Fires of Aggar Read online

  The two sandwolves reappeared from the shadows as Gwyn stepped up into her saddle. “Give my best to both Kimarie and Bryana.”

  “You know I will.”

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  Chapter Five

  Clear laughter sang through the forest’s coolness, and Gwyn pulled up her mount for a moment. Brit’s gravely voice wove into Sparrow’s mirth, and Gwyn realized the older woman must be spinning a new tale or something. The squeak of leather harness and the wagon’s creaking grew audible. Gwyn’s heels tapped her horse’s flanks and they trotted forward toward the sounds. The pitch of voices quieted to a more serious murmur, and Gwyn decided abruptly on a more parallel route. She clicked her teeth and tongue in a pripper-like noise and the sandwolves ahead looked back at her, then quickly shifted directions to follow her. Gwyn knew her Sisters got precious little time alone on this journey, and she was loathe to invade their privacy yet again.

  The mumble of conversation drifted on, mixing pleasantly with the rustle and chatter of the forest. The rhythmic beat of hooves beneath her was more felt than heard, and Gwyn had to admit that Calypso was much better suited to the woods than her favored mount, Cinder — though her third bay, Nia, was even more placid than Calypso. Still, Gwyn knew Cinder was her favorite because like Gwyn, the horse often enjoyed the challenge of a direct confrontation. Unfortunately, Cinder was a bit over-eager at times in taking the initiative and in their younger days it had led to occasional trouble.

  But then risk wasn’t always a thing to be avoided. She heard laughter again, this time Brit’s. Gwyn felt a wry smile on her own lips. She had wondered why this trip seemed so strange to her, until she realized how much she was feeling like an intruder.

  It certainly wasn’t coming from her companions. Neither Brit nor Sparrow had done anything to make Gwyn less welcomed in their company. They had even offered to let her take the upper berth in the wagon rather than tent out with her packmates. No, it was her own envy that was making her feel awkward.

  Awkwardly lonely and isolated, Gwyn thought with irony. True, Brit had intermittently been part of her life since Gwyn’s birth, and the older woman had been her teacher-spy during Gwyn’s brief stint in the Wars. That pairing had been a good many tenmoons back, however, and since then Gwyn had ridden a great number of lone missions and commanded a fair lot of Dracoon patrols. The problem was, these last seasons she had been alone, and now she found herself envious of Brit and Sparrow’s rapport.

  And it was spring, Gwyn dourly reminded herself. A time for lovers, for adventures; a time for the awareness of what one lacked — such as Selena. No, it wasn’t that simple. Gwyn remembered the woman standing beside the ship rail and watching the sails flutter on their slack lines above her, that silver hair gleaming under the early sun until she turned about at some order from midship and was called off to her navigator duties. For some time now, the memories no longer brought pain with them, yet there was a longing to fill that void. No one could ever be Selena, but that didn’t mean there should never be another love again.

  With a vague start, Gwyn realized what was happening to her — that shell about her heart was dissolving. Perhaps seeing Brit and Sparrow’s obvious devotion had been the final stroke, but it must have been happening slowly for a while. The exchange she’d had with Tawna came to mind, and Gwyn found that her fears of risk had ebbed. That was what Brit and Sparrow had given to her — a tangible reminder that the loving could be so strong and so special — a reminder that the emptiness of being alone could be as much of a physical ache as the emptiness of a loss.

  Ty suddenly gave a loud sniff and swung back to the right. She buried her nose in the leafy mulch and froze. Calypso amiably circled around the sandwolf and kept going.

  “Come on, girl,” Gwyn murmured. She patted the gutted bulk of the braygoat that was lashed to the back of the saddle. “We’ve more than enough meat for today.”

  Ty snuffed, shaking the debris from her muzzle, then promptly began searching the ground for a trail.

  Gwyn frowned as Ril loped back to join Ty’s anxious weaving. Calypso agreeably halted and watched as Gwyn too began to scan the twig and leaf blanket of the woods’ floor. Gwyn nibbled her lip in puzzlement and twisted quick to watch both of the sandwolves bound towards the road. They stopped short as their two trails intersected and some wordless communication passed between their bright eyes, before urgent gazes lifted to Gwyn.

