Fires of Aggar

by Chris Anne Wolfe

  “Arghh!” the lad bellowed, near falling off the railing. “She got me!”

  “That she did,” Gwyn agreed and rubbed a hand through his raggedy mop of hair. Ty whined, panting hard with her flanks heaving, and Gwyn gave her a fond ruffle as well. “She always does, you know. I’ve never met anyone who can dodge her.”

  “But I almost out ran her!” Sek grinned rakishly, hair half-hiding his bright eyes.

  Gwyn laughed and leaned back against the fence, shaking her head at his exuberance.

  “Anyone ever do that? Out race her, I mean?”

  “On foot? Never.”

  “Not even you?” His eyes widened in astonished disbelief.

  “Not even me!”

  “Eieh!” Sek looked at the tatter-eared sandwolf with renewed respect. Then, still dangling from the fence, the lad suddenly asked, “How long you had her?”

  “Had her?” Gwyn’s smile softened her rebuke. “I don’t ‘have’ her, Sek. I don’t own her any more than you do your mother. However, the three of us have been together for a little more than four tenmoons.”

  “But… I mean, you can’t leave them anywhere without you. Can you? They’re like those Council shadow-things—”

  “Shadow-things?” Gwyn cocked a quizzical brow at him. “Do you mean shadowmates? The guardian-guide people?”

  “Shadows are real people?” Again his young eyes grew saucer-wide.

  “Of course they are. What did you think they were?” Gwyn felt amusement fade a little in the face of such ignorance. What era had these Khirlan folk gotten lost in?

  “They’re… aren’t they supposed to be Council spirits? Like made by the Seers and… and they have to do all the stuff the Council orders… only they do it outside the Keep, in the places the Council doesn’t live.”

  Ahh, then it’s not necessarily Khirlan folk — perhaps just a little half-understood information the boy had overheard. Gwyn relaxed and settled more comfortably against the rails. Ty promptly lay down on a boot and rolled her weight into Gwyn’s calf, that silly, slit-eyed grin of hers appearing.

  “You ever met one?”

  “A shadow? I have. A couple of them.” Well, she was certain of Sparrow, and she had strong suspicions about a few of the other Marshals’ apprentices, especially the ones who’d served in the Wars and were still apprentices. Not that it was that unusual to decline the full-status of a Marshal; some simply never felt prepared for the challenge of full responsibility.

  “What’re they like?”

  Gwyn shrugged. “A lot like you or me.”

  “No — they can’t be.” He was genuinely crestfallen at that. “They’re suppos’d to be special.”

  “They are,” Gwyn assured him. “And so are you and I.”

  “I’m just a hoe farmer. Don’t even get to herd the milkdeer from one moss batch to another yet.”

  “Well, that’s how lots of shadows — and Marshals! — start out. But then they go to the Keep or to Churv to get trained. At the Keep, the shadows learn about Aggar’s history. They study all sorts of things like agriculture, healing, weapons play, and sometimes even languages.”

  “Ugh,” he made a face. “I know my numbers and ’nough to read the People’s Book.”

  “Good to know the law,” Gwyn inserted soberly.

  “Ole Ma Tessie says the same. An’ I need to write and read so I can keep the farm accounts when I get older. But I don’t like books and study so much. I’m better with my hands — you know I can thatch a roof hole all by myself? An’ I’m just coming on five seasons old now!”

  “Very nice.” Suitably impressed Gwyn gave a measure more of respect. “I also noticed how you handled Nia the other day. You’ve a fine touch with animals.”

  He beamed at her proudly. Then he abruptly switched thoughts to ask, “What did they teach you in Churv? You know, to be a Marshal?”

  “Law — and some weapons play.”

  “Laws? That’s all? The People’s Book isn’t that big!”

  Gwyn stifled a laugh. “I didn’t study just one book, Sek. I studied all the books. All the books for all the districts for the last hundred seasons or so. And all the books on why the laws were written the way they are and what the intentions of the monarchs were at the time they helped to make those laws. There are an awful lot of details involved, you see.”

  “Just so you could go fight Changlings?”

