Page 8 of Mastiff (Beka Cooper 3)

Achoo began to growl, hackles up. “Diamlah,” I whispered as Tunstall drew his baton. We moved forward slowly until we discovered a large, stinking pile, or puddle. “Let’s have some light, Cooper,” said Tunstall. “Any Rat is long gone from here. Any witnesses, too, I’ll wager.”

We both raised our lamps so we could better see the nastiness that was before us. It was a great soup that lay on the grass, trickling slowly into the river. I stared at it, fascinated. I recognized pieces of metal from horses’ tack, metal amulets and jewelry, and swords and daggers, but naught that was leather, cloth, or skin.

“Mistress Fea was melted,” the queen had said.

Tunstall ran back to the trees. He returned to shove a long, leafless branch at me. He carried one of his own. “Keep the evidence out of the river, Cooper!” he ordered.

I set my rock on the ground, as Tunstall did his, and began to drag the solid pieces from the mess with my stick. The swords might be recognized, not to mention the jewelry. I swallowed my gorge, which was trying to come up, and thrust the sludge aside to find anything that might be under it.

Tunstall was cursing under his breath. “Chaos take the mage that did this, Cooper,” he said. He coughed, and went on, “No decent burial for these cracked mumpers.”

I stood away from the mess. It was beginning to eat at my branch. “Tunstall,” I said, holding the length of wood up for him to see.

He looked at his own half-melted stick. “Gods help us if that poor lad’s in this,” he said.

“Take heart,” I told him. “Look at Achoo.” She was going back and forth along the bank a few feet away, sniffing the ground and the air, whining. “Seemingly whoever did this took His Highness on another boat.”

“Check upstream for riders to be sure,” Tunstall ordered. “Give it a mile.”

“Some of us think I can walk to the Realms of the Gods and back,” I grumbled. “What will you be doing?”

Tunstall took another drink from his flask, then emptied it onto the ground and walked over to the river, upstream from the mess. Stooping with a soft grunt, he dunked the flask in the water and rinsed it. “I’m going to wash the evil off of what we’ve retrieved, in case it just takes longer for it to eat through metal.”

I rolled my eyes, impatient with myself. “I never thought of that,” I confessed. “Don’t tell me. This is why you’re senior partner.”

He chuckled softly as he stood, the flask now full of water. “You think of plenty of other things, Cooper. Now, maji!”

I gave him my shoddy imitation of Achoo’s soft bark, watching as he returned to the pile of metal we’d made. Using his half branch, he spread the pieces apart. I saw from his movements that he was in pain, two gulps of mead or no. Usually he rides and leads the horse I ride when I’m not running with Achoo. Tonight we had tried his body too far. That’s why I hadn’t whined when he ordered me to run up the river. When I do complain, he mentions me getting a younger partner, and I don’t like that at all. It’s my fault we’re out running all over the countryside, mine and Achoo’s. Without us he’d be walking through the Lower City, a life that would be easier on his legs.

“Achoo, kemari,” I ordered her. She came to me, her tail between her legs, whining her objections. She wanted to find her quarry, but once more he had vanished over water. “Bau,” I said, offering the prince’s loincloth for her to smell. She looked at me with reproach, as if she said, “I know the smell, I just want to find him!”

“Maji,” I said, pointing upstream.

She whined at me again. She didn’t want to go beside the water, she complained, or so I believed. I knew she also wondered why we didn’t have a way to go on the water.

“Pox and murrain, Achoo, I’m too tired to fuss over it. Maji, right now!” I ordered.

Supposedly we should only use our hound’s name and the words of the exact order, but Achoo and I understood each other far better than the scent-hound handlers’ stiff-necked rules took into consideration. Just then, she knew I was a fingertip away from shouting, something neither of us liked. Sullen, head and tail down, Achoo circled the ugly soup and headed upstream. I scooped up my stone lamp and followed her.

We actually went over a mile to see if there was a ferry or anyone who might have seen a strange boat. We found no witnesses nearby, though I knew they could have been there earlier. I was relieved to see there were no ferries as far as we ran. Achoo and I returned to Tunstall, our eagerness and worry over having found the mess completely worn off. My neck was stiff and sore from staring at the ground, but I knew I would have to do a search of the riverbank downstream as well as up. I was sorry I hadn’t had a drink of that mead before Tunstall dumped it out.

We found him weaving a rough basket out of willow withes. “To carry our gleanings,” he explained. Apparently he’d forgotten he had named Master Farmer unmanly for doing embroidery. Beside Tunstall the metal pile, rinsed clean, gleamed in the light of his stone lamp. When I told him I would take the downriver search as well, he nodded. Achoo drank from the water above the black patch that was the mess while I took a quick rest with Tunstall by the trees.

“You’ll need to do more than check downriver, Cooper,” he told me wearily. “We need a mage to look at the evil, and my lord has to be told sooner before later. My legs are giving me Chaos. I would have sworn the night would be clear, but my bones grieve me like it means to rain.”

