Chapter Sixteen
Ahearn spurred his horse to catch up with Druadaen’s. “She decided me, Dru,” he muttered.
Dru? “I am not ‘Dru.’ You may call me ’Daen. If you must.”
“Ah. Have it as you will. As I was saying, Dru, your aunt the wizard is what decided me about you.”
“Did she? Besides, Shaananca is not my aunt and not a wizard.”
“You think not? How did she drop those guards in their tracks? And from outside the building, no less?”
Druadaen considered. “So that wasn’t Elweyr?”
Ahearn shook his head. “No. And he wasn’t happy to admit it. He’s got quite a varied bag of tricks, he has. But his mancery wasn’t working any better than Bannef’s. Still think that your aunt isn’t a wizard, Dru?”
“’Daen. And no, why should I?”
“Well, who do you think knotted the nuts of both of the mantics in the taproom? Some wayward god?” He snorted. “That was your magic auntie, right enough. Who, it seems, can send spells clean through walls. An’ good it is she can, or we’d have been fresh mince by the time Bannef’s lot was done with us.”
Druadaen frowned. Yes, Shaananca had touched his mind once, and even called forth forgotten memories—but a magistra? Or, to use the old, superstitious term, a wizard? “The magists of Dunarra are not secretive about their calling or their craft. Why would she be?”
“Can’t guess because I don’t know her or Dunarra. But here’s what I do know: she had heard what we were saying—word for word—at the table before she walked in. You’re saying that wasn’t mancery, right there?”
Druadaen shrugged. “Well, perhaps a little mancery.”
Ahearn’s responding scoff was a bluff, rather than derisive, sound. “No one is a ‘little bit’ of a wizard, Dru, same as no one is a ‘little bit’ dead. I’ve seen more than a few mantics in my time, tried cases with some. But none like her. Hells, Elweyr’s among the most skilled I’ve seen, but even he couldn’t protect us or harm them, no matter what he tried. And he’s a mantic with many options.”
“So he’s a thaumancer, then?”
Ahearn stared at Druadaen. “So you know a bit about magic, then?”
Druadaen shrugged. “I know what I read.”
“They teach that kind of thing in Dunarra, do they?”
“Well, not as such. But I was…I guess you’d say I was apprenticed to Shaananca at the Archive Recondite. And I read, um, widely.”
Ahearn eyed him. “I’ll bet you did. Same as I’m sure she’s just a librarian.” He stood in his stirrups as they topped a low rise. “So. We’ve arrived.” He nodded at a thatch-roofed cottage in a small glen beneath them. “Wait here.” Without another word, he prodded his horse into a canter, clods coming up behind its hooves.
The rest of the group drew up alongside Druadaen. S’ythreni was the only other one riding, sitting a fine-boned horse that seemed almost as aloof as she was. Elweyr was hanging on to the saddle and panting. He fell heavily upon the grass. Druadaen dismounted as Umkhira sat with slow, deliberate stateliness. Kaakhag dropped unceremoniously beside her, scratching flakes of old skin from his neck. S’ythreni surveyed the group, seemed quite happy to remain mounted.
Druadaen stared down the hill at the cottage. “Who lives there?”
“Private matter,” Elweyr wheezed. “Even I. Don’t know.”
S’ythreni’s voice was slow and certain. “But. You. Suspect.”
Elweyr stared up at her. “I also. Know to. Mind my own. Business.”
Druadaen nodded once down the hill. “But this is where Ahearn owes—well, owed—his debt, yes?”
Elweyr nodded, breathing more easily.
“I was not informed,” Umkhira stated flatly, turning toward Druadaen.
Druadaen was so surprised by the sudden pronouncement that he blinked. “You were not informed of…what? Ahearn’s debt?”
“No! His affairs do not concern me. However, what happened at the tavern does. Neither Ahearn nor his companions may hope I will hide their dishonor with my silence. It is unjust.” She pointedly kept her eyes on Druadaen. “I was not informed that they intended to meet the human book-mantic while we were in the tavern. Nor that they suspected treachery.”
“We didn’t expect it,” Elweyr protested. “We just knew it was a possibility.”
Her eyes flicked hard in his direction. “You put us in a position where we were obliged to fight your foes, having never agreed to do so.” She glanced up at S’ythreni. “And you, an aeosti, were a willing party to such duplicity?”
“It was a tactic,” she temporized.
“It was the littermate of a lie,” Umkhira spat.
