Darioth nodded once. "Lead."
Serrana screamed again when she was yanked to her feet. Aneska smothered her outcry behind her hands. They fell into step with their captors. Behind them, the children gathered up all the things they'd harvested and brought the baskets along. The crone came last in the procession, with bones and beads on strings rattling against her staff.
Jerrad opted for the direct route, which he had thought was one thing, but proved to be another. He knew where he'd intended to go, and watched those landmarks go by on his right or left. Terrain that had seemed impassible before opened to him, and the lack of comment from the Wolfmanes suggested they weren't seeing anything out of the ordinary going on.
Once the group broke into the cleared land west of Silverlake, people in the settlement spotted them through gaps in the wall. Moving as swiftly as Jerrad had yet seen, Lord Sunnock ran to where Tyressa was inspecting the longhouse shell. He gesticulated wildly, but Tyressa turned calmly and walked toward them.
The two groups met inside the first ring of tents past the palisade wall. "I am Tyressa of Silverlake. I thank you for returning my children to me. The Kellid reputation for honor and their compassion for the helpless is well known and obviously well deserved."
The Wolfmane leader's face remained impassive. "I am Darioth of the Wolfmanes. Your children had strayed onto our lands."
"And they shall be disciplined for that." Jerrad's mother waved a hand toward her own tent. "If you would care to join me, I'll prepare tea. I have a map, and would appreciate your advice so encounters of this sort could be avoided in the future."
Darioth nodded curtly, then followed in Tyressa's wake. The two warriors released Serrana and her servant. Aneska gathered Serrana in her arms and led her off to her tent. The children set the baskets near the crone. Jerrad smiled at her, but she raised an eyebrow and stared at him with an icy blue eye.
The children squatted and brushed dust from the ground. Using short sticks, they quickly excavated a half-dozen bowl-like holes. Two of them pulled pouches from their belts and dumped out eighteen rounded pebbles. A third produced a pair of six-sided dice, and the two players faced off over the line of holes.
They paid Jerrad no attention, but he picked up the rules to the simple game. A player rolled the dice. Starting at the hole on his left, he moved one stone the number of holes equal to the value on the lowest die. Then he did the same for the higher value. Each continued to do this, putting as many of his stones as possible into play. Holes could contain any number of stones of either color. If a player picked up a stone and the die roll was greater than the number of holes left, he'd reach the final one and work his way back to the left. If one player had three stones in a hole where the opponent had none, the opponent could not place a stone in there, and would forfeit his roll if that was his only move.
When a player rolled doubles, he would move, then look at the corresponding hole. If he had more stones in that hole, he captured the enemies stones. An equal number of his own stones left play, but could reenter with another die roll. If the stones matched equally, nothing happened. If the player had fewer stones than his foe, both players put their stones back in their play pool. It seemed clear to Jerrad that the winner would be the player who captured all of his opponent's stones, or prevented any of them from entering play.
"May I?" He dropped to a knee beside the children. "I've not played before."
The Kellids jabbered back and forth, then one child picked up his stones, and another tossed down a handful of wood chips he'd scavenged from near the longhouse. The Kellids laughed, but Jerrad shrugged it off. He counted out eighteen chips, snapped them into rough squares, and indicated his opponent should throw the dice.
The Kellid snorted and threw. Though he'd only watched one game, Jerrad recognized the phases things had to go through. The initial deployment would lead to the conquest or avoidance of holes in the middle game. The end game would involve pouncing on orphaned stones and fortifying holes so no stone could enter the game.
The Kellid nudged the dice his direction. The bone cubes didn't weigh as much as Jerrad had expected they would—and they weren't matched like the ones with which he'd been practicing his magic skills. These would be so easy to magic.
He didn't. He tossed the dice, counted his chips into holes, and passed the dice back to his foe. The dice clacked and bounced. Stones shifted from one hole to another. The Kellid won some chips, but Jerrad won some stones. By the time his mother returned with the Wolfmane chieftain, Jerrad had lost because his foe had all the holes blocked, but he still had a half-dozen chips in his play pool.