  “People? Find me something I can read, Dumauzen,” Gwyn encouraged softly, already wary of who else might be near to hear.

  The pair backtracked. Gwyn pulled Calypso around, careful to keep the mare away from the area her bondmates were working over. She had no desire to confuse an already difficult trail. “How recent was it made?”

  Ril paused, glancing up expectantly. Gwyn’s chin jutted towards the unseen track. “Is it yesterday’s?”

  Black gums showed with her soundless snarl of negation.

  “Today’s then?” Ril shook her head with a dip, like some silent canine sneeze, and Gwyn felt her stomach tighten apprehensively. “Since this morning’s rain?”

  Again Ril confirmed her suspicion, and Gwyn sent her back to searching with a curt nod. Most likely, Gwyn reasoned, it would be others hunting just as she had been doing. But the nape of her neck prickled, and she had lived through a good many would-be ambushes from thieves by being cautious. It was not a habit that she intended to put aside quite yet.

  Ty rumbled low, bringing Gwyn nearer to see what she’d found. The imprints were fairly deep between the waterlogged little dip and the mud beneath the decaying leaves. The scuffs along the base of the tree weren’t nearly so clear, but they were there. At least two horses had been through, one with a chip on the outside of a back hoof. That meant, perhaps, one with a heavy pack and one with a rider. Or worse, two riders with a middling amount of gear each. She looked up to find Ril patiently waiting to show her something else. She guided Calypso around the trees, still careful not to disturb the tracks. Three, she saw then. This last print was obviously too large to match the mounts that had made the others, but its depth wasn’t indicative of a heavier load for all its heavier size. That strongly suggested three riders and no pack animal among them. It also suggested they were either very lousy hunters or they hadn’t been hunting forest game; something large enough to feed the three of them comfortably — like the braygoat she’d taken — would have made the horse which carried it make much deeper prints than any of these.

  “I don’t like this,” Gwyn muttered. “Now tell me what I already know. They were headed for the road and not away, no doubling back into the woods for some camp or other?”

  Ril and Ty bolted in different directions to check for such meanderings. Gwyn grimly turned Calypso towards the road and the wagon. It suddenly seemed like a better idea not to leave the two of her Sisters so overtly unarmed. In truth they could fend off a small band of three quite competently, but the presence of a Royal Marshal might discourage raiders from rashly discovering that the obvious often hid the unexpected. Besides, even the best of fighters had off-days, and she didn’t want to gamble that Brit or Sparrow might be due for one.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  The square bulk of the tinker-trade wagon was a mere silhouette beyond the light cast by their fire. Ril’s snoozing figure was curled comfortably on the roof of the wagon; her bed was made of grain sacks and fabric bolts that were snugly packed beneath a waterproof tarp. The sandwolf was barely visible amidst the other lumpish shapes, and if anything did manage to get past Ty’s circling sentry, Ril would undoubtedly become an unwanted surprise to any intruder.

  “It doesn’t figure,” Brit mumbled, joining Sparrow and Gwyn at the fire. The canvas and wood of the folding stool creaked as the woman’s heavy frame settled into it. “These three riders have been weaving in and out of the woods, back and forth across the road, for the last two days. They aren’t making any better time than us with the wagon and drays. They’re barely a full-day ahead of u
s now. My guess is, we’ll meet them come Bratler’s Hoe at the very latest.”

  “They’re obviously looking for something… or someone.” Sparrow idly tapped a stone in the fire ring with a stick. Lips pursed as she concentrated on their little puzzle. She shrugged and shifted some in her cross-legged seat on the ground, easing a muscle. “What do you think of these strange hunters, Niachero?”

  “What I think?” Gwyn’s brow lifted, though her eyes and hands remained steadily engaged in her whittling task. The thin pipe was beginning to actually look like a musical instrument, but only barely. “I think that they are indeed hunters. And I think they are searching for something very particular. What that something is, however, I haven’t a hint.”

  Sparrow said nothing for a long moment, then offered, “Could they have something to do with Khirlan’s troubles?”

  “I’d thought of it.” Brit laced her fingers together as she leaned forward, elbows to knees. “We’re certainly close enough to the district divisions for something to crop up.”