Elweyr sighed. “If we hadn’t worked the timing that way, we could very well have wound up dead. We thought that if Bannef had anything dishonest in mind, he would see the numbers at our table and reconsider.” He shrugged. “Clearly, he misled us from the start. But not only are we all still alive, but now a company setting forth upon a profitable journey.”
Umkhira’s large chin raised indignantly. “We are here only because of the Dunarran’s, eh, mentor. And as for a profitable journey, that has yet to be seen.” She turned back to Druadaen. “All urzhen are accustomed to dealing at arm’s length with humans. They think nothing of lying to us.” Her voice didn’t soften, but it lost its strident edge. “But it seems that your code of honor might extend even to urzhen. So I warn you: think well on traveling too long with such treacherous companions as these.”
“As though urzhen are any different,” S’ythreni sneered.
“My people are,” Umkhira said in a slow, deliberate, and dangerous tone.
Druadaen leaned toward her. “‘Your people’? Do you mean Lightstriders?”
She nodded. “Among us, if we are negotiating, it takes one of two forms. It is either on our feet in parley with an enemy—so trust cannot be expected—or seated over shared food and drink. That signifies that trust may be assumed.”
Elweyr made a pensive sound. “And none of you ever stab another in the back after sharing a meal?
“Not if we agreed to part ways as h’adzok.”
“H’adzok?” Druadaen repeated. “What is that?
S’ythreni explained. “It means that although you are not friends, you are definitely not enemies. There is a truce between you, and to change that honorably, you must inform the other before taking action against them.” She sighed. “Would that humans were so scrupulous.”
“Hey,” Elweyr complained, “whose side are you on?”
“Mine. As I have been from the start.”
Elweyr shot her a look that was not angry but very disappointed.
Druadaen turned back toward Umkhira. “I have another question, but I am concerned that the mere asking of it may offend.”
The Lightstrider studied him with a small measure of surprise before replying. “When one takes such care in asking a question, it is surely not meant as an insult. Ask, human.”
Druadaen glanced briefly at Kaakhag. “I have seen differences among the features of your kind. I have seen urzhen with…well, your kind of features.”
“You mean, features more like unto humans.”
“Yes. But the ones I have seen before now were green. Very green.”
She frowned. “Bright green, as though they were painted?”
“Most, yes. But one was more dull in color.”
She nodded. “The bright ones were dyed for battle. It signals that they are raiding along with their urzhen kin from the Under.” She shrugged. “The other one: Was he or she about the color of Kaakhag?”
Druadaen glanced at the big urzh again, nodded. “He was.”
“Then he was of mixed blood. Part urzh, part ur zhog.”
“Ur zhog?”
“That is the proper name for Lightstriders.”
Elweyr pushed himself up to his feet. “First lesson you learn in the Under: you can’t know an urzh’s background just by their features and physique.” He gestured to Kaakhag, who was now brushing skin flakes off his rough jute tunic. “That dull green one was probably dipped, like him. The mix enters their skin and both protects them and marks them as tribe members for life. So it’s a near certainty he was raised among the Rot.”
“‘The Rot’?”
Kaakhag thumped his chest.
Umkhira sighed, uttered a string of syllables that sounded like an irritated hog with a gullet full of pebbles. Kaakhag shrugged, made a brief reply with his hands. The Lightstrider huffed, stood, and walked impatiently down the slope. Druadaen stared after her.
“Shall I translate?” the aeosti asked through a sigh.
“Yes. Please.”
“She told him she cannot understand why the urzhen welcome the label ‘Rot,’ because the green color encourages humans to associate them with decaying meat and fungus.”
“And he answered—?”
“That if humans get scared at the mere color and smell of rotting flesh, then all the better. Then he added that although she’s a friend, she should mind her own business.” The aeosti smiled impishly. “Or words to that effect. I claim no great command of urzhen hand speech.”
Umkhira called from down the slope. “Ahearn approaches.” The rest stood.
As the swordsman ascended the gentle rise, leading his horse, Druadaen was struck by the way he moved. Light on the balls of his feet and yet inexorable. The image of a cast-iron tiger sprang to mind.
He swung up onto his horse while still a few yards away from the others. Hardly necessary, but an effective and silent way to signal that he was intent on moving on. And avoiding conversation. But he did grin at Elweyr as he lifted the flap of a saddlebag. The binding of several hidebound books peeked over its rim.
The dark man smiled broadly. “My codices!”
