The Crimson League (The Herezoth Trilogy) (24 page)

Don’t get sentimental
.
You’ve never gone north. You don’t know this place or anyone who lives here.

Still, Kora felt a strange longing for the town, as though her family waited there, her mother chiding her absence, her father counting the minutes until his daughter arrived and his wife would stop her grumbling.
Kora changed her train of thought, began to pray that no one waited in this thicket. The grass’s height was ideal for an ambush.

As the sun sank, Bidd led the group to a grove of oak trees. The river’s tumble harmonized with the rain that splattered on branches overhead. Darkness thickened beneath the oaks, and Kora inched her horse closer to Hayden, who rode in front of her. The Podra’s roar grew until Kora was sure, without seeing any bank, that it stood only feet away. Everyone dismounted. Bidd tangled his reins in a branch while Lanokas asked Kora, “There’s no way you can move us
and
the horses?”

“We’d have to leave them eventually, we can’t take them to the mountains. We might as well leave them here. The boys can watch them.”

Lanokas asked the cousins, “This place is safe?”

“I’ve been here tons of times,” said Bidd. “No one comes here. I’d still appreciate it if you got your butts back soon, mind.”

Kora broke through the last barrier of trees and saw a rocky, sloping incline to the quarter-mile-wide river. The dusk was lighter outside the grove; she made out a wooden pier on the opposite bank with a canoe tied to it. She steeled herself, then walked back through the oaks to find Kansten and Lanokas.

“Are you ready?” Kora asked. Her stomach felt knotted. The grove’s darkness closed around her like rushing water above her head. If the spell went wrong, she would not be the only one to drown….

Lanokas must have sensed her hesitation, because he said they trusted her. He gripped Kora’s palm with a steadying firmness. Kansten held so tightly to Kora’s fingers her nails dug into them. Kora shut her eyes, focused all her energy on the lonesome little pier. “
Trasporte
.”

The rain pounded her face, running over her clenched eyelids. She had left the shelter of the trees, and the ground felt firmer, less giving than the leaf-strewn mud she had been standing in. Lanokas squeezed her hand to acknowledge her accomplishment; Kansten’s nails still sliced Kora’s skin, and Kora welcomed the pain because it meant Kansten was not tossing in the river.

Kora stood on the wooden dock, her body perpendicular to the line of the riverbank. At the edge of her vision, a distant glow marked the ferry landing. Kansten shifted her weight, and the planks creaked. Lanokas said, “Let’s go before we’re seen.”

The rain and wind were cold on the churning river, especially in the dark, so Kora made no protest. Kansten found a rough trail through the wooded region that encroached upon the bank, and they took it, thinking it might lead them to a road. The path had turned to mud; it was strewn with leaves, rocks, and twigs, and filled with pits of varying depths that overflowed with water and were impossible to see in the ever-progressing night.

“Will the ferry be running?” Kansten asked.

Lanokas replied, “Not in this weather.”

“There’s an inn right off the bank,” said Kora. “On this side. By the ferry landing.”

Kansten asked, “How in the world would you…?”

“My mother grew up here,” Kora told her. Then she stumbled, and paused to yank her left leg free; it had sunk mid-calf in muck. “Listen, let’s make for the road and head back to the river. To that inn. We can act like we’ll take the morning ferry. It’s out of our way, but we’ve been traveling all day in this mess.”

“I’d risk anything for a roof right now,” said Lanokas.

Kansten said, “And if the inn’s closed since Kora’s mother was a child?”

“It hasn’t,” said Lanokas. “I was there two years ago.”

They followed the path for half an hour, losing their footing and grumbling all the way. Finally, they saw the lights of what looked like a two-story farmhouse of some kind. They found and passed the fork that led to its door, and continued another ten minutes before reaching the main road.

The road was cobblestoned, and slippery from the rain, so the Leaguesmen slid continually as they walked. At least the downpour stopped as Kora, Lanokas, and Kansten worked their way east, toward the ferry landing and its lamps. The full moon, now risen, made marking puddles and holes a simpler task. Soon Kora could hear the river again, the pier became more than a dull guiding glow, and new lights appeared, from a small building off to the right. “The inn,” said Kansten. They trudged forward with renewed vigor.

