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“But we know he’s not here, girl,” I told her. “Mencari!”
Achoo sneezed and raced east along the road. I placed one of my spare handkerchiefs over the puke in case Tunstall thought it was worth gathering, and ran after the hound. Mayhap Master Farmer could use it to trace the lad, though had that been true, he’d have done it by then.
Now that we were clear of that poxy marsh, the road began to rise again into tall hills guarded by high cliffs that were sheer faces of stone. The road had been cut through them like a channel. It gave me the shudders. There was no way to know if there were archers tucked in the green brush on those limestone heights, ready to shoot down any strangers in the uniform of the Dogs. Achoo didn’t so much as glance up. That is the marvel of her. She did not care at all that the scent she had was days old. To her it was as fresh as if it had been laid down this very morning. No rain had washed even a little of it away, no other riders had laid their scent on top of it. She was free to do the thing she loved best.
While she kept her mind on the scent, I watched the heights and did my best not to trip until I could hear the others closing the distance behind us. After that I relaxed. Master Farmer could handle any archers if they were there.
On we ran as the wind picked up in the ever-deeper cut through the hills. We were over the rise of the pass before Achoo swerved to the side, then back to the road. I checked the area where she had sniffed, but there was no sign other than trampled greenery. The prince must have pissed there, but it was dry by now.
I stopped for a moment to look out over the lands before us. I took a swig of water from my flask and rinsed my mouth before I spat it on the ground. Trees covered the slopes of the hills, but where the land leveled off lay a river. It was the Banas. Another chance of a burned bridge or even a ferry, and more delays. I picked up my run again, gaining on Achoo.
Our riders came up with us as we approached the river near noon. As Master Farmer held Saucebox so I could mount, Tunstall looked ahead. “I thought it was ferries at this crossing, not bridges,” he said. “The ferries look like no one’s done any harm to them.”
“Thank you, gods,” Lady Sabine commented. She and I sighed our relief together.
“Cooper, stay with Achoo,” Tunstall ordered. “My lady, if you will stay with Cooper? Master Farmer and I will question those who run this place to see if they can describe our quarry for us.”
I peeked at my lady to see if she disliked taking orders from a commoner, even if he was her man. To my pleasure, she nodded and lined up with me as if Tunstall had always been her commander.
“Achoo, tumit,” I called as we rode closer to the water. She snorted. “I mean it.” I pointed to her usual position at my side. “I know you have a scent, and I’ll turn you loose on the other side of the river. Don’t give me a blasted argument.”
“Do you think she really understands you?” Master Farmer asked as Tunstall rode forward to the ferryman’s house. A woman who’d stepped out of the building was blowing a horn to summon the ferry’s crew.
“She’s been with me long enough, she ought to,” I said, grubbing in the side pocket of my shoulder pack. Master Farmer grinned and followed Tunstall. I fished out two strips of dried meat and broke them into three pieces each. “Achoo, look here!” I tossed her each piece carefully. She ate them in one gulp, then whuffed. “Patience,” I said quietly, keeping an eye on things at the house. “Unless you tell us different, we must take a boat ride. Again.”
Three good-sized ferries were tied up on this side of the river. I dismounted. As if she knew my mind, Lady Sabine took Saucebox’s reins. Whistling to Achoo, I stuck my hands in my pockets and wandered down to look at the ferries, as innocent as I could be.
Achoo found the scent on the second boat.
“That beast best be trained,” called a man who spoke with Tunstall. I looked back. Tunstall and Farmer approached us with the cove who must work the ferry while the mot at the house rang a bell on the porch. The stranger, who’d spoken, pointed to Achoo.
“What is the problem with these folk that they can’t tell a hound that knows her manners from a Corus street cur?” I muttered to Achoo. I turned back and called, “She knows what’s allowed and what’s not!” I stepped onto the ferry with care, telling Achoo, “If you can keep your water to yourself in the palace of our very own king, you can very well keep it in some worm-rotted old raft, am I right?”
Achoo wagged her tail. I wasn’t sure as to her meaning. “You did behave yourself in the Summer Palace, didn’t you?” I asked. Achoo danced as if teasing me.
My lady joined Master Farmer, Tunstall, and the ferryman, leading our horses. Once they reached me Tunstall asked, “Cooper? Did they cross the river?”
“Achoo says in this very boat,” I said, nodding to her. Achoo was whuffing at a corner of the ferry in a way that showed she had the scent.
“I told you people, we took six slave trains one way or t’other that day, at least three of ’em with carts,” the ferryman said. “How are we supposed to tell ’em apart five days later? They all paid their coin and went on their way. Now, we’ll go faster if two of you get in the one by the dock, the one with the gangplank, and we divide the horses between two boats. Here come my lads to help you board.”
His “lads,” we learned, logged wood in the forest when they weren’t working on the ferry. They had come running at the sound of the bell. They were big men who made little work out of moving the gangplank from one ferry to another once a new set of horses was ready to go. I ended up on the second ferry with Tunstall.