“Every one of them,” Ahearn affirmed. “Thanks to Dru’s magic auntie.”
Druadaen decided on a different approach to discourage use of that nickname. “Just as I told you she would, ’Hearn.”
He started. “’Hearn?” He looked at the others. “Who put the Dunarran up to this?” Surprised stares and shrugs were his only answers. His eyes drifted back to Druadaen. “Can’t say I like that name—or the familiarity.”
“Can’t say I enjoy them, either. But it’s up to you. It’s either ’Hearn and Dru and irritation. Or not.”
The others’ eyes moved between them, expectantly.
Ahearn frowned, but it suggested more calculation than displeasure. “You’ve got some salt in you,” he said. “I’ll give you that.”
“He handles his blades well,” Umkhira added. “Sure and strong.”
“Stiff, though,” S’ythreni muttered. “But real experience will file down those training-field edges soon enough.”
Ahearn’s eyes were still fixed on Druadaen’s but gradually changed from stubborn to frustrated, and finally, to resigned. “Well, I suppose we should get under way, Druadaen.”
“I agree, Ahearn.”
The soldier of fortune rolled his eyes, smiled crookedly, brought his horse around to face north, and urged it into a walk.
* * *
Upon reaching the next crossroads, Ahearn tugged his horse’s head left. Westward.
Druadaen reined in his mount. “We are heading north to the Graveyard, are we not?”
Ahearn shrugged. “Close to, but we’ll track west first.”
“And then go due north, straight to Gur Grehar?” Elweyr, perched awkwardly on the back of S’ythreni’s saddle, sounded less than enthusiastic.
“It is wiser,” Umkhira added, breathing heavily. The initial walk from Menara had been five leagues. Since resuming, they had covered almost five more, and always at the fast-walk pace of the horses.
“Why?” asked Druadaen, still looking north. “This way, we will make Stammadous in two days, at most. Beyond that, we cross into Connæar and so, travel on First Consentium roads in safe country with ready provisioning almost all to the southern tip of the Graveyard.”
Ahearn stared at him, seemed to be trying to find words.
Probably more tactful ones than those S’ythreni blurted out. “And I’m sure the Connæarans would be delighted to allow them over the border.” She jerked her head at the urzhen. “And I’m not so sure how they’d feel about me.”
Druadaen shook his head sharply. “Connæar may be a protectorate, but it is still Tar-Connæar; one of the three Shield Realms. It has not forgotten its friendship with all Uulamanthi, whether Iavan or L’fahn.”
S’ythreni looked somewhat mollified, but her eyes remained on the urzhen and her lifted brow and steady gaze was the equivalent of a steadily tapping foot as she waited for him to address that thornier issue.
Druadaen shrugged. “As to urzhen, I cannot say.”
“Yes, you can. I hear a hint of a Connæaran accent, human: probably acquired when you were a child. And so tell me, how many urzhen did you see in Connæar while you were growing up?”
Druadaen shook his head. “None.”
“That’s one problem,” Ahearn said, now that the ticklish subject of species had been aired. “But there are others. Not the least of which is that if the Lord Mayor of Menara wishes, he might send inquiries far and wide for news of us. And you can be sure Bannef will, because I’m equally sure that your nice magic auntie did not stoop to putting him out of our misery while tidying up the mess we made. So the only way we can disappear is stay away from the big roads, to travel overland.”
“You mean, in the wilds.”
“In the wilds,” he agreed with a nod. “At least the ground to the west is level and Elweyr and I have journeyed there before. We know where to hunt, forage, find shelter.”
Umkhira raised her chin. “Not as well as I do. Those lands are my home.”
Druadaen shook his head. “Then you have my condolences regarding your neighbors.”
Umkhira stared, shook her head. “I have no wish to speak of the Khassas. But I would rather pass close to them than to your lands, Dunarran.”
Ahearn held up a hand. “The point is that half of us are well accustomed with the route that avoids the Plains of Grehar by going west and then directly to the mountains of Grehar themselves. Besides, there are several different options that will help us quicken our progress as we pass near Khassa lands, and after.”
“You refer to shortcuts?”
“Well, those, too,” Ahearn admitted with a smile. “But if we’re to camp in a safe place near Khassant, we need to press on.”
Druadaen shrugged. He had been over these roads before, but not so often that he had a local’s familiarity with them. And he knew little about the more northerly borders of Khassant. Conversely, the others were almost certainly correct about the border with Connæar: guards there would be far more likely to seize the urzh as prisoners than allow them entry. He turned his horse in the same direction as Ahearn’s: westward on what the locals called the Steppney Road.