“Let me have a look,” I said. He turned over on his belly. We’d done this before, ever since both of his legs were broken in a market brawl. Kora, who knows sommat of healing even though it’s not through her Gift, taught me magicless things to help my partner. Tunstall and I both knew that if he’d gone to the Dogs’ healers and they understood how much his old wounds troubled him, they’d put him to soft work, not the tough Rat-catching he loves.

First I felt his calf and thigh muscles. They were as hard as stone. I leaned into the muscles with my knuckled fists, like Kora had shown me, working from the narrow part up into the big. I put my whole back behind it, twisting my fists into the knots I could feel. When they started to loosen up, I switched to the heels of my palms and long, looser strokes up through the muscles. I knew it had to hurt like sharp razors, but except for a grunt or two, Tunstall hardly let on.

Such pains are the price of years of Dog work. I’m starting to collect a few of my own, in the arm bone that was broke when a horse threw me two years back and again last year, in the fingers I broke while stupidly punching a Rat in the jaw.

“Tell my lord we need more folk to search these woods for aught we’ve missed,” Tunstall said when I was nearly done. “Hunters will be good, surely. He needs the warriors to protect Their Majesties. If those mages did bring the ships up, they’ll have to be searched, too. That’s you and me—none of these nobles or their servants will know what to look for or how to look for it. Mage Farmer, too, mayhap, if he knows how to do a sarden search.”

“Yes, indeed, but not tonight,” I told him, getting to my feet. “And Achoo stays here with you.”

“She needs to sniff the riverbank,” Tunstall said. “We’ll feel like right loobies if it turns out later they swam the river on horseback, or came back on land after they broke this trail we’ve been following.”

“I hate it when you’re right,” I said. “Achoo, tumit.”

Achoo began to smell around us, but her heart was not in it. She had plainly given up on finding the scent in this place. We went to the riverbank and followed it south.

For two miles or so there was naught of use. I would have to ask where boats docked at night, if they docked, and where the trading caravans that followed the road stopped to rest. I suspected no one was allowed to spend the night anywhere near the Summer Palace, but I had to be sure. In the meantime, Achoo and I had ourselves a quiet, boring, disappointing walk. Achoo hates searching places where there’s not so much as a hint of the scent that she’s after. She droops from top to toe. Once I was certain we’d covered the tw

o miles, we swung back toward the main road, bordered here by the wall of the Summer Palace. We hadn’t gone more than a mile before I heard riders approach. Achoo and I went into the trees, not knowing who was out so late.

They came with a jingle of chain mail and torches to light their way. Lord Gershom was in the lead, an armsman of the King’s Own riding on his left, Master Farmer on his right. Five of the King’s Own were behind them. They led two riderless horses.

“My lord!” I shouted, taking the stone lamp from my tunic as Achoo and I walked out of the brush. The men of the King’s Own had bows pointed at me before we got our feet on the road.

“Stand down!” my lord barked, dismounting. The archers lowered their bows. “Cooper, Mithros spear us all, what are you doing out here?”

I stood up straight. “Begging Your Lordship’s pardon, but Tunstall and I went for a walk,” I explained. “You know us. There was naught left for us to do on the beach.”

Lord Gershom walked over to me and offered me his water bottle.

“I thank you, but no,” I said. “My own is half full yet.” And I was very glad I’d filled it at the stream inside the royal walls, not at the river downstream from the melted dead folk. “But we did find some things that my lord will wish to hear of and see.”

My lord looked at me. Something in my face must have told him. “He’s alive?” he whispered. “But the ships …”

“Achoo picked up his scent north along the coast,” I replied, just as quiet. “We lost it again, but not because he was killed. Though we’ve got another of those melted people messes, like the one back at the Summer Palace. Tunstall’s keeping watch over this one. How do you come to be here, my lord?”

Lord Gershom nodded to Master Farmer, who dismounted and led his horse over to us. “Farmer said you three had gone off hunting something. He tracked you with traces from the evidence you and Tunstall had found on the beach.”

“Always glad to be of use,” the mage said. “It was the prints of your and your partner’s hands, Guardswoman Cooper. I picked them up as I examined the things you and Tunstall found. Good thing I got the traces before they went stale.”

“Stale?” I asked. How could a magical trace go stale?

“We all leave oil from our skin when we handle things,” Master Farmer explained. “You see it best on bright metal, glass, and glossy stone. A mage with the training can draw it off when it’s fresh and use it to find the one who left it behind.”

“You are going to teach it to the other Provost’s mages.” Lord Gershom’s words lined up like a question, but it was actually a command.

Master Farmer shrugged. “If they can, or will, learn it from me, I am glad to teach it,” he replied. “Not all of us have the ability.”

“And you’re all contrary as cats,” Lord Gershom retorted. He glanced back at the guards. “Bring a spare horse,” he commanded. A man of the Own trotted over on his horse, towing another that was already saddled. I should not have been surprised that Pounce was riding on its saddle.

“Nice of you to join me,” I told the cat as I accepted the reins from the soldier.

There is only so much squabbling between two arrogant mages that I am ready to watch before the boredom grows intolerable, Pounce replied, jumping to the ground. Besides, the beach is cold.