  “A ten-day from the boundary?” Gwyn considered that. It left her unconvinced. “South of Bratler’s Hoe, perhaps. It’s a fair ways between Hoe and that tiny settlement at Millers Crossing. Tinker-trades, lone travelers… Fates’ Jest! A middling sized caravan could disappear in that forested stretch and no one would ever be the wiser. Especially if someone at Millers was part and parcel to the schemes. It’s a full ten-day to the next village along the westerly trail, and at least as far to the first marked settlement, if you cross over into Khirlan.”

  Brit nodded vaguely. “Then again, maybe they’re out scouting for brigands themselves.”

  “A locally organized patrol?” Sparrow didn’t like the sound of that. “What’s so precious that they’ve got to send guards way out here?”

  “Maybe…?” Brit frowned, giving the idea time to focus in her mind.

  Gwyn was ahead of her already. “Could it be the Clan’s started to push this far north? If so, then scouts would be out watching for more serious trouble than the usual brigands are likely to give.”

  “Possibly,” Brit’s frown deepened into a scowl. “Or maybe these three are from the Clan themselves?”

  “You’re suggesting that they’re trailing a few days behind that mead and fur shipment up ahead of us?” Gwyn shrugged. “That would mean they’re waiting for the isolated stretch beyond Bratler’s Hoe before attacking.”

  “And that they’ll be joined by others shortly.” Sparrow shut her eyes and shook her head in disgust. “How did dey Sorormin ever manage their home world treaties with Terran-sorts?”

  “I’ll tell you some day,” Brit chuckled, grey eyes dancing. “But I warn you, the story of the Founding is quite a long one.”

  “I’ll wager it was — long and painful, most likely.”

  Brit confirmed it with a nod.

  “There’s something we haven’t considered about these hunters.” Gwyn returned the others’ attention to their original issue, only faintly aware that her Sisters had strayed from the topic. “If these could be Clan raiders, couldn’t they also be Clan spies sent searching for us? Or at least, for me?”

  “You mean, someone at the Dracoon’s court found out she’d spoken to Bryana and sent word to intercept a Marshal?”

  “If the Dracoon has been in contact with M’Sormee again, it would be possible? Wouldn’t it?”

  “Certainly,” both Sparrow and Brit agreed in unison.

  “However,” Brit continued quietly, “it’s unlikely that Bryana would have said anything specifically about you being a Marshal. She knew of your suspicions regarding a traitor in the Court, didn’t she?”

  “Still…,” Gwyn caught Brit’s gaze across the fire.

  “Aye,” the older woman agreed, “we ought to make some discreet inquiries when we overnight in Hoe.”

  “We should take a few precautions in our travel story as well,” Gwyn amended. “At least, if they’re expecting one or two meddlesome officials we shouldn’t encourage them in assuming either you or Sparrow have anything but the most superficial associations with me.”

  “Aye, I’d near forgotten that Bryana expected Jes to come with you. Seems easy enough, though,” Brit glanced to Sparrow for confirmation. “If anybody in Hoe starts asking, we’ll just say we expect to part company with you before Millers Crossing — at the west bend. Then if these trackers are after a Royal Marshal, we’ll see them show up beyond Millers, and fairly quick too, I’d wager. But if they’re mere thieves after the tinker-trade goods, they’ll be waiting forever on the wrong road altogether.”

  “Ought to work,” Sparrow agreed.

  Ought to, Gwyn mused. But that prickly sensation on the back of her neck just wouldn’t go away.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  Bratler’s Hoe was half-a-day ahead and that had them all longing for a welcomed break in the monotony of travel. Not that the place was much to look forward to in and of itself. Bratler’s Hoe was a sleepy little village of moss thatch and varnished wood. It’s sole infamy, as far as the rest of the Gronday Guild district was concerned, was its custom of hoe farming. The technique proffered the use of hoes and rarely plows, hence its name, but it was a necessity this far south in the Ramains’ Great Forest. Here, silverpines had gradually given way to the more ancient honeywoods, and the root of a small honeywood easily out-sized a human limb. This leant very little encouragement to anyone thinking of clearing land for a field. The fact that once the towering gold-and-red barked giants were felled, the top soil washed out within a season or two also bode ill for plow farmers. So the people had adapted. The locals had taken up the hoe farming customs of the Khirlan district — they planted patches of compatible, shade-dwelling crops beneath the forest canopy — their harvests cradled sometimes within the very roots of the honeywoods. After so many generations of experimenting, they had managed to evolve their agriculture into a fine art and their farms into relatively successful ventures.

