The Western Wizard (55 page)

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By the time Colbey and Korgar returned, dusk smeared the sky gray-pink. The burned tree looked black and skeletal against the lighter colors of the sunset. Its barkless stripes broke the contour, as if holding shadows at
bay. Moonlight puddled beneath openings in the foliage, and Colbey could see familiar figures milling in the lighted patches. As Colbey ducked beneath a low hanging bough, his companions closed around him. Mitrian, Garn, and Rache studied him with round, hopeful eyes that begged a happy story he could not give them.

Korgar grunted, fading into the darkness between gaps in the pattern of branches.

Colbey lowered his head. Without explanation, he placed his hand into his pocket, twining his fingers around the chain of Santagithi’s locket. Drawing it free, he offered the trinket to Rache.

Rache’s jaw sagged open, but no words emerged. He made no move to take the locket.

Mitrian glanced at Garn nervously. The ex-gladiator took the burden upon himself. “He’s dead?”

Colbey lowered his head, finally feeling the weariness that came of two days without sleep. “Episte is dead.”

“That fire we saw at midday?” Mitrian started and never bothered to finish.

Colbey knew relief. Mitrian’s question gave him the opportunity to save the others from the horror without lying. “His pyre. Yes.”

“Episte’s pyre.” Mitrian parroted, as if she could accept the words only with repetition. For the moment, the significance seemed lost, the words only sound without meaning.

Rache remained immobile and silent.

“I’m sorry.” Colbey looped the chain over Rache’s head, and the locket settled against the youth’s tunic. “I got there far too late. There was nothing I could do.” When no one said anything more, Colbey turned and headed toward Shadimar, deeper in the forest.

“Wait,” Rache said.

Colbey whirled back to meet innocent green eyes in a child’s face above an adult’s body. “Did he die in glory? Did he find Valhalla?”

“I set him to pyre.” Colbey continued to mislead, wanting Episte’s memory honored, not mourned, shying from the horror the truth would inflict. His description of action should have proved enough, but Rache remained relentless.

“Did my brother find Valhalla?”

Colbey drew breath, not quite certain what would emerge. His heart told him to spare Rache and honor Episte’s memory, to say that setting Episte to pyre should be accepted as answer. But Colbey would not lie. He would not betray his own. “No.” He said nothing more. He did not clarify or qualify the response. He pushed past.

Behind him, Colbey could hear Rache’s sobs, the sound tearing at him over the rising and falling song of insects. He could imagine Garn and Mitrian clutching one another, exchanging consolations. He left them to their grief, letting them handle it in their own way, as he had.

Shadimar hooked Colbey’s sleeve. “Where is Secodon?”

“What?” Colbey had forgotten the wolf in the agony of his sorrow. “He was with us.”

“He isn’t any longer.” Shadimar’s craggy features went hard. “And he is in distress.”

“You think he’s in danger?” Colbey found it difficult to raise concern for an animal. He was emotionally empty.

Shadimar squinted in concentration. “No. It seems more emotional than physical. Frustration, perhaps. Sorrow. Uncertainty.”

Colbey nodded, recalling his grief howl and the wolf’s haunting answer, like an echo in the distance. “I’m afraid that may have come from me.”

Shadimar bobbed his head slowly, but his gaze seemed distant.

“Do you want me to find him?”

“No. I believe whatever he was hunting or seeking has eluded him. He’ll come back.”

Shadimar’s choice of words set Colbey’s mind in motion.
Did Secodon try to track Episte’s killer?
The old Renshai knew he had taken a huge leap in logic, yet Shadimar’s suggestion that the wolf had lost a quarry intrigued him. Colbey’s respect for Secodon trebled in an instant, though it raised concern as well.
A madman capable of the cruelty inflicted on Episte will not quit. Grief blinded me to a necessity that an animal did not forget.
That man must be found, and he must be slain. An abomination like that cannot be allowed to live and slaughter.

The idea came easily, the solution less so. And Colbey knew he had to find it before the other killed again.

Overnight, Colbey’s grief settled into a hollow in his memory. No one had awakened him for a watch. Apparently, each had his own misery to contemplate, and too many could not sleep to bother those who needed rest. Without supplies, they did not trouble to worry about breakfast. Even Garn seemed to realize that complaints of hunger would seem petty to the point of cruelty, and they prepared for the journey ahead in relative silence.