“You’re doing all right, Cooper?” he asked me as three of “the lads” pushed us away from the shore.
I smiled up at him. “Of course I am,” I assured him. “What did you learn at the house?”
He shrugged. “What you heard the old grumbler say. They had enough folk come through here from three different roads that they don’t remember particulars. It’s trading season. No one looked off-kilter to these folk.”
I nodded. What was the enemy supposed to do, kill everyone at the ferry station? Better to pass unmarked with all the other travelers. I wish they’d at least looked sinister enough that the ferryman had remembered them. Knowing the enemy only by scent was scarcely useful for humans.
I looked for my hound. Achoo stood in the ferry’s bow, paws on the rail and her nose in the air. Her eyes were squinted nearly shut, all of her attention placed on what she smelled. I knew that look, for certain. Achoo had her scent from the air that passed over the coming riverbank already. She was feasting on it, in her way.
I shrugged out of my shoulder pack and took out the bag of dried meat strips, which I dropped down the front of my tunic. Then I secured my water flask on my belt so it would not bump my hip as I ran. Tunstall took my pack. I often ran with it on, but he and the others were coming right behind me, so there was no need to wear it today. It would be easier if I rode, but this way I could follow Achoo off the road instantly if she chose to leave it. Once the day got truly hot, as it promised, I’d be happy to mount up.
Achoo didn’t even wait for the ferry to come up by the dock on the eastern side of the river. When it was just two feet from the pier she leaped across, landing neatly. She raced down the length of the dock and onto the road beyond. I waited until the ferry scraped alongside the dock to jump off. I ran after Achoo, knowing the others would be delayed as they unloaded the horses.
Achoo actually slowed down a little so that she was in my view when I rounded the curve from the dock road. Here three different roads came together. I quickly halted and placed markers so the others would see that I had taken the northeastern road that led from that intersection.
There was a signpost. I glanced at it quickly to compare it against the map. On the road Achoo had taken, the sign pointed the way to Queensgrace, the Galla Highway, the Great Road North, and Richcaffery. Were the slavers taking their cargo to the lords of the northern mountains, or to Galla? If they stopped to sel
l, they would lose their lead.
My trail markers set, I began to run again. To my surprise and pleasure, Pounce suddenly appeared, running at my side. “I’m honored,” I said, feeling the weight rise from my shoulders. “Out for a little exercise?”
It is a fine day, and I am not likely to wear a coat of mud, he replied. Did you enjoy yourselves among the eels and the reeds?
“We dined like princes,” I replied. “I think my spine sways more.”
Pounce fell back a little, then caught up. No, your neck is as stiff as ever, he said. Not even five days of eely meals could change that aspect of yours. If it were so, I would shake you from my paws and find someone more amusing.
I could not help it. I seized him and hugged him. There was no one to see me in that hollow area of the road, save for Achoo.
Pounce bore it for a moment, then wriggled until I put him down. On we went again.
It was a beautiful place to run. Trees at regular spots on both sides of the road were marked with the Queensgrace coat of arms, a small crown over prayerful hands. I supposed it was the Count of Queensgrace I had to thank for this nearly flat road. They’d have filled out the ruts made by wagons fairly recently, since the new ones were scarcely cut into the earth. A good road like this would bring more coin to Queensgrace’s pocket. Local merchants would prefer this road, and the coin they spent in Queensgrace lands would eventually benefit the count. Tunstall had explained it all to me on our Hunts. Hillmen learn a great deal about why folk take one road and not another, so they know where to rob.
Though with the marsh bridge gone, these people would lose a chunk of their trade coin. This summer was going to be lean, thanks to our prey. It was another reason to bring them down.
The trees were old here, the kind we never see in the Lower City unless we venture to the Temple District. I heard all manner of birds going about their days. We crossed bridges over two lively streams, with Achoo halting only quickly to drink. Pounce did the same when we came to each one, while I stayed prudent and drank from my flask. It had taken but one Hunt to teach me the folly of drinking water that had not been boiled.
I watched the trail for Hunt sign. I noted the tracks of a horse with an off foreleg that had gone this way mayhap two days before, and of five mules in a string only yesterday. Several carts had traveled the ground as well over the last three or four days.
Pounce and I caught up with Achoo as she drank from another stream that crossed the road. Pounce joined her at the water, gulping almost as greedily as she did. The sun was high overhead and we all felt the heat.
“Pelan, Achoo,” I told her. “Slow march.”
She looked at me as if I’d taken a meaty bone from her.
“None of that,” I said. “We’ll be at this all day. Let’s save our strength.” Achoo trotted ahead at a slower pace, her shoulders drooping as she followed the scent. Pounce leaped to my shoulders. He’d done a wonderful trick he used on other Hunts, making himself lighter than usual, so as not to wear me down with his weight.
I picked up my own pace to keep closer to Achoo. We’d gone some five hundred yards or so when I smelled cooked meat on a breeze from the northwest. Achoo had stopped. From the look of her, I knew the prince’s scent had left the road, leading down into the tall grasses on the left. She stepped onto the slope from the road into the weeds.
