By Ways Unseen Page 12

  “Well, even though we prevented a messenger, bandits could still come back,” Geoffrey said. “How are you at climbing trees?”

  Pladt shrugged, then moved to the outskirts and quickly shinnied up a tall maple, peering eastward.

  Geoffrey moved to where Haydren stood beside the tarp-covered pile, and had pulled up a corner of the canvas.

  “Firewood?” Geoffrey asked dubiously. The logs were a solid hands-breadth across, and nearly fifteen feet long. Haydren wordlessly held open a bag filled with rope, pulling one length out that measured at least ten feet. Geoffrey glanced at the rope, then back at the logs.

  “Aha,” he said, nodding.

  Haydren shook his head and shrugged. “‘Aha’ what?”

  Geoffrey glanced at him. “Rafts,” he replied. “They can haul these and everything they’ve gathered to a river and float it that way.”

  “To the Ghlande?”

  Geoffrey shrugged. “If that’s the nearest river.”

  “They could float it all the way into the Endolin Mountains, then,” Haydren said, dropping the mouth of the bag of rope.

  “Why there?” Geoffrey asked.

  Haydren gazed at Geoffrey for a moment; either he actually was new to the country, or he was very good at playing the part of not being a Knight. “Have you not heard of Lasserain?” Haydren asked.

  Geoffrey shook his head and shrugged.

  “I’m surprised Pladt, if no one else, wouldn’t have told you,” Haydren said.

  “Pladt was never overly concerned with things outside Werine,” Geoffrey replied. “And neither was I, particularly; and later, I was not in Hodp long enough to overhear conversations.”

  “I suppose it’s not talked about much, these days,” Haydren admitted. “It’s not new. Lasserain was a mage who appeared about twenty years ago – a very powerful mage. He leveled Quaran and any other villages as he made his way south into the mountains. When he got to Galessern, the home of the King of Burieng, he stopped. Eventually scouts were sent, and the castle is perfectly intact. About that time, the bandits and beasts in Burieng multiplied and became more aggressive toward humans – at least, humans in Coberan and Kelian Provinces. The belief is that the King made a deal with Lasserain to save Galessern. There’s no proof, even that the bandits and beasts are tied to Lasserain or Galessern, but the coincidence is…difficult.”

  “So if these bandits are tied to Galessern, they might be stealing provisions to supply an army,” Geoffrey said.

  “That’s the fear,” Haydren replied. “And the presence of these rafts does not allay that.” Haydren flipped the corner of the canvas back over the pile of logs and moved toward a tent.

  “We should not stay here too much longer, Haydren,” Geoffrey called after him.

  “We won’t,” Haydren replied, opening a flap on the tent and peering inside.

  Geoffrey sighed, glancing around the camp. He moved to the bandits that Haydren had first killed and rolled him over. The handle of an ornate dagger protruded from the man’s belt. Geoffrey pulled it free; the blade was a hand-breadth long of a deep red metal – the same rough pitted metal as the flames in Haydren’s sword. It was old, but not worn; and, he discovered to his chagrin, the edge was remarkably sharp. Geoffrey kissed the blood that welled from his thumb, and then pressed the cut against his thigh. He took the belt and sheath from the bandit and put the dagger in it. It rightfully belonged to Haydren: it was his kill.

  But there was something else, an odd plane on the man’s tunic near his chest. Geoffrey undid a few buttons, and reached inside; stiff parchment met his searching fingers, and he pulled free a long, thin envelope with a broken seal.

  “What is it?” Haydren asked, standing in front of Geoffrey suddenly.

  Geoffrey straightened. “This is yours,” he said, holding up the dagger. “It’s a very nice dagger; sharp.” He handed it to Haydren. “He must have been a sergeant or captain in the band. This,” he continued, holding up the parchment, “was his.”

  Haydren took the dagger and quickly tucked it away, almost as if he disliked touching it. He took the letter, and was beginning to read it when a whistle shrilled across the camp. Haydren lowered it as Geoffrey turned toward where Pladt was scrambling down from the tree.

