The Silver Mage (47 page)

“That farm over there,” Faharn said. “I wonder what the farm folk think of all this.”

“They’re doubtless terrified,” Laz said, “and probably with good reason. Armies have been known to strip farms of every scrap of food.”

That night, after the army had camped and set its sentry ring, Brel Avro strolled over to Laz’s campfire in the servants’ area. Laz, who’d been sitting on the ground with Faharn, rose to greet him.

“Just a question or two, scribe,” Brel said, grinning. “And I’ll promise you that I won’t be telling your answers to anyone else, unless you admit to being a Horsekin spy or suchlike.”

“Have no fear of that,” Laz said. “They and their wretched false goddess have taken everything I cherished away from me.”

“Is that why you turned outlaw in the forest?”

Laz considered lying. The admiration visible in Brel’s grin stopped him.

“It was,” Laz said instead. “I take it you saw through my ruse about my wicked, wicked brother.”

“Of course.” The grin grew broader. “But the prince swallowed it whole, and that’s what mattered.” Brel let the grin fade. “All I care about is you’re a cursed good scribe, just as Exalted Mother Grallezar said you were.”

“She doesn’t lie,” Laz said. “It’s frightening, in fact, how truthful she can be.”

“So I saw last summer. Now, I admire a man who can think on his feet, like, but be careful around the prince. He sees things a fair bit differently.”

“Apparently so. Are we really going to march out into unknown country looking for the Boars?”

“My men and I won’t, no matter what his high and mighty-ness decides, and you’re welcome to come with us when we leave.”

“My thanks. If it comes to that, my apprentice and I most assuredly will.”

“Good. We need to learn somewhat about the Horsekin tongue, and if naught else, you can teach us. As for Voran, I have hopes that Garin can talk the prince out of marching too far for the sake of his men. It’s too great a risk for too little reward. Let the cursed Boars go live with the Horsekin, say I. It’ll serve’em right.”

With a friendly wave, Brel left, disappearing into the dark between campfires. Laz sat back down and gave Faharn the gist of the warleader’s remarks.

“Well, that’s torn it,” Laz finished up. “If the Boars have the book, and we’re not going to pursue the Boars, how am I going to pry the thing out of the miserly grasp of Fate?”

“We don’t know if the Boars still have it,” Faharn said. “Maybe the spirits have managed to drop it by the side of the road or some such thing.”

“You know, that’s quite possible. I’ve not scried for it today. Let me see what I can see, if anything.”

Laz considered using the campfire as a focus, but he feared that the bright flames would mask the candlelit glow that usually accompanied his glimpses of the dragon book. He fed a handful of green sticks into the fire, then stood as the smoke plumed up. In the gray billow he saw a candle gleam. He focused his mind upon the dancing glimmer and thought of the dragon book.

He saw a page by suddenly bright candlelight—the Elvish lettering, the red runes scribed at the top, and a pair of hands, long fingers, and the cuffs of rough brown sleeves as the reader turned a page. Laz tried to follow the sleeve up to the face, but the vision began to dissolve. When he returned his scrying gaze to the book, the vision clarified again.

This new page looked exactly like the last, as apparently the reader discovered. His hands turned the page back, then forward again with an irritable brush of his fingers. The hands closed the book with a snapping motion. Laz saw the dragon motif on the cover as the reader moved, standing up, walking a few steps, to judge by the motion of the book and the hands. The hands laid it down on an open saddlebag lying on a pile of sacks. Laz caught a glimpse of a wall, a rough plank wall made of fresh-cut wood, before the hands slid the book into the saddlebag, then hid the bag under the top sack.

Laz broke the vision then sat down rather suddenly. The smoke and the scrying had combined to make him dizzy. Faharn moved closer in alarm, but Laz waved him away.

“You know,” Laz said. “You were quite right. I don’t think the Boars have the book, not if they’re fleeing across the plains to reach Horsekin territory. I saw the book and the hands of the person who has it. He’s inside some kind of wooden shelter, and I doubt me if the Boars are dragging a privy with them or suchlike.”

Faharn snorted with laughter.

“I suspect the astral currents have changed direction,” Laz went on. “The candlelight seemed a fair bit brighter than usual. The vision was much clearer and more detailed, too. The flow seems to be drifting our way for a change.”

