Devlin’s foot skidded across a slippery stone, and he flailed wildly before regaining his balance. At the start of his journey, this road had been paved with interlocking stones, with a raised crown that allowed water to run off into the ditches on the side. The farther he traveled from Kingsholm, the worse the road became. The stones showed signs of wear, then cracking, and then weeds had begun to appear. By now, nearly two weeks’ journey from the capital, there were many places where the stones had vanished altogether. And the drainage ditches were choked with weeds and debris, so that instead of draining the water, the roads were covered with mud washed down from the fields on either side.
Slowly he became aware that there was another sound mixed with the driving rain. The faint jingling of metal on metal came to his ears, and then the rhythmic sound of hooves striking ground and the creaking of carriage wheels. The sounds were coming closer, and swiftly. Devlin turned, and saw a carriage emerging from the mist behind him.
“Ware! Ware away!” the coachman called.
Devlin leapt to the side, landing on his knees in the ditch. The coach, pulled by two highbred horses, swept by, splattering him with red mud without so much as an apology or even a glance backward from the coachman.
“Damn all nobles,” Devlin cursed. “May your axle break, and may you be forced to tread in the mire like the rest of us poor common folk.”
He tromped on in the mud. The fields of corn gave way to patches of rooted vegetables, and eventually those petered out until there were naught but overgrown meadows on either side of the road. Patches of scrub began to appear, and from time to time, as the road rose, he caught glimpses of a darker blur in the distance. It was the forest of Astavard, the reputed haunt of the robbers. He had not expected to reach the forest for a few days more, but the relentless pace of the Geas had driven him harder than he’d realized.
Once he reached the forest, his true work would begin. Perhaps it would be there, under the leafy bows of the alien pines, that the God of Death would finally see fit to accept the offering of his life.
His steps quickened. As if to mock his desires, the rain grew harder, and the wind began to blow, until the rain was falling slantways, lashing at his face. He struggled on, and slowly the gray day turned darker. The sun, hidden behind the rain clouds, began to set.
Devlin realized that he would not reach the forest today, not before night fell. He looked around, but there were no houses or cottages in sight. He’d passed the last village more than an hour ago. Hunching his shoulders, he contemplated the prospect of another wet night, spent out in the open.
He would walk a little farther, he decided. Perhaps he could reach the edges of the forest. The trees would prove better shelter than none at all.
It was full dark as he turned a bend in the road and saw the dim line that marked the beginning of the forest. But his luck had finally turned, for there, in a clearing at the edge of the forest, he saw a low building with lights in the windows.
The prospect of warmth and a dry bed quickened his steps and restored his flagging energies. As he drew closer, he smelled the acrid scent of burned timbers, and saw the burned-out shell of what must have been an impressive building—at least two stories tall, judging by the stone chimney that still stood, pointing forlornly toward the sky. Surrounding the chimney were piles of blackened timbers, which were slowly being overgrown by vines. The fire was not recent. At least a year; maybe two, if he was any judge. Strange that it had not been cleared away, even if the owners could not afford to rebuild.
A stone’s throw from the burned-out hulk was a large barn that loomed over a single-story dwelling, shaped like an L. Light shone from the windows of the dwelling, and under the covered porch a sputtering torch did its best to illuminate a wooden sign that creaked on rusty fittings as it swung in the breeze.
An inn, or such as was left of one, Devlin thought, as he crossed the courtyard. His luck had indeed turned. No need to beg for hospitality from a suspicious farmer. This night he would rest under a roof, after eating a meal of hot food.
As he approached the inn, he saw that the carriage that had nearly run him down was drawn up next to the barn. It looked strangely out of place, like a noble come visiting to the poor quarters. The inn did not look like a place that nobles frequented, but perhaps they too had decided that any shelter was better than none.
Devlin climbed the steps of the inn and reached for the door handle. He pushed it, and found that it would not budge. Strange for an inn to have a locked door. It said little for the innkeeper’s hospitality, but perhaps this was the custom in these parts. His own experience with inns was small, for in Duncaer there were few inns, and those that existed were run by foreigners for traders and the like.
Devlin struck the door with his fist, thrice.
After a moment, he heard footsteps, and then the door was pulled back, but only a few inches. The face of a young boy stared out.
“Open the door,” Devlin said brusquely. “I want a room for the night.”
The boy shook his head, his unkempt hair falling in his eyes as he did so. “I am sorry, but there is no room.”
“I have money.”
The boy glanced around behind him, and then repeated, “There is no room.”
Devlin felt his anger rise. He was not begging for charity, but for the same right as any traveler who had coin in his pocket. He deserved better than this. Devlin put his left hand on the door and leaned some of his weight against it. Just enough so that the boy, leaning against the door with all his might, began to slide backward.
“You have room for Myrkan nobles, but not for a humble traveler, is that it? I need no fancy bed, but I will have a roof over my head, and I am coming in. Stand aside, boy.”
Devlin took a breath, but before he could carry out his threat, a voice called out, “Jan!”
The boy let go of the door and turned to face whoever had spoken. Devlin pushed the door open, and stepped inside.
“Jan, what are you doing?”