  “Time to go,” Geoffrey said, breaking into a trot toward the horses. Haydren stuffed the parchment in his jacket. They threw the items into the saddlebags and mounted quickly.

  “Out the back,” Pladt said, pointing. “And they’re coming fast.”

  “Our other bags?” Haydren asked.

  “Already got them!” Pladt shouted back, already several lengths along the same deer path that threaded its way southward, and pulling away.

  With a glance at Geoffrey, Haydren clicked his horse into a trot, moving behind Pladt. Weaving between the trees, and through a few small meadows, the trio finally exploded out of the Devil’s Thumb at a gallop, urging their horses to more speed. They blazed across the plains westward, angling away from the road before rounding south on their original heading. Haydren could not see the bandits enter their camp, but he hoped that what they would find there would strike a fear into their hearts they had not previously known.

  CHAPTER TEN

  SIGHTS

  “Which will be their route?”

  “I cannot predict the future.”

  “You come close.”

  “It would depend on Haydren accepting counsel.”

  17 Tetsamon 1319 – Spring

  They continued throughout the day, choosing to eat as they rode rather than stopping. The road to the east could occasionally be seen as a faint line where it cut a swath through the grasses of the plain, and they followed it south until the sun sat on the western rim of the world.

  Haydren caught himself more than once shifting the dagger Geoffrey had presented to him, as if to cast it off his body. He glanced down at it, unable to keep from melding its image into the memory of cutting meat from the spit at the first bandits’ camp. He could see the bodies lying around the waning fire as he helped himself to what would have given them life. He had consoled himself, then, with revenge for Kitrel; but what might he console himself with for the Devil’s Thumb?

  He shook his head; they had been evil men, intending to prey on travelers who were forced to pass by on the only road south. Those left in the grove would have killed him without a second thought, if he had given them the chance.

  He took his hand off the dagger and placed it firmly on the reins: a fine swordsman he would have made, questioning every forced act of violence that fate might have dealt him.

  Nearby their camp that night, they were able to retrieve firewood from a small stand of trees. “It’s almost like someone planted these on purpose, so travelers would have firewood at the end of each day,” Haydren mused. He had his maps out, which did not show small features like groves and streams, figuring as best he could and marking now where they found good campsites.

  “Wait until we reach the West,” Geoffrey said. “Good Rinc Nain country, it should be.”

  “Meaning what?” Pladt asked.

  “I’ve heard they have fortified Inns a day’s travel apart,” Haydren said. “No one in class believed it, and I recall a lot of jokes being made about the spoiled Rinc Nain not being able to sleep under the stars.” Haydren shook his head.

  Geoffrey snorted. “If Frecksshire is established anything like Rinc Na, it will have those Inns. And spoiled or otherwise, I won’t mind sleeping in an actual bed.”

  “Yeah, but you’re kind of old,” Pladt said. “We would expect it from you.”

  Geoffrey shook his head at Pladt with a grin that disappeared when he looked at Haydren. “What is it?” he asked. Haydren had begun scanning the parchment from the bandit camp in his hand, and his gaze was now lost in the fire.

  “This…this is wrong,” he replied. “This can’t keep happening.”

  “What does it say?” Pladt asked, leaning over to try to see.

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nbsp; Haydren shook his head, glancing back at the letter. “Oh, it’s not what it says; it’s the fact that I found it.”

  “But what is it?”

  “It’s a letter for all bandit groups to plan large-scale raids for a date to be specified three months from now.”

  “All at once?” Pladt asked, taking the letter and reading over it. “It’s just Kelian Province,” he said, furrowing his brow.

  “Coberan might have gotten their own,” Haydren offered.

  “Why is it strange that you, particularly, found it?” Geoffrey asked.

  Haydren set his jaw and reached into his pack; he had still kept a hold of: “This,” he said, pulling out the letter from Lintasur. “It’s the reason for my destination. But it also says: ‘The enemy moves soon,’ and tells me to come to Frecksshire with all haste.”

  Geoffrey read over it quickly. “He mentions your father,” he said quietly.