It was plain everyone heard Pounce. Lord Gershom and Master Farmer were grinning, as were those who did not flinch at the sound of Pounce’s voice. “I am sorry your life is such a trial,” I grumbled to the cat. Then I attempted to mount the horse. My legs, which had done so well over the miles of walking, trotting, and running, chose to cramp for that. To my shame, Lord Gershom boosted me into the saddle.

Achoo whined. She was worn out, too. “If someone can hand her up to me?” I asked. “I’m sorry she’s dirty—”

“I’ll take her, if she doesn’t mind,” Master Farmer said as he mounted his own horse. “Forgive me, Guardswoman, but you look as weary as she does. Carrying her while you ride won’t rest you any.”

Lord Gershom cocked an eyebrow at me. I argued with myself about telling Achoo a near stranger was that close a friend, but the mage was right. I was weary. Lord Gershom picked Achoo up gently. She licked his face. He was the only one there she would have permitted to handle her. Then he offered her to Master Farmer.

“Achoo, santai, kawan,” I told her. As the mage took Achoo in his arms and settled her over his lap, I told myself that I could always rename him as her enemy if I had to.

Lord Gershom brushed off his tunic and accepted the reins of his own mount. When he was on his horse, he even took the reins of mine. He let Pounce jump onto the saddle in front of him, stroking the cat as Pounce settled. “Now tell me what happened,” he ordered me, gesturing for the soldier who had ridden on his left before to fall back. “Softly.” We rode a little way ahead of the men, my lord beckoning Master Farmer to join us. I told both of them all that Achoo, Tunstall, and I had done since reaching the beach below the Summer Palace.

“Alive,” my lord whispered when I was done. “The prince is alive.”

“Mithros grace us,” Master Farmer added.

“As best as Achoo and I can tell he’s alive,” I said. “We only went two miles up and two down the river. We should have scent hounds five miles up and down on both sides of the river, and mayhap a ship to take us up or down, to see if Achoo can get another whiff of him.”

Lord Gershom reached over and patted me on the shoulder. “Cooper, you, Tunstall, and Achoo have done far more than I could have hoped for. We might have lost him entirely, were it not for you three.”

Achoo knew when she was getting compliments. She wagged her tail, beating Master Farmer with it. He grinned and scratched her ears.

“So tell me, did he really make torches from rocks?” Lord Gershom asked me.

I passed my lamp to him. “He lit up an outcropping. Forgive me. He lit up the quartz crystals in the outcropping. And there were a couple of smaller stones fallen from the main rock, the same kind of stone, so we helped ourselves. His charms stick.”

“When it’s a charm I can work,” Master Farmer said. “Don’t confuse me with Orielle and Ironwood.”

“Who taught you this one?” my lord asked him.

“Cassine, naturally,” Master Farmer replied. “See, Cooper, we hadn’t much coin, so I did chores and so on for any mage I found who would teach me something. Then I met Master Cassine, and she took me for her student. She taught me where the spells I knew had things in common or could be put to fresh uses, as well as whatever else I could learn. She’s a great mage.”

Lord Gershom turned the glowing rock over in one gloved hand. “Who keeps to herself for the most part, the Goddess be thanked. I’d be pleased to know when this lamp fades, just for curiosity, Cooper.” He returned the lamp to me.

We all fell silent for a time. I dozed. My lord woke me by asking, “Cooper, how close are we to Tunstall?”

Pounce looked up at him. Close, he said.

“And I can find him, with my lord’s permission,” I replied. I halted my horse and dismounted. I didn’t have to ask Master Farmer for Achoo’s return. As soon as she saw me touch down, she wriggled out of the mage’s hold and leaped to the ground. We trotted ahead of Lord Gershom and his guards, with me holding the stone lamp up. I’d gone about a quarter mile and my arm was sore when I heard a pigeon’s call. I halted and waited for Tunstall to come out of the brush. He stood with Achoo and me, watching as the others rode up to us.

“I said to get some help, but did you have to bring the whole nursery?” he asked me quietly as the jingling men of the King’s Own came close.

“You know how it is with boys,” I replied. Any Rats that might have been nearby were long gone, alerted by the sounds of a good-sized party of folk on horses. “My lord went for a ride, and he just couldn’t say no, not when they begged all pathetic like.”

Lord Gershom drew up and dismounted. “Mattes,” he said, clasping Tunstall on the

shoulder. “Let’s see what you have.”

One of the men from the Own came to take charge of my lord’s horse, Master Farmer’s, and mine. Rather than follow the others, I tucked my lamp in my tunic and ordered Achoo to dukduk. Once I found some thick bushes away from the men, she was quite willing to sit in the cool grass behind them and wait for me.

I was tidying my clothes after relieving myself when I heard several folk walking not too far from my refuge. Cursing silently, I beckoned Achoo to come with me. We hid in another clump of brush a couple of feet away. I meant to work my way around them to rejoin my lord when I heard sommat that kept me still.

“—a disgrace, to see these matters handled by Dirty Gershom and those disgusting commoners of his.” With my stone lamp hidden in my tunic, I couldn’t tell who it was that spoke, though I dearly wished I could. “I pity his lady and his children. They never fail to uphold their name.”

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