by CC Hogan
Chapter 14 – Saddle up!
Fren-Eirol was refusing to talk to anyone. She sat on the road leading to the village of Sarn-Lien looking like a huge, lost puppy, and the locals were giving her a wide berth. Even her large, finely pointed ears seemed to droop. Mab-Tok and Mistry had told her in the morning about the saddle idea while Farthing and Weasel had hidden behind a tree.
“You knew about this?” she had asked the magician as they had flown over the plateau.
“No, I didn’t,” Weasel had admitted. “I hadn’t realised that it had become that big of a problem.”
“What about you, boy?” she had called back to Farthing. “You don’t have the excuse of passing out.”
“They told me last night after you were asleep.”
“And what is your opinion?”
“Erm, I don’t think I am an expert enough to say…”
“You are the second most experienced dragon rider around here, young man, and you know it!” She had accused both of being feeble cowards and had fallen silent.
Mistry and Mab-Tok emerged from the saddlery in the early evening, a cloth-wrapped parcel tucked under Mab-Tok’s arm. Weasel and Farthing looked up from where they were perched on the side of a small fountain that doubled as a horse trough in the small village square.
“Well, have you done the heinous deed?” asked Weasel.
Mistry cringed. “He had an unfinished child’s saddle. He has removed the bits we don’t need, raised the back of the seat a little and changed the shape of the padding. He has also added some thin side leather so my legs don’t rub on Mab-Tok’s flanks; apparently, I was making him itch.”
Farthing grinned. He didn’t want to say out loud, but he had found this whole episode with the girl and the Draig Bach-Iachawr comical.
“He has also added a large leather chest plate for me,” the dragon added. “It holds the saddle on and gives me some protection.”
“From what?” Weasel asked. Mab-Tok stood up straight to show a thin, red wound, now healing.
“Those bears had sharp claws,” he said. “My skin is nowhere near as thick as Fren-Eirol’s. I was lucky not to be eviscerated!”
“Oh,” said Weasel, his eyes widening. “You should have said something.”
“What, with you near passing out? Ridiculous.”
Mistry leant close to the puzzled Farthing and explained what eviscerated meant. He pulled a face. Farthing was far from stupid, but his schooling had been mostly marked by its absence. Weasel glanced up the road at the large, seated form of the sea dragon, her arms folded across her chest.
“What are we going to do about that?”
“I think this is our problem,” Mab-Tok said. “I suggest you two stay out of the way.”
Weasel nodded towards the local tavern. “Capital idea! We will stay there tonight and leave you three to fight it out.” He paused and frowned. “I hurt her feelings more than is easy to say all those years ago,” he said quietly. “It was made worse because both of us had lost our best friend, Aneirin, a few years before and needed each other.” He twisted his nose.
“You know she has forgiven you?” Mistry said. Farthing grimaced; Fren-Eirol had made him promise not to say anything. “Well, she has!” the girl said defensively.
Weasel smiled. “It is alright, I have known that for years. But don’t tell her, it would spoil her fun and then you would see a really moody sea dragon.” He turned to Farthing. “Coming?”
“Ahead of you, magician,” said the tall, young man, not needing to be offered a beer twice, and grabbing his soft bag, headed towards the Inn. Mab-Tok waited till the two men had crowded through the door in a hurry and turned to Mistry.
“I can do this if you want to join them.”
“What, me in there?” she said with wide eyes. “I know where I am not wanted, dragon! I ought to come too, though. We will do this together.” The two walked cautiously towards the winged volcano, steaming silently in the middle of the road.
Much to Farthing’s delight, the Peppered Pony Inn sold a stout that was not much short of the delightful brew the Jippersons sold, though the landlady Dienella was considerably louder than the preternaturally polite brothers. This was a genuine travellers’ inn that sat on the small square where two roads crossed; the trail that led from the plateau and to the east, and the larger road that came from the south-east and headed north-west to the Ice Lands, or Ices. It also explained why the plateau was so quiet; useless for agriculture and led nowhere other than the desert plain beyond the mountains. Farthing asked Dienella about the market.
“We don’t see many of them through here,” she commented. “Not welcome, to be honest, and most of them bypass using the wider track north of the village.” Farthing had noticed a fork in the road as they had flown in and wondered where the other route went.
“So, you haven’t seen any recently?”
“Seen? No lad,” the large woman answered, pouring a beer for one of the locals. “Heard some about a week ago, though.”
“Heard? What do you mean?” Weasel asked, smiling at the landlady. She was a healer, he was sure of it, and a proper one too.
“Well, there was this right bestial hollering, there was, and what sounded like a herd of oothens and a lot of shouting. We heard it rumble right around the village and then it was gone. No idea what on earth it was, but Jentins, the farmer up the way, says the end of one of his fields has been trampled by something with bloody big feet!” The woman yelled at another customer to keep his voice down and then grinned at Farthing. “But then Jentins is always saying something with big feet is hanging around. Too much stout and not enough water; that is Jentins.”
Weasel smiled in feigned disbelief as the landlady went off to serve some other travellers that had come in. The two had already secured rooms and it looked like they were wise to have done so; this was a busy establishment.
“What is an oothen?” Farthing asked quietly.
“Big, six-legged hairy cow,” Weasel supplied. “We call them rathen in the Prelates.”
