Shadow Moon Page 10

  “Do you know this country?” the Nelwyn asked.

  Shake of the head. “No reason to. No settlements up this way, not even wanderer bands. Nothin’ to fear, nothin’ much I ever heard of to interest a body. Rule always was, leave well enough alone.” He looked around. “S’pose this is King’s land, prob’ly claim it so in Angwyn, but only ’cause it’s here. Ain’t even been proper mapped.”

  “Then what brought you?”

  “A fool’s errand, I was startin’ ta think. Was told there was a healer roamin’ the high country. Bin trouble on the river, these dogs an’ worse. Needed help bad, tha’s what was said. I’m good on a trail, figured I’d bring him in.”

  “No fool you, Geryn, at least in that regard.”

  “Yer the healer, then?”

  “Among other things.”

  “Had a fair chance, mounted. Afoot, hard an’ bare as this country is, dunno how long it’ll take ta reach the settlement.”

  “Three days, that direction”—Thorn pointed across the plain, a little to the left of the sunrise—“will bring us to a river, an uplands tributary of the Saranye.”

  “Not much use, ’less yeh have a boat handy.”

  Thorn allowed himself a smile. “You never know,” he said.

  * * *

  —

  Maulroon was as sour-faced as ever, as though he’d been kept waiting just this side of eternity. Not so tall as Geryn, but easily twice as broad, he was built like a barrel and was just as hard to move when he wasn’t of a mind. His hair was a thicket of midnight curls, making up on chest and back and limbs for the increasing lack of it atop his head. He favored a beard, cut close along the line of his jaw to serve as a demarcation for a double chin that no amount of exercise could remove. For the first time Thorn saw sprinklings of salt among the pepper as age made its presence felt. In terms of features, there was no comparison between Maulroon and Geryn; the Pathfinder had him beaten, without question. But while Geryn had the looks, there was a charm and character to the Cascani captain that made him just as memorable to the ladies; they’d give Geryn the first glance but always return to Maulroon.

  Happier thoughts, Thorn knew, of happier days. None of that was in evidence now. Maulroon had anchored his keelboat in midstream, and long before reaching the river, Thorn saw the telltale flash of a telescope being leveled in their direction. There’d be bows sighted on them as well, until the captain was satisfied of their bona fides.

  From his perch on the boat’s signal yard, Bastian stretched his great wings, and Thorn let his InSight bounce to the eagle for a reverse angle on the scene, then up to Anele flying high cover above for an overview.

  “So the lad found y’, did he, Drumheller!” Maulroon called, deliberately making his Island accent so broad it was near incomprehensible.

  “Good thing for the both of us that he did,” Thorn replied. “The Great Hunt came for us that very night.” Maulroon used a speaking trumpet to make himself heard across water and bank; Thorn’s reply was in a normal voice, yet the captain heard him plain.

  “An’ then, Master Drumheller?”

  “It won’t be coming for anyone else.”

  Their trek hadn’t been kind to Geryn, even though it had mostly been downhill and the country fairly gentle. Without water to wash, he was caked with sweat, so much so that Thorn tried not to breathe whenever the wind shifted around behind him, although he had to concede he probably smelled as ripe. Pathfinder uniforms tended to be far more practical than those of the other regiments of the Royal cavalry, but no mail forged is comfortable under the open sun, especially in the high country where its rays are more intense than down toward sea level. The shine had faded from his boots as well, and from the way the man had been walking lately, Thorn suspected blisters.

  Maulroon and the crewmen at the oars stayed seated as the jolly boat touched shore, again to provide a clear field of fire for the archers afloat.

  “You made quick passage up from Saginak,” Thorn commented as he settled himself beside the captain, another moment when a Nelwyn’s size worked to his advantage; he was the only one who could share a thwart with the big man.

  “Y’ sent y’r eagle south f’r nowt. We were already here.”

  The oarsmen pulled hard to clear the boat from the shore, shoulders hunched low, eyes sweeping the bank behind. Thorn saw ripples just beneath the water’s surface, a few body lengths out, pacing the boat and slicing as it was straight across the current.

