Silver on the Road (The Devil's West Book 1) (50 page)

He was awake before he knew that he had been sleeping, the dream staying with him even as he sat up, reaching for his boots in the faint reddish light before dawn. By the remaining fire he could see the silhouette of the magician, slump-shouldered and yet giving the impression of alertness, that were anything to happen, he would be on his feet and deadly.

Behind him, there was slow murmuring, and he turned to see the friars on their knees, clearly at some sort of prayer. At least they wouldn’t have trouble getting them up and on the road.

A lingering flicker of his dream lashed at his thoughts, and he set it aside with practiced ease. Whatever Old Woman Who Never Dies wanted to tell him, he had made his deal, and he would see it through. And he
would
find peace.

Isobel had thought it difficult enough traveling with one man; trying to perform her morning ablutions, as limited as they were, with seven in close proximity—five of them men to whom a half-dressed woman
seemed an affront—became a challenge she could have done without. Finally, she used the animals as a wall of sorts, and if the smell there was less than perfumed, at least she was able to dress in peace, with no sideways glances or glares.

By the time she came back, the sun had chased the last stars away, filling the air with pale light, and they had packed up and were ready to leave.

With six walking, it seemed pointless to mount, so Isobel found herself leading Uvnee, walking slightly behind Bernardo, who refused to look at her but focused all his attention on the instrument in his hands, while the mule wandered through their group at will. Friars seemed to have a fondness for mules, and Flatfoot forever had some treat or another between his strong jaws, or someone scratching his ears. The friars occasionally spoke to one another in low voices in their native tongues but otherwise were silent, the sway of their cloaks and the scrape of their shoes in the dirt of the road the only sounds they made. Isobel become overly aware of the insects singing in the grass, the clop of Uvnee’s hooves, the solid placement of her own boots as she walked, even the sound of her breathing, as though simply by existing, she was too loud.

“Ah, the joy of fresh air, the pleasure of the open road, the fractious enjoyment of such fine company!”

Clearly, Farron had no such hesitations. The magician trotted along the outside of the group, coming to Isobel’s side, although careful to stay on the other side of the road from Bernardo. “Little rider who is not riding, how are you this fine morning?”

“Are you drunk or merely madder than usual?” she asked in return, but his offensive cheer was irresistible against the quiet glumness of their other companions.

“I’ve never imbibed a drop of alcohol,” he told her. “So, I must be mad.” He beamed at Bernardo, who pointedly ignored them both.

“Todos están locos.” That came from one of the friars who’d not spoken yet, who had inched closer as they walked, until he was close
enough to converse. “Toda esta tierra, todos ustedes, locos. You are all mad.” His voice was serious and yet without accusation, as though he stated that the day was dry or the road long. His face was square and lined, with a shock of dark brown hair atop it, and eyes of dark grey-blue that put Isobel in mind of the boss when he was in a kind mood.

“And you have willingly come among us, to face a terror you cannot name, to save those you have never met. I think that makes you twice as mad as we.”

“Different mad, perhaps.” Having spoken to them, he seemed to lose more fear, falling into pace with their steps. Bernardo glared at them over his shoulder, but otherwise did not interfere. “I am Fray Esteban. I would speak to you of my lord and savior, con su permiso?”

“You may speak but it will not reach my ears,” Farron said. “I am given already, my body filled with the winds, theirs to command. But you know that already, for I have placed my skills against yours and bested you.”

“And gave us our best sleep in weeks,” the friar agreed. “But I offer. And you, señorita? Surely—”

He looked so hopeful, she almost laughed. Farron, without any kindness, did. “My lady rider hails from Flood,” he told the friar. “Surely you in your distant safety have heard of that pit of despair, that sunken cavern of debauchery, that—”

“Farron!” But Isobel was laughing now for the sheer ridiculousness of it.

“That’s what they think of you, Isobel.” His face went solemn, and his bright gaze focused on the friar’s, unblinking. “They consider your boss to be the greatest of poisons, the serpent in the garden, the evil they must root out with sword and flame. Never let their smooth tongues and kind eyes delude you: they would put Flood entire to the flame and piss on the ashes.”

Something flickered in the friar’s face, some sliver of ice, and Isobel felt the answering burn in her palm.

“You may yet be saved, señorita. You are young to be given so to evil.”

“You should join your fellows,” she said coolly. “And remember at whose mercy you yet live.”

He inclined his head and rejoined the others. She felt a shiver of apprehension climb up her arms, making her shoulders hunch even as she uncurled her fingers and relaxed her hand.

“There’s madness and then there’s madness,” Farron said. “And madness beyond that. You’re learning, rider, but you haven’t learned yet. None outside may be your friend, and few who live within, either.”

“Are you my friend, Farron?” She had not spent fourteen years listening and watching merely to serve drunks or read customers. She had been taught to judge—and the time spent on the road had honed that skill. She searched his intent, his meaning, and waited for his words.

“No.” He grinned at her, and a wind tangled the strands of his hair but did not touch her own. “And you are not mine. And we are once again being watched.”

“I know.” She had felt it, the trickling drizzle of awareness across her skin, soon after she woke. “You may have eaten those demon, but it’s possible others follow us. They do not love our companions.”

“It is an unpleasant sensation, being in agreement with a demon. Could you not have kept the one with the instrument and abandoned the others?”

“They’ve done no wrong,” she said, as much of an answer as she could find. They were offensive but, despite what the demon had said, had given no offense.

