The Gold Falcon (3 page)

As he watched the shadows darken around them, Neb realized that they were going to die. He had no idea how far the forest stretched. Were they going straight east? Trying to follow the sun among trees might have them wandering around in circles.
You can’t give up,
he told himself. He’d promised his dying mother that he’d keep Clae safe. The one concern he could allow himself now was keeping them both alive. He fell asleep to dream of sitting at his mother’s table and watching her pile bread and beef onto the trencher he shared with Clae.

In the morning, Neb woke with a start. A gaggle of gnomes stood around them as if they were standing guard, while sprites floated overhead. The yellow gnome materialized and stood pointing to its stomach.

“Do you know where there’s food?” Neb whispered.

The gnome nodded and pointed off into the forest.

“Can you show me where it is?”

Again the gnome nodded. When Neb shook him, Clae woke with a howl and a scatter of tears. He slid off Neb’s lap and screwed his fists into his eyes.

“Time to get on the road,” Neb said with as much cheer as he could muster. “I’ve got the feeling we’re going to be lucky today.”

“My feet hurt. I can’t walk anymore.” Clae lowered his hands. “I’ll just die here.”

“You won’t do any such thing. Here, stick out your legs. One at a time! I’ll wrap the swaddling for you.”

With the rags bound tight against his feet, Clae managed to keep walking. As they beat their way through fern and thistle, the Wildfolk led the boys straight into the forest, dodging around the black-barked pines and trampling through green ferns. Neb was beginning to wonder if the gnomes knew where they were going when he realized that up ahead the light was growing brighter. The trees grew farther apart, and the underbrush thinned. A few more yards, and they stepped out into a clearing, where a mass of redberry canes grew in a mound. Clae rushed forward and was already stuffing his mouth when Neb caught up with him. Neb mumbled a prayer of thanks to the gods, then began plucking every berry he could reach.

Red juice like gore stained their hands and faces by the time they forced themselves to stop. Neb was considering finding a stream to wash in when the yellow gnome appeared again. It grabbed his shirt with one little hand and with the other pointed to the far side of the clearing. When Neb took a few steps that way, he realized that he could hear running water.

“There’s a stream or suchlike over yonder,” Neb said to Clae. “We’ll go that way.”

The gnome smiled and nodded its head. Other Wildfolk appeared and surrounded them as they crossed the clearing. They worked their way through forest cover for about a hundred yards before they found the stream, and just beyond that, a marvel: a dirt road, curving through the trees. When Neb sighted along it, it seemed to run roughly east.

“I never knew this road was here,” Clae said.

“No more did I,” Neb said.

“I wonder where it goes to? There’s naught out to the west of here.”

“Doesn’t matter. We can walk faster now, and a road means people must have made it.”

“But what about the raiders?” Clae looked nervously around him. “They’ll follow the road and get us.”

“They won’t,” Neb said firmly. “They’ve got those huge horses, so they can’t ride through the wild woods. They’ll never get as far as this road.”

Neb insisted they wash their hands before they scooped up drinking water in them. When they finished, he pulled up a handful of grass, soaked it, and cleaned the snot and berry juice off Clae’s face.

All that day they tried to ignore their hunger and make speed, but now and again the road dipped into shallow ravines or swung wide around a mound or spur of naked rock—no easy traveling. As far as Neb could tell, however, it continued to run east toward safety. Around noon, the forest thinned out along a stream, where they found a few more berries and a patch of wood sorrel they could graze like deer. Then it was back on the road to stumble along, exhausted. Neb began to lose hope, but the sprites fluttered ahead of them, and the yellow gnome kept beckoning them onward.

Toward sunset, Neb saw thin tendrils of pale blue smoke drifting far ahead. He froze and grabbed Clae’s arm.

“Back into the trees,” he whispered.

Clae took a deep breath and fought back tears. “Do we have to go back to the forest? I’m all scratched up from the thistles and suchlike.”

The yellow gnome hopped up and down, shaking its head.

“We can’t stay on the road,” Neb said.

“Oh, please?”

The gnome nodded a violent yes.

“Very well.” Neb gave in to both of them. “We’ll stick to the road for a bit.”

“My thanks,” Clae said. “I’m so tired.”

