undying legion 01 - unbound man (54 page)

I’m not a traitor. I’ve made my refusal to bend the knee abundantly clear.
And if Fas and the rest were making assumptions about his intentions, well, the Quill had a long history of benefiting from others’ overly generous assumptions about them.
Let’s see how they like getting the nasty surprise for a change.

He slept fitfully the rest of the night, tossing and turning on the cool grass, unable to quite put Bannard’s words from his mind. When the first glimmer of dawn appeared on the horizon he gave up, abandoning the meadow and setting out in search of stones.

He returned to the inn early enough for his absence to go unremarked. Sitting alone in the common room, breaking his fast on a selection of berries, nuts, and honeyed flatbread, he watched as news of Bannard’s disappearance rippled out among the group, drawing first amusement, then bafflement at the discovery that Bannard’s horse was also missing. When Fas paused to ask if he knew where man and horse had gone, Arandras simply shook his head and took another handful of berries.

At length, Narvi and Fas decided that wherever Bannard had gone, he wasn’t coming back. Narvi made arrangements with the innkeeper to house their horses until their return, and they set off on foot, making for the bridge just outside the village.

The small arrangement of stones Arandras had assembled stood on the verge of the road, a round river pebble pointing north toward the narrow timber bridge and the far bank of the Tienette.
I’m not a traitor,
he thought as he passed it, turning onto the pressed dirt track that led to the crossing. Ahead, somewhere among the procession of ochre and black making its way across the bridge, Mara and Fas laughed in unison.

He couldn’t be a traitor. After all, one could only betray those who deserved loyalty, and the Quill deserved no such thing, least of all from him. Yet as he crossed the river, listening to the rushing water below, Bannard’s words whispered through his heart, and nothing he could say seemed able to satisfy them.

•

Clade stepped into the other man’s path, his voice a low growl. “Back off, Sinon.”

Sinon lurched to a halt a hand’s breadth from Clade, his foul breath washing over Clade’s nose and mouth. The big sorcerer stood rigid, his gaze fixed in a glare over Clade’s shoulder. Then he snarled and took a half-step forward.

Legs braced, Clade shoved a hand against the man’s thick chest. “I said
back off.
”

Sinon grunted, shifting his glare to Clade. Clade stood his ground, answering the other man’s regard with a withering stare of his own. They stood there for a long moment, eyes locked together like swords. Then, abruptly, Sinon broke into a fierce, mocking grin. He stepped back, tilting his head in a derisive nod, and stomped away.

Clade released an inaudible sigh.

Footsteps sounded behind him in the still morning air, receding toward the road. Clade turned. “Terrel,” he said. The man stopped, not looking around. “What in the hells were you playing at?”

Terrel’s shoulders twitched. “Keeping watch,” he said.

“I gave Sinon last watch.”

“Experienced in the field, is he?” Terrel said. “Knows the difference between a rabbit’s rustle and the sound of a child? Or either of those and a creeping man?”

“I hardly think a group like ours is likely to fall prey to bandits. Not this close to the river.”

“I trust the men I know.”

In other words, not Sinon.
Clade frowned.
Or, perhaps, not me.
“Sinon’s the kind that takes that sort of thing personally.”

Terrel repeated his slight shrug and resumed his course for the road.

It was their third morning on the road. Bannard’s signposts had been sporadic, but Clade had pressed on, assuming that the absence of any indication to the contrary meant they should continue along the main road. Sooner or later they always came upon another cluster of stones piled by the side of a turnpike or relay house, confirming that the Quill party still followed the road somewhere up ahead.

The formation just outside the small village signalled a change.

“North,” Terrel said, halting at the junction and peering in the designated direction. The dirt road led to a narrow bridge over the Tienette, then twisted away into forest on the other side. He dismounted, examined the road. “Looks like they went on foot. An hour ago, maybe.”

Sinon cursed. “I hate walking.”

Irritation stirred within, but Clade boxed it in, smothering it before it could spread.
You have no place in me. Begone.