  Lips pursed, Gwyn studied the boy for a long moment. Finally she asked, “What do you think being a Marshal is about, Tad’l?”

  He considered that seriously, then he gave a gradual nod of understanding. “You’re not just soldiers, are you? You do more figuring and studying then regular sword carriers.”

  “And why do you think we do that?”

  “Because…,” he puzzled this one through more quickly. “Because lots of times you have to think about a problem. Just fighting with whoever’s to blame… well it doesn’t always solve everything, does it?”

  She encouraged him with a faint nod, and more sure of himself, Sek’s shoulders squared off as he balanced one-footed on his rail perch and concentrated. “It’s like when Padder’s sowie got loose and started hurting people. Maybe it was his fault more’n other folks, for the trouble being there. But fighting him ’cause he was to blame wouldn’t have stopped the trouble. Makin’ him pay a fine — well it might keep other city folk from comin’ out here and trying foolish scheming, but it wouldn’t have solved the worst problem. The sowie would still be out hurting people.

  “And them city Swords, they were all ready to fight the Clan’s parties to keep us farmers from getting hurt, but they didn’t want no part of this. Wasn’t very fancy stuff to them. But what’s the difference between Padder getting his head sliced off from the sowie’s tusks or a Clan’s sword?

  “Seems to me…,” he chewed on the thought a second or two more, before confidently concluding, “they didn’t think about the problem enough. So what’d we get? Another fellow hurt so bad, he lost an arm.”

  “Now answer me this, Sek. Are these city Swords to blame for that crippling? Should I go after them?”

  A frown creased deep between his brows, but only briefly ’til the boy asserted, “Yes, they are to blame some. Not all of it, though. It was a lot of things — Padder trying something that went wrong, them Swords choosing wrong, but mostly it was the buntsow itself. And what the Swords were doing out here is necessary too. If the Clan’s raiding nearby, that needs to get stopped. You go arrest the city Swords, then the Clan only rides around free until someone else gets out here to chase after them. That would hurt more people, so maybe it’s better to just wait until the city Swords are through with their work and then… I don’t know. Maybe sit ’em down and explain how impor’ant feral stock is to farmers’ safety, and… and maybe fine’m to make’m remember real good.”

  A small smile broke through at that last phrasing, but Gwyn was pleased. “Aye, it might be a good reminder at that. Adults have a way of remembering when it costs money, especially if they hadn’t expected to spend it. And I agree with you, these Swords were only partly responsible.”

  “That why you’re going on to the Khirla Feasts instead of after them?”

  “Partly — and I have other business to attend in Khirla or more folks may be hurt later. See Sek, that’s what Marshals try to do most often — help people settle problems without using our swords or arrows or fists. We try to make sure as few people get hurt as possible, and not just for today. We try to think about what might happen tomorrow or the day after — or ten seasons from now! Because sometimes what we do now, affects what your own children are going to be arguing about someday.”

  “So’s you studied all those books about laws that used to be and about laws in other districts to learn how to do the best thing for everybody, eh?”

  “That’s why.”

  “An’ that’s why you decided goin’ after the sowie was more important than goin’ after the Swords or to the Khirla Fe
asts, and why you had to go huntin’ for it every day instead of waiting for it to be seen attacking someone again? You didn’t want to risk anybody else getting his neck sliced like Padder did.”

  “True enough.” But that was the second time he’d said “sliced,” Gwyn noticed uneasily. Something tumbled about in her mind and abruptly she remembered Kora had also described Padder’s death in a similar way; she had said “cut.” Now that was odd — not torn, not gashed or ripped, but cut and sliced? That implied a clean severing, not the usual messy style of a buntsow. “Sek, can you help me on something?”

  “Maybe.” He said it with considered attentiveness.

  “Were you there when they found Padder?”

  “Ah no.” He was more disappointed at not being able to help her than he was at the idea of that grisly scene. “I was out in the west patches weeding the sweet beets an’ knobby nips.”

  “Nips?” Gwyn was thoroughly confused at the strange term.

  “Turnips,” he enunciated promptly.

