Season of Sacrifice (14 page)

“This belonged to Reade,” the tracker said, hefting the piece of metal as if he were about to set it on a scale. “See how the leather thong has been chewed? He does that when he’s nervous.” Landon looked from the trampled crops to the Great Mother, measuring the distance with his eyes. “He must have thrown it from horseback, from that cluster of prints there. The distance is far, for a child, but the angle is right. Reade must have created a diversion, ridden from the road and left the amulet here.”

“Don’t you think that plan is a little sophisticated for a five-year-old boy?” Maddock could not keep the sarcasm from his voice.

“The only other possibility is that Coren dropped it himself, and that makes no sense at all. Reade must have figured out that someone would come after him. He forced Coren’s horse from the road and left this for us, as a sign.”

“You don’t even know that the duke rode out here!” Maddock flavored his disbelief with a touch of anger as Jobina nodded, eagerly accepting the tracker’s evaluation. The healer was growing a little too impressed with Landon.

“I can’t be certain,” the tracker agreed, either ignoring or unaware of Jobina’s rapt attention. “Someone may have taken his horse for some reason, but the animal that rode out here was Coren’s stallion.”

At Jobina’s renewed look of respect, Maddock sharpened his voice. “And I suppose the Guardians of Earth whispered that little secret to you.”

“Of course not.” Landon’s voice tightened a fraction. “I noticed the stallion at Land’s End. He has a curious gait—his right hind leg scuffs along for just a fraction of a second. See? In the mud, there. It might be correctable by a good farrier, with a proper shoe.”

“It certainly hasn’t kept him from outpacing us every step of the way!”

Landon shrugged, managing to indicate that their pace had been hampered by Maddock’s injury. Maddock tightened his hands into fists and forced his mount to take a menacing step toward the tracker. Clenching his knees about the beast’s girth, though, made his leg twinge, and he settled back into his saddle.

So, Maddock thought, grimacing, Reade had stood in this field yesterday afternoon. Assuming that the child’s escapade had not evoked reprisals (and there were, thank the Guardians, no signs of bloodshed in the field), then at least one of their quarry was well enough to rebel against his captors. Maddock clenched his teeth and turned his horse back to the road. They were not entirely too late.

After they left the trampled field behind, Maddock resisted the urge to push through the night, to ride hard until he reached the duke, no matter what the cost. He was not so prideful that he believed he could best a cursed company of warriors who had been trained since childhood to kill men like him. At least not when he had ridden for hours, without proper rest or food, in a strange and dangerous land, with a throbbing, unhealed knee.

A small village spread halfway between the three travelers and the horizon. This one had no walls. Just as well, Maddock thought. Gatekeepers were twice as suspicious when long shadows fell across a man’s face.

Full dark had settled in the narrow streets by the time the three riders made their way into the hamlet. Despite the late hour, though, the lanes were filled with people, small children running and calling to each other in the darkness, men and women walking together through the moonlight. A festival air whipped through the town, scarcely pent excitement surging along the dirt roads. All of the stir centered around the trampled yard of what appeared to be the only inn in the village. Maddock and his companions followed the stream of people, urging their tired mounts forward.

Maddock did not even bother to glance at the sign that swung in the nighttime breeze. He had had enough of clever taproom names to last a lifetime. The three travelers stooped under a low doorway and found themselves in the midst of a quiet room, strangely hushed after the excitement outside.

There were close to a hundred villagers crowded into the space, and the smell of sweaty bodies was overwhelming after the cold night air. All eyes were glued to the wooden stairs leading up to the inn’s second floor.

Maddock glanced about until he had located the innkeeper, a stout man whose bulbous red nose hinted that he enjoyed a good bit of his own brew. Even if a white apron had not announced the man’s status, the carved wooden tray in his hands would have done the same. While the crowd remained spellbound by whatever spectacle had moved upstairs, the ostler bustled about his business, refilling an empty mug here, bringing a fresh meat pie there. When he noticed the three strangers, he paused long enough to leer at Jobina’s lithe form beneath her travel-worn clothes.

“I’ll not be having rooms for the lot of you,” the innkeeper huffed. “We’re all full upstairs. I can give you a mug or two, though.”

“Who’s up there?” Maddock asked, dropping a coin on the wooden tray and indicating that he and his companions would like food and drink.

