Mastiff (46 page)

Sabine went with me. She told me she was the one who’d dug the neat trench in the screen of brush nearby.

“You heard us, didn’t you?” she whispered as we were doing our belt buckles up.

“Did you have to mention Holborn?” I murmured.

“Was I wrong?” she asked in her turn.

I shook my head. “Kora and Aniki knew, and Ersken. I just found out Holborn was a boy, and I wanted a man.”

“I’m sorry he turned out that way. You need someone who respects you,” Sabine remarked. “Not a gloomy fellow, but one who understands why you care about people who’ve been thrown away.” She smiled at me. “That’s why I’m so honored to be on this Hunt with you. You care.”

I couldn’t bear the respect and the affection I felt for her just then, but I made certain that she heard me as I looked at my boots and said, “It is an honor and a comfort to
me
, Lady Sabine, and to Tunstall. We both rejoiced to have you in the Hunt.”

“No, you were doing so well with plain ‘Sabine,’ don’t stop now,” she said, and chuckled. “I always knew Mattes was safe with you to watch his back, but I confess, it is
so
much better when it’s both of us.” Her voice went darker, making me look up as she said, “And we are hemmed with brambles made of swords, risking death with every step.”

I nodded. There was little more I could say to that.

We left the privy and cleaned up for the day. Sabine coiled her braid and pinned it up for some reason, while I let mine hang as usual. Then we settled to breakfast: fried ham, slices of bread with cheese melted on them, and Farmer’s wake-up tea. Pounce and Achoo feasted on chopped ham. We cleaned our pan and bowls at a nearby pond, then packed up. Today Sabine donned armor, which explained the braiding of her hair. It made her helm fit snugly on her head.

“Why?” Tunstall asked as he helped her to buckle her chest and back armor at her sides. “Why arm up today?”

Sabine looked at him over her shoulder. “Because yesterday it was more important to me that those vermin at Queensgrace thought we weren’t aware of how dangerous they are. We took risks yesterday. Today I want to travel as if there are enemies at our backs.”

Tunstall winced. “Good point,” he said. He and I got what fighting gear we had from our packs.

I donned my cuirass and arm guards, the ones that had many thin blades as ribs and weapons. Next I put on my gorget and gauntlets. I would need to ride since I was armored, but I had the feeling that things would be better this way.

“What gear do you have to wear against weaponry?” Sabine asked Farmer.

He gave her his looby grin. “My charmer’s personality,” he said.

“Cozening wretch,” grumbled Tunstall.

“You’re only sad because I said it first, Mattes,” Farmer replied. Pounce jumped up into the saddle in front of the mage. “There, you see? A cat understands how to be pleasant in the morning. He doesn’t talk.”

Sabine grabbed Tunstall by the sleeve. “Help me ready the horses.” Over her shoulder she called to Farmer, “And stop needling him, you! As far along as we are, you ought to know he’s a grump in the morning!”

“Nobody asks the
wizard
if he’s a grump in the morning and would like lovely ladies to be nice to him,” Farmer commented, scratching Pounce’s chin.

“Nobody dares,” I said. “I’m filling the privy. No, don’t get down. Gods forbid you should disturb that cat.” Grinning at his folly, I went to do the task everyone else had ducked.

The day passed well, save for Farmer’s attempts to reach Lord Gershom and his teacher Cassine. He was vexed he could find no trace of her in a mirror he carried in a pocket sewn on his outer garment. That was the strangest piece of clothing I’d ever seen, a jacket-like outer tunic, sleeveless, but with six pockets down the front, and six more sewn inside the front. If I caught a glimpse of his back in just the right light, as did Sabine and Tunstall, we could see flashes of signs embroidered within the dark green wool of the cloth.

Late in the morning Farmer made us halt where a cow track crossed the road. Some herder had lost his sun hat. Either it had gotten caught on the low branch where it presently hung, or someone had left it where the herder might find it. The hat was the poorest of things, wide brimmed and low crowned, the brim bent so hard on one side the straw was cracked. Farmer dismounted and gathered some reeds. He took down the hat and held it under one arm as he wove the green reeds together, his lips moving. I saw a sparkle here and there, but nothing big like the night before.

When he finished, he had an exact copy of the hat in his hands. It was the copy that he left on the branch, and the original he put on his own head. Tunstall rolled his eyes. “You look the very gods’ fool in that folderol. There will be folk asking if the Players have come to town.”

“My head gets hot in the sun,” Farmer said mildly. I glared at Tunstall. He can always be annoying when it comes to mages, but he seemed at his worst with Farmer.