  “Yes, he does,” Haydren said, drawing in his legs to sit cross-legged on his bedroll. “I suppose there’s something you need to know,” he continued. “Both of you.

  “As you know, Pladt, ten or eleven years ago the bandits roamed as widely as they do now, but they were not yet as vicious as they are now. At that time, Mickel, my adoptive father, was a guard-lieutenant in the Outer Towers of Hewolucs. Because at that time the bandit raids were just beginning to increase, and the Earl feared an all-out assault at any moment, the guards were required to stay in the barracks, where they could be called upon in an emergency. He and Maerie, my adoptive mother, were not supposed to see each other except at stated times. They were childless, then, and these stated times were not beneficial toward trying to have a child.” Haydren paused as Geoffrey stirred up the fire against a chill wind out of the south. “One day, an extremely violent raid was carried out against a caravan on its way from Westide, and they left many merchants and passengers slaughtered. Some escaped with their lives and managed to make their way to Hewolucs. But it was a week or two before I stumbled in. I was eight.”

  “Eight?” Pladt repeated with disbelief. “Two weeks it took you?”

  “I was covered in blood, which the Sage said was not my own; I had this sword with me,” Haydren added, holding up his sword, “and my memory was gone. I spoke my native language – which no one recognized – for a few months before converting to Cariste.”

  “Didn’t they know who was on the caravan?” Geoffrey asked.

  “None of the survivors recognized me, and the Sage and Mickel were convinced I could not have survived two weeks without food or water,” Haydren replied. “It wasn’t even certain I was from that caravan.

  “Since Maerie and Mickel had been trying for a child for so long, to no avail, they decided to adopt me. The problem was that guards were not permitted to adopt children. He did anyway, in secret. But after three years, the Earl discovered my existence, we still don’t know how. Though, presumably,” he added, “someone saw me going into Mickel’s house; he and Maerie kept me inside most of the time, but they did not want to shelter me entirely from the world.

  “When I went before the Earl, I had Mickel’s sword; Mickel had hidden mine as soon as he picked me up outside the walls of Hewolucs. I loved Mickel’s sword; it was not quite as exquisite as this one,” Haydren continued, gazing down at the sword by his side. “But it was the best I had ever seen. As soon as I came into the Earl’s presence with Mickel and Maerie, one of the guards took that sword. I made quite a fuss; when eventually they gave me back the sword to quiet me, I attacked the guard. Apparently,” he said with a grin, “I shamed the guard quite a bit; even at eleven, I had some skill with a sword. It was enough for the Earl to be impressed, and to give me to Sir Cullins to train in swordsmanship, with the understanding that I would serve in his ranks for a number of years after I graduated.”

  “Which is how he now lays claim to you, despite his ulterior motives,” Geoffrey said.

  Haydren nodded, then proceeded to give the rest of the details of living and training in the school, and of Guntsen’s hate of commoners in royal places; that same hate which led Guntsen to seek Haydren’s life even now.

  “That letter came to me just before I left Hewolucs,” Haydren explained as he finished his story. “I couldn’t do anything about it then, of course; I was bound to the Earl. With this, now,” Haydren continued, gesturing to the letter Pladt still held, “I can’t help but wonder what coincidence might be pushing me toward.”

  “Or whomever,” Geoffrey said, still looking over Haydren’s first letter.

  “Why do you say that?” Haydren asked. “Do you recognize something in there?”

  “You might say that,” Geoffrey said with a sideways glance.

  “He means the God, Haydren,” Pladt said, handing back the bandit letter. “I would think someone like Guntsen would antagonize you because you’re Rinc Nain.”

  “We don’t know that,” Haydren said.

  “Well you look just like Geoffrey, is all I was saying. I’m sure they recognized it.”

  “Is it that obvious?” Haydren asked, glancing between them. He recognized some similarities, but it was not as if they were twins. Is that why they hated him?

  Geoffrey cocked his head a little. “I am sure someone suspected,” Geoffrey said, then gave a nod. “But you are right; it is not completely pure in you. Still, chestnut hair and black eyebrows: it does not get much more Rinc Nain than that. Though, mine have started to go white, which is a little more distinctly Rinc Nain,” he added, running a thumb across one eyebrow.