“But Ma—” the boy protested.
“Enough. Go help your brother.”
The woman who had spoken came toward Devlin, wiping her hands on her apron as she did so. She looked like any countrywoman in her dark dress, with her graying hair braided and wrapped round her head.
“I am Hulda, the inn-wife,” she said. “Please forgive my Jan, he is only a boy.”
An inn-wife. One who offered hospitality for coin. In this country it was an honorable profession. Devlin dipped his head in respect, as was proper.
“I am called Devlin,” he said.
At the sound of his voice her eyes widened. “You are far from home,” she observed, her gaze lingering on his black hair.
Devlin shrugged. The tradespeech came more easily to his tongue these days, but while his accent might have improved, there was no disguising his features.
“One goes where one must.” Let her read into that what she would. “For this night, I need a meal, and a place to sleep. I have coin to pay,” he said, placing his hand on his belt pouch.
“A meal you can have, but I regret there are only the two rooms, and they have been bespoken by noble travelers. As it is, my own boys will be sleeping in the barn tonight. You are welcome to sleep in the common room, if that is to your liking.”
“Two rooms is not much of an inn,” he observed.
Her eyes sparked with anger. “Once we were far grander. Then fire killed my husband and destroyed the inn, and now we must survive as best we can.”
He felt an unwilling sympathy for this woman, though he sensed that she did not want his pity. “The common room will be far drier than a night spent outdoors. I thank you for your hospitality,” he said.
“A half dozen coppers.”
It was an outrageous sum for a man who would not even be given a bed. Still, what other choice did he have? He reached into his belt pouch and slowly counted out the coppers, leaving it perceptibly flatter than it had been before.
From the hall it was but a few steps to the common room. Once the parlor, or so he guessed, it now held four long wooden trestle tables with chairs of rough pine. An older man and a younger one, both in the silks of nobles, occupied one table. The inn-wife showed Devlin to the table farthest from the two. There Devlin unloaded his pack and stripped off his cloak, hanging it on a hook near the fire to dry.
“Good evening to you,” he said. But the nobles, after a dismissive glance, said nothing, which suited him fine. After a few minutes, they rose and left the room. Their footsteps echoed down the hall as they headed toward their chambers. It was early to retire, but perhaps they were tired from their journey. Though how travel in a coach could be tiring he did not know. Surely the chance to sit in comfort would make any journey easy.
He dined on grilled rabbit in an herb sauce, with boiled red roots, and washed down his meal with several glasses of straw-colored wine. The food was far better than he had dared hope from the unprepossessing surroundings. The old inn must have been a grand place in its heyday. He said as much to the inn-wife when she returned to clear away the remnants of his meal.
“What’s the use of fine skills, when there is no one to enjoy them?” she said. “Each year fewer come this way. Soon no one will travel at all.”
His ears pricked up. “I had heard the road was dangerous,” he said with feigned casualness. “Robbers or some such in the forest. But I thought that simply a tale.”
“There are lawless ones everywhere,” she said, flicking a cloth at the crumbs on the table. “I never thought I would live to see the day that the royal road was not safe. Who knows what will happen next? But the King does not care. He holds court in Kingsholm, far above the concerns of simple folk. He will take no notice until the robbers attack his own palace.”
Just then a young man appeared in the doorway. “Ma, are you finished for the night?” he asked.
The young man was in his late teens, and bore a resemblance to young Jan. Another of the family.
“Go along, Paavo, and I will join you in a moment.” Turning to Devlin, she said, “You can push the tables out of the way, and lay your bedroll by the hearth. Douse the lights before you sleep. The necessary is in the yard, past the stable. My sons and I were up at dawn, so we will retire now. If you need anything, my room is the first door down the hall.”
He thanked her for her courtesy and bade her good night. It seemed early to retire, but his eyes were heavy, and his chin fell down on his chest.
He needed to move now, before he fell asleep in the chair. Devlin stood up, then gasped as a wave of pain contracted his stomach. Sweat broke out on his forehead and rolled down his back. He bent forward, grasping the table, as another wave of pain swept through him. It was as if a giant hand was squeezing his guts, and he could not prevent the gasp that escaped him.
He cursed as the pain subsided, for he knew that in a moment it would return. “Damned gray leaf,” he growled, as the next wave of cramps began. Of all the ill luck! Even a single leaf could cause him to suffer, and from the symptoms he knew he’d had far more than a single leaf. Normally he avoided it, but the other flavors must have disguised it.
The cramps were getting worse. Now it felt as if he had poured molten metal into his guts. With a supreme effort, he straightened himself up and began to head for the door. With one hand around his guts, he used the other to open the door to the outside, then staggered out into the night.
Where was the damn privy? He could not recall what the inn-wife had said, and he had no time to hunt for it. He broke into a shuffling trot, and managed to make it to the burned-out ruins, just as his guts began to heave.
He fell down in the mud on all fours and vomited, enduring waves of fresh agony. It seemingly went on forever, until there was nothing left inside of him, and still he felt the urge to heave.
Slowly, he raised his head, then pushed himself up until he was leaning back on his heels. His head swam with dizziness, and his stomach ached but did not rebel.
