Dawn of the Dreamsmith (The Raven's Tale Book 1) (10 page)

Reminded of the scene the captain had recounted, Cole hurried past, climbing up the street towards the brow of the hill. At its crest stood great stone manses belonging to the Westcovian Fisher Houses, each fronted by huge wrought iron gates adorned with their own coat of arms, matching those of the warehouses along the waterfront.

The great manses of the mercantile elite soon gave way to the smaller wooden buildings typical of the rest of the harbour town, and before long he reached the outskirts. Two roads led out of town from the same point, one heading east towards the foothills of the great northern mountain ranges, the other curving away to the flat plains of the south.

Where the roads split was another wooden structure, with a fenced paddock behind. The nearby whinny of a horse told Cole he had found the stables the captain had described.

Inside, he found the owner, Hans. The stable-owner drove a hard bargain, but Cole eventually struck a deal for a chestnut mare that looked to have its best days behind it, but was otherwise healthy. After counting out the gold and silver into the owner’s hand, his coinpurse was considerably lighter, but not entirely empty.

When he emerged from stable, leading the mare, the sun was dropping beneath the horizon to the west. Cole stopped and stood for a moment, gazing out over the rooftops of the harbour town and out towards the sea. In the far distance, the faint outline of the Crag was just visible. It felt strange standing there, looking out at the only place he had ever called home. In his mind, two conflicting emotions fought for dominance. He felt the pull of home, the comfortable and familiar. But the deaths of his friends and Brothers, watching as Merryl’s life ebbed away in his arms, his flight from blank-faced attackers... the memories of it chilled him. He knew in his heart that he would never return.

Without another backward glance, Cole clambered awkwardly into the saddle and gingerly coaxed his mount forward. At first he sat unsteadily. With so much happening in so short a space of time, it only now struck him that he had never before sat atop a horse, much less ridden one. Living in a tiny, hilltop fortress bounded on all sides by the sea, it wasn’t something the Brothers have ever thought to school their young charges in.

Cole smiled wryly at his situation. He could recite the Eleven Truths verbatim, and if pushed could quote passages of Brother Merkel’s treatise on the heathen faiths of the north. But, for some reason, now that he was sitting upon a giant, lumbering creature with a mind entirely its own, these did not seem such useful skills to have.
Oh well,
he thought,
how hard can it be?

Somehow, they made their way along the road east, Cole’s knuckles white as he gripped the reins tightly. If as a rider he was woefully inexperienced, then at least the mare understood what was required of her with little prompting. The sky was now darkening quickly and a ghostly pale moon hung above them. Less then a mile from the town, the road passed between two rows of trees, a sudden sense of foreboding weighed down upon him. Aside from his mount’s hoofbeats, the only sound was the wind whistling through the tree branches, making them clatter above his head like skeletal fingers. Although the night was cool, the captain’s thick woollen cloak kept him warm. Nonetheless, he found himself shivering involuntarily.

At first, Cole kept an anxious watch on the road ahead and behind, convinced that at any moment a mob of cloaked figures on horseback would burst from the treeline. Or, worse, that he would glance back and see a monstrous silhouette relentlessly bearing down on him, eyes burning through its mask in silent fury. At this hour of night, however, the road was utterly deserted; he neither saw any other riders heading to or from Westcove, nor heard any other hooves on the paved stone save those belonging to his mare.

Little by little, he relaxed. None of those that had enquired after him in town had found any reason to believe he had made it to shore alive, and he was now reasonably certain he had not been followed. Emboldened by this and his success at not yet falling once from the saddle and onto his head, he dug his heels into the horse’s flanks. The mare jolted forward in reply, taking off in a sudden burst of pace, and Cole had to fight desperately to keep his seat. He clung on with his knees and clutched the reins even tighter.

As frightening as it was, it was also an exhilarating feeling as they flew through the night. Laughter welled up within him, and the trees echoed with the sound of it.
Less than a day ago I was lying on my bed in the novices’ wing, nursing my bruises,
he thought.
If someone had told me that a few hours later I’d be jumping off a cliff and galloping into the unknown on horseback, I’d have laughed in their face
.

He thought then of all the familiar faces he would never see again and his good humour faded; Brother Merryl, Cas, Eirik. Even Ulf. For years he had clashed with the big lump, sparring both with taunts and on the training field with staves.
I probably made his life a misery
, he thought with regret. It now all seemed so pointless.

