Horded - Kingdom Gone Book 2, page 3
“I know.” He grinned and bounced like a hare, not really hearing her at all. “Come on, let’s get back.”
Maera took a deep breath and smiled before hopping off the stump. Her skirts were damp at the seat, now, and she brushed at them absently and let Jaymi earn a few paces lead on her. Was it too late to stop it now? That kind of enthusiasm would spill over fast. He’d have told his father she wanted to get hitched before dawn at this rate.
“Jaymi, wait!”
He’d already topped the short hill and vanished down the gentler slope toward the first houses. Maera jogged after him, holding up her damp skirts and fighting back a flutter of panic. She needed to calm him down, to distract him until she’d made up her mind one way or the other.
A cool lump settled in her stomach. Made up her mind? No. This had the ring of fate to it. She’d landed in Ramstown because her flight had led her here. She’d stayed because it felt right at the time. Was this her end, then? Was she to marry the jailor, raise his son and do her best to reverse the wrongs she’d visited on another town by making things right in this one?
It rang of justice too, but she had to fight off a wiggle of panic. If this is what Hadja’s Powers wanted of her, could she actually do it? Could she sacrifice her future completely, irrevocably, to clear her own conscience? She’d believed as much, but it had been too easy. She’d taken the bad things that happened to her since leaving Westwood in stride, had absorbed the taunts and injuries and even welcomed them.
Why was this any different? Because it had the ring of permanence to it? Because this would be her final punishment?
A lifelong sentence.
She skidded to a stop at the hill’s crest. Jaymi might have reached the blacksmith’s by then. The long building guarded the very outskirts of Ramstown, a place easily three times larger than the home of her birth. Instead, he’d stopped only a few steps beyond where she stood now. He’d stopped because his friends had run out to meet them, and the look on all their faces said they had something to say that couldn’t wait. Something big had happened in Ramstown, and the young had charged themselves with spreading the news.
Jaymi listened to the boys, who were all talking at once. Maera breathed a few slow breaths, let her anxiety over her dilemma settle and then joined the group. Miller Ramsten was the only one to sneer at her, but he did so with a superior, I’m the mayor’s son, manner that had less to do with her personally.
The others fell silent, and for a moment she wondered if someone hadn’t died. Her mind flashed an image of Jaymi’s father, of an alternative that would free her from obligation to marry. Shame followed, heating her cheeks. The boy had already lost his mother, but she’d thought it just the same. She could raise the boy alone, pay her debt in a less offensive manner than marriage.
She might have known it was wrong. She didn’t deserve so easy nor so pleasant a release.
Miller narrowed his eyes at her as if he’d plucked the death wish from her mind. His upper lip twitched, and he smiled slowly and deliberately.
“Might not be such a good idea,” he said. “Walking this far from town at night.”
“And why is that, Miller.” She tried to sound civil, but the kid irritated her on a good day. Jaymi cast a warning look in her direction, enough to tell her to ease off tonight.
“Because it’s not safe anymore. Not safe anywhere it seems.” Miller’s grin stretched and he shrugged, but the look in his eyes was cold and daring her in all sorts of ways. “Unless you like gobelins, that is.”
“Gobelins?” Maera snorted, but none of the boys laughed at him. Not one. Not even Jaymi. “What? You’re serious?”
“Serious as a plague.” Smug didn’t begin to cover the look on Miller Ramsten’s face when he confirmed it. “The weaver’s wife saw a gobelin inside the village.”
Chapter Four
“How did you get outside the pocket?” Torg sat beside him on a fallen log, leaning his back against the well and resting his bare feet atop the stag’s carcass. Its white pelt blurred under a swath of red stains now, but even completely gutted, the beast would impress the horde.
“I think it’s tiny. I pictured this well, but then I stepped forward to rest on it. That well pocket might not have stretched far enough.”
“And you spoke to a human?”