“Then why not take the hat and leave off magicking another?” Tunstall wanted to know as we set off. Achoo, having stopped well ahead to wait for us, turned and ran on. “Why hold us up?”

“For one, the lad who lost it may not be in the way of getting another. If he were, why keep wearing this battered thing?” Farmer asked sensibly. “For another, a magicked hat is easy to spot if you’re a mage. I can’t tell if you’ve noticed, but at least four times this morning this area has been examined by mages seeking other mages. I’ve hidden everything of me but myself, including the Gift I used to make the copy. Now not only am I keeping the sun off my head, but I’ve tucked enough magic under this hat
not
of my own making to hide me. Until they figure it out, it will be as if I vanished, or I’m napping under that tree back there.”

Since I was ahead of her, I could not see Sabine’s face when she said, “You must work your magic far more often than we realize.” She did sound a little startled.

“A bit here, a bit there,” Farmer replied. “When you’re dealing with a conspiracy of powerful mages, it’s safer to use small magics. They’re looking for a great mage, not a normal one.”

“I can’t decide if you’re a powerful mage or simply a thief,” Sabine told him.

“A thief, naturally,” Farmer replied with a grin. “A thief whose stealing is not considered a crime, hiding out with Dogs.”

We halted sometime after noon for a meal at a wayhouse. Here we came in for a bit of luck. The housekeeper told Sabine of a slaver’s cart that had stayed several hours the day before, needing repair to a wheel. A hostler told Tunstall of a dark-skinned, dark-haired lad of the proper age who was chained inside the cart. The cove showed us the whip lash on his cheek that the mot who led the slave group had given him for prying. I was confident in Achoo’s nose, but it was always good to have confirmation of our quarry from other sources.

We stayed only long enough to eat, feed the animals, and give Sabine’s big lads a bit of a rest before we were on the road again. Achoo stayed on the trail, not even hesitating when we came to the divide of the Great Road North and the Frasrlund Road. She took us northwest then, past the royal rest house at the parting of the ways. Signs pointed the way to Babet, a good-sized town three miles north between the roads. We could have laid up at the rest house or Babet for the night. After a short talk we all agreed we’d as soon take advantage of the waning moon and press on, even if it meant a second night on the ground.

Pounce disappeared. He reappeared while we stopped at twilight for supper and a nap as we waited for moonrise. He spoke to none of us that I could tell, but paced along the road, tail whisking back and forth. Tunstall pointed to him and raised his eyebrows. I could only shrug. Pounce would tell us when he felt like it.

When Tunstall roused us at moonrise, I decided to go afoot for the rest of this day. I could run in pieces of armor, though not nearly as long as I could without it. I used soot from our small fire to dim the shine on my round helm, cuirass, and greaves and wrapped a dark scarf around my gorget. Summer or no, the forest cooled off in a hurry. When all of us were ready, I gave Achoo her signal. Off she went on the right side of the road.

It wasn’t much later before we lost the moonlight. The trees here grew high. I fetched out my stone lamp and Achoo and I went on as the others caught up with us. They didn’t say so, but they plainly didn’t want our group too far apart out here in the dark.

It must have been a couple of hours after midnight when Tunstall called a halt. I didn’t mind in the least. The armor weighed me down like boulders. I was glad to strip it off, though I left my gorget and my arm guards on and set my cuirass within reach. I knew from bitter experience I could not sleep in a cuirass and greaves. As I unrolled my bedding I looked for Pounce. He paced at the edge of the fire Tunstall was building, tail all a-twitch again.

“Beka, I’m digging the privy over behind that pine tree,” Farmer told me, pointing. I managed to look where he did and fix the spot in my memory. I was so tired I felt giddy, drunk with exhaustion.

“Sleep, Cooper,” Tunstall ordered me with a smile. “We’ll set up camp and watches.”

I would have argued about not doing my share a second night in a row, but I was already falling asleep. I didn’t even realize I had not gotten under the blankets. Tunstall always set up camp on our other Hunts, anyway. It was having company along that made me so foolish, when I was in no condition to help.

Achoo’s alarm bark—not her usual quiet whuff, but a piercing roar—woke me. Farmer’s bellow of rage got me to my feet as I bent to grab my long knife in my left hand and my baton in my right. I lunged in and kicked our banked fire into flames.

Warriors on foot attacked us. They were all in dark clothes. They had swords in their fambles and masks on their faces. I screamed as one hacked at Achoo. She danced out of the way and leaped for his throat, snarling. Pounce went for the eyes of the cove beside that one. I glimpsed Tunstall at Sabine’s back, the two of them guarding each other. The lady stood braced, wielding her longsword with both hands, keeping three attackers at bay. Tunstall struck at his Rat, his baton in his left hand and his short sword in his right. He used the baton as a shield.

