*****
By mid-afternoon, Cob no longer needed to touch the hog. It just followed him like a massive pet, constantly snuffling at his back. Walking beside it had seen him sideswiped again, his coat streaked with slobber, and walking too fast had nearly made it ram the next wagon. The only way to keep the right pace was to stay directly between it and the wagon, trying to pretend that no one was watching him through the rear shutters.
But they were. Everyone was. People strayed by on pointless errands, their faces turned away but their eyes on him. Handler Rickent sat on the bench-seat despite the cold, and whenever Cob looked back, he saw the tension in the grizzled man’s face, the superstitious fear in the whites of his eyes. And there was the whispering that he could barely hear through the shutters, the sounds of children talking about him.
He kept his gaze on the ground, trying to keep his temper in check. This was obviously some side-effect of the Guardian’s presence. He had not been around many animals since his escape from the Crimson Army, but his dim recall of those encounters was positive; nothing had bitten him or stung him or barked at him or run away. Not Ammala’s witch-cat, not the lizard that had crawled up his shoulder in Illane, not even the birds.
And the hog adored him.
When he concentrated on it, he could feel that adoration like a sunbeam on his back. He felt it from Arik too; little pulses of happiness wisping up from beside the long, slow glide of the freezing river. Eyes closed, he could visualize a map of the creatures around him, with people and animals as warm spots crossing a thin, cold blanket that hid darkness beneath, yet the darkness was not the frigid one his father had warned him about. It was fibrous, tangible, like hands with thousands of fingers linked together in sleep.
Plants? he wondered. Wintering plants?
It was distracting and unsettling, and having sensed it, he could not shake it. He tried to concentrate on reality but there was always something else nibbling at his perceptions. A sett of badgers slumbering under a nearby hillock, a shivering dog tied up outside one of the farmsteads they were passing, a sluggish and confused school of fish under the river ice. The Mist Forest on the opposite bank, its edge thick with new growth and the recent scars of logging. The wagons, their wood straining between the frosty air outside and the portable stoves within. The people, a mélange of emotions.
Those two spots on his forehead hurt—the ones where his antlers grew when he gave over to the Guardian—but he did not feel the spirit pushing at him. He could only guess that the Trifolders’ breaking of his superficial bonds had given him access to some part of its senses that it did not care if he used.
He knew he should ask it for advice, but the thought of crawling back to the Guardian after telling it to pike off set his teeth on edge. Instead, he stewed in fantasies of trekking over and punching the farmer who had tied his dog out in the cold, or punching the bearded carter who was on his third pass-by, or maybe punching Handler Rickent.
Too bad I can’t punch you, he thought at the Guardian.
As usual, it did not dignify that with a response.
Despite his strange perceptions and the caravaners' leeriness, the trip proceeded quietly. By mid-afternoon, some of the scrutiny had faded from his shoulders, and for his part he had managed to push the sense of roots and wildlife down to a nagging background murmur. He still dared not move away from the hog, though, so was reduced to taking sparing sips from his canteen in the vain hope of avoiding a piss.
They had just left the bounds of another riverside village when Cob glimpsed Arik chasing something up ahead. The wolf cut tight zigzags through the snow, intensely concentrated on whatever he was hunting, and it relieved Cob to realize that he could not sense either of them. The wolf needed to eat, after all.
Then the unseen prey zagged toward him, and dread tightened in his stomach.
It came over the embankment in a greyish blur, tiny compared to the wolf that barreled after it. Unlike the wolf, though, it did not halt at the edge of the road to eye the snorting hog; instead, it zipped under the wagon in front of Cob. Cob glanced to the wolf, who quivered in frustration, then squinted down at the creature that now stared at him.
It was a hare, a shin-high snow-flecked ball of fluff and ears. As the wagon moved above it, it sat still, allowing itself to be revealed until it was right in Cob's path. Cob halted, unnerved by its beady black stare, then stumbled forward as the hog nudged him from behind.
The hare skittered aside, then fell into a hop next to him.
