"Over_9780307446138_oeb_c18_r1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jeffrey Overstreet - Cynderes Midnight)
18
THE WATCHER AND
THE RUINED FARM
Skating an imperfect circle on the frozen sky, a black-winged brascle haunted the ale boy’s progress. “I’m not your prey,” said the boy to the bird, for if the predator could see him from that height, surely it could hear him.
With the vawn whistle tight in his purpling fist, the ale boy walked across drift after drift, taking four steps for every one of the deep prints punched into the snow by his gruff, gigantic guide.
The more he fell behind, the more he was tempted to wander off on his own. This very beastman may have come to Auralia’s caves, but he had also sought to slay Wynn and Cortie on Baldridge Hill. Deepening the mystery, the same monster claimed that he’d been sent by someone named “Bel” to protect him.
He saw the beastman pause awhile and stare up at the circling bird. “They probably know each other,” the boy mumbled. He remembered watching brascles swoop low over the Cragavar trees near Abascar, remembered how Captain Ark-robin had pointed out that brascles in the air meant beastmen in the trees below.
Later, during their journey southeastward through the Cragavar, the brascle chittered, annoyed, and wheeled off to the west. The boy did not feel as relieved as he wanted to. The country they traversed was still old Cent Regus territory, haunted and unpredictable. Snow-cased jags might have been piles of stone or, in the boy’s numb delusion, gigantic beastmen huddled and lying in wait. His protector, wielding a rain canopy as if it were a talisman, guided them through a maze of disconnected fences made of ice-prickle brambles.
The beastman had not touched him or conveyed any threat. Instead, fumbling with Common words, forcing them together like a fool attempting carpentry, the beastman had pledged to protect the ale boy all the way back to Cal-raven in the Cliffs of Barnashum. To prove his claims, the beastman produced a familiar length of cloth—half of Auralia’s scarf that the boy had seen in Cyndere’s chamber.
The boy had agreed without hesitation. He feared upsetting the creature, whose conviction had a desperate quality.
“The colors are helping him,” Auralia had whispered. “He comes for the colors. He stays. He sleeps. Sometimes I think he cries. They’re leading him somewhere. I wonder where.”
“I wonder where,” he huffed and puffed. “Whatever happens. I hope he slows down. If it snows again. His tracks. Will fill. Right up.”
When the heavens descended so hard, fast, and white that all signs of his guide were erased, the boy slumped down into the snow, only his head above the surface. The beastman came bounding back, growling. “Run,” he said. “rrRun, O-raya’s boy.”
“I can’t,” he gasped. “You’re a hundred times stronger. I travel by vawn, and my vawn’s gotten lost.”
“Bad bird,” said the beastman, pointing at the sky. “rrBad bird sees. Tells more Cent Regus. Maybe they come.” He tilted his head as if puzzled. “You…cold?”
“Aren’t you?” the boy answered, a little too angrily perhaps. He brushed snow from his shoulders. “I’m so tired.” He held up the whistle. “Can’t even. Blow the signal.”
The beastman snatched the whistle away and blew with such force that the boy felt it like a cold pin run up through his spine. Then the whistle burst into splinters.
“Very helpful,” muttered the boy.
They waited, their snowy shells thickening. No sounds, no shapes—nothing emerged from the white void. The boy tried to ignore the thought that Rumpa might be trapped in one of Ryllion’s snares.
“No vawn,” the beastman shrugged. “rrRunning is better.”
Before the ale boy could protest, the beastman lifted him up and bore him on his shoulders. The boy grasped the black mane with one hand, the rain canopy with the other. Without another word, they were off. Accustomed to the vawn’s jolting pace, the ale boy was astonished at the ease of the beastman’s stride across snow. The rhythms and the rush lulled him into a daze. They moved through the frozen world, all color sealed away.
The sun reappeared, a burning coin, as the beastman brought them out of the snowy rills and dunes into rockier land. The world took on definition again in thorns, ruins, and the blue glass of frozen ponds. A flock of peskies, each bird the size of the boy’s thumb, sprang up from the shallow snow at their approach and hopped along behind them, cooing and chirping the same hopeful syllable.
When the beastman slowed, he asked for direction, but the boy grew more and more reluctant to reply. He feared he would lose his resolve, fall for the beastman’s trick, and reveal Abascar’s hideaway. As they paused, the peskies caught up to them, flitting and hopping all over their shoulders and heads. The boy saw the beastman fighting the impulse to grab their tiny, puffy bodies and swallow them by the handful.
To distract him, he offered his protector some of the Bel Amicans’ dried meat. The beastman sniffed it, pinched it, and when he finally ate, he grumbled. “rrBird. Bird meat. Old.” He stared off westward, clutched at his belly, and released a weary groan.
The boy said, “It will be dark very soon. And colder. Much colder. We should keep moving. Like Bel said. To Cal-raven.”
The beastman carried him up over swells that bore catastrophes of wood and stone the way ocean waves carry shipwrecks—farmer shacks and shepherd houses from the early, uncursed days of House Cent Regus. Some were great carcasses, all jutting ribs and spines and rags; some, tent frames without canvas; some, small stone fortresses with towers tilting or leaning. But each one had eyes and jaws, and some of the structures moaned.
“There,” said the beastman, pointing to the top of the highest rise. “Rest there. See far.”
The barn and shack seemed a luxury compared to the rest of the ruined neighborhood. A small, wheezy structure slumped against a large, sturdy box of a building. Windows whistled, but the roof appeared sealed and sure. Sleet lashed the travelers, persuading them to hurry.
With each step up the hill, the beastman crushed patches of whiskbrush buried beneath the white crust.
“What’s that black stuff hanging all over the barn?”
As if surprised to be noticed, the wavering dark moved. It caught on the wind and lifted in scraps from the barn roof.
They were snow herons—enormous black birds with long sharp beaks and beady eyes. Rasping and croaking like giant toads, they filled the sky with a cacophony of wingbeats. As they scattered, the wind from their passage sent icedust swirling in all directions. The flock of hopping peskies shrieked and burrowed into the snow.
“Someone’s watching us. Through the window. At the top of that collapsing house,” the boy whispered. “In armor.”
The beastman snorted, unconcerned. “rrSoldier. Alone. Dead.”
“You sure?” He could have sworn that the silhouette in the window turned its head to watch their progress. He could see the faint shining line of a soldier’s helm and the gleam of a weapon unsheathed. But the watcher’s features were shadowed.
“rrWe go in.”