“Oh, those things,” Farthing said. The rathen or oothen were the standard working beast of many of the farmers and some land traders in Redust. Big, shaggy and smelt like a sewer. Although they did resemble a large hairy cow, they were, in fact, closer in temperament and habits to a horse. One on its own could pull a wagon twice the size a pair of horses could, albeit very slowly. Domesticated rathen never ran anywhere, but their smaller wild cousins were a far more formidable beast. They were rare now and Farthing had ever seen one. Farthing looked towards the door. “Should we check on the others?” he asked.
“Definitely not,” Weasel said, leaving no room for argument. “To be honest, Fren-Eirol is playing to the gallery a bit; she does that sometimes. All she will want is it sorted in a sensible, way, taking into account her culture and feelings, and not have some fool argue for it when he has just drunk half the contents of the local tavern.”
Farthing looked at the magician who was staring into his half-empty pot. “Oh,” he mouthed silently, as a rather important but frequently omitted part of the old story came out. “Weasel, if that’s what happened, how did it become such a big affair?”
The magician sighed. “To be honest, the affair wasn’t about the saddle at all, it was about whether dragons should have anything to do with humans. If you go back a few thousand years, humans and dragons shared each other’s lives, at least as far as practical. As time went on human society grew bigger and more powerful, and humans are territorial whereas dragons are not. Inevitably, this caused clashes. Anyway, the differences became too great, stupidly, and some hundreds of years ago, certain dragons wanted to end their involvement with humans entirely. Others, however, especially I, Bren-Aneirin and Fren-Eirol, argued that a proper accord should and must be found. Aneirin and I had been fighting for this centuries before Fren-Eirol was even born. It was a massiv
e issue and refused to get resolved, and still hasn’t, to be honest. Aneirin then died which knocked the steam out of Fren-Eirol. I tried to argue on my own, but I did not have the same trust with the dragons as Aneirin and the argument just rolled on and on. And into the middle of this, the incident about the saddle came out, more or less as a bad joke. It had only happened a couple of days before and Fren-Eirol was not talking to me, but we often fell out over silly things, and it really wasn’t that important to either of us. Well, Bren-Diath and his little battalion of isolationists seized on this as proof that humans and dragons just cannot get on and made massive capital out of the fact we had had a spat.” Weasel hesitated. “Anyway, that was it. Fren-Eirol thought I must have told someone about the argument and it got completely out of control with Bren-Diath using the story as a political bat to hit dissenters with. I had to leave Taken in a hurry and Fren-Eirol found herself held up as some sort of champion by both sides. Eventually, she had to leave too, which meant leaving everything that had been important to Aneirin. She hated it and blamed me. We didn’t talk properly again till you turned up.” Weasel stopped as if he had run out of breath and then called over to Dienella for two more pots of stout.
“I don’t think I have ever seen any two people as close as you and Fren-Eirol,” Farthing said. “Apart from Barkles and Hetty, probably.”
“We argue all the time!” Weasel protested.
“That is my point. My parents hated each other, I mean, really hated. In the end, by the time my mum died, they couldn’t even be bothered to argue. They had stopped caring after my sister was born, I think, though I was only two and I don’t remember her birth.”
Weasel turned and looked at the young man. “I am sorry, Farthing,” he said genuinely. “You are right of course. Fren-Eirol is far more my family than any of my real family, apart from Moppy, perhaps.”
“Moppy? What, Geezen’s Moppy?”
“That is her. My great-great-great, several more grand-niece. She even calls me uncle,” he chuckled. “Actually, I really like it, but I don’t tell her that.”
“You really don’t understand people, do you?” Farthing said, shaking his head.
“You are not the first to point that out.” Weasel patted Farthing on the shoulder. “Anyway, back to the saddle, Mistry will sort it.”
“Mistry?”
“Haven’t you noticed?”
“Oh, you mean how Fren-Eirol treats her like her long-lost daughter? Yeah, I see what you mean; if anyone can smooth over the issue, Mistry can. Fren-Eirol will forgive her anything.”
“That is going to be a problem when we get to the point of Mistry going home.”
“What is?”
“Fren-Eirol is not going to want to leave her newly adopted daughter behind. We will have to see what happens.”
“I think it is going to be more complicated than that,” Farthing pointed out.
“How so?”
“Well, Mistry says that with her father dead, her brothers will get the farm and all her stock and equipment. They are much older than her, have wives and smallholdings of their own, and don’t like her.”
“Really?” Weasel was amazed that anyone could not like Mistry.
“Mother died while giving birth to her.”
“Ah. That old problem. Not something that can be sorted out?”
“She doesn’t think so. The chances are she is going to be homeless.”
“Oh, that is bad. What will she do?”
“She has no idea. She is only a kid, Weasel.” Farthing drank the last drop of his pot and sipped the foam off the new one. “Despite the fact that she copes with things so well.” He became thoughtful. “You know, when the slavers got us, she was stronger than I was initially, but I also saw how young she really is. She is nearly sixteen and is wise for those years, but if you hadn’t rescued us, I don’t think she would have survived. I am not totally sure that I would have, and my background is not something I would recommend to anyone.”
Weasel knew a little, Geezen had filled him in, and despite the care of a few good people, Farthing and Rusty had had a very rough life.
“But you have a solution, don’t you, son,” the magician said.
“She can come home with us.”
“I knew you were going to say that.” The magician shook his head and stood up. “Come on, they have a bowling alley out the back. I am brilliant at bowling so let’s go and win money off the other travellers and then get very, very drunk.”
When Weasel helped dump Farthing onto his straw-stuffed mattress three hours later, the lad suddenly remembered the magician couldn’t actually get drunk or get hangovers unless he forced himself.
