The Starfollowers of Coramonde (10 page)

Let child and
sword come south. In time they, too, would fall into his fist. He thought with
special, shuddering savor of how good it would be to have the wizard, the baby,
the sword and MacDonald in hand.

An eternally
lucid part of him told him the Hour of the Dreamdrowse was drawing to a close.
His last indulgence was a pulse of satisfaction. The endless effort would soon
yield a final product.

He rose to
go. There was an incredible amount to do yet, in order to become as a god among
the new Masters of Reality.

Jeopardies of a
Two-Bard Commission

“I struck the board, and cried
“No more; I will abroad!”

George Herbert

“The Collar”

AT first, the going was pleasant.

Springbuck’s
letter of transit, bearing false names and authentic seals, let the party go
without interference, barely noticed. The silver brassard of Angorman’s Order
opened many doors, to busy inns, lonely huts and spartan outposts. Gil got used
to seeing caps doffed to the Saint-Commander and the badge of his Order, but
remained suspicious of everyone. Angorman was sometimes asked for a special
benediction, which he never failed to impart. Andre, too, usually seemed to
know a good stopping place not too far away. Gil never knew whether the evening
would give him a straw mattress in a priory cell, a hard, narrow bench before a
tavern hearth, or a comfortable bed in a local Lord’s keep. Wherever they
stopped, one of the four men would sleep near Woodsinger, or stretch out with
his back to her door. Despite Angorman’s prestige and Andre’s providence, they
were sometimes compelled to bivouac under the sky, with Woodsinger and her
charge inside the one small tent they’d brought.

Andre,
Ferrian and Angorman relieved Woodsinger of her burden from time to time,
quieting the baby if she woke by night but wasn’t hungry.

Gil didn’t.
He shared any other chore or problem, but flatly refused to become involved
with the infant herself. No one pressed him to do differently. To make up for
it, he always bore the carry-rack when Woodsinger rode with the baby held
inside her cloak; it was his tacit apology. The child took the trip well.
Woodsinger was extremely capable, looking after her well-being, keeping her
healthy, clean and fed without commotion. They rode with Angorman at their
head, leading one packhorse’s rein, Red Pilgrim usually propped butt-in-rest
like a lance. Gil followed, with Woodsinger and the baby behind. Ferrian was
next, leading the other pack-horse, guiding his own mount with his knees,
Horse-blooded style. Andre brought up the rear, bow in hand, watchful at their
backs.

Coramonde’s
diversity amazed the American. He met dashing, egotistical bravoes from
Alebowrene, in the Fifty Lakes Territory, and reserved, puritanical men of
Matloo, patrolling their flat, grassy province in huge, armored war-drays.
Passing through the Fens of Hinn, marshes abundant with fish and game, he kept
sharp watch, but saw few of the elusive, cantankerous people who inhabited
them. Then, for eight solid days, they passed under the tangled, gloomy forest
canopy of Teebra, famous for its eagle-eyed archers.

The Tangent
frequently held some traffic: a trapper with furs, a farmer with produce, wary
shepherds with their flocks or a boisterous column of Free Mercenaries off to
their next job. Now and then a wealthy man or Lord would go by in a polished
coach drawn by a matched team of six or eight horses. They encountered bands of
tinkers, bangled and sly, who offered goods of dubious origin and mules and
horses with cleverly doctored markings. Every so often the party was forced to
make way for a military dispatch rider, his straining mount throwing off flecks
of foam. They overtook ponderous convoys of merchants’ wains, leaving them
behind quickly. These were guarded, but Gil still thought they were a fat,
inviting target. Springbuck had been right; joining one would have been a
mistake.

There were
roadside shrines, most of them the Bright Lady’s, and no two images of Her were
quite alike. One statue embodied Her as highborn, hair arranged painstakingly,
with a haughty tilt to her chin and a patronizing smile; the next represented
Her as a big-boned peasant woman, bobbed hair gathered in a kerchief, skirts
tucked up for field labor, barefoot and laughing heartily. But all Her many
personae were quite clearly one, the ever-changing, omnipresent Lady.

