“You’re already a rich man,” she snapped. “And though you’re many things, you are not an idiot. This has worked just fine for a decade. Don’t tell me you’d trade wealth for a little notoriety?”
He smiled, but did not contradict her. He kept half of what she earned from each bounty. It was a fine arrangement for Theopolis. No danger to him, which was how she knew he liked it. He was a civil servant, not a bounty hunter. The only time she’d seen him kill, the man he’d murdered couldn’t fight back.
“You know me too well, Silence,” Theopolis said with a laugh. “Too well indeed. My, my. A bounty! I wonder who it is. I’ll have to go look in the common room.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort. Shadows! You think the face of a tax collector won’t spook them? Don’t you go walking in and spoiling things.”
“Peace, Silence,” he said, still grinning. “I obey your rules. I am careful not to show myself around here often, and I don’t bring suspicion to you. I couldn’t stay today anyway; I merely came to give you an offer. Only now you probably won’t need it! Ah, such a pity. After all the trouble I went to in your name, hmmm?”
She felt cold. “What help could you possibly give me?”
He took a sheet of paper from his satchel, then carefully unfolded it with too-long fingers. He moved to hold it up, but she snatched it from him.
“What is this?”
“A way to relieve you of your debt, Silence! A way to prevent you from ever having to worry again.”
The paper was a writ of seizure, an authorization for Silence’s creditors—Theopolis—to claim her property as payment. The forts claimed jurisdiction over the roadways and the land to either side of them. They did send soldiers out to patrol them. Occasionally.
“I take it back, Theopolis,” she spat. “You most certainly are a fool. You’d give up everything we have for a greedy land snatch?”
“Of course not, Silence. This wouldn’t be giving up anything at all! Why, I do so feel bad seeing you constantly in my debt. Wouldn’t it be more efficient if I took over the finances of the waystop? You would remain working here, and hunting bounties, as you always have. Only, you would no longer have to worry about your debts, hmmm?”
She crumpled the paper in her hand. “You’d turn me and mine into slaves, Theopolis.”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. Those in Lastport have begun to worry that such an important waypoint as this is owned by an unknown element. You are drawing attention, Silence. I should think that is the last thing you want.”
Silence crumpled the paper further in her hand, fist tight. Horses shuffled in their stalls. Theopolis grinned.
“Well,” he said. “Perhaps it won’t be needed. Perhaps this bounty of yours is a big one, hmmm? Any clues to give me, so I don’t sit wondering all day?”
“Get out,” she whispered.
“Dear Silence,” he said. “Forescout blood, stubborn to the last breath. They say your grandparents were the first of the first. The first people to come scout this continent, the first to homestead the Forests… the first to stake a claim on hell itself.”
“Don’t call the Forests that. This is my home.”
“But it is how men saw this land, before the Evil. Doesn’t that make you curious? Hell, land of the damned, where the shadows of the dead made their home. I keep wondering: Is there really a shade of your departed husband guarding this place, or is it just another story you tell people? To make them feel safe, hmmm? You spend a fortune in silver. That offers the real protection, and I never have been able to find a record of your marriage. Of course, if there wasn’t one, that would make dear William Ann a—”
“Go.”
He grinned, but tipped his hat to her and stepped out. She heard him climb into the saddle, then ride off. Night would soon fall; it was probably too much to hope that the shades would take Theopolis. She’d long suspected that he had a hiding hole somewhere near, probably a cavern he kept lined with silver.
She breathed in and out, trying to calm herself. Theopolis was frustrating, but he didn’t know everything. She forced her attention back to the horses and got out a bucket of water. She dumped the contents of the pouches into it, then gave a hearty dose to the horses, who each drank thirstily.
Pouches that dripped sap in the way Theopolis indicated would be too easy to spot. What would happen when her bounties removed their saddles at night and found the pouches? They’d know someone was coming for them. No, she needed something less obvious.
“How am I going to manage this?” she whispered as a horse drank from her bucket. “Shadows. They’re reaching for me on all sides.”
Kill Theopolis. That was probably what Grandmother would have done. She considered it.
No, she thought. I won’t become that. I won’t become her. Theopolis was a thug and a scoundrel, but he had not broken any laws, nor had he done anyone direct harm that she knew. There had to be rules, even out here. There had to be lines. Perhaps in that respect, she wasn’t so different from the fortfolk.
She’d find another way. Theopolis only had a writ of debt; he had been required to show it to her. That meant she had a day or two to come up with his money. All neat and orderly. In the fort cities, they claimed to have civilization. Those rules gave her a chance.
She left the stable. A glance through the window into the common room showed her William Ann delivering drinks to the “merchants” of Chesterton’s gang. Silence stopped to watch.
Behind her, the Forests shivered in the wind.
Silence listened, then turned to face them. You could tell fortfolk by the way they refused to face the Forests. They averted their eyes, never looking into the depths. Those solemn trees covered almost every inch of this continent, those leaves shading the ground. Still. Silent. Animals lived out there, but fort surveyors declared that there were no predators. The shades had gotten those long ago, drawn by the shedding of blood.
Staring into the Forests seemed to make them… retreat. The darkness of their depths withdrew, the stillness gave way to the sound of rodents picking through fallen leaves. A Forescout knew to look the Forests straight on. A Forescout knew that the surveyors were wrong. There was a predator out there. The Forest itself was one.
Silence turned and walked to the door into the kitchen. Keeping the waystop had to be her first goal, so she was committed to collecting Chesterton’s bounty now. If she couldn’t pay Theopolis, she had little faith that everything would stay the same. He’d have a hand around her throat, as she couldn’t leave the waystop. She had no fort citizenship, and times were too tight for the local homesteaders to take her in. No, she’d have to stay and work the waystop for Theopolis, and he would squeeze her dry, taking larger and larger percentages of the bounties.
She pushed open the door to the kitchen. It—
Sebruki sat at the kitchen table holding the crossbow in her lap.
“God Beyond!” Silence gasped, pulling the door closed as she stepped inside. “Child, what are you—”
Sebruki looked up at her. Those haunted eyes were back, eyes void of life and emotion. Eyes like a shade’s.
“We have visitors, Aunt Silence,” Sebruki said in a cold, monotone voice. The crossbow’s winding crank sat next to her. She had managed to load the thing and cock it, all on her own. “I coated the bolt’s tip with blackblood. I did that right, didn’t I? That way, the poison will kill him for sure.”
“Child…” Silence stepped forward.
Sebruki turned the crossbow in her lap, holding it at an angle to support it, one small hand on the trigger. The point turned toward Silence.