Fool's Quest (53 page)

The other men erupted in laughter and cheers. Duke Ellik joined in. He slapped the man firmly on the back and spoke loud and clear. “Hogen, I know you well. One will never be enough for you. And by the time all of you have finished with one, there will be nothing left for the market!”

“Then give us two, and she will have half the work!” Hogen proposed boldly, and at least three of the man shouted their approval.

Beside me, I felt Shun stiffen. She set her hand on my shoulder, and her grip was like a claw. She bent to say by my ear, “Come, Bee. You must be weary. Let us go to our rest.” She clutched the shoulder of my coat and almost lifted me to my feet as she pulled at me. Around us, the luriks crouched frozen around the fire, their gazes turned toward the other fireside. Their eyes grew wider in their pale faces.

“Can we not flee?” I heard one whisper. “If we scattered into the forest, some of us might escape!”

“Do nothing,” Dwalia hissed. “Do nothing.”

But Shun paid her words no heed. She had me on my feet and we were moving, stepping quietly back from the circle of firelight. In their terror, the luriks did not seem to notice our departure. Dwalia did. She glanced at us but did nothing, almost as if she wanted us to flee.

I had lost track of the conversation from the other campfire, but the rough burst of laughter I heard was more frightening than merry. Ellik lifted his voice and sounded almost jolly in his tolerance.

“Oh, very well, Hogen. All here know that your brain cannot work when your dick is lonely for a dip. I will give you one. Just one. Chosen especially for you. Come, subjects! Follow your duke.”

I dug in my heels and, with an angry hiss, Shun halted. I stared back. I was terrified but I had to see what was happening. Shun's grip vised down on my shoulder but she stopped trying to drag me. I think she felt the same paralyzing curiosity. The same dread and horror.

Ellik came toward our fire, a wide, drunken grin on his seamed old face. His hand was on Hogen's shoulder as if he steered the man, but I think he more leaned on him as he staggered through the snow. The rapist was as handsome as ever; his golden hair gleamed in the firelight, and he smiled with his even white teeth. So handsome and so cruel. Some of the luriks had been perched on their bundles around the fire. They stood as Ellik came on and retreated, but not far. They clustered closer to Dwalia as if she would protect them. I knew she would not.

“Do nothing,” she warned them in a stern voice as Ellik came closer. His men clustered behind him and the handsome rapist, leering like panting dogs. Hogen's mouth was wide and wet, his left hand gripping his crotch loosely as if to contain himself. His pale eyes wandered over the luriks like a beggar child staring at a display of sweets. The Whites froze like rabbits. Shun made a low sound in her throat. She crouched down and I allowed her to move me some paces sideways to the flimsy shelter of some willow saplings. We both stared.

“Here she is! Here's the lovely for you, Hogen!”

Ellik stretched forth his hand and let it hover near a slender girl with a face as pale as the moon. She gave a low cry and cowered closer to Dwalia. Dwalia did nothing at all. She stared at Hogen and Ellik with a stony face and made no sound. At the last moment, Ellik's hand darted sideways and he seized Odessa by the front of her coat, pulling her from the shelter of the others as if he had just selected a piglet for the spit. Her mouth sagged into a cave of woe, her homely, unfinished face contorting as Ellik dragged her forth to the mocking cries of his men and Hogen's cry of disappointment. “She's ugly as a dog's butt. I don't want her!”

All the men behind him roared with laughter at his protest. Ellik laughed until his face was bright red and then wheezed out, “Your cock has no eyes! She'll do for you. She wouldn't bring anything at the market anyway!”

Odessa had half-fainted, sagging to her knees, held up by only by the wiry old man's grip on the neck of her shirt. Ellik was stronger than he looked. He gave a sudden heave, pulling her to her feet and swinging her into Hogen so that he had to catch her in his arms or fall himself. “Take her, you hound!” All humor suddenly fell from the commander's face. His expression was savage as he said, “And remember this night well when I deduct her value from your share of our take. Don't think you can whine and bargain with me, boy. I set the bargains. And this ugly rag of skirts is what you get from me tonight.”