“Damn,” he slurred, and passed out.
“Does she have to do that?”
Farthing was holding his head as he lay down on the warm back of Fren-Eirol. Weasel was sitting behind him, an amused expression on his face. They had discovered the huge problem in diplomacy over the saddle the night before had been overcome in seconds flat by, as Weasel had predicted, Mistry. The girl had simply walked up to Fren-Eirol holding the saddle and told her the buckles were new and stiff and could the sea dragon help her do them up. Fren-Eirol had said yes automatically before she could stop herself and that had been the end of that. Neither the girl nor Mab-Tok had given her the chance to recover and had leapt in the air shouting that Fren-Eirol could catch the girl if she fell off. The insult of saddles completely forgotten, the dragon had jumped into the air in panic and chased after them, clucking like a mother hen. Farthing would have laughed out loud when Mab-Tok told them the story, suitably embellished, but his head was just hurting too much. He had asked the small healer dragon for help but was told that the dragon didn’t deal with self-inflicted injury.
Mab-Tok dive-bombed the humans on the back of the sea dragon again, the girl on his back screaming with joy. Farthing pulled his travel coat over his head.
“Enough!” Fren-Eirol bellowed through the morning sky. “We must make progress.” Her voice dripped with irritation, but she could not hide the amusement in her eyes. Mab-Tok glided into position next to the larger dragon and nodded his sincere thanks to her. He understood the issues that he and Mistry had raised, but it was necessity and not malice that drove his decision. Besides, he had known the story of the saddle all his life and always felt it was foolishness. To meet the two stars of the tale and see the hurt that lay behind it all, just annoyed him. It was passed time the entire episode was exorcised from both dragon folklore and the history of these obviously kindred spirits.
“Good idea,” muttered Farthing, Fren-Eirol’s voice still thundering around in his head.
Weasel had planned out the day’s route with Mistry. She had knowledge of the main trail and he had knowledge of flying. He was relying on what he had sensed on Rondor Rocks since down in this hilly region he was unable to get a sense of anything and he feared that their quarry had already passed into the mountainous region that lay between here and the North Hoar Ridge. His next proper attempt at scouting would be in those mountains, known, misleadingly, as the Black Hills, though he would do smaller checks, just in case their quarry turned off to another destination. In some ways, the route was straightforward. Here to the Black Hills, across the country of Great Plains into Wessen and to the North Hoar Ridge, assuming that was where the girls were heading. In reality, it was still hundreds of leagues, perhaps another five days or so including scouting and flying up and over the Black Hills, and some of those were fifteen thousand feet high. How they had come to be known as hills was anyone’s guess.
“Are we stopping at another village?” Farthing’s head was beginning to pound a little less.
“Why, up for another tavern?” Weasel asked.
“I was hoping more for an isolated wood with vicious tundra bears. It is safer than playing bowls with you!”
Fren-Eirol chuckled. “Oh, that was what you wer
e up to last night. Weasel, how are our funds this morning?”
“Definitely a slight improvement,” the magician called out to the slowly flapping dragon.
“And the economy of Bekon?”
“It is safe; there is only one of me.”
“For which my head is grateful,” Farthing moaned. He shook out some of the numbness and sat up slowly, the gentle rolling movement of the flying dragon making him feel a little queasy. “We are not catching up with them, are we?”
“No. They are going to reach wherever they are headed before us,” the magician told him seriously. “But what happens then is what concerns me.”
“In what way?” Farthing was already worrying in a thousand different ways, another one seemed almost like nothing.
“I have no idea what to expect. Mistry’s knowledge ends at the bottom of the Black Hills where they join Great Plains. The people of Tharkness have no trade with the plain’s people or Wessen she says. Most trade is with her own small community and with North Bekon and Epinod to the south; she and her father were rarities when it came to trading any distance. She doesn’t know this Tekkinmod at all or anything about those mountains in the north. We are going to need some information before we get there so we can plan what to do. Whatever happens, we are going to have to kidnap the girls back.”
The reality of the situation hit Farthing like a hammer. Yes, he had known deep down that finding the girls was only part of the mission and he knew that getting them back was not going to be easy, but he had not put it into words so bluntly. To hear Weasel explain it sounded stark, cold and even close to impossible.
“We are going to be criminals,” he said.
Weasel did not answer, he didn’t need to, but he had to find out what that entailed and that required a conversation with someone. The magician glanced over to the small dragon flapping along next to Fren-Eirol. Mab-Tok was being helpful, eager even, and generally a good member of the team, but he had stayed strangely silent about anything to do with northern Bind. Of course, it might be that he didn’t have anything to contribute, but for some reason, Weasel did not believe that. The healer dragon knew more about this place than he was revealing and perhaps it was time that he was persuaded to cough up a little of that knowledge.
They were flying into a headwind, which they had been doing for much of this trip. Flying higher would have helped a little, but not an enormous amount. The fast winds, thousands of feet up, that had helped them across the Yonder Sea turned sharply south partway across Bind, tangential to their course, which was of no help to them. A long low rumble echoed beneath Farthing and Weasel. The magician grinned.
“Hungry, Snowy?”
The dragon growled. “I haven’t eaten properly since the desert, oh aged one,” she said pointedly. “Mab-Tok and I will need to eat soon; he especially as he cannot go as long as I.” The dragon’s stomach rumbled again. “Come on, Mab-Tok, let’s up the pace.” Fren-Eirol powered up to some higher air and the smaller dragon moved over into her wake.
