The Archivist (24 page)

But first, I reach into my pack and remove a laser lighter which I obtained in trade from the captain of Bridget’s Secret before I debarked in Port Sadelow, and stuff it into an empty saddlebag that I place on the Hombre’s horse. The fuel cell is dead and I have a spare lighter anyway, so I can afford to lose one. The Hombre mutters something as I close the saddlebag flap, but when I look at him he glances at Angie, sitting on Malsum, and looks down silently.

After leaving my pack with Little Crow, I lead the Hombre in a trot toward the Disciple patrol, which turns to meet me as they see us approach.

The column turns out to be a dozen mounted soldiers. “Are you a citizen of this town?” one of them challenges me when I ride up.

“To be sure, I’m not,” I reply. “I’m just a merchant from up north looking for goods to trade in, but I have a prisoner I’d like to turn over to you. He attacked a farmstead last night. I was staying in their barn and I agreed to bring him to town for them.”

“We have no need for prisoners, especially ones who haven’t troubled us,” the Disciple growls. They probably do not want to be out here in the first place, riding around in dry, dusty fields. But I know the way to a Disciple’s heart.

“You’re one of those Disciples, right? You might find this criminal more interesting than you realize,” I reply, then lean over and pull the laser device out of his saddlebag. “He had this weird tech thing on him. I can’t understand all his funny talk, but it seems they have a wagon full of this stuff back at their camp. It’s about a day’s ride straight west toward the mountains.”

The Hombre glares at me, but says nothing. The Disciple leader examines the laser with a growing grin and shifts in his saddle to examine the Hombre with great interest.

“Why would you turn this man over to us?” the Disciple asks. “Do you expect some kind of reward?”

“The fact is, he’s a rapist and murderer and I would just as soon have killed the man. But my hosts compelled me to bring him to someone that would render lawful justice. Would that be you?”

“Yes, indeed,” the Disciple says, almost salivating as he looks at the Hombre. “I assure you, this man will receive the most thorough and complete justice we can render.”

I have no doubt about that as I drop the reins to the man’s horse and head back toward Little Crow and Angie. Since no Disciple saw me in Georges, I was not worried that they would recognize me as an Archivist. Still, I breathe a sigh of relief after they let me ride off. When I turn and glance back, they are already trotting toward town with the Hombre.

If my gambit pays off, the Disciple force in this region will be preoccupied for a good while, and they will clear out a local pestilence at the same time. I am trying to think of a suitable name for my new horse when I get back to Little Crow and Angie, only to find them bickering again.

“I tell you it’s true: a male porcupine pees on the female to get her interested in him,” Angie insists.

“No, they don’t. No female would find that interesting. You wouldn’t get all excited if I peed on you, would you?”

“I invite you to try it and see what happens!” she challenges him.

Little Crow turns to me as I ride up. “Where did you find this shama who thinks she knows more than a brother of the land?”

Shaking his head in disgust, Little Crow urges his horse forward and we set off southeast again as we resume our pursuit of Danae’s captors. Now that we have disposed of our unwanted guest, we push our horses to trot for a while, and then drop down to a fast, ambling gait.

I want to urge my mount keep trotting, but we have a long road ahead of us. Provided we pick up the trail, this marathon chase will likely last for days.

The sun is nearing the horizon when we cross the last fields. We wait for a small caravan to pass by heading north before we turn onto the worn road heading directly south. After the travelers fade into the dusty haze, Little Crow pulls up and sidles over to me.

“Do you still have something with Danae’s scent?” he asks.

I swing my pack around and unzip a small side pocket. I forgot all about it, but her shirt is still there. Little Crow winks at me as I pull it out, and he calls Malsum over. After helping Angie dismount, he holds the garment to Malsum’s nose and the cat takes several deep sniffs. Then Little Crow points to the ground.

“Track, Malsum. Track.”

We take a stretch break for a few minutes and give the horses some water and a handful of whole oats, while the lioness searches the area for some scent. I hope for some confirmation that we are on the right track, but Malsum finds nothing. As we resume our southward trek, the beast keeps sniffing for a scent, but she clearly does not pick up anything.

Dusk is deepening when we approach a small community. I ride up to a farmhouse while the others wait out on the road. When I near the building, a man steps through the door warily to greet me. I raise an open hand to show that I am unarmed.

“My companions and I are weary from a long day of riding and would pass the night in your barn if you have the room. We can pay you some coin for your trouble.”

The man squints at me for a minute, thinking, then spits over the rail into the yard. They must make chewing tobacco around here. That often proves to be a valuable commodity; if I get a chance to come back this way, I will have to trade for a handful.

