“But I don’t—”
“What’s your need?” Katz ploughed on. “Cooking pots? New boots? A saddle? The finest handwoven horse blankets?” He prodded Haskeer’s chest with a tiny finger. “How about a length of high quality cotton fabric with attractive flower patterns?”
“What would I want with
that?
”
“Hmmm, well, it might improve that dowdy uniform for a start.”
A series of expressions crossed Haskeer’s face as he tried to decide whether he’d been insulted. Shoulders heaving, Jup clamped a hand to his mouth. Coilla found her feet of great interest.
“How . . . how’s business?” Alfray quickly put in.
Katz shrugged philosophically. “If you were selling hats they’d be born without heads.”
“Sure as the sun rises,” Keppatawn said, “merchants complain about trade.”
“These are tough times,” Katz protested. “The gods should give us honest tradesbeings a break.” He sighed. “But it’s preordained, I suppose.”
Glad to shift the conversation away from Haskeer, who’d settled on fuming, Coilla took the bait. “You don’t believe in free will?”
“Some. But I think most of what we do is set by the gods and the stars.”
“Sol signs?” Haskeer sneered. “That’s all . . .
pixieshit
.”
Katz ignored the slur. “Ah, there speaks a true Seagoat.”
“Wrong,” Haskeer grunted.
“A Viper, then.”
“Nope.”
“Er, an Archer?”
“No.”
“Balladier, Grapnel, Scarab?”
“No, no and no.”
Katz massaged his temple. “Don’t tell me . . . uhm . . . Bear?”
“Wrong again.”
“Eagle? Charioteer?”
Haskeer folded his arms and rocked on his heels.
“Basilisk? Longhorn?
Ah!
Yes! I see I hit the target there! Longhorn. Of course. I can always tell. It’s a gift.”
Haskeer mumbled something low and threatening.
“Anyway,” Katz continued, “as a discerning Longhorn I know you’ll appreciate the benefits of the exquisite fabrics I can offer you for only —”
Haskeer snapped. With a roar he lurched forward and seized Katz by his throat, hoisting him clear of the ground.
“Sergeant, please!”
Keppatawn shouted. “Don’t forget that pixies —”
There was a loud sound like ripping cloth and a spume of yellow flame shot from the merchant’s hindquarters. Grunts standing three yards back scattered, then danced on the ignited grass.
“—have fire-starting abilities.”
Haskeer dropped the pixie and swiftly retreated.
Katz grinned sheepishly. “Oops. Sorry. Nervous bowel condition.”
Keppatawn stepped in. “I think it might be best if we got on with our business,” he stated diplomatically, ushering Katz away.
The band and Haskeer, open-mouthed, watched as the pixie moved off with smouldering breeches and a slight hobble.
“They must have behinds like quartz,” Jup remarked admiringly.
Gelorak placed a finger to his lips and quietly
shush
ed her.
At first Coilla couldn’t make anything out as she squinted through the tangled undergrowth. Then there was movement and she saw their quarry.
There were two of them. They stood as tall as centaurs and looked muscular, particularly in the arms and legs, the latter completely covered in dark shaggy fur and ending in cloven feet. Their chests were bare and ordinarily hairy, again like a centaur’s, or an hirsute human’s. Both angular faces had pointed beards and upswept, bushy eyebrows. Their jet black, curly hair finished above their foreheads in widow’s peaks. They had eyes that were penetrating, with a somewhat cunning attitude to them. One of the creatures clutched a set of wooden musical pipes.
“I’ve never seen one before,” Coilla whispered.
“Satyrs are an extremely retiring race,” Gelorak replied. “Even we rarely encounter them though we often hear their piping.”
“Is there ever conflict between you?”
“No. They are forest dwellers too, and have as much right to be here as us. We leave each other alone.”
She leaned forward for a better look and trod on a fallen branch. It gave a dry crack. The satyrs froze. Two pairs of yellow-green eyes, almost feline, briefly flashed in their direction. Then the creatures vanished with startling speed and remarkably little noise.
“
Damn
. Sorry.”
“Don’t worry, Coilla. We were fortunate to find them at all. You can count yourself as privileged.” He looked up through the leafy canopy to patches of sky. “It’s been over an hour. Your band will be readying to leave. Shall we go back?”
