The Tiger's Eye (Book 1) (15 page)

“We’ll need to cover our mouths,” Hobart continued. “And the
horses’ noses. That ash is hot, and if too much gets in your lungs…” he shook
his head. “There are better ways to die.”

“What do you have in mind?” Angus asked.

“See that river?” Hobart said, pointing at the valley floor.

“It’s hard to miss,” Angus said.

Hobart scowled, shook his head, and continued. “There’s a
little fellow down there who rents sheets. Jagra, I think his name is. When he
sees someone coming—like us—he takes his bucket down to the river and brings
enough water back to fill a trough he has set up by the road. He’s got a pile
of thin white sheets that he dips in the trough and drapes over you and your
horse. You can see through them and breathe through them, but the fabric is so
finely woven that the ash can’t get through it. We’ll rent them, and when we
get inside the dome’s cover, his wife Agata will be waiting. She has a similar
setup—trough, clean sheets, a line for drying—but their sons have to haul water
up from the bridge. At night, his brother does the same thing.”

“Won’t the horses protest?” Angus asked.

“Not at all,” Hobart said, patting his mare’s neck and
smiling fondly. “They’re fine mounts, and it’s not their first time here.
They’ll adjust quickly enough, and so will we.”

“All right,” Angus said.

“The sheets will also protect our gear,” Hobart continued.
“The ash isn’t heavy enough to maintain its heat for long, but it isn’t unusual
to have bits of lava mixed in with it. Keep your eyes open. It generally only smolders,
but once in a while it will burn through one of the sheets. It looks like we’ll
have to hurry, too. It’s falling pretty heavily.”

“Enough sightseeing,” Ortis said. “We should start down.”

They urged their horses into a steady walk as Angus said, “Those
walls are pretty high.”

“Sixty feet high and forty feet thick,” Hobart said. “They
protect the city and are the last defense against the lava. It sometimes
reaches the walls despite the wizards, but it hasn’t posed any serious concerns
in recent years.”

Angus shielded his eyes with his hand and squinted. “I don’t
see a gate.”

“There isn’t one,” Hobart said. “It wouldn’t do to have any
holes in the wall for lava to flow through.”

“How do we get in?”

“You can’t see it yet,” Hobart said, “but there’s a lift. It
moves up and down at regular intervals, and can carry an entire mounted
patrol—that’s a dozen men and horses—with plenty of room to spare. There’s
another one on the other side. When the caravans come, they raise and lower all
their goods in a matter of hours. Most of the time, they have to sell some of
it in Hellsbreath on the way through. There’s a fee for each trip the lift
makes,” he continued. “It’s a standard fee spread out among all of the
passengers on the lift. If it’s a full load, it’s not at all expensive—half a
silver for a man and horse—but if you want a special trip, it’s far more
costly. On a day like this, we may have to wait a while before there are enough
passengers to make a full load.”

“Tell him about The Rim,” Giorge said. “He’ll need to know
about that.”

Hobart nodded, “The Rim encircles the city; it’s on top of
the wall and runs along its entire length. The top of the wall is forty feet
wide, and there’s a narrow street in the middle of it. There’s a bridge
straight across the town for the caravans—don’t ask me what holds it up—but no
one else can use it. The rest of us go around the rim if we want to go south. On
either side of the street are inns, taverns, the marketplace—whatever a
traveler might need. The garrison—four hundred men are on duty at all times—are
bunkered in the short towers on the corners. They serve as lookouts and man the
patrols, both on The Rim and the area around the city. Most of the patrols will
have a wizard with them, in case they run into volcanism while outside the
protection of the city’s dome and walls. As for the city proper, don’t worry
about it. Most people never make it down inside the city unless they live
there.”

“What about libraries?” Angus asked. “Are there any on The
Rim?”

Hobart shrugged. “I’ve never heard of one,” he admitted,
“but I never looked for one, either.”

“There aren’t,” Giorge said. “The wizards live inside the
city, and that’s where the libraries are. There’s a Wizards’ School, too, if
you’re interested.”

“I am,” Angus said. “It will be a good place to ask about
work. I’ll have to talk with them before I decide to join your banner or not.”

“There,” Hobart said. “Do you see it? The lift is rising.”

Angus pointlessly leaned forward in his saddle and studied
the wall as best he could. “The thing that looks like a spider crawling up the
side of the wall?”

Hobart chuckled. “That’s our way up,” he said. “It’s a
pulley and winch system that lifts visitors up and down. You stand on a
platform and they winch you up. You can’t get into Hellsbreath any other way.”

If it weren’t for that dome
, Angus thought,
I
could fly in. If I could fly, that is.