Sarn-Tailin was tucked into the woods at the narrow, high end of a valley in a heavily forested range of low, steep hills. It had more houses than Sarn-Lien, but they were huddled closely together around three sides of a square, while the road wound down the long, steep valley that widened into farmland between the tree-covered hills. The dragons landed just before the village proper and took themselves a short distance off the road and into the trees to rest while the three humans investigated the village. The dragons had to eat, and for Fren-Eirol, that meant a spectacular sized meal, not just a couple of slices of meat and a chunk of bread. Mab-Tok was no rodent either when it came to his food, especially since he had not eaten for a few days.
“Half a cow each?” suggested Weasel with a grin. “Would you like that wrapped, Mistress Eirol?”
“Slightly smoked and peppered will be fine, Mr Weasel.” She winked at Mistry, who was still catching on to some of the banter. Weasel and Farthing started up the road and Mistry trotted up behind them, slipping her arm through Farthing’s.
“We don’t see dragons up where I am,” she said. “Oh, the odd one or two flying over, I suppose, but we don’t trade with them or anything.”
Dragons, having no respect for borders, were known by all the peoples around Dirt, but they were far less numerous than humans, and many communities would never have encountered them at all. Despite a long lifespan, they rarely gave birth to more than two children and most had none, so their population had actually shrunk as the human population had increased dramatically. In consequence, there were places in Dirt where dragons were rare, passers-by only, and there were no local communities.
Mistry pulled a face.
“What’s up?” asked Farthing.
“Just that I don’t know what they normally do about food. I mean, I haven’t seen either of them eat other than snack on the bear.”
“They will hunt if we cannot buy food,” Weasel explained. “They are no lovers of eating raw meat, but they will eat it if they must. Fish, on the other hand, they love raw and so food was not a problem over the ocean even if finding somewhere to land was.” Farthing rolled his eyes up at the understatement. “Since they don’t eat every day and their diet is mostly meat or fish with some fruit, they tend to cook over open fires, hence Snowy’s comment about slightly smoked. The smaller dragons eat a bit more of a varied diet and like cereals, especially a chewy honey and wheat cake they make. Don’t ever try it, by the way, it will pull your teeth out.”
“So, how much meat will we need to buy?”
“More than we can afford,” the magician explained. “I was serious about the cow, and whole cows are not cheap. Snowy knows this and she’ll be expecting us to find the local hunting ground. Actually, if I can leave that to you two, I need to see if anyone here knows more about Tekkinmod or anything about Wessen. We must get more information.”
“Why do you call Fren-Eirol Snowy?” Mistry asked as they walked into the village square.
“He wants to get eaten,” Farthing answered. “There is a general shop over here. If they sell hunting gear, they may know where to hunt. Weasel, your inn is that way.” He pointed to an old, dark-brick inn called The Lost Man.
“I wasn’t necessarily looking for an inn,” the magician commented.
“Yes, you were.”
“But since you have pointed one out…”
“We will meet you there shortly,” Farthing finished.
“Me as well?” Mistry asked. Inn’s in Tharkness tended to be habituated by men, and the only women were girls serving.
“We will fend off all the randy young farmers for you,” Weasel said, and quickly trotted across the square, leaving the girl glowering at him.
The general store reminded Farthing of Biggerman’s map shop in Taken. It was deep rather than wide and the small windows didn’t let in much light. Most of the buildings here were heavy stone or brick with small windows, in contrast to the wooden-framed buildings of Sarn-Lien.
“Morning, sir, miss.” A very tall, thin man stepped down the narrow stairs and positioned himself behind a long serving counter. “Travelling through?”
“Going east, sir,” Farthing said. “We need a few supplies and a bit of advice about hunting.”
“Hunting, sir? Not much around here, to be honest; mostly a farming community. What supplies you be needing?”
Mistry had wandered into the back of the shop and was looking through some rough, peasant clothing.
“Dried beans and peas, if you have them,” Farthing said, running through their cooking supplies in his head. “And some rice if you have any.”
“Beans and peas we have a plenty,” The man said with a thin smile. “No rice in these parts; we are a potato people. If you want dried, we do straight wheat noodles in from Southern Bekon.”
Farthing asked to see them. Noodles were popular in Redust as wheat and millet grew in
the west of the Prelatehood and was imported from other Prelatehoods like Siinland. Wild rice was traded up and down the river Wead, and next to bread and dried beans was the main staple. The noodles were thin, short and wrapped tightly into bundles tied off with dried grass. Perfect, the young man thought.
“So, is no hunting done around these parts at all?”
“I wouldn’t say none, sir. We get the odd stray boar in the woods, but they are few and far between, and my lads go out rabbiting regular like. I like to see what I can coax from out of the stream, but other than that it is sheep and turnips, to be honest. We like our sheep and turnips here.” Mistry came up to the counter carrying a short, sheepskin jacket and some thick work trousers. They had liberated her money belt from the dead slavers and she paid a few coins for the clothes.
“Good idea, miss,” commented the tall, thin man who towered over her. “If you are heading east and north up the road here, then it will be getting colder, despite it being the warm season. It’s all uphill from here, you see,” he added with a smile. Farthing had been feeling the cold a little as they had walked up into the village and he had forgotten that Mistry was relying on the clothes she and Fren-Eirol had been making out of some of the dragons printed fabrics.
“Is that going to be enough?” he asked, feeling a little guilty. “Maybe a couple of shirts?”