Why, why does this happen? Cob thought, glancing around surreptitiously for any sign that people had noticed. The wolf hung his head then turned to stalk off through the snow; no one else seemed aware. He peered down again, hoping that the hare had been a hallucination, but there it was, hopping determinedly beside him.
Kick it, he thought, then smacked himself mentally. The hare and the hog heralded trouble, but it was not their fault. Obviously suppressing his link to the Guardian's perceptions did not stop others' perception of him.
Instead, he tried thinking 'go away' thoughts toward the hare as they traveled—not reaching for that sense-link but just repeating the words in his head as he eyed it sidelong. Sometimes it tilted a long ear at him, but it never strayed, and when caravaners passed it just skittered to his other side.
About half a mark later, two green ribbonchasers fluttered down to perch on his shoulder. He brushed them off in a panic, but they alit on his head, then on the hog's head when he shooed them off again. They chirped at him and he looked away, only to find a dog with a gnawed-up rope leash paralleling him from the embankment.
To his relief, Arik ran the dog off in short order, but the birds refused to disperse and soon were joined by another ribbonchaser and a big mottled Rogan's crow. The hog seemed cheerfully indifferent to the birds and oblivious to the hare, but when a young deer approached from across the ice-crusted river, it bellowed a warning that sent the deer springing back into the trees, barely ahead of the caravaners' arrows.
By the time the sun bronzed the clouds, Cob was walking with his gaze fixed on the back of the wagon, unwilling to meet anyone's eyes. A passing child had spotted the hare and started the caravaners spying on him again, and he had finally just picked the animal up to hide it under his coat. It lay asleep in the crook of his arm now, nails hooked in the fabric of his tunic, a tiny bundle of fur and breath.
Ahead, the wagon began to turn. Cob blinked and focused past it to see the head of the caravan entering the cleared central plaza of another small town. The buildings made a loose half-square around it, and already citizens had gathered on porches or along the road to watch the wagons roll in. Cob scanned the snow-blanketed fields beyond the low wall and spotted Arik lurking, close enough to keep an eye on him but too far to call.
He dropped back to lead his hog by the ear, following the example of the wagons before him. There were no big caravan-shelters here, so instead the caravan drew into a rough circle in the plaza, turning until the first wagon was pointed south again. Then, at last, the men and women and children of the caravan began spilling out from their confinement, stretching weary legs and popping vertebrae as they gathered to make camp.
“Best stay where you are,” Handler Rickent said gruffly. Cob looked back to see him swing down from the bench and unlatch the doors in the wagon's outer side, then pull them open and unfold steps. Inside, the wagon looked like a pawnshop, with goods both new and used strapped to the walls or packed in bundles on the floor. Townsfolk were already drifting near, and the Rogan's crow took flight in a gust of mottled wings only to land on a porch rail not far away, still watching. The ribbonchasers stayed; they were bold little birds even without Guardian influence.
“Should I do anythin' with the hog?” Cob said. The other handlers were standing beside their beasts, watching impatiently as men hauled big troughs down from one wagon and set them in the center of the circle. Several women followed with burlap sacks which they emptied into the troughs;
from the look and the sudden smell, Cob guessed it was kitchen garbage. Only when the trough-men and the sack-women had left the circle did the handlers start unstrapping the hogs.
“Copy the others. Think you can manage it?” said Handler Rickent, and Cob nodded sharply. But the hog tried to turn with him as he reached for the buckles, and between it and the hare in his coat, he fumbled around for long enough that Rickent finally came to do the unstrapping. The look he gave Cob over the hog's back was disconcerting: no longer superstitiously fearful but flat and calculating.
Even when freed, the hog did not turn toward the troughs like its fellows. It rubbed against Cob instead, ignoring his quiet curses, until in desperation Cob headed to the troughs himself. The hogs on either side turned toward him, but his hog shouldered between them as it pursued, and space was tight enough that soon the only way for them to move was to back up. Still, it was nerve-wracking to be the target of dozens of fanatically adoring animal eyes, and as he scrambled up on one trough and nearly upended it, he had a horrible vision of being stampeded to death by the force of their love.