“It’s the duke himself,” the innkeeper whispered. “Duke Coren and his men.”

Maddock’s breath caught in his throat. After these weeks of travel, to finally be under the same roof as that cursed bastard…. Maddock scarcely heard the innkeeper continue. “They’ll be here through the night, you can mark my words, and probably tomorrow as well. It will take that long for the little girl to die.”

“The little girl!” Maddock gasped, barely swallowing Maida’s name.

Landon cleared his throat pointedly before asking, “What ails the child?”

Before the tracker’s words were out, though, Jobina had pushed her way forward. “Perhaps I can be of assistance. I have some small knowledge of herbs.”

Sharks and fins! Maddock wanted to scream aloud. Jobina could not help Maida! Duke Coren had spent weeks among the People; he had certainly noticed the healer. There was little chance he could have
missed
her, with her taut calves flirting beneath her skirts.

Maddock almost did not hear the innkeeper’s life-saving response. “Thank you, good lady, but the duke has said his own men will care for her. He wants none of the townfolk abovestairs.” The ostler made a short bow toward Landon, setting down his tray and wrestling his hands dry on his apron as he acknowledged the man’s question. “The girl suffers from a fever, goodman, from fear and hard riding.”

“But how did a little girl come
here
? And with Duke Coren?” Maddock managed to ask.

“The duke saved her, that’s how. Her and her brother, twins.” The trio of outlanders listened to the tale that had become painfully familiar, swallowing their indignation against the unfair lies that Coren had sown in the innkeeper’s fertile imagination.

Maddock heard how the Tree demanded the annual sacrifice of human children—fresh blood poured upon its roots by a priest and priestess, a brother and sister coupled in an unholy alliance. The blood of twins, like the vulnerable Maida and Reade, was more potent, more valuable to the craven Tree.

The tale was so twisted, so incredible, that nausea swirled through Maddock’s gut, as if his people actually
did
perform such abominations. Unbidden, Maddock’s hand crept to the woodstar beneath his tunic.

The ostler must have seen something of his guests’ disgust, for he wrapped up his tale quickly. “Enough of such horrors! You’ll still sup with us, even if we can’t give you a room for the night?”

Swallowing hard, Maddock said that the three of them would indeed dine in the common room. The innkeeper brought them food without delay. As Maddock’s companions dug into a stew that was more broth than meat, he tried to calculate a plan. If only there were some way that he could spirit a disguised Jobina upstairs, some way that she could bring her healer’s craft to the feverish Maida…. All the time that Maddock thought, he could feel his bavin burning beneath his clothing, its prickly points rubbing his flesh like new wool. More than once, he shifted the woodstar, uncomfortably aware of how the villagers would react if they saw this relic of the Tree, if they recognized a bavin carved from the blood-starved nightmare of Coren’s lies.

Even as Maddock contemplated taking off the woodstar altogether and hiding it, he was interrupted by a soldier clattering down the steps, his armor rattling like death. “Innkeep!” The roar cut through the uneasy mumbling in the room, and Maddock recognized Coren’s aide-de-camp, Donal. He also remembered that Donal was the soldier who had stolen Maida from the beachhead, the one who had wrapped his mailed fists around the little girl’s throat and bundled her onto the back of a horse, barely keeping her toes from his dogs’ slavering jaws. Without conscious thought, Maddock found himself on his feet, reaching for the sword that was half swathed in his cloak.

Only Landon’s hand on his sword arm kept him from crying out his challenge then and there.

Landon’s hand, that was, and the vestigial memory that Maddock did not want to fight Donal. No,
Coren
was Maddock’s man. Coren was the one who had masterminded the attack, who had tried to seduce Alana Woodsinger, who had wangled a woodstar from her. The duke was the power behind the fear he heard in every voice, the tales of horror that were muttered like filthy jokes in every village that they passed. A deep breath managed to clear the scarlet fury from Maddock’s eyes, and he was able to listen to Donal’s commands.

“Innkeep, do you have any sort of healer in this miserable excuse for a village?”

“Begging your pardon, my lord,” the ostler muttered, bobbing an awkward bow. A flush of exertion mixed with fear on his face, and his fleshy nose glowed with renewed color. “Begging your pardon. There’s only the midwife, Goody Rina, and she’s out to her son’s farm, helping with the calving.”

