Spellbreakers (44 page)

They had hoped and prayed, without ever daring to ask,
that Ljung would come south with them, but he had not talked about it before.

“Why, yes, I am. I came with you all the way into that
bloody glacier, what’s a small ride to Escarra? I want to see these southern
lands before ... before I grow too old to travel, that is.”

He had obviously meant to say something more sinister,
probably to do with the dark tidings from the east, but nobody wanted to spoil
the mood of the evening. They called for more beer, admired Paavi’s spoon,
talked about fabulous love ballads they knew and had a merry night of it.

****

Svarre Thorsen was obviously quite gratified to see
them back. He welcomed Daria with a bucket in his hand and the others with a
big smile. They had no trouble at all loading their horses. Leal’s mare had
been on-board ship already, the black horse had seen mountains of ice, bears,
trolls, and dragons, and was not going to be impressed by a bit of floating
wood. The two grey elvren horses were too well behaved to put up a ruckus. It
was a smooth crossing. Even Daria was barely sick at all.

On the other side of the Narrows Svarre bid them
farewell with a certain emotion. He shook the elvers by the hand and patted
Leal and Daria on their backs.

“Well then, well,” he mumbled, at a loss for words,
for once. “Well. It’s the very first time any of us sails an elver across to
Enskala, let alone two. These are strange times! I bet nobody will ever believe
that I carried the legendary Kjetil Alversen Hawkeneye on my barky. You just
go, and wipe the eye of those Hassian slavers, eh? We are all cheering for
you.”

Leal and Daria gaped at him.

“Ah!” said Svarre cheerfully. “Two Escarran well-born
youngsters riding north in all haste and going back the other way with two
elvers, and such elvers, just before the Challenge? It’s not hard to guess what
is afoot.
Smart thinking there.
But watch your backs
in Hassia. When you travelled north nobody minded much, I suppose, but crossing
again, in this company ... if an Enskalan seaman figured it out, the Hassians
will certainly do the same. They might not have minded you when you were going
north, but they will try to stop you now if they get a chance. Take care of
yourselves. Keep a low profile. You, sir, could do with a haircut, just
saying.”

Hawkeneye looked perfectly aghast at this suggestion,
but they all parted from the
Neversinks’
mate with great cordiality.

Hawkeneye didn’t choose to shear his long hair. He
tied it in a ponytail and stuffed it in his coat’s collar, under his deep hood.
The weather turned rainy even before they crossed into Hassia. As they went
south along the Yll, they rode on day after day under cloak and hood, in a
dispiriting, muddy, grey wetness. Leal thought that it was hardly a very nice
weather for Ljung to see the southern lands. But there was no point complaining.
They carefully avoided inns and crowded villages, camping as much as possible
in wild spots along the rivers or canals. They met people often enough, other
travelers, farmers, bargemen, but everybody was in a hurry to get to the end of
their journey and into a dry place, so they didn’t talk much with strangers.

Until, one particularly beastly afternoon, as the rain
came down in grey sheets from the thundering, darkening sky, they decided to
ask shelter from one of the lock keepers along the canal.

The little family in the cottage, man, wife, a lithe
boy of perhaps thirteen and a pretty little girl of maybe eight, were friendly
enough, and obviously worried about leaving people outside in such weather, and
yet they seemed nervous and vexed.

“I wouldn’t know, really. We have hardly any space for
putting up so many guests and horses,” said the woman, wringing her fingers
anxiously.

“Indeed, you might be better off a mile or so down the
canal. There is an empty old grange with almost half the roof still on it,”
said the man with a pale face and a strained smile.

Leal and Daria exchanged a perplexed look. This was
quite different from the simple but warm hospitality they had experienced on
the canals on the way north. Perhaps it was different in the autumn. Perhaps
the rain made the people grumpy. They thanked the lock keeper anyway, and made
to mount back on their horses, when a second boy, as like the one in the
cottage as a pea in a pod, came running from in from the open fields behind the
canal bank, wet as a rat and muddy to his waist.

He spoke to his father in a tremendous hurry, words
tumbling out of his lips so quick that none of the travelers could catch a
single word, and the whole family turned to look at the strangers with wide
open eyes. For a moment things were in balance. Then the father took on a
decided, rebellious stance and called to Leal. “Never mind, young sir. I
believe it might be better for you to stay here, after all. You two, see to
them.”

“Quick, quick,” said the wet boy, with a frantic
gesture of his hands, “get in the shed, here, you and your horses. And for
gossake keep your beasts quiet.” The other twin had run ahead to open the doors
of a large shack between the trees behind the cottage. Inside they could
vaguely discern a confusion of old fishing punts, heavy bales of canvas used by
the bargemen to secure and protect their cargo, tools, planks, oars, sails,
firewood.

“What is the meaning of this, young man?” asked Daria
sternly, but Leal held up a finger to shush her. She had caught again and again
in the boys’ quick hands a familiar sign, a waving of their left fingers that
she remembered from the past. Slowly she lifted her hands flat in front of her
body, and brought them together until her fingertips touched, like the gates of
a lock. The boy nodded and smiled.

“In the shed,” said Leal firmly.

“What...?”

“Just do it, Daria.”

They brought their horses in the long low building,
pushed them at the back, behind the confused heaps of stuff
lying
all round and stood there in silence, barely whispering a soothing word to
their mounts when one or the other gave sign of growing nervous. The boys
closed the doors of the shed, and for a long time there was just the drumming
of the rain on the roof. Then, when Leal was almost relaxing again, she heard
steps outside, the heavy steps of many men, and then voices, some raised, some
conciliatory. Time passed. The sky grew dark, and the inside of the shed became
pitch dark. Then the many steps went away again, and there was just the rain.
After an apparently endless time, a boy rushed into the shed, followed by his
brother and then his father.