As they’d followed Bannard’s signposts through the first day and then the second, Clade had begun to wonder at the Quill’s intended route. Bannard had placed the urn’s coordinates somewhere north of Tienette Lake; yet Lissil, the town to which the road eventually led, lay on the lake’s south bank, raising the unpleasant possibility that the Quill might intend to cross the lake by boat as the final leg of their journey. Clade had spent hours wondering how to follow a boatful of Quill undetected, fighting the impulse to worry; but now, it seemed, the problem had resolved itself. He stood at the intersection and gazed toward the bridge, untroubled by any temptation to either concern or relief.

So. North.

We’ll need to do something about the horses.

The village’s only inn offered food, lodging, and temporary stables for as long as one could afford. The innkeeper, a swarthy man with a guarded manner, grudgingly confirmed that a party of Quill had left their horses with him earlier that morning. By the time Clade and Terrel emerged, the group’s horses were unloaded and unsaddled, and their riding gear already bundled for storage. The mercenaries, Yuri and Hosk, sat by the roadside, Yuri scratching in the dirt with his dagger while a dozen paces away, Sinon, Kalie and Meline stood in a small huddle, their backs pointedly turned toward Terrel’s men.

Clade suppressed a sigh.
At least they’re not actually fighting.

“How long?” Kalie asked in her rough drawl as the stableboy led the horses away.

“Two weeks,” Clade said. “Then he’ll sell one to pay for the rest, and so on.” He started back toward the crossing. “Come on.”

The bridge spanned the shallow gorge like a strung wire, the timber a drab, weathered grey. As Clade neared the middle, a shape swung into view upstream: a coracle, carried along by the smooth-flowing water at a surprising pace. Two men sat within, one on either side, each holding the shaft of pole, or possibly an oar. The space between them was piled high with straw and rough wooden crates, while in the front, a donkey gazed at the river like a comic figurehead, its ears flicking in the breeze.

For some reason, the sight reminded him of Estelle.
Azador is ours,
she had said, as though the god were nothing more than the donkey in the boat below, proudly imagining itself master of its own course. But what if it was the other way around?
What if you, Estelle, are the donkey, and it is Azador that drives you?

But then, Estelle was surely dead by now. The god had seemed agitated the last time it visited, staying only a moment before flitting away.
Searching for an explanation, no doubt.
Clade turned from the rail, resuming his march next-but-last to the flat-nosed Yuri, whom Terrel had assigned as rearguard. The respite from Azador’s presence was welcome, though Clade knew it was only temporary. Once the god caught scent of the golems there’d be no shifting it.

Up ahead, Terrel made an abrupt halt, the group gathering in a circle around him. A cluster of stones sat beside a low bush, and this time the small one pointed west and south, away from the dirt road and into the forest, parallel to the river.

Meline grimaced. “Must we?”

“Weeper-damned trees,” Sinon growled, kicking at the dirt beside the bush.

Kalie gave a disgusted sigh. “For the Dreamer’s sake, Sinon. If you can’t handle the pace, go home. Otherwise, shut the hells up already.” She turned to Terrel, ignoring Sinon’s glower and swinging her arm in an exaggerated sweeping gesture. “Lead the way.”

Terrel began ordering the party, and Clade shot Kalie a nod of appreciation. The woman had the makings of a leader, no matter her limited capacity for sorcery.
Maybe if I’d made her my adjunct instead of Garrett we’d have been here weeks ago, no Quill any nearer than Lissil, and all of them oblivious to the wonders hiding across the lake.

He’d still have had to bring her along, though. The only difference was that he’d have known her better when he killed her.

Maybe it was better this way.

The Quill trail wound its way through the towering red gums and the sprays of smaller bushes competing for sunlight at their feet. The ground was rocky in places, but mostly flat. Birds chirped and warbled to each other in the high branches, filling the air with their song; and beneath everything, neither strong enough to draw deep nor faint enough to ignore, the fresh, unmistakable scent of eucalyptus.

Sera would have loved this,
Clade thought as they stepped around the trunk of a particularly massive gum. Tiny yellow and white flowers peeked out from behind the narrow spearhead leaves.
She’d have wanted to stop, take it all in. Pick a flower and put it in her hair, like as not.
He pictured her with a blossom behind her ear, grinning her infectious grin, and smiled.

