Child of Fate (7 page)

“You can train day and night to fight a man
and still not be ready when the time comes,” Tristam said. “But an
animal, and a wolf at that, is something you’ll never know the fear
of until you’ve faced one.”

Alto glanced down at the headless corpse. He
looked back up at the others, expecting a smile or a laugh but they
regarded him with solemn expressions. “Just had to remind myself
I’m bigger than he was,” Alto said.

Now Tristam and the others laughed. “You’re
bigger than all of us!” Tristam said. “Don’t be getting no
ideas!”

Alto blushed and then joined in since he knew
they weren’t mocking him. “Should we skin it and save the
meat?”

Tristam sneered. “If you want, but there’s no
call for it. We’ve cloaks a plenty and a week of rations, more if
we’re careful.”

Alto nodded. On the farm, they’d have taken
everything they could from it against the possible need in the
future. He wasn’t fending for a family that barely eked out an
existence anymore. Alto nodded, and then knelt down beside it and
drew out his knife. As he skinned the wolf, he had to bite back a
laugh. If he’d remembered his knife, he might have saved fumbling
about for his sword and some of the wrestling with the wolf.

“Who punches a wolf?” he muttered to
himself.

“A man without any other options,” Karthor
said. The priest squatted down and took hold of the animal’s legs
to help in the skinning. “Why do you do this?”

“It’s a good pelt, other than the cut in its
side. Perhaps some good can come of it.”

“A fine first kill, it’d make a good trophy,”
Gerald opined. “Pity you tossed the head out there; it’s already
been taken and eaten.”

“Perhaps,” Alto said in response. He had no
need of a trophy; he had no place of his own to keep it. Hides
could serve many purposes, from leather to blankets and more. He
might not need it but he’d seen many people in Monterose and even
Portland that might be thankful for such a thing to provide some
warmth. Alto pushed the thoughts aside as he finished cutting it
free from the carcass. “What of the city?”

“Seems abandoned,” William shared. “The mines
have been caved in and most of the buildings not built of stone
burnt.”

“And the ones built of stone don’t fare much
better!” Gerald added.

“It’s been looted, but only the best pickings
are gone.”

“Best pickings?” Alto scraped the extra flesh
from the hide.

“Coins, jewelry, and the like. Also any of
the silver ore and dust has been taken,” Drefan explained when
William and Gerald looked to him.

“What else is there?”

“Fine clothing, artwork, candelabras,
statues, and other finery. There’s all manner of things that can be
valuable, if you’ve got the right buyer,” Drefan explained.

Alto raised his eyebrow. “You don’t strike me
as a merchant to know such things.”

Drefan grinned and Gerald belted out a
laugh.

“I saved Drefan’s neck from a hangman’s noose
a while back. He wasn’t much older than you,” Tristam said. “Showed
him there’s better ways to use his hands than risk getting his
fingers broken.”

Drefan shrugged and held up his hands to
prove he still had all his fingers.

“Kelgryn wouldn’t steal silver ore,” Kar
grunted. “They’d take women, sure, and food and good horses to
boot. Burning and slaughter for the sake of loot? That’s not what
they do.”

“Have you spent time amongst them lately,
wizard?”

Kar turned to look at Tristam. “It’s been a
few years, but I’ve visited.”

Karthor’s brow furrowed as he looked at his
father. Kar saw him and rolled his eyes. “Quite a few years.”

Alto stared at Kar and Karthor in confusion.
The wizard looked to be near his own father’s age. There would be
time enough, he supposed, for Kar to have done as he said but he’d
have been near to Alto’s age or younger.

“Stop looking at me like that, boy; wizards
age different,” he grumbled.

Alto caught a smirk from Karthor as he
averted his gaze. He rolled up the hide and retreated into the
stable. The others followed, moving to their mounts so Alto could
store the pelt and be ready for what was to come next. “So what’s
next?”

Tristam moved to his own steed and began to
rifle through a pack. “We visit the mines.”

“I thought you said they were caved in?”

“Aye, but that’s just the ones here. There
are mines in the mountains as well. Better mines that haven’t been
played out, from what I’ve heard,” Drefan explained.

“We’ll make camp here. William picked a good
house that won’t fall down on us. Gives us a good defense should
the wolves want more than what’s been given to them.”