He kept his balance, barely, and as his hog tried to headbutt him in adoration, he swung onto its back and scrambled along its plated hide. It gave a sad bellow as he jumped off its rump, but did not back up; perhaps without him right under its nose, it finally noticed the food.
Shaking with nerves, Cob looked up to see caravaners staring at him from every corner, their faces a mix of amazement and horror. He blushed deeply, realizing how insane he must have seemed, one arm still tucked to his side to hold the sleeping hare in place under his coat.
Fortunately, the townspeople were arrayed on the outside of the caravan, so had not seen. When he moved to exit the circle, the caravaners withdrew from him like he was plagued.
He kept his distance as the trading commenced, avoiding the camp-kitchen the women were setting up by the road to stand on the embankment and watch the town instead. It did not take long for Arik to find him, and his anxiety about the wolf and hare evaporated as the wolf gave a sniff in the hare's direction then sat down to rest his head on Cob’s leg. Cob dug his fingers into the thick ruff and sighed from the bottom of his heart.
It was near dark when a woman from the kitchen finally approached him. She carried a bowl and a piece of bread, and looked him over frankly; by that point he had yielded to weariness and sat down in the dead wet grass, the hare in his lap and the wolf coiled around his back. The chill and the damp did not bother him, evidently due to the Guardian; likewise, the hare seemed content to lay within the wolf's reach and be scratched between the ears, as if there was no danger.
“Your dinner,” the woman said, offering the food. He took it with a wary smile, recognizing her as one of the caravaners who had consistently spied on him. She was curvy and round-faced in the Amandic way, her dark hair falling in curls over her shoulders, and he remembered her bodice being rather more laced-up the last time he had seen her.
“Uh, thanks,” he said.
She leaned in slightly, examining his face, and he stared over her shoulder to avoid looking down her cleavage. “You know you're welcome at the fire,” she said.
“I don't... Um. Seems like it'd be awkward. With the hogs and all.”
“No harm came of it.” There was a peculiar warmth in her voice, almost a purr. It sent a tingle up his spine. “Rickent thinks your talent might be useful, whatever it is. If it works on hogs and birds and adorable little—”
A horrific shriek came from his lap and he nearly pissed himself. At the same time, the caravan-woman leapt back with a shriek of her own, clutching her suddenly-bloody hand. The hare recoiled against his belly, and he realized that the woman had tried to pet it.
“Oh pikes, I'm sorry, it's wild—” he started, but she gave him a horrified look and bolted for the fire.
Behind him, the wolf rumbled with suspiciously human-sounding laughter.
“Shut up,” Cob said through his teeth. He had jostled the bowl in his startlement, and half of the soup was now up his sleeve. He drank the rest of it as he watched the cook-fire crowd cluster and whisper, then crammed the bread in his mouth before someone could come up and take it away.
He slept on the embankment that night, and woke chilled and stiff to the feeling of the wolf nibbling his fingers. The hare was gone, but Arik gave him a wounded look when accused, then stuck his muzzle up Cob's sleeve to search for more congealed soup.
They stayed there until the caravan started packing up, then Cob reluctantly descended. Rickent ordered him to stand back until all of the hogs had been reharnessed, and in the lull he looked around and realized that no one would meet his gaze.
Within the first few miles of the new day's trek, six birds tried to perch on him, and Arik barely avoided a brawl with a badger that poked up from its burrow to take in Cob's passing. As much as he hated to do it, Cob opened himself up to that sense-of-others just so he could know when to expect another wildlife ambush, and nearly had a heart attack when he sensed a bear. It stayed at the very fringe of his perception, though, and finally wandered away.
Just as its trace was fading, another animal moved into range, coming down the road from Cantorin at an aggressive pace. He felt the hogs react to it as it reached them, swaying aside in their traces. Two people rode it.
Tasgard horse, he thought, and glanced that way at the sound of hooves.
The big tan horse had slowed to pass the caravan, sharp scavenger-teeth bared at the draft-hogs. Its two riders were cloaked, but the one up front wore a tabard of Amandic purple with a crest of crossed grain and scroll: a kingdom courier. The other rider was scanning the caravan with urgency, and when her hood turned toward him, he felt her relief.