“Got some basic hemp ones for girls cheap on the shelves, miss,” the tall man volunteered. “Can do you a deal if you need a few.” Mistry followed the man to the back of the shop and returned with three pullover, dark red shirts.
“A bit big,” she said with a smile. “But a good idea, thanks.” She handed over the coin and then she and Farthing made their way back to the square.
“I need some herbs and some bacon or something cured,” Farthing said. He had more or less taken over the responsibility of the food because it took his mind off his worries and made him feel like he was contributing. Several times he had wondered if he was more of a burden than a help to Fren-Eirol and Weasel. “We should also see if anyone else has better information about hunting. Someone must do some, even if it is just for the sport of it.”
Mistry agreed. “My community is all farming,” she said. “But hunting is still popular. We get small deer and some boar up in the hills, and the young farmer’s sons love going out tracking them down.”
“What are you going to do when you get home, Mistry?” Farthing asked. She had spoken a little about the problems with the farm now her father was dead, but he realised they had not really resolved anything.
“I don’t know, Johnson,” she said, looking sad. “I will lose it; I know that. Women don’t own farms in my world, end of story. No one, not even close neighbours would support that. And no one is going to take me in, not a girl my age. I had my own herd, but even that was frowned on. The only way they would take me in is if I married in.” A look of distaste crossed her face. “The only people I know either have daughters or their sons are disgusting!” Farthing laughed.
“I would think you would have the pick of the crop!” He was pretty confident that this young girl’s big eyes could fell an ox at twenty paces.
“You would think? I don’t know what girls are like in The Prelates, Johnson, but where I am from I am seen as some sort of stick insect! The men of Tharkness like their women comfortable, as my father always says. Said.” She fell quiet again. “What will I do?” Her voice was almost a whisper. Farthing stopped and turned to her, looking straight into her eyes.
“You come with us, Mistry,” he told her. “And when we rescue my sister, you come home with us back to Wead-Wodder. We are as poor as rats, but we are a family.” His answer left no room for argument. “Come on, there’s a grocer.”
Farthing had as much luck with the grocer as he had had with the tall man in the general store, though he managed to get the other provisions they needed. Mistry had stayed outside sorting out her new clothes, and when he came out she was sitting on the step taking to a young girl.
“Her father is a forester, she says,” Mistry told him.
“He gets all the wood for all the fires in the village,” the small, flaxen-haired girl said with pride. “Sometimes he is gone for days, right up to the top of the world, he goes!” She pointed up at the woods at the head of the valley. It wasn’t the tallest hill in the region by a long way, but when you were all of six and small, top of the world was as good a description as any.
“Tell him what he brings you, Silvi,” Mistry said to the little girl. Apparently, they had become firm friends in the few minutes Farthing had been inside.
“He brings me teeth for my collection!”
“Teeth?” Farthing was not sure what he expected the answer would be, but teeth wasn’t it.
“Big teeth!” the girl said, beaming. “Look!” She shoved her hand down the front of her shirt and with a bit of a struggle and some face pulling she pulled out a small leather bag, hung around her neck on a string. She pulled the bag open and told Mistry to open her hand. Out of the bag, she tipped three, decent-sized teeth. Mistry looked at one and Farthing at another and then they looked at each other.
“Venison!” they said in unison.
“No!” said the girl, looking annoyed. “My daddy says they are from monsters!” She looked around to check if anyone was listening. “But it’s a secret!” Farthing blinked, his mouth in a half grin, and Mistry poked him hard in the leg.
“Is your daddy in the forest now, Silvi,” asked Mistry.
“No, Mistry, he’s in the pub,” the girl said. “I will take you to him.” She span around and shot across the square. Mistry and Farthing watched her speed off for a second, then chased after her.
The Lost Man was the largest building in the square, and Farthing wondered if there was enough passing trade through the village to justify its three floors. Like the other buildings, it was made of a mix of stone and brick with small windows, and lacked that welcoming feel that inns and taverns normally had. Inside, however, it was warm and well-lit and surprisingly busy. They were only just behind Silvi who rushed across the main room and leapt like a bear cub into the arms of a huge, heavily bearded man.
“Silvi,” the man exclaimed. “What is the rush?” She whispered into the big man’s ear, burying her face in his hair. “Monster hunters?” She whispered a bit more. “Oh, yes, of course, it’s a secret!” A few of the other men laughed quietly at the exchange. Little Silvi was obviously a bit of a local character. She whispered some more. “They want to eat a monster?” Silvi drew back, looked into her father’s eyes and nodded vigorously.
“They must be very brave!” the girl told him in a conspiratorial voice.
“I am sure they are, Silvi,” he said with a solemn expression. “Monster hunters are always very brave.”
“Like you?” She giggled and gave him a big kiss on the nose. The man roared with laughter as did most of the locals.
“Right, little lady,” he said, putting her on the floor. “You get yourself back home where you are meant to be! I won’t be long.” The girl rushed out of the door, then ran back in, gave Mistry a hug and rushed out again. Then suddenly she ran back in again, pulled Farthing down to her level and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
“Just in case the monsters eat you,” she said helpfully, and rushed off home. Farthing blushed and the bar erupted in laughter. He stood back up, touching his cheek, and walked up to the huge man.