“I reckon not,” the man replies. “Ain’t got no room for guests, I’m ‘fraid.” As I start to turn my horse away, he continues. “But a piece further down the road is the widow Halpern. She been known to put up travelers, regular-like. Might be she’ll even throw in some bread and a bowl of soup, if’n she got it.”

“Well, that sounds like a right smart deal,” I respond.

“Go past a couple more places. She’s the one on the left with two dead trees in front of her house. Ring the bell on one of the trees and she’ll come right on out.”

I thank the man and head back to the road. The widow’s homestead is about another half mile. Little Crow moves Angie onto his packhorse before he sends Malsum off to forage. Hopefully not on someone’s livestock.

Sure enough, when I ring the bell, an elderly woman comes out onto the porch, but I also notice that Angie sits up straight, as if suddenly stung by a hornet. Then she fumbles to pull the hood of her riding cloak over her head hurriedly.

It is already dark, with only a hint of light left in the western sky, so the farmwoman holds out a lantern with one hand while supporting herself with a cane in the other.

“Who is it that comes ringing my lodging bell?” the diminutive woman inquires. She is no taller than a large child, and rather scrawny, but she has a surprisingly powerful voice.

“Three weary travelers and their horses, just looking for a place to stay the night, and some hot food if you have it,” I reply. “We’ll be moving on at first light, and won’t be any trouble.”

The woman moves to the edge of the porch. “Show me what you have to exchange for my hospitality. Mind you, I don’t care what currency your coin might be, but I’ll value the metal fairly.”

I swing down off my mount, pulling several of the coins Dr. Faukner gave me out of my pocket while I walk up to the woman. When I hold out my hand, she pokes through them until she selects a large and a small silver piece.

“This will do. Follow me around to the backside.” She hobbles off her small porch, and we follow her along a stone walkway that leads around a small vegetable garden and past some trees, to a large barn that faces an open, unfenced field.

We enter the structure, and the matron lights a lamp that stands ready. She quickly sizes up Little Crow and me as we swing down off our horses, but for some reason Angie stays on her mount.

“You seem like decent enough folk. Settle down wherever you care to and I’ll send some food out in a few minutes.” After the woman tromps off, Angie cautiously dismounts as well.

I am grateful that we do not have any fellow lodgers, because if we did, awkward would hardly describe what would happen when Malsum returned.

The first thing I do is start a fire in the oven which sits off to one side. The pile of firewood next to it is meant for providing warmth to lodgers, but a bin of charcoal behind the oven indicates that it sometimes doubles as a blacksmith forge during the day.

Little Crow and I take care of the horses and get them settled for the night in a couple of stalls outfitted with some grain feed. I have a few pieces of dried fruit in my pocket—something that looks like apricot—and my horse eagerly takes it out of my palm. Then he starts snuffling over my duster looking for more apricot, and now I have a name for my mount.

Meanwhile, Angie uses the cane I fashioned for her to feel her way around the barn. She stumbles into obstacles a few times, but is getting accustomed to exploring her surroundings, and she works her way over to me.

Grasping me by the shoulder, she whispers, “When we came in, was there a small stone wall enclosing a garden, next to a huge boulder?”

“Yes, there was! How did you know?” Angie cannot see my furrowed forehead, but she surely hears the puzzlement in my voice.

She purses her lips and nods without answering me, then says, “I’m going to use the outhouse.”

“I’ll lead you there,” I offer.

She pushes my hand away and says, “I know where it is, I’ll find it on my own.”

Using her cane, Angie works her way to the entrance of the barn, and after pausing for a moment turns to the right and heads into darkness. If it were anyone else I would be worried, but Angie will do what Angie wants to do.

By the time she returns fifteen minutes later, the widow has already brought out our supper. The food is just a meager stew, mostly root vegetables, with some token meat that I cannot quite identify but would guess is mutton. After a long day of riding, any hot meal tastes like a feast.

We are scraping our bowls with bread crusts when Malsum silently emerges from the darkness, a hare dangling from her jaws. The lioness drops it at Little Crow’s feet and then curls up in a stall in the darkness across from us.

Picking the animal carcass up, he tosses it into Angie’s lap, and the woman jumps. “Here, skinning a rabbit is woman’s work. Oh yeah, that’s right. You can’t do anything useful.”

I shoot Little Crow a ‘Dude!’ look, as I reach to take the rabbit, but Angie grips it tight and slaps my hand away. Reaching into her belt, she removes a small knife and after feeling over the animal, inserts the blade and begins slicing through the pelt.

