“I don’t know. It was something nasty. The place was wrecked pretty bad.” He dismounted. “Believe me, I was glad to find this guy. I wanted out of there fast. Some of the remains I found... well... whatever got them mauled them pretty bad before it ate them.” He saw the look on Lars’ face and shook his head. “Hey, give me some credit. I made sure I wasn’t followed. I rode down the river for close to two kilometers.”
Lars thought about this and nodded reluctantly. “Yeah, that sounds good. Sorry, Ab, worrying is part of my job.” He faced the rest of the crowd. “But that’s still close enough that I want everyone to be on the alert!”
While Abner and Lars talked, Professor Moonsock and Dame Ædith were examining the horse. “Looks mighty famished to me,” Ædith said.
Professor Moonsock ran a hand over the horse’s ribs and frowned. “Certainly feels boney,” she admitted. She tried to grab the animal’s head. “He’ll definitely need fattening up before we can have him working. Come on, old fellow, let me see those teeth.” At this the horse snapped his head back and reared. Ædith caught the smaller woman before she hit the ground. “Closemouthed beast.”
The professor dusted herself off. “He just needs to be fed a bit. Get to know us. Apparently we don’t all have Herr de la Scalla’s winning personality.”
Abner shrugged modestly, then froze as a voice behind him called his name. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before turning.
“Pix,” he said simply.
They stood less than a meter apart. Everyone else tried hard to look like they were interested in something else—and failed dismally. Pix spoke first. “Are you all right?”
Abner nodded. “I am.”
“Well... well good.” Pix desperately cast about, trying to think of something to say. This confused her—she usually had plenty to say and didn’t hesitate to say it. But now she realized that there were thousands of things she wanted to say to Abner, and that she was terribly afraid of saying the wrong thing. Suddenly, she was annoyed. This actually helped—now she could talk. “So what was the idea of horning in on my act, hey?”
This was not quite what Abner had expected. “What? But... I had to!” He protested. “I thought he was going to kill you!”
Pix considered this. “It was a close thing, wasn’t it?” she admitted, “But I don’t think he was the kind to shoot an unarmed girl. He was making too much noise. I had him pretty rattled, after all.”
Pix turned to Agatha. “But it would have helped if you’d told us you were running from a lover. We all thought they were looking for you because you’d stolen something.” Everyone looked at Krosp.
The cat drew himself up haughtily. “Wrowr! As if I’d go and let myself get stolen! I rescued her!”
Agatha sputtered, “He... he is hardly my lover! And I am not...”
Pix patted her shoulder sympathetically. “No, no, don’t worry. We’ve all had experiences we’d like to forget. I expect he took shocking liberties.”
Dame Ædith bit her lower lip, her eyes glowing with interest. “Oh yes, that kind always does! I expect he did terrible, vile things—”
Professor Moonsock perked up. “Oooh—really? You poor girl, you must tell us all about it!” She looked at the others. “Purely for therapeutic reasons, of course.” The others nodded solemnly, and then looked expectantly at Agatha.
Agatha’s outraged protest was cut off when Zeetha stepped forward. “All right, ladies. Enough.” Agatha looked at the green-haired girl gratefully. “Anyway, whatever he did couldn’t have been too horrible, she almost ran right out to him. I thought I was going to have to hold her back for a minute there.”
Agatha blushed. “That... that’s because I thought he was going to shoot Pix!” she insisted.
Zeetha nodded sagely. “Of course. Well, in any case, don’t worry. I have something that’ll take your mind off of him.” She flourished the training staff. “More training! Now run!”
Everyone watched until the two girls were out of sight—some with sympathy, but most with amusement. Then, with pleasure borne of the knowledge that no one was likely to chase them with sticks, they smiled and returned to their work. Abner and Pix were left standing awkwardly alone.
Abner took a deep breath. “So Pix, I seem to remember this kiss.”
Pix went red. She glared at Abner, “Oh, you seem to, do you?”
Gently he took hold of her shoulders. “Perhaps I should have said that I’ll never forget it.”
Pix went redder. “Oh.”
Abner waited for a moment, but that seemed to be all she was going to say. Gingerly, he slid his arm around her shoulders. Pix looked up at him. She was beautiful. He’d known that, of course, but never before had he quite noticed how beautiful. Perhaps he should tell her this. “Let’s talk,” he said.
Pix nodded. “Yes.”
Some time later, Lars lifted the lid of a barrel. Agatha was huddling inside. “Ah. There you are.” He laughed.
She looked up at him with pleading eyes. “Have pity on me, whoever you are.”
The young man grinned. “Yeah, I guess we haven’t met. I’m Lars. I’m one of the show’s advance men.”
Agatha looked up at him. He was very handsome, with dark hair and well muscled arms that showed under his short sleeves. “Is that some technical term for a leading man?”
He laughed again, and effortlessly lifted her from the barrel. His hands were large and steady. “No, although I do play Bill Heterodyne a lot. No, an advance man travels ahead of the circus. We scout the terrain ahead. It’s our job to keep the show from riding into a nest of monsters or wasting time going down a road that ends up being washed out—things like that.
“When we get to a town, we make sure it’s not full of cannibals or blood frogs. If it seems okay, then we have to find a place for the show to set up, figure out who we have to bribe, collect local information that might be good to include in the show, and try to get a good deal on any supplies we need.”
“That sounds pretty dangerous.” Agatha said, then thought a little about Zeetha, and Zeetha’s stick. “Hey, the next time you go, take me with you!”
That got yet another laugh. Agatha liked the sound of it. “Ah, are you one of my fans, already?” Lars chuckled, “I know I have a magnetic personality, but...”
“No!” Agatha was blushing a lot, today. “I mean, I just thought it would be a good way to escape—”
“Interesting. Usually we get farm girls who want to join the show to escape.”
“Oh? Escape from what?”
Lars grew serious. She had asked the question lightly, but suddenly Agatha wondered what he’d seen. “The tedium of farming. A family that thinks of her as nothing but a servant, or worse. The dull lad she’s doomed to marry. A town that remembers every one of her mistakes...”
“What do you do with them?” Agatha asked.
Lars immediately brightened. “Why, we take them, of course!”
Agatha looked surprised. “You do?”
They had been walking away from camp as they spoke, following a path that led across a shallow brook. Lars gallantly held out a hand to help her hop across on the flat stones that served as a bridge.
He nodded. “Sure. Some panic their first night away from home, and most of them, having succeeded in escaping their old life, leave us at the next town. But some—ah, some people set foot on the stage and never step off.”