A red-haired sprite of a woman ran the establishment, a tiny person with a high-pitched, obliging voice. Her cheap perfume smelled of rose petals; she had doused herself with it. She looked close in age to Kora’s mother, and she fussed over the damp, dirty trio as sincerely as Ilana would have.

“You poor dears, how long have you been out in that weather?” she asked. Her three new guests huddled in the doorway while they pulled off their boots.

“Too long to know,” said Kansten.

“This is no day to be tramping about the countryside. You’d better….” The innkeeper’s voice faded as she looked at Lanokas. “You’ve been here before.”

“Different business,” he told her. “We’re returning from the Miracle Pool. Stopping the night to check supply levels, that’s all.”

The woman’s voice became a squeak. “You don’t need to restock? Take anything with you?”

“Not from here.”

The innkeeper let out a breath she had been holding. Was she affiliated with the League? Kora could not see how; Zalski’s power stretched thinner up here. Her bright eyes moved to Kora, and she frowned again, as though her guest looked oddly familiar, though Kora was certain she had never seen this woman.

“You three had better dry off. The fire’s lit. I’ll scrounge up some towels.”

Kora looked around the room. Some seven people were in it, including a family with a school-aged son and a toddler. None of them looked to have traveled that day. They were clean and dry, the inn cheery and well lit, and nothing made Kora think of criminals or outlaws or spawned fears of a possible raid by a troop of soldiers. What should have been a wonderful normalcy hung about the place, a normalcy Kora had known only once since leaving home, at Nani’s house, and which intensified the homesickness that glimpsing Fontferry had roused in her.

Kansten led the way to the hearth. The fire’s warmth was such a comfort it wiped Kora’s mind blank. She closed her eyes, let the heat turn her cheeks a rosy pink, and only turned her head when she heard a small voice calling, “Auntie? Auntie Teena?”

An auburn haired, freckle-faced boy somewhere between two and three years old had come in, dragging a patched and faded blanket. He looked up at Kora with droopy brown eyes, then peered at Lanokas, who took a step back.

“You’re not Auntie Teena. Auntie Teena!!!”

The sprite woman returned, looking even smaller than before, half-hidden behind a stack of frayed towels.

“Auntie Teena….”

“Just a moment, Vane.” The boy rubbed his eyes. Auntie Teena, as she was called, thrust the towels into Kansten’s arms. Kora grabbed the top two, handing one to Lanokas, while the innkeeper dropped to one knee to speak to the toddler. “I’m sleepy,” he said.

“It’s your bedtime, isn’t it?” She scooped him up. “Let’s get you tucked in.” Teena told the trio, “I’ll put washbasins in your rooms. They’re the fart
hest down the hall on the right.
I don’t have others available, so they’ll have to do. Warm yourselves a bit more, and I’ll be right back. There’s potato soup for dinner. It’s nearly finished cooking, so you’re just in time.”

“We’ll take three bowls in our rooms,” said Kansten.

“You need something hot on a day like this. Catch your death of wet you will.”

Teena scurried to the hall. Kora was loath to leave the fire, but her bandana was attracting eyes, and she felt uncomfortable. At less reputable inns people wore hats, or scarves, all kinds of unusual clothes, and no one cared, but Kora was markedly odd in a place like this, not least because her bandana was dripping wet and the only natural response was to take it off. When the innkeeper brought their washwater, Kora tore herself from the flames and found her room for the night. She had hardly closed the door behind Teena when Kansten opened it again.

“Go dry off,” said Kora, trying not to sound bitter. After all, there was no reason for Kansten to leave the common room. Kora dipped her towel in the basin and wiped her face.

“I don’t feel like being with people. They weren’t only staring at you, you know. All three of us came in mud-splattered.”

“I was there. Listen, can you tell Lanokas to see me when he gets a chance? I need to talk to you two.”