His training, too. He was having to learn how to ride a horse as he went without inadvertently killing himself. He could defend himself with a long stick, but if he was called on to use the knife he had been given, there was more chance of his injuring himself than any attacker.

His mind was still racing when, an hour or more later, he saw the silhouette of a large, square building half a mile or so ahead. The yellow light of its windows twinkled like starlight in the distance. The sight of it gladdened Cole’s heart and on a reckless impulse he spurred his mare into a gallop. They raced like the wind, and Cole could hardly draw breath as he clung on to the mare’s neck for grim life.

It felt like both a hundred years and a heartbeat later when they pulled up to the inn, the glow from its windows spilling out into the road. Cole could hear the low hum of voices from within. He jumped down from the saddle, and only realised as he landed that his legs were shaking.

Cole tied the mare’s reins to a nearby rail and approached the inn. As he did so, he glanced up and saw the sign hanging above the door for the first time. The Wolf’s Head, it read. A gory specimen of the establishment’s namesake was strung up beneath the painted name, its jaws hanging wide, eyes glazed and unseeing.

With growing trepidation, Cole pushed open the inn’s door and ventured inside.

CHAPTER 5

T
he small camp reverberated with guttural snores. Unable to sleep, Cole glared at the untidy, vaguely humanoid heap laying across from him. Between them were the glowing embers of the fire they had used to cook a modest supper of roasted hare several hours earlier. The rumbling sounds emanating from the bundle of blankets opposite were almost loud enough to rattle the bowls and spoons that had been licked meticulously clean.

Cole was paranoid that it would attract unwanted attention, either from brigands or the packs of wolves that were said to roam these woods. As he had been throughout their journey so far, however, his guide seemed entirely unconcerned by such a possibility.

“Dinnae fash yeself,” he’d growled at Cole, when he’d interrupted a particularly ribald song involving a Westcove doxy and a lusty but penniless pirate to ask if they shouldn’t proceed more cautiously. “Any as hears us on the road on a night like this will more likely run from us as to’ord us.” He then resumed singing, and Cole learned that a pirate’s cutlass had more than one meaning.

Later, when they’d ventured a short distance from the road to make camp for the rest of the night, Cole had put forth the opinion that they’d be safer travelling in darkness and sleeping during the day.

“Pfft,” his guide had spat dismissively. “We’ll be turning off the road termorrer anyways, and there’s nothin’ in these woods that can scare auld Dirk anyhow.”

With that he’d stamped grumpily into the trees while Cole gathered an armful of fallen branches and got a fire going. He returned with a skinny brown hare he’d caught, its head lolling limply where its neck had been snapped.

“Stick with me, laddie,” his guide rasped a short time later, the clear meat-juices in his ragged beard glistening in the firelight. “Dirk’ll see ye right, dinnae worry about that.”

He’d made further protests as Cole insisted on putting out the fire before they settled down to sleep, but eventually allowed that Cole was free to do “any damn fool thing” he pleased. Within a few minutes his snores had filled the chilly night air.

As Cole lay there, watching his guide’s grimy, moth-eaten blankets rise and fall with his breathing, he wondered, not for the first time, whether he’d made the right choice.

His quest to hire an experienced companion to accompany him on his journey eastwards had not started promisingly, that much was true. The grisly sight of the severed wolf head outside the inn earlier that night had sent a chill up his spine.

After tethering his mare, he’d pushed open the inn’s main door nervously, the hubbub within spilling out as he did so. It took his eyes a few moments to adjust after stepping in from the gloom outside.

Most of the interior was a single large room, crowded with tables. On the far wall to his right a bar had been set up, consisting of a wooden plank laid across the top of two stout barrels. Across the room opposite, a staircase led to an upper gallery, with several doors leading off from it. The entire room was lit by an enormous cartwheel that hung from the ceiling, in which burned an array of thick, dribbling candles. A dense fog hung over the room, and the acrid smell of smoke stung Cole’s nostrils.

Around the tables were sat groups of men, most of them huddled together and speaking in low voices. Several groups had obviously grown merry throughout the evening, as drunken voices were raised in song. Others called for the harried bar wench, who bustled unhappily between the tables bearing a tray of frothing flagons. The chief reason for her mood appeared to be the grasping hands of the patrons, which constantly patted or groped at her rump as she passed. These were deftly slapped aside and their owners fixed with a glacial stare.