Secodon had returned while Colbey slept. A midsummer shedding had left his coat ragged, and burrs had knotted through the coarse tufts of loosened undercoat. Colbey guessed that the wolf had come back early in the night because he looked well-rested in the morning.

Colbey took the party eastward, knowing they would need to veer south to find the passes through the Southern Weathered Range and onto the Western Plains that had served as the battleground in the Great War. He was only partially familiar with the geography of the Westlands and did not wish to miss the rare passes. So he chose to head for the union between the Great Frenum Mountains and the Southern Weathered Range. From there, he would sweep westward along the base of the mountains. A direct run to the passes would prove shorter, but also more predictable, and Colbey did not trust his direction sense and memory enough to believe he could find the passes on his first try. If he missed, he would have to guess his direction, and the Northmen would surely catch them casting about aimlessly.

Air stagnated between trees thick with summer growth. Discomfort drove the party deeper into an already heavy silence, and hunger added to the burden. Mitrian stared at the ground, showing no inclination to hunt. No one
seemed to expect it of her, even as morning brightened into noon, and the rumbles of stomachs broke the self-imposed hush. Gradually, the trunks became sparser, allowing glimpses of the Great Mountains, their caps snow-powdered despite the season. Halfway through the afternoon, the trees gave way to saplings: locusts spotted with thorns and young poplars nearly as tall as the elder pine.

When forest gave way to open plain, Colbey stopped the party. “There’s a town ahead.” He tried to add just a hint of question to his words, hoping to elicit information without frightening the others with his ignorance.

Only Shadimar took the bait. “A city, actually. Of medium size. It’s called Porvada.”

Colbey frowned.
A city one day’s journey from where we last camped. It’s the first place the Northmen will expect us to go.
“We’ll need to change direction.”

“Change direction?” Garn sounded indignant. “Didn’t you just say the town was ahead?”

“It’s too dangerous.” Colbey looked out over a plain obviously cleared by fires to a few distant, peaked rooftops. “The Northmen will expect us to go for supplies.”

Garn stared back, finding Colbey’s conclusion difficult to follow. “Well, of course, they’ll expect us to go for supplies. We’d be stupid to do anything else.”

Shadimar stood aloof, stroking Secodon’s head. As usual, Korgar had slipped into the vegetation, unseen. Rache huddled between two trunks, his cheeks dirt-streaked in tear lines and his eyes swollen. Mitrian looked from Garn to Colbey and back.

“They’ll be waiting for us,” Colbey explained.

“We’ll avoid them.”

“That won’t be easy.”

“What choice do we have?” Garn threw up his hands in exasperation. “I’ll go. I’ll kill any Northman who dares to show his face.”

“There could be dozens.” Colbey wrestled with the dilemma, knowing Garn was right about the supplies yet seeing the danger in a way no one who had not witnessed the headless corpse could. “There might be hundreds.”

Garn’s gut protested in a loud grumble that traversed its length. “I’ll fight hundreds, then. I’d rather die at the
hands of Northmen than of starvation. I’ve known hunger before. I hated it then. I hate it more now.”

“I’ll go,” Mitrian said.

“No,” Colbey said, the idea of losing another Renshai tearing at him.

“No,” Garn repeated.

Mitrian continued as if neither man had spoken. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. If we all go, the Northmen will know us at once. One person might slip in, get supplies, and leave.”

Colbey considered. There was logic to Mitrian’s suggestion, and danger as well. “I don’t suppose you know this city. We couldn’t have one of our own wandering the streets looking for a place to buy rations. The law would keep Northmen from attacking in a crowd. In an empty side street. . . .” Colbey let the observation dangle.

“I wouldn’t have to wander.” Mitrian turned her gaze to the outlying rooftops. “A medium-sized city will have at least one tavern. I can’t get jerked or smoked meat ready for travel, but I should be able to get enough food to keep us until we find a less conspicuous town to—”

“Quit saying ‘I,’” Garn interrupted. “It makes more sense for me to go.”

“No one—” started Colbey, but Mitrian cut in again.