“Can’t we find a different shelter?”
“Stay here. Up high. See far. See them if they come.”
“Them? Who’s coming?”
As the beastman had no interest in answering, the boy decided it was better not to know.
With a quick glance up at the window, the beastman said, “Weakerfolk afraid. Always afraid. Even when they fight. You?”
“Afraid? No.” He laughed for the first time since Cyndere’s chamber. Two days after sleeping in the bed of an heiress, here he was, carried by a curse-twisted monster through a merciless storm to trespass on haunted property. “Only one thing scares me. The Keeper. It scares me when it appears and scares me worse when it’s gone. You know about the Keeper?”
The beastman lifted him off his shoulders and set him down, planting his feet in the snow. “rrKeeper?” The ale boy raised his arms like great wings, roared, and stamped about in wide steps, pointing back at his deep tracks. The beastman’s eyes widened. He nodded. “Keeper.”
“You’ve seen the Keeper?”
The beastman glanced about as if suspicious that the creature might be waiting around any corner. That was as good as an answer. He took the boy by the arm and led him stumbling around the side of the barn, past the pieces of an old plow, an overturned feed trough. At the back they found a section of wall missing. Snow drifted in across the floor of what had once been a workshop with brace tables, hackers, shavers, chippers, and a rack for hammers.
Though the barn was open to the elements, the leaning farmhouse was still walled up. The beastman lifted an unhinged wooden door and set it aside. He told the boy to stay by the door while he searched within. The ale boy waited for the clash of swords, for screams and commotion.
At the beastman’s tremendous roar, the boy thrust the canopy out before him like a shield and readied for a retreat. But silence followed, and the beastman appeared again. “rrNothing scared,” he said. “Nothing moved. Nothing ran. Empty.”
Inside, the boy found walls that seemed to have wept, stained with blurred hues. Inhabitants had sought to seal cracks and strengthen warping wallbeams with whatever was available to them—metal scraps, bundles of branches, spans of canvas and leather. Straw and rotten leaves made a carpet that rustled as tiny rodents scurried underneath. Sticky blackness glued the debris to the ground in random patches. Even the beastman avoided the stuff.
A round, black iron stove, just big enough for baking bread, stood near the wall. Its tall chimney pipe reached up through the ceiling. The boy pulled, but the latch remained fixed. “Guess there’s no cooking tonight.”
The beastman touched the latch, and it snapped loose.
The stove coughed a black cloud. Sootmice bounded out, squeaking, abandoning their nest. The beastman snatched two of them, and the ale boy tried not to listen to the crunch.
“Mind if I make a fire?”
“rrNo smoke. Cent Regus close. Must hide, O-raya’s boy.” The beastman looked at the weathered wooden ceiling beams. Bird droppings had seeped through over the years, gluing shut the cracks. Finished with his cursory inspection, the beastman suddenly shuddered, swayed, and slumped to the floor.
“Are you all right?”
“rrStrength,” the creature snarled. “Need Cent Regus strength.” The boy almost thought he saw an apology in those simian features. “Cent Regus get tired. Cent Regus hurt. Everywhere.” He gestured to his feet, his knees, his chest, his head. Then he lay back, jaw sagging open, and was suddenly asleep, sprawled on the floor.
The ale boy closed the rain canopy, sat down with his back against an old barrel, and glanced nervously at the ladder that rose through the ceiling. That ladder could take them upstairs or let someone climb down.
As the room went dark, so did the ale boy’s attention.
A commotion woke him, a sound like someone sweeping snow with tree branches. The world was dark, save for a faint blue at the windows and the pinpricks of stars in the sky. The storm had passed.
He reached for his bag and pulled out the Bel Amican glowstone. The light found the beastman crouched at the window, staring out.
The boy joined him, looking out at the starlit snow. “What is it?”
“Feelers.”
“Feelers?” He watched the moonlit snowdrifts, and a disturbance caught his attention. Something slithered beneath those sparkling waves.
“Feelers. Looking for you, boy.”
Repulsed, he asked, “What are they?”
“Don’t know. rrDangerous. Feelers crawl on Cent Regus land. Underground. Come up. Catch animals. Trees. People. But not Cent Regus.”
The boy did not like anything he was learning from the beastman. To shake off the thought, he began to walk about the space. “I need to get back to my work,” he said. “I don’t like this hiding. It’s not doing anybody good.” He tried to right an overturned table, but it had a broken leg. He picked up a long wooden stick with a splintered end, what might have once been a rake. Propping it under the table, he said, “Looks like we’re too late to help these people. But it was a home once.”
“rrOld Cent Regus. Long, long ago.”
“A child lived here. He marked his growth on the wall. Perhaps once a year. He made notches, see? He made a number by each one. When he was seven, he was this tall. And here, eight.”
The beastman came to stare. He pointed to the space above the tenth mark. “Stopped growing?”
“Yes, it stops there.” The ale boy’s face crumpled in worry. He touched the tenth mark, as if it might tell him some secret history.
“You.” The beastman put a hand on the ale boy’s head. “No stopping.”
Surprised, the ale boy looked up. Feeling awkward, unsure how to respond, he patted the beastman’s hand. “You either.”
A rustle of snow outside caught their attention. And then the structure groaned a bit, as if suddenly burdened.
The ale boy checked the beastman’s face. “Feelers?”
“rrNo. Big black birds. Came back. Sleep on rooftop.”
“Maybe they’ll block the wind. Or seal in some warmth.”
The beastman stood against the wall, took his knife, and made a mark high above the tenth mark.
“I suspect you’re finished growing.”
The beastman scowled.
“Well, maybe I’m wrong.” The ale boy smiled. He began to walk along the wall, examining the wood splinters, the piles of droppings, the scattered leaves, looking for more clues.
“Boy, did O-raya…stop?”
The ale boy kicked at a loose floorboard, then knelt and lifted it. “Auralia…changed,” he said. He pulled a wooden box up from the space beneath it. “She changed very much. And then the Keeper took her away.” He opened the box. It was empty.
“Keeper?” growled the beastman. He sank down to the floor again, holding his head. “Keeper took O-raya?”
“It saved her. Carried her away. Oh, I don’t know.” The ale boy turned toward the window and said, “I sure haven’t seen any signs of Auralia or the Keeper for a very long time.” He threw the box out the window.
“Must find O-raya. Must find colors. Had them. But bad Cent Regus took them. Colors…stop the hurt.”
