‘I don’t doubt your magic at all, but I would hate to attempt a crossing and have someone hear our horses whinny, or see too many tree branches moving against the wind – they’d be bound to investigate.’
‘Oh.’ Steven sounded dejected.
‘Don’t get downhearted.’ Gilmour tried to sound reassuring. ‘You did a very thorough job and I am quite sure Nerak has no idea where we are – at least for now.’
‘I think I’ve felt him looking for us,’ Steven said.
‘Me, too,’ Gilmour said. ‘But until I am convinced we won’t be riding into an enemy prison, I want to continue east until the patrols thin out enough that we could cross in one of your fuming automobiles and no one would be any wiser.’
‘All right then.’ Steven turned back to the trail.
Gilmour said, ‘I was impressed, by the way.’
Steven looked surprised at the unexpected compliment. ‘You were?’
‘No spells, no fancy incantations, just focus and concentration: you are far, far ahead of any Larion sorcerer I ever knew, Steven, even some who had been studying for twenty Twinmoons or more – except Kantu, Pikan and Nerak, of course, but they were exceptional.’ He sighed and climbed into the saddle. ‘I was impressed. Come on, I think we can ride from here.’
Steven looked back to where Garec and Mark were engrossed in a conversation about arrows and homemade fletching. ‘Mount up, boys,’ he called softly. ‘We’re going to ride from here.’
‘Oh, hurrah,’ Mark groaned. He was still clumsy in the saddle and would have been far happier jogging all the way to Sandcliff Palace. ‘How much further today?’
‘We need to get past that encampment, and Gilmour says we might have to go another day or two east towards the coast.’
Garec agreed with Gilmour. ‘They won’t patrol as much out there, especially east of the Merchants’ Highway. There’s nothing out there.’
As they set off, Mark tried to pull the wrinkles out of his leggings where the unruly fabric had bunched up to expose his lower legs; he cursed and nearly fell into the dirt beside the trail. ‘Goddamn these creatures,’ he muttered, pulling himself straight again.
Gilmour, confident Steven’s cloaking spell would effectively distract any one who thought they detected something out of the ordinary, allowed a small fire behind a house-sized boulder left on the ridge by a god building a mountain somewhere further north. It wasn’t strictly necessary – they had plenty of dried meat and cheese still – but Gilmour had been craving a cup of coffee himself, and as the milk wouldn’t last much longer, he decided a break would do them all good. Everyone was anxious to cross the border into Gorsk and he couldn’t blame them; he was a little excited as well. He hoped they had come east far enough to slip north safely.
As Mark busied himself with the coffee pans, Gilmour moved around the boulder and gazed at the hills rolling towards Sandcliff Palace. In the twilight they were brown fading to purple, flanked by the grey-black northern mountains. He pitied those who died late on a winter’s day: the journey to the Northern Forest – a journey Gilmour wasn’t even sure he believed in any more – would be long and tiresome, especially for someone his age. To pass this way after the leaves had fallen, the naked trees and hills cold in the late day sun, would be an anticlimax to a life filled with love, passion and engaging pursuits. He reached out with his mind, hoping to detect a soul making its way across the burned-over ridge, to offer a greeting and ease the loneliness of that final trek, but he could sense nothing.
He had just started back towards the fire when he heard Mark shouting.
‘Stand still – right there! Show me your hands!’ The foreigner’s voice drowned out whatever anyone else was trying to say.
Another, unfamiliar, voice answered, ‘I didn’t see you. I can’t believe I didn’t see you.’ He didn’t sound that concerned that he might be run through in the next breath, but rather, someone genuinely surprised. ‘Four horses and three men- four men-’ Gilmour had come around the corner, ‘-and I didn’t see you. Gods rut a dog; you’ve got a fire burning and I didn’t see you!’
‘Hands, asshole!’ Mark, an arrow drawn full, didn’t notice his slip back into English.
