The Sentinel Mage (53 page)

Jaumé blinked back his tears and edged closer to the door. When it next opened, he peered inside. He saw people seated on benches at long wooden tables, he saw bowls of food and loaves of bread and tankards of ale.

The door closed. Jaumé leaned against the wall, waiting for it to open again. Slowly he became aware that he wasn’t the only person standing in the darkness. He heard breathing, heard the rustle of fabric as someone shifted their weight.

Jaumé stiffened and slid his hand into his pocket. The knife blade was smooth beneath his fingers, sharp. When the door opened again, he looked to his right. Lamplight fell on a man’s face—sandy beard, dark pits of eyes.

The man wasn’t looking at him; he was staring hungrily into the tavern.

Jaumé released his grip on the knife.

The door closed again, opened again. People went in. People came out. And each opening and closing of the door brought glimpses of food, brought smells that made his stomach cramp.

Next time
, Jaumé told himself.
Next time someone goes in, so do I. I’ll take the nearest loaf of bread and run
.

Footsteps came striding up the street. A man mounted the doorstep, opened the door, entered the tavern. Jaumé followed.

The door swung shut behind him. Jaumé stood for a moment, looking at the tables, at the bowls of stew and loaves of bread, the tankards of ale, the flagons of wine. A loaf of bread lay on the nearest table, cut in half.

He darted across, snatched up the closest half, and turned back to the door as a shout lifted in the air behind him.

The door opened. Two men stood on the threshold. Jaumé barreled past them, clutching the bread.

“Stop!” someone shouted behind him. “Thief!”

H
E THOUGHT THERE
was someone else running behind him, but perhaps it was the echo of his own bare feet slapping on the cobblestones. He ran, turning corners at random, until his lungs were burning, then he slowed to a trot. Ahead was a glow of firelight.

Jaumé looked behind him. The dark street seemed empty. But...wasn’t that the sound of someone else’s footfalls?

He hurried again and came out into what must be Cornas’s market square. It was milling with people, lit by dozens of fires.

Jaumé hugged the bread to his chest and skirted the square. This was like the encampment outside the walls; there were horses, wagons, people eating and sleeping. He felt again the tension in the air, smelled sweat and fear.

He walked three sides of the square before he found a place that felt safe. Here, in the corner, a band of men had set up camp. Like everyone else, they had horses, a fire, piles of equipment—but something marked them as different. Jaumé studied them for a moment, seeing the shapes of sleeping figures rolled in blankets and two men sitting watch, firelight reflecting in their eyes. There was a stillness in those seated figures, a watchfulness—but no fear, no desperation. These men weren’t afraid. They seemed untouched by the tension surrounding them.

He wasn’t the only one to notice there was something different about the men; a gap ringed them, as if no one wanted to get too close.

The men’s strangeness didn’t frighten him; it made him feel safer. Jaumé hunkered down on the ground and tore into the bread with his teeth.

A shadow fell over him. “Give me the bread, boy.”

Jaumé looked up, his mouth full of bread. A man towered over him, firelight illuminating one side of his face. He had a sandy beard, dark pits of eyes. The man who’d stood outside the tavern.

“No,” Jaumé said thickly, around the mouthful of bread. He clutched the half-loaf to his chest.

“It’s not yours. I saw you steal it.” The man made a snatch for the bread. “Give it to me.”

Jaumé scuttled backwards on the cobblestones. His back came up against a wall.

The man followed him. “Give it to me.”

Jaumé swallowed the bread in his mouth, almost choking. He looked to the band of men for help. The two on watch had turned their heads towards him. He saw firelight glitter in their eyes. They sat still, unmoving. They weren’t going to aid him.

Jaumé hugged the bread tightly with one arm. He fumbled in his pocket for the knife.

“Give it to me!” The man lunged forward, grabbing Jaumé’s shoulder, reaching for the bread.

Something inside him seemed to burst open. Rage and despair spewed out. Jaumé ripped the knife from his pocket. “No!” he yelled, dropping the bread, stabbing at the man.

The man grunted and tried to fend him off.

Fury possessed Jaumé. He slashed and stabbed in a frenzy. It wasn’t just the bread, it was the youths at the wharf, the man who’d stolen the gray gelding, the man who’d taken the half-leg of ham. It was Mam and Da and Rosa.

The man uttered a high yelp of pain. He turned and ran, stumbling in his haste to get away.

Jaumé lowered the knife. He was panting, shaking. His heartbeat thundered in his ears. He turned back to the bread. Several of the men rolled in blankets had woken. He saw firelight in their eyes as they looked at him. One of the men on watch rose to his feet and began to stroll towards him.

Jaumé tightened his grip on the knife and held it out towards the man. “It’s my bread.”

The man stopped. His hands were loose at his side, relaxed. “I don’t want your bread. I have plenty of my own.” His voice was calm and almost friendly. The vowels had a strange twist to them that marked him as not of Vaere. “Where’s your family, lad? Dead?”

