The Pillars of Creation (2 page)

The man slowed when he saw her reaction, and her knife.

“I didn’t mean to give you a scare.”

His voice was pleasant enough.

“Well, you did.”

Although the hood of his cloak was up and she couldn’t see his face clearly, he seemed to be taking in her red hair the way most people did when they saw her.

“I can see that. I apologize.”

She didn’t slacken her defensive posture in acceptance of the apology, but instead swept her gaze to the sides, checking to see if he was alone, to see if anyone else was with him and might be sneaking up on her.

She felt a fool for being caught by surprise like that. In the back of her mind she knew she couldn’t ever really be safe. It didn’t necessarily take stealth. Even simple carelessness on her part could at any time bring the end. She felt a sense of forlorn doom at how easily it could happen. If this man could walk up in broad daylight and startle her so easily, what did that say of her hopelessly extravagant dream that one day her life could be her own?

The dark rock wall of the cliff glistened in the wet. The windswept gully was deserted of anyone but her and the two men, the dead one and the one alive. Jennsen was not given to imagining sinister faces lurking in forest shadows, as she had been as a child. The dark places in among the trees were empty.

The man stopped a dozen paces away. By his posture, it wasn’t fear of her knife that halted him, but fear of causing her a worse fright. He stared openly at her, seemingly lost in some private thought. He quickly recovered from whatever it was about her face that so held his gaze.

“I can understand why a woman would have cause to be frightened when a stranger suddenly walks up on her. I would have passed on by without alarming you, but I saw that fellow on the ground and you there, bent over him. I thought you might need help, so I rushed over.”

The cold wind pressed his dark green cloak against his sinewy build and lifted the other side away to reveal his well-cut but simple clothes. His cloak’s hood covered his head against the first trailers of rain, leaving his face somewhat indistinct in its shadow. His smile was one of courteous intent, no more. He wore the smile well.

“He’s dead” was all she could think to say.

Jennsen was unaccustomed to speaking to strangers. She was unaccustomed to speaking to anyone but her mother. She was unsure as to what to say—how to react—especially under the circumstances.

“Oh. I’m sorry.” He stretched his neck a little, without coming any closer, trying to see the man on the ground.

Jennsen thought it a considerate thing to do—not trying to come closer to someone who was clearly nervous. She hated that she was so obvious. She had always hoped she might appear to others somewhat inscrutable.

His gaze lifted from the dead man, to her knife, to her face. “I suppose you had cause.”

Perplexed for a second, she finally grasped his meaning and blurted out, “I didn’t do it!”

He shrugged. “Sorry. From over here I can’t tell what happened.”

Jennsen felt awkward holding a knife on the man. She lowered the arm with the weapon.

“I didn’t mean to…to appear a madwoman. You just startled the wits out of me.”

His smile warmed. “I understand. No harm done. So, what happened?”

Jennsen gestured with her empty hand toward the cliff face. “I think he fell from the trail up there. His neck’s broken. At least I think it is. I only just discovered him. I don’t see any other footprints. My guess is that he was killed in a fall.”

As Jennsen returned her knife to its sheath on her belt, he considered the cliff. “Glad I took the bottom, rather than the trail up there.”

She inclined her head in invitation toward the dead man. “I was looking for something that might tell me who he was. I thought maybe I should…notify someone. But I haven’t found anything.”

The man’s boots crunched through the coarse gravel as he approached. He knelt on the other side of the body, rather than beside her, perhaps to give the knife-wielding madwoman a precautionary bit of space so she would feel a little less jumpy.

“I’d guess you were right,” he said, after taking in the abnormal cant of the head. “Looks like he’s been here at least part of the day.”

“I was through here earlier. Those are my tracks, there. I don’t see any others about.” She gestured toward her catch lying just behind her. “When I went to the lake to check my lines, earlier, he wasn’t here.”

He twisted his head in order to better study the still face. “Any idea who he was?”

“No. I don’t have a clue, other than that he’s a soldier.”

The man looked up. “Any idea what kind of soldier?”