“Yes,” said the ale boy. “Yes, I know. I’ve been sharing Auralia’s colors with people from Abascar. And from Bel Amica too. To stop the hurt.”
“No colors to Cent Regus. Don’t go.” The beastman leaned forward as if the ale boy had suddenly become interesting. Two bright points of the glowstone’s light sparkled in his large, dark eyes. “O-raya…call you?”
“What did she call me? She called me ale boy.”
“Ale boy.”
“Yes. What did Auralia call you?”
The beastman thought for a moment. “Hairy.”
The ale boy’s laughter began like a trickle and then burst into a stream, rushing across the room and splashing against the walls. The beastman looked toward the ladder. The ale boy clasped his mouth shut.
“Go up now,” said the beastman. He gestured for the boy to follow.
Climbing the ladder, which complained at every step, the beastman stopped halfway when the ale boy asked him, “May I call you Hairy too?”
He seemed burdened by the question. “No,” he sighed and went on up through the ceiling. “Jordam. rrCall me Jordam.”
Emerging onto a feeble floor of rotten beams, they found a spell of unsettling silence.
Then a frantic flock of pearbellies, flung by shock from the rafters, collided and careened into flight. Grey feather tufts filled the air. The ale boy sneezed, remembering pillow fights among Gatherer orphans.
Each step he took creaked underfoot, and he was reluctant to continue. But if the beastman could, surely he should follow.
The watcher in the chair may have been waiting for someone, or perhaps this view of the path that had led here was a subject of regretful contemplation. Whatever the case, the riot of birds did not disturb that profound reverie.
The boy tiptoed up behind the figure, raising the glowstone, and he saw that this was a Bel Amican soldier who appeared to be asleep, kneeling. But as he moved between the watcher and the window, he could see that the shoulders did not rise or fall. He guessed this had been a woman, from the long and wisping hair, the narrow bones of her wrists. Her eyes were vacant caves. The helmet rested on a skull wrapped in papery remains. Arms thrust forward, the skeletal fingers of one hand were wrapped around the hilt of a sword turned inward, the blade running straight between the breastplate and the belt.
“Dead.”
“She killed herself.”
Jordam prodded at the uniform looking for something useful. Thrusting his fingers through the eye sockets to hold the skull in place, he pried the helmet off. It broke free with a smacking sound, and the boy turned away. The beastman tried to put the helmet on, but his head was far too large. When he offered it, the ale boy choked.
Most Bel Amican soldiers would rather fall on their swords than die at the claws of the Cent Regus, or so Abascar’s Captain Ark-robin had scornfully remarked to his men. Bel Amicans were proud and certain of superiority. Rather than give anyone reason to boast at having slain them, they would call out for their moon-spirit and then leave their attacker an empty shell.
This shell had once belonged to a swordswoman, and part of an elite company from the looks of her ornate blade that remained as silver and intricately detailed as the day it was forged.
The ale boy knelt before her. “When somebody dies like this, I wonder if Northchildren come to unstitch them and give them a new skin. Like they did for Auralia.”
Jordam had pulled the head back, leaving her vacant visage etched in moonlight as if in a posthumous prayer.
“Look.” The boy reached for the swordswoman’s left hand that curled loosely like a dead spider. “She’s holding something.” He pinched the parchment free from its cage of finger bones, pulled its crisp folds open, and began to read. The runes were fancier, more dramatic than Abascar writing. But he could recognize enough to try to piece together the message.
He read aloud to the beastman, who stood and stared out the window.
She was a guard, part of a Bel Amican caravan attacked by Cent Regus. The boy struggled to translate what had happened but made very little sense of it. Apparently the soldiers had been slaughtered, and the passengers had been dragged away by the Cent Regus.
“ ‘They have taken Partayn,’ ” the ale boy read. “ ‘Partayn is gone. I write this so you know. I did not see him die. He will suffer’…something I can’t read. Something bad probably. And then…‘in the Cent Regus den. A slave.’ ”
The boy pulled the parchment closer to his face. “ ‘I have…failed.’ ” He read excitedly now, tracing the frail letters with a fingertip. “ ‘Moon-spirits will punish me, if I live. I give up my life. As an apology. To the spirit.’ ” He stopped. “Partayn. Ballyworms! The prison guard…he talked about how Partayn died when beastmen attacked a caravan. But this guard, she says they killed everyone but the passengers. She says Partayn was dragged off to be a slave. You hear that, Jordam?”
A faint sound began, a faraway rhythm.
“Horses,” said the boy.
“Brothers,” Jordam sighed. He pressed his hands against his head again, as he had when the boy told him about Auralia’s departure. “Brothers coming.”
“Brothers? You have brothers?”
A deep unsettling growl rumbled in Jordam’s throat. “Bad. Brothers. Found me.” He looked at the boy. “rrBad, Jordam and boy coming here.” He pressed a clawed hand against his chest, rasping something the ale boy did not understand. “One…hand.”
“How did they find you?”
The shelter shook, and dust showered down as the predators’ approach frightened the snow herons and sent them scattering. The first faint lines of morning glowed through cracks across the ceiling, and the ale boy backed into a shadowy corner, wishing he could pull the darkness in around him.
Jordam stood and pointed to the ladder. “rrWe go back down,” he said. “Plan. Jordam makes a plan.”
Like thunder before storms. That was the simple thought that rumbled in Jordam’s mind as he stared down the snowy slope.
He cursed Mordafey’s brascle for spotting him. He cursed Mordafey for coming so far to track him down. He would never get the boy safely to Cal-raven now. Either Mordafey needed him for that secret plot, or he meant to punish him for failing to fulfill the orders. Jordam had never been forced to imagine fighting all three of his brothers at once. He could imagine it now. It would not go well.
As Mordafey approached, whipping the horses, sitting on the driver’s bench of the lead Bel Amican carriage, Jordam could see the brascle, large-eyed and dark-feathered, its black beak glinting in the cold light. From the bird’s beak hung a strip of red meat, reward enough to keep that scavenger bird loyal.
Jordam wondered what had happened to the white-clad giant with the fiery staff. Then he marveled that Mordafey had not slaughtered the horses for food. Perhaps they were to be added to the stock of prizes for the chieftain. More Essence—everything increased Mordafey’s desire for more Essence. Everything became part of the game.
Jordam would gamble on that.
Mordafey raised the bird high, and the brascle flapped its wings. Mordafey laughed, boasting some kind of victory.
Bel, Jordam said to himself. Remember Bel.
