The Sable City (The Norothian Cycle) (38 page)

Tilda sighed and shook her head faintly. “No, it is not even that, it is just…I had some bad news from home before leaving Chengdea.”

Tilda was not sure why she said anything, but she had felt very alone for a long time now.

“
News from Miilark?”

“
Yes.”

“
Not…family, I hope.”

“
No, nothing like that,” Tilda said, then realized she was unsure if Claudja had meant her actual blood kin, or had just very adroitly asked Tilda about her House.

“
Politics,” Tilda said.

Duchess Claudja Perforce of Chengdea blinked, pointedly batting the long lashes of her gray eyes.

“
Really? Is politics sometimes troubling? You don’t say.”

Tilda actually laughed a little, and Claudja smiled at her. Both turned back to the water and watched the banks slide by a while longer.

“
Is it…” Claudja said carefully. “Is it something you would like to talk about?”

“
It is not something that I should.”

“
Fair enough.”

Tilda looked at her. “Do you want to talk about why you are going to Camp Town like this?”

Claudja smiled back at her, but shook her head once. “That is not something I can talk about. Not with anyone. Sorry.”

“
Fair enough.”

Somewhere ahead on the raft, a wug tongue-snapped what must have been a large bug out of the air, for some of its fellows hooted approval. Claudja gave a little shiver.

“
Gods, that is disconcerting. Surely there must be something we can talk about.”

The Duchess turned and looked back toward the crates, around one of which Dugan’s feet in dirty socks were visible sticking out from the blankets of his bedroll. Claudja turned back around to look out over the water.

“
Your man…Dugan,” she said slowly. “He is not an altogether unpleasant-looking fellow. I imagine he could be somewhat presentable, cleaned up a bit.”

Tilda snorted, louder than she had meant to.

“
I don’t think he does clean up. That is about as good as it gets.”

Claudja looked at Tilda sideways.

“
He is a trifle afraid of you, you know.”

Tilda felt her nose twitch. “Well, that would be because I promised to kill him if he ever touched me again.”

Claudja raised both eyebrows.

“
It wasn’t like
that
,” Tilda said. “It was…complicated.”

Claudja waited for more, but when Tilda said nothing else for a while she shrugged and turned back to the water.

“
Well. We have another week on this…floating dance floor, and days overland after that. And I did not think it would look right to bring along a book. Should you become bored enough to delve into complexities, Matilda, I imagine I will be somewhere close at hand.”

Tilda thought for a moment, and finally gave a little sigh before she spoke.

“
My friends,” she said, “just call me Tilda.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Tilda and Claudja spent the next three days chatting, until the passenger manifest of their crude raft more than doubled. There were innumerable ways through the Vod Wilds’ streams and marshes, and only twice did the group even sight another bullywug raft, moving empty back to the east both times. That changed on their eleventh day on the water.

The night before had been stormy and miserable, obliging Gorpal to tie up against a bank as the water rose rapidly and ran hard. The wugs went inland and sheltered among the trees but the four humans huddled shivering on the bank in a closer knot than their disparate social statuses would have permitted under any other circumstances.

The wugs came out of the trees in the clear morning and got back underway. Gorpal directed their progress closely all day, taking advantage of swift-running streams to cut his transit time. Tilda and the others had been unable to sleep as they had all gotten soaked to the bone on the bank, but at least the wugs had let them stow bedding and extra clothes in the water-tight crates that had been emptied of food so far. The humans slept soundly and more-or-less dryly, until shouts woke them up in the afternoon.

Six sodden men were trapped on a marshy islet in the middle of the stream, with no sign of the raft that had gotten them that far, nor of the bullywugs who had been manning it. Gorpal had his wugs pole to a stop on the opposite bank, and listened while a man shouted over to him in Daulic.

Tilda stood next to Claudja, who translated into the Trade Tongue.

“
Their raft broke apart in the storm, and their wugs swam off. They say they can pay.”

Looking across at the men, Tilda doubted that. The six fellows were even rougher-looking than their circumstances warranted. Hard, unshaven men who seemed to have only saved swords and a few pieces of armor from their wreck, no packs nor supplies. At length their leader held up a pouch and shook it at Gorpal. It was too far across the stream to hear coins jingling together, but the weight looked right.

Two of the men blew shrilly through the same sort of stick-whistle that Tilda and Dugan had bought, and she had later resold, as passes for bullywug rafts. She was surprised that the sound produced sounded quite similar to the bullywugs’ weird hoots.

Gorpal and his wugs croaked together in a circle for a few minutes, then shrugged and began to pole toward the islet. Gorpal splayed on his sopping lounge chair and opened the dripping parasol that had somehow survived the storm.

Towsan was not pleased. The knight shouted at the wug captain who only waved a dismissive, webbed hand. Claudja put a hand on Towsan’s arm and the two spoke at length, the knight obviously wanting no part of the ruffians while the Duchess’s words sounded more sympathetic.

Tilda looked at Dugan who was frowning at the six Daulmen with his arms crossed. She started to ask him a question in the Trade Tongue before remembering to switch to Codian.

“
What do you think?”

“
I’m with the knight. I don’t like the looks of this bunch.”

“
They look like
you
,” Tilda said.

“
Exactly.”

The wugs poled to a stop while still several yards off the islet and Gorpal hopped to the edge of the raft. The wug slapped its blue hands together and held them up to make a catch. It croaked expectantly.