The gnome smiled, then turned and danced along the road, leading the way. In about a quarter of a mile, off to the left of the road, the forest gave way to another clearing. In the tall grass two horses grazed at tether, a slender gray like a lady’s palfrey and a stocky dun packhorse. Beyond them the plume of smoke rose up. Neb hesitated, trying to decide whether to run or go forward. The wind shifted, bringing with it the smell of soda bread, baking on a griddle. Clae whimpered.

“All right, we’ll go on,” Neb said. “But carefully now. If I tell you to run, you head for the forest.”

A few yards more brought them close enough to hear a man singing, a pleasant tenor voice that picked up snatches of songs, then idly dropped them again.

“No Horsekin would sing like that,” Neb said.

The yellow gnome grinned and nodded his agreement.

Another turn of the road brought them to a camp and its owner. He was hunkering down beside the fire and baking bread on an iron griddle. On the tall side, but slender as a lad, he had hair so pale that it looked like moonlight and a face so handsome that it was almost girlish. He wore a shirt that once had been splendid, but now the bands of red and purple embroidery were worn and threadbare, and the yellow stain of old linen spread across the shoulders and back. His trousers, blue brigga cut from once-fine wool, were faded, stained, and patched here and there—a rough-looking fellow, but the gnomes rushed into his camp without a trace of fear. He stood up and looked around, saw Neb and Clae, and mugged amazement.

“What’s all this?” he said. “Come over here, you two! You look half starved and scared to death. What’s happened?”

“Raiders,” Neb stammered. “Horsekin burned my uncle’s farm and the village. Me and my brother got away.”

“By the gods! You’re safe now—I swear it. You’ve got naught to fear from me.”

The yellow gnome grinned, leaped into the air, and vanished. As the two boys walked over, the stranger knelt again at the fire, where an iron griddle balanced on rocks. Clae sat down nearby with a grunt of exhaustion, his eyes fixed on the soda bread, but Neb stood for a moment, looking round him. Scattered by the fire were saddlebags and pack panniers stuffed with gear and provisions.

“I’m Neb and this is Clae,” Neb said. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

“Well, you may call me Salamander,” the stranger said. “My real name is so long that no one can ever say it properly. As to what I’m doing, I’m having dinner. Come join me.”

Shamelessly, Neb and Clae wolfed down chunks of warm bread. Salamander rummaged through saddlebags of fine pale leather, found some cheese wrapped in clean cloth, and cut them slices with a dagger. While they ate the cheese, he bustled around, getting out a small sack of flour, a silver spoon, a little wood box of the precious soda, and a waterskin. He knelt down to mix up another batch of bread, kneading it in an iron pot, then slapped it into a thin cake right on the griddle with his oddly long and slender fingers.

“Now, you two had best settle your stomachs before you eat anything more,” he said. “You’ll only get sick if you eat too much after starving.”

“True spoken,” Neb said. “Oh ye gods, my thanks. May the gods give you every happiness in life for this.”

“Nicely spoken, lad.” Salamander looked up, glancing his way.

His eyes were gray, a common color in this part of the country, and a perfectly ordinary shape, but all at once Neb couldn’t look away from them.
I know him,
he thought.
I’ve met him—I couldn’t have met him.
Salamander tilted his head to one side and returned the stare, then sat back on his heels, his smile gone. Neb could have sworn that Salamander recognized him as well. The silence held until Salamander looked away.

“Tell me about the raid,” he said abruptly. “Where are you from?”

“The last farm on the Great West Road,” Neb said, “but we’ve not lived there long. When our mam died, we had to go live with our uncle. Before that we lived in Trev Hael. My da was a scribe, but he died, too. Before Mam, I mean.”

“Last year, was it? I heard that there was some sort of powerful illness in your town. An inflammation of the bowels, is what I heard, with fever.”

“It was, and a terrible bad fever, too. I had a touch of it, but Da died of it, and our little sister did, too. Mam wore herself out, I think, nursing them, and then this spring, when it was so damp and chill—” Neb felt tears welling in his voice.

“You don’t need to say more,” Salamander said. “That’s a sad thing all round. How old are you, lad? Do you know?”

“I do. Da always kept count. I’m sixteen, and my brother is eight.”