“You!” Sneering from his place beside Mordafey, Jorn sat wrapped in a flowered blanket, his skin painting itself with the patchwork pattern. He had wrapped the merchant woman’s shawl around his head as if he was trying to disguise himself as an old Bel Amican woman, but Jordam knew that his hairless brother was just trying to stay warm. Long strings of yellow dangled from Jorn’s houndish snout, and his eyes were red. Through his bruises, he grinned wickedly at Jordam, and Jordam understood. Somehow, Jorn had blamed his captivity on him.
Goreth glanced out from the carriage, and before Mordafey could launch whatever rant he had planned, he leapt out and climbed the slope to greet his twin.
“Same Brother, you’ve been gone.” The brusque sound of Cent Regus speech was welcome to Jordam after so much struggle with Common. He would have to be careful, though, with his own words. “Look!” Goreth opened his hand, proudly displaying an array of bloodstained teeth, recently gathered—probably pulled from the merchants they had slain on the bridge. His grin seemed forced, frantic, and his laughter recklessly free, while his tail wagged and slapped against the snow. “Brothers took horses, wagons. Now we go to see the chieftain and the Sopper Crone!”
Jordam watched Mordafey’s face. “rrWent to rescue Jorn. You see now. He was gone. Got away.”
“You’ve been gone.” Goreth’s face crumpled, and now a wave of anger swept over him. He raised his hand to strike.
Jordam backed away, barking, “Goreth! rrRemember? I told you—strike me again, and I’ll finish you.”
Goreth retreated. “Right,” he mumbled, sullen. “Young Brother was caged. By weakerfolk somewhere. Can’t remember.”
“Where were y-y-you?” Jorn stuttered, eager for confrontation. Clutching at the flowered blanket, he jumped down from the driver’s bench and accused Jordam with a long, clawed finger. “M’trapped in Bel Amican sssstinkplace? Got out on m’own. Where were y-you?”
From the driver’s bench behind the horses, Mordafey gestured to the shambles of the abandoned merchant dwelling. “Jordam’s got a new life alone? Abandoned brothers at last?”
“No. I tried to get Jorn. But Jorn was gone. Storm came. I found shelter. Heavy storm.” Jordam shrugged. “You said, ‘Get Jorn.’ I got past Bel Amican guards. rrBut Jorn got loose and ran. Like a gorrel.”
All three brothers blinked, uncomprehending. A moment passed before Goreth said, “Young Brother’s not a gorrel. Gorrels are small.”
Mordafey leaned forward as if he might leap over the horses in his rage. “Jorn—bleeding Jorn—got back to the caves. Jorn got through the storm.”
“But Jorn brought you no prizes,” Jordam ventured.
“Prizes!” said Goreth, failing to grasp the tension between his brothers. Tail wagging with gladness, he gestured to the wagons. “Did you know? We have prizes from Abascar. Deuneroi’s bones. Deuneroi’s hands. Deuneroi’s weapons.”
“I remember,” Jordam growled.
“Prizes from merchants too! Jumped them on a bridge.”
“I remember, Goreth. I killed one.” He watched as whorls of steam massaged the horses. Like smoke, he thought.
“Who’s in the barn??” asked Mordafey, smiling. “You kill him too?” He leapt down, seized Jordam’s mane, and pushed his head down toward the ground. “Plotting with someone else now?”
Goreth kicked a spray of snow onto his twin’s woodscloak. “Bird says Jordam runs with someone. Says two stay here.”
Mordafey unsheathed a stabbing fork from his belt and pushed it up under Jordam’s chin. “Tonight three brothers go to the Core. Time to get the Essence we have earned. Tomorrow we go inside, where Skell Wra gives us strength. Then we get ready. For Abascar. Mordafey killed Deuneroi. Remember? Now three brothers make a better strike.”
Let them go, said a voice within him. Let them go, and do what you promised Bel you would do. Protect the boy. But another voice fought back. If they go without you, you will be cut off. Those who are not with the brothers are enemies of the brothers. They will hunt you.
He had no choice. He had to take a terrible risk.
“Prize,” Jordam muttered. “I brought Mordafey a prize.”
“What”—Mordafey twisted the fork, cutting into Jordam’s throat—“prize?”
Jordam laughed. “You thought I couldn’t. But I caught him.”
Mordafey let him go. “Caught…who?”
As the brothers approached the shack, Jordam seized the unhinged door and planted it in the snow against the wall. Jorn shoved his head inside and shrieked, “Keeper’s boy!” Hysterical, he limped back down to the wagons and dove under the canvas.
Mordafey stalked through the door, growling in suspicion at the boy bound to an empty feed barrel in the center of the room, a strap of leather tying his mouth shut.
“The boy,” Jordam boasted. “Ran away from Baldridge Hill. Remember? You said I let him go. But I caught him. For the brothers.”
Mordafey clasped Jordam’s arm and laughed softly. “Good. Good catch.”
“Run!” Jorn’s voice howled from outside. “Fire monster watches th’boy! Run!”
Mordafey scratched a line across the boy’s forehead. The boy’s eyes fluttered open, and he shrank back, whimpering, then cried out as the brute seized his ear.
Protect O-raya’s boy. Jordam dared to seize Mordafey’s wrist and pull him away. “rrWait. Listen, Mordafey. Keep the boy. He’s an Abascar boy. Hide him here. When the brothers come back from the Core, we take the boy to Abascar. rrRemember the old trick? Use the boy. Bait.”
“Bait,” said Mordafey, nodding. “Bait.” He turned to Goreth. “Lock the boy in that stove.”
“Stove?” Jordam and the boy shared a bewildered glance.
“Brothers come back for the boy later,” said Mordafey. “Mordafey’s tired of waiting. We go to the chieftain now. Today. Together. Four brothers again.”
As Goreth broke the boy’s restraints, he smiled admiringly at his twin. “Same Brother,” he said, “I think this is the boy who ran from Baldridge Hill.”
The horses moved down the old rugged road, Jordam trudging along behind as if chained to the back of the second wagon. Only a few paces along, Mordafey cursed at the horses for dragging the wagons into a snow-draped marsh, the wheels sinking into the soft ground. He lashed at the steeds while Goreth and Jorn tried to lift the front of the wagon frame.
Jordam stepped behind the wagon to raise it, then cautiously peered beneath the canvas at the loot. He pulled out Deuneroi’s bloodied woodscloak, which bundled together his bones and treasures. As the others hauled the wagon out of the sunken ground, Jordam dropped these prizes into the marsh and kicked snow over them, burying them out of sight.