She nodded, smiling. “Thank you, Gelorak.” Her mind was on whether Stryke had worked out where they were heading.
They battled their way through the scrub and came eventually to the clearing.
The Wolverines were packing up their gear. Most of the grunts clustered around the horses. Stryke, Alfray and Jup were talking with Katz. Haskeer stood off to one side, eyeing the pixie with suspicion.
Gelorak went off on a chore. Coilla joined the band.
Stryke was stuffing gear into his saddlebags.
“Decided where we’re going yet?” she asked.
“I thought maybe north.”
“Why?”
“Why not?”
“Fair enough.” She wandered to Alfray and Jup.
Stryke crouched and emptied his belt pouch, placing the stars on the grass in front of him. Katz came over and watched, vocally restrained for once. After a moment he remarked casually, “I’ve seen one of those before. Couple of months ago.”
Nobody really took that in, least of all Stryke, absorbed by sorting. “Hmmm?”
“One of these things. Here.” He pointed with his toe. “Or similar anyway. In the hands of humans.”
Stryke looked up. “What?”
“It was different to these. But near enough.”
“These? The stars?”
“That what you call them? Yes, one of these.” He saw Stryke’s face, then straightened and looked at the others. “What’s wrong?”
A small window opened on bedlam.
The band crowded round him, firing questions. Numbed by the onslaught, Katz gaped, wordless.
Haskeer pushed through and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck.
“Where? Who?”
he demanded, shaking the terrified pixie.
“Careful!” Alfray shouted.
“Don’t point his arse at me!” Jup yelled.
“Steady, all of you!”
Stryke ordered.
Haskeer checked himself and gingerly put the merchant down. The hubbub calmed.
“I’m sorry, Katz,” Stryke said. He forced the others back, giving him air.
The pixie swallowed and took a breath. He rubbed his neck.
His bodyguards were running towards the band. Stryke held up his hands placatingly and called, “
It’s all right! No problem!
Katz?”
“Yes,” the pixie croaked, waving the bodyguards away. “Yes, I’m fine.”
They stopped, and after a moment’s hesitation reluctantly dispersed.
Stryke laid a hand on Katz’s shoulder. He winced slightly. “We shouldn’t have acted that way, but what you just said is very important to us. Can we go through it?”
Katz nodded.
“You say you’ve seen one of these before.” He indicated the stars at his feet.
“Yes. Well, like them. Different colour and different number of bits sticking out. But the same sort of thing.”
“You’re sure?”
“It was a couple of months ago, but yes.”
“Where?”
“Ruffetts View. Know it?”
“Mani township, down south.”
“At the tip of the inlet, yes. There’s a lot of building going on there, thought it might be a good place for trade.”
“What kind of building?”
“You haven’t heard?”
“Heard what?”
“They’ve got a breach. Earth energy escape. Big one. They were going to try capping it, store the magic somehow.”
“Did they?”
“I don’t know. When I left they weren’t ready. They won’t manage it, if you ask me. Nobody else has. Anyway, they were putting up some kind of holy place there, a temple, and that’s where I saw the star. The Manis didn’t like me seeing it, mind you. They had me out of there pretty quick.” He stared at the stars. “So what are these things?”
“Some call them instrumentalities.”
“Instru—
The
instrumentalities?”
“You’ve heard of them?”
“Who hasn’t? But I thought they were a myth. They can’t be genuine.”
“We think they are.”
“I’ve seen lots of so-called authentic relics all over Maras-Dantia. Not many of them turn out to be real.”
“These are different.”
A covetous light kindled in the pixie’s eyes. “If these really are the genuine items they’d be worth a fortune to the right buyer. Now if you let me act as your agent —”
“No way,” Stryke replied firmly. “They’re not for sale.”
Katz obviously found that a hard concept to come to terms with. “Why seek them if you don’t want to realise their value?”
“There’s different kinds of value,” Coilla told him. “Theirs isn’t reckoned in coin.”
“But I’ve told you where there might be another one. Isn’t that worth something?”
“Yeah,” Haskeer drawled. “You get to live.”
Keppatawn arrived, curtailing any unpleasantness. “What’s happening?” he said.
“Looks like Katz here might have put us on to another star,” Stryke explained.
“What? Where?”
“Ruffetts View.”