  “Since when do the Wyrrn act as combat flankers?” he asked.

  “Seemed prudent, in the circumstance. There’s more t’ this than those damnable dogs.”

  “I know.” Thorn hissed, and softly hammered fist on knee.

  “Aye.” Maulroon nodded. “Baddest kind of business, this. Tore through Saginak, oh, three weeks back, just b’fore the dark o’ the moon. Left dead and worse behind.”

  “Is there anything…?”

  “What was needful’s already been done, Thorn, but I thank y’ f’r the offer. I sent the trooper after y’ mainly as a precaution. Glad t’ see tha’ a’least turned out well.”

  “You were hurt in the fight.” There were fresh bandages across a bare forearm and a couple of healing slashes hidden by his tunic. No sense of corruption, though, only the faint buzz he felt when nature was doing its proper work.

  “Not so bad as many. My wife’s brother, I had t’ put the laddie down. He was the one introduced us, you t’ me.”

  “I remember.”

  “Aye. They went f’r the Gifted first, y’see….”

  That was the way with Death Dogs; start the attack by eliminating anyone capable of curing their infections, or doing them significant harm.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “He were a good man, he’ll be missed. But tha’ weren’t the worst of it.”

  “I know. Faron.”

  “In all the chaos, was a while a’fore anyone realized he was missing. We were all set t’ start a posse when the Wyrrn pulled us out. Never seen ’em so upset, wouldn’t take no back-sass. Tried t’ take the trooper as well, but bein’ too damn dumb t’ know better, he figured he could do the job right enough on his lonesome. Bless my soul, he was good as his word.”

  “I’m a Pathfinder,” was all Geryn felt needed saying in response, but there was evident pride on his face as well. Maulroon didn’t offer such compliments easily, and Geryn understood that.

  “I dinna want t’ ask, Thorn,” Maulroon continued, “but the wife, she’ll—”

  “There was nothing left, old friend. He’d been wrapped tight in a ChangeSpell, one of the Lesser Banes, to make him leader of a Great Hunt.”

  “Damn.” The man’s lips barely moved, the word was spoken so faintly none but Thorn had the slightest inkling Maulroon had spoken, yet Thorn knew it was as though an acid lash had laid him open to the core.

  “It’s a while,” Maulroon said after a time, “since that sorta misery’s been abroad.”

  The Cascani were rovers, by land when necessary but preferably by water. They hailed from a group of rugged islands off this continent’s western coast and, ages ago, had formed an alliance with the Wyrrn, who claimed the ocean’s rocky coast as their home. Together, the two races roamed the whole of the globe and helped bind it together with trade. The structure of both societies was familiar, and it was altogether normal for Wyr children to be fostered to Cascani households, and vice versa, with appropriate spells being cast to enable the air-breathing Daikini to survive underwater. The Wyrrn needed no such aid, since they proved to be at home in either realm. Each Great Clan among the Cascani controlled a fleet of merchant vessels, and through them a network of trading posts. There were few restrictions against intermarriage between the clans, which meant over time that virtually every Cascani was in some small way related to every other Cascani, and was therefore welcome in their house, be it next door or around the far side
of the world. They drove hard bargains, but they also prized honor above almost all else. To break faith with a client or a customer—or with those rare few accepted by the clans as a friend—was to bring shame not simply to the person responsible, but to the clan as a whole. In a world thick with its share of pirates and thieves, they had established themselves as the benchmark of trust and fair dealing.

  Through all of Thorn’s life, Bavmorda’s growing power had kept them clear of Tir Asleen and the adjacent kingdoms. With her gone, and a full measure of political stability restored, Maulroon’s brother-in-law had seen an opportunity for expansion. Unfortunately, en route to Tir Asleen, he’d run afoul of a random clutch of Death Dogs. Madmartigan and Sorsha slew the beasts; Thorn used his healing talents to save the man and through him had met Maulroon. They’d been firm friends ever since.

  “Now I think about it clear,” Maulroon continued, moving the tiller to bring the boat alongside the larger craft, “seems it was Faron’s house they were for right off.”