Hogen stared at his commander over Odessa's bowed head. She had come to her senses enough to struggle feebly, her hands paddling at Hogen's shirtfront. Hogen's face had gone dark with fury but as he met Ellik's gaze, his eyes dropped. “Stupid bitch,” he said disdainfully, and I thought he would cast Odessa back into the other luriks. But instead he shifted his grip on her, catching her one-handed under the throat and dragging her off with him. The other soldiers, gone silent for a short time at their commander's rebuke, followed him with sudden shouts and offers of wagers and demands to be next upon her.

Dwalia did nothing. Her followers huddled behind her like sheep. I wondered if each was secretly glad the wolves had dragged off Odessa and not herself.

Not wolves. Wolves feed when they are hungry. They do not rape.

I'm sorry.
I could tell I had offended Wolf-Father.

“Come.” Shun dragged me behind a snow-laden bush. “They won't stop with her. We have to escape now.”

“But we've nothing with us …”

From the other campfire, we heard short bursts of screams. The men mocked Odessa, whooping along with her. Shun's grip on my shoulder began to shake. “We have our lives,” she whispered angrily. “That's what we flee with.” I could tell she could scarcely get breath into her lungs. She was terrified. And trying to save me.

I could not take my eyes off the huddled luriks. Dwalia was a standing silhouette against the firelight. Abruptly she moved. “Ellik!” She shouted his name angrily into the night. “We had an agreement! You gave us your word! You cannot do this!” Then, as I saw the two men he had left watching the luriks move toward her, she shouted at them, “Do not block my way!”

“That's … stupid.” Shun's voice shook out of her body. “We have to run. We have to get away. They'll kill her. And then there is nothing between them and us.”

“Yes,” I said. I listened to Wolf-Father. “We must leave no fresh tracks. Move where the snow is trampled already. Get as far from the camp as we can while they are busy. Find a tree-well, a, a place under an evergreen where the branches are heavy with snow and bent down, but the ground around the trunk is almost clear. Hide there, close together.”

I'd reached up to take her by the wrist. She let go of my collar and abruptly I was the one who was leading her, away from Dwalia and her paralyzed luriks, away from the campfires and into the dark. Odessa's screams had stopped. I refused to wonder why. We moved furtively, until we were at the edge of our campsite. Shun was not speaking. She simply followed me. I took her to the trail the horses and sleighs had made through the snow when we first arrived. We were moving steadily, both of us breathing raggedly with fear, backtracking the trail of the sleighs and horses. The forest was black, the snow was white. I saw a game trail crossing our path. We turned and followed it, leaving the runner tracks behind us. Now we moved as deer did, ducking our heads to go under low-hanging, snow-laden boughs. “Don't touch the branches. Don't make any snow fall,” I warned. On a rise to our left, I saw a cluster of evergreens. “This way,” I whispered. I went first, breaking trail through the deep snow. I was leaving tracks. We couldn't help that.

The snow will be shallower in the deeper forest. Go, cub. Do not hide until you are too weary to run any farther.

I nodded and tried to move faster. The snow seemed to clutch at my boots and Shun made too much noise. They would hear us running away. They would catch us.

Then we heard Dwalia scream. It was not shrill, it was hoarse. And terrified. She screamed again and then shouted, “Vindeliar! Come back to us! Vinde—” And her voice was cut off, as swiftly as one quenches a torch.

I heard frightened voices, a chorus of them, some shrill. Questioning, like a flock of chickens woken in the dark of night. The luriks.

“Run now. We must run now!”

“What are they doing to her?”

“Vindeliar! He must help us.”

Behind us in the night, I heard Dwalia's voice rise in a desperate choked cry. “This must not happen! This must not happen! Make it stop, Vindeliar! It is your only chance to return to the rightful path. Forget what Ellik told you! It wasn't true! Forget Ellik!” Then, in a desperately hoarse voice, “Vindeliar, save me! Make them stop!”