  “Your house,” Haydren said, his mind beginning to work again.

  Geoffrey nodded. “Simple, objective, and modern; three things Cariste hate, ironically. I’m sorry, Haydren, I assumed you knew; I might have put your mind at rest long ago.”

  “When did you know?”

  “As soon as I saw you, of course,” Geoffrey said. “I assumed your comrades treated you the way they did – and you treated me the way you did – because of who we were.”

  “They did,” Haydren replied with a wry chuckle. “Just not for that lineage. Orphans exist primarily in Hewolucs because the prostitutes do not bother to raise any accidental off-spring; they hand them to the orphanage and continue on their way. Though many partake of the prostitutes’ services, including royalty,” Haydren said with venom, “they are seen as the lowest members of society. Simply being branded an orphan was enough to offend every sensibility of the royalty for whom Sir Cullins’ school existed, even if it was not certain I was the fruit of prostitution.”

  “I am surprised the Earl even put you in such a position,” Geoffrey said.

  “I was too,” Haydren replied. “Though I guess, now, I should be thankful. I don’t know what kind of life I would have had as Mickel’s adopted son.”

  “You keep calling them by name,” Pladt observed. “They are not your parents, Mickel and Maerie, are they? I mean, you don’t think of them that way even after all these years.”

  Haydren bowed his head, and shook it. “Part of my going to Frecksshire is in hopes of finding my true parents. I have no other but them.”

  “And what of the other part of this letter?” Geoffrey asked, now handing it back.

  “We’ll see,” Haydren said with a sigh. “I suppose he meant this sword, though problems are never that easily solved.”

  “I think he did not mean that, either,” Geoffrey agreed. “Especially against an army of bandits coordinating an assault.”

  “So we’ll ignore that part for now, unless the two of you want something better than helping me find my parents,” Haydren said, ducking his head.

  “Oh, I’m not necessarily here just for you,” Pladt said abruptly, then smiled as Haydren and Geoffrey both glanced sharply at him. “Just make it exciting, okay?”

  “I’m sure it will be, trying to cross the border under these tensions,” Haydren said, his voice in mock disgust.

  “I have already promised to help you,” Geoffrey said soberly.r />
  Haydren nodded slowly. “Very well,” he replied. He took a deep breath, and smiled. “Thank you, both of you.”

  Later that night, as Haydren and Geoffrey traded watches, Haydren said: “Geoffrey, I was hoping you might help me.”

  “How so?” Geoffrey asked, sliding under his blanket and trying to find a place where a knot of grass didn’t press its fist into his body.

  “If I’m Rinc Nain, I would think I’d remember some words…”

  “Aler tho’ve kam tun?”

  “Not for a lot of years.”

  “Tho riddi leip gefe.”

  “I’m less sure about speaking it, though,” he replied. He grinned. “I’m surprised I understand it so well. If I’d somehow landed on the other side of the continent, it never would have been a question.”

  “You are here now,” Geoffrey said. “We’ll start practicing a few times a day, at meals.”

  “Thank you, Geoffrey.”

  One shoulder shrugged. “For speaking to you in my native language without fear of being run out of town? Thank you.”

  *

  They traveled on in miserable, wet weather, for three more days and nights. Geoffrey focused on basic words and phrases at first; by dinner the first day, Haydren was speaking a few halting sentences. As his familiarity grew over the next several days, so did his vocabulary and confidence, until he and Geoffrey were able to discuss many things fluidly in their native language.

  On the fourth morning, the road they had been following curved westward, leaving its course beside the Ghlande River and arrowing its way to the Bawelen River three days hard riding away.

  As they paused for an afternoon meal, Haydren pulled out his maps again, keeping the rain off with a small canopy of waxed leather. Once they crossed the Bawelen, they would be more than halfway to their destination at the great castle of Quaran. Their next hope of sleeping somewhere dry was at the Bawelen crossing, where Governor Road to their south met with the Bawelen River Road that ran from Quaran south to Kontar.