* * *
“Ho, the camp!” cried Ahearn’s voice just before he rode out of the dark and into the fluttering circle of light cast by the fire. “See?” he cried gleefully. “That hasn’t been so bad a detour, has it?”
S’ythreni and Umkhira appeared on either side of him, and this time, the urzh was on a horse. And each of them was leading yet another.
Kaakhag stood and hooted in mirth as Druadaen gaped from his place near the fire. “This was the reason you wished to travel west? To steal horses?”
“Now, Druadaen: ‘steal’ is a very debatable term in this instance. I’m thinking it’s more a matter of recompense.”
“For what?”
Umkhira nodded. “I agree with Ahearn. We have both been wronged by both the local hetman, Paftrelt, and the liege-sworn patrols of Khassant taku Kalazhmaf.”
Druadaen was too surprised by the purloined mounts to reflect on the Lightstrider’s use of the formal name of the Khassan realm. And before he could recover, yet another four-legged silhouette appeared at the edge of the firelight. “And an ox? Really?”
S’ythreni stared at Druadaen as if he was a half-witted rabbit, then glanced at mirthful Kaakhag. “Does he look like he can ride a horse?”
Druadaen shook his head, half to agree with S’ythreni that no, the big urzh was far more likely to consider a horse food than transportation, and half to clear it of the day’s accretion of surreal developments. “And how does this help us avoid detection, which was one of the reasons you gave for traveling on this route?”
“Well,” said Ahearn, folding his hands on his saddle horn and looking slightly hurt, “firstly, neither the Lord Mayor of Menara or Bannef are going to make inquiries in Khassant, and certainly not out here. Secondly, with all of us riding, we can double the pace we had yesterday. In two days we will be far beyond the reach of the swinish goatherd who so generously provided the new mounts.”
“Why do I think that this hetman—Palfrekz—is not merely a ‘goatherd’?”
“Well, now that’s a fair point, but then there’s the matter of settling accounts with him.”
“Took one of our horses a year ago,” Elweyr muttered. “As the ‘toll’ for crossing his lands.” He spat.
“And you agreed?”
Ahearn smiled indulgently. “You don’t argue with a dozen riders on fresh mounts and more’n a score of liege-troopers just a long whistle away.”
Druadaen shook his head, looked at Umkhira. “And you agreed to this? What did this Paftrelt ever do to you?”
“He owes a blood debt,” she said slowly and quietly. “He killed two of my tribe. We had been forced to cooperate with the Khassas, believed we were still welcome at their hearths. Either Paftrelt did not know or did not care.”
“Probably both,” Ahearn mused.
Druadaen simply shook his head, realized that he had been the only person in the group who had been unaware of this further reason of “detouring” to the west.
Umkhira looked uncomfortable. “It was wrong not to inform you of what we intended. But that is why we did not allow you to follow us. It is also why we left Kaakhag behind: to protect you and see you back to your border, should we have died.”
Druadaen wasn’t sure whether he felt more mollified or mortified that the rest had conferred on how best to “protect him.”
Ahearn dismounted, led his horse to one of the two hitching stakes. “We’ll leave in three hours. Paftrelt won’t miss his livestock until then, but he’ll come looking, right enough. And there’s no covering our tracks. And we need to follow the big stretch of sweetgrass before riding through the Hasgar Woodlands.” He frowned. “It’s mostly sourgrass as we get closer to Gur Grehar.”
Umkhira nodded. “Yes, but at least it is good hunting country. And if any of my people are there, we shall have safe passage…and the Khassas shall not.”
“Still, I won’t feel safe until we’ve made it into the wilds, not with the buggering goatherds hard upon us. ‘Never turn your back on a Khassan,’ eh? That’s the saying at least.” He looked at Druadaen who was staring into the darkness. “That’s a Dunarran axiom, isn’t it?”
“It might be. I would not know. I did not grow up in Dunarra and have no family there. So, many of the things that are common knowledge among its children remain unknown to me.” He finished, noticed the silence, turned and looked.
They were all staring at him, surprised, even abashed. Even Kaakhag. And then, as if suddenly and intensely uncomfortable, they all looked away.
“We’ve a long journey ahead,” Ahearn mumbled. “We’ll ride at first light.”
He kicked dirt into the fire, smothering it.