Then a different kind of scream cut the night. It wasn't a sound. It hurt me to feel it; it made me sick. Fear flowed through the air and drenched me. I was so terrified I could not move. Shun froze. I tried to speak, to tell her we had to get farther away, but I could not make my voice work. My legs would not hold me up. I sagged down in the snow with Shun falling on top of me. In the wake of that wave, a deadly silence filled the forest. No night bird spoke, no living thing gave voice. It was so still I could hear the crackling of the fires.

Then a single shrill, clear cry. “Run! Flee!”

And then the hoarse shouting of men. “Catch them! Don't let them steal the horses!”

“Kill him! Kill them all! Traitors!”

“Stop them. Don't let them get to the village!”

“Bastards! Traitorous bastards!”

And then the night was full of sound. Screams, cries. Men roaring and shouting. Orders barked. Screeched pleas.

Shun was the one to rise and drag me to my feet. “Run,” she whimpered, and I tried. My legs were jelly. They would not take my weight.

Shun dragged me through the snow. I staggered to my feet.

We fled from the rising screams into darkness.

Fleeter and I made good time. The moon silvered the snow and I had the stars to keep my bearings. The cart trail soon joined a wider way as we neared the Maiden's Waist, though the wide passage through the rolling hills scarce merited the title
pass.
Fleeter was glad to be on trodden snow again. The roan employed her long-legged stride as we climbed the last stretch, and then we loped through an evergreen forest, and down a narrow trail that wound through bare-limbed oaks and alders. The slow winter dawn gradually came to light our way. Fleeter dropped our pace to a walk and breathed. The trail widened and I passed several small homesteads. Smoke rose from their chimneys, and candlelight told of farmers waking early. I saw no one outside.

Dawn grew stronger and I pushed Fleeter to a canter. The trail became a road as the morning passed. I rode through a small village without pause and on, past smallholdings and grain fields that dreamed of furrows beneath gently mounded snow. We trotted, we cantered, we trotted. Then more forest. Over a bridge we went, and now passed occasional travelers: a tinker with his painted wagon full of knives and scissors, a farmer and her sons riding mules and leading pack animals laden with earthy-smelling sacks of potatoes, and a young woman who scowled at me when I bid her “Good afternoon.”

Dark thoughts of what Bee was enduring, how Dutiful would react to my disobedience, how angry Riddle would be, and Nettle on his behalf, besieged me. I tried to push them down. Elfbark brought sad memories to the front of my mind and rebuked me for stupidity and failures of all sorts. And in the next moment, the carris seed would make me believe I was invulnerable, and I would fantasize about killing all twenty Chalcedeans and sing aloud to Fleeter as we traveled on.

Calm down. Caution.
I could feel my heart beating in my chest, almost hear it in my ears.

More forest. Trot, canter, trot. I stopped at a stream to let her water.
How tired are you?

Not at all.

I have need of speed. You will let me know if you tire?

I am Fleeter. I do not tire before my rider does.

You will. And you must let me know.

She snorted, and as soon as I was back in the saddle she pranced a few steps. I laughed and gave her a free head. For a short way she galloped, and then she dropped back into her easy, rocking canter.

I entered a town of more substance, with an inn and a hostelry and three taverns. Folk were up and about now. On the outskirts I passed a rare shrine to Eda. The goddess slumbered under a mantle of white snow, her hands open on her lap. Someone had brushed her hands clean and filled them with millet. Small birds perched on her fingers and thumbs. And on we went, and the road became one of the king's highways. I did not pause as I reviewed my mental map. This road went directly to Salter's Deep. It was wide and open and direct, the shortest route.

If I were fleeing the Six Duchies with captives and a troop of Chalcedean mercenaries, it was the last route I would take. The Fool's words came back to me. He had insisted I would not be able to find them, that the only way to regain my daughter was to go directly to where they must be taking her. I took another pinch of the carris seed, crushed it between my teeth, and rode on. It was sweet in my mouth, a tangy, heady taste, and in a moment I felt the surge of both energy and clarity it always gave.

