The Marcher Lord (Over Guard) (32 page)

His target boulder quickly met him, gravity pulling him down harder than his forward momentum. The boulder’s texture was mostly smooth, but one protruding edge struck his elbow contrary to his expectations, sending a jolt up his arm as the rest of his body dropped onto the rock. The first
moment or so didn’t really hurt as he pushed that out of mind, scrambling with his legs and hands as there was abruptly no significant traction.

Evidently his left half was able to find more friction than his other, as his right side slipped the most, tilting his perspective. Experiencing small waves of panic, especially at the sight of
the stone moving past him in little jerks, he tried to press his whole body against it, which helped. A little. Looking up toward his right, he flailed his fingers across the most promising ridge he could see. At about the same time, he decided upon the best place that his left foot had found and kept it at that.

He didn’t come up with much for his right hand, just a thin lip barely big enough for
a couple digits of a few fingers, but he decided not to complain. Doing his best to maintain that leverage, he readjusted his left side a little more and looked up in that direction, recalculating the path he had previously planned. A second later he pushed off with what he had, casting his left hand in the direction at the most promising area.

Almost immediately he found what he sought, exceeding expectations and turning what had been fairly risky into something
passive again. Succeeding from that grip, he was able to pull himself to another for his right hand. The boulder’s slant quickly became gentler, to where he was able to transition from climbing to crawling.

He was able to rise upright for the last few steps to the rock’s summit, where he stopped to rub off his hands and survey his progress. First
he examined what he had just beaten, the boulder’s side and the gap he had avoided, then the line of winding rocks he’d long since left behind. Satisfied with that, he turned in the early afternoon sun and began to plot out the next bits of his course.

Or he tried to. His vantage of the landscape was particularly distracting, and he found it difficult to keep his mind off the rest of their party for very long. He was greatly looking forward to
his next hunt, but other than that, he realized he was greatly dreading the human parts of the rest of the excursion.

That girl’s words kept coming to his ears, much as they did whenever he was actually within earshot of her.

“My tutors are all from Wilome, from the best universities.” Madeline Wester had said. More than once, and in various forms. “Mostly because I passed up my first mathematics tutor, he was so boring. My parents had to find a professor to keep up with me, and it still took two tries.”

“You have not seemed to have the same problem with your poetry tutor,” Elizabeth Wester had interjected.

Ian sighed as he tried to forget the long tirade that had triggered in her high voice. He was glad that Elizabeth seemed so practiced at countering her younger sister, but that had been the last word he’d heard from her. As Madeline had continued on and on, Elizabeth had seemed to withdraw into a faintly stony kind of silence.

Stepping down the length of his boulder,
Ian tried to push all of that out of mind and took to moving across, over, and down the rocks without really looking ahead. This ran him into problems and dead ends more than once, but it made his way more challenging.

“I’ve heard that fishing on Orinoco is just like any other planet,”
Madeline had been saying, “and I’m the best at fishing. Last summer I caught a tan Jim that was over two feet long. Father says that we’ll be able to fish here.”

“We will see,” her father had responded
, somewhat.

“But father, why can’t we go this afternoon?”

“Because this afternoon is otherwise occupied.”

“Well,” Madeline said, not overly det
erred, “whenever we go, I bet I’ll do the best.”

That had brought on some repressed sentiments of disagreeableness from the company, mostly masked by Brodie’s
good-natured protests. Ian had kept quiet, watching Elizabeth’s eyes, which were mostly always elsewhere. Watching for Corporal Wesshire he suspected, who seemed to volunteer for keeping watch through most of their meals.

Ian’s
pace over the walkway of boulders slowed somewhat, his string of easy passings coming to an end. Looking back for a moment, he realized that he liked this place a lot, how complicated it was. A good challenge.

He was more or less planning on pushing onwar
ds, but a small twinge made him decide that he probably shouldn’t be straying so far from camp. His yeoman was already well outside of communications with any of the others. So, looping back around, he took his time, trying to pick out a different route back. And it mostly worked—mostly. He didn’t get a chance to go all that far, however, when he caught sight of some flashes of color up ahead.

Hopping back to the
ground below, he carefully advanced, checking his yeoman and soon confirming that they were from his company.

Ian
gave a confirming click when they hailed him a minute later, mostly within sight alongside the river’s edge, and he gave an obligatory wave back as well.

There were
nine of them, headed by both of the margrave’s daughters and accompanied by Kieran and Brodie, followed by Corporal Hanley and one of the Bevish servants that had been with Madeline Wester. Will was also trailing a little behind, talking to Lieutenant Taylor, with Rory bringing up the rear. The biggest surprise was Corporal Wesshire, who walked beside, but somehow apart from the middle of the group. Most of them weren’t carrying anything special, though a few had poles, and from what he could see, it looked as though the servant and Will were carrying packs with other such nautically-minded equipment.

“Fishing, then?”
Ian asked when he was near enough.

“That’s the aim,” Brodie answered, his tone high and cheerful.

“We’re going to the lake that’s down this way,” Madeline said, her eyes and face easily more enthused than even Brodie’s. “You should come, too. We’re going to catch enough to feed us all for supper.”

“This is going to be a regular feat though,” Brodie said, as the group continued past Ian, “no need for any special miracles with such seasoned fishers as
ourselves.”

Ian frowned, looking down, his mind brushing over thoughts of miracles, Christianity—

“Are you coming then, Private Kanters?” Elizabeth Wester asked, over her shoulder.