“Let’s ride a bit faster,” Giorge said. “I’d like to get
there before the next lift goes back up. You know how it is during the day,
especially when the volcano is belching out that crap.”

“Yes,” Hobart said, spurring his horse to a light trot. “And
there aren’t very many travelers between us and the city.”

“Not many around it, either,” Giorge said. “It might be a
long time before that lift drops back down.”

“All right, Angus,” he said, turning to Angus. “When we get
there, keep your fingers clean.”

Angus tilted his head and half-smiled. “What do you mean by
that?”

Hobart frowned. “I shouldn’t tell you this,” he said, “but
Giorge got in a bit of trouble last time we were here. He climbed down to the
city proper without permission. When they caught him, they put him in the
dungeon and left him there until we were ready to leave. They don’t take kindly
to trespassers, and even less so to thieves. Hellsbreath is mainly a military
outpost, and they take their rules seriously.”

Angus nodded. “What rules should I know about?”

Hobart shrugged. “No killing, stealing, trespassing,
vandalism, spitting from The Rim, littering….”

6

Just before reaching the lift area, Hobart pointed at a
long, narrow, wooden wall with several rings evenly spaced along its length.
Each ring had a red, blue, or black scarf tied to it. Hobart rode past several
dozen red and blue scarves before coming to a stop before one with a black
scarf. He dismounted, handed Angus the reins of his horse, and said, “Stay back.”
Then he stepped up to the ring and reached for the scarf.

Giorge brought his horse up next to Angus and stopped, but
Ortis rode past him to the next ring marked with a black scarf—about ten feet
further—and dismounted.

Hobart’s clumsy oversized gauntleted fingers finally
unraveled the knot in the scarf and he gripped the ring with his free hand and
tugged. A ten-foot section of the wall slid easily outward, separating itself
from the rest of the wooden wall. He took a few steps back, pulling the
partition with him until a soft chime sounded. Then he let go of the ring and
turned to Angus.

“It’s a stable,” he said. “You can tell which ones are empty
by the scarf. A black one like this,” he shook it, “is open for use. The red
ones stable the garrison’s horses, and the blue ones are for visitors. There
are stables on The Rim if you want your horse with you, or if you’re traveling
through the city and continuing south. But if we’re going into The Tween to
check out that symbol, we may as well house them down here. It will reduce the
price of the lift and make our wait a little longer, but it will be worth it.”
He took the reins of his horse and led it around the opening. “Each one can
hold four horses,” he said. “It’s a bit of a tight squeeze, but the horses
don’t seem to mind being confined like that.”

Giorge hopped off his horse and followed Hobart around the
partition. A moment later, Angus shrugged and did the same, wincing from the
short burst of pain in his legs as he landed. Behind the partition was a
shallow enclave embedded in the city’s wall, just deep enough for a horse to be
stabled. “They’ll feed them, brush them down, take them out for exercise—everything
they do in other stables. We’ll put a deposit down now and pay the balance when
we leave. If we stay much longer than two weeks, we’ll have to send down
additional payment to make sure they’re here when we need them.”

“Don’t worry,” Giorge said. “It’s a reasonable rate. But we
do need to have a sense of how long we’ll be here.”

“Back to that,” Angus sighed. “I still don’t know the
answer. Let’s say three weeks for now, and if I need longer, I’ll send word.”

“Two weeks longer than I’d like,” Hobart grumbled, removing
his saddlebags from his horse. “We don’t know how long it will take to find
whatever is waiting for us at that symbol, if we can find it at all. It
probably got buried in lava centuries ago. But if there is something there, we
need to find it before winter sets in.”

“Isn’t winter still a few months away?” Angus asked.

Hobart shook his head and set the last saddlebag on the
ground beside his horse. “Not in those mountains,” he said. “It can come early
there.”

“It’s the altitude,” Giorge added, removing his own
saddlebags. “The mountains west of here are the highest peaks in the region.
There’s snow on top of most of them all year round. Hellsbreath Pass goes
through them otherwise they would be almost completely impassible all year round.”

“I’ve seen the snowcaps,” Angus admitted as he reached for
his backpack and strapped it over his shoulders. Then he turned to the
saddlebags. “Do I need to remove all of these?” he asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” Hobart said, moving toward him.
“They’re our horses, and we’ll take care of them. If you decide to join us,
we’ll walk you through what to do and fill you in on what is banner gear and
what is not. For now, you’ll be our guest.”

“All right,” Angus said, moving back to give Hobart room to
maneuver. “I can at least carry some of them over to the lift for you.”