Darioth studied the gaming area, then spoke to the crone. She answered with no emotion, but punctuated her remarks with a rattle of her fetish staff. The warrior woman nodded, then looked at Tyressa "This one is your son?"
"Yes."
"He has played honorably and well."
Tyressa ruffled Jerrad's dark locks. "He's always liked games."
"That you have raised him to treat honorably with strangers says much, Tyressa of Silverlake." The Kellid leader glanced at the game again, then looked into Tyressa's eyes. "These areas we have agreed belong to the Wolfmanes—we will allow you to use them through winter. Then next spring, if your son can beat my champion at lerkot, we shall extend the time to the spring following."
"You are most kind, Chieftain Darioth." Tyressa smiled. "As I said before, you and all the Wolfmanes are welcome here, to visit or trade as you will."
"I will tell the others." Darioth nodded toward Jerrad and said something in the Kellid tongue. His opponent gathered up the slate gray stones and put them in a pouch, which he handed across. "Practice, Jerrad of Silverlake. Others will come to test your prowess."
"Thank you."
Darioth grunted, then turned and strode toward the opening where the gate would go. The other Wolfmanes followed her, with the crone shaking her fetish staff here and there. Jerrad had no idea what that was meant to do, and no real desire to find out. That the Kellids were fierce and at home in the wood was more than enough for him to know.
Tyressa gave him a quizzical look. "She was a hair's breadth from driving us from Echo Wood. She laid claims to almost all the land, and half of the lake. Do you have any idea what you've done?"
"It's good, yes?"
"Very good." Tyressa shook her head. "They were willing to give us your sister's weight in skins for her. That's on par with the Murdoon offer."
"I won't tell her."
"No, don't." His mother sighed. "It's not news she'll take well."
∗ ∗ ∗
Serrana sat beside her brother in their darkened tent. "Are you awake, Mouse?"
"I am now."
"I can't do it."
"What?"
"Live here." A muffled sob escaped her. "I'm not like you."
He frowned in the darkness. "What does that mean?"
"You know. You've always been... different." Serrana sighed. "I was raised at court. I never liked it outside. Maybe the gardens, just when flowers were blooming, because they were pretty; but everything here is wild. You see that, right?"
He sat up on his canvas cot. "Yes, it's rough out here."
"Rough?" She grabbed his forearm and squeezed tight. "You've been chased by goblins and wolves and kidnapped by the fey. I have farmers who want to trade cows for me, and the Kellids..." Her voice broke and her hands left him. "I thought they were going to kill me."
Serrana began to sob, shaking the cot.
Oh, by the gods, what do I do? "Shh, Serra, everything will be fine. You'll see. It'll all work out."
"No it won't! Not for me, Mouse. Not for you, either. Once you're a few years older, Mother will be trying to marry you off to make alliances, too. The nixies hate me and the sprites hate you. And those are the least of our worries."
"What are you talking about?"
She sniffed, and her silhouette swiped at tears. "Baron Blackshield can't let us win. You were there. Mot
her threatened him with an Ustalavic invasion. We took woodsmen who were working for people who were paying him. Mother's made peace with the fey and the Kellids. She's taken the steps to make Silverlake viable, which means Blackshield has to move soon to stop the threat."
Jerrad's eyes tightened. He couldn't fault his sister's logic, but this level of anxiety wasn't like her. She's been talking to someone. Sunnock, I'd bet.
The simple fact was that Baron Blackshield hadn't visited, nor sent spies, nor even sent a message concerning Silverlake since their arrival. And while it's true that our alliances threaten him, they also make it very difficult for him to threaten Silverlake.
"He's not the threat you think he is, Serra."