As Cole entered, the men seated at the nearest tables swivelled to face him. A dozen pairs of eyes regarded him suspiciously. He walked towards the bar, feeling himself being weighed up. Evidently, he was not seen as a threat, and soon enough the groups of men turned back to each other to resume their murmured conversations. In his care not to trip over an outstretched boot, he accidentally bumped into the serving-girl. Instinctively he threw out his hands to steady himself, and was mortified when they landed upon the nearest source of support. The girl stared wordlessly at the hands now grasping her front. A pair of eyes as cold and blue as a winter sky stared daggers at him. The hand not carrying a tray flashed out, the force behind the slap making his cheeks, already glowing red with embarrassment, sting. The sound as it connected made the crowd around him roar with laughter. Tutting disgustedly, the girl disappeared back among the crowded benches with a toss of long, golden hair.

Abashed and blushing, Cole carefully picked his way to the makeshift bar through the throng. His ears picked up fragments of conversations as he tried to attract the attention of the innkeeper, who was attending to a group of customers at the far end of the plank.

“... roads not safe to travel...”

“... Legion has its hands full, waging war in the south...”

“... militia not up to the job...”

Cole’s ears strained to hear more, without raising the suspicions of the speakers, when a creeping certainty stole over him that he was being watched.

Surreptitiously, he glanced around, and spotted the observer sitting alone at a table in a dingy corner. The man’s face was hidden within a black hood, yet Cole could feel unseen eyes staring at him. A flagon of ale sat untouched before him. Cole felt his skin crawl.

“Ale, vittals, room for the night?”

“Hm?” Cole turned away from the black-clad stranger, and found the anxious and harassed face of the innkeeper standing in front of him. Upon his brow, a sheen of sweat glistened in the bright candlelight.

“I just asked if there was something I could get for you, friend,” said the innkeeper breathlessly. “What a night,” he went on, without waiting for an answer. “Two caravans arrive at the same time, one headed east, the other west and me stuck in between. Not that I’m complaining!” he added hastily, at some imagined observation on Cole’s part. “Them lot from Westcove aren’t bad sorts, I’m a proud Low Weald man myself, but that Whitecliff lot, shifty bunch I say. Present company excepted a’course gents!” he blurted with a sickly grin, as a group of burly men at a nearby bench turned and glared.

“Slit your throat soon as look at you,” he whispered conspiratorially to Cole as the men turned back to their drinks. “Here, you’re not from Whitecliff are you?” he asked, wringing his hands anxiously.

“Westcove, born and raised,” Cole replied with a grin. “From what I’ve seen of them, you can also add touchy and suspicious to your list.”

The innkeeper sagged with relief. “Well met, then,” he said. “So, friend, what can I get for you?”

“A flagon of your finest ale... and information.”

The innkeeper looked baffled. “About what?”

“I seek a guide,” Cole said. He leaned forward onto the bar and placed both elbows into a puddle of warm beer. “Dammit.” He withdrew his sopping arms and brushed foam from his sleeves in what he hoped was a nonchalant manner. “As I was saying, I wish to travel to the east, into the mountains, and was hoping you might know of someone familiar with that country.” He wondered if he should place a coin on the bar in front of the innkeeper.

He was reaching for his coinpurse when the flustered landlord was called away by shouts from a distant table. Deflated, Cole instead took up the frothing flagon that had been placed before him and took a long draught. It was bitter and thick, but still a welcome relief after his ride from the coast.

“I hears ye’re looking for a guide to take ye east,” said a greasy voice at his elbow. Still with foam clinging to his upper lip, Cole turned and was greeted by a pair of tiny, glittering eyes set either side of a round, stubbed nose. Sharp little teeth poked through a matted, greying beard, parted in an ingratiating leer. It was as if someone, for reasons known only to themselves, had placed a leather cap upon a stoat.

It was clear the face’s owner intended the expression it wore to be a friendly one, but there was a hungry look to his eyes that made Cole instantly wary. “I might be,” he ventured guardedly.

“
Might
,” the man repeated, in a mocking tone. “Well, if’n ye ever decides ye
is
, come back and find auld Dirk then and mebbe I’ll still be willin’.”