Tal listened for any trace of disapproval in that, but he came up empty. Torg only sounded curious, maybe even too curious. Consorting with humans had been forbidden since the ashes settled on the Final War. They weren’t even supposed to exist, and he’d announced himself like a fool to the old hag. “She mostly spoke at me.”
“What was she like?”
“Wrinkled. Fat.” Tal poked a stick into their tiny fire and watched the sparks dance. “Why? Does it matter?”
“She didn’t attack you.”
“I don’t think she had a weapon.”
“I dreamed about a human woman last night.”
“Was she dressed like an overfed crow?”
“No.” He waited. Torg had something on his mind. He’d shown far more interest in the accidental town visit than the other news, the news that actually mattered. A castle out of prophecy appears, the Guardian bows to him—or maybe he’d imagined that part—and Torg was too fixated on his human encounter to pay any attention at all.
“Well, did you see anyone else?”
“Aside from the Guardian and Rulak’s horde, you mean?” Tal turned and favored his brother with a snarl.
Torg clicked his teeth in irritation. “In the town!”
“No!”
They leaned forward until their noses nearly touched. They both growled, deep rumbles that rattled the leather they wore, clattering the knives in their sheaths and making Torg’s bone necklace shiver against his exposed chest. The sound echoed a moment and then died. Tal leaned back first. He shrugged and continued his prodding of the flames. This particular pocket served their needs, and they’d managed to keep it mostly to themselves. It settled in a dip just below the first steep inclines leading up to the summit. Their horde camped in a pocket at the far end of the ridgeline, but Torg had insisted, exactly as he’d suspected, that they collect a little dust before returning.
Tonight they settled in and made short work of one of his hares. Tal didn’t imagine his reception could be improved much by bringing all of them back. He fingered the thong at his belt. A pair of hares, a lost bag and a tall tale wouldn’t earn him much of a welcome either.
“Could you find it again?” Torg continued to gnaw on the subject of humanity.
“Of course. What does it matter?”
Torg stood abruptly and rolled his shoulders in their leather cups, grinning like a child.
“Let’s go back.”
“No.”
“They won’t believe you without proof.”
Tal stayed put on the log and stared into the fire. He didn’t care to look at his brother with shame heating his face. Did Torg mean for him to confess? The punishment for tripping out of the pocket would be fierce. Olin would love to make an example of Tal…again. “Who needs proof that a fat old woman mistook me for an imp?”
“I meant the castle. If we’ve both seen it…Tal, you know it would help.”
“You want to go back there? To see the Guardian?” He didn’t, of course. Torg would have mentioned it earlier if he had, but he still had a point. If Torg saw the castle too, if he saw how the Guardian acted. The thought sparked an ember of hope, but its flame was short lived. Tal didn’t have that kind of luck.
“We can get your thistledown,” his brother continued, shifting to his real motivation. “We could take it back to the old woman.”
“What?”
“She told you to bring her some wool.”
Tal shook his head. He scowled up at Torg. “She said tomorrow. She said wool. She didn’t even mean to be talking to me.”
“Tomorrow, tonight, what does it matter? Thistledown is better than wool. She’ll be lucky to have it.”
“No.”
“If you really found the castle, I should see it too.”
“If?” Tal stood up, clicking.
“I believe you, Tal. You know I do, but it would be better if we’d both seen it.”
“And you won’t go unless we go back to the town too?”
“I have to see it.”
“Blood and magic!” He stamped his boots against the ground, snapping twigs and rattling his armor. “You want to go see the humans? Dung for brains. They’ll shoot us both on sight. You want to see the castle too? Rulak’s men have probably camped there. Either way, we’re dead.”
“They might have moved on. We can peek into the pocket.”
“And the town?”
“Same thing. We don’t have to rush out and shake hands.”
Tal stared at his brother. He growled, but Torg didn’t make answer. He didn’t click his teeth or even twitch. He just stood behind his deer carcass, smiling and knowing full well he’d get his way in the end.
Torg had all the luck, after all.
