Page 52 of Into the West

“I don’t think they need to worry—”

“They are not worrying,” Rose corrected him gently. “They want to know if we could send out hunting parties to look for them.”

He almost laughed. Except that there really wasn’t anything funny about it. He had hunted wild boar before this, and even with a fully mounted party, massive boarhounds and mastiffs, and people who knew what they were doing, there were terrible injuries and fatalities all the time. We got lucky. More lucky than we deserved. He reached up to lift Rose down off the pillion, and led Arial to where his horses were being put up for the night. “Tell them no,” he said. “Tell them Ponu thinks it was something caught in a Change-Circle, like the bear that the scouts encountered.” Because the very last thing he needed right now was parties of the inexperienced ranging through the scrub bushes and stunted trees, trying to find more giant boars. It would slow the convoy down, if they only managed to kick up normal wild pigs people could get hurt, and—

“Kordas, your former gamekeeper has an idea,” Rose told him, interrupting his worried thoughts.

Grim had already unharnessed and rubbed down the hard-working Tow-Beasts and was waiting—with some impatience—for Kordas to bring him Arial. The grizzled old fellow held out his hand for her reins, and Kordas meekly put them into it. “Go,” he said gruffly. “Ye bain’t a green rider what needs to learn to care for his horse. I et already. Off with ye!”

Grim had, as he was wont to do, managed a very good spot for their horses; there was shelter from the wind and plenty of browse. He must have sent people out into the brush as soon as the convoy slowed to a halt, because there were already piles of cut fodder that the horses were greedily helping themselves to. Grim generally let them eat until they were satisfied, then gave them nosebags with precious grain. He collected the nosebags just before he went to bed. That way he made certain no horse stole another horse’s rations.

“What does the gamekeeper want to do?” he asked, turning and making his way toward the welcome glow of the lights on the prows and sterns of the barges tied up to the bank.

“He wants to know if you want him to organize beaters and drivers to go out and drive game toward the river,” Rose told him.

Oh good gods, no . . . Clearly as the rumor of the giant boar spread, all people could think about was that they were tired of a grain-based diet and that if there was one of these things—

—these giant killing machines—

There must be more.

And as sure as he allowed the gamekeeper, who actually knew what he was doing, to create a driving party, every single person in the convoy who fancied themselves a hunter would take that as a license to do the same.

If I wanted to create a cascade of too many injuries for the Healers to treat, that is how I’d go about it.

“No,” he said firmly. “We’ve already had terror-birds attack us once, and we had to drive off snake-dogs from that village back there. And then there was the bear that the scouts saw. We don’t know what’s out there and we got lucky in killing the boar. We don’t have enough men-at-arms to cover hunting groups. I absolutely forbid it.”

That isn’t going to stop people from doing it anyway, but at least it won’t be half the expedition. Just a few idiots.

“And if anyone does go out there and gets hurt,” he continued, “the Healers are going to be angry enough with the person foolish enough to disobey my direct orders that they are likely to do little more than splint bones and bandage wounds, and tell the offender he can heal up on his own. Tell my gamekeeper that, and while you’re at it, spread it to the other Dolls to pass along.”

Rose uttered a sound that was very like a wry chuckle. “I have,” she said sweetly, and they boarded the family barge.

Isla and the boys were waiting for him; the boys were all perched on his bed, and Isla presided over a covered pot. “No magic boar tonight,” she told him. “But the gamekeeper managed to secure the cheeks for us, and they’ll be in the morning stew.”

“I can wait,” he said, and noted how the three little faces fell. “So what do we have tonight?”

“Something lovely,” she said. “Boys, you can bring your bowls now.”

They jumped off the bed and brought their bowls to the tiny table. Isla opened the pot and a heavenly aroma drifted out that banished all thoughts of pork from his mind. She heaped all five of their bowls with the mashed tuber, studded with lots of grated cheese, bits of bacon, and cooked onion, and put a pat of precious butter into the center of each bowl, scraping the pot so clean he doubted it would need more than to be wiped out.

The boys scampered off to their beds, leaving the two of them “alone” together. He heard Ivy’s voice back there, and the boys had shut up, suggesting she was either telling them a story or drilling them on lessons. They weren’t getting a lot of lessons, but Ivy seemed to have taken it upon herself to act as a temporary teacher.

Is there anything the Dolls aren’t willing to do?

“Ivy told me that you forbade people to go off away from the river to drive game,” she said.

“Broken ankles, falling into holes or stepping on rocks wrong,” he began. “Or broken arms, or broken heads, or gods forbid, broken backs. And of course, not only have we seen mage-made creatures that have not hesitated to attack humans, or at least, attack animals near humans, but we don’t know what else is out there. And—”

She held up her hand. “I agree with you, and I can think of other, equally good reasons. There are other people out here; they’ve not approached us, but Ivar has seen signs of settlements in the distance. They’ll not take kindly to us stripping the land of its beasts and leaving them with nothing to hunt over the winter.”

“We pass, leaving as little mark on the land as we can,” he agreed. “We pass, leaving no enemies behind us.”

But, he thought, as he slowly ate his supper, the time will come when we have to stop. And then—

—we might not have a choice.

Kordas and Rose had ridden all the way to the front of the convoy, to be one of the first to see the strange forest when they crossed the Gate to bypass the falls and rapids. Another couple of consultations via scrying pool—far less public this time than the last—had left him with decidedly mixed feelings.