“You can come out now. All is well.”

“What was that about?” asked Daria, obviously unhappy
at being kept in the dark, literally and metaphorically.

“It was Hassian soldiers...” began the first boy.

“It was the sign of the canal man who gave us the
fish,” said Leal at the same time.

The second boy smiled broadly. “It is the greeting of
the lock people, all along the canals and rivers of the Langwasser. All those
who
serve
on the locks that is. We had news of you through the barge
men. There aren’t many Escarrans passing here, but you have a good name with
the canal people. And when I saw you with that big bow, sir,” he nodded towards
Hawkeneye, “well, I know what is afoot, and I know the Hassians won’t let you
through so easily this time. We were watching out for you, and so were they.
You have been noticed two days ago. When we had word that they were coming to
search the towpaths, we decided to hide you. Mother was scared stiff, and
didn’t want to help at first. But I knew I could convince Father!”

Hawkeneye thanked the boys, praising their courage and
initiative most profusely. The twins visibly swelled with pride. “You’ll kick
the Hassians in the ass, sir, won’t you?” said one of them—it was impossible to
tell them apart now that they were both wet. “I wish I could come and see you
winning the Challenge!”

“Whoa, whoa.
Let us
not tempt fate, young man. But I am grateful for your confidence,” said
Hawkeneye bowing with an amused smile.

“Damn,” said Daria softly. “I might have thought of
it. Svarre was right, the old bear.”

“Thank you for helping us. We will be in your debt
forever,” said Leal. “What can we do now?” she asked, turning to her
companions, dismayed by the news.

But it was the boys’ father who answered. “Leave it to
the canal people. We have friends on all the rivers, and no reason to love the
soldiers, oh no. You will travel in the barges, and we will hide you if anybody
looks for you. Nobody moves on the canal or the towpaths without we know of it.
Fear not, you’ll be safe. The Langwasser can take you almost to your doorstep,
I believe.
All the way to the mountains, in any case.
And in the mountains, they will never find you.”

****

The next day the strangest stage of their whole trip
began. The canal barges were slow and crowded with all sorts of goods. They
traveled with bales of fragrant hay and golden straw, with corn and barley,
with coal and gravel. They traveled with crates and baskets of fruit, sacks of
roots and boxes of glass and pottery. They traveled with wine casks and beer
barrels.

Sometimes they lay low under the cover of the deck
cargo until a suspicious watcher was well out of sight. Sometimes they led
their horses in haste into sheds, granges, and thick woods. Sometimes they rode
on by night until the next lock, to catch up with the next barge if a messenger
of the canal people came to warn them of a chance to get the next boat quicker
or led them by roundabout paths to avoid a patrol. The lock men knew which
bargemen could be trusted and which couldn’t. They knew of every boat that
passed, and if anybody out of the ordinary entered the towpaths. They knew
which roads and paths were safe for them to ride in the countryside along the
slow winding rivers, and when the boats were the safest ride.

When they were on the boats, their horses, mostly
anonymous enough in their shaggy, un-brushed winter coats, under some
threadbare rug, without saddle, walked by the barge, or even towed.
 
Leal and Daria developed a great respect for
the barge men who worked the tow-horses. There was as much skill in working
these
heavy, stolid draft horses one step away from the
water of the canals, as in riding high spirited hunters through the woods.

The elvers’ bows, much to their horror, had been bound
in rags and stuck head first into two old, dusty, perfectly disreputable besom
ends. They, too, traveled in incognito.

The tall black horse was a good mount, fearless and
preternaturally sure-footed, but only Daria could ride him, and only with the
halter she had knotted for him from the grey-green rope. He would have no iron
bit in his mouth, and he would not bear his feet to be shod, but could run
bare-hoof on any ground.

Tuula, Ljung’s falcon, followed them high above, like
a pale comet.

The dog Amber turned out to be a playful, clownish
fellow, fun to have around, although not much use to man or beast. But now and
then for a brief moment, a glimpse of dark supernatural greatness cloaked him
like a shadow, and his eyes blazed like jewels of fire, an echo of the spell he
had worn for years uncountable.

In the same manner, now and then, Leal thought she
could see a veil of icy blue on Hawkeneye’s features, as if the frost was still
in him, and she shivered thinking of his lifeless body she had hugged in that
frigid tomb. When that happened she touched his hand or arm for a moment, to
make sure he was still warm and well, and he shot her a puzzled look, and a
tender smile.

 
“I have learnt
more about horses, hawks, and hounds in this trip than in twenty years at the
castle,” said Daria one day.

Leal smiled and nodded. “And don’t forget people. We
learnt a few things about people, too. I wish I could live this gipsy life
forever. It will be hard to be
back
home, stuck into
the castle again, playing the high lady. ”

Daria gave her a long sideways look, and said nothing.

****

The barges were slow, and in the mountains they often
traveled by small paths up the sides of the valleys, following the Langwasser,
but at a safe distance. The gorge of the Roca Entravessada was too likely a
place for ambush, and they avoided it entirely, going a long way around in the
mountains.

 
It was a long,
unhurried trip.

They came to the gates of Castel Argell late one
evening. It was mid-May, and the light had lingered long in the sky. There was
still just enough of the twilight when they called for the gatekeepers to show
the travelers plain.

The guards at the gates came out of their postern and
gave them a contemptuous look, which left Leal momentarily shocked, until she
regarded herself and her companions critically. She had become so accustomed to
the rough life on the road that their worn dusty clothes, tattered coats and
dirty faces, not to mention her short tangled hair, that they were as normal to
her as the stale bread and sweating cheese they had for lunch nine days out of
ten. But of course it was hardly easy to recognize her old ladylike self in
this new guise.