The party
stayed, by and large, to the Western Tangent. Its straight, unobstructed course
made the going far easier than any local road could have. Gil had been worried
that the Tangent’s hard, tractive surface would harm the horses’ hooves, but
the others reassured him there was nothing to fear, and were right. Apparently,
that was one of the qualities of the Tangent, a highway predating the Great
Blow, the Unity’s most visible single artifact, certainly its most useful one.

Everywhere
were signs of doubt or discontent. The corrosion of Springbuck’s authority was
more advanced on the fringes of Coramonde. Twice, nearing the Dark Rampart, the
travelers left the Tangent to skirt areas where, they’d been warned, warfare
had erupted. They saw thick, dark smoke smudge the sky, from battle and siege.
Once, a distant fire lit the night, a burning village.

People were
storing food frantically; this promised to be a severe winter. The American
became used to eating as his companions did, with the left hand. The right
stayed free, theirs near hilts and helve, and his close to the grip of the
Mauser, his holster flap left open.

They were
even more cautious traversing the Dark Rampart range. There, the Tangent cut
between sheer mountain walls or spanned stomach-wrenching chasms on
delicate-looking arches. Refugees, fugitives and deserters had fled up here
during the war to hide and live as they must. The party came across graves from
which the bodies had been stolen by the starving. When they camped at night,
they picked as defensible a spot as they could, even if they had to stop early
or go on in dusk. Three times, it took the flash of swords and great-axe to
discourage small bands of shabby, sunken-cheeked men who blocked their way.
They saw no other women or children, and Gil assumed none had survived up here.
Armored, mounted, the party wasn’t pursued or molested.

All
hospitality had ended, and any amenity they hadn’t brought with them. They all
began to reek, their clothes and gambesons stained and itchy.

Their stocks
grew low. Soon, they had only a dwindling supply of dried fruit and rock-hard
travelers’ loaves that reminded Gil of Logan Bread. They cut consumption
drastically, except Woodsinger, who must nurse the baby. All game had
disappeared, prey and predator alike. Angorman and Andre were adept at
gathering edible roots and plants, but even these were scarce. They came on a
hermit’s cabin, high in the chilly peaks. Andre managed to barter, at
scandalous price, a supply of the only meat the old recluse had, dog. It was
salty, chewy and greasy, but far from the worst thing Gil or the others had
ever eaten. By the time the last of it was gone, Gil found that he missed it,
thinking of their shrunken stock of fruit and stony loaves.

They came
down out of the mountains the next day, just as the first snows threatened the
heights. At the merestone that marked the boundary of Coramonde, they came to
the first foreign border.

They were met
with suspicion. The lesser states and kingdoms had turned back virtually
everyone, but the letters of transit and Angorman’s badge got the party past.

Gil saw
Andre’s wisdom in not taking more men. Four, with a woman and child, were
enough to guard and provide. There was an inner resonance to two pairs of armed
men, the implied capacity to defend at all points. Still, they were few enough
so that border guards were inclined to permit them by. A military escort, in
this climate, could have proceeded only by force.

They sold one
packhorse, no longer needing it. The wide, straight Western Tangent took them
quickly south, sometimes passing through an entire lesser kingdom in a day.
They were able to buy food, particularly the proteins Woodsinger needed. The
nurse allowed as how the child was old enough to begin taking small samples of
regular foods, and began feeding her mushed bits of egg, cheese and fruit.

Morale
improved; conversation became more lively. One afternoon Ferrian brought down a
pheasant with his war-quoit, the first fresh game they’d had in weeks. It only
afforded each a small portion, but put them in an exceptional mood.

“How come,”
Gil asked Andre that night, tossing a bone into the fire, “you do that? When
you were talking about your sister just now, you said ‘sorcery.’ But you always
call your stuff ‘wizardry,’ and they always say Bey’s a sorcerer.”

Andre leaned
back against his saddle. “All those terms denote diverse methods of dealing
with the same thing. They are different paths of approach. Never would I make a
living sacrifice.”

“You mean
human beings?”

“I mean any
life.” The wizard stretched his legs out. Woodsinger, halfway through a
feeding, burped the baby. “I am no newcomer to strife, Gil. I have laid more
than one man low in open battle. But I will not use up life as an ingredient in
conjuration.”

