Ilbei Spadebreaker and the Harpy's Wild (9 page)

“What is it?” Ilbei asked.

“Sarrowroot extract, but the Healers Guild mages in Hast do something to it as well. It helps calm victims down and keeps them from hurting themselves before their time comes.”

Ilbei looked back to the raggedy woman on the bed and saw that already she had gone to sleep. Just like that, as if someone had blown out the candle of her suffering.

“What’s ‘the craze’?” Ilbei asked. “Obvious symptoms aside.”

“Nobody knows. People started showing signs of it ten months ago or so, but it began getting worse in the last few. By the time we realized it was a real problem, it was already too late. At first, miners started coming down complaining of headaches and nausea, maybe feeling weak. I’m no doctor, so all I could do was give them some powders I had lying around. We sent for a doctor from Hast, but nobody ever came. By the time we sent again, people were starting to die.”

Ilbei turned to Jasper. “Got anythin fer it in yer box of scrolls?”

“Of course I don’t. There’s no such disease as ‘the craze.’”

“I’m thinkin this here woman divin on chickens and screamin her fool head off signifies otherwise.”

“Well, if there’s a real name for it, I’ve never seen ‘craze’ listed as an alternative.”

“How about ya tell us what ya can do rather’n what ya can’t do and ya don’t know. I know ya got some mendin papers in that there satchel of yers. Ya ain’t the first enchanter I ever had along.” Ilbei had had enchanters serving alongside him frequently, but truth be told, Jasper was the first who was singularly an enchanter, a One, with only one school of magic out of the eight. Perhaps it was just chance that had made it so, but Ilbei thought there might be some degree of oddity in that. He figured Jasper must be pretty high level to have been sent out here if that was all the magic that he had. But then again, who knew? The army did what it did, and it was for the likes of Ilbei and Jasper both to do what they were told.

“I do,” Jasper agreed. “And I’ve brought along five of them for this trip. However, I don’t believe there is anything that needs to be knit together here, and a venom spell is the only other type I have. You don’t suppose she’s been bitten by an insect or a snake, do you?” He looked to the young woman, who shook her head. “Well, then all the rest are light healing spells—knit spells, we call them—suitable for broken limbs and cuts, minor internal wounds. I didn’t anticipate we’d be stricken in the course of one day’s travels with instantaneous diseases or onset lunacy.”

“Have ya anythin at camp, then?”

“I have some that might work. I am not promising anything, because I didn’t get to pick most of my spells, much less get to write them all. The quartermaster practically threw my trunk together before we left. I know, because I watched him, and when I tried to protest, he told me to, and I quote, ‘get stuffed.’ Honestly, I think all you military people are desperately in need of a course in common courtesy.” He looked down at the haggard figure sleeping amongst the rags and watched her for a time. At least her breathing came easily now, no more panting like a rabid animal. “I will look when we get back. In truth, I’ve been avoiding taking a total inventory as a form of protest.”

Ilbei looked back to the woman who was hanging the gourd up on a nail pounded into the doorframe. “How long she got, miss?”

“Who knows?” She seemed suddenly tired, as if fatigue had been hiding in the energy that animated the work of treating the woman lying at her feet. Ilbei saw the weariness in the deep lines beneath her eyes, lines too deep for a woman of her apparent age. He didn’t think she could be much past twenty-five, if at all. She pushed a strand of hair back behind her ear as she drew in a long breath and then let it go. “She could linger for another week or two, or she could be dead tomorrow. It’s hard to say. She doesn’t know me anymore, so her memory is gone. That’s usually not a good sign. But she hasn’t got the seizures like some of them do. They don’t all get them, though. Sometimes they just drop dead.”

“We’ll bring back Jasper’s trunk of magic tomorrow to help her out,” Ilbei said. “He’s got some fancy magic scrolls in there; somethin might fix her right up.” Jasper frowned at that, started to protest, but Ilbei squelched it with the single finger he held up the wizard’s way.