Johnson Farthing was not short, was not thin and not weak. He spent his life pulling a handcart filled to overflowing with the finest red dirt all the way up the hill to the dumps. He was broad-shouldered, muscular and was just over six foot five inches in height, and at nineteen years old was in his physical prime. But next to Silvi’s dad, he felt like a ten-year-old. The man was quite simply a bear. His long hair flowed out down his back. His beard was full and tightly curled. His shoulders seemed twic
e as wide at Farthing’s and as he stood to greet Farthing and Mistry, his head neatly fitted between two of the low beams across the ceiling.
“Dawfoot.” The man introduced himself and shook Farthing’s hand. “Seb Dawfoot.”
“Johnson Farthing,” said Farthing, “And this is …” Farthing hesitated, wondering what kind of place this was, and how they regarded unattached, young, pretty girls. “This is my sister Mistry,” he finished. The man nodded and smiled at the girl.
“So, you want to go monster hunting, Mr Farthing?” The forester waved over to one of the young women behind the bar and ordered beer for the three of them. Mistry started to object. “It will do you good, young lady,” the man said, and passed over a terracotta pot of frothing beer. This was not the stout that Farthing had drunk so far on Bind, but was more like the wheat beers they had back in Redust. It was good, and he smiled in thanks.”
“Going by what your daughter showed us, you have deer near here.”
“Well, aside from the monsters, yes there is deer up on the far moorlands beyond the high forest.” Farthing wasn’t sure where that was. “That is up over the ridge up here,” Seb Dawfoot explained, catching Farthing’s expression. “It is a bit of a trek up through the forest and I must be the only one from this village that ever gets up there.”
Farthing smiled. “The owner of the General Store said that apart from rabbiting and fishing, no one around here hunts much.”
“We is all afraid of Dawfoot’s Monsters, that is why,” said a neighbour, laughing. Seb glared at the man.
“Come and sit down in the other room, Mr Farthing,” he said. “There are tables in there and I can explain a few things.” He picked up his large pot of beer and ducked through the connecting door into the more peaceful back room. It was mostly empty, but the fire was up and the floor littered with heavy, woven mats. Mistry sighed with relief. She had felt dwarfed by some of the tall men of this village and a little intimidated. The three sat down at a table by the fire and a girl came up and wiped the table down. Wishing to be seen as friendly, Farthing ordered three more beers, even though they were still drinking the first.
“Make that four,” another voice called out, and Weasel appeared from the corner of the bar where he had been talking with a couple of travellers. He grabbed another chair and Farthing introduced him to Seb Dawfoot as he sat down.
“I was just about to tell Mr Farthing and his sister here about the hunting up on Tailin Moor.” Weasel looked at Farthing’s “sister” and smiled in understanding. The boy was learning very fast.
“So, there is hunting here,” Weasel said. “That is good to know.”
“Well, yes, there is hunting and then again, there isn’t. Well, at least, not easy hunting.” The three looked at the big man in puzzlement. He fidgeted and glanced around to see who was listening. “I get into a lot of trouble over this, you see.” He took a breath. “That moorland used to belong to this family that had lived up there until about fifty years back or so. Generally, they kept themselves to themselves and didn’t get involved in any of the villages around here. The only thing they asked was that everyone kept off their land. To be honest, the Moorland is not much good for anything we do. Oh, we probably could graze sheep up there if we worked on it, and goats would be fine, but it’s a long way from the village and we have all we need here. So, we were happy to leave them to it.” He finished off his first pot and took a sip from the second. Mistry looked at her barely touched beer guiltily, took a breath and downed the lot. Farthing glanced at her sideways but said nothing.
“Anyway, about fifty years ago, the village got word that the last of the family had died. She was an old woman and had no sons and just a few men working for her. One of them came down and told us she had just died in her sleep. The men were not from around here but were all Wesseners. Now the old lady had died, they were going back to their families up in Wessen, but he told us that she had said that Tailin Moor should become common land for any of the villagers to use for grazing or whatever, but it must never belong to any single family. They had papers and everything that they lodged with our elders here, and that is how the place has been since.”
“I take it we don’t need permission to hunt up there?” Weasel asked.
“No, not as such. Not as if you would be getting in the way anyhow. No one from any of the villages goes up there except me, and that is only to the edge as part of my forestry.”
“What, no one at all?” Farthing was surprised. If there was deer and other animals up there hardly hunted and free to breed, he would have thought it was almost irresistible.
“Not a soul, Mr Farthing.”
“Why?”
“Well, because of the monsters.”
Weasel ordered a third round and the girl took away the empty pots.
“So, have you actually seen one of these monsters?” he asked.
The big man had been explaining to them how he had found several deer over the past few years with huge chunks taken out of them. That is where the deer teeth had come from.
“I am not a hunter myself, Mr Weasel,” Seb explained. “I wouldn’t know how to go chasing a deer on open moorland by myself, and I can’t use a bow. Axe is more my weapon, but that is not much of a huntsman’s choice. There have been tales of big beasts up on the moors for centuries, you see, and folk around here can be a suspicious lot, but there is a whole valley between being a bit suspicious and actually believing something is real. Suspicion might be keeping most from going and poking around at a place they have no need to go to anyway, but me turning up and telling them about the deer … Well, to be honest, I just got laughed at.”
“Your daughter loves it,” Mistry said, sipping happily at her third pot. The big man grinned.
“She is my biggest fan, miss,” he said. He looked at the young girl who had beer foam on her upper lip. “Are you alright with that beer, miss? We like a strong brew up here.”
“Oh, fine, fine, fine.” Mistry giggled. “It’s really nice!” She guzzled down half the pot. Farthing lifted an eyebrow.
