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Master Farmer looked back and up at Tunstall and my lady. “Some help?” he asked with hope in his face.
My partner shook his head. He’d had such ratings from me before and knew what happened to those who tried to get in the way. Lady Sabine was tucking her handkerchief in her belt. “She says nothing I disagree with, and she says it with so much more eloquence,” my lady murmured. “Your life is not your own to risk on this mission. Surely that was understood?”
“I understood that I wasn’t risking my life,” Master Farmer retorted. He looked back at me. “I’m very fond of my body. I never risk it when I don’t have to. I’m not burned, you know. Just flushed. My nails turned color with the magic’s reaction to the breaking of the spell.” He held his arm—the unburned one—out to me. “A hand up?” he asked.
I scowled at him, then grabbed the arm and yanked. I had to step back to keep him from colliding with me. As it was, he nearabout mashed my nose with his collarbone.
“I will try not to anger you again,” he told me solemnly.
Tunstall gave his cough of a laugh. “You still don’t understand, book lad. She only talks so to those she likes and thinks need correction. You don’t want to see her angry.” When Master Farmer looked at him and raised his eyebrows in question, Tunstall pointed two fingers at his own eyes. “Ghost eyes. That’s how you’ll know she’s angry. Her eyes go pale with all the dead she’s talked to, and she’ll look at you with them. You’ll feel the god’s hand on the nape of your neck, I swear you will.”
“Enough!” I said, feeling cross. The magic burning just a few feet away made me uneasy. “We’ve got scent yet. If Master Farmer can break this thing, I wish he’d get to it. Elsewise me and Pounce and Achoo will go on around it and see if it ends and the prince came out somewhere.”
“Very true,” Master Farmer said. He walked a little closer to that edging of charred animals.
“It would be a pity if we got so caught up with the magic before us that villains caught us from behind. I’ll watch the road and the horses,” Lady Sabine offered. She fixed the horses’ reins into strings and led them back down the trail.
Master Farmer knelt, took off his pack, and set it before him. Opening it, he surveyed the corked bottles and jars inside. He picked up one, shook his head, replaced it, then chose another. Scowling, he put that back and got to his feet with a squat jar in his hand. Achoo and Pounce backed up until they stood with Tunstall, where the short grass gave way to tall weeds. I didn’t move. Master Farmer hadn’t indicated that I should, and I didn’t want to look as if I was afraid.
He opened the jar, stared at the contents, then corked it and set it in his pack. Next he raised an arm, the unscorched one, then shook his head. I heard him mutter, “That won’t work.”
“Do you mean to do something or do you not?” Tunstall called. “I finished my Puppy year and won my leather in the time it’s taking you to—”
Master Farmer put a black-nailed finger to his lips for silence. Then he pulled something from his right boot—a length of white ribbon embroidered in lively colors. Holding it on his unscorched hand, he murmured over it until an end of thread rose from its surface. Grasping it with two black-nailed fingers, Master Farmer drew the thread out of the embroidered design, somehow without ripping any of the other threads loose.
When he had the length of thread he wished, he spoke to it, and the thread broke. Farmer returned the ribbon to his boot and then wrapped his thread around his burned left hand. Pointing to the barrier with that hand, he let fly a stream of brown-colored magic.
An explosion knocked Master Farmer and me into the grass on the slope and deafened me for several moments.
My hearing returned as Pounce washed first one of my ears, then the other. I yelped because his tongue scratched. Don’t be ungrateful, he told me in my mind.
I sat up. My hands were covered in soot. If Master Farmer’s face was any indication, my face was, too. His hair was blown back to stick out at the sides. He turned to yell at Tunstall, “There, now! Have I made you happy?”
Tunstall halted in the middle of one of his hillman good luck gestures. “Why didn’t you do that right off instead of canoodling with jars and bottles?” he demanded.