The woman nodded and smiled, though it didn’t move her lips very far. “Thank you. We appreciate your help. I’m Magda, by the way, but everyone calls me Mags. That’s Candalin there.” She pointed to the woman at their feet.

Introductions followed round, and then Ilbei looked out the door to where Meggins and Kaige were standing in the street, watching the area around the camp sometimes, other times trying to peer inside the shanty.

“So where is everyone else?” Ilbei asked. “Word at Cedar Wood is that you folks had a bigger camp than them, or used to but fer some incursions by highway robbers not so long ago.”

She smiled, a wry thing accompanied by laughter that sounded as if it were being murdered in her chest. “The robberies didn’t last long. They hit a few of the boys on the trails coming down from the excavation sites, and they ran a few others off. But most of the rest were killed or run off by the disease before the bandits showed up, leaving hardly anyone for them to prey on. I haven’t heard of anyone seeing them in a month. They probably got bored. Pretty thin pickings robbing men so poor they turned to digging for copper in Harpy Creek. This is the leanest side of Three Tents. Always was.”

“So they’re all gone off Harpy Creek here? The miners, I mean?”

“Not all. There’s still a few at it, at least as far as I know. The camp here has been desolate for well over a month, and I may just be an optimist in hoping the bandits are gone. The last of the boys to come by was Gad Pander, although he’s actually from up at Fall Pools.”

“Had he heard anythin of bandits up there?”

“Not that he mentioned. He was heading to Hast with three loaded-down packhorses. Said he had a nice strike and was going to deposit what he’d dug at Gevender’s Bank.”

“He came through alone?”

“He did. But he always does. He runs supplies for the miners up there from time to time. I asked him if he’d inquire about the doctor that was supposed to come by, but I haven’t seen him since. That was two weeks ago.”

“Maybe he stayed in town to enjoy his take awhile?”

“I never took Gad Pander for the festive type, but I suppose he might have. Or the bandits got him.”

“Could he have gone back to Fall Pools by a different route? Comin this way seems a bit roundabout if’n a man’s got money fer a boat.”

“He might have. We didn’t ask him to bring us anything, only to inquire about a healer while he was there. I suppose he had no reason to come back this way. And it was a wet winter, so the rivers are still running high enough for a boat to carry horses and gear.”

Ilbei spent a few moments digesting what she’d said, chewing on a stray length of his mustache that had managed to get into the corner of his mouth. After a time, he changed the subject some. “So, I suppose this here will seem a bit uncomfortable, but would ya mind if’n I have a look around before I head up the creek and see if any of them fellers what might still be up there have seen any bandits recently?”

Her smile was polite, if obvious artifice, and her chin dropped some. “Be my guest. I’ve nothing to keep from the reaching arms of Her Majesty.”

Ilbei winced but didn’t say anything. He understood well enough what sort of folks chose a life of such scarcity, and why.

He turned full circle around the small room they were in, but saw nothing of significance. “Jasper, have a look in them other two shacks, I’ll check the rest across the way.”

“A look for what?”

“Just make sure there ain’t no brigands lurkin under a dust cover or beneath the sheets.”

Jasper’s horror was obvious even before he spoke. “And what am I supposed to do if there are some?”

“Holler quick before they slit ya open and gut ya like a fish. Now get movin.”

Chapter 8

T
he sun was high and bloated above them as they made their way up the creek. Jasper was still in a mood about having been put in “unspeakable peril,” which kept him quiet, sparing Ilbei and the rest further lectures about local fauna, flora and folklore. Traveling along the creek made for easier going. The banks were, for the most part, wide and gently sloping, a few paces on either side carpeted by a low ground cover. The narrow swaths of growth made the creek seem a crooked green line painted upon the browns and yellows of the rest of the countryside. In a few places, brush grew down to the water. In others, long curves of the creek had high walls carved into the foot of a low hill, making cut banks that were impassable without wading across to the other side or going up and around the creek where the water was too deep to cross comfortably, especially given all their gear. But even that was hardly a chore, and travel might have been pleasant were it not for the still-rising temperature.