  “Ah — can you tell me what you did see of Padder, if anything?”

  “Not much. They’d moved him in and set up the pyre ’fore I was back. His pieces were all wrapped tight for burning by the time I saw him.”

  “Pieces?”

  “Well… aye,” Sek shrugged uncomfortably. “His head and his leg… they weren’t part of him no more.”

  “Ahh… do you know where he was when it happened? Where your elder sib found him?”

  “Oh that! It was west on the milkdeer path — between the afternoon watering creek and the road.”

  “Which road?”

  “This one. South over there. The milkdeer path is used by near everyone. Less at night with the herds, of course. Even without Padder’s sowie loose, there’s always a few buntsows hunting somewhere, and we do best to keep the milkers in the barns. But people they leave be — ’specially in groups — so we use it lots. It cuts short ’tween couple of farms, just less than a league from here. The path’s maybe a stone’s throw north of our district road marker.”

  “The fresh scrubbed one?” She’d seen it on her sowie hunts.

  “Aye! The stone one!” He was suddenly looking very proud of himself again. “Could you read it fine?”

  She understood then and gave him a smile. “I could indeed. Must be a very responsible family tending it this season.”

  “We do! It’s us — I did the scouring myself just a ten-day past.”

  “You did an excellent job of it, Tad Sek. I am impressed.”

  “So you’re goin’ out there tomorrow? Instead of to Khirla? I could show you the way easy!”

  Gently she declined his offer. “I’d best see it alone, Sek, but thank you. I need to be out early and then on for the city.”

  “Got’a be there for the races, uh? Thought so, with those mares. They’re beauties. Cinder’s got the spice for the winning too, hasn’t she? Hasn’t been a Marshal representin’ the Royal Family since my Ole Ma’s own grannie was a girl — or so Ole Ma says. But now the Wars are over, that’ll be changing. Won’t it? Now the King an’ Crowned can be sending us help for against the Clan! It’s like Ole Ma Tessie said — the districts had to be strong by themselves ’til the Changlings were dealt with, but we’re a proper country and have a ruler King. Now there’ll be money when there’s flooding and less taxes when the crops fail. And the Clan folk won’t be terrors for much longer. Now there’ll be help for everybody needing it. Won’t there?”

  He said it with such certainty that there was really very little question in his voice, and as he hopped down from the corral, it was clear that he expected no answer from her. After all, she was here and that was an obvious enough answer for his young mind. But it was his very surety that raised bumps on Gwyn’s skin. A boy not yet allowed to herd the milkdeer was worrying about the economics of floods and crop failures, and this in a area that appeared to be thriving? It was a sad testimony to Khirlan’s state of affairs. It was even more unsettling, considering no one in Churv even knew the Clan’s raids had worsened.

  Unfortunately, she wasn’t in the position of knowing a great deal more herself — at least, not yet.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  The gray light of dawn found Gwyn and her packmates near the creek on the milkdeer path. The place of attack was evident despite the fact that it’d been through a pair of ten-day and a soaking rain. On the path, leaves had been torn and thoroughly mulched into the damp soil. Grit and stones laid aside, kicked out of their usual depressions, still patiently waiting for the next hundred hooves to plant them again. Some of the tree roots were speckled a more ruddy brown than normal — from blood stains. But Gwyn thought there was an eerie sense of wrongness to the whole scene. Her packmates were quick to agree. As torn up as the place seemed to be, there wasn’t any sign here or below at the creek of the zig-zagging sort of tracks usually created by a buntsow pursuit.

  Every fiber of her was certain. It had been staged. Oh, undoubtedly the sowie had been through here, and most likely it had been drawn by the scent of fresh blood. What the farmers had seen was indeed a body savaged by that feral beast, but the creature had not done the killing.

  Ril gave a sharp yap, and Gwyn twisted about in the saddle to find her. The sandwolf was upstream, standing atop a pair of hulking roots, and eager to show her human something. Cinder carefully sloshed along through the water, until Gwyn reined in with surprise. Beyond the sheltering arms of the honeywood roots was a camp clearing, complete with a stone grill and split logs set face-down for benches.