The likeliest unlikeliest, the likeliest unlikeliest
drummed in my head, the words keeping rhythm with Fleeter's hooves. I could continue on this highway all the way to Salter's Deep. If I saw nothing along the way, then I could join the Ringhill Guard and wait near the captured ship. Or once there I could work my way back along a less used route and hope to be lucky. Or investigate some of the back roads. I rode on. I passed one diverging road. The next one, I decided. I'd take the next one and follow it.

I heard a sudden caw overhead. I looked up and saw a crow, wings spread, sliding down the sky toward me. Suddenly it was Motley and I braced myself for her to land. Instead she swept past me in a wide circle. “Red snow!” she called suddenly and clearly to me. “Red snow!”

I watched her as she circled again and then veered away. I pulled Fleeter in. What did she mean? Did she want me to follow her? There was no road, only an open field and beyond it a sparse wood of birch and a few evergreens that soon thickened into true forest. I watched her as she glided away, then tilted her wings and beat them hard to come back to me. I stood in my stirrups. “Motley!” I called and offered her my forearm. Instead, she swept past me so low that Fleeter shied from her passage.

“Stupid!” the crow shouted at me. “Stupid Fitz! Red snow. Red snow!”

I reined Fleeter away from the road.
We follow her,
I told the horse.

I don't like her.

We follow her,
I insisted, and Fleeter conceded her will to mine. It was not pleasant for her. We left the packed and level road, pushed through a prickly hedgerow, and entered the farmer's field. The snow here was untrodden, and the frozen ground uneven beneath the windblown snow. Our pace inevitably slowed just as I wished that we could gallop. But a lame horse would be even slower. I tried to contain my impatience.

The crow flew away from me, into the shelter of the trees. We moved steadily toward where she had vanished. A short time later she looped back to us, then circled away again. This time she seemed content that we were following her and called no insults.

And there we intersected a trail: not a road, merely an open space that left the field and wound into the scant forest. Perhaps a woodcutter had made it. It could be a cattle-track that led to water. I looked back along it. Had it been used recently? It was hard to say. Were there deeper hollows under the blown and polished snow? We turned and followed it.

When we reached the outskirts of the birch forest, I saw what I could not have seen from the road. The white horse had seemed but another mound of snow in the distance. I did not see the fallen rider until I was almost beside the fur-clad body. And only the crow, looking down from above, could have seen the trail of melted red-and-pink snow that led back into the forest.

The horse was clearly dead, its eyes open and frost outlining the whiskers on its muzzle and coating its out-thrust tongue. Droplets of blood had frozen around its mouth. An arrow stood out of its chest, just behind its foreleg. A good lung shot but not one that had penetrated both lungs. I knew that if I cut the animal open, I would find its body cavity full of blood. There was no saddle on the horse, only a halter. The rider had fled in haste, perhaps. I pulled in Fleeter despite her distaste for the scene and dismounted. The body that lay beyond the horse was too large to be Bee, I told myself as I floundered through the snow toward it. The hair that showed beneath the white fur cap was the right color, but it could not be Bee, it could not, and when I reached her and turned her over, it was not. The pale youngster I revealed was as dead as her horse. The front of her furs was scarlet. Probably an arrow, one that had gone right through her. And she was a White or at least a part-White. She had lived for a short time after she'd fallen facedown in the snow. Frost had formed heavily around her mouth from her last breaths, and her cloudy blue eyes looked at me through ice. I let her fall back into the snow.

I could not get my breath for the shuddering of my heart. “Bee. Where are you?” My words were not even a whisper for I had no air to push them. I wanted to run back down the blood-trail shouting her name. I wanted to mount Fleeter and gallop there as swiftly as possible. I wanted to use my Skill to scream to the sky that I needed help, that I needed everyone in the Six Duchies to come and help me save my child, but I forced myself to stand, sweating and trembling, and do nothing until that fit of reckless urgency had passed. Then I went to my horse.

But as I lifted my foot for the stirrup, Fleeter sank to her front knees.
Tired. So tired.
She shuddered down, her hind legs folding under her.
So tired.