The incisions are hesitant at first, and a couple of times she nicks her fingers while guiding the blade, but she works in grim silence while Little Crow and I watch, and eventually she peels the pelt off.

With a quick motion, she flings the bloody skin toward Little Crow. He barely manages to block the flying mass before it hits his face. Then, without a word, she holds the skinned carcass out by the legs until Little Crow stands up and takes it.

“Not bad,” he says with a surprised tone of genuine respect, and takes the skinned animal to Malsum, who swallows it in one gulp like a tasty treat and licks her jaws. He sits down with a chastened look on his face and occasionally glances at Angie as he reflects silently.

A short while later, a young girl comes out to collect the bowls. I would guess that the dark-haired girl is perhaps six or seven years of age. She is quiet and somewhat shy until she gets to Angie and asks, “How did you hurt your eyes?”

At the sound of the girl’s voice, Angie gasps and freezes. Then she slowly turns her head toward the girl and softly responds, “It was an accident with a knife. You should be very careful with knives.”

“Will you be able to see again, after those come off?” The child steps closer and touches the bandages gingerly.

“No, I don’t think so.” Angie reaches out and finds the girl, then gently runs her fingers over the child’s hair and face. Finally she asks in a trembling voice, “What’s your name?”

“Ariadne. But my mom just calls me Ari. I have to go now,” the girl replies as she breaks away. She grabs the stew pot and bowls, and pauses at the barn door. “I hope your eyes get better.” Then the child dashes back toward the house with the dinnerware.

“That’s a good name,” Angie calls out to the retreating footsteps. “Vaya con Dios, mi cielo,” she adds quietly.

I notice that Angie’s shoulders are shaking, and ask, “What did you say to her?”

“Something my mother used to say to me,” Angie responds and then turns away.

A little while later when I change the bandages on her eyes, they are wetter than they were the night before.

The next morning, when it is time to mount up, Angie pushes Little Crow’s hands away as he offers to help her up onto Malsum. But it is a push, not a slap. Angie has been unusually withdrawn and even introspective, since her encounter with the child last night.

“Don’t be prideful,” he says. “Look, I’m sorry about last night. I was being a jerk.” Something has changed overnight in Little Crow’s attitude and opened up his sympathetic side.

“Don’t be stupid, it’s not about pride,” Angie says quietly, as she takes hold of his hand. “There will be a time when you’re too busy dealing with real problems and I’ll need to take care of myself. But thank you for offering to help. I just need to learn new ways of doing things.”

They stand there for a few moments while she holds his hand, and I quietly shake my head as I step into Apricot’s stirrups, uncertain whether I know either of those two.

Then, Little Crow steps back. It takes Angie several tries, but Malsum seems to recognize Angie’s limitations, and positions herself to enable the woman to swing up easily. That does not surprise me. Natural selection bred predators to identify weakness in others.

Dawn reaches nearly full daylight by the time we are on the road heading south. After passing through a few more miles of scattered farmland and ranches, we leave the small community behind and start winding through gentle hills devoid of any human presence other than ourselves.

The scrub brush yields to small trees, which are hardly dense enough to call a forest, except in the most generous terms. Still, we pick up the pace as we get our traveling legs, so to speak, and around mid-morning we come across a small campsite next to a stream.

It is not a fresh site; the ashes are cold, and after he jumps down to examine the site, Little Crow says they are a day old.

But when I pull out Danae’s garment for Malsum to sniff, the cat immediately heads to a flattened spot in the grass. My heart pounds when Malsum snarls and sniffs around a bit. She turns and runs up and down the trail, practically prancing. Malsum has definitely picked up Danae’s scent.

It takes me a few moments to realize that I am crying. A suffocating blanket of fear that we would not find Danae’s track has been removed. The relief is almost overwhelming; I quickly shove it into my emotional lockbox.

Little Crow spends about ten minutes walking over the ground, discerning what he can about the group we are pursuing.

“There are seven, maybe eight men. Three of them as well as your woman are riding horses. The others are walking, so we should be able to gain ground on them. It looks like there was some sort of quarrel over here. Not involving the woman, but between three of the men. One of them was probably the leader, I figure he has the better boots. One of the others was knocked to the ground, and it looks like he got a bit bloodied.”

“Can you tell how they are treating Danae?” I ask, recalling the last time she was in the clutches of a band of Disciples. I like to think I am not a violent person by nature, but when I picture the leader taking liberties with her, I am ready to kill.

“Hard to tell,” Little Crow responds as he examines the campsite again. “But I don’t see any signs of abuse.”