“Could that mean the book’s close by?”

“No, distance has little influence over scrying. If you can see the thing at all, it doesn’t matter how far—” Laz stopped, struck by an idea. “Here! The farm buildings! They’re made of wood, just like the wall of that shed or whatever it was in the vision. And I saw a pile of cloth sacks, the same kind as farm folk use to store grain.”

“Ye gods! I wonder if the Boars left that slave behind for some reason and the book with him.”

“It would be a splendid piece of luck if they had, so splendid that I doubt it. Still, in the morning I’ll scry again. Let’s hope that the army doesn’t turn around and retreat straightaway at dawn.”

Late that night Laz woke from a sound sleep to see that he had a different sort of visitor. The white spirit in the peculiar blue dress was standing beside the banked fire.

“Have you seen the book?” she said in Deverrian.

“I have.” Laz pushed his blanket back and sat up. “Is it nearby?”

“It is. The beast-marked man still holds it.”

“Where is he?”

“Inside there.” She waved vaguely at the north.

“Do you mean the farm?”

“I know not what that is.” She frowned, then turned around and pointed in the general direction of the buildings. “Inside there.” She turned back and began to fade, growing first pale, then translucent, then gone.

Laz grabbed his boots from the ground next to him, and after a brief struggle got them on. He stood up and looked around him. In the east a faint silver light lay along the horizon, though the stars overhead and to the west still shone brightly. All around him, men lay asleep, wrapped in blankets or lying restlessly on top of their bedding.

Had he really seen the spirit, he wondered? Or merely dreamt the entire incident? They had never exchanged the sigils that would have confirmed a genuine manifestation. Even if she’d truly appeared to him, her comment of “inside there” might have meant the structure he’d glimpsed in his vision, or it might have meant “somewhere on the vast plain.” He would have to wait and see what he could learn later in the day.

It was several hours after dawn before Prince Voran, with an escort of several hundred armed men, rode over to the farm. Laz managed to talk himself into joining Envoy Garin on the excuse that the prince might need a translator. The farm buildings huddled inside an earthen wall—a round house, a barn, a scatter of sheds, all with thatched roofs. As they rode up to the stout wooden gate, three big black dogs rushed forward, barking. From inside the house a woman screamed at them to come back. Slowly, reluctantly, they obeyed.

The woman got the dogs inside then, slammed the door shut. Only the clucking of frightened chickens, back by the barn, broke the silence.

“Halloo!” Voran called out. “We mean you no harm.”

No one answered. Garin urged his horse up beside the prince’s, and they conferred about the best way to gain the farmers’ trust. Laz took the opportunity to scry for the dragon book, only to see nothing but darkness, most likely the inside of the saddlebag. Still, he felt an odd tingling sensation in his maimed hands, as if he were running them over the leather cover. He could almost feel the edge of the dragon-shaped appliqué. Perhaps the spirits guarding the book were trying to send him a message, that indeed it lay nearby.

Laz rose in the stirrups and looked over the farmyard. Off to his right, back near the barn, stood a round wooden shed. He could just discern that a wooden bar held the door shut on the outside. For a brief moment a golden line of light flickered on the roof.
It’s there!
He knew with an absolute certainty that the dragon book lay inside that shed. But why was the door barred from the outside? To keep the slave scribe in, perhaps?

By the gate Prince Voran and Garin had finished speaking. Voran turned his horse to face his escort.

“Men,” he called out. “We’re pulling back to some little distance. These people are never going to open up with an army at their gate. Envoy Garin and the translator here will parley.” Voran paused to point out five men at the front of the escort. “And you five will stay as guards. Keep your hands away from your weapons unless someone threatens the parley.”

While the main force trotted off some hundred yards or so, Garin disposed his five guards a few feet away. With a wave to Laz to follow, the envoy rode back up to the closed gate.

“Halloo!” Garin called out. “We truly do mean you no harm! I’ve got a good woodsman’s ax here of Mountain workmanship. I’ll exchange it for some information.”