Fleeter!
Dismay choked me. I should never have trusted her to know when she was wearied. Carris seed filled one with energy, until it left the user exhausted.
Don't lie down in the snow. Up. Up, my girl. Come on. Come on.

She rolled her eyes at me and for a moment I feared she would drop her head. Then with a shudder and a heave, she stood. I led her slowly from the trail to a stand of evergreens. Under them, the snow was shallower.
Stay here and rest. I will be back.

You are leaving me here?

I must. But only for a time. I'll be back for you.

I don't understand.

Just rest. I'll be back. Stay here. Please.
Then I closed my mind to her. I'd never ridden a horse to exhaustion. The shame I felt was overwhelming. And useless. I was doing what I had to do. I took from my saddle-packs items that I thought I might need. I shut my heart to Bee. I did not recall Molly or wonder what she would have said, thought, or done. I put the Fool and all his warnings and advice from my mind, and set aside the man that Burrich had hoped I would become. I cut Holder Badgerlock from my heart and banished Prince FitzChivalry to the shadows where he had lived for so many years. I squared my shoulders and closed my heart.

There was another person in the depths of me. Chade's boy. I took a breath and summoned those memories. I recalled in full that which Chade had shaped me to be. I was an assassin with a mission. I would kill them all, as effectively and efficiently as possible, without remorse or emotion. This was a task to do coldly and perfectly. As I had killed the Bridgemore twins when I was fourteen, as I had killed Hoofer Webling when I was fifteen. I could not remember the name of the innkeeper I had poisoned. Knowing his name had not been part of that task.

I thought of all the assignments I had banished from my thoughts as soon as they were accomplished, the quiet work I had never allowed to be a part of my memories or image of myself. I summoned them back now and allowed them in. I recalled now the times I had followed Chade through darkness, or acted alone at his behest. Once Chade had cautioned me that assassins such as we were did not ask one another about their kills, did not flaunt them or record them. I recalled not scores, but dozens of assignments. King Shrewd had not been a callous or murderous king. Chade and I had been his weapons of last resort, the solution applied when all others had failed. The twins had been rapists and unusually cruel ones. Twice they had stood before his judgment throne, received punishment, and promised repentance. But their father was unable or unwilling to keep them in check, and so my king had sent me out, reluctantly, as he might send a huntsman to put down mad dogs. I never knew what Hoofer had done, or why the innkeeper had to die. I had been given a task and I did it, silently and well, without judgment, and then walked away, setting all thoughts about them aside.

Assassins did not share those grim little triumphs. But we kept them, and I did not doubt that Chade sometimes did as I did now. I thought I knew now why he had cautioned me to set those memories aside. When you are fourteen and you cut the throat of a man of twenty-three, it seems a contest between equals. But two score and some years later, when a man looks back, he sees a boy killing a youngster who was foolish enough to get drunk in the wrong tavern and take a dark pathway home. I told myself that such insights did not destroy the finesse of what I had done. As I told my horse to stand and stay, as I pulled my hood up and laced my sleeves tight to my forearms, I counted my kills and recalled that this was something I could truly do well. This was, as the Fool had reminded me, something I was good at.

I did not walk back over the blood-trail the girl and the horse had left. I moved through the trees, keeping the wallowed and red-spattered trail in sight, but never coming too close to it. I let my mind consider only exactly what I knew. This girl was part of the force that had taken Bee. She and the horse had been shot, most likely as they fled in haste. They had been dead long enough for frost to form. I felt a small lift of my heart. One less person to confront, one less person to kill. Perhaps the Ringhill Guard had already engaged with the Chalcedeans. The quiet of the forest told me that battle was over. Perhaps Bee and Shine were already safe. I regretted the elfbark now. Something had transpired, and Dutiful would know of it by Skill or messenger bird. If I were not deadened to the Skill, doubtless I'd know, too. I'd outfoxed myself. I had one choice. Follow the blood-trail back. I scowled as I reflected that a lung-shot animal does not often run far. Either the battle was over and all combatants had departed the scene, or something was very odd.