‘My hands? What? What should I do with them?’ The stranger spoke calmly, apparently unafraid of the angry bowman.
‘Turn them over. I want to see your wrists,’ Mark said.
‘What an odd thing to-’
‘Now, asshole, or I will drill you through the neck.’
‘I don’t know why-’
‘Shut up,’ Mark interrupted, ‘and pay attention! I want to see the backs of your wrists, so turn your hands over. Do it now, or die. No discussion; your decision. I will not care, not for one moment, if your body rots on this hill for an eternity.’
The man stretched out his arms, causing his tunic sleeves to ride up his wrists, and did his best to show his hands from every angle. ‘I must say, I have been detained from time to time in my life, but this is the most curious demand I’ve ever heard,’ he said conversationally. ‘Where did you all come from? Is it magic?’
Mark ignored him. ‘Do you see anything?’ he asked.
‘No,’ Garec answered.
‘Nothing from over here either,’ Steven said, ‘and I’m getting nothing from-well, you know.’
Mark still held the arrow nocked. ‘What are you doing here?’
The man, who looked somewhat younger than Garec, was dressed in the ubiquitous leggings, a wool tunic with a leather bandolier and a heavy brown cloak. His hood was up, but he had made some effort to cast it back from his face, hoping that eye contact with his assailants might convince them of his peaceful intentions. Still waggling his wrists, he said, ‘My name is Rodler Varn. I’m from Capehill. I make, uh, well, deliveries into Gorsk from time to time.’ He indicated the bandolier with his chin. ‘A bit of root, that’s all, and not much. I’m not greedy. I take what I can carry and go in on foot.’
‘Fennaroot,’ Garec said, surprised, ‘you sell fennaroot in Gorsk?’
‘What’s fennaroot?’ Mark kept the arrow trained on Rodler’s chest but looked to the Ronans for clarification.
Gilmour said, ‘You remember your first day out of Estrad, Mark? The root I sliced for you?’
‘Oh, yes, right: it gave a real kick. We tried to get some in Orindale, but it was out of season or something.’
‘Malagon made it illegal,’ Garec added. ‘That’s why we had trouble finding it.’ He moved over to the man and opened one of the leather pockets in the bandolier. He held up a piece of nondescript dirt-covered root. ‘He’s telling the truth.’
‘It’s dope?’ Mark asked. ‘So you’re a drug dealer? Oh, that’s just terrific, the one person we meet out here is a drug smuggler.’ He chuckled and lowered the bow.
‘Fennaroot has many uses, Mark,’ Gilmour said, keeping an eye on Rodler Varn. ‘It’s not very powerful in its raw form-’
‘But let me guess,’ Steven interjected, ‘dried and crushed into powder, it packs a significantly more powerful punch.’
‘Yup,’ Mark said, ‘just sprinkle a little on your pancakes and you’ll be swimming the English Channel.’
Rodler, still exposing his wrists for their inspection, called, ‘Hey, Southie, can I come up now?’
Wheeling back, Mark drew the bow again and trained it on the stranger. Rage twisted his face and for a moment Gilmour feared he would kill the fennaroot smuggler. Mark’s voice was grim. ‘My family has put up with racism for generations, and where I come from, the appropriate thing for me to do right now would be to express my sincere outrage and disgust at your narrowmindedness. But guess what, asshole, we aren’t there, are we?’ Gita Kamrec of Orindale had called him a South Coaster in the caverns below Meyers’ Vale, but Mark had let it pass; there had been nothing pejorative in her usage, and she had obviously earned the respect of the numerous black members of her small fighting force. But that had been some while ago, before something fundamentally good had snapped inside Mark’s mind.
‘I don’t believe Eldarn will miss you,’ he continued. ‘They might pin a medal on my lapel. Ridding the world – even this rotting nightmare you call a world – of a racist drug smuggler might be the best thing I’ve done since I got here.’ Mark laughed, an unfunny sound that rattled around in the back of his throat and died.