18
THE WATCHER AND
THE RUINED FARM
Skating an imperfect circle on the frozen sky, a black-winged brascle haunted the ale boy’s progress. “I’m not your prey,” said the boy to the bird, for if the predator could see him from that height, surely it could hear him.
With the vawn whistle tight in his purpling fist, the ale boy walked across drift after drift, taking four steps for every one of the deep prints punched into the snow by his gruff, gigantic guide.
The more he fell behind, the more he was tempted to wander off on his own. This very beastman may have come to Auralia’s caves, but he had also sought to slay Wynn and Cortie on Baldridge Hill. Deepening the mystery, the same monster claimed that he’d been sent by someone named “Bel” to protect him.
He saw the beastman pause awhile and stare up at the circling bird. “They probably know each other,” the boy mumbled. He remembered watching brascles swoop low over the Cragavar trees near Abascar, remembered how Captain Ark-robin had pointed out that brascles in the air meant beastmen in the trees below.
Later, during their journey southeastward through the Cragavar, the brascle chittered, annoyed, and wheeled off to the west. The boy did not feel as relieved as he wanted to. The country they traversed was still old Cent Regus territory, haunted and unpredictable. Snow-cased jags might have been piles of stone or, in the boy’s numb delusion, gigantic beastmen huddled and lying in wait. His protector, wielding a rain canopy as if it were a talisman, guided them through a maze of disconnected fences made of ice-prickle brambles.
The beastman had not touched him or conveyed any threat. Instead, fumbling with Common words, forcing them together like a fool attempting carpentry, the beastman had pledged to protect the ale boy all the way back to Cal-raven in the Cliffs of Barnashum. To prove his claims, the beastman produced a familiar length of cloth—half of Auralia’s scarf that the boy had seen in Cyndere’s chamber.
The boy had agreed without hesitation. He feared upsetting the creature, whose conviction had a desperate quality.
“The colors are helping him,” Auralia had whispered. “He comes for the colors. He stays. He sleeps. Sometimes I think he cries. They’re leading him somewhere. I wonder where.”
“I wonder where,” he huffed and puffed. “Whatever happens. I hope he slows down. If it snows again. His tracks. Will fill. Right up.”
When the heavens descended so hard, fast, and white that all signs of his guide were erased, the boy slumped down into the snow, only his head above the surface. The beastman came bounding back, growling. “Run,” he said. “rrRun, O-raya’s boy.”
“I can’t,” he gasped. “You’re a hundred times stronger. I travel by vawn, and my vawn’s gotten lost.”
“Bad bird,” said the beastman, pointing at the sky. “rrBad bird sees. Tells more Cent Regus. Maybe they come.” He tilted his head as if puzzled. “You…cold?”
“Aren’t you?” the boy answered, a little too angrily perhaps. He brushed snow from his shoulders. “I’m so tired.” He held up the whistle. “Can’t even. Blow the signal.”
The beastman snatched the whistle away and blew with such force that the boy felt it like a cold pin run up through his spine. Then the whistle burst into splinters.
“Very helpful,” muttered the boy.
They waited, their snowy shells thickening. No sounds, no shapes—nothing emerged from the white void. The boy tried to ignore the thought that Rumpa might be trapped in one of Ryllion’s snares.
“No vawn,” the beastman shrugged. “rrRunning is better.”
Before the ale boy could protest, the beastman lifted him up and bore him on his shoulders. The boy grasped the black mane with one hand, the rain canopy with the other. Without another word, they were off. Accustomed to the vawn’s jolting pace, the ale boy was astonished at the ease of the beastman’s stride across snow. The rhythms and the rush lulled him into a daze. They moved through the frozen world, all color sealed away.
The sun reappeared, a burning coin, as the beastman brought them out of the snowy rills and dunes into rockier land. The world took on definition again in thorns, ruins, and the blue glass of frozen ponds. A flock of peskies, each bird the size of the boy’s thumb, sprang up from the shallow snow at their approach and hopped along behind them, cooing and chirping the same hopeful syllable.
When the beastman slowed, he asked for direction, but the boy grew more and more reluctant to reply. He feared he would lose his resolve, fall for the beastman’s trick, and reveal Abascar’s hideaway. As they paused, the peskies caught up to them, flitting and hopping all over their shoulders and heads. The boy saw the beastman fighting the impulse to grab their tiny, puffy bodies and swallow them by the handful.
To distract him, he offered his protector some of the Bel Amicans’ dried meat. The beastman sniffed it, pinched it, and when he finally ate, he grumbled. “rrBird. Bird meat. Old.” He stared off westward, clutched at his belly, and released a weary groan.
The boy said, “It will be dark very soon. And colder. Much colder. We should keep moving. Like Bel said. To Cal-raven.”
The beastman carried him up over swells that bore catastrophes of wood and stone the way ocean waves carry shipwrecks—farmer shacks and shepherd houses from the early, uncursed days of House Cent Regus. Some were great carcasses, all jutting ribs and spines and rags; some, tent frames without canvas; some, small stone fortresses with towers tilting or leaning. But each one had eyes and jaws, and some of the structures moaned.
“There,” said the beastman, pointing to the top of the highest rise. “Rest there. See far.”
The barn and shack seemed a luxury compared to the rest of the ruined neighborhood. A small, wheezy structure slumped against a large, sturdy box of a building. Windows whistled, but the roof appeared sealed and sure. Sleet lashed the travelers, persuading them to hurry.
With each step up the hill, the beastman crushed patches of whiskbrush buried beneath the white crust.
“What’s that black stuff hanging all over the barn?”
As if surprised to be noticed, the wavering dark moved. It caught on the wind and lifted in scraps from the barn roof.
They were snow herons—enormous black birds with long sharp beaks and beady eyes. Rasping and croaking like giant toads, they filled the sky with a cacophony of wingbeats. As they scattered, the wind from their passage sent icedust swirling in all directions. The flock of hopping peskies shrieked and burrowed into the snow.
“Someone’s watching us. Through the window. At the top of that collapsing house,” the boy whispered. “In armor.”
The beastman snorted, unconcerned. “rrSoldier. Alone. Dead.”
“You sure?” He could have sworn that the silhouette in the window turned its head to watch their progress. He could see the faint shining line of a soldier’s helm and the gleam of a weapon unsheathed. But the watcher’s features were shadowed.
“rrWe go in.”
“Can’t we find a different shelter?”