Eventually, as the heat was approaching unbearable, they came across a hut built atop one of the cut banks. It looked down on a bend of the creek, a wide turn in which they saw a man pounding on a great boulder with a sledgehammer. The hammer was huge, the steel head as long and fat as a loaf of bread. Each blow he smashed down upon the rock sent sparks flying like shooting stars and clanged like a stuffed iron bell. The man saw that he was being observed and stopped his work, setting the end of his hammer down in the gravel of the creek bed, which was only a little more than ankle deep where he stood. He looked up at them, one hand on the haft of his hammer, the other raised up to shield his eyes.

“If you come to rob me,” he said, “then you’ll want to take up hammers and help me at this rock, as whatever’s under it is all I got, be it nothing or a hundred stone-weight of gold.”

“We’re here in Her Majesty’s service, sar,” Ilbei said. “My name is Sergeant Spadebreaker, and we come to dispatch the robbers what been plaguin the minin roads. Have ya seen such in recent times?”

“Since when did Her Majesty care who picked our pockets?” the miner asked. “Surely she doesn’t worry much over losing a few coppers from out here.”

“A few coppers, no,” Ilbei said, growing impatient with the constant disrespect for the monarchy. “But all her subjects have her protection equal-wise, and she don’t abide brigands at all.”

“Well, they haven’t been through here in a month,” the man said, confirming what Mags had told them back at Camp Chaparral. “I’m hoping them harpies got them and ate them all up.”

“Harpies?”

Kaige and Jasper began shifting nervously behind Ilbei, at which Meggins could be heard laughing behind his teeth.

“Yeah, seen three of them circling a week or so ago.” He let the handle of his hammer lean against his thigh and pulled a tattered bit of sackcloth out of his belt, dabbing at his forehead.

“There ain’t much chance of harpies down this low,” Ilbei said. “And they wouldn’t show theirselves to ya if’n they were. They can fly higher’n a man can see and still keep watch down below.”

“Well, if that helps you sleep at night, Sergeant. A man needs his rest.” He turned and went back to work on the stone.

Ilbei looked to Jasper, then back at the man in the water, pounding on the rock. “How did ya know they was harpies and not just buzzards up there? I expect harpy wings at a thousand spans look the same as buzzards at eight hundred, same as gryphons and eagles do.”

The miner stopped and looked up at Ilbei again. “Because I saw them, that’s how. Males, all three of them.” He paused and wiped his brow once more. “Listen, I been out here every day for near two years. I’ve seen more buzzards than I can count. Even ate one once last fall when times was lean. If those three weren’t harpies, then you ain’t standing there.”

Ilbei turned to Jasper. “Is it possible?”

Jasper, looking pale, nodded that it was. “It could explain the disease back there as well.”

“Mags didn’t see any harpies,” Ilbei said. “I think she would have mentioned that.”

“You didn’t ask,” Jasper said. “But the larger point is that she wouldn’t have to see them. They could be fouling the water anywhere upstream.”

Ilbei nodded. That was a grim but well-reasoned possibility. “Where’s this here creek originate?” Ilbei asked.

“Comes out of the rocks some four measures up,” he said. “Hole in the side of the mountain.”

“Ya noticed any difference in the water recently? Clarity or taste?”

“Nothing that doesn’t measure with having men mining upstream. You get used to strange tastes and odors over time. Best to draw your drinking water well after dark or well before sunrise.”

Ilbei asked the man a few more questions, digging for anything unusual he might have seen beyond the harpies he claimed he’d seen, but that was the main of it: a month since the last sign of robbers and three alleged vulture-men. With that, he thanked the miner for his time, and the troop set off up the creek again.

They hadn’t gotten very far when Jasper broke his traveling silence finally, asking, “I know you people amuse yourselves by teasing me, but if a serious answer is even remotely possible, do you believe it likely that harpies might have come down to roost? It’s obviously more than just theoretically possible, as I have pointed out, but you seem very confident, Sergeant. ”