“The basins are here,” said Kansten, wringing her towel in an empty bowl. “He’ll stop by.”

445

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Teena Unsten

Kora washed, but her clothes were still damp and mud-stained. She opened her sack for new ones with a groan, though she was hardly surprised her things were soaked. She evaporated the moisture with the same vanishing spell that had spared her the ordeal of pulling an arrow out of Hank Spiller’s chest. Then she dried Kansten’s sack, and they changed into fresh dresses.

They changed frocks at every inn, but never with as much gusto as that night. Kora was in the habit of casting cleaning spells on their clothes, ones she had found in the book of household magic, but their dresses had never been this soiled, and Kora could not prevent some irreparable staining. All in all, her results were better than expected.

Kora and Kansten had a double room, humbly decorated but well kept and comfortable. A lamp on the end table gave ample light. Kansten sank to her bed, her gloom at odds with the inn’s homey nature but matching the ache in Kora’s heart too well.

Why so homesick? Could Kora’s mother have known Teena? Ilana mentioned this place each time she described her hometown, and never once had she talked about the old innkeeper’s daughter, if he had one. Ilana’s stories were always about family, her tales of the inn about Saturday excursions for breakfast with her grandparents.

Kora stretched out on the second bed. Her eyes had just closed when Lanokas knocked, so she got up to give him a washbasin and to dry his sack. He left and returned in fresh clothes, his hair combed and wet and dripping down his neck. “What did you want to discuss?” he asked from the doorway.

Before Kora could answer, the innkeeper maneuvered past him. The smell of potato soup, even mixed with the scent of Teena’s rose perfume, made Kora realize how hungry she was. The sprite woman smiled at her as she set the tray beside the lamp. She left right after, and Kora, Kansten, and Lanokas wasted no time grabbing bowls.

“This smells sweeter than the fields during haycutting,” said Kansten. The appearance of food had brought them all to better spirits.

“What’s going on, Kora?” Lanokas prompted again. They were all three seated on the floor with their dinner. He alone had yet to dip his spoon.

Kora cast a sound barrier. As succinctly as she could, she told the others about the enchantments that stood between them and the Hall of Sorcery. “I don’t know what they are,” she finished, “or how many they are, but I don’t see why Petroc would’ve lied about this, and I doubt my magic alone will get us through.”

“You won’t be alone,” Lanokas reminded her.

“I know,” said Kora. She did not want to admit the terror that gripped her when she thought what might happen to the two friends who had risked arrest and borne hunger and storms so she would not confront these obstacles helpless. She had seen the most selfless person she knew die by magic, and was not keen to repeat the experience. Kansten, however, proved less concerned.

“Tons of sorcerers have made it to the Hall. The hocus pocus is there to test you, not keep you out. Personally, I’m more worried about Petroc, but not crazily. He’s technically on our side, isn’t he? He hates Zalski.”

“He won’t be pleased when three of us show up,” said Lanokas, as though they had thought until that moment Petroc would greet them like old school chums. Kansten’s assurance remained unshaken.

“We’ve fought
Zalski
. We can handle this man’s temper.”

“Zalski toyed with us,” said Kora.

“I wouldn’t call what he did to Sedder toying.”

Kora slammed her wooden bowl against the ground. Her soup ran over her fingers, but she ignored the burn.

“If Zalski had wanted me dead that day, I wouldn’t be here, end of story. I stand no more chance against Petroc, and that’s at my best. Take these bloody enchantments seriously! They’ll bring us to our limits before we even see the sorcerer, and when he sees I’ve got company, he’ll want to kill us on the spot.”

Lanokas looked from Kansten to Kora, his body taut, afraid one or the other might resort to shoving. He moved himself between them. “We all know this won’t be easy,” he told Kora. Then he glared at the other woman. “Don’t we?”

“Yes,” said Kansten, looking daggers at the other two.

“Good,” said the prince. “Any other concerns?”

Kora made a point of speaking to Lanokas. “I just thought you’d want to know what Petroc told me. I wish I had specifics.”

