Karavans (12 page)

“This is Sancorra. And we are here, beside the river.” Rhuan indicated it with a finger. “This is Hecar province, abutting Sancorra to the west. And this is Atalanda, south, where you are bound.” He hesitated a moment, fingers stilling, then laid in crude cross-hatching with his knife’s tip. “And this area, as best we know, is Alisanos.”

Torvic murmured, “The bad place.”

The guide nodded solemnly. “A very bad place. It’s my duty to keep you safe from the deepwood, so you may arrive in Atalanda safely.”

Megritte said, “I don’t want to go there.
Bad
people go there.”

“Like that man,” Torvic asserted. “The one with claws.” Davyn expected the guide would answer the childish fancies with casual dismissal. But he did not.

“Not everyone who ends up in Alisanos is bad,” Rhuan said. “An active Alisanos doesn’t care about such things. It simply
takes
.”

Ellica’s voice was harsh. “Like the Hecari. Like the Hecari did when they took our home. When they took our futures!”

Davyn stirred. “Ellica—”

Tears welled in her eyes. “No,” she said stubbornly. “I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to
do
this, any of it! I don’t want to be here, and I don’t want to go overmountain. I want to go home!”

“Ellica,” Audrun began, “we can’t—”

“‘We can’t.’” The girl mimicked her, cutting her off.

“Can’t do this, can’t do that. I’m sick of hearing it!” She turned, took two stiff strides away, hesitated a moment to turn back briefly. “All we’re doing is running away!” And she was gone into the darkness.

A
UDRUN, FLUSTERED, NOTED the guide— Rhuan—watched Ellica’s retreat with startled interest. She blurted, “Gillan, would you—?” even as she caught hold of Torvic and Megritte before they could chase after their sister. Her eldest, rolling his eyes, said he would and departed.

Audrun noticed Davyn’s gaze on her, brow furrowed. Then he said stiffly to Jorda’s guide, clearly embarrassed by the outburst, “My eldest daughter has not grown used to the idea that we must go elsewhere.” He gestured.

“Please continue. My son will bring her back.”

It sounded uncaring, but Audrun understood Davyn’s priorities; a proper map drawn by a man who knew the land so well was invaluable. And Gillan
would
bring Ellica back. If they still lived at the farmstead, she wouldn’t be concerned about Ellica’s sulks and tears and abrupt departures. But here, in a strange place, they could not afford to leave her to herself.

Jorda’s man hitched one shoulder in a slight shrug, then turned back to explaining the crude map on the dirt. “We’ll cross the river—here—first thing tomorrow morning.”

Long fingers moved deftly, indicating routes. “Then we go here, along here, up to here. You turn off
here
, onto this smaller road—do you see?”

Audrun saw Davyn’s brief nod, intently focused on memorizing what the guide laid out for them.

“But if you turn off here, as you have planned to do …” His expression was serious. “This is the shortest route. But another might promise more safety.” He grimaced briefly. “If such can be found anywhere in a province newly conquered. But if you remain with the karavan a while longer there is less risk.”

Davyn shook his head. Audrun noted a peculiar intensity in the guide as he squatted over his map. And his eyes, dark in the dusk, seemed to be waiting.

“I do know,” her husband said finally, aware of the guide’s concern. “But we must. That route is shorter,
and
less likely to attract Hecari.”

Rhuan said quietly, emotion banished from his tone, “That route skirts very near Alisanos.”

“Yes,” Davyn agreed, nodding. “And it is because that route is used so infrequently, if at all, that I believe it offers us more safety.”

“The Hecari are only one among many dangers. Better to face them than risk being overtaken by Alisanos.”

Audrun looked more closely at the guide’s face, then glanced at her husband, trying to keep the sudden concern from her features.

Davyn, grim-faced, saw it regardless, but did not react; he turned to the guide once more. “We have discussed it, my wife and I. We will go.”

The guide held Davyn’s gaze a moment, then glanced at Audrun. “It matters to me that everyone is kept safe.”