Angie speaks up. “They think she’s an Archivist who’s to be offered to the Goddess, so they won’t dare to defile her, if that’s what you’re concerned about. They’ll leave that for the high priest. At least until she gets to Wolfengarde, she should be safe.”

“That’s good, I suppose,” I respond.

Little Crow swings back up onto his horse and we continue winding through the hills. Malsum follows the scent, with Angie riding on her back, and the lioness now takes the lead, while Little Crow and I fall back. Angie seems lost in her own world right now, anyway.

“So, how did you meet Ange?” Little Crow asks out of the blue.

Really, now she is Ange? She never let me call her that. I glance sideways at Little Crow, wondering where this sudden interest comes from, but I keep my thoughts to myself.

“Actually not far from here, and we may camp there tonight. I was traveling along this road to Georges, the city we came from up north. She came into my campsite one night.”

It was late spring, and I was combining a retrieval job with searching for some sign of Damien, who had gone MIA in this region a couple years prior. I did not expect to find him alive, but I hoped to hear some rumor or tale about an Archivist.

My travels turned nothing up—and in fact, until Angie mentioned seeing him in the Disciple capital, I had no idea what his fate was. At the time, of course, I had no reason to ask her about an Archivist.

As usual, I was traveling alone, and I made camp by a stream in a wooded area. While I ate a simple meal by the campfire, I realized that I was being watched from the trees outside the glow of the fire. It had to be a human, since it moved on two feet—unless kangaroos somehow made it here from Australia. From the sounds it made, I guessed it was just one person.

As I spread out my blanket for sleeping, I discreetly tucked my crossbow next to my makeshift pillow and set my backpack on the other side of the fire, where I could watch it. Then I settled down for the night, but I only feigned sleep.

The watcher was quite patient and waited over an hour, by my reckoning of the movement of the stars. Then I heard the quiet crunch of soil as someone crept toward my camp. The fire had died down to a low glow, so I only saw a slender figure bending over the pack.

Since it was not attacking, I simply watched while it slowly undid the top flap and reached inside. Moments later, I heard a loud snap and closed my eyes against the bright flash from inside the pack. The intruder’s body dropped without a sound.

I had a little time before the effects of the taser wore off, so I tossed some wood onto the fire for illumination and then examined the prowler. She turned out to be a young woman perhaps in her late teens or early twenties and, gauging from how thin, dirty and disheveled she was, she had been living off the land for a while.

By the time I tied her hands and sat her up, she started regaining motor control. At first she refused to speak, but eventually she told me that her name was Angelina, she lived in the woods, and was just searching my backpack for food. After confirming that she had no weapon other than a small knife, I turned her loose.

Once she understood I was willing to share my food with her, she was open with me about her situation. The next day, I offered to take her with me to Georges.

Angie was somewhat weak from malnutrition, so it took us a week to make the trek. By the time we got to the town, she told me of her escape from the Disciple lifestyle she grew up in.

Angie and her mother were captured by the Disciples from an Hombre band when Angie was a toddler. All she recalled from that time was playing in the soil while her mother cultivated a small field. For some arcane reason, the Disciples decided Angie’s mother was destined to be one of their high priestesses, so Angie grew up in the Temple.

As the daughter of a Disciple high priestess, she had spent countless hours learning to identify and collect herbs and plants. So when we got to Georges, I gave her the seed money to start her herb shop, and stopped by several times over the next couple of years as she built it into a full-blown naturopathic pharmacy.

From the beginning, though, she had developed quite an infatuation with me. Angie was never shy about what she wanted, which led to disastrous effects the last time I came to visit.

Based on Little Crow’s apparent interest in Angie, I decide to keep those last details to myself.

The sun is noon-high by the time I finish recounting my story to Little Crow. We stop for a lunch break in a small meadow next to a stream where the horses can drink, and graze on some sweet grass.

Angie stumbles when she slides down off Malsum, and Little Crow leaps forward to catch her. She thanks him quietly as she rests her hand on his shoulder, and almost reluctantly steps back. But when he tries to take her pack, she refuses to let him do it.

“No, I have to do this myself,” she insists as she sets it down, and feels along the side for where the water skin hangs. “I need to know exactly where everything is placed.”

After she retrieves her food and water skin, I notice that she sits next to Little Crow and leans her leg against his while they talk quietly. I spend my lunchtime talking to Malsum, who seems to appreciate the attention.

We continue throughout the afternoon, winding through low hills that eventually give way to broad open grassland, where we come across another fresh campsite. This one is more recent. Angie and I remain mounted while Little Crow slips down to examine the site quickly.