“Advance notice is advance notice. I think a good night’s rest will serve us better than sitting up speculating, provided you two don’t kill each other when I leave.”

Kansten rolled her eyes, a mild enough response to show Lanokas she had calmed down, and the prince took up his bowl. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said. “Let’s sleep in. Move on after lunch.”

“Definitely,” said Kora. Kansten gave him a cool nod, Kora lifted the sound barrier, and Lanokas left with his supper. Kora’s stomach ached when she saw how much soup she had wasted. She made the splatter vanish and pulled a hard piece of bread from her sack, grateful her food stores had been wrapped well enough to keep the rain out. Kansten, in a spirit of contriteness, offered a portion of her own meal, but Kora turned it down. She climbed back into bed.

Kansten was right to name Petroc the greater threat, and Lanokas to suggest they sleep, but the fact of the matter was the ancient protections around the Hall frightened Kora more than the man inside its ruins. She knew what to expect from Petroc: his mannerisms, his impetuous nature, she understood them both and believed she could exploit them. It was almost hard to take the man seriously when she compared him with Zalski’s level head and deliberate acts.

Not knowing what lay between her and the Hall terrified Kora. She burned to know what she was up against, burned only for an inkling. Even as a child, deliberate risk had never frightened her as much as tales about monsters or evil spirits, stories about things strange and unfamiliar. Kora’s sleep that night was like many after sitting around a campfire with Sedder and listening to his father’s ghost stories: far from restful, studded with stress-filled dreams, this time not of ghouls but of collapsing ceilings; of clocks ticking down to she knew not what while she was helpless to do anything, especially magic; sometimes there were jets of purple light. In one dream Sedder was with her, they could see the Hall a few yards away, but the ruins transformed into a tall, faceless man Kora knew to be Brenthor, the last leader of the court, and he sent a deafening, compressed jet of water straight at Kora that spurred Sedder to jump in front of her….

Dawn was an hour off when Kora woke from that nightmare. Outside, the sky had turned from black to a murky gray, and Kora slipped into the hall, grabbing her bandana, careful not to wake her roommate. She found the sitting room empty, though Teena had pulled the curtains back. The front door was unlocked. Outside, to find the last vestiges of night—an almost imperceptible mist, the wet stickiness of dew beneath her bare feet—was a comfort. Not far away, Kora could hear men bustling on the ferry’s pier, preparing the ship for its first crossing of the day. She shivered in the cold, and kept moving to keep warm. Behind the inn she found a barn large enough to house a few chickens, and Kora trotted around back to watch day break over the Podra.

Never had she missed someone as much as Sedder at that moment. He would have known how to quell her fears. He always had said the right thing, had never sounded condescending or made her struggles out to be more or less than what they were. She had never understood when he was alive how much she relied on him, and felt like a selfish child to want him near her now.

“Oh dear!”

A high, clear voice sounded behind Kora, and she jumped, realizing who was there. Teena’s rose perfume gave her away. “You shouldn’t be out with nothing on your feet, not after traipsing through that downpour yesterday.”

The innkeeper held a basket of fresh eggs and wore an apron, as well as a headwrap not dissimilar to Kora’s. She seemed less sprite-like than the night before. The difference was in her eyes, which were not bright yet, though by the time she cooked breakfast Teena’s gaze would sparkle as much as ever. That much was clear even to someone who had met her yesterday. The apron, too, detracted from the woman’s pixyish air; no fairy Kora ever imagined did such mundane tasks as frying eggs.

“I wanted to watch the sun rise on the river,” Kora explained.

“The colors twist on the water. I step back here every day to catch a glimpse of it. I have since I was ten.”

Kora rose to her feet, clinging to a new train of thought. “You grew up here? Did your parents own the inn before you?”

“I didn’t help much around here when I was young, I’d just sweep and gather eggs. I wasn’t home, you see. My father sent me to the town school run by a batty old woman and her senile husband. I learned to read and write, God knows how, and to add, which are things you need to know in my line of work…. Forgive me, I can’t remember if I gave you my name last night. I’m Teena.”