“Because there’s no craft to simply blowing something apart!” bellowed Master Farmer. “There’s no artistry! Would you like me to spell artistry for you, you lumbering ox? No doubt every mage in the district knows there’s a new idiot practicing between here and the Banas River now!”
From the road we heard Lady Sabine cry, “Are you alive in there?”
Tunstall turned and yelled, “Oh, aye.” To me he said, “Achoo has scent.”
Achoo had crossed the line of dead things and stood two yards inside it, whining and dancing. Tunstall was right. I lunged to my feet.
A black-nailed hand clamped around my arm. “Not alone,” Master Farmer said. “If there was one trap, there may be more.” He struggled to his feet and grabbed his pack.
“Maji tak, Achoo,” I ordered her. I took the jar that Master Farmer had forgotten and handed it to him. Achoo went forward, her nose a foot from the ground, with Master Farmer and me close behind.
With the barrier gone, we could see the trail again as it led toward the woods. Achoo kept to that. She halted inside the younger trees that fought for room near the great oaks of the forest proper. An area about three square yards off the path had been cleared of greenery. The ground had been dug up, then put back.
Achoo sniffed all around the piled earth. I ground my teeth, fearful that the prince was dead and our Hunt was done, until I realized that she was scenting around, not on, what had to be a grave. The prince was not under the ground, then, but he’d been present when the dead were buried.
“She’d dig if he was buried here, wouldn’t she?” Master Farmer asked.
I nodded.
“We still have to make sure.” Tunstall had caught up with us. “Cooper, fetch the digging equipment. It’s on the horse with the black socks.”
“No need,” Master Farmer said. “Don’t make me talk to you about artistry again.” He strode toward the pile of tumbled earth as Pounce yawned.
Tunstall rolled his eyes at me. “He has artistry,” he repeated. “Because that’s what it takes to blow things up. And cook his arm.”
“He’s good at keeping bugs off,” I reminded my partner as we followed our mage to the grave. “And I’ve gotten that fond of his tea.”
“You interfere in my dreadful concentration,” Master Farmer said without turning around. He made his voice boom like the Players did in their performances. “You lack the proper respect for the wonders to unfold!”
I sighed. I am beginning to think that Lord Gershom has saddled us with the silliest mage in the Eastern Lands. Not the stupidest, not that by far. Only the silliest. I looked at him, his body still now as he eyed the turned earth. Funny. I hadn’t noticed before that he’s got such broad shoulders.
Master Farmer reached out with his unburned left hand, holding it palm up. “I learned this from Cassine,” he said absently. “It’s a housecleaning spell that I made bigger.” Instantly the tumbled earth of the grave began to quiver, then to shake. The protection sign disappeared into the moving grains of soil. Master Farmer beckoned with his outstretched hand and the earth rose, clods and single grains falling off to the sides.
Higher came a block of dirt, five feet deep, five feet wide, seven feet long, as close as I could measure, the earth falling off onto the sides of the grave. Achoo ran between my legs and quivered there. Tunstall gripped his belt with white-knuckled hands. As the dirt fell away two pairs of bare feet were visible to us.
Master Farmer raised his free hand and pulled it down from the one he’d already extended. The rest of the dirt separated from the dead and settled on one side of the hole. With the other hand, he beckoned the dead forward. When they were but a foot away, he gently let them settle on the grass.
He waved his hand slowly, from s
ide to side, and the wind blew the remaining earth from the naked bodies. There were three, a mot my age with a swaddled babe laid on her breast, and at her side a brown-haired girl child near the age of our prince. The worms and beetles had been at them already. They were black and swollen with rot, their scant ragged clothes cutting into their flesh.
Glittering blue fire dripped from Master Farmer’s hand. When it touched the dead, there was a flash so bright my eyesight was filled with spots. Achoo whimpered, and I heard Tunstall cursing in Hurdik.
Master Farmer only said, “A rather good mage has been at work here. Interesting.”
“Interesting?” Tunstall asked. He sounded vexed.