  Brit pointed out that the honeywoods were probably quite satisfied as well. The crops were generally compatible, because they added the nutrients the honeywoods depleted while thriving on those the honeywoods produced.

  Seeing the girth of those mammoth tree trunks, some of which could have comfortably housed the tinker-trade wagon whole, Gwyn had no trouble believing Brit. The symbiotic relationship between crops and trees had obviously not hindered the ancients’ growth by much.

  “Always fascinates me,” Sparrow murmured, and Gwyn glanced up at her. Sparrow was stretched out on her back atop the wagon’s roof. Arms folded behind her head and one leg dangling across an upraised knee, she looked surprisingly comfortable despite the jostling jolts of the wagon’s pitch. “You’ve got so many different kinds of land in the north.”

  “The Desert Peoples don’t?”

  “Oh to some extent, but nothing like this. We’ve got a few oasis cities on the coasts, a few herding villages in the mountain brush, and one or two wonderful — and religiously pampered — spots where our shipwoods grow. On the whole, we’ve got coastal strips of barely arable land and then the central plains of rolling dunes. We don’t have the plateau countries like the Changlings and the Clan both have. And the only snow ever seen is on the Icy Tips, way off the south reef. But no one lives there. Those islands are even less hospitable than the Maltar Ice Plains!”

  “Excuse me—” Brit called back over a shoulder from the lower height of the driver’s seat. “The Changlings did away with the last of the Maltar’s reigning families. Remember?”

  “Picky-picky,” Sparrow clucked. “Treaty’s not even a season old, and you’re expecting me to remember new names already!”

  “That I do,” Brit returned, serious in tone. Her face, however, which her companions could not see, held a broad grin. “And since we’re being ‘picky,’ let me also remind you that nearly a third of those Ice Plains are actually part of the Changlings’ lands now.”

  “If you care to call frozen water and stone ‘land.�
� That frostbitten, Fate cursed—”

  “Temper, temper,” Brit tisked, twisting about to grin at Sparrow.

  Gwyn laughed from her seat upon Nia.

  “And just what is she chortling about?” Sparrow asked in feigned outrage.

  Her partner shrugged elaborately, and in an overly casual manner turned back to her driving. Then abruptly Brit stiffened. “Gwyn’l — is Ty the one with the tattered ear?”

  “Yes.”

  Gwyn brought Nia forward as Brit nodded down the road. “She’s circling in kind of early, isn’t she?”

  “She certainly is.” Nia jumped into an easy canter, and Gwyn went to meet her packmate.

  Ty cast a quick glance up to Gwyn and the woman reined in to a halt. The sandwolf whined a soft note, ears back and eyes worried, but she trotted past the horse on towards the wagon. Her fretful demeanor urged Gwyn not to venture further down the road yet.

  “We’ve got company coming,” Gwyn announced flatly as Brit came abreast of her. “Someone suspicious enough to worry about.”

  “Our weaving hunters perhaps?” Brit prompted.

  Gwyn shot a look at Ty to find that sneeze-like nod confirming Brit’s guess.

  “So we stop and stand? Or keep moving?” Sparrow asked, more attentive to Gwyn than to the crossbow spring she was setting with hands and knee.

  “Moving,” Brit answered quick. At Gwyn’s nod to continue, she suggested, “At least until we know what they want. But not you. After two days of sun, this road’s hard packed enough to make the prints vague — leastwise too vague to easily mark the time of their making. Take Nia and Ty and disappear for a bit. Leave us to the questions, if there are any. Just stay near enough to help, should we need it.”

  There was sense in that, Gwyn saw. A Royal Marshal could often soothe tempers by her mere presence; she could also escalate tensions unwittingly with the mantle of her authority, if a stranger’s deeds smacked of illegality.

  Sparrow sent her a grin, tucking the crossbow and an unsheathed sword into the lumps around her. Brit gave her a wink and saluted with the black coils of her flint-tipped whip. Gwyn chided herself; these two could take care of themselves. “Come on, Ty… ease back.”