The Tracker (14 page)

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The storm was heavy, but blew out by morning. They left the cave for the clearing, where the tracker remained. Dieter cried out in wonder at the glistening scales in the grass left from the dragons’ battle. After returning the packs to the horses, he darted around to collect them and came back only at a second, irritated call from Master Maraudi. Beaming, the boy said, “These are worth money, they are! Healing penchants pay for them, love penchants too, and jewelers. And see this one!” He pinched one out from his handful and held it up. A battle gold had dropped a scale that hadn’t been singed to ugliness. The gold gleamed brilliantly in the sunlight.

“Shocking this may be to you, but you were not brought along on this search to collect dragon scales,” Master Maraudi said. “Mind your duties.”

Arden got his cloak back from Volos, who lay down on his stomach and swiped for the scales as he was pulled over the grass. Then he settled back with several black scales and turned one over in his fingers. Arden collected fallen scales in the perindens regularly and had no need to do so here. They weren’t worth all that much, but Dieter could buy himself tons of freaks or a sack of candy with what he had, and the lovely gold one he could have set in a necklace to impress a girl or keep for himself.

“Careful with him,” Master Maraudi warned about Volos after calling Arden up to ride beside him. “Good to give him the cloak; we don’t want him taking ill. But don’t let him pretend to be friendly, play on your pity, and hoodwink you. Lord Zamin told me all about his tricks.”

“I won’t be hoodwinked, Master Maraudi,” Arden said. The back of his hand still burned where Volos’s lips had pressed down; it had warmed him all night in the very cold cave. His dreams had yet again been indecent, and he’d relished them.

“Good,” Master Maraudi said in approval. “Let him plead his case with the king when we get back to Lighmoon. It isn’t our concern.”

“Do you think the king will release him? This is not so . . . seemly, is it? Seeing as he’s a man and not a beast?”

“The king must weigh the royal needs against the tracker’s wants. And if our good Ri Ques runs again before she can be married and packed off to Isle Zayre? If she runs off once she’s there? He cannot be summoned from the Cascades speedily to rectify this problem. What if some madman kidnaps a royal grandchild, as happened in Loria, oh, twenty or twenty-five years ago? They never found a trace of that poor little prince. If the tracker were willing to stay and supply this skill of his, the king could make him a special guard, an investigator of the Crown. A home and pay and honor. But . . .” Master Maraudi’s eyes went back to the cage. “He will make this much harder for himself than it needs to be, and end up in the perindens as an animal.”

“His life will not be good in there.”

“His life will be as he chooses it. The king has quite a temper, yet he is not an unreasonable man, nor does he approve of Isle Zayre ways of lifetime bondage. But the tracker may leave him no choice, may push him into exploding and lashing out. You could encourage the tracker a little: help him to see reason when it is time for that. A cage or a home, a trough or a plate, air or coin in his pockets. I know what I would choose.”

The roads had been transformed into a muddy mess, and the horses’ hooves squelched in the most troublesome spots. The wheels of the cage collected muck. When they were stuck overlong in one place as a fallen tree was chopped to pieces and removed from the road, the cage sunk several inches into the mud. Once the tree was gone and Keth kicked her horse to move on, the cage didn’t budge. Everyone dismounted and gathered up branches and stones as Dieter cleared by hand some of the mud from around the wheels. Then the wood and rocks were laid down in its place. They provided enough traction for Keth’s horse to drag out the cage.

They rode on, time slipping away from Arden. It was just another town or city, another wooded area or pasture, another beggar shaking a rattle-cup or muddy road to slog down. Volos gestured when necessary to guide them along and otherwise said and did very little.

He
would
make it hard once in Lighmoon, and Master Maraudi had made it sound like the king was quite likely to deny Volos’s request to go home. He was going to end up in a cage in the perindens to keep him from running, and his life would be spent in bitter waiting for the next time someone went missing. Arden would bring him food twice a day while they both grew old and gray.

He thought about the untended minute, which he was tempted to give once they had the princess in hand. But how angry would the king be with Arden at the loss of his tracker? It seemed a foolish matter to expend much temper on his penchant when he would have his daughter back, and the reputation of Odri saved from international shame. The tracker had served his purpose; all of the ones he could serve were purely hypothetical.

So the king had not lost much in the end, although he might not see it that way. It would be Arden’s fault that the king was denied his most unusual prize, and Arden’s fault again if the princess ran off a second time and could not be tracked. Tolaman’s sniping over the incompetence of his second lead would be nothing compared to a king in fury. It was not a crime worthy of execution, of which there were few in Odri and reserved for far greater crimes, but he could express his displeasure in other ways. Arden could find himself sent to the Routies, or off to the horse breeder to replace the sickly penchant woman. Clapped on a ship upon the roiling sea to use his penchant as a lure for whales . . . deep in a hot Isle Zayre jungle and bound to a rich master to capture monkeys if the king was truly feeling spiteful . . . or perhaps the king would shrug it off and leave Arden to the perindens. There was no way to know. It was frightening to be at his whim, a man that Arden had only ever seen at a distance, and never shared a single word.

“Are you sure?” Keth was saying, and Arden turned his attention back to the problem of the princess. They had paused at an extremely muddy split in the road, one that led upward on a hill and the other that wended away into the green straight ahead.

“I’m sure,” Volos replied.

“But this is the road to Minkakel!”

“Her scent does not go that way. It continues straight.”

“Minkakel was only ever a guess, Keth,” Master Maraudi said.

“It was a clever and logical choice for her to make, however,” Keth protested. “Who does she know beyond this place? What is there but small towns and no-name villages, people so below her station that their paths would never have crossed? If her destination is to hide in the Great City, why take this roundabout route?”

“All of these answers will be revealed in time. You want to take a moment and double check your scents, tracker?”

“No. You disliking the answer doesn’t change it. Her scent goes that way.” Volos pointed to the green. “Not there.” His finger moved to the hill.

“Is it strong? Are we gaining on her?”

Volos breathed contemplatively. “We are about the same distance as we ever were.”

The blood was draining from Keth’s solemn face. She turned to Master Maraudi and said in agitation, “To travel to Loria by common routes risked her capture. But if she went this way, planning to evade us by leaving Odri for the wildlands and taking a boat from there down to Loria . . . it will be a swift trip once upon the water and she will disembark at Port Shaze!”

“That a problem then?” Dieter asked nervously.

“Shaze is scant miles from where her sister lives and less than that from multiple convents!”

“Why would a jewel thief go to a convent?” Volos asked mildly.

Even ridden with anxiety, Keth kept up the fiction without hesitation. “For a woman to claim sanctuary in a Lorial convent makes her untouchable, regardless of her crime. Bounty hunters lurk years outside waiting for the worst of them to come out, but as long as they stay in, no reclamation will ever be had. She can have her companion sell those jewels and send her money to live in ease within those walls.”

Master Maraudi had at first looked dismissive at this postulation, but now grave concern was overtaking his craggy face. “Clever. Clever by half and then some. We must go faster and beat her to that boat. Go!” They kicked their horses, but only three moved forward. The cage had sunk into the mud again.

Volos laughed as they struggled to get it out. “Quick! Put all your muscle to it! Oh, won’t you hurry? She’s getting away!”

“If the road-” Keth grunted and shoved a branch under the tire, “-if the road continues in this fashion, we will not be able to pull the cage.