“We’re sleeping here?”

“In shifts. You’ll take the last watch,”
Tristam said with a grin. Alto knew the source of his humor: the
last watch was always the worst. He’d be tired and from what he’d
been told, right before dawn was when bad things happened.

Alto blinked in grateful surprise when the
first rays of the morning sun crested Highpeak’s eastern wall.
There’d been no attacks on his watch, but when Gerald had woken him
for his turn, the warrior had warned him of the noises the
scavengers made. Alto had sat as still and quiet as he could,
listening to the sounds of wolves and other things in the night.
Once he’d even heard what sounded like a couple of people talking,
but he wasn’t close enough to be sure.

With the breaking dawn, the noises receded
into silence. Alto rose up and stretched away the chill of the
night. One of the horses whinnied, letting them know it was ready
for breakfast. Alto saw Tristam and Karthor rising while the others
slept. He nodded to them as he made his way to the staircase that
led down to what had once been a smithy. The horses pawed the
ground and whickered when they saw Alto approach.

He gave the horses grain and poured them
water from skins, talking softly out of habit. When he’d finished,
he opened the shutters and doors to let in some air, only to
wrinkle his nose as the smells of a burnt and rotting city overrode
the smell of horses. Making a retching noise, he climbed back up
the stairs to find the others nearly ready.

“I gave the horses a handful of grain, but
they could do with some hay or grass,” Alto said to announce his
return. “The stables at the gate have plenty, if it hasn’t been
stolen overnight.”

“We’re not going that way,” Tristam said.

“The mines, right? Where are they?”

“Norf,” Kar mumbled. He finished rubbing his
finger against his teeth and spat it out, and then took a pull from
a skin of water and spat that as well. “Take care of your teeth,
boy. Good teeth are a blessing,” the wizard said. “Ask our friend
Gerald there!”

Gerald displayed his broken-toothed grin and
then bit his thumb at Kar for good measure. The wizard laughed.
“I’ve the perfect mix of salt and char. Tastes wretched but leaves
your teeth strong as steel!”

Alto grimaced at the thought of it.

“Kar’s right. We head out the north gate,”
Tristam said. “I remember a stable there, too, and the northern
side of the city is in better shape.”

“Here,” William said, tossing Alto a chunk
torn off a loaf of bread. “Eat up, lad; we’re in for a hard
day.”

Alto bit into it and chewed it down before
asking, “What’s to be hard?”

“Travel through the mountains is never
simple. Sounds travel funny and rocks may give and come crashing
down at any time,” William said.

Gerald chuckled. “That’s not counting the
rocks thrown by giants and ogres.”

“Ogres don’t throw boulders,” Kar snapped.
“Small rocks, maybe, but they prefer to smash you with their
clubs.”

“Aye, clubs that was once the trunks of
trees!” Gerald added.

Kar rolled his eyes at the man’s
boasting.

Alto stared back and forth between them. “So
falling rocks, echoing sounds, monsters—what else is there?”

“The mines themselves,” Tristam said. He
wiped his sword clean after running a stone over it and sheathed
it. “Enough scaring the boy; let’s be off. We earn no bounty
sitting and jawing like old women!”

“What’s wrong with the mines?” Alto asked
Karthor as the others rose and filed past.

“Cramped, dark, and sometimes foul. If the
mines have been overrun by gobs, then the runts will be dug in.
We’ll have a harder time digging them out,” he said.

“At least we’d be able to collect our
bounty,” Alto reasoned.

“Aye, if we make it back.”

Alto frowned but chose not to respond to the
dark words spoken by the priest. He followed them down the stairs
and began saddling Sebas. He finished before the others and helped
where he could, and then led his horse onto the cobblestone road of
the city.

In daylight, the sight of the pillaging was
worse than he’d imagined. Signs and tabards were burnt and
shredded. Doors and windows were smashed in. Entire buildings, in
many cases, had been burned to the ground. Stains on the ground
showed where people had fallen or been dragged away.

“Need a good thunderstorm to clean this
away,” Kar muttered.

“Not going to argue that,” Tristam agreed,
“but I’d just as soon it waited until we’re done with our
business.”

“Why?” Alto wondered aloud.