Jennsen’s brow drew tight. “What kind? He’s a D’Haran soldier.” She lowered herself to the ground in order to look at the stranger more directly. “Where are you from that you wouldn’t recognize a D’Haran soldier?”

He ran his hand under his cloak’s hood and rubbed it along the side of his neck. “I’m just a traveler, passing through.” He looked as tired as he sounded.

The answer perplexed her. “I’ve moved around my whole life and I don’t know of anyone who wouldn’t know a D’Haran soldier when they saw one. How can you not?”

“I’m new to D’Hara.”

“That’s not possible. D’Hara covers most of the world.”

This time, his smile betrayed amusement. “Is that so?”

She could feel her face heat and she knew it must be going red with how ignorant of the world at large she had shown herself to be. “Well, doesn’t it?”

He shook his head. “No. I’m from far to the south. Beyond the land that is D’Hara.”

She stared in wonder, her chagrin evaporating in light of the implications that came into her head at such an astonishing notion. Perhaps her dream might not be so extravagant.

“And what are you doing, here, in D’Hara?”

“I told you. Traveling.” He sounded weary. She knew how exhausting it could be to travel. His tone turned more serious. “I know he’s a D’Haran soldier. You misunderstood me. What I meant was, what kind of soldier? A man belonging to a local regiment? A man stationed here? A soldier on his way home for a visit? A soldier going for a drink in town? A scout?”

Her sense of alarm rose. “A scout? What would he be scouting for in his own homeland?”

The man looked off at the low dark clouds. “I don’t know. I was only wondering if you knew anything of him.”

“No, of course not. I just found him.”

“Are these D’Haran soldiers dangerous? I mean, do they bother folks? Folks just traveling through?”

Her gaze fled his questioning eyes. “I—I don’t know. I guess they could be.”

She feared to say too much, but she wouldn’t want him to end up in trouble because she said too little.

“What do you suppose a lone soldier was doing way out here? Soldiers aren’t often alone.”

“I don’t know. Why do you suppose a simple woman would know more about soldiering than a man of the world who travels about? Don’t you have any ideas of your own? Maybe he was just on his way home, for a visit, or something. Maybe he was thinking about a girl back home, and so he wasn’t paying attention like he should have been. Maybe that’s why he slipped and fell.”

He rubbed his neck again, as if he were in pain.

“I’m sorry. I guess I’m not making much sense. I’m a little tired. Maybe I’m not thinking clearly. Maybe I was only concerned for you.”

“For me? What do you mean?”

“I mean that soldiers belong to units of one sort or another. Other soldiers know them and know where they’re supposed to be. Soldiers don’t just go off alone when they want to. They aren’t like some lone trapper who could vanish and no one would know.”

“Or some lone traveler?”

An easy grin softened his expression. “Or some lone traveler.” The grin withered. “The point is, other soldiers will likely look for him. If they come upon his body, here, they’ll bring in troops to prevent anyone from leaving the area. Once they gather anyone they can find, they’ll start asking questions.

“From what I’ve heard about D’Haran soldiers, they know how to ask questions. They’ll want to know every detail about every person they question.”

Jennsen’s middle cramped in sick, churning consternation. The last thing in the world she wanted was D’Haran soldiers asking questions of her or her mother. This dead soldier could end up being the death of them.

“But what are the chances—”

“I’m only saying that I’d not like to have this fellow’s friends come along and decide that someone has to pay for his death. They might not see it as an accident. Soldiers get stirred up by the death of a comrade, even if it was an accident. You and I are the only two around. I’d not like to have a bunch of soldiers discover him and decide to blame us.”

“You mean, even if it was an accident, they might seize an innocent person and blame them for it?”

“I don’t know, but in my experience that’s the way soldiers are. When they’re angry they find someone to blame.”

“But they can’t blame us. You weren’t even here, and I was only going to tend my fishing lines.”

He planted an elbow on his knee and leaned over the dead man toward her. “And this soldier, going about his business for the great D’Haran Empire, saw a beautiful young woman strutting along and was so distracted by her that he slipped and fell.”

“I wasn’t ‘strutting’!”