“Stay here. Up high. See far. See them if they come.”
“Them? Who’s coming?”
As the beastman had no interest in answering, the boy decided it was better not to know.
With a quick glance up at the window, the beastman said, “Weakerfolk afraid. Always afraid. Even when they fight. You?”
“Afraid? No.” He laughed for the first time since Cyndere’s chamber. Two days after sleeping in the bed of an heiress, here he was, carried by a curse-twisted monster through a merciless storm to trespass on haunted property. “Only one thing scares me. The Keeper. It scares me when it appears and scares me worse when it’s gone. You know about the Keeper?”
The beastman lifted him off his shoulders and set him down, planting his feet in the snow. “rrKeeper?” The ale boy raised his arms like great wings, roared, and stamped about in wide steps, pointing back at his deep tracks. The beastman’s eyes widened. He nodded. “Keeper.”
“You’ve seen the Keeper?”
The beastman glanced about as if suspicious that the creature might be waiting around any corner. That was as good as an answer. He took the boy by the arm and led him stumbling around the side of the barn, past the pieces of an old plow, an overturned feed trough. At the back they found a section of wall missing. Snow drifted in across the floor of what had once been a workshop with brace tables, hackers, shavers, chippers, and a rack for hammers.
Though the barn was open to the elements, the leaning farmhouse was still walled up. The beastman lifted an unhinged wooden door and set it aside. He told the boy to stay by the door while he searched within. The ale boy waited for the clash of swords, for screams and commotion.
At the beastman’s tremendous roar, the boy thrust the canopy out before him like a shield and readied for a retreat. But silence followed, and the beastman appeared again. “rrNothing scared,” he said. “Nothing moved. Nothing ran. Empty.”
Inside, the boy found walls that seemed to have wept, stained with blurred hues. Inhabitants had sought to seal cracks and strengthen warping wallbeams with whatever was available to them—metal scraps, bundles of branches, spans of canvas and leather. Straw and rotten leaves made a carpet that rustled as tiny rodents scurried underneath. Sticky blackness glued the debris to the ground in random patches. Even the beastman avoided the stuff.
A round, black iron stove, just big enough for baking bread, stood near the wall. Its tall chimney pipe reached up through the ceiling. The boy pulled, but the latch remained fixed. “Guess there’s no cooking tonight.”
The beastman touched the latch, and it snapped loose.
The stove coughed a black cloud. Sootmice bounded out, squeaking, abandoning their nest. The beastman snatched two of them, and the ale boy tried not to listen to the crunch.
“Mind if I make a fire?”
“rrNo smoke. Cent Regus close. Must hide, O-raya’s boy.” The beastman looked at the weathered wooden ceiling beams. Bird droppings had seeped through over the years, gluing shut the cracks. Finished with his cursory inspection, the beastman suddenly shuddered, swayed, and slumped to the floor.
“Are you all right?”
“rrStrength,” the creature snarled. “Need Cent Regus strength.” The boy almost thought he saw an apology in those simian features. “Cent Regus get tired. Cent Regus hurt. Everywhere.” He gestured to his feet, his knees, his chest, his head. Then he lay back, jaw sagging open, and was suddenly asleep, sprawled on the floor.
The ale boy closed the rain canopy, sat down with his back against an old barrel, and glanced nervously at the ladder that rose through the ceiling. That ladder could take them upstairs or let someone climb down.
As the room went dark, so did the ale boy’s attention.
A commotion woke him, a sound like someone sweeping snow with tree branches. The world was dark, save for a faint blue at the windows and the pinpricks of stars in the sky. The storm had passed.
He reached for his bag and pulled out the Bel Amican glowstone. The light found the beastman crouched at the window, staring out.
The boy joined him, looking out at the starlit snow. “What is it?”
“Feelers.”
“Feelers?” He watched the moonlit snowdrifts, and a disturbance caught his attention. Something slithered beneath those sparkling waves.
“Feelers. Looking for you, boy.”
Repulsed, he asked, “What are they?”
“Don’t know. rrDangerous. Feelers crawl on Cent Regus land. Underground. Come up. Catch animals. Trees. People. But not Cent Regus.”
The boy did not like anything he was learning from the beastman. To shake off the thought, he began to walk about the space. “I need to get back to my work,” he said. “I don’t like this hiding. It’s not doing anybody good.” He tried to right an overturned table, but it had a broken leg. He picked up a long wooden stick with a splintered end, what might have once been a rake. Propping it under the table, he said, “Looks like we’re too late to help these people. But it was a home once.”
“rrOld Cent Regus. Long, long ago.”
“A child lived here. He marked his growth on the wall. Perhaps once a year. He made notches, see? He made a number by each one. When he was seven, he was this tall. And here, eight.”
The beastman came to stare. He pointed to the space above the tenth mark. “Stopped growing?”
“Yes, it stops there.” The ale boy’s face crumpled in worry. He touched the tenth mark, as if it might tell him some secret history.
“You.” The beastman put a hand on the ale boy’s head. “No stopping.”
Surprised, the ale boy looked up. Feeling awkward, unsure how to respond, he patted the beastman’s hand. “You either.”
A rustle of snow outside caught their attention. And then the structure groaned a bit, as if suddenly burdened.
The ale boy checked the beastman’s face. “Feelers?”
“rrNo. Big black birds. Came back. Sleep on rooftop.”
“Maybe they’ll block the wind. Or seal in some warmth.”
The beastman stood against the wall, took his knife, and made a mark high above the tenth mark.
“I suspect you’re finished growing.”
The beastman scowled.
“Well, maybe I’m wrong.” The ale boy smiled. He began to walk along the wall, examining the wood splinters, the piles of droppings, the scattered leaves, looking for more clues.
“Boy, did O-raya…stop?”
The ale boy kicked at a loose floorboard, then knelt and lifted it. “Auralia…changed,” he said. He pulled a wooden box up from the space beneath it. “She changed very much. And then the Keeper took her away.” He opened the box. It was empty.
“Keeper?” growled the beastman. He sank down to the floor again, holding his head. “Keeper took O-raya?”
“It saved her. Carried her away. Oh, I don’t know.” The ale boy turned toward the window and said, “I sure haven’t seen any signs of Auralia or the Keeper for a very long time.” He threw the box out the window.
“Must find O-raya. Must find colors. Had them. But bad Cent Regus took them. Colors…stop the hurt.”
“Yes,” said the ale boy. “Yes, I know. I’ve been sharing Auralia’s colors with people from Abascar. And from Bel Amica too. To stop the hurt.”