“But Gabe’s a
sorceress. She has?”

“Of that you must
ask her. I will only say there are times when the life of an enemy, a
malefactor, can be used to save the life of a friend, by mystic procedure. It
has been known for such an exchange to be made, and for the person who did it
to be acclaimed. Few object to the loss of an evil life if it saves a good one.
Yet that operation is sorcery, and there is no disguising it. Beyond this, you
will have to query Gabrielle.”

Angorman
spoke, firelight shadowing his face under his big slouch hat. “You will hear it
said that Andre deCourteney is too meek for transcendent magics, not
hardhearted enough to cope with them. It is not so; he never swayed from any
trial or test, nor failed any. If you want the long and short of it, Gil
MacDonald, there are boundaries over which a wizard will not step, things he
will not do, to make enchantments work, however puissant he is. But if man or
woman overstep, it is sorcery, however slight the trespass.”

The talk was
getting to Andre. “There is little more to the topic than that.” Throwing
another piece of wood on their fire, he huddled down in his cloak.

The baby was
full. Woodsinger inserted her finger gently at the side of the child’s mouth to
break suction. She laved her nipple with a cloth, closed her voluminous robes
and retired to her cramped tent.

The first
watch was Gil’s. He stared into the fire, the Mauser under his hand. It was all
well and good that Andre was principled, but what if that meant Bey had him
outclassed? It would be best, the American decided, if the wizard finally faced
his age-old enemy with his sister by his side. No one could afford to grant any
advantage to the Hand of Salamá.

They were in
a country of fields and vineyards. Though the nights had been cold the days
were warm here. Jeb Stuart’s breath would shoot jets of steam from his nostrils
when he was being saddled, but later he’d be in danger of overheating, and Gil
would feel sweat trickling under his byrnie.

One afternoon
a wind came up, an angry storm on its heels. Andre had some weather cantations
but didn’t want to use them, to avoid attracting any notice. The land was
fairly flat, with few trees and no apparent shelter. Angorman left the road,
carefully examining the face of a low rock wall, the only prominent feature in
the area. He announced that they could sit out the storm in the lee of the
cliff. It looked just like more ground to Gil, but Andre and Ferrian accepted
the Saint-Commander’s word. They moved rubble and crowded a close little camp
against the rock wall.

The storm
broke. Just as Angorman had promised, they huddled, riders and animals, in a
dry margin six feet wide, while rain soaked the ground just beyond.

The rain
stopped and started all night, refusing to go or break. But it had slackened by
the time they were breaking camp. Andre said they’d reach the border of Glyffa
in two days.

The
companions rode stretching, working their muscles to drive out the chill.
Woodsinger held the baby inside her robes, as she sometimes did to warm her.
Gil took the rack from her and slipped it on his back. They made no effort to
hurry, watching droplets make their way down leaves and grasses. The pitched
Tangent, already drained, was drying slowly.

Gil was
swaying along, fitting himself unconsciously to Jeb Stuart’s gait. He had
nothing in particular in mind, even the distance to Death’s Hold and Bey.

An unexpected
blow to his back sent him against his saddle bow as his head was buffeted on
either side. There was less pain than astonishment; he thought for a moment
that Andre or Ferrian had ridden by to slap him, but he’d heard no hoofbeats.
He pushed himself upright as Jeb gave a disturbed whicker. A screech sounded
overhead and a shadow crossed quickly, alarmingly, in semaphore on the edge of
his vision.

Gil spotted
his attacker looping in the air for another pass. He had difficulty telling
what it was—some large hawk or eagle, or something else. His immediate impulse
was to let it go; it had done him no damage. But a note of unmixed hatred in
its call warned him.

He yanked the
Mauser out, led his target and squeezed off a round. The other horses jumped at
the shot; Jeb took it stolidly.

It was a
miss; the flier had selected that instant to wheel in midair for another run.
Gil cursed.
Sumbitch can turn like he has one wingtip nailed down.

It veered at him.
His aim wavered overhastily. There was a hiss of fletching in heavy air, and an
eerie piping. The bird spun toward the ground, the tension of its flight
changing to helpless fluttering, feathers gyrating free.