Jaumé nodded warily.

The man looked back at his companions. “What do you think, Nolt?”

One of the men shrugged off his blanket and stood. He was lean, with a neatly-trimmed beard. He walked across to the first man and stood, studying Jaumé. “How old are you, boy?”

“Eight,” Jaumé said, clutching the knife tightly. The men’s stillness, the intensity of their attention on him, was frightening.

Nolt looked him up and down and then nodded. “He has potential.”

The first man winked at Jaumé. He had curling hair and a young-looking face. “Grab your bread, lad. You can sleep with us tonight. You’ll be safe.”

Jaumé looked at the band of silent, watching men, at the dark eyes reflecting the firelight. He looked at the half-loaf of bread lying on the dirty cobblestones. He looked at the blood dripping from his knife blade.

He thrust the knife into his pocket, snatched up the bread, and followed Nolt and the curly-haired man back to their fire. Men shuffled sideways in their blankets to make room for him.

Jaumé sat warily on the cobblestones.

The man with curly hair tossed him a blanket. “Here.”

Jaumé caught the blanket. He slung it around his shoulders and huddled into it.

“Want some cheese to go with that bread?”

Jaumé nodded.

CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

C
ORPSES SWARMED OVER
him, tearing the hair from his scalp, wrenching his arms from their sockets. “Use your fire magic, you sniveling coward!” someone yelled.

Harkeld woke to the sound of the shout echoing in his ears. He pushed away the blankets and sat up, gasping for air.

A hand touched his back. “Harkeld?”

That voice, that light touch, steadied him. His panic receded.

Harkeld wiped the sweat from his face. His breathing slowed. He lay back down and turned to her, gathering her close. He knew who she was without seeing her. The witch, Innis.

Even though she was a witch, he held her tightly. This wasn’t real. It was a dream, too.

Her head rested against his shoulder. One of her hands lightly stroked his back. “It’s all right,” she said. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

Harkeld wanted to believe her.

He was aware of her breath against his skin, aware of her heart beating, aware of her emotions: grief, guilt—and he understood that she felt responsible for Dareus’s death, too.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said.
It was mine. I could have saved him. And the three soldiers
.

The witch sighed. She turned her head slightly, pressed her cheek against his skin. “It wasn’t your fault either.”

Yes, it was.

Harkeld stared into the darkness. He remembered the sting of fire running over his skin, remembered the sensation of flames igniting in his chest. Terror rose inside him. His heart began to beat faster.

She stroked his shoulder blade, soothing. “Don’t be afraid, Harkeld. Everything will be all right.”

He held her tightly and tried to believe it.

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

J
AUMÉ ATE HIS
breakfast, chewing bread and cheese, gulping cider.

“Where are you from, boy?” Nolt asked. His vowels were as short and clipped as his beard.

“Girond,” Jaumé said, aware of the other men watching him as they ate. Seven men. Eight, counting Nolt.

“Girond?”

“Two hundred leagues east of here,” one of the men said. “On the coast.”

“Two hundred leagues?” Nolt pursed his lips, nodded. In the daylight, his face was older than Jaumé had thought, the skin leathery, creased and tanned. “What happened to your family?”

Jaumé’s throat closed. Tears came to his eyes. He forced himself to blink them back, to swallow. These were not men to cry in front of. “The curse got them.”

“But not you.”

He shook his head.

“How did you get here?” another of the men asked, the one with the curly red-blond hair who’d winked at him last night.

“I walked,” Jaumé said.

“Alone?”

He nodded.

“Two hundred leagues.” Nolt studied Jaumé’s face a moment longer, and seemed to come to a decision. “You may come with us if you wish. Bennick, he’s your charge.” He stood. “Let’s move out.”

The men stood, except for the one with curling red-blond hair.

“Are you Bennick?” Jaumé asked him.

The man nodded. He had a young, cheerful face and blue eyes that twinkled in the sunshine. “You want to come with us?”

“Where are you going?”

“To Ankeny. We have business there.”

“Ankeny?”

“It’s north of here, lad. And west.” Bennick winked. “Don’t worry. The curse won’t catch us.”

Jaumé stuffed the last of the bread and cheese in his mouth. Around him, men were packing up the camp. They worked quickly, but without urgency. There was discipline in their movements, in the way they worked together.

“What kind of business?” he asked, once he’d swallowed.

“We’re meeting a man.”

“A merchant?”

Bennick laughed. “No. A prince. If he gets as far as Ankeny—which I doubt.”

“I’ve never met a prince before.”

“They’re nothing special. They die just as easily as other men.”

Jaumé drained the mug of cider. He saw bundles of arrows being loaded on the pack horses, bows being strapped down. He saw men slinging baldrics over their shoulders, saw sword hilts protruding from scabbards. “Are you soldiers?”