“No colors to Cent Regus. Don’t go.” The beastman leaned forward as if the ale boy had suddenly become interesting. Two bright points of the glowstone’s light sparkled in his large, dark eyes. “O-raya…call you?”
“What did she call me? She called me ale boy.”
“Ale boy.”
“Yes. What did Auralia call you?”
The beastman thought for a moment. “Hairy.”
The ale boy’s laughter began like a trickle and then burst into a stream, rushing across the room and splashing against the walls. The beastman looked toward the ladder. The ale boy clasped his mouth shut.
“Go up now,” said the beastman. He gestured for the boy to follow.
Climbing the ladder, which complained at every step, the beastman stopped halfway when the ale boy asked him, “May I call you Hairy too?”
He seemed burdened by the question. “No,” he sighed and went on up through the ceiling. “Jordam. rrCall me Jordam.”
Emerging onto a feeble floor of rotten beams, they found a spell of unsettling silence.
Then a frantic flock of pearbellies, flung by shock from the rafters, collided and careened into flight. Grey feather tufts filled the air. The ale boy sneezed, remembering pillow fights among Gatherer orphans.
Each step he took creaked underfoot, and he was reluctant to continue. But if the beastman could, surely he should follow.
The watcher in the chair may have been waiting for someone, or perhaps this view of the path that had led here was a subject of regretful contemplation. Whatever the case, the riot of birds did not disturb that profound reverie.
The boy tiptoed up behind the figure, raising the glowstone, and he saw that this was a Bel Amican soldier who appeared to be asleep, kneeling. But as he moved between the watcher and the window, he could see that the shoulders did not rise or fall. He guessed this had been a woman, from the long and wisping hair, the narrow bones of her wrists. Her eyes were vacant caves. The helmet rested on a skull wrapped in papery remains. Arms thrust forward, the skeletal fingers of one hand were wrapped around the hilt of a sword turned inward, the blade running straight between the breastplate and the belt.
“Dead.”
“She killed herself.”
Jordam prodded at the uniform looking for something useful. Thrusting his fingers through the eye sockets to hold the skull in place, he pried the helmet off. It broke free with a smacking sound, and the boy turned away. The beastman tried to put the helmet on, but his head was far too large. When he offered it, the ale boy choked.
Most Bel Amican soldiers would rather fall on their swords than die at the claws of the Cent Regus, or so Abascar’s Captain Ark-robin had scornfully remarked to his men. Bel Amicans were proud and certain of superiority. Rather than give anyone reason to boast at having slain them, they would call out for their moon-spirit and then leave their attacker an empty shell.
This shell had once belonged to a swordswoman, and part of an elite company from the looks of her ornate blade that remained as silver and intricately detailed as the day it was forged.
The ale boy knelt before her. “When somebody dies like this, I wonder if Northchildren come to unstitch them and give them a new skin. Like they did for Auralia.”
Jordam had pulled the head back, leaving her vacant visage etched in moonlight as if in a posthumous prayer.
“Look.” The boy reached for the swordswoman’s left hand that curled loosely like a dead spider. “She’s holding something.” He pinched the parchment free from its cage of finger bones, pulled its crisp folds open, and began to read. The runes were fancier, more dramatic than Abascar writing. But he could recognize enough to try to piece together the message.
He read aloud to the beastman, who stood and stared out the window.
She was a guard, part of a Bel Amican caravan attacked by Cent Regus. The boy struggled to translate what had happened but made very little sense of it. Apparently the soldiers had been slaughtered, and the passengers had been dragged away by the Cent Regus.
“ ‘They have taken Partayn,’ ” the ale boy read. “ ‘Partayn is gone. I write this so you know. I did not see him die. He will suffer’…something I can’t read. Something bad probably. And then…‘in the Cent Regus den. A slave.’ ”
The boy pulled the parchment closer to his face. “ ‘I have…failed.’ ” He read excitedly now, tracing the frail letters with a fingertip. “ ‘Moon-spirits will punish me, if I live. I give up my life. As an apology. To the spirit.’ ” He stopped. “Partayn. Ballyworms! The prison guard…he talked about how Partayn died when beastmen attacked a caravan. But this guard, she says they killed everyone but the passengers. She says Partayn was dragged off to be a slave. You hear that, Jordam?”
A faint sound began, a faraway rhythm.
“Horses,” said the boy.
“Brothers,” Jordam sighed. He pressed his hands against his head again, as he had when the boy told him about Auralia’s departure. “Brothers coming.”
“Brothers? You have brothers?”
A deep unsettling growl rumbled in Jordam’s throat. “Bad. Brothers. Found me.” He looked at the boy. “rrBad, Jordam and boy coming here.” He pressed a clawed hand against his chest, rasping something the ale boy did not understand. “One…hand.”
“How did they find you?”
The shelter shook, and dust showered down as the predators’ approach frightened the snow herons and sent them scattering. The first faint lines of morning glowed through cracks across the ceiling, and the ale boy backed into a shadowy corner, wishing he could pull the darkness in around him.
Jordam stood and pointed to the ladder. “rrWe go back down,” he said. “Plan. Jordam makes a plan.”
Like thunder before storms. That was the simple thought that rumbled in Jordam’s mind as he stared down the snowy slope.
He cursed Mordafey’s brascle for spotting him. He cursed Mordafey for coming so far to track him down. He would never get the boy safely to Cal-raven now. Either Mordafey needed him for that secret plot, or he meant to punish him for failing to fulfill the orders. Jordam had never been forced to imagine fighting all three of his brothers at once. He could imagine it now. It would not go well.
As Mordafey approached, whipping the horses, sitting on the driver’s bench of the lead Bel Amican carriage, Jordam could see the brascle, large-eyed and dark-feathered, its black beak glinting in the cold light. From the bird’s beak hung a strip of red meat, reward enough to keep that scavenger bird loyal.
Jordam wondered what had happened to the white-clad giant with the fiery staff. Then he marveled that Mordafey had not slaughtered the horses for food. Perhaps they were to be added to the stock of prizes for the chieftain. More Essence—everything increased Mordafey’s desire for more Essence. Everything became part of the game.
Jordam would gamble on that.
Mordafey raised the bird high, and the brascle flapped its wings. Mordafey laughed, boasting some kind of victory.
Bel, Jordam said to himself. Remember Bel.
