“There, there, baby girl. It’s all right. Mama and Papa are here. The bad things are gone. They won’t hurt you.” Over and over, Maghen said the same words.
Mark wanted to kill more zerniks, but they had apparently decided that even with their fanatical mode of predation, they had encountered something fiercer than themselves.
With nothing else to do at the moment, Mark walked a circuit: from his family, around the fire, to the horses, around them again, and back to his family. Perhaps fifteen minutes passed. Maybe thirty. He didn’t know. Finally, he approached his family. Maghen’s stricken face stared up at him.
“I don’t know how much more of this I can take, Mark. When will it end? We almost lost Alys to these creatures.”
He knelt and held them both for an hour before Alys fell asleep and Maghen stopped trembling. “You go ahead and get some sleep,” he said. “I’ll stay awake and stand guard.”
She didn’t speak but lay down where they had been sleeping.
“Mark . . . can you get the blanket?”
It was fifteen feet away and still ensnared in the zernik’s jaws. Mark couldn’t pry the jaws open, so he used his knife to cut away enough of the blanket to free the rest. He spread it over Maghen and Alys. They were both asleep.
He moved the surviving horses closer to the fire, then pulled the zerniks’ bodies away to be out of sight in the morning. By the time he finished, the eastern sky was beginning to lighten. They were now short a pack animal, so the remaining horses would have to carry everything until they could buy another horse. He estimated they were within a hundred miles of the border. He weighed that distance against what they might have to abandon to lighten the loads. With every item he evaluated, he thought of reasons why they needed it.
No. We’ll just have to go slower with the horses carrying more. Plus, Maghen and I will walk more than before.
When it was light enough to work, he began saddling and loading the three horses. He was nearly finished when Maghen groaned, then sat up sharply.
“My God. I was waking up and suddenly remembered the zerniks and panicked that they were still here.”
Alys stirred, and Mark knelt beside them.
“There was no other sign of them while you were asleep. I think they learned we weren’t a party to attack.”
He put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Maghen, but I don’t know what else we could have done not to be attacked.”
She sighed. “It’s just that . . . Mark . . . this is all so hard. It was difficult enough to leave our home and my family, but I didn’t have any idea what else we would have to go through.”
“You know we can’t go back,” he said. “We’re almost out of Tekleum. Just another few days. I’ve heard Rumpas keeps the zerniks under better control. We also expect that dealing with the people there will be easier than with the Tekleumese.”
“I know, but we’ve still got so far to go,” she moaned.
“Yes, and I can’t say what lies ahead. All we can do is deal with today, and today we need to move to get out of this damn country.”
Alys wiggled and sat up. “I’m hungry. Go potty.”
Maghen looked at Mark. “Trust the children to tell us what’s important at the moment and not worry too much about the future.” She looked around. “I don’t see the dead zerniks. I assume you dragged them away. Tell me where not to go with Alys.”
“Anyplace is alright where you can see the horses. I’ll finish loading, and we’ll start off as soon as you’re back. We’ll eat while we travel.”
“I’m sorry, Mark, if I feel a bit desperate right now.”
“Nonsense. I think you’re marvelously brave. Many people would have fallen apart by now.”
When they started off again, the pace was slower—with Mark and Maghen walking more to spare the horses. Alys mainly rode, in between spells of running or being carried. Three days later, the road they followed passed through a patch of forest. Before they left the trees, Mark saw what he assumed was a border post. Three armed men sat near a hut alongside the road.
“I think this is the border,” he said to Maghen. “We’ll go back a half mile and move through these woods to go around the guards.”
“If it is the border, can we stop and rest for a day or two?” asked Maghen. “We’ve walked so much, my feet ache terribly, one boot is falling apart, and I feel like I’m taking a good part of Tekleum’s dirt with me.”
“We’ll stop, but I’m afraid it’ll be in a day or two. I want to be well past the border before we risk interaction with any Rumpasians.”
Two hours later, they experienced the first confirmation that they’d left Tekleum behind. A wagon loaded with straw passed in the opposite direction. The driver cheerfully spoke to them in a new language, then acted annoyed when they didn’t respond. By the time they passed each other, the man was mumbling what Mark would have bet were comments on their rudeness.
Maghen muffled a laugh with her hand. “That’s more than all the people we passed in Tekleum said to us.”
As the miles passed, they encountered more people, some of whom tried to converse and others who were intent on their own business. Mark noticed the increased frequency of farms, as they passed two villages the next day.
“Are we far enough to stop?” asked Maghen, in a voice as close to pleading as he’d ever heard from his wife.
“The next one. I promise,” he said. That promise would be fulfilled sooner than he’d imagined. An hour later, they topped a rise to look down at a wide river valley with a settlement large enough to be rated a small town. The river was at least a hundred yards across, the largest watercourse they had seen on their travels. Flights of different-shaped ducks flew along the river and swam on its surface. Poled barges moved downstream near the bank closest to them, while horses on the opposite bank pulled similar barges upstream.
“Oh, Mark. It looks almost normal! I’m sure there are differences, but looking at it from here, we could almost be back in Frangel.”