“They were here this morning,” he says, and then he jumps back on his horse.

We spend most of the remaining daylight maintaining a trot across the grassy plain, until we cross a small washout, where a creek nourishes scraggly trees.

It is close to dark, and we are unlikely to find any better places to stop for the night. I want to push through the night, but Little Crow says we cannot risk missing any critical tracks.

While we get the horses taken care of with water and some food, Angie uses her cane to search around the campsite for some rocks. I can see that she is determined to prove herself useful, probably more to herself than to us, so when Little Crow moves to help her I grab his arm and shake my head.

By the time we are done with the horses, she has formed a small fire pit by pushing the rocks over and settling them in place by feel.

“You gather some firewood, and I’ll take care of Angelina’s bandages,” Little Crow says. “Just tell me what I need to do.”

I give him some quick instruction; there is really not a lot to it. I hand over the material, and then set about gathering what scrawny wood I can find for our fire.

By the time I have dumped an armload by the fire pit, Little Crow is wrapping the bandage over her eyes carefully while they whisper to each other. Angie rests her hand on Little Crow’s arm and slides closer to him, so I decide to look a little further afield for another load of firewood.

When I return, Little Crow has a small fire going. We sit around the fire, chewing on our dried provisions, Little Crow and Angie together on one side. Little Crow brings a blanket to keep her warm. Even in the dim light of the campfire, it is easy to see them holding hands underneath it.

After a long day of constant riding, we are all exhausted, although the horses we obtained from the Hombres seem to hold up better than we do—probably because they are accustomed to long travel.

A breeze blows through the trees above as I lay staring up into the starry sky. The wind moves all the branches, and as they sway, it seems like the trees are actually animated.

The next morning we get an early start, and Malsum confirms that we are still heading in the right direction when she sniffs Danae’s garment and picks up the trail again. We spend most of the day once again traveling across open plain.

Every time we come over a rise, I hope to catch sight of our quarry ahead of us, but the only movement turns out to be an occasional animal. Malsum is always eager to pursue them, but also seems cognizant of the burden she bears.

We pass the next Disciple campsite by late morning, and Little Crow declares that we should catch up to them by early tomorrow, if we can continue to maintain our pace.

At about the time we are ready to break for a quick lunch, the main road we’re following makes a turn to the west, back toward the mountains, and eventually the coast. A lesser-worn trail—almost indiscernible but clearly worn by recent travel—continues south. Malsum does not hesitate to turn south.

It was many years ago when she last passed this way, but when we describe the crossroad, Angie confirms that the less-worn trail leads to Wolfengarde.

We will take a day and a half to get through the mountains, she says, and then come down onto another broad open plain. From there, it is a few hours to the low hills that surround the Disciple capitol, so we definitely want to catch up to them by the next morning.

The day winds by and we put the miles behind us. Little Crow spends most of the time riding alongside Angie. From the snippets I catch of their conversation, he is telling her about his tribe and describing their land. She seems particularly interested in hearing about Running Deer.

Angie in turn recounts her experiences in the hills around Wolfengarde, collecting the various plants used in Disciple rituals.

Now that we have moved off the plains, the trail winds through gradually rising hills. We ascend through switchbacks over ridges, and several times, Malsum makes deep rumbles when she catches a scent of her quarry. My heart quickens each time.

I sense that Danae is nearby and yearn to keep going, but I stop reluctantly to make camp as night falls. Little Crow examines the tracks made by the Disciple band, and says that if we rise just before dawn, we might even catch up with them before they break camp.

Malsum would be in her element if we came upon them in the dark, but we humans would be at a distinct disadvantage. We want to close in on our prey at the time and place of our choosing.

We lay out our small camp next to a large river and get a small campfire going. Angie deliberately spreads her blanket next to Little Crow’s. Emptiness aches within me; my thoughts are a confused tumble of both Sarah and Danae.

What I see developing between my two friends makes me aware of what I myself lack—what I have lacked for many, many years. For once, I do not shove it away.

After we have eaten a Spartan meal, and Little Crow changes Angie’s bandages, I take a small spool of fishing line out of a side pocket of my backpack.

“I’m going down to the river to see if I can catch some fish. I’ll probably be gone for an hour or so.”

I slip the fishing line into a coat pocket as I walk away, and stop to scratch Malsum’s ears. “Yeah, we’re just in the way now, aren’t we?” I whisper to Malsum, and then I continue.

My pretext was to slip away and give them some private time, but on a deeper level, I need the private time for myself.