"Fine, you can believe that. It changes nothing. This is an evil place, Mouse." Hands moist with tears grabbed his hands. "I don't want to die here. If I stay, I will. I know I'm no good. I can't do anything right. I couldn't even gather mushrooms without someone putting a knife to my throat. But what will it be next? The nixies drag me off to drown? The sprites decide you're no longer fun, so they come after me? Why do you want to see me die, Mouse? Why?"
Huh? Jerrad squeezed his sister's hands. "I don't want to see you die, Serra. I don't."
"Then will you help me?"
"Help you do what?"
"I can't stay here. I can't. I want to go home."
"There isn't any home to return to."
"I can petition the prince. He can keep me in his palace, as a hostage against Vishov perfidy."
Perfidy? "What makes you think that will work?" Jerrad squeezed her hands hard. "Serrana, what is it?"
"You have to promise to tell no one."
"I don't know if I can."
"You must." All warmth drained from her voice. "I can't have you fail me now. Promise."
Knowing he'd regret it, Jerrad said, "I promise."
"I had a message from home. I got sent Ailson Kindler's new book, Winds of Mercy."
"What? How?" Jerrad cursed silently. "It was Lord Sunnock, wasn't it?"
"That doesn't matter. The book is the sequel to ours. In it, the character who's me returns to Ustalav as the prince's hostage. It's barely part of the story, but that's the key, don't you see? It's a message, from the prince himself."
"Are you mad?" He tore his hands from hers and scrubbed them over his face. "If mother finds out you read another of those books...."
"She won't if you don't tell her."
"You're asking me to lie to her."
"No, just not tell her." She grabbed Jerrad's biceps and squeezed hard. "Just like I haven't told her about the little book you've been reading, Mouse, and the things you've been doing."
"What? How?"
"Keep your voice down." She sighed. "Jerrad, I don't want to do this, but I will die if I stay here. Tell me you'll help me."
I need to figure this out. He groaned. "Don't do anything weird. I need to time to think."
"Then you'll help me."
"Maybe."
"I knew it." She planted a kiss on his cheek. "Thank you, Mouse. You're the best brother. Sleep well."
She vacated his cot, and he slid down under the covers. As if I'll sleep now. Or ever.
paizo.com #3236236, Corry Douglas
Chapter Twelve
A Dream Rooted
Tyressa Vishov stood on the battlements of Silverlake and surveyed her empire. The longhouse's completion enabled half the families to move in, with stout wooden walls to ward them and a pitched roof above their heads. She'd chosen the lucky families by lot. A few people suspected she'd not put her family's name in the sack with the other wooden chits, but no one knew for certain. A few of the woodsmen had given up their billets to losing families, claiming they weren't ready yet to surrender the freedom of the stars for a roof, but that hadn't fooled many people, either.
Those who hadn't won still lived in tents, but they were tents on raised wooden platforms, with low walls and wooden frameworks. They shifted supplies into unoccupied tents on such platforms, save for the perishables, which were stored in one of the three root cellars they'd dug. Next up would be the stable and expanding the smithy, then more permanent smokehouses, a communal barn, a wharf, and the walls looking down toward the lake.
She looked up at the dark sky and the stars glittering in its inky depths. Silverlake had made major strides, but to take any serious pride in them would invite the gods' mockery. Two months into a twenty year sentence was hardly a victory. Chances were good that the winter would destroy them. Or spring floods, or summer storms, or any of a thousand forms of disease and pestilence. Silverlake could best be described as hanging on by its fingernails.
She glanced down at her hands. I have no fingernails. Two months had roughened her skin. It had cracked and chipped her fingernails such that her fingers bled more often than not. Her clothes hung loosely on her, and she'd had to cut new holes into her belt. And it wasn't that she'd not been eating, but that she never had a moment to rest.
Though creating Silverlake brought with it an unending string of problems, there was one benefit: jobs could actually get done. She had no trouble remembering what the site had looked like when they first arrived—or, worse yet, the quagmire it had become after the rains. Mud and bracken predominating, with the wood close in on all sides, she'd though Mudflat might have been a better town name.