  “Just dogs, Jasso?” And when Maulroon answered with a nod: “How many?”

  “No proper recollection. None left t’ find, so far as bodies go.” A humorless twist of his face. “We’ve given better accounts of ourselves in a scrap, that’s certes.”

  “It was me they were after,” Thorn said quietly as Maulroon grasped a line tossed down from the deck above to hold them fast to the keelboat’s hull. “That’s why they took Faron.”

  “Razi,” Maulroon bellowed to his mate, half the boat length forward, “up anchor. Let’s be gone while we’ve daylight.” Then he leaned over the side and sang a series of noises that best resembled dolphin bubbles crossed with seal barks. A sleek and shining face immediately broke surface. “Two of y’ on point at all times, Daquise. Find me a clear channel and let me know, y’ sense the slightest Shadow.”

  “As you request, sister’s elder cousin’s consort.” The Wyr’s sleek mahogany fur was plastered to his skull with the luster of fresh lacquer, which in turn made his dark eyes appear that much larger. They were Daikini-sized, as comfortable on land as in the sea, where they made their home. Of all the races of the world, they seemed the least ambitious, possessed instead of a generous and genuine curiosity about all their fellow sentient creatures. Their preference was to make friends with whomever they encountered; if that didn’t work, they moved on. Many made the mistake of assuming that trait to be a mark of cowardice, a misconception that lasted only until they encountered one in a fight. Unfortunately, on such occasions, only the Wyr generally lived to tell the tale and on this subject they did no talking.

  Maulroon paused a moment in the act of clambering over the keelboat’s gunwale to reach back to help Thorn aboard.

  “Why?” he demanded.

  “Same question I’ve been asking myself these past days,” Thorn replied. “Brownies are being obstinate, they won’t tell.”

  “Feed ’em to the fish, then, what the hell good are they?”

  Thorn ignored the squawks of protest and outrage from various parts of his person, as well as the threats of what would happen should anyone try such foolishness, but he had to smile. It was the first humorous impulse he’d felt since the Scar.

  “I hate this, actually, knowing that I know the answer, that it’s probably right in front of me, plain as daylight, only I can’t see the blessed, bloody thing!”

  “Patience, then,” Maulroon grunted, watching Razi supervise the anchor detail as they hauled the hook pulled free of the bottom, feeling the current take hold of his boat. “Worry y’rself too much, it’ll never come.”

  Thorn shrugged, clambering up to his favorite perch atop the main cabin with his back to the signal mast, where he could enjoy the warmth of the sun and not be in the way. There was a dull ache in his hips that he knew would be a fair while passing, too chronic and ingrained for a casual healing to banish and he didn’t have will enough to do more. He simply wasn’t designed for so much walking.

  “I brought Faron into the world,” he mused aloud.

  “Beg pardon,” Maulroon queried, though the captain’s attention was mostly on his boat as he motioned his steersman behind him to keep their course in midchannel.

  “The dogs.”

  “Aye.”

  “Through Faron, the Great Hunt could follow and find me.”

  “If y’ say so, Drumheller. But who would know a thing like that?”

  “Who indeed. Someone I suppose who knows the facts and faces of my life as well as I do myself.”

  “And maybe,” he heard Rool say from snug in a pocket, “with power enough to smash a sacred citadel.”

  “I heard tha’,” Maulroon said.

  “I wish I hadn’t.”

  “Been huntin’ y’ all this while, then? Since Tir Asleen?”

  Thorn shook his head. “I don’t think so. For one, I think they’d have caught up to us before now. For another”—he broke off a moment to mull over some thoughts—“they were too young. So was Faron.”

  “Say what?”

  “Cast that kind of bane on a boy, you’ll kill him. The body simply can’t withstand the stress. But Faron had come of age, he’d begun his change of life, his growth into manhood—just enough to make the difference. That was a mistake. Had he been a little older, a little bigger, a little stronger, I’m not sure I could have beaten him. So why didn’t they wait? It’s been a dozen years since the Cataclysm, what’s one more? For that matter, why come for me at all? I don’t even know what I’m up against, wherein am I a threat?”