“The more the merrier,”
Ian called back, glancing at Corporal Wesshire as he passed, but the other man wasn’t looking at him. So he settled with falling in alongside Will, who was going on to Lieutenant Taylor about the various kinds of water life in this vicinity, even as Ian found himself more and more lulled into a passive pace, his mind empty save for the ringing of the youngest Wester girl going on and on about everything.

*              *              *              *

It was over another mile’s walk to the lake, Ian finding himself pleasantly surprised. He hadn’t really expected there to be a real lake along the Mombosso, and all things considered, it seemed pretty obvious that it was some kind of accident. The terrain dipped for a short stretch, gaps in the river’s cradle allowing it to slow and pool into the surrounding area. Much less stone was around it, and it was ringed in some areas by taller trees. Ian learned from Will that those species of trees were much more representative of the northern regions than the Hovoloko Plains they were on the verge of leaving.

A
gentle breeze prevailed, and even when not immediately next to any of the trees, it gave a palpable difference in temperature around the lake. All in all, it was a very peaceful area, a well-welcomed break from the steady and inescapable heat that occupied the plains. Ian hadn’t been aware of just how much he’d grown accustomed to it, but it was refreshing in a fundamental, inner sort of sense there, where the waters lazily moved toward the other side, the trees moving over them in the breezes.

“Quite
a pretty sort of nice,” he commented, as they fanned out along the lake’s edge.

“—and the man there was so rude,” Madeline Wester was saying to
her sister, “and he was so big, too—”

“Well,” Elizabeth said, “we seem to have arrived.”

“Yes,” Madeline said, turning to their servant, “let’s get all the stuff out, Cadbury.”

“Of course, milady,” the servant said, without quite the same degree of enthusiasm as he eased his pack to the ground.

“Wait—this one’s mine,” Madeline said to her sister, quickly grabbing the pole that Elizabeth had been lifting to scrutinize.

“Does it really matter, Maddy?” Elizabeth asked.

“Of course it matters,” Madeline said with some mild incredulity. “If you want to catch anything good—though these were the best we could find in Carciti. We have much better equipment back home.”

“May we use the rest then, milady?” Kieran asked, teetering near the array of wooden fishing poles and other miscellaneous materials that Will was adding to the
pile.

“Yes,” Madeline said, grinning as she put her pole over her shoulder, “ju
st all of you wait and see. I bet I get the first one.”

There was a lingering pause among their ranks as they watched her turn and quick
ly start off along the water. Elizabeth sighed and started off in the opposite direction, her reader tucked under one arm and her umbrella dangling along after her.

It took a moment for Ian to realize that
Corporal Wesshire had long since departed that way as well, and without any means of fishing.

Frowning,
Ian looked over at the others, “Well, should we let her have the first catch?”

An
empathic outcry rose against that notion, quickly followed by a general rushing to arms.

“Can you fish like you can shoot?” Ian asked Rory.

“I can fish,” Rory said, “though I guess I’m not very fancy at it. Still, can’t let any girl have all the fuss on us.”

“That’s the spirit,” Ian said, taking up one of the few remaining poles. Sighing down along its rather rickety length, he wished he could claim
to have better credentials as well.

“Come on,
chaps,” Brodie called as he and Kieran ran off after the younger Wester daughter, “let’s settle our company’s pride all at once!”

“Slow down, old boy,” Lieutenant Taylor said as he walked after them, “the fish aren’t going anywhere.”

“Well, good luck,” Ian murmured as he peered among the various tackle laid inside all the idiosyncratic compartments and containers.

Rory was already walking off, frowning as he worked at the bait on his pole.

Hesitating, Ian narrowed his selection down to the few most likely candidates—or at least what he hoped would seem so to a fish. He looked up at the Bevish servant.

“Don’t go asking me,” the man said, dismissively as he
lay back with the pipe he’d just lit. “I just carry it, I don’t get involved.”

“It’s p
robably all right, in either case,” Ian said, by now only the Bevish servant and Will remaining. “It shouldn’t be too difficult to be beat a noble girl at a gentleman’s sport.”

“Heh,” was all that the reclining servant said, and he said no more.

Looking up inquisitively, it didn’t appear that Will knew which way to take that either. Shrugging, Ian settled on a small, temperature-controlled container of worms that he didn’t recognize and the pole he already had in hand.

“Care to join me?” Ian asked Will. “Does your expertise extend to fishing?”

“A little,” Will said as they started off, “but I’m afraid I cannot join any of you. It is not a terribly undignified thing for a chero to join in, but—”

“
I understand,” Ian waved it off. “Let’s go this way.”

Will assented, and they went off after where most of the others had gone. Ian nearly reasoned
to himself that it would be more strategic to go where there was less competition for the fish, but it didn’t seem like very much fun to go off from everyone else. He was also not excessively keen on going near Elizabeth or Corporal Wesshire.

He and Will talked on and off as they went, not following
fast after the others, who seemed to be busy making more noise than professional effort. Their talk drifted with and from fishing as Ian knelt in the gravel and hooked his first worm. With some amount of caution, he readied his pole and made a tentative cast.

“Now what?”
Ian asked.

“Haven’t you done this before?”

“A little,” Ian said. “We used to fish down at the harbors sometimes, when we weren’t working. But we didn’t really have good conditions, so we rarely ever caught anything. We usually would end up sword fighting more with the poles than trying to fish.”

“You don’t have anything to keep the bait off the floor of the lake,” Will
said, trying to make gestures with his hands to demonstrate.