Tal nodded and kicked at his remaining hares. He threw them on top of the stag and snarled, leaning closer to Torg so that his brother would be sure to mark the curl of his lip. “Leave the game. The horde can salvage it when we don’t return.”
“Ha!” Torg’s bellow spooked a trio of ravens from the trees. They made dark speckles on the moon. “You’ll see, Tal. We’re meant to go back.”
“You should shoot me here instead. It would be kinder.”
“You’re such an old woman,” Torg teased. “Use your crystal.”
“You use it.” Tal reached deep into his belt pouch and found the bundle of silk. He tossed it across to Torg and watched his brother’s fingers unroll the parcel, lift out a long, triangular sliver of clear crystal. All along its length, sigils gleamed and flashed in the moonlight. “I’ll work the membrane, but you get to do the peeking.”
“You have enough dust?”
“I will.” Tal headed for the pocket wall, shaking his head at his own stupidity. Torg had talked him into some dangerous things, but tonight would no doubt top the list. If they survived it, he expected to be compensated for the risk. “When you’ve given me half of whatever you collect.”
“Half?” Torg joined him at the membrane. He snorted and waved the crystal under Tal’s nose. “Not half.”
“Half.” Tal put his hands up, away from the shimmer and looked Torg dead in the face. “Or we can wander the pockets at random.”
“All right. Half it is.”
Tal touched the film again. He cleared his thoughts, waited until they stopped spinning and held still. They knew a few patches of thistledown, and the thought sent a series of locations dancing past. He pictured the vista, specified the dark castle on the horizon, and felt the pockets align, snapping into place. “Now.”
Torg pushed the tip of the crystal through, holding it by the fat end and keeping his fingers from touching the membrane. He spoke the word from the Old Kindoms, a relic in itself. It meant “to see,” and the sigil for Vision glowed at his command. The dust Tal had packed into the tiny lines burned up a touch, and the pocket membrane shivered and changed views.
He’d found the stone on his own, without Torg’s luck to aide him. Tal had caught its sparkle in a rubble heap, had dug the long crystal free with his own claws and earned a fierce reprimand from the horde for his efforts. He’d gone out too far alone, had dug too near a human town, and Olin had nearly seized his relic in punishment. Torg had come to his defense then, and he’d been allowed to keep it with the understanding that its magic, and Tal’s own use of it, was to be a tool for the entire horde if needed.
Tonight it served just them. They looked through into the thistledown glade. It rippled under the moon, empty and glowing white. He couldn’t see the castle from this angle, nor did the huge gargoyle squat amidst the fluff. Still, the foliage had been torn away in enough places to verify that something large had trampled through here. His brother exhaled a long sigh and pulled the crystal back out, killing the vision.
“Shall we, then?”
“Yes.” Tal hadn’t seen his bag, nor did he care for his brother’s tone. Not chiding, exactly, but Torg had definitely expected an empty clearing. He didn’t buy Tal’s story no matter how he pretended.
Torg stepped through first and Tal slipped across behind him, dropping his focus immediately in case a hidden foe meant to track them in reverse, to steal back and discover where they’d come from. He hadn’t seen Rulak’s men, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there, and he had a hand on his hilt as he scanned the glade for his lost bag.
He found the spot where he’d dropped in easily enough, but the bag was gone, no doubt taken by one of Rulak’s men, which also meant that they’d know someone else had been in the glade.
“It’s really here.” Torg’s voice broke his thoughts, eerily soft in the night and completely betraying his lack of faith in Tal’s story. “The castle is really here.”
“But my bag isn’t.” Somehow the redemption of his story fell flat in the face of an empty clearing. Whatever he’d hoped, no Guardian and no enemy gobelins gave the tale too ordinary a taste. And that bag had been well made and hard on his purse to obtain. He felt the loss of it and joined his brother with a heavy step. They shared the view for a moment.
“We can still gather the down,” Torg offered. “There’s more than enough left.”
“Yes.”