Only the chickens clucked in answer, but Garin and Laz waited, listening to the silence from the house. Finally, the door opened partway. A man slipped out, a tall fellow, dark-haired, dressed in shabby brown clothes. His shirt, in particular, was so near to rags that Laz could see skin through holes in half-a-dozen places. He walked to a spot halfway between house and gate, about twenty feet from the envoy. The way he stood struck Laz as odd, not bent-backed like every other Lijik farmer he’d seen, but straight and proudly.

“Be it I may see this here ax?” he called back.

Garin unsheathed the ax, which had been hanging from his saddle peak, and held it up. In the sunlight the good dwarven steel of its head gleamed, more precious than silver out in this isolated area. While the fellow ambled up to the gate, Laz took the opportunity to study the shed with the barred door. From his distance he couldn’t be certain, but the door seemed to be quivering, as if someone were banging or pushing on it from the inside.

“What be it you be wanting to know?” the farmer said.

“Do you serve the Boars of the North?” Garin said.

“I did once.” The fellow paused to spit on the ground. “Bastards.”

“Do you know where their dun is?”

“The hells for all I care! They did move us out here.” He waved one arm to indicate the plateau. “Then they did ride away, off to the north. I hear tell that they be joining them there Horsekin, but I know not if that be true or false.”

“I see.” Garin nudged his horse, who moved forward a few steps up to the gate. The envoy leaned over and handed the farmer the ax. “Here you go, and my thanks.”

“My thanks to you.” The fellow took the ax in both hands and hefted it, then swung it one-handed as if testing the balance. “This be a good thing.” Ax in hand, he began walking back to the house.

Laz and Garin rode off side by side to rejoin the prince, who was leading his escort forward to meet them. Laz turned in the saddle to speak to the envoy.

“Farmer, my arse!” Laz said.

“Umm?” Garin said. “What do you mean?”

“The way he stood, so proudly, and the way he swung that ax like a weapon. His hands were callused, but his fingers weren’t all twisted and deformed from grubbing in the dirt. And his legs—those torn brigga couldn’t hide how bowlegged he was. He’s spent most of his life on horseback, I wager.”

Garin gaped at him.

“He’s not a farmer.” Laz sighed in sheer exasperation that the envoy couldn’t seem to see the obvious. “He’s either a member of the Boar’s warband or, ye gods, maybe even one of the Boars themselves.”

Garin let out a whoop of laughter, quickly stifled, since the prince had ridden up to them. “Hidden in plain sight,” the envoy said.

“Just so.” Prince Voran had apparently heard enough of Laz’s discourse to agree. “You’ve got good eyes, scribe.”

“My thanks, Your Highness.” Laz made a half-bow from the saddle.

“Let’s go back to camp.” Voran nodded at Garin. “I want to discuss this with your avro. There’s plenty of pine trees up on the hill. If we throw a few pitchy torches onto one of those roofs, the pigs should come running out of their sty fast enough.”

And the book will roast with them,
Laz thought. He bowed again. “Um, Your Highness? May I have your permission to speak?”

“You may.” Voran inclined his head in Laz’s direction.

“I was thinking that it would be a great pity to burn their stored grains and the like with them. It’s a long ride back to Deverry, and some of the men are growing worried about rations.”

“That’s a sound point, Your Highness,” Garin put in. “Food’s always important to an army.”

“True enough,” Voran said. “Well, I’ll discuss this with Brel and see what he can come up with.”

Brel came up with something quite simple: let the dwarven axemen break down the gate and then have the horsemen ride straight into the farmyard. First, however, as Garin pointed out, it would be best to scout out the second farm they’d seen in the distance north of the first one.

“We’ll probably want to take both of them at once,” Brel said. “Those barns won’t hide more than a couple of dozen swordsmen each, so it should be safe enough to split our forces.”

To convince their prey that they’d believed his ruse, Voran led his men to the second farm. There again, Envoy Garin traded a dwarven steel ax for the information that the Boars had fled north, doubtless to join up with the Horsekin in relative safety while their disgruntled supposed supporters languished in grave danger. This second farmer looked even more like a nobleman than the first.

“Oh, it be a long way to them there Horsekin cities,” he said, “or so I been told, all the way across this stinking rocky plain. Don’t know how we’re going to feed ourselves up here.”