The lead man had hard gray eyes and a brown beard made patchy by scars on his face. He glared at the wug but ultimately shook roughly half the coins out of the pouch and into his hand, more silver than copper but no flash of electrum or gold. He shoved the loose coins in the pocket of a cloak with a shredded hem, worn over a stout breast plate of scale mail and chain. He knotted the pouch and tossed it at Gorpal. The wug caught it and felt the weight in its open palm. Gorpal’s cupola eyes drifted over the six men, some of which had filthy cloth bandages and slings around their heads and arms.

Their leader shouted at Gorpal in Daulic, as did Towsan. The man started shouting at the knight, who shouted back, but Claudja again put a hand on Towsan’s arm and spoke softly.

The bullywug did not seem to listen to either of the men, but came to its own decision. Gorpal waved a hand, and the wugs poled closer to the islet.

*

With the six new men aboard, the next night and day on the rafts was a good deal more tense than those previous.

Towsan talked the Duchess into her shelter among the boxes, and there she largely stayed. Tilda and Dugan kept exclusively to the rear raft as well while the six rough men stayed on the one in front, huddling together in the middle except when Gorpal’s wugs cooked the large number of fish they now pitched out of the water for meals. The old knight and the leader of this new band of Daulmen, if that was what they all were, glared at each other all day long.

Dugan tried to talk to any of the new fellows in Codian but none of them gave any sign of understanding him, nor of any particular interest in being sociable. Dugan suggested Tilda keep away from them altogether, and she agreed. She was definitely garnering some looks from the ruffians, but not of a kind that could be called friendly.

The six men had all collapsed in sleep on the first night, but on the next they rotated watches. One man stayed awake while the others lay down around the warm coals on the cooking surface, for they had no blankets. Claudja emerged from her shelter well after nightfall and lit a candle, which she kept behind the crates out of view from the front raft. She spoke to Towsan, who had been standing at icy attention all day. The knight’s tone was hard, but his voice exhausted. Claudja was firm, and finally the old knight walked stiffly to his bedding.

Claudja looked from Tilda to Dugan, and spoke in Codian.

“
I assume you two are willing to take shifts at watch during the night?”

“
Of course,” Tilda said.

“
We will, but the fellows won’t try anything until we land,” Dugan said. Claudja looked at him.

“
Do you think they have recognized me? Or Gideon?”

Dugan shrugged. “I doubt it, but it doesn’t matter. They are desperate. I know the look.”

“
They will attack us?” Tilda asked, and Dugan nodded with complete confidence.

“
You are a Miilarkian, and they will figure you have money. Maybe enough to replace everything they’ve lost.”

“
But I am a Miilarkian!”

Dugan gave a sour smile. “You are also outnumbered, and way out in the Wilds. This is not the sort of place where international incidents have any meaning.”

Tilda glared across the rafts at the slumbering men, and the one fellow who was awake and stirring the coals. His face was orange and ugly in the flickering light.

“
I will take the first shift,” she said. “I am not tired.”

Claudja squeezed her arm. “Wake me when you are. Dugan, I will wake you before dawn. We will let Gideon sleep through if he is able.”

“
Tell him what to expect when we land,” Dugan said. “Should be the day after tomorrow.”

With that, Dugan felt his way out of the candle light and over to his own bedroll. Claudja looked at Tilda over the flickering flame, and Tilda felt she had to say something.

“
I am sorry.”

Claudja lifted an eyebrow.

“
I am supposed to be protecting you,” Tilda said. “If Dugan is right, I am the one putting you in more danger.”

Claudja gave Tilda’s arm another squeeze. “We are in it together, Tilda.”

The Duchess blew out the candle and moved back into her shelter. Tilda sat facing the front raft with her back to a crate, not even leaving a silhouette against the dark sky. Several bullywugs slept at the edges where the two rafts met while Gorpal and a few others were still awake, pushing away from the banks whenever the current of the stream drew the rafts near it, moving on toward their destination even in the dark.

Tilda watched the men change their watch twice, looking over each of them closely and wondering if she could kill them if she must. She did not doubt they could kill her. She woke Claudja very late only after feeling herself begin to drift off, and neither said a word before Tilda settled down to several hours of terrible dreams.

*

No one roused Tilda in the morning. She came awake slowly at first until memory of where she was made her sit up swiftly and scramble to her feet.

Claudja and Towsan were sitting at the rear end of the raft with their backs to her, which was strange. Tilda turned around. Three bullywugs were poling along while a few others still slept. Dugan was relaxing on top of one crate with his back to another, comfortable and calm.

No one else was on board. There was a pile of armor and swords on the front raft, along with some boots. There was blood all over the planks.

“
What…?” Tilda gasped. Dugan looked over and nodded at her.

“
The man on watch fell asleep. The wugs cut their throats and rolled them overboard.”

Tilda stared at him.

“
When?”

Dugan shrugged. “Don’t know. The Duchess let me sleep through.”

Claudja had stood and walked over. She had tired bags under her eyes but her features were set and calm.

“
You…you saw it?” Tilda asked, and Claudja nodded.

“
Six of the wugs crept up on them together. In unison. It was quick.”

Tilda looked around at the wugs. They had been on the raft for more than a tenday and in that time Tilda had come to regard the creatures as harmless, and almost comical. Alien, certainly, but in no way threatening.

“
Why would they do that?” Tilda asked. Claudja answered in a low voice.

“
They are Magdetchoi, Tilda. Monsters.”

Dugan chuckled, and it was not a pleasant sound.

“
Not like us humans, right?”

Tilda looked back at the front raft. It was amazing how much blood had come out of six men and she almost felt sick.

“
How exactly do we know they are not going to do the same to us? Why haven’t they already?”