“So, monsters aside,” said Weasel, “have you got any thoughts on what has been feasting on the deer?”
“Not really,” the big man said. “I don’t think it was bears. We don’t have many around here and they are a smaller species anyway and stick to the forests. Bears would never leave a dinner half eaten. If any of them snagged themselves a deer, they would sleep on it rather than leave it. So, I don’t think it’s bears. Not dogs neither, for similar reasons. I have seen wolves with a carcass when I was a young and was travelling. They gut an animal inside out. These had a huge chunk taken out of them like it was one big bite. And it is not any of the Other People, neither. They wouldn’t leave stuff lying around.” Some folk in the more isolated communities referred to dragons and callistons as the Other People.
The serving girl came up and delivered another round of pots.
“From the gentleman in the corner with thanks.”
“What was that about?” Farthing asked Weasel.
“Oh, he has been losing at cards badly to his business partner for their entire trading trip. While his partner was out back, I gave him a few tips.”
Seb laughed. “Don’t you be giving any of those tips to any of the locals in here, Mr Weasel,” he said. “We likes it that we can win our money back from each other. Anyway, just to finish off, yes, there is hunting up there, but I would be very careful. There is something up there that obviously thinks this place is now all his and he might not be too happy about some humans marching in.” The big man stood up. “No, you stay sat and keep warm! I must get back home before that little scamp comes looking for me again, and it will be getting dark pretty soon. It is the downside of the valley. Once the sun goes, it gets dark quick. Good night!” And with that, he headed out of the bar. Farthing turned to Weasel.
“Well, one way or anot
her, it looks like the dragons can hunt in the morning. How did you do?”
Weasel wiped the froth off his lip. “That was a lucky find. Those two in the corner are just back from Tellmond in Wessen buying a couple of carts of tundra bear hides. They haven’t dealt with Tekkinmod directly, but they certainly know of him. Looks like he controls the west half of Wessen and is very powerful. I now know a couple of places they might be heading to if he goes that direction and I need to note those down.” Weasel had kept notes ever since Mistry had sketched out her rough map on the rock. He had been filling in more and more as they went along with what they saw and what he was finding out. “Come on, drink up and let’s go. Oh.”
“What?” Farthing asked.
Weasel pointed at Mistry. The girl was leant against Farthing’s arm and was sound asleep. “How much did she drink?”
Farthing looked at the pots in front of Mistry. “All of them.”
“Damn it! Fren-Eirol is going to chew us up and spit us out for whatever is up on that moor to finish!”
Farthing grinned, and then realised that the magician was right. “What do we do?” he asked, biting his lip.
“Alright, wait there.” Weasel went to talk to one of the girls behind the bar who gave him a key. Returning to the table, he handed the key over to Farthing. “I have got you a room. Take the girl upstairs and she can sleep it off.”
“What, the two of us in the same room?”
“She has been curled up next to you ever since you two were captured, I don’t see the problem. Anyway, you are brother and sister now, isn’t that right?”
“Oh, yes.”
“I will tell Fren-Eirol that Mistry was tired and cold and I thought she should have a proper bed for the night.”
“She was cold, and we have bought some warmer clothes for her.” Farthing passed Weasel the provisions they had purchased.
“Perfect. Meet us early tomorrow and we can get up to the Moors. The dragons can hunt, sit around to digest a bit, and then we can put in a long afternoon. We should reach the foot of the Black Hills the following day.”
When Weasel left, Farthing looked down at the girl, now lying with her head on the table, snoring. “Oh dear,” he said. “Come on little sis; let’s get you into bed.”
Farthing wasn’t a stranger to the situation. His own sister had got into trouble a couple of times with a few friends on the rare occasion any of them had spare coin. He very gently lifted the girl out of her chair and draped her over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes. As he walked around the end of the bar and up the stairs, the sweet, pretty, big-eyed girl burped like a fisherman.
Weasel sat by the fire sketching in his bundle of papers. Fren-Eirol and Mab-Tok had found a sheltered spot between four huge, ancient firs, put up their canvas and had lit a fire. The big dragon had been somewhat put out by the two young people staying at the inn, but accepted Weasel’s explanation with only a touch of scepticism. Now, she was lying down on the pine needles, getting her sleep. More than the others, Weasel understood that his old friend was conserving her energy. She was a mighty dragon, but she was carrying two people and a large pack and it was wearing her out. He only hoped the smaller dragon could keep up as he was also beginning to tire.
“How are you doing, Mab-Tok?” the magician asked. The small dragon blinked.
“Unusual question coming from you, magician,” he said suspiciously.
Weasel bit his lip. “As you have reminded me several times, Mab-Tok, I have lived on this world of Dirt a considerable time, and for someone who is not a dragon, I probably know them better than anyone. I know when one is tired.” Mab-Tok looked taken aback. Weasel looked at the small dragon carefully. It was a bad description, really; sat down, he was still head and shoulders taller than Weasel, and several times his weight, but he was dwarfed by the oversized sea dragon. “I also know when one is being economical with how much they say.”
“Really?” The small dragon’s expression hardened.
“Really.” Weasel’s judgement was final. “So, healer, tell me what you know of Wessen, of where we are and of the Black Hills.”
“What makes you think I know anything useful?” The small dragon was being evasive to a point that was rare in dragons.
“For the same reason that Bren-Diath distrusts me so much.” The Magician looked deeply into the eyes of the dragon till Mab-Tok looked away in annoyance.
“So, it is true; you are more than you pretend.”
