Children noticed.
Malthus the Counselor noticed, too, his keen ears and eyes missing little. He nodded to himself, exchanged glances with Blaise of the Borderguard, with Peldras the Ellyl, nodding with satisfaction and fingering the ruby-red Soumanië hidden beneath his beard. Everything, it seemed, went according to Malthus’ plan.
Old man, Carfax thought, I hate you.
And since there was nothing else for him to do, his flesh and his will bound and circumscribed by the Counselor’s Soumanië, Carfax rode alongside them, ate and slept and breathed road-dust, keeping the silence that was his only protection, watching and hating, willing them harm. Sometimes, the children stared at him. What did they see? A man, dusty and bedraggled, his tongue cleft to the roof of his mouth. Deaf and dumb, they thought him. Betimes, there were taunts. Carfax endured them as his due.
What folly, to think Malthus would have surrendered his Soumanië!
Sometimes there were couriers, royal couriers, carrying the standard of Port Calibus. They traveled in pairs. One would sound the silvery horn, hoisting the standard high to display a pennant bearing an argent tower on a mist-blue field. Other sojourners cleared the well-kept road in a hurry at the sight of it, including Malthus’ Company. The old wizard would stand with his head bowed, one hand clutching beneath his beard, muttering under his breath. Whatever charm it was, it worked. The Vedasian couriers took no notice of them.
Within days of their arrival, they began to see companies of knights headed east on the Traders’ Route. Twenty, forty at a time, riding in orderly formations, baggage trains following. More and more frequently couriers appeared, stitching back and forth the length of the country, horns blowing an urgent warning. Commitments were asked and given, numbers were tallied, supplies were rerouted. The rumors were spoken in a whisper, became news, stated aloud.
Vedasia was committing its knights to war.
Stories were passed from mouth to ear along the Traders’ Route. The Sorceress of the East had made an unholy pact with the Sunderer himself, who had promised to make her his Queen in exchange for the head of Malthus the Counselor. She had sent her dragon to abduct the Lady of the Rivenlost and offered a dreadful bargain.
Haomane’s Allies had chosen war instead.
Not all of them, no, but already a mighty force was on the march, moving from Seahold to Harrington Bay, where the Free Fishers had agreed to carry them to Port Calibus. There, a fleet of Vedasian ships would ferry them around the lower tip of Dwarfhorn and on to Port Eurus to unite with a Vedasian company under the command of Duke Quentin, the King’s nephew. Two of the Five Regents of Pelmar had given pledges of war, and the another was expected to agree soon. It was a force the likes of which had not been seen since the Fourth Age of the Sundered World. The Sorceress of the East, all agreed, had overreached.
These were the stories heard along the Traders’ Route, until they turned south onto a lesser road that led unto the heart of the Dwarfhorn.
“Why do you smile?”
It was Blaise of the Borderguard who asked the question one evening, pausing in the process of skinning a rabbit the archer Fianna had shot for the supper-pot. She was some distance away, motionless in the uncultivated field, bow drawn, tracking some unseen movement. Malthus had vanished; communing with Haomane, perhaps. Hobard was gathering firewood, while Peldras knelt in serene concentration, stacking kindling in an intricate structure. Nothing burned hotter and cleaner than an Ellylon-laid campfire, constructed in tiers which collapsed in on themselves with a delicate shower of sparks, laying a bed of immaculate embers. At his side, Dani squatted and watched in fascination, while his fat uncle Thulu went in search of running water.
On alert, Carfax regarded the Borderguardsman in wary silence.
“You smile.” Blaise’s hands resumed their movement, parting the rabbit’s skin from its flesh. His gaze remained fixed on Carfax. In the deepening twilight he looked much akin to General Tanaros, with the same unthinking competence. “Watching the knights pass. I’ve seen it. Why?”
A thrill of fear shot through him. Had he smiled? Yes, probably. It was the one bitter pleasure left to him, watching Haomane’s Allies dance unwitting to a tune of Lord Satoris’ piping, marshaling their forces eastward.
“You’re afraid,” Blaise said softly, plying his knife.
To speak or not to speak? There was no safety in silence, if his face betrayed him. Carfax met the Borderguardsman’s gaze. “Afraid, aye.” His voice was rusty with disuse. “You want me dead.”
“Aye.” A brusque nod, brows rising a fraction to hear him speak. “You’re a liability, I reckon. You’d do the same if it was your command. But I swore to obey the Counselor’s wisdom, and he wants you alive. So why do you smile?”
“Why does Malthus hide from Haomane’s Allies?” Carfax asked instead of answering. “Why have we turned south, when the war lies north? What does the boy Dani carry in that flask about his neck?”
“You’re stubborn, I’ll give you that much.” The Borderguardsman set aside the skinned carcass with a speculative look in his eye. “What’s your name, Staccian?”
Carfax shook his head.
Blaise wiped his skinning-knife on a tuft of grass. “You know mine.”
“Yes.” He swallowed.
“Do you serve under his command?” Dark eyes, steady and calm. “You know of whom I speak. He who caused my family name to live in infamy.”
Carfax looked away. “General Tanaros Blacksword.”
“The Kingslayer.” Blaise’s voice was flat. “You do, don’t you?” He waited, but Carfax kept his silence. “He strangled his wife, Staccian. He put his hands around her neck and he throttled her dead. He walked up to his sovereign lord, a man who was nearly a brother to him, and plunged his sword into his guts. And then he rode to Darkhaven and pledged his life to the Sunderer in exchange for immortality. Are you proud to serve under his command?”
“Who should I serve, then?” He dared a glance. “You?”
“You could do worse.”
Carfax laughed in despair.
“What manner of man do you wish to be?” The Borderguardsman watched him keenly. “You have a choice, Staccian. I’ve heard it said your folk made allegiance with Satoris Banewreaker to preserve peace and prosperity in your country. No one in Urulat would condemn you for deciding the cost was too high.”
Peace and prosperity, Carfax thought. Yes. Those were not small things to a people who dwelled in a stony land, to a people whose nation bordered on the territory of the Fjel, who made for ungentle neighbors were there enmity between them. Whatever was said of him, Lord Satoris kept his bargains. And whatever General Tanaros had done a thousand years ago, he treated his Men with honor. Carfax had sworn an oath of loyalty, and they had given him no cause to break it.
Without honor, a Man might as well be dead. Indeed, it was better to die with honor than to live without it. But he hadn’t expected it to come so soon.
Across the field, the Arduan archer Fianna stood like a statue in the lowering twilight, longbow drawn in a strained arch, holding the taut string close to her ear. Her figure had an unearthly beauty in the gloaming. Carfax stared at her, thinking of girls he had known, of one he had hoped to wed, long ago. Of how she had laughed and wrinkled her freckled nose when he brushed it with the tip of a goldenrod in full bloom, dusting her skin with pollen. What would he have done, had he known he had so little time? The Archer released her string and her bow hummed. Somewhere unseen, a rabbit squealed, the sound cut short.