“That’s what matters.” Now, his brother saw the gravity of his discovery. He pointed to the far building and shook his head. “The prophecy. How lucky that it comes in our times!”
“Except that it came to Rulak.”
Torg grunted and stared at the castle. Then, in perfect character, he shrugged and spun, pushing Tal hard on one shoulder and stepping back to the center of the thistledown. “We’ll tell the council. They’ll know what to do about that.”
“We should hurry.” Tal bent over and plucked a handful of the fluff around his boots. “Do you have a bag we can use?”
“Two.”
A sack landed beside him, but Tal only stared at it. “Why?”
“One for the spinners and one for your human crow.”
“You can’t still plan on that, Torg, even if it weren’t forbidden. You’ve seen the castle. Rulak’s men could be halfway to fulfilling the prophecy. We need to get back.”
“We will,” Torg squatted beside him and began stuffing a second bag. He turned his face upward, letting the moonlight outline his features. Graceful, lucky features. Torg was almost too handsome to be a gobelin. His skin glowed pale as sea foam in the moon’s light, and his white hair gleamed. He gave the sky a long, hard stare, one that could charm the quills off a porcupine, and then turned and winked at his brother. “We will if you stop whining and start picking.”
Chapter Five
Maera followed the boys through the gap between buildings. The inn, and her room there, shared a slim alley with the town butcher, and they squeezed single-file through that space and into the courtyard. A gobelin the weaver had said. But why tell the whole world about it? Hadn’t she dealt with the thing that very morning?
In fact, the old bat had been pretty flippant about it when Maera questioned her. “Aren’t you worried he’s a Skinner?” She’d been certain that would at least concern an upstanding citizen of Ramstown. Instead the woman had surprised her, given her one more glimpse at the duality of her kind.
“They’re all Skinners,” the weaver’s wife had whispered. “Every last one of them.” And yet, she did business with the imp and seemed to have no remorse about it.
The wood snagged at her skirts, pulled her hair, and the boys gained a few feet on her. Voices spoke in the courtyard, raised in excitement and possibly anger. How much of the town had gathered around the well, and why panic now? Didn’t they all deal with the Gentry from time to time?
“Jaymi!” She tugged herself free for the third time and scooted faster. “Jaymi, wait.”
“Hurry, Maera. We’ll be the last ones there.”
“What’s the big deal?”
He stopped and sucked in a breath. Then, with the extra space his inhale afforded, turned his head back to stare incredulously at her.
“She said lots of people trade with the Genrty. She showed me the wool.” The weaver’s wife had also sworn her to secrecy, but that seemed like a moot point now with the whole village in an uproar about it.
“The Gentry. Tinkers. Fiends and imps.” He shrugged and his tunic caught on a nail. She heard him mutter a word his father wouldn’t appreciate. “Not gobelins. Gobelins are s’posed to be long gone, Maera. They died off after the Final War.”
“Maybe a few made it.” She still didn’t understand the excitement, but he already moved on, and she followed without asking any more stupid questions.
They popped out to find half the town assembling in the courtyard. The weaver’s wife stood just past the edge of her porch. Her voice rose above the rest, cracking with a tale told more than a few times, and her arms gestured their crazy, flinging dance to punctuate her words. Most of the adults clustered there, but a few brave souls circled the well, leaning in to see the depths or else peering down at the stones as if looking for clues.
Fools. There was a pocket there and they knew it. This ruckus was all about boredom and had next to nothing to do with what kind of creature sold the weaver a parcel from the other side. Maera supposed the fact that it turned out to be a gobelin might be worth a little stir, but it wasn’t like anything had really changed.
She tried to remember what she could about the creatures. Her parents had told her the stories, scary tales meant to keep her in line and out of trouble. She hadn’t paid them any heed, had been born with a daring streak that usually ended up with her bruised or bloodied or with mud on her Sunday chemise. Still, she had a vague image of teeth and bone and green skin that told her the town might have the right to be a little shaken.