As he moved to leave, Cole’s hand shot out and fastened around his wrist. “Wait,” he said. The man’s sleeve was as greasy as his voice, and Cole had a sudden urge to wipe his palm on his cloak. “I
am
looking to hire someone to guide me safely to the Dragon’s Back. Can you help?”

“Mebbe I can, and mebbe I can’t,” the man sniffed. “Do ye have coin?”

“Some.”

“Pfeh! How much is some?”

“More than a little and less than a lot. Enough.” In truth, Cole was loath to reveal the contents of his coinpurse aloud in the crowded common room. The black-clad stranger was still looking in his direction, sitting motionless. The sight made him uneasy.

The man beside him muttered something inaudible under his breath. “Fine, fine,” he said grudgingly. “Dirk’ll take ye. But on ye’s own head be it if we get t’where ye’s going and ye dinnae have enough to pay me what I’m owed.”

“You know the way then? To the Dragon’s Back?” Cole tried, and failed, to keep the doubt from his voice.

“Laddie, there isnae road in the whole of The Weald that auld Dirk hasnae walked a hunnerd times or more.” He patted his grubby chest proudly.

“You don’t sound as though you’re from these parts.”

“Nay,” the older man admitted. “I were born in Glen Gaedair, south a’ the mountains, but I’ve travelled these hills and forests now fer thirty year.”

Cole nodded thoughtfully. During his ride to the inn, in his mind’s eye he had imagined a queue of hardened woodsmen lining up eagerly to act as his guide from the moment he made his request. His eyes wandered across the tables of dour men ignoring his presence entirely. It didn’t seem as though he had much choice, and he doubted that the flustered innkeeper would be able to help either, if and when he was ever able to attract his attention again.

Cole reached a decision. “You’re hired,” he said. The man laughed, sending a gust of stale beer into Cole’s face, and clapped him on the back.

They shook hands on the deal, and Cole left a few coppers on the bar in payment for the ale. As they turned to leave, he looked towards the dingy corner table, and saw that it now stood empty. The black-clad stranger was nowhere to be seen. Cole’s uneasiness grew.

They left the inn to fetch their mounts, and Cole felt a tinge of regret at leaving what might be the last outpost of civilisation before the mountains.
Such notions won’t do me any good,
he thought, as he untied his mare from the rail and climbed awkwardly into the saddle. At the sound of hooves he turned, and saw his guide swaying unsteadily towards him upon a moth-eaten grey mule. Cole’s own horse may already have its best days behind it, but looking at his guide’s choice of steed, he wasn’t sure it had ever
had
best days. The unfortunate beast’s ribs protruded from its flanks like toast racks.

“I know she dinnae look like much,” chuckled his guide, as if reading his thoughts. “But once we reach the foothills, auld Betsy will prove her worth, ye wait and see.”

Cole was still sceptical, but kept his doubts to himself. His own knowledge of riding on horseback stretched back little further than three hours and so he reluctantly deferred to the older man’s experience.

The going was slow, slower even that the cautious pace he had set when sitting in the saddle for the first time that evening. Sturdy she might be – and Cole had seen little evidence of that thus far – but not even his guide could describe Betsy the mule as fleet of foot.

Cole tried to keep his patience as they meandered along the eastern road, and more than once had to bite his tongue at their ponderous progress. It seemed a painfully long time until the inn was out of sight behind them, and he began to grow anxious again that a group of the Archon’s riders would gallop out of the darkness at any moment.

If his guide felt any of Cole’s anxiety, he concealed it well. When he wasn’t regaling Cole with one of the many bawdy songs in his apparently bottomless repertoire, he cackled his way through tedious reminiscences of his exploits across the region of northern Callador known as The Weald. And, on the few occasions he wasn’t doing either, he was staggering into the treeline to relieve himself. “Just wait until ye’re as auld as Dirk,” he retorted indignantly when Cole complained about one such stop. “One mug of beer and ye’ll be up and down all night like a hoor’s knickers.”

Cole was extremely doubtful his enthusiastic guide had consumed only the one flagon, unless that one had happened to be the size of a washtub.

After an hour of this, he longed to dig his heels into his mare’s flanks and race along the road as he had before. He’d have bet coin that the old man could keep pace with him once he saw his fee receding into the distance.

He was preparing to do just that, when his guide announced that they were making camp for the night. Cole’s protests about their lack of progress fell on deaf ears.