Hobart nodded, adding the saddlebags to his pile. “When
we’re ready, he said. He led Angus’s horse into one of the narrow stalls. The
stable was surprisingly well-lit, considering that it was embedded in such an
enclosed space, and there was a long corridor running along the back of the
stalls. A cord hung down in the middle of their section of the stable, and
Hobart pulled it. The soft chime sounded again.

“I’m coming,” a man shouted from down the corridor. “Hold
your horses ’til I get there.”

Giorge led his horse into its stall and turned to help Ortis
with the young colt, Max, who was balking at the confined space. “There, there,
boy,” he soothed, patting it on its shoulder. “I don’t like being cooped up
either, but it’s only for a few weeks. You can manage that, can’t you?”

Ortis removed Teffles’ body from the last horse before
leading the horse into its stall. It was a calm, placid beast, easily managed
and content with the directions Ortis gave him.

“Was that Teffles horse before he joined you?” Angus asked.

“Yes,” Ortis said. “Why?”

Angus nodded. “I’d like that one if I join your banner.
Would that be all right?”

Ortis shrugged. “Not our decision,” he said. “Teffles
bequeathed it to the Wizards’ School.”

It must be trained for wizards,
Angus thought. “I
see,” he said. “Perhaps they will part with it?”

“I’ll take you with me when I let them know it’s here,”
Hobart said. “I believe you wanted to visit there, anyway. It’s in the city
proper—you can’t miss seeing it when we get to The Rim—and we’ll have to get
special permission from the guards to visit it. I don’t think it will be a
problem. You are a wizard, after all.”

From Blackhaven Tower
, Angus thought. “Yes,” he said.
Will they receive me in the same way Ulrich did? Will I be looked on as a
blight?

A man limped half-free of the shadows and came to an abrupt
stop. He stared at Hobart for a long moment, and then began shaking his head.
“So it’s you, is it? I thought I recognized that infernal voice. I would have
thought the Death Swamps had swallowed you up by now.”

“Not yet, you scoundrel,” Hobart glared. “Why isn’t your
corpse feeding the rats?”

“Bah,” the man spat, limping forward and dipping beneath the
inner rail of the empty stall. “They’re too smart. They know they’d die of
indigestion.”

Hobart glared a bit longer, and then they grinned at each
other and deep, rich, belly-laughs rumbled from them both. They clasped hands
to forearms and pretended to wrestle for a few moments. Then Hobart wrapped his
arms around the man’s shoulder and led him out of the stable.

“It’s been a long time, Hobart,” the man said, nudging him
with his elbow. He was a grizzled, dirty, sweat-soaked old man dressed in a
worn-out wool tunic whose sleeves had been torn off, and breeches secured to
his waist with a frayed red scarf. “You’ll have to let me buy you a beer at
Hedreth’s.”

“Now Bandor,” Hobart said, shaking his head. “You know I
can’t drink just one.”

“Two, then,” Bandor replied. “How long are you here for?”

“A week or two. Three at the outside,” Hobart said. “Plenty
of time to catch up.”

“I’m sure you have stories,” he said. “You always do.”

“Bandor,” Giorge said, politely nodding as he returned from
helping Ortis.

“You’re still riding under his banner?” Bandor said, his
eyes wide. “I would have thought Hobart would have thrown you out of it after
last time.”

Giorge grinned. “They can’t live without me, Bandor. You
know that.”

“But how do they live
with
you?” Bandor retorted,
shaking his head and leaning back to look around Giorge. “And that triad’s
here, too. That leaves,” he turned to Angus and stared. After a moment he said,
as if it were an accusation, “You’re not Ribaldo.”

“No,” Angus said. “My name is Angus.”

“Where’s Ribaldo?” Bandor asked, looking up at Hobart.

“With his gods,” Hobart said. “Or someone else’s.”

“No,” Bandor said. “He was such a fine old man.”

Hobart nodded and let his arm slide from Bandor’s shoulders.
“Too old,” he said. “He died in his sleep just over a week ago.”

Bandor shook his head. “That will be my fate, I’m sure. With
this bum leg, I’ll never get out of this hole in the wall. They may as well
bury me in it now.”

“You’ll never die, Bandor,” Hobart said as he moved to his
saddlebags. “You’re too stubborn.”

“Ah, well, if only death were so easily swayed,” Bandor
said. “But we’ll all end up like Ribaldo one day,” he added, nodding toward
Teffles’ body. “He will be missed.”

“He already has been,” Hobart said. “That’s his replacement.
He only lasted almost two days before the wolves got to him.”

Bandor shook his head and looked at Angus. “You’re that
one’s replacement, then? You might want to reconsider it if you want to live a
while longer.”