“If it had been dangerous, I would have spoken out,” Master Farmer told him. “You get too excited over big flashes, Tunstall. Mages rely on that to make you think they have more power than you.” He set his pack on the ground, took the corked jar I had returned to him, and opened the jar with a whisper. He tapped a quantity of powder into his left hand. I knelt beside him and picked up the wide cork, gesturing for him to give me the jar. For a moment he blinked, as if he’d forgotten I was there, or as if he’d never considered that a second pair of hands might be useful. Then he passed me the jar.
As I corked it, Master Farmer walked alongside the dead, letting the wind blow the powder from his hand over the three abandoned corpses. It settled, glittering like tiny stars.
He said nothing, only looked at them, his eyes thoughtful and kind under their heavy lids. Plainly he’d forgotten Pounce, Tunstall, Achoo, and me. All his attention was on the dead. He still kept his hand outstretched, though motionless, as if he used it to welcome something that was to come forth. The sparkles on the swollen, rotting corpses twinkled and seemed to move, until they rose as a blanket. In midair they halted and faded, leaving in their wake the seeming of the dead as they must have looked the moment they were put in the ground.
Master Farmer lowered his hand. “I’ll say they’ve been dead four days. That’s given the stage of rot and bloat, and the work of the beetles and worms, all compared to their living bodies,” he said quietly. “The babe must have been scarcely three days old when she died. See the cleft in the upper lip goes all the way up into the nose? She may not have been able to nurse. A decent healer could have fixed it.”
“Slavers don’t heal newborns,” Tunstall said, his voice a quiet rumble from his chest. “Only if they’re old enough to work.”
“I know,” Master Farmer replied. “I know. The woman is the mother. The spell does not tell me if she had childbed fever. If the infant is only three days old, it could be the mother was ill with it, but the fever did not kill her.”
There was a dark slash under the mot’s left ear. Master Farmer was placed wrong to see it. I pointed it out to him. There was no sign of a knife. If she had done it to herself, they’d have buried it with her, a suicide’s knife being unlucky. Of course, how would a slave have gotten her ticklers on a blade?
Master Farmer turned his attention to the third corpse. The brown-haired little girl was unmarked save for a dark stripe all the way around her throat. “Strangled,” I said. “Not a rope, or it’d be more scratched up. Whip mark, it looks like.”
“Can we get a better look at the backs?” Tunstall asked. “If they’re branded, it will be on the blade of the shoulder.”
Master Farmer rubbed his lower lip with his thumbs. “I thought only the owners brand, not the slavers.”
“The sellers brand if it’s a special item they might be carrying around for a time,” Tunstall explained, his voice flat. “They use special ointment in the healing and when the item’s bought, the slaver just says the word and his brand’s gone.”
Scowling, Master Farmer reached over the dead. Sparkles fell from his fingers. In a slow and creepy fashion, both the mot and the gixie turned to the right, like they was turning over in bed. The babe stayed on the mot’s chest. My tripes surged. I clapped a hand over my mouth to keep my breakfast from coming up. I don’t know why. Surely I’ve seen worse in the last four years. Yet there was sommat dreadful in those open-eyed bodies moving, sommat I wished I could un-see.
Tunstall stepped forward, his baton in his hand, and pointed to the back of the mot’s shoulder. It showed no mark. The gixie, though, was fresh branded when she went to the Black God. The flesh around it was red and puffy, new-burnt.
I moved closer. That brand, I’d seen it before.
Master Farmer and Tunstall stepped closer, too. Tunstall brought a piece of parchment from his belt purse. He’d put my drawing of the brass token there. We all compared it to the tattoo. They were the same.
“We need to get word to Gershom that we’re on the right track,” Master Farmer said quietly. “Perhaps he can get other Hunters into Frasrlund. They can come down the Great Road North. We might catch the enemy between us.”