“I hope I’m not being too optimistic, but those barges going downstream are loaded with something. Their destination has to be a large town or even a city, and if we’re lucky it’ll be Heliom.”
“So, we just follow the river, then?”
“Better. We might be able to get a ride on a boat all the way to Heliom. I hope that’s not a fantasy, but we’re due for some luck.”
Traffic increased, and the road widened until two wagons could pass each other without having to slow or pull to one side. Farms gave way to houses on one to three acres, then houses packed together, and finally shops surrounding what seemed to be a church, a cathedral, a mosque, or a structure housing whatever religion was practiced there.
They continued to the docks on the river. There, Maghen, armed with two concealed pistols, watched Alys and the horses. Mark roamed around, looking for someone who spoke Suvalu. After an hour of failing to do so, he returned to his family. An elderly woman stood next to Maghen.
“Her name is Trilkorn or Trulkorm or something like that. I can hardly understand the sounds, much less any meanings. However, I think she figured we might be looking for a place to stay if we can pay.”
They could and did. The woman introduced them to her husband, they thought, and after twenty minutes of pantomime, they had a small room on a second floor, directions to an ambient-temperature bath, and a small corral for the three horses. It cost two large silver coins and garnered some puzzlement from the owners at the strange coinage. For another large silver, they got a hot meal of something that evening, with a promise of food the next morning. Whatever was in the stew was great—meaning palatable, hot, and lots of it.
The next morning, Mark once again left Maghen, armed, with Alys and the horses. He went back to the dock. This time he persisted until he located men who seemed to be owners or captains of barges. At the third docked barge, he found a man who understood what he wanted. Mark hustled back to their hosts’ house with news that the barges d
id indeed go to Heliom. However, the barge willing to take passengers was leaving in two hours.
“I know it’s a rush,” said Mark, “but this barge will take us to Heliom. I think it’s worth the risk to sell everything we can as quickly as we can and get to the dock.”
“How far is it to Heliom from here?” asked Maghen.
“I think about three to four hundred miles if I understood the barge’s owner.”
She hugged Mark and laughed. “Oh, God. I think I’d consider coupling with him to avoid riding or walking anymore.”
“I think we can reserve any lying with men to me,” he responded jocularly. “In fact, maybe we’ll have more chances and more energy between here and Heliom.”
Maghen laughed and elbowed him in the ribs.
Mark mock-swatted at her head, then turned to business. “You sort through what we’ll take with us. I’ll go talk to the owner of the house to see if they’ll buy our horses and other riding gear. I’m sure we won’t get a fair price because time is short, but I’ll settle for anything I can get.”
In the end, Mark estimated that the horses and the gear fetched only a third of their value. Yet the new owner accompanied them to the dock with the horses so they didn’t have to walk and transport more possessions than they could carry. Among the wrapped parcels were their weapons and sacks of coin. The payment for the horses and the gear was in Rumpas coins, which Mark kept in a small pouch inside his pants.
There were no cabins on the barge. The owner directed Mark to a section of the deck behind bales of something stacked at mid-barge. There, they piled their possessions in what would be their home for the next five days. A crew of six used long poles to keep the barge from hitting banks and sandbars. It reminded Mark of old reruns of Disney’s Davy Crockett show on TV and reading Huckleberry Finn. By the second day, Mark was fidgety and took up an extra pole to stand by when added oomph was needed. The captain accepted the help but never offered to return any of the coin Mark had paid for passage.
Alys, under the initial supervision of her parents, took advantage of relatively more space to roam than on a horse—meaning she tirelessly ran around the bales and waved and talked to the crew. Even the captain became tolerant and conversed with her, although neither of them nor anyone else knew what information was exchanged.
When they arrived at Heliom two hours before sunset, they saw the largest town since they’d left Nurburt. Mark hugged Maghen. “It’s one more step, dearest. I can’t say how many more there will be, and nothing will make up for what you’ve left behind. All I can do is promise to do everything I can to get us to Caedellium and then make the best life I can for us. For now, let’s find the Rumpas version of an inn.”
CHAPTER 30
SHIP WEST
“I don’t like staying in this room alone with Alys, even with these.” Maghen nervously fingered one of the three loaded pistols lying on a shelf out of Alys’s reach. “I don’t know anyone here, I can’t speak the language, and what do I do if something happens to you?”
“I know, dear, but you’ll be fine. I won’t be gone long, and there’s nothing we’ve seen in Rumpas that makes me worry. It’s too late to check the ships directly, but I’ll stop at a few taverns to see if I hear anyone speaking Suvalu. If I do hear the language, maybe I can get a sense of which ships are in the harbor and how far and in what direction they sail.”
Mark sympathized, but it never occurred to him to think of his wife as helpless. If he’d needed any evidence after their three years together, confirmation came from numerous examples during their trek from Frangel to Heliom.
“I don’t like it either, but I’ll be in places where having you and Alys along would distract me. Plus, you wouldn’t understand any conversation that happens because I’ll use Suvalu. Also, I’ll be mixing with men, some of whom I’d rather keep you and Alys away from. You’re safer here. Keep the pistols nearby, and don’t let anyone in, except me. On the way out, I’ll tell the inn’s owner that you are frightened of being alone and will shoot anyone who tries to come into our room without me. It’s encouraging he speaks a little Suvalu. That should mean there are other speakers here in Heliom.”