“You!” Sneering from his place beside Mordafey, Jorn sat wrapped in a flowered blanket, his skin painting itself with the patchwork pattern. He had wrapped the merchant woman’s shawl around his head as if he was trying to disguise himself as an old Bel Amican woman, but Jordam knew that his hairless brother was just trying to stay warm. Long strings of yellow dangled from Jorn’s houndish snout, and his eyes were red. Through his bruises, he grinned wickedly at Jordam, and Jordam understood. Somehow, Jorn had blamed his captivity on him.
Goreth glanced out from the carriage, and before Mordafey could launch whatever rant he had planned, he leapt out and climbed the slope to greet his twin.
“Same Brother, you’ve been gone.” The brusque sound of Cent Regus speech was welcome to Jordam after so much struggle with Common. He would have to be careful, though, with his own words. “Look!” Goreth opened his hand, proudly displaying an array of bloodstained teeth, recently gathered—probably pulled from the merchants they had slain on the bridge. His grin seemed forced, frantic, and his laughter recklessly free, while his tail wagged and slapped against the snow. “Brothers took horses, wagons. Now we go to see the chieftain and the Sopper Crone!”
Jordam watched Mordafey’s face. “rrWent to rescue Jorn. You see now. He was gone. Got away.”
“You’ve been gone.” Goreth’s face crumpled, and now a wave of anger swept over him. He raised his hand to strike.
Jordam backed away, barking, “Goreth! rrRemember? I told you—strike me again, and I’ll finish you.”
Goreth retreated. “Right,” he mumbled, sullen. “Young Brother was caged. By weakerfolk somewhere. Can’t remember.”
“Where were y-y-you?” Jorn stuttered, eager for confrontation. Clutching at the flowered blanket, he jumped down from the driver’s bench and accused Jordam with a long, clawed finger. “M’trapped in Bel Amican sssstinkplace? Got out on m’own. Where were y-you?”
From the driver’s bench behind the horses, Mordafey gestured to the shambles of the abandoned merchant dwelling. “Jordam’s got a new life alone? Abandoned brothers at last?”
“No. I tried to get Jorn. But Jorn was gone. Storm came. I found shelter. Heavy storm.” Jordam shrugged. “You said, ‘Get Jorn.’ I got past Bel Amican guards. rrBut Jorn got loose and ran. Like a gorrel.”
All three brothers blinked, uncomprehending. A moment passed before Goreth said, “Young Brother’s not a gorrel. Gorrels are small.”
Mordafey leaned forward as if he might leap over the horses in his rage. “Jorn—bleeding Jorn—got back to the caves. Jorn got through the storm.”
“But Jorn brought you no prizes,” Jordam ventured.
“Prizes!” said Goreth, failing to grasp the tension between his brothers. Tail wagging with gladness, he gestured to the wagons. “Did you know? We have prizes from Abascar. Deuneroi’s bones. Deuneroi’s hands. Deuneroi’s weapons.”
“I remember,” Jordam growled.
“Prizes from merchants too! Jumped them on a bridge.”
“I remember, Goreth. I killed one.” He watched as whorls of steam massaged the horses. Like smoke, he thought.
“Who’s in the barn??” asked Mordafey, smiling. “You kill him too?” He leapt down, seized Jordam’s mane, and pushed his head down toward the ground. “Plotting with someone else now?”
Goreth kicked a spray of snow onto his twin’s woodscloak. “Bird says Jordam runs with someone. Says two stay here.”
Mordafey unsheathed a stabbing fork from his belt and pushed it up under Jordam’s chin. “Tonight three brothers go to the Core. Time to get the Essence we have earned. Tomorrow we go inside, where Skell Wra gives us strength. Then we get ready. For Abascar. Mordafey killed Deuneroi. Remember? Now three brothers make a better strike.”
Let them go, said a voice within him. Let them go, and do what you promised Bel you would do. Protect the boy. But another voice fought back. If they go without you, you will be cut off. Those who are not with the brothers are enemies of the brothers. They will hunt you.
He had no choice. He had to take a terrible risk.
“Prize,” Jordam muttered. “I brought Mordafey a prize.”
“What”—Mordafey twisted the fork, cutting into Jordam’s throat—“prize?”
Jordam laughed. “You thought I couldn’t. But I caught him.”
Mordafey let him go. “Caught…who?”
As the brothers approached the shack, Jordam seized the unhinged door and planted it in the snow against the wall. Jorn shoved his head inside and shrieked, “Keeper’s boy!” Hysterical, he limped back down to the wagons and dove under the canvas.
Mordafey stalked through the door, growling in suspicion at the boy bound to an empty feed barrel in the center of the room, a strap of leather tying his mouth shut.
“The boy,” Jordam boasted. “Ran away from Baldridge Hill. Remember? You said I let him go. But I caught him. For the brothers.”
Mordafey clasped Jordam’s arm and laughed softly. “Good. Good catch.”
“Run!” Jorn’s voice howled from outside. “Fire monster watches th’boy! Run!”
Mordafey scratched a line across the boy’s forehead. The boy’s eyes fluttered open, and he shrank back, whimpering, then cried out as the brute seized his ear.
Protect O-raya’s boy. Jordam dared to seize Mordafey’s wrist and pull him away. “rrWait. Listen, Mordafey. Keep the boy. He’s an Abascar boy. Hide him here. When the brothers come back from the Core, we take the boy to Abascar. rrRemember the old trick? Use the boy. Bait.”
“Bait,” said Mordafey, nodding. “Bait.” He turned to Goreth. “Lock the boy in that stove.”
“Stove?” Jordam and the boy shared a bewildered glance.
“Brothers come back for the boy later,” said Mordafey. “Mordafey’s tired of waiting. We go to the chieftain now. Today. Together. Four brothers again.”
As Goreth broke the boy’s restraints, he smiled admiringly at his twin. “Same Brother,” he said, “I think this is the boy who ran from Baldridge Hill.”
The horses moved down the old rugged road, Jordam trudging along behind as if chained to the back of the second wagon. Only a few paces along, Mordafey cursed at the horses for dragging the wagons into a snow-draped marsh, the wheels sinking into the soft ground. He lashed at the steeds while Goreth and Jorn tried to lift the front of the wagon frame.
Jordam stepped behind the wagon to raise it, then cautiously peered beneath the canvas at the loot. He pulled out Deuneroi’s bloodied woodscloak, which bundled together his bones and treasures. As the others hauled the wagon out of the sunken ground, Jordam dropped these prizes into the marsh and kicked snow over them, burying them out of sight.
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