  That in itself wasn’t startling. Sek had described this as a popular watering spot, so a great many mid-day meals and a few overnights were bound to be hosted here. And, of course, its location would make it a likely place for courting among the younger folk; wild sowies might bother stray milkdeer, but they’d adamantly avoid human gatherings.

  No, the camp itself wasn’t odd. However, the dark stains in the shadowy corner of one great root and its trunk were. There was also a chip in the bronze-red bark that was at an uncomfortably suspicious height. It was just about head high for a Niachero… or for a male of Aggar. It was higher than even the most ambitious lunge of the biggest buntsow, and it was cut too cleanly.

  Then, glancing over those darkened stains again, Gwyn noticed the singed mark beneath the blood. It was a stake-straight hole the size of a fist, driven deep and scarred black. Few Marshals had ever seen that mark, but none would have mistaken it for anything other than what it was — the mark of a fire weapon. If the tree had been anything but the hard, hard wood of the aged honeywoods, it was have shattered and gone up in flames.

  A quiet whine called Gwyn to turn about, and this time both Ty and Ril were waiting. By the look of the carved rings along the outer root’s side, it seemed they’d found the picket line. Again the horses’ signs were consistently worn enough to be a pair of ten-day old. Then Gwyn leaned forward at Ty’s pawing gesture. She guided Cinder out into the stream a bit further to move their shadows, and the prints on the sloping bank grew clearer. Before Ty was the mark of a weighty, large horse. Beside it lay a partial print of a chipped hoof that belonged to a lighter mount. That chipped imprint was undeniably familiar; these tracks had been left by her arsonists’ horses.

  It seemed the Clan raiders had taken to impersonating the Dracoon’s own sword carriers. Gwyn wondered — was their masquerade limited to the rural regions or had they managed it within the Dracoon’s Court as well?

  Ty growled low in distaste, and Ril seemed to sigh in a resigned manner. With a humorless grin, Gwyn agreed with her friends. “Aye, it’s certainly not good news. But thank you — you did well to find these.”

  Ril lifted her leathery brows in an inquiring fashion.

  “No, I’m not sure what it means,” the Amazon admitted. “It suggests caution at the very least, but we knew that already. We’d do best to hurry onto Khirla, Dumauzen. Too much seems to be happening with too little explanation. It’s clear someone was ex
pecting us — or at least they were expecting some traveler representing the King and Crowned. And that someone’s probably affiliated with both Khirla’s Court and the Clan.

  “So, can you two do without hunting until you see me to Khirla’s gates? I know dried meats and porridge are not your favorite things. But…?”

  Even Ty looked disgusted that she need ask.

  “Then let’s collect the other mares back on the path.”

  As they went, Gwyn realized how distinctly prejudiced she was becoming. For a fleeting moment she actually wished the attempts to negotiate a treaty between Clan and Dracoon were adamantly refused by the Clan — because she wanted to go after these fire weapons. She wanted the Clan’s technology and all the fear it intimated banished — destroyed! It was difficult to remember that not every soul of the Clan folk could possible be as ambitious as these militia-raiders, very difficult. Unless…? Gwyn checked her rising anger, remembering the truth of every people: no one voice spoke for all. Which meant it was quite possible that some within the Clan were tired of their isolation and their militia’s ways. For that matter, Gwyn saw, if the militia-raiders controlled most of the fire weapons, then they might very well be as intimidating to the Clan folk as they were to Khirlan’s people. Ruling by threat and strength was no longer common among the Ramains’ districts, but it certainly should be considered here.

  “Mae n’Pour!” Gwyn prayed beneath her breath as a more immediate threat registered. “Oh — this is not going to be pleasant.”

  Gwyn suddenly hoped she wasn’t riding into a trap.

  Those three arsonists had killed Padder. They had wanted to kill a Royal Marshal too, namely Gwyn. That much was clear. And they had been able to pass themselves off as Steward’s Swords to everyone in the area — to everyone expect Padder.

  Why? Because Padder was from the city and had known these men weren’t really what they claimed to be.