He felt angry at himself, that he had made such a foolish mistake. But how was he to know? Gray leaf was native to Duncaer. Who would have thought a simple Jorskian inn would serve such an exotic spice?
He called himself twelve kinds of fool, and cursed himself with every epithet he knew as he waited for his stomach to calm down. His sweat-soaked body grew chill in the night air, and still the pains came.
Eventually the cramps grew farther apart, and less painful, and he risked standing. His head spun from the effects of the leaf, and from losing his dinner in such a fashion. Slowly he crossed the inn yard, and there, past the stable, he found the necessary. He used it, then splashed cool water on his face and rinsed his mouth out in the washroom next door.
Every bone in his body ached as he made his way back to the inn and into the common room. He barely had strength to push the tables aside and unwrap his bedroll. Spreading it on the floor made his head swim again and he lay down, not even bothering to take off his boots or to blow out the lamps.
His mouth was dry with thirst, but he knew from past experience that even a sip of water would be enough to trigger another series of spasms. There was nothing he could do save try to sleep it off and hope that he felt better in the morning.
Wrapping himself in his cloak, he closed his eyes and settled himself to sleep.
Sometime later, he heard steps in the hall, and the sound of the door being slowly opened. Wishing only to be left in peace, Devlin burrowed his head under his cloak.
The footsteps came closer, and then he felt a dull pain in his leg as someone kicked him. But he was too weary to react.
“He’s asleep,” said a voice that sounded like the young man Paavo. From the sound of it, he was standing right over Devlin.
“Of course he is,” an older man’s voice countered. “Ma knows her craft.”
It took a moment for the meaning of his words to sink in. Herb lore was not his skill, but Devlin had learned from past experience that gray leaf could be mixed with kalanth berries to make a powerful sleeping draught. That is, if the subject did not have an aversion to gray leaf.
Paavo kicked Devlin again. “I would have taken care of him myself, but when I saw the lights I thought he was awake….”
Devlin kept himself very still, realizing that his life was in danger. For himself, he cared naught. He was ready to die. But his life was not his own to throw away. Even now the Geas prodded him, to stir and take action. It would not let him lie there passively and await his death. Not while there were other lives at risk. Not while he still had a task to fulfill, and a duty toward the Kingdom.
Still weak from the herb sickness, he did not know if he could even stand, yet he had no choice. He risked opening one eye and saw muddy boots before him. The intruder was between him and his axe, which was still strapped to his pack.
“He’s a big one all right, but he’s no threat. Finish him, and I’ll do the others,” the older voice commanded. “Unless you are too squeamish?”
“No, I’ll do it,” Paavo said.
Devlin waited as he heard the footsteps that signified the other had left on his deadly errand. He heard Paavo take a deep breath, preparing to strike.
In that moment he threw himself to the side, unrolling himself from his cloak as he did so. A long knife rent the air where he had been only seconds before as Devlin rose to his feet.
Paavo swore, his face white with fear and his eyes wild as he waved a butchering knife in Devlin’s direction.
Devlin looked around, but there was no escape. The piled wooden tables boxed him in on one side, and the hearth on the other. He would have to pass his opponent to reach his weapons.
As Paavo made another wild swing, he attempted to grab the knife, but earned only a shallow scratch for his pains.
He was running out of time. In another
minute the idiot would think of screaming for help, and Devlin would find himself trapped and outnumbered. And then he would have failed, and more innocents would be killed because of him.
So he did the only thing he could think of. Devlin took a few steps back, lowered his head, and charged.
His head hit his opponent’s midsection with a satisfying thud as the breath was knocked out of Paavo. Devlin’s momentum carried them several steps farther till they struck the opposite wall. The force of the impact stunned Devlin, and he bounced back a few steps.
His ears were ringing as he raised his head and watched as the hapless Paavo slid down the wall, collapsing at the bottom in a boneless heap. Devlin reached down, picked him up by the collar, and shook him, but Paavo’s head rolled aimlessly on his shoulders. He was unconscious.
Moving to his pack, he unlashed his axe and tore off the protective wrappings. Pausing only to pick up the knife that Paavo had dropped, he thrust it through his belt.
He paused at the doorway, looking cautiously till he was sure that no one waited for him. Strange that the sounds of fighting had not wakened the noble guests, unless they, too, had been drugged.
Devlin made his way cautiously down the hall, sparing a bare glance to the empty kitchen opposite the common room. The next door was closed, and he recalled the inn-wife saying it was her room.
Two steps more took him to a corner, as the hallway turned and continued at a right angle. On the left-hand side, light spilled from an open doorway, illuminating the figure of a man holding a sack in one hand and a sword in the other.
“Halt or I will kill you,” Devlin said.
The man turned to face him.
Devlin approached slowly, testing the weight of the axe in his hand. The walls of the narrow wooden hall seemed to press in on him, and there was scarce room for two men to stand abreast, let alone fight.
This opponent was older than Paavo, a man who had come into his full strength. And he was taller than Devlin, with long arms that would give him an advantage in reach.
Devlin's Luck Page 9
