Bone Magic (3 page)

Other times she
was just guessing. She chose the path that a cautious ranger might
take, and sooner or later she found something that hinted that she
might have gotten it right. When the ground was soft there were
depressions that might have been made by human feet. Broken twigs
and bent stalks of grass showed up about where her quarry would
have stepped.

She moved
slowly, deliberately, her eyes always scanning for the next clue.
Behind her, Tam was having a much harder time of it, veering back
and forth to lead the animals around fallen logs and other
obstacles that Tira could scramble over with ease.

Finally she
stopped, perched herself on a fallen log, and waited for Tam to
catch up. He reached her in a few minutes, puffing and red-faced,
his cheek showing a scratch from a stray branch. Daisy looked
annoyed, her ears laid back against her skull. The pony took it all
in stride, lowering his head to crop the spring grass as soon as
Tam stopped walking.

He took a
moment to catch his breath. "Why'd you stop?"

"Game trail."
She gestured with her bow.

He brightened.
"Great! We'll be able to ride."

She shook her
head. "The branches are too low. We'll have to lead the animals.
But that's not the problem."

His eyebrows
rose. "What's the problem, then?"

"Tracks." She
gestured at the trail. "There won't be any more tracks, and I don't
know which way he went." She sighed in frustration. "That's
assuming I didn't lose the trail half an hour ago."

"He went to the
left," Tam said, and she stared at him.

"How do you
know that?"

"Spider
web."

He pointed.
Sure enough, she could make out strands of silk glinting in a rare
sunbeam that had penetrated the mesh of branches above. The web was
large and intricate, and it completely blocked the path to the
right. Nothing larger than a fox had gone that way in quite a few
hours.

As she watched,
the glow on the spider web faded and disappeared. The sun was
getting quite low in the sky. "We won't go much farther tonight,"
she said. "I don't fancy tracking a kidnapper in the dark."

Tam looked glum
at the thought of stopping, but he nodded. Tira took Daisy's reins
and led the way down the narrow ribbon of path, stooping sometimes
to clear low-hanging branches. After a few minutes she heard the
sound of running water.

A narrow brook
wound its way through the trees, and she let Daisy drink while she
scouted around. She found a hollow that would partially obscure the
light of a campfire and provide some shelter if the wind started to
blow. It was as good a campsite as any.

A fire was a
calculated risk, but fresh bacon was a lure too strong for her to
resist. Their quarry was probably long gone, and if they got the
fire out before full dark it wouldn't be visible from very far off.
She sent Tam to gather firewood while she got to work with flint
and steel.

"Should we set
a watch?" he asked as the bacon cooked. "Will we take turns?"

"I'm not
spending half the night awake," she told him. "We're safe enough.
Whoever it is, he wants to avoid people like us. He'll run away,
not double back."

He accepted
that without hesitation. After dinner Tira put the fire out, and
they laid out their bedrolls on either side of the fire's coals.
Tam was snoring almost immediately, but she lay awake for a time,
wondering just who she was up against, wondering if she was being
overconfident.

Still, it would
be a brutal journey with the watch split two ways. Her years in the
military had made her a light sleeper, and Daisy and the pony would
make noise if anyone tried to sneak up on them. She decided that
would have to be good enough, and drifted off to sleep.

Tam was quiet
the next morning, almost gloomy. Tira, who had been travelling
alone for weeks, enjoyed the silence and waited for him to announce
that he was going home. It was probably his first night ever in a
strange place, and from here it would only get stranger. The notion
of adventure would have felt like a fine idea when he set out, but
the cold light of morning after a night of sleeping rough was
something else entirely.

She shook a
handful of oats in a cup to draw in Daisy and the pony. They had
wandered in search of forage, but they showed up quickly enough at
the rattle of the grain. She gave each animal a few oats, just
enough to reinforce the habit.