“Sixteen, is it? Huh.” Salamander seemed to be counting something out in his mind. “I’m surprised your father didn’t marry you off years ago.”

“It wasn’t for want of trying. He and the town matchmaker just never seemed to find the right lass.”

“Ah, I see.” Salamander pointed and smiled. “Look, your brother’s asleep.”

Clae had curled up right on the ground, and indeed he was asleep, openmouthed and limp.

“Just as well,” Neb said. “He’ll not have to listen to the tale this way.”

Neb told the story of their last day on the farm and their escape as clearly as he could. When he rambled to a stop, Salamander said nothing for a long moment. He looked sad, and so deeply weary that Neb wondered how he could ever have thought him young.

“What made you go look at the waterfall?” Salamander asked.

“Oh, just a whim.”

The yellow gnome materialized, gave Neb a sour look, then climbed into his lap like a cat. Salamander pointed to the gnome with his cooking spoon.

“It’s more likely he warned you,” Salamander said. “He led you here, after all.”

Neb found he couldn’t speak. Someone else with the Sight! He’d always hoped for such. The irony of the bitter circumstances in which he’d had his hope fulfilled struck him hard.

“Did anyone see you up on the cliff?” Salamander went on.

“I think so. Two Horsekin rode our way, but they were too far away for me to see if they were pointing at us or suchlike. We ran into the forest and hid.” Neb paused, remembering. “I thought I heard voices, but the waterfall was so loud, it was hard to tell. There was a scream, too. It almost sounded like someone fell off the cliff.”

The yellow gnome began to clap its hands and dance in a little circle.

“Here!” Salamander said to it. “You and your lads didn’t push that Horsekin down the cliff, did you?”

The gnome stopped dancing, grinned, and nodded. Salamander, however, looked grim.

“Is he dead?” Salamander said.

The gnome nodded yes, then disappeared.

“Ye gods!” Neb could hear how feeble his own voice sounded. “I always thought of them like little pet birds or puppies. Sweet little creatures, that is.”

“Never ever make that mistake again!. They’re not called the
Wild
folk for naught.”

“I won’t, I can promise you that!” Neb paused, struck by his sudden thought. “They saved our lives. If that Horsekin had gotten to the top of the cliff . . .” His voice deserted him.

“He would have found you, truly. They have noses as keen as dogs’.”

“Well, that’s one up for Clae, then. He told me that. But sir, the Wildfolk—what are they?”

“Sir, am I?” Salamander grinned at him. “No need for courtesies, lad. You have the same odd gift that I do, after all. As to what they are, do you know what an elemental spirit is?”

“I don’t. I mean, everyone knows what spirits are, but I’ve not heard the word elemental before.”

“Well, it’s a long thing to explain, but—” Salamander stopped abruptly.

With a whimper Clae woke and sat up, stretching his arms over his head. Conversation about the Wildfolk would have to wait. Salamander flipped the griddle cake over with the handle of the spoon before he spoke again.

“May the Horsekins’ hairy balls freeze off when they sink to the lowest hell,” Salamander said. “But I don’t want to wait that long for justice. Allow me to offer you lads my protection, such as it is. I’ll escort you east, where we shall find both safety and revenge.”

“My thanks! I’m truly grateful.”

Salamander smiled, and at that moment he looked young again, barely a twenty’s worth of years.

“But, sir?” Clae said with a yawn. “Who are you? What are you really?”

“Really?” Salamander raised one pale eyebrow. “Well, lad, when it comes to me, there’s no such thing as really, because I’m a mountebank, a traveling minstrel, a storyteller, who deals in nothing but lies, jests, and the most blatant illusions. I am, in short, a gerthddyn, who wanders around parting honest folk from their coin in return for a few brief hours in the land of never-was, never-will-be. I can also juggle, make scarves appear out of thin air, and once, in my greatest moment, I plucked a sparrow out of the hat of a fat merchant.”

Clae giggled and sat up a bit straighter.

“Later,” Salamander went on, “after I’ve eaten, I shall tell you a story that will drive all thoughts of those cursed raiders out of your head so that you may go to sleep when your most esteemed brother tells you to. I’m very good at driving away evil thoughts.”