“I’m—”

“Let’s just say he’s with us for now,” Hobart said. “Nothing
permanent has been established yet.”

“Ah,” Bandor said, nodding. “Testing him, are you?”

Hobart shook his head. “The offer has been made, Bandor, but
he has yet to accept it.”

“I may have a more lucrative opportunity here in
Hellsbreath,” Angus said. “I understand they have need of wizards, here.”

Bandor nodded, “There’s always room for more skilled wizards
in Hellsbreath.”

“We should be getting our things over to the lift area,”
Ortis said. “We don’t want to have to wait for another one.”

“Right you are,” Bandor said. “We’ll talk later at
Hedreth’s, Hobart. Let’s see, seven horses for how long?”

“Let’s say two weeks,” Hobart said. “If we stay longer than
that, we’ll settle up when we leave.”

“Two gold, four silver,” Bandor said as he stepped back into
the stall to retrieve the blue scarves. “I’ll even make sure they get the same
treatment as the soldiers’ horses. Only the best for you, Hobart.”

“Thank you Bandor,” Hobart said, counting out the coins in
his palm. “Until this evening, then?”

Bandor nodded, exchanging the blue scarves for the coin and
the black scarves. Before limping away, he turned to Angus and said, “There’s
no better banner than Hobart’s. He’s a fair and honorable leader, and he’ll do
right by you if you do right by him.” He paused, glanced sidelong for a moment,
winked, and added, “I don’t know how many others would have put up with Giorge
for as long as he has.”

Hobart chuckled as the scruffy man left, ignoring the
feigned, exaggerated pain on Giorge’s face. Then he turned abruptly and said,
“Let’s get our gear.” He hurried to the pile of saddlebags and began draping
them over his shoulders. Angus joined him, accepted two of the lighter ones,
and followed him out from behind the partition. Hobart pushed it closed and
fumbled with the blue scarf, eventually tying a shabby but effective knot. When
he finished, he turned and said, “Let’s report in.”

“Report in?” Angus asked as they walked toward the lift
area.

“Whenever banners arrive at a major outpost, we have to
report in to the guard,” Hobart said. “They like to keep track of us in case
they need to recall us to duty. We’ll also be reporting on the changes to our
membership,” Hobart said. “I’ll put you down as a provisional member; that way,
you’ll get the benefits of membership while we’re in Hellsbreath, and if you
decide not to join, I can strike your name from the roster when we leave.”

As they approached, Angus studied the people near the lift
platform. There were apparently two groups of them: the passengers and the
guardsmen. The guardsmen were armed, and several were positioned around the
platform in a protective fashion, preventing people from stepping onto it.
Perhaps they were concerned that someone would walk off the edge of the
platform while the lift was gone or might disturb the complex pulley system?
The three remaining guards were stationed near a little alcove where an old
scribe sat with a thick tome and small chest. As they approached, the scribe
opened the book, picked up his quill, and uncorked his inkwell. Between him and
the lift platform, half a dozen passengers waited for the lift to return from
The Rim.

“Those are all locals,” Giorge said from beside him. “By the
look of the one, he’s a fisherman. He probably has a few fish in that basket of
his. He uses that bow to shoot them. The arrows are short and too brittle for
anything else. It’s not as easy as you might think. Try it sometime. The water
distorts your perception, and it takes a long time to learn how to judge where
the fish really is. Until then, you kill a lot of water.”

Angus nodded and asked, “You can tell that by the arrows?”

Giorge nodded. “They are heavier than the normal ones, and
they don’t have any fletching. It’s almost like a crossbow bolt. They don’t
have to fly far, but do need to penetrate deep enough into the water to kill
the fish. He probably has string tied to them so he doesn’t lose them in the
river when he misses.”

“Isn’t the river moving too fast for that kind of fishing?”
Angus asked.

Giorge nodded. “He must be a bit desperate,” he said. “Most
locals wouldn’t risk fishing when there’s this much ash in the air.”

“He could have been caught by surprise,” Ortis said. “Some
of these fishermen go out at night.”

“More likely he didn’t have a choice,” Hobart offered. “We
don’t know how long that eruption has been going on. They can last weeks, you
know.”

“Maybe you should ask him,” Angus suggested. “I’m sure he
would welcome the conversation. After all, it may be a while before they send
the lift back down.”

When they were within a few feet of the scribe, Hobart said,
“Stay here,” and walked up to him.

“The two with axes were probably gathering wood or clearing
away debris from the bridge,” Giorge continued, stopping next to Angus. “When
it rains, the river rises quickly and catches up all kinds of stuff—trees,
branches, boulders, dead animals, whatever. Sometimes a tree will get caught on
the bridge supports.”