“Have you heard about a magic escape there, Keppatawn?” Alfray wanted to know.
“Yes. It’s been going on for some time.”
“Why didn’t you tell us about it?”
“Why should I? I had no reason to think it would interest you. Such fissures aren’t as rare as they used to be, sadly, with humans interfering with the energy.” He turned his attention to Katz. “You’re certain about your information?”
“I saw something that looked like them.” He pointed at the stars. “That’s all I know.”
“Why should he be any more right about this than about the sol signs?” Haskeer complained.
“Maybe he isn’t,” Stryke replied. “But it’s the only lead we’ve got. We either roam without point or head for Ruffetts View. My money’s on Ruffetts.”
There was a murmur of agreement from the band. Stryke had nothing else to say.
“There’s a purpose here,” Keppatawn declared. “The instrumentalities emerging from obscurity. It’s no coincidence.”
“That’s hard to believe,” Alfray countered.
“You orcs have many admirable qualities. But if I may say so, you take too practical a view of life. We centaurs are down to earth too, but even we acknowledge that there is an unseen side to things. The hands of the gods may not be visible, yet they are behind much of our affairs.”
“Can we stop flapping our jaws and decide?” Jup pleaded.
Stryke began scooping the stars back into his pouch. “We’re going to Ruffetts View,” he said.
A couple of hours later Drogan Forest was behind them.
The band had newly forged weapons, fresh horses and replenished rations. They also had a rekindled sense of purpose.
The route they followed was south-west, straight down the peninsula, with the Calyparr Inlet on their left. To their right, modest cliffs marked the shingled coast of the darkly lapping Norantellia Ocean. If they kept to a fair pace, Ruffetts View was about two days’ ride.
Stryke continued pondering whether to tell the others about his dreams, and he hadn’t mentioned to anybody that the stars had sung to him. He had talked to Haskeer again about
his
experience, although the Sergeant was no nearer making sense of it and proved unusually tight-lipped. It seemed he wanted to bury the incident. But Stryke drew some comfort from the fact that it was unlikely both he and Haskeer should go insane in exactly the same way. With that in mind, and somewhere to go, he felt he had more of a grip. But not entirely. There were still his dreams.
All of it lay heavily on him as they rode, and he was distracted enough not to hear himself spoken to.
“Stryke?
Stryke!
”
“Huh?” He turned and saw Coilla staring at him. Riding on her other side, Jup, Alfray and Haskeer looked on too.
“You were half the land away,” she gently chided. “What’s on your mind?”
“Nothing.”
He obviously wasn’t inviting discussion on the subject. She changed tack. “We were saying it was tough on Melox and the others, having to take on that kind of work.”
“You mean I should have let them join us.”
“Well . . .”
“We’re not a refuge for waifs and strays.”
“They’re hardly that, Stryke. You could at least have thought about it.”
“No, Coilla.”
“I mean, what’s going to become of them?”
“You could ask the same about us. Anyway, I’m not their mother.”
“They’re our own kind.”
“I know. But where would it end?”
“With you leading a serious revolt, maybe. Against Jennesta, and the humans, and anybody else holding us down.”
“Nice dream.”
“Even if we lost, isn’t it better to go down fighting, trying to make a difference?”
“Maybe. But in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m just a captain, not a general. I’m not the one to do it.”
“You really can’t see how things are shaping up, can you?” she seethed. “You can’t see the nose on your face sometimes!”
“I’ve enough to do leading this band. Somebody else can fight the world.”
Infuriated by his obstinacy, she fell silent.
Alfray took on the argument. “If there’s really a lot of disgruntled orcs deserting Jennesta, there’s a chance to build an army here. The way things are going in this land there’s something to be said for safety in numbers. Greater numbers, greater safety.”
“And the more attention we’d draw,” Stryke countered. “We’re a warband. We’ve got mobility, we can hit and run. That suits me better than an army.”
“Doesn’t alter the fact that orcs always get the raw end of the deal. Could be a chance to change that.”
“Yeah,” Haskeer agreed, “we’re everybody’s punchbags. Even human kids are told we’re monsters. They think we’re built like brick shithouses with tusks.”
“You want to fight for the whole orc race, go ahead,” Stryke told him. “We’ll concentrate on the last star, even if we die trying.”