“That idea is over-sold,” the magician snapped. “If you mean that I am more than a one-trick sideshow, well then yes, but you knew that anyway. If you say I am some flame throwing wizard, well sorry, that is all myth.”
“I know that.”
“Look, Mab-Tok, I still don’t know why you are really here with us, but you have pulled your weight and you are now close to exhaustion. I think you are clever and closer to being a bit of a trickster than I have ever seen in any other dragon. You must have been running rings around the lumbering reds up at the Neuath.” Mab-Tok shrugged, which looked odd on a dragon. “But we are flying into danger and the more I find out, which is frustratingly little, the more dangerous it seems to be becoming. I need help here. This might be Farthing’s mission to find his sister, but he is nineteen and is wound up tight inside. I don’t blame him; his sister is his entire family and is quite literally half of his world. Fren-Eirol has made this possible, but she needs to keep every tiny little bit of strength she has ready and waiting for whatever we run into. She knows that, which is why she is the first asleep every night. To add to this complication, we now have a fifteen-year-old girl who, though very capable, is probably homeless and we are going to be carrying into a fight that she is simply not prepared for. Especially when it comes to the massive hangover that she is going to have in the morning.”
“I heard that.”
“Oh, shit.” Weasel closed his eyes. “Go back to sleep, Snowy.” There was silence from the dragon. Weasel opened his eyes cautiously, but her tail was still. “So, help me out here, draig.”
The small dragon looked over at Weasel. Despite being three hundred years old, he was far younger than the magician. Even Fren-Eirol was much younger than the magician. What was more, the young Eafa had grown up with Mab-Aneirin who had had lived hundreds of years and he had died over three hundred years ago. To make it more complicated, Weasel wasn’t even the oldest of his kind that Mab-Tok had met, and that was worrying him as well. There were things that he was not prepared to say yet, but the magician was right. He needed his help and Mab-Tok owed them. They didn’t realise it, but when he had left Taken in a hurry, he wasn’t running away from someone else, not really. He was running from himself, or at least what he had become. He leant over and took the notes and pencil from the magician and started drawing.
“You haven’t got the lay of the land right, Eafa,” he said, using the magician’s real name without thinking. He rubbed out the markings Weasel had made for the Black Hills and Great Plains and redrew them. “Great Plains is twice the size you think. We have the advantage because we fly, but not much. On the flat plain, that calliston will be going like the wind. I have seen a calliston in full run, it is frightening.” Weasel didn’t ask where the small dragon had seen running calliston as they were so very rare on Dirt, but he had a rigid rule about looking a gift-rathen in the mouth. He let Mab-Tok continue. “I don’t know a lot about Tekkinmod, but everything I do know is bad. I also know it wasn’t him at the fair, but his second.”
Weasel frowned. “How do you know that?”
“Because Tekkinmod has several bases, which I think you know, and one is a hunting retreat up in the ices. He is famous for hunting and spends most of the summer chasing anything that moves. That is where he will be now.”
“Will the girls be taken there?”
“No, it is him and his men only. They could be taken to one of his min
es, or go south, but I guess they will be taken to his hall. The good thing is that no one will dare touch them till Tekkinmod returns and checks them out or they would quite literally lose their heads.”
“What else do you know?”
“Very little. He is a brute of a man, probably about the richest man on Dirt after the King of Wessen and they have always been friends and allies. Some years ago, he took the king’s small army into Coldor and won it for Wessen. It made him a bit of a hero. He now has several mines up there as well. He has his own men run everything including the mines from where all his wealth springs, and they are known to be cruel and vindictive. Some of the workers are slaves. His real power has always been his wealth. Weasel, he could afford to buy half the Prelates if he felt like it.”
The magician looked thoughtful. “I wish I knew more about where he is, what his halls are like and anything else that would help us.”
“I flew over that area a long-time back, but they shot arrows at me and I haven’t bothered again. To be honest, there is nothing there I am interested in. My interest is in herbs and spices.”
“And gambling?” The magician wasn’t stupid.
“And none of that is there.” The dragon lifted the lead and hesitated. Then he put a small X on the map in the middle of the Black Hills.
“What is that?” asked Weasel, turning the map around to look more closely.
“Where we need to go.”
“Why, what is there?”
“Help.” And with that, the small dragon stood and walked off into the darkness of the forest to be with his own thoughts.
Weasel looked at the map and then carefully folded it and put it into his soft bag. He knew he had pushed the small dragon far further and harder than he should, and he hoped Mab-Tok would understand. Now, he would just have to wait to find what the X stood for. First, they had to get there.
“You had no choice, Eafa, my friend,” Fren-Eirol said quietly. “Mab-Tok has been playing a game and he needed to know that the time for games has gone.”
“I thought you would be listening, Snowy,” the magician said with a smile.
“You know me too well, little man,” she said. He stood, picked up his blanket, went over to the recumbent sea dragon and made himself comfortable lying against her side like he had done so many years before. As his eyes slowly closed the dragon asked in a soft voice, “do you think you will be able to fool them forever?”
“No. But forever is a long time,” he said, chuckling. “Aneirin knew before even I did, but neither of us really understood everything; I still don’t. I just know that some things work and some things don’t. You didn’t notice for years.”
“Well, you and Aneirin were already ancient and wicked when I met you; what chance did I have?”
“None!” He laughed again. “It is what we loved about you, Snowy.”
And the two old friends fell asleep enjoying a mutual touch of minds that no one else would ever comprehend.