“Which is exactly what I’ll do,” said Maghen. The hint of a tremor faded from her voice, to be replaced by steel. He didn’t doubt she would do just that. He wanted to smile, but she’d ask what he was grinning about. That would only delay him further from trying to find a ship sailing on a plausible route to Caedellium. Which route, he had no definite plan. He’d listen to sailors, buy rounds, and cautiously probe any leads. Speaking only Suvalu would limit his options. The trade language was widespread but not universally known by every sailor. Communicating by gestures was difficult for routine shop purchases and next to impossible for arranging long sea voyages.
He hugged Maghen and patted Alys’s head without distracting her from whatever game or story was ongoing with her two cloth dolls. He checked his clothing and the concealed pistol and two knives, walked into the hall, then stopped to listen as Maghen latched the door from the inside.
As promised, he stopped at the entrance foyer of the inn and talked to a man who was either the owner or a worker. After five minutes, Mark hoped the owner understood not to disturb the agitated, armed woman in the last room on the second floor. Outside, he paused to take in the setting. The inn sat three blocks from the harbor, far enough away to avoid casual contact with whatever happened along the first block lined with taverns and brothels. Although the harbor wasn’t a major port, it didn’t take that many ships’ crews to create a frothy environment.
From three blocks away, he could easily hear the sounds typical of any Anyar port. He walked toward the bustle, reflexively pulling his coat closed against the drizzle that had started as soon as they came within sight of Heliom. The sun had set, so the only light shone from scattered uncurtained windows. A man going in the other direction brushed against him, and Mark’s right hand moved to the knife handle slanted diagonally on his left side belt. The man grunted something Mark didn’t understand and kept moving.
Relax, he told himself. If there’s going to be trouble, it’ll come from my asking questions or maybe later on the way back to the inn.
On the second block, he passed several taverns with a clientele a step up from the men he assumed he needed to find. As expected, the taverns lining the waterfront were filled with men shabbier, dirtier, more disreputable, and, in some cases, more dangerous and/or more desperate looking. Mark couldn’t read the local writing but followed three thuggish men into a tavern. There, as soon as he crossed the threshold, he was slapped in the face with a mélange of odors from unwashed men, stale beer, the remains of vomit, and what he hoped were traces of unidentified spices.
Fifty or sixty men milled around several parallel counters. There were no tables, chairs, or female customers or employees. Two older men wove among the customers to take orders or return with large metal cups, suds overtopping the sides. Mark wove his way slowly around the room, listening for snatches of conversations, hoping to hear Suvalu. He paused at a group of four men vociferously arguing in the trade language. He did his best to look innocuous during the three or four minutes it took him to figure out that the men were from two or more of the Harrasedic peoples and were arguing about which brothel to visit after they finished drinking. They seemed to be acquainted with several nearby establishments, and they were sailing home on the next tide. It was the wrong direction—northeast, instead of west toward Rustal, as Mark intended.
He finished his tour and moved on. The next tavern was a complete bust; he couldn’t make out a single word of Suvalu. The following stop was promising. He was inundated with Suvalu conversations as soon as he walked in. It was an embarrassment of riches; his Suvalu was fairly good, but the dozens of voices overlaid on one another, and his ears had trouble sorting them out. He found a spot between two groups at one of the parallel counters and ordered a beer when a server passed by. He sipped slowly while his brain
isolated one conversation. They were Rumpasians from different parts of the nation and evidently used the trade language because their various regional dialects were almost incomprehensible by everyone in the group. The grouping to his right was more promising—a business transaction was being discussed among two Rumpasians and two men from Sirukor. This large island sat in the middle of the Throat, the ocean separating the northern and southern continents of Anyar.
Sirukor lay northwest, but traveling there would put his family closer to Narthon, which made him uneasy. Besides, he didn’t know anything about the island. For all he knew, they were associated with the Narthani. He moved on.
By the sixth tavern, discouragement had him thinking of alternative plans if they couldn’t find a ship to carry them to Rustal from Heliom. The next stop was the smallest and darkest establishment yet. Thirty to thirty-five men crowded elbow to elbow. The advantage was that Mark could be back to back with men and listen without being noticeable. He’d nursed four beers so far this evening, drinking the equivalent of one beer in total. He ordered a fifth and slowly circulated. Halfway around the room, he came upon four men at a table—two were dressed similar to other Rumpasians he’d seen, but the other two wore more leather than was typical. He sat at a nearby table, pretended to focus elsewhere, and tuned out the other voices to listen to the four men. It took him several minutes to pick out only the two voices of the men doing all the talking.
A mid- to late-forties man with grizzled hair and beard and dressed in leather clothing snarled. “You were supposed to supply three hundred muskets, plus shot and powder, Hirkon.”
“I said I’d do the best I could, Gulgit, and the best I could do is one hundred and eighty-three. If the muskets aren’t available, what do you expect me to do? I know it’s not what we agreed on, but I procured more powder and shot in compensation.”
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