When they stopped for a break, he drew out the woodbinding block he’d taken from her room: long as a finger but twice as wide, its surface as smooth as wood could get without being polished.
You made it bend like a stalk of grass. No splits, no damage. But try as you might, you couldn’t quite make it straight again.
An unnatural knob protruded from the block a third of the way down; though what exactly gave it its artificial appearance, Clade couldn’t say. The angle, perhaps. Or maybe it was just that he knew how it came to be.

“Where’s Yuri?” The voice was Meline’s. “He was just here. Wasn’t he?”

Clade glanced up. Terrel was looking back the way they came, attentive but not visibly worried. The other mercenary, Hosk, knelt at the edge of the clearing, examining the pommel of his sword.

“Gatherer’s balls, I hate it when people run off,” Sinon said to nobody in particular.

“There he is,” Kalie said, and a moment later Yuri’s flat features and braided hair came into view around a knot of trees. The man gestured to Terrel, who seemed to relax slightly.
All clear.

Sinon gave a contemptuous snort and turned away.

“Break’s over,” Clade said, slipping the block into his pocket. “Let’s go.”

They moved out, Hosk in front, Clade falling in behind Kalie in the middle of the group. As they marched, he found his hand returning to his pocket, his fingers tracing the marred wooden form. Though the binding was long since gone, the block still bore its scars.
No matter what she did, she couldn’t get them out.

A breath of wind set the leaves rustling high overhead. From somewhere to their right came the screech of a hunting bird, then another. He ignored them, marching with head bowed, turning the block over and over in his long fingers.

•

Eilwen was relieved beyond words when the Oculus party turned off the main road and struck north over the Tienette. Riding was uncomfortable enough at the best of times, but riding in pursuit of a mounted quarry was far, far worse.

She’d stayed as close as she dared, fearful of losing touch with the sorcerers and missing the moment they turned in a new direction. On the second morning, she’d arrived at a turnpike thinking herself just a few minutes behind, only to find a queue of half a dozen travellers before her and the Oculus nowhere in sight; and for a brief, mad moment she’d thought of galloping past without paying, never mind the archer in his terraced platform beside the road. Twice she’d actually passed the group as they halted by the side of the road, and had been forced to loiter half-hidden in way-house stables as she waited for them to resume their journey.

The previous night she’d woken in terror to the sound of drumming hoofs, convinced that the Oculus had noticed her after all and come back to kill her in her sleep. But the sound turned out to be a lone rider, possibly a Quill, travelling east toward Anstice, and eventually she drifted back to sleep, her dreams haunted by galloping horses that turned to mist moments before riding her down.

But no more. They’d turned north, crossing the Tienette at the last bridge before the river became the lake — or the first bridge, so far as the river was concerned. And they’d gone on foot.

Eilwen led her horse into the nearby village, scanning the ramshackle buildings on either side of the road for any place she might dispose of her mount. High whinnies caught her ear from further ahead, and she followed the sound to an inn on the road’s south side. In the small yard before the stables she found a skinny boy hauling on the halter of a feisty dun courser, while a pot-bellied man, presumably the innkeeper, stood back and watched. The smell of manure and horse sweat drifted past on the light breeze.

“Excuse me,” she called, and the innkeeper strode out with a scowl, shaking his head and waving his hands in front of him.

“If you’re looking to house your horse, you’re out of luck,” he said. “We’re full up.”

Eilwen glanced over the rows of stalls. All appeared occupied, and many already seemed home to more than one horse. She frowned. “How about if I’m selling it?”

He eyed the creature speculatively. “How much are you asking?”

Perhaps sensing her determination to sell, the innkeeper offered an amount roughly half what she’d paid for the horse and gear in Anstice. Her half-hearted attempts to haggle the price higher were met with blank refusal and she soon gave them up, slipping the fistful of coins and lengths into her bag and chuckling at the stableboy’s disbelieving “What?” as the innkeeper broke the news. She retraced her steps up the road, stretching out her sore leg, grateful for earth beneath her feet once more. The sun was warm on her back without being oppressive, and the sound of the river splashing through the gorge filled her with an unexpected vigour, as though the worst was over and she could finally begin setting her life to rights.