“Tunggu,” I called, trotting to catch up with her. I didn’t like her moving out of my sight. These weeds were up to my chest.
Pounce leaped down when I reached her. I looked about for stones to leave for Tunstall. Never mind that, Pounce said. I’ll let him know. Be careful. I don’t like the smell of this place.
“We’re always careful,” I replied. I looked about us. The weeds were bent back from a thin trail. A bigger group than normal had passed this way, leaving bend marks on the stems and yellowing leaves. I’d wager a good meal that Master Farmer would see magic had been done here to bring the weeds upright again.
Achoo chuffed at me. She never understood my needing to look around so slowly when she had something to follow. “Pelan,” I told her. That scent of cooked meat had the skin prickling at the nape of my neck. The stench didn’t belong here.
Achoo went ahead, tail drooping, staying no more than a couple of feet in front of me. She might complain, but she never broke the rules on a Hunt. How she could ignore the smell, I don’t know, but she managed it.
The weeds opened up. Before us lay a wide, bare strip of ground littered with a few young trees. Further on more and more of them grew until they joined with a forest. Achoo took a couple of steps ahead before I managed to scream, “Tak! Berhenti, Achoo, tak!”
She turned her head to stare at me, but she moved not a muscle. I thanked Mithros, god of the Sun Dogs, for granting me such a fine hound, and ran up to her to show her the peril.
With trembling hands I scratched her ears and talked to her to calm myself down. “See there, the dead creatures?” I pointed to the charred bodies a scant three yards ahead and babbled on. “I smelled the cooked doe and her fawn—you probably ignored them because you had our lad’s scent in your nose, you good girl. But look. There’s fried birds all along that stretch of grass, where it’s gone yellow, and rabbits, and voles and mice.” I groped around me for a stone and tossed it at the image of grass and trees that lay beyond the line of dead things. It turned red hot just as it flew over them and fell to the ground, smoking.
I kept a hand in Achoo’s collar and pulled the sample lure with the prince’s scent from my belt purse. I offered it to her. She sniffed it, sneezed once, then leaned forward against my pull on her collar. She scrabbled at the dirt with her forepaws, her nose pointed right at that deadly line.
“Sarden mage work,” I whispered. “They went to a lot of trouble to keep us from finding whatever’s here. Let’s meet the others and see what Tunstall says.” Back to the road we went.
I’d just finished combing a few burs from Achoo’s tail when Tunstall, Lady Sabine, and Master Farmer arrived. They all dismounted to hear my report.
“A pretty trap, and mayhap nothing to do with our search,” Tunstall said when I’d finished. “We could find the boundaries and take Achoo around. Or we might send her further up the road to see if the scent resumes there.”
“Or our quarry could be beyond that barrier,” Master Farmer said. “Let’s have a look. Better safe than skinned, my old ma always says.”
“What if the local people walk into that thing?” my lady asked. “It may have killed some of them already. We should destroy it if we can.”
Tunstall ducked his head. “You’ve all persuaded me,” he replied. “Let’s see this cooking illusion.”
Back down the path we went, Pounce riding one of the supply horses this time. When we came out of the high weeds into the clearer area, Master Farmer held up a hand and walked forward. “Very nasty,” he said, and lowered the hand. A great curtain of sparkles appeared just behind the line of dead animals. “A lot of power went into this. It feels like that of the two mages I picked up at the Arenaver fair.” He strode forward, and before I could stop the great bumwipe, he thrust his hand into the magic barrier.
I yelped, Lady Sabine gasped, and Master Farmer yanked his arm free quicker than he’d put it in. From elbow to fingertip it burned with a reddish-purple flame that ate his shirtsleeve and turned his fingernails black. Master Farmer, sweat rolling down his face, sketched a sign in the air with a finger that didn’t burn. The sign hung there, a bit of dark blue light. He clutched it with the burning hand and the fire went out.
I offered my water flask to him. He poured its contents all over the arm that had been in flames. The only signs left were his blackened fingernails, flushed skin from his fingers almost to his shoulder, and the missing sleeve. Without a word I went and refilled my flask from one of the spare jars carried by the packhorses.
When I returned, Tunstall was scratching his skull and Lady Sabine was patting her forehead with her handkerchief. I
went over to Master Farmer and shoved him in the chest so hard that he fell onto the grass. He lay there, blinking at me. “Beka, what—?”
“Gapeseed! Claybrained hedge-born sheep biter!” I cried. I looked at Tunstall and my lady. “Aren’t mages supposed to be clever?” I turned back to Master Farmer. “Half the game in the district is cooked right before you and you stick your hand in there! Sweet Goddess tears, why aren’t you cooked?”
“Because I wasn’t so stupid that I didn’t protect myself first?” He asked it instead of telling it. He hadn’t tried to get up, which told me he had enough wit left to stay down until he knew for certain I wasn’t going to shove him again.
“And it did you so well your arm caught fire!” I pointed out. “Now there’s a useful plan!”