She believed him; she had seen how he was with the youngest of her chicks, treating them neither as children nor as adults. As if they were merely humans, deserving of respect. And because of that, because she wanted him to think she wasn’t wholly ignorant, she resorted to saying what struck her as obvious. “But a road
is
there, just as you have drawn. If it were so very dangerous, would they have put it so close to the deepwood?”

The guide’s faint smile suggested he had expected the question. “They didn’t.” Graceful hands dangled over
bent, leather-clad knees, knife clasped loosely. Beadwork adorning fringe glinted in firelight. “The road was there first. Alisanos came later.” He seemed very relaxed, yet Audrun had the impression the guide was anything but. “You come from a region of Sancorra that Alisanos hasn’t threatened in—”

Davyn broke in roughly, “We know what it is.”

“—hundreds of years,” Rhuan finished, unperturbed by the interruption. “And it has been forty years since the deepwood shifted so much as a pace. Folk have grown accustomed to it being
there
, as I have drawn it.” He indicated the crosshatched area. “Generations have been born knowing precisely where Alisanos is, and how to avoid it. But too many have forgotten its greatest threat.” His eyes were very steady, as was his voice. “Alisanos
moves
. It is sentient, as much as you or I, for all it is a place. And we cannot trust it.”

GILLAN CAUGHT UP to Ellica before she got too far away from the wagon, though she had managed to reach the narrow footpaths winding through the tents. Dyed oilcloth, lighted from within, glowed dully in the twilight, marking his route. Gillan was irritated and impatient; the stranger, who swore he was neither demon nor murderer, seemed to have important things to tell them. But Ellica had pitched her fit—yet another in a string of them since they’d left the farmstead—and now he was missing out on the interesting things.

“Ellica.
Ell
ica.” He caught her sleeved arm and swung her around. “Will you
stop
? What is wrong with you?”

Her blond hair had come loose from its binding, straggling down over narrow shoulders. She was not at that moment particularly attractive, with tear-streaked face and reddened eyes. He knew her courses had begun the year before, and her breasts had begun to grow a number of months earlier. She was, most days, inordinately proud of her burgeoning womanhood, but just now she looked
thin and blotched and wretched in her dull gray tunic and skirts.

Gillan released her. “You’d best come back before Da himself comes after you.”

She scrubbed tears away with both hands. “I can’t go back. I don’t
want
to go back. I don’t want to have anything to do with this going overmountain. I just want to go home!”

“But there’s no home
there
,” Gillan declared in frustration; he had told her this more times than he could count. “They burned it down, Elli. You saw what was left, when we passed by on the road. The Hecari destroyed everything. Nothing’s left!”

“We could rebuild.” Abruptly fresh tears welled up into astonishly blue eyes. “Adric is there.”

“Adric!” It shocked him. “This is about
Adric?
” Gillan stared at her, suspicions forming. “Were you and he—”

Tears spilled over.

A chill descended upon him. “Elli—you’re not with child, are you?”

Her mouth fell open. “No! We never did
that
. We just—we just …” She was clearly at a loss, twining fingers together nervously as color rose in her face. “We talked, mostly. Sometimes he kissed me. But we knew it was meant, Gillan. It was! Just as it was meant for Mam and Da.
She
was fifteen when she and Da got married.”

It remained incomprehensible to Gillan. “Adric’s gone, Elli. He went to join the armies.”

“But when he comes back,” she said in desperation, “
we’ll
be gone! How will he find me?”

Gillan opened his mouth to tell her Adric might not be coming back at all; he had overhead Da telling Mam that most men who were not trained soldiers, for all they loved their land, didn’t have the same chances for survival as true soldiers did. It had shocked him to hear that, for he and Adric had pledged to meet under the oak tree on the border between their neighboring farms when the war was over; of
course
Adric would be there. But then the Hecari had overrun their lands, the oak tree had been chopped
down for wood, and the farmsteads burned. Gillan, seeing the devastation, realized Da was right: Adric indeed might not be coming home.