“Yet,” he said, and she wasn’t sure if he was responding to the words she had said or the ones she had not spoken.

“Yet” did not matter. The law of the Territory gave them passage so long as they caused no harm, and she had promised them protection in the devil’s name.

His eyes narrowed, and he looked up into the sky. “The demon
are creatures of dirt and I am bound by air, but we are in agreement, Isobel of Flood, Devil’s Hand. If these men and their god cannot control this thing, then you must. All the winds turn, and the storm is rising. The bones are cracking.”

Nothing in his voice changed, but the apprehension she’d felt earlier grew into foreboding, even though the mark on her palm remained quiet.

“Will you be able to aid us when we face it?” He had barely been able to hold off the thing in the crossroads before, but he had consumed the demon since then. Surely he was stronger now?

Farron exhaled and reached for her left hand, turning it so the palm faced upward, and her mark was visible. “I do not know. Whatever it was, it is no longer. We think coming over the mountains changed it, made it both more and less. Consuming it may require such work that I would lose myself entire. For all that I have given myself to the wind, that is a thing I do not choose.”

His meaning was clear: she could not rely on him.

Isobel cast a look ahead at the faint blue tinge that marked the southwestern border of the Territory. “Will I be able to face it?” The question she’d dared not ask, not in all this time.

“If you don’t know that, how may I?” Then Farron’s solemn expression fled, and he grinned that too-sharp smile again, the hunger she’d seen before rising in his eyes. He shoved his hair off his high forehead and winked at her, a slow, terrible thing. “But then, what point life if it’s all known? Let the wind blow through you, little rider, and take what it brings. If you fail . . . well, you won’t be worrying any more, will you?”

He was about as comforting as a sharp stick.

Isobel swung up into the saddle and urged Uvnee away from him and his mocking laughter, keeping herself alert. The sky was a deep blue, clouds lacy in the distance, and far overhead a pair of raptors soared, and her throat closed in fear a moment before realizing that the wingspan was too small for Reapers. Eagles, she thought, although
they were far from any river. They dipped and floated high above her, the sun flashing against their golden wings, turning downward and beating upward, and she could feel the pull of their force, the flap and flutter of their wings brushing against her skin, touching the small feathers braided into her hair, raising a tear in her eyes, a tightening in her muscles as though her claws stretched, preparing to swoop and capture. . . .

She shook herself, aware again of the mare beneath her, the now-normal sounds and smells of people too long on the road around her. Suddenly irritated with them all—too many people around her, shredding the peaceful emptiness with their murmured whispers, their very
presence
—she urged Uvnee to catch up with Gabriel on Steady, leaving the others to walk behind.

Gabriel gave her a sideways look but thankfully held his peace, and slowly—the Spaniards taking the hint and staying back—she was able to calm herself again. When Isobel turned in the saddle to check on the others, Farron was seemingly carrying on a conversation with himself, the friars giving him clear berth despite the narrowness of the trail. Despite everything, she felt her lips twitch in a smile. Farron Easterly might in fact have been conversing with his winds—or he could be pretending merely to unnerve their companions.

But even Farron paid attention when two natives on paint ponies rode up to join their group, seemingly out of nowhere. They were young, bare-chested and bare-legged, black hair flowing over their shoulders, and a single stripe of white across their faces and down their arms. They did not speak, did not glance at them, but rode alongside as though they had always been part of their party.

The friars huddled together, but the warriors took no notice of them, their eyes scanning the distance, occasionally flickering to the magician, then to Isobel, then Gabriel, until she realized that it was an honor guard of sort, safe passage through their lands. When they dropped aside after passing some unseen marker, Gabriel called them a farewell, and they raised their hands in acknowledgment.

“You speak their language, too?” she asked him.

“Haven’t a clue what tribe they were,” he admitted. “But a little Lakota gets me out of almost as much trouble as it gets me into.
Tók
ša akhé
, when you take leave of a friend or ally.
Hau
, when you meet them. When you go farther north, French might work, but it might also get you an arrow if things aren’t going well.”

The language lesson continued as they passed into the deep valley between two hills, and the trail curved and began to rise again, up into the mountains, until Bernardo, still holding his instrument in both hands, came to stand in front of them, forcing them to rein in the horses.

“Isobel.” Her name in his mouth had an almost-familiar lilt to it, the way her father or mother might have said it. “Ready yourself, bruja. It comes.”

Bruja. Witch.

Isobel stared a
t the friar, taking in the sweat on his brow, the overeager light in his eyes, and mistrusted him. At her side, Gabriel breathed out quietly, like a horse readying for a race, the horses themselves suddenly restless underneath them.

She swung down out of the saddle. “Farron.” The magician was at her shoulder, as though she had in fact summoned him. “Bernardo says that what we seek rests there.”

“He is not incorrect.” The magician’s long hair was slicked back wetly, his skin gleaming with dampness that had not been there last she’d glanced at him. “I had to go closer than was wise, but I could smell it there, curled within the stones of a spring. The winds will not go to it but curve around.”

“It rests in water?” Isobel’s eyelids flickered, as she clearly thought of something. The two men waited. “Running water breaks spells.”

“A spring doesn’t run; it pools.” Gabriel’s wording was precise. “Don’t count on that to be useful.”

“Pointless discussion,” Farron said, and now she saw the wildness in his eyes, the whites rimmed with red, his nostrils flared. “This
isn’t what it was. Not anymore. It’s . . . I have no idea what it might be, save that the self-righteous misbirth of a friar was right: it waits for us.”