“All the reasons you don’t want to go into
the mountains?” Drefan reminded him. Alto nodded at the recent
memory. “Well, they get a lot worse when it’s raining. Falling
rocks become landslides. Creatures are forced out of flooded dens.
And the water falling from the sky adds to the water running off
the rocks, flash flooding the passes.”

Alto’s eyes widened. “I vote for no rain,
too.”

The others chuckled until Tristam bade them
mount and head for the northern gate. He led by example, climbing
into his saddle and guiding his steed through Highpeak. True to
Tristam’s words, there was less destruction the farther north they
went. When they reached the gate only a few minutes later, the
portcullis was down.

“Put those muscles to work, boy,” Tristam
called out.

Alto led Sebas over to the gatehouse and
dismounted. He tossed the reins over a fence and stepped to the
wheel that would raise the iron bars. He put his back to it and
started hauling on the spokes of the wheel, raising it steadily but
slowly.

“This proves they came in from the south
gate,” Drefan noted as Alto labored.

“Proves no such thing,” Kar said. “It only
proves that this morning the portcullis is down.”

“Bah, it was down last night, too!” Drefan
said. “We seen it!”

“You saw it,” Kar corrected. “And I’ll grant
you that. But a cunning invader might have come from the north and
destroyed the city, and then made it look as though they pillaged
it from the south.”

“You’re digging deep holes, wizard,” Tristam
cautioned.

Kar shrugged. “No deeper than our
light-fingered friend,” he said. “Accept nothing without knowing
the facts of it.”

“Quit your badgering,” Tristam said. “And
mind your tongue; we’re into the wilds now.”

Drefan and Kar turned to see that Alto had
set the brake on the wheel. The portcullis was raised high enough
for them to ride through. Kar nodded appreciatively. “We’ll have
you pulling wagons by yourself in no time.”

“Kar!”

Kar waved Tristam’s rebuke away. Alto mounted
Sebas and took his place in line at the rear, next to Karthor. They
rode through the gate and on to a wide stone bridge that spanned a
gorge. Alto looked over the edge as far as he dared and saw a river
below.

“Mind your balance,” Karthor suggested. “It’s
not a hundred feet but that’s not a dive many men could hope to
survive.”

Alto nodded and straightened on Sebas. He
felt lightheaded just from looking at the edge and beyond. He
didn’t want to think of what falling from the bridge would be like.
Staring straight ahead, he saw the Northern Divide rise
majestically ahead of them. It looked like he could touch the
clouds if he could climb the highest peaks. Of course, then the
river would be an even farther fall if he should slip. It wasn’t
until they crossed the thirty-foot span of the bridge that his
chest opened up to allow a full breath.

The terrain turned immediately into rugged
and rocky landscape. The road branched off, with a smaller and less
used path following the northern edge of the chasm to the west. The
main road continued into the mountains, heading up an incline that
soon turned into a valley between rising ridges that blocked the
morning sun.

Alto stared about as they rode, hearing the
echoing sound of their horses’ hooves. Other noises of nature
joined them, the tune of a songbird and the cry of squirrels that
scampered between the evergreens on the rocky hills. The trees grew
thinned as they climbed higher into the mountains. A small stone
skipped off the path on Alto’s right, startling him and Sebas.

The falling rock drew Alto’s attention to the
ground, rather than the mountains around and ahead of them. He
cocked his head and, without thinking, pulled Sebas to a halt. Alto
climbed down from the horse and knelt to get a closer look at the
disturbance in the ground.

“Alto!” Karthor hissed. “What is it?”

“I’m not sure,” Alto admitted.

“Tristam, hold a moment,” Karthor called up,
though his voice was pitched so it wouldn’t carry.

Tristam and the others stopped, each turning
to see what was amiss. The leader of the Blades rode back and kept
his shadow away from Alto before asking. “Forgot you’re a tracker;
what’ve you found?”

Alto let the part about being a tracker
slide. Sure, he could track a wounded animal through the woods but
his father had told him stories of real trackers. He had none of
their skill or patience. “Rocky ground,” Alto said with a glance
around them. “No real way to track much on this, but the ground’s
been scuffed up here and many rocks turned over. Maybe something
was dragged or fell down?”