  “Beg pardon, shipmaster,” Geryn asked, not quite sure how to approach this big, bearded ruffian with the airs and manners of a pirate. There was no mistaking who was in command aboard, but the informal relationship of captain to crew evidently unnerved him. In his world, there was no place for such casual behavior. “Heard’ja mention Tir Asleen?”

  “What’s tha’ t’ y’?”

  A shrug. “Heard tell of it, is all.”

  “Of Tir Asleen?” Thorn couldn’t keep the incredulity from his voice.

  “My sergeant, back in Bandicour, he bin there.”

  Thorn and Maulroon exchanged looks, then fixed their gaze once more on the trooper, who was beginning to wish he’d kept silent.

  “T’ the far side o’ the world,” Maulroon rumbled. “Well now, there’s a rover.”

  The Pathfinder made a shamefaced grimace and made a show of playing with his spurs. “Weren’t him alone went,” he told them. “Was a triple century, so he said, sent by the King.”

  “Whyever for?” asked Thorn.

  “Lookin’ for a, whatchamacallit, Nelwyn,” he said at last.

  Thorn kept his tone casual. “The Angwyn King sent a force of Pathfinders to Tir Asleen?”

  “An’ some other place, where ’twas said the Demon Queen Bavmorda held sway.”

  “Nockmaar.”

  “That sounds right. Heard o’ them places, have yeh? Thought they was stories mostly, myself. That sergeant havin’ me on.”

  “What did they find?”

  “No fortress Tir Asleen. Funny, wouldn’t say more’n that, no matter how hard we pressed. Seemed scared, now’s I recall. No Nelwyn neither. Found a valley an’ a village, so he told us, but been years since anyone lived there. It was good land, for the most part, but empty. Like a whole country got up one day and left.”

  “It pretty much did,” Thorn said, mostly to himself, remembering the endless caravans of carts and goats and people on foot, streaming for the borders with as many of their worldly possessions as they could carry. Even the Veil Folk had taken flight or sealed their barrows tight against all intrusion. By the time he’d made his way to Tir Asleen, to see the disaster for himself, he and his brownies were the only people walking that ancient land.

  “That sergeant,” Geryn said, “he said the land was cursed.”

  “No more than any other. But why th
e expedition?”

  “How should I know? I weren’t there. An’ his Royal Majesty the King, he don’t see fit to tell me.” Then Geryn relented a little and gave them the only answer he knew. “But I figure they was lookin’ for Willow.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Thorn said.

  “The Nelwyn sorcerer, don’tchaknow? Willow Ufgood.”

  “Willow Ufgood,” Thorn repeated. “Now there’s a name I haven’t heard…in a very long time.”

  “Yeh know him?” Geryn cried, mightily impressed. “Damn! Wish I knew him. I bring him to the King, like the proclamation said”—a shy grin, as though the young Daikini was amazed at his own presumption, to aim so high—“my fortune be made. Get a posting to the Red Lions.” Those were the King’s household guard, culled from the best troops in Royal service, and therefore acclaimed to be the finest in all the world.

  “What’s he want with this Willow?” Thorn asked.

  “Don’t’cha know nothin’?”

  “Humor me.”

  “The Ascension! This is the celebration of the Sacred Princess Elora’s thirteenth birthday, a year of life for each of the Great Domains. He’s her godfather an’ all, i’n’t he? Willow saved her from the Dark Forces, he destroyed the Demon Queen Bavmorda, he has to be there.” This last, stated as an immutable fact, an article of primal faith, like saying, The sun will rise tomorrow.

  “Oh,” was what Thorn said. Then, in some amazement of his own: “I’d forgotten.”

  The answer, plain as daylight, as impossible actually to see. He could hear the brownies laughing and couldn’t fault them for it. He should have known.

  “It’s been that long?” he mused aloud.

  “I assumed you knew,” Maulroon said.

  “I must have…lost count of the seasons. What do you know of Willow?” Thorn asked the Pathfinder suddenly, sharply.

  “He’s a sorcerer.” Said with a twist of the shoulders, as if that was all Geryn needed to know. “An’ a Nelwyn, too—”