But Gillan had told no one his fears. Not speaking them aloud meant they might not come true.

He discovered now he could say none of them to Ellica, either. He was too stunned to learn his sister and best friend had become so close without his awareness.

“If I go back,” she said, “Adric can find me.”

“Nothing’s there, Elli.”

“I would be there.”

“But you can’t go back there, not by yourself! How would you live?”

She opened her mouth to reply, but someone answered for her. “
I’ll
tell you how she can live. Just let me whisper it in your ear, sweetling!”

Gillan spun around on the packed, narrow footpath between tents even as Ellica gasped and recoiled, catching herself against the guy ropes of the nearest tent. He was aware of the closeness of the man, his unsteadiness, and the reek of liquor. Behind him, Ellica was crying again.

“Hassic!” A second voice, pitched to command, cut across the footpath. “Go on your way, Hassic. Sleep it off.”

It was a woman, Gillan saw in his first startled glance. In fading light and little moon, the muted glow of tent lanterns, he had the impression of smallness, of wiriness, of short-cropped hair nearly as fair as his own, and brass glinting at her ears. Flanking her were two men. They wore blue mantles slung over left shoulders, fastened with silver brooches, but the woman did not. Couriers, the men. He had seen their like before, on the road to this place.

“All I want—” the drunk began, weaving, but the two men at the woman’s back smoothly slid in beside him, one on each side.

“—is to find a bed and sleep,” one of them finished. “Right, Alorn? Our friend Hassic has had a bit too much, but he’ll feel better in the morning.” He slung a companionable but restraining arm around Hassic’s shoulder even as the other man did the same from the other side. Gillan
saw a look pass between the couriers and the blond woman. “Go ahead, Beth. We’ll see to him.”

She nodded briefly, then turned her attention to Gillan and Ellica as the drunk was led away. “All right,” she said crisply, “he won’t be whispering anything into anyone’s ear tonight. Though likely that’s all he could have managed.” Her smile at Ellica was wry. “Not to suggest even that would have been enjoyable.” Her assessing gaze lingered on Ellica a moment, then reverted to Gillan. “What are you doing here? It truly isn’t the best place for people like you to be.”

“People like us?” Gillan echoed, stung. Heat warmed his face. “Why? Who do you think we are?”

“Karavaners,” the woman replied matter-of-factly, “and I’m not being rude; and yes, I can see it in your face. If you and your—sister?—want a drink, there are plenty of ale tents for you. But this particular area is where most of the—” Gillian got the impression she changed her intended words in midstride, “—‘friendlier’ kind of women look for men, so it really isn’t surprising Hassic thought she was for sale.”

He couldn’t help himself. The words just came out of his mouth. “Is that why you’re here? Is that why you were with those two couriers?”

She blinked, then hooted a sharp laugh. “Well,
that
is amusing! My mam always said I’d be taken for a whore, if I didn’t change my ways.” Her smile was unoffended. “No. I’ve been many things in my life, but I’ve never sold my favors to anyone, man or woman.” The glints he had noticed were brass hoops in her ears, and she was dressed like a man in a loose, long-sleeved woven tunic, leather bracers wrapping her forearms, wide leather belt with a pouch and scroll-case attached, and trousers baggy at the thighs but leather-wrapped from knee to ankle, hiding most of the boot beneath. A necklet of charms circled her throat. “So, do you want something to drink? I can take you to Mikal’s. No one will bother you there. He runs a clean tent.”

“No.” Gillan shook his head, embarrassed he had insulted
her—even if she didn’t appear to be insulted. “No, we have to go back. We’re leaving in the morning.”

“Who’s your karavan-master?”

Gillan called up the memory. “Mam said Jorda.”

“Ah.” She nodded once; ear-hoops swung. “Jorda’s good. Not one of the best known, mind—the wealthy folk go with others—but he’s dependable, knows the roads, and has two of the best guides in the business, even if they are unpredictable. They’ll get you where you’re going.” She lifted pale brows. “Where are you bound?”