“Hoi!” she cried. “Here, let me off.”
The courier hauled on the reins, and the horse came to an unhappy halt alongside Cob’s wagon. It champed its bit, eyes rolling toward the wary hogs as the woman rider dropped from the saddle. Chainmail jingled under her cloak and winter dress.
“That’s all?” said the courier.
“Yes. I thank you in the name of the Trifold,” said the cloaked woman. She raised a hand in benediction, and the courier inclined his head, then tapped heels to the flanks of his horse. It trotted cautiously past the hogs then picked up speed, kicking clods of icy mud from the road as it resumed its run.
Cob eyed at the woman as she smoothed her dress and straightened her cloak. She sounded familiar. “Fiora?”
“You remember!” she said brightly, then strode toward him, pulling back her hood. As she passed into view of the hog, it flinched and started to lunge at her, but Cob lunged first—hooking one arm over the massive beast’s snout and shielding its eye with his other hand. He was not nearly strong enough to turn it, but it turned itself, digging its cheek against his chest and making a rumbling sound of anxiety. Fiora backed up, white-faced.
“It’s fine. It’s fine,” Cob said, more to the hog than the girl. On the carter’s bench, Handler Rickent looked just as stressed, but said nothing as Cob sidled around to stand between the hog and Fiora. With his hand on its ear, it calmed enough to resume its plodding.
“Oh goddess, I’m sorry,” said Fiora beside him. He glanced at her, annoyed. Her curly dark hair was bound back in tight braids, a chainmail coif tucked under the collar of her cloak, and the rucksack she wore did not fully disguise the shape of the small shield beneath it, just as her plain dress could not hide the outline of her sword.
“What d’you want?” he said. “Other than t’ get bitten in half.”
An angry flush colored her cheeks, but she shook her head briskly. “There’s a problem. Someone in the Temple sold you out to the Golds.”
“What? Who?”
“I don’t know. I overheard it and ran. There’s probably not much time. We should get away from the caravan while we can.”
“Wait,” said Cob, trying to ignore the sink of his heart. He was not surprised, but it stung. “Jus’ because they kno
w I’m on the road doesn’t mean they can find me in a snap. You sure they didn’t let it slip so they could follow you?”
Fiora looked stricken and glanced back the way she had come. Cob did too, but saw only the caravan and the snowy, tree-clad hills, and felt nothing—his Guardian senses had faded with his concentration on them.
“No, it’s worse than that,” said Fiora, looking back to him. “They mentioned a watchtower. That means mages, Guardian. They don’t need to follow on foot. They can just—“
She broke off, her gaze flicking past him. He followed her eyes to something glimmering in a melting snowbank up ahead: a crystalline sphere on a short metal pole embedded in the earth beside the road. A beacon, one of many he had passed since leaving Cantorin.
Unlike those, this one was active.
An unnatural tingle ran up his spine, a weird sense of disjunction. He looked back to see a line of light draw down the air beside one wagon, then open like a doorway. Beyond was a chamber crowded with yellow tabards, yellow robes—Gold soldiers and mages. A second disjunction and he saw another doorway open beside the lead wagon.
“Crap,” said Fiora, and shrugged her pack off in a practiced motion.
For a paralyzed moment, Cob simply stood there with the useless switch, his other hand on the hog. Yellow-robed figures stepped through the doorways and flung ropes of shimmering power toward him, but he could not move, could not think. He had been in too many fights to count, but had never faced magic head-on. He had no way to react.
Then Fiora stepped in front of him, shield raised, and the golden energy slammed into it with a sizzling sound, shoving her against him with such force that they both slid backward. The hog squealed in dismay. Cob dug his heels in the mud to brace her, and she shouted “Breana!” and lowered her shoulder against the force. Instead of coiling inward, the golden tendrils peeled away from the hot aura that suddenly surrounded her.
The Splintered Eye (The War of Memory Cycle) Page 10