“Tranity.” The alias rose easily to Kora’s lips, for she had memorized the name on her false papers long ago. Teena studied her closely. Kora’s cheeks turned as rosy as the woman’s scent; she could not help but consider she had Ilana’s nose, and strong chin, and that the one portrait she had seen of her mother as a girl, done quite inexpertly, showed tight chestnut curls quite like her own.

Teena said, “A handful of my classmates were girls, not many. I was the youngest. One a year or two older would help me with my work, because I needed it. Unfortunately, Ilana’s mother died before we became close. We had different friends.” Kora nodded, attempting nonchalance, but her face grew hotter still. “A barren couple in Hogarane adopted her, and she moved a good two week’s journey down the river. Ilana kept in touch with some of the girls from school, though. They wrote letters. I heard once she married a man named Porteg. Had a daughter.”

“Is that so?”

Kora’s heart was slamming against her ribs. She peered into the light green eyes of the woman before her. She did not think Teena was a danger, would tell stories to a neighbor or to the army, but she could not take the chance. She could not admit to being Ilana’s child. Teena’s manner remained astonishingly disinterested. “Have you heard the name Porteg?” she asked.

“It’s not familiar.”

“We might all be familiar with it soon. I tell you, I was never so surprised as when a guard from the Crystal Palace stopped here about a week ago.”

“The Crystal Palace?” Kora feigned excitement, forcing a rising sense of panic to settle in the pit of her gut, where she could hide it. “Not one of Zalski’s men?”

“He was on his way to Partsvale and had a bit much to drink. Nothing unusual, that, but imagine my wonder, Tranity, when he mentioned my old schoolmate’s married name: Porteg. Kora Porteg, he said. That caught my interest, because I’m fairly sure Kora’s what Ilana calls her daughter. Well, this pilgrim—I’ll call him that, though most pilgrims I’ve seen don’t drink—I’d wager this pilgrim would lose him more than his post if Zalski caught wind of some of the things he said. Laughing all the while, too. He let out my old friend’s daughter, this Kora, was causing quite a stir in the capital, and he wouldn’t wish her neck to be his for anything. Zalski offered her something, some kind of paid post, and she had the gall to turn it down,
to his face
. I’m amazed Zalski didn’t arrest her on the spot.”

Kora leaned close to Teena, not to simulate further interest but because she felt sick and just managed to stop herself from doubling over. “This man, did he say something else? About Kora?”

“Only that if he was her, he’d hide his ass away and pray not to be found. His words. He’d met the girl, escorted her to Zalski, actually, and said he wasn’t sure she’d take the intelligent route. She seemed a mulish sort.”

Kora’s brain was whirling. The innkeeper knew who she was; whether Teena was threatening her or trying to help was harder to determine. They peered into each other’s eyes, a painful moment, a moment of truth, and Kora dared not look away. That would be as good as a confession. Teena gave in first, accepting Kora was as stubborn as the guard had painted her. The sprite woman turned with her eggs toward the house, her step’s bounce less natural than Kora remembered.

“You should come inside. Barefoot, of all the nonsense…. I hope you slept well?”

Kora could not bear to lie again, so she said, “The room was comfortable. Very comfortable. And the soup was delicious.”

Teena went to the kitchen, and Kora returned to her room to find Kansten, unsurprisingly, asleep. Kora shook her awake.

“Wha…? Kora, no, we….” Kansten yawned, and would have looked annoyed had she not looked so tired. “We’re sleeping in, remember?”

“The innkeeper knows who I am.” Kansten bolted upright. “I don’t think she’d turn us over. But she’s not stupid, she has to know there’d be something in it for her.”

Kansten scrambled from bed and grabbed her sack, forgetting shoes. Kora threw on her boots. By the time she entered the hallway, Kansten was tapping on Lanokas’s door. “Come on,” the blonde whispered. She looked frantic. “Get up!”

Kansten dared another tap, and the door opened a sliver with a creak that made her wince. Lanokas’s eye appeared, then all of him, groggy and confused.