“Kemari!”
I cried, summoning Achoo to me. I was still half kneeling on the ground. A Rat came at me on my right. I swung my baton hard into his knees, hearing bone shatter as he pitched face-first toward the fire. He threw himself to the side, away from the flames, but didn’t remember I was still there with my dagger. I killed him and hunkered by his corpse, keeping low. Achoo was with me now, hackles up, her lips skinned back from her teeth. Where was Farmer?

A big sound like
crump
pushed at me. Dirt and small stones rained down as a column of white fire blazed close to the nearby stream. There stood Farmer, searching for his next foe or foes. I think I saw the remains of three pairs of boots.
He
did not see two of the enemy crawling toward him over the ground on his off side, one of them shimmering with red fire. I seized a good-sized rock, rose, and threw it hard at the red-fire mage. Seemingly that cove’s magic was not for protection against rocks, for mine struck him square on the skull. That brought Farmer around with a flare of his own power for the other mage’s companion. By the time he’d made sure both were dead, Achoo and I were at his side. Let him take the mages, I thought. We’ll cover him for the rest.

We were fighting off a second mage and two of
his
guards when I heard high whistles in a definite rhythm. The shrill neigh of a furious horse, followed by another horse’s enraged challenge, sounded from the area where we’d tethered our mounts. Drummer and Steady charged into the light of the fire and of Farmer’s white blaze. Drummer reared, lashing at attackers who battled Tunstall. The warhorse knocked one swordsman down with a steel-clad hoof and trampled the other. Steady grabbed one of Sabine’s foes by the collar and dragged him back, then dropped and stamped on him.

Still the attackers came, another mage, then two. One stayed back, away from Farmer, while the other came in close, though not so close that I could stick him. They showered Farmer with a blaze of magic. Achoo seized one of them by the wrist, shaking it ferociously. When the mage looked away from Farmer, trying to throw off Achoo, Pounce leaped onto his shoulder from the dark, clawing at the side of his face. He managed one scream before I knifed him. That put him down. Farmer did for his friend, wrapping a blue fire snake around the mage’s throat until the cove was dead.

The fighting blurs after that. A bolt of greenish fire came dead at Farmer, and he brought his fiery hands up too slow to counter it. I knocked him down, freeing one of the knife ribs from my arm guard. Onto my knees I went. I threw the knife. The blade struck in the green mage’s throat—they are always looking for magic in a fight, not knives. He tried to get off another strike at Farmer and dropped to the ground, green fire still on his hands.

That’s when I heard Achoo scream.

One of them had stuck a knife into her side, in her belly. I dragged her to me and crouched over her, protecting her, as I drew another reed-thin blade from my arm guard. I threw it at the Rat that had hurt her. He put up an arm, where it stuck. I threw another, and another. I stopped at seven. He’d fallen with four of them in his face. The paralyzing drug Kora had given me to put on the knives had taken hold. I didn’t know that Farmer had knelt beside me. He had a hand on Achoo, pressing the wound to keep it from bleeding more.

They had begun to fall back by then. Killing Achoo was their last sarden act. They tried to take their wounded, but Sabine, Tunstall, and the horses would not let them. Eventually there was only the gasping breath of our group and our animals and the crackling of the fire, which had spread from the fire pit into our woodpile.

“Let me look at her,” Farmer told me quietly. “I’ll do what I can.”

I smoothed Achoo’s fur back from her eyes. “Farmer will help you, all right?” I whispered to her. “This is more than I can fix. Don’t bite him.” Shaking, I got my pack and fetched out Kora’s balm and the kit of things to care for Achoo when she was hurt. I gave them to Farmer and went to help the others clean up, ignoring the pains from where I got pounded without knowing it. Achoo yelped once. I looked. Farmer was stitching the wound in her side. I’d done the same and she’d never yelped before, but it had never been so grave before, either. I kept on working, shifting burning wood into the fire pit. Sabine groomed Drummer and Steady, calming them and washing the blood from their hides and hooves. Tunstall collected the dead, dragging them to the western edge of the camp and setting them out in neat lines for examination. I made sure that our regular packs, taken from our supply mounts and set under some brush where they would not be easily seen, were still there. Assured we had them all and that none appeared to have been meddled with, I found Tunstall’s pack with the big medical kit and carried a bundle of linen bandages to Farmer. He thanked me with a nod as he smeared some odd brownish goo on Achoo’s belly. Her breath came shallow, in soft, short gasps.