“The calving!” Donal bellowed, and Maddock braced himself for the inevitable smack of flesh against flesh. “We’ve children here, man, a girl who is dying! Perhaps you forget that you have a duke abovestairs!”

“Please, my lord, how could I forget that?” the fat innkeeper pleaded. “I forget nothing at all, nothing requested by any of my guests! If it please your lordship, this lady is passing through, and she has offered her assistance.” The ostler nearly tripped over his feet in his effort to get to Jobina. “She says she knows herbs and the ways of healing.”

“Then what are you wasting my time for, fool?” Donal turned on his heel without even glancing at Jobina. “Get her upstairs now. Before it is too late!”

Maddock bit back a curse. Jobina, though, merely smiled with satisfaction before she gathered her cloak closer about her body, swaddling her curves in disguising cloth. Her hands flashed to her face like sparrows’ wings, and in a flash, she wove her hair into a single, unbecoming braid. Maddock shook his head as he handed over her herb-filled satchel. He could only hope that two weeks on the road had worked some alchemy, and the healer would not be recognized.

As Jobina disappeared up the stairs, Maddock told himself that the safer course lay in letting the healer go alone. One person from Land’s End had the faintest chance of not sparking a deadly connection in the duke’s mind. Two would almost certainly invite disaster. He did not even notice the innkeeper looking at him oddly when he let Jobina climb the stairs by herself. Did not notice, that was, until the bavin on his chest seemed to shift entirely of its own accord. As clearly as if Alana Woodsinger were sitting next to him on the trestle, Maddock heard the woman’s voice prompt him to look up at the astonished ostler.

He barely resisted the urge to pull out the bavin, to stare at it outright. Of course, Alana was watching him! Of course, she was tracking everything that had been done by all three rescuers. Maddock had no time to dwell on that uncomfortable thought, though, as the innkeeper asked, “Sir?” and looked toward the stairs in obvious amazement that Maddock would abandon his ostensible wife.

Bogs and breakers! Every eye in the room was trained on him now. Whether he had a plan or not, he had to climb the stairs. Sighing, and indicating with a pointed glance that Landon should remain at the table, Maddock settled a hand on the woodstar beneath his clothes and followed the healer to the sickroom.

Looking through the door of the crowded bedchamber, Maddock thought that Maida had already died. The child was stretched out on a lumpy mattress, her arms pulled into unnaturally straight lines beside her narrow chest. Maddock dragged his cloak across his face, as if he feared catching some deadly plague. The motion brought his wrist to rest against the edge of his woodstar, making its points dig into his chest.

Of course, he’d known that Alana Woodsinger would be watching what happened along the road. He’d just managed to block that surveillance from his conscious thoughts. Uneasily, he shifted from foot to foot, the nagging pain in his knee reminding him of
all
that the woodsinger had witnessed. She would know that he had let Landon lead the rescuers for days. She would know that Maddock had failed in his first pitched battle. Even now, she might be recounting his failure to the Women’s Council. She might be saying that he was a coward and a fool, that he had let Jobina walk into a snake pit by herself.

Biting back a curse, Maddock edged past an ocean of golden cloth that frothed about the mattress, clear remnant of some ornate gown or tunic. He stepped near enough that he could make out Maida’s frail chest rising painfully. Her lungs seemed barely to expand with the supreme effort of breathing. Even as Maddock strained to hear the faintest rattle in her throat, he made out the sound of soft sobbing.

Reade knelt beside the bed, his head lowered to the pallet. His narrow shoulders shook as he wept. Gone was the mischievous child who accepted any dare, the proud huer who had guided grown men to their first fishing harvest of the season. Reade was a forlorn child, a waif far from home.

“If you can’t quiet your sobs, Sun-lord, I’ll dose you from the cup.”

Maddock glanced at Duke Coren, bristling at the steady tone of command that ignored the child’s distress. The man wore the same cursed armor that had fascinated the naive villagers on the Headland of Slaughter, the golden sun dripping with blood from a crimson-sheathed knife. The same beard framed his thin lips; the same eyes glinted like steel in the warrior’s lean face. Now, though, there was a bared intensity in the man’s visage, a ravenous focus. If Coren had dared to show such a vicious gaze to the people of Land’s End, he never would have been welcomed into their hearts and homes.