Tam built a
fire, toasted fat slices of bread for breakfast, and rolled up his
blankets in silence. When he turned his gaze toward the distant
road Tira was sure he would break. However, all he did was pick up
his saddle and sling it across the pony's back. "Maybe we'll catch
up today," he said. "I hope the children are still alive."

Tira smiled to
herself. The boy had a little more character than she'd given him
credit for.

Then he reached
under the pony's belly, fed the cinch through the buckle, yanked on
the strap, and stumbled back as the cinch broke. He looked so
comically astonished that Tira couldn't help chuckling. She reached
down and picked up her own saddle.

One strap hung
crooked. She set the saddle down and knelt, looking closer.

The cinch had
been neatly sliced most of the way through.

For a long time
she just knelt there, staring into the trees, thinking about the
ramifications.

"Yours too?"
said Tam quietly.

She nodded.

"I guess we
should have set a watch."

Tira shrugged.
"I don't know if it would have helped." She stood, rubbing her
arms, suddenly chilly. "Whoever did this… I'm not sure we could
have stopped him."

"What do you
mean?"

She didn't look
at Tam. "He's good. He's very, very good. Light on his feet,
silent, and he didn't spook the animals. If someone had been awake,
maybe one of us would have a slit throat right now."

"Well," he
said, with the air of someone trying to sound brave, "at least we
know we're on the right track."

"This isn't our
kidnapper," Tira told him. "This is someone else."

"How do you
know?"

She shrugged,
not sure how to explain what her instincts were telling her. This
ranger they were tracking wasn't moving like someone burdened with
children, and he wasn't ruthless enough to be a child thief,
either. She shivered as she thought of him creeping into the camp
while she and Tam slept. He could have cut both their throats and
been done with them. It would have been easier, safer, than messing
with the saddles.

"Let's go," she
said. "We'll lead the animals. It looks like the bridles are
okay."

"Where are we
going?"

Tira shrugged.
"North, I guess. Same way we came since we left the road. We won't
try to track our mysterious friend, though." She ran her finger
along the cut in the strap. "I can take a hint."

"But where are
we headed?" Tam persisted.

She shrugged
again. "We're headed wherever we end up. I came up the road from
the east, and I didn't see any sign of the kidnappers. No one to
the west of Raven Crossing saw anything. That means the kidnappers
left the road at some point. South of here it's all high mountains.
So we go north, and we hope for a lucky break."

Tam looked
dubious, but he nodded. He took one cord from his bedroll and used
it to secure his saddle to the pony's back. It wouldn't hold his
weight, but the empty saddle would stay in place. Then he followed
Tira out of the campsite and onto the path.

It was a long,
weary day. Daisy, rather than being grateful for the reduced load,
was recalcitrant and grumpy, trying to graze on every dandelion she
passed. Tira tugged irritably on her reins, frustrated by the slow
pace. She was even more frustrated by having nowhere in particular
to go.

They followed
the game path for as long as it took them roughly northward. Then
they slogged their way cross-country, making endless detours around
fallen logs and impenetrable thickets. Finally in early afternoon
they found the remnants of an ancient road. Little remained except
occasional paving stones showing through the grass, but there was
nothing growing along the old road bed taller than a sapling.

"Huh," said
Tam. "I didn't know this was here. I wonder where it goes." He
looked over his shoulder. "I wonder where it comes from."

"I guess we'll
find out what's at one end," Tira said. They walked through the
grass for a few minutes. She could finally see for more than a
dozen paces, at least in one direction, so she brought out her bow
and strung it. They were eating their way through Tam's supplies at
an alarming rate, and a rabbit or a buck wouldn't go amiss.

The local
animal life clearly appreciated the road as a travel route. The
grass was often trampled, and Tira smiled, thinking of a venison
dinner.

Then she saw
the fire circle.

It was a simple
ring of stones, blackened on the inside, with the charred remains
of a fire in the middle. All around, the grass was trampled flat.
Some of the grass had been cropped, and she found horse droppings
near the tree line.