“On the contrary, I’m the only possible choice. Rache needs his training. You and Colbey and Shadimar are too conspicuous. I’m a woman, and I fought mostly at home. Certainly, you and Colbey would be recognized. I might go unnoticed. I’m a Westerner. I look like a Westerner. I talk like a Westerner. I’m the only one born and raised in a Western town in a normal manner, except Rache; and we’ve already excluded him.”

Colbey dismissed the possibility of sending Korgar. First, Colbey doubted he could communicate the mission in a way the barbarian could understand. Second, Colbey did not yet understand why the barbarian had chosen to follow them, and the Renshai felt certain Korgar might leave as suddenly and unexpectedly as he had come. He saw other advantages to using Mitrian. Surely, the laws of Porvada would preclude violence in its tavern. If the Northmen tried to finger Mitrian as Renshai, they would suffer the consequences. Mitrian’s dark hair and Western
dialect would protect her from the allegation in a way the Northmen’s features would not. And Colbey felt certain the laws and citizens would favor a pretty Western woman over a dirty pack of foreign warriors. “All right,” he said, still hating the risks and possibilities. “But go straight to the tavern and come straight back. Don’t take
any
chances.”

“I won’t,” Mitrian said. Before Colbey could change his mind, she scuttled into the dusk.

Garn glared. “How could you do that?”

Colbey watched Mitrian go until she blurred to a single dark splotch. “Because you were right. And she was right, too.”

“Maybe. But her life is worth too much to risk.”

Worth.
The word seeped into Colbey’s consciousness, raising an issue he had not considered until that moment. Not wishing to face Garn’s wrath, Colbey kept the thought to himself.
I just sent Mitrian to buy supplies with nothing but her sword and the clothes on her back.
The idea rankled, yet Colbey forced it to rest. Of them all, Mitrian had the most experience with money and payment. He felt certain that she had considered the problem as well. And he hoped she had a plan.

*  *  *

Mitrian entered the city of Porvada with a caution that bordered on paranoia and with reservations that she had hidden well from Colbey and Garn. As she stared at the neat rows of cottages and shops, so like those of the town in which she had been raised, she let caution usurp the grief that had dampened every thought and movement. The fire-cleared plain brought her to a jumble of rocks that ringed the periphery of the cobbled streets. Stepping over the piles of smaller stones, she headed down the largest roadway.

Dusk colored the sky purple-pink, and buildings of varying shapes and sizes broke the skyline in dark squares, arcs, and triangles. Crude wire fences penned scant herds of sheep and pigs between cottages. Mitrian kept her head low to hide her features, though she let her long, red-brown locks fly freely in the breeze. Pulling her hood over her head in midsummer would draw attention unnecessarily. No one would question the presence
of a dark-haired woman on the streets of a Western town. The few Northmen who might recognize her could do so only after a long, studied scrutiny of her face. And she hoped racial features would make all Westerners look as similar to Northmen as Northmen did to her.

As Mitrian continued down the unfamiliar roadway, men and women passed her without a second glance. A misplaced familiarity made her shiver. She might have been traversing the main road of Santagithi’s Town, except that her father and his people would have gawked at a woman carrying a sword. Though the women in Porvada carried no weapons, they seemed to take no particular interest in nor insult from Mitrian. For her part, she kept the wolf’s head hilt buried beneath a fold of her cloak, concerned that the Northmen might recognize the unusual craftsmanship and the damaged topaz set as eyes.

At length, Mitrian came upon a pair of men in matching brown pants and tucked, yellow shirts. Both had rich chestnut hair, hacked short, and broad Western features. A broadsword hung from each man’s belt.

Presuming them to be guards, Mitrian approached. She used the Western trading tongue. “Hello. Could you tell me where I could find a tavern?”

One man smiled, his teeth a brilliant white in the gathering grayness. He pointed further up the main path. “Just a few more buildings. On the right.” He twisted, staring in the direction he had indicated. “You can just see it there. The one past the cooper.”

Mitrian craned her neck toward the indicated landmark. The buildings all looked strange and forbidding, a line of huddling shapes behind which Northmen might lurk. Though she did not see the tavern, she could make out the barrel-shaped sign over the cooper’s shop.

The other man turned Mitrian a gap-toothed grin. A grimy hand kneaded his sword hilt, then slid toward his thigh. “If it’s companionship you seek . . .”