Yet now, it had come to resemble a town. At least a large field camp. Section by section, the longhouse had been built. Palisade walls with sharpened logs and two wide doors on big iron hinges had been set in place. People had gathered large stones to mark off a green near the longhouse, and to draw boundaries between their homes. They did that not out of possessiveness, but because it allowed them to obey civil convention. They respected each other's privacy, though no one could keep a secret for long in Silverlake.
People had done all this. They had taken nothing and made it into something. Yes, the wood was still green and would have to be replaced with more seasoned wood, but that would have to wait. For the moment they made what they needed most urgently, and were happy to have it. What others had said was impossible, they were making possible. They took pride in that notion.
As well they should. Their everyday efforts were all that stood between them and death. And people weren't just out for themselves. They worked together, not expecting an immediate return, but knowing that what was good for one person in the community would be good for all. It made Tyressa proud of all this, and all them. We have come very far.
Tyressa shivered, not from the cold, but from recollection. She'd stood atop battlements—true battlements—far taller and made of stone. She'd watched companies of men, her husband at the head, marching off to war. The Vishov family estates had been much more vast than the holding to which she lay claim here in Echo Wood. With the help of estate managers and vassals, she had overseen it all for her father and then brother, but even that duty had not prepared her for raising a town from the ground up.
A town. Not even a city. And she wanted Silverlake to be a city, a grand glowing city of which Thornkeep would be its shadow. That had been her goal when she set out, and her desire to attain it had grown when she saw whom Baron Blackshield had taken to wife. She wanted grand stone towers and paved streets, bright pennants flyings and bridges soaring above streams.
I want it to be perfect.
Just for a moment she understood the impatience of kings and conquerers. And men like my brother. They had the vision of a perfect city, a perfect society and civilization which could stand as a beacon for all who dwelled near the Inner Sea and beyond. It was ambition, but noble and pure, meant for good.
But built on a foundation of impatience.
With eighty people, she'd created a wood and earth town. With eight thousand or eighty thousand, she could have created her shiny city, but every bit of pain and hardship her eighty had known would be multiplied by thousands and tens of thousands. People would die for her a
mbition, and more would die the grander it got.
Patience, Tyressa. Silverlake would grow. She had twenty years to make it grow. The longer it took to build, the longer it would take to destroy. She would not let it fail.
"Excuse me, my lady."
Tyressa turned and found Lord Sunnock mounting the ladder to the catwalk. "How may I help you?"
"I think it's I who can help you." Sunnock quickly rubbed his hands together to remove mud she'd tracked onto the ladder. "I thought to head into Thornkeep tomorrow morning."
"Ever the optimist that Baron Creelisk will recall you?"
"I've petitioned him for aid for Silverlake." Sunnock leaned on the wall and looked out into the darkness. "I know you hold me in contempt for not helping out more, but I do what I can. I believe my master will approve the latest requests. I must remind you, however, that you are not my mistress."
"Of this I'm well aware."
"And my master tasks me with certain duties."
"And what would those be?"
"I would never ask you to betray a confidence." He glanced at her, his face shrouded in darkness. "But I'll do you a favor. I am concerned about your children. Your daughter, specifically. She's no better suited to life here than I am."
Tyressa's breath caught in her throat. Ever since her encounter with the Kellids, Serrana had been detached. She still did her chores, pitching in around the camp, but she did them emotionlessly. Tyressa would have welcomed an outburst of anger or happiness. Instead the girl seemed far away.
Tyressa felt she was dying inside.
"What is it you propose? Take her to Thornkeep, ask Lady Ivis to care for her?"
"That would be an option, but I fear not one which anyone would like. However, I think she would enjoy a journey to Thornkeep. It's a bit more civilized than Silverlake."
Tyressa slowly shook her head. "I can't authorize that sort of a trip. I can't designate anyone to act as her bodyguard—we need everyone here."
"I would be happy to see to her care."
Pathfinder Tales: The Crusader Road Page 10