"This is
recent," she told Tam, feeling a rising excitement. "Someone camped
here last night or the night before."

His eyes lit
up. "The kidnappers?"

"Maybe." She
ran her eyes around the site. "The camp is big enough. You would
want more than one person if you needed to grab three children and
keep control of them. At any rate, it's our best lead so far."

They set out
with renewed determination, setting a brisk pace that had Daisy
braying in dismay. However, sunset caught them still alone on the
abandoned road.

It was
mid-morning on the next day when Daisy lifted her head and tilted
her ears forward. A few minutes later, Tira caught the distant
sound of water flowing somewhere ahead. Shortly after that, the
trees ended and they found themselves in a town.

"This is
spooky," Tam said, staring around. "What is this place? I've never
even heard of it."

The town was
abandoned. Trees taller than Tira grew in the streets or poked
their branches out through the windows of houses. There were dozens
of buildings, all of them with sagging roofs or leaning walls. Many
had collapsed completely.

A stone wall
surrounded the town, but it had disintegrated so completely that
Tira and Tam were past it before they realized it was there. In a
few places the stones still stood two or even three feet high, but
most of the wall was nothing but rubble.

A massive
building held a place of honor in the heart of the town. Stone
walls, largely intact, still stood chest-high. Above the stone, a
few blackened timbers hinted at the structure that had once stood
there.

"What
happened?" Tam said. "Where did everybody go?"

"Goblins," said
Tira.

"How do you
know?"

She shrugged.
"I don't, really. But it fits." She gestured at the forest around
them. "This is prime goblin country. A war party hit the town,
everyone retreated to the keep, and the goblins burned it. If there
were any survivors, they packed up and left. Instant ghost
town."

Tam's hand went
to the knife on his belt, as if he imagined goblins still lurking
in the empty buildings. "I don't like this place."

"Don't worry,
lad. We won't be staying."

The river was
wide and deep. There had been a bridge here, back when the town had
been alive. A flood had carried most of the bridge away, a year or
a decade ago. Little more remained than a row of pilings jutting
above the waves.

There was
another ancient road. This one followed the river, meandering to
the east between the water and the crumbled town wall. There were
no paving stones on this road. It was dirt, turning to mud wherever
there was a dip. Tira led Daisy to the nearest dip and smiled.

"Hoofprints,"
said Tam, joining her. "And a wagon. They definitely came this
way."

She beamed. "I
think we're catching up. Let's go."

They spent the
night well back from the road. Tira fixed their cinches as best she
could while Tam cooked. She didn't trust her repair job. No amount
of stitching was as strong as an unbroken leather strap. Neither
animal was particularly fast, so she decided they would keep
walking for now.

They were both
jumpy, knowing that their quarry was somewhere nearby. They ate
quietly and put out the fire as soon as the sun was fully down.
They didn't set a watch, and Tira slept fitfully, but the night
passed without incident. They were back on the road early, but by
mid-morning Tira knew they had lost the trail.

"I don't
understand," Tam said, staring at a broad patch of mud that covered
the road from one ditch to the other. A few animals had ventured
into the mud patch far enough to drink from the puddle in the
middle, but nothing had crossed.

"There could be
a hundred explanations," Tira said. "We could be ahead of them
now."

Tam scratched
his head. "How?"

She shrugged.
"Maybe one of the children got loose, and they had to chase him.
Maybe they saw us, and decided to hide until we passed. Maybe they
left the road to hunt, or pick berries."

"Oh." He
scratched his head some more. "Should we wait here?"

"No. Let's see
where this road leads."

They walked
through the mud patch, and Tira paused, looking back at their
tracks. Those footprints told a story. "Come on," she said to Tam,
and led Daisy back through the mud. Tam followed without comment,
but when she turned around a second time, he said, "What are you
doing?"

"Sowing
confusion," she said, and walked one more time through the mud.
"There. No one who comes by will have any idea who was here or
which way we were going."