“How do you intend to get word to him?” Tunstall asked. “Split one of us off? I think any of us who rides away will be picked up sooner than I can say Ma’s name. A couple of coins will have any farmer or ferryman talking of Dogs Hunting in company with a lady knight.”
Master Farmer shook his head and went to his pack. Crouching, he opened it out, removing box after box. At last he produced a small dish and a little box of ebony wood, closed and locked with silver. “Water, one of you?” he asked, sitting on the grass. He sat cross-legged and accepted Tunstall’s water flask. He poured a little bit of water into the dish and returned the flask, then set the dish aside. “I may be a little odd after this,” he warned us.
“What’s ‘a little odd’?” I asked.
“Cassine made this powder to extend my hearing and speaking range,” he explained. “Also to ensure that only the person I intend to hear me does so, while anyone who tries to overhear me or find me does not.” He wet a finger, opened the box, and touched his fingertip to the odd, purplish dust inside. Instantly his finger began to glow. Master Farmer closed the box and touched his now-glowing finger to the end of his tongue and both eyelids. They too glowed. He shut his mouth and eyes, grimacing as he did. Then he held out the box, obviously wanting one of us to take it. Tunstall shook his head and made the Sign against evil on his chest. I accepted it. Once the box was in my hand, I closed the tiny locks and set it in Master Farmer’s pack. I hoped that’s what Master Farmer wanted me to do, because I make it a rule never to eat things that glow. After I returned the box to his pack, I loaded the rest of his things into it.
When I turned back to the men, Tunstall had moved further up on the trail. Achoo stood behind him. Next to me Master Farmer held the small dish in both hands. He looked into it with his glowing eyes. “Come on,” he whispered. “Ironwood, Orielle, one of you, hear me. One of you must be able to hear. You’re both supposed to have—”
“Who are you?” Tunstall and I jumped. The voice came from the dead child, but it was that of a grown mot. “Mage! Identify yourself! Why have you pried at my work?”
Master Farmer gave no reply. I stayed where I was, trying not to shiver my way out of my boots.
“Answer me, fool!” ordered the female mage. “Did you think we would not lay a trap for prying idiots? Speak, or I will stop your heart dead!”
Master Farmer looked at the child and opened his mouth. Blue-green fire shot out of it to collide with a gout of pale yellow fire that roared up from the bodies. “Did you think I would not be ready? Tell me your name!” he cried, though his mouth didn’t move. The unseen mage howled in rage. The two magics clashed and vanished. The dead were burned to the bone.
Master Farmer’s eyes still glowed. He emptied the water dish with a trembling hand and set it aside. He straightened one leg at a time as if he’d forgotten how they worked. Then, as slowly as my granny Fern, he began to get to his feet. I watched him fumble, trying to brace his hands on the earth or to lever himself upright with one leg. I glanced at Tunstall. He had fetched a good luck charm from his pocket and was praying over it as he petted the shaking Achoo wi
th his free hand.
He’ll be all right, Pounce said. Until that moment I’d forgotten he was with us. He’s not at his best with big magics, remember. This was quite big.
“Why didn’t you do something?” I asked.
When Pounce glared at me, I said it along with him, “Because you’re not allowed.”
Why ask me foolish questions, then, if you know what I will say? Pounce wanted to know.
“Because I want to be surprised,” I snapped. Then I looked at Master Farmer, who still sat on the grass. I scolded myself, saying that a servant of the god of death ought to be made of stronger stuff than I was showing, until I finally found the sack to go to the mage. Carefully, not knowing if I was courting a lightning bolt or some such nasty thing, I got both hands under one of his arms and braced one of his outstretched legs with my feet. He looked at me blindly, startled, his eyes alight. He said something, but it was in no language I knew.
“It’s all right,” I said, talking to him as I had to my brothers and sisters when they were sick. “We’ll get you on your feet if you can manage it. My, that trull was a nasty bit of slum stew, wasn’t she? Arm around my shoulders—good lad!”
