea gear. I hoped sentries did not look in sailors’ bags.

  Da, Wils and Perk naturally fell behind us on foot. We covered ground faster, and came to the town gate just behind the red wagon being waved through by the guard. “I hope none of them recognize Gevarr,” Annora said, giving voice to my fear. None seemed to note him as in truth one of their own, left for dead.