“I don’t mean to suggest you were. I only meant to show you how people can find blame when they decide they want to.”

She’d not thought of that. They were D’Haran soldiers. Such behavior would hardly be out of the question.

The rest of what he’d said registered in her mind. Jennsen had never before had a man call her beautiful. It flustered her, coming so unexpectedly and out of place, as it did, in the middle of such a worry. Since she didn’t have any idea how to react to the compliment, and since there were so many more important thoughts commanding her emotions, she ignored it.

“If they find him,” the man said, “then, at the least, they’re going to collect anyone around and question them long and hard.”

All the ugly implications were becoming all too real. The day of doom was suddenly looming near.

“What do you think we should do?”

He thought it over a moment. “Well, if they do come by, but don’t find him, then they won’t have any reason to stop and question the people here. If they don’t find him, they’ll go somewhere else to keep looking for him.”

He rose and looked around. “Ground’s too hard to dig a grave.” He pulled his hood farther forward to shield his eyes from the mist as he searched. He pointed to a spot near the base of the cliff. “There. There’s a deep cleft that looks big enough. We could put him in there and cover him over with gravel and rocks. Best burial we can manage this time of year.”

And probably more than he deserved. She would just as soon leave him, but that wouldn’t be wise. Covering him up was what she had planned on doing before the stranger happened along. This would be a better way to do it. There would be less chance that animals would uncover him for passing soldiers to discover.

Seeing her trying to hastily weigh the various ramifications, and mistaking it for reluctance, he spoke in soft assurance. “The man is dead. Nothing can be done about it. It was an accident. Why let that accident bring trouble? We didn’t do anything wrong. We weren’t even here when it happened. I say we bury him and go on with our lives—without D’Haran soldiers becoming unjustly involved.”

Jennsen stood. The man might be right about soldiers coming upon a dead friend and deciding to question people. There was abundant reason to be worried about the dead D’Haran soldier without this new concern. She thought again about the piece of paper she’d found in his pocket. That would be reason enough—without any other.

If the piece of paper was what she thought it might be, then questioning would only be the beginning of the ordeal.

“Agreed,” she said. “If we’re to do it, let’s be quick.”

He smiled, more relief than anything, she thought. Then, turning to face her more squarely, he pushed his hood back off his head, the way men did out of respect for a woman.

Jennsen was shocked to see, even though he was at most only six or seven years older than she, that his cropped hair was as white as snow. She gazed at it with much the same sense of wonder as people gazed at her red hair. With the shadows of the hood gone, she saw that his eyes were as blue as hers, as blue as people said her father’s had been.

The combination of his short white hair and those blue eyes was arresting. The way they both went with his clean-shaven face was singularly appealing. It all fit together with his features in a way that seemed completely right.

He held his hand out across the dead soldier.

“My name is Sebastian.”

She hesitated a moment, but then offered her hand in return. Even though his was big and no doubt powerful, he didn’t squeeze her hand to prove it, the way some men did. The unnatural warmth of the hand surprised her.

“Are you going to tell me your name?”

“I’m Jennsen Daggett.”

“Jennsen.” He smiled his pleasure at the sound of it.

She felt her face going red again. Instead of noticing, he immediately set to the task by grabbing the soldier under his arms and giving him a tug. The body moved only a short distance with each mighty pull. The soldier had been a huge man. Now he was a huge dead weight.

Jennsen seized the soldier’s cloak at the shoulder to help. Sebastian moved his hold to the cloak at the other shoulder and together they dragged the weight of the man, who loomed as dangerous to her in death as he would have in life, across the gravel and slick patches of smooth rock.

Still panting from the effort, and before pushing the soldier into the crevice that was to be his final resting place, Sebastian rolled him over. Jennsen saw for the first time that he wore a short sword strapped over his shoulder, under his pack. She hadn’t seen it before because he was lying on it. Hooked on the weapons belt around his waist, at the small of his back, hung a crescent-bladed battle-axe. Jennsen’s level of apprehension rose at seeing how heavily armed the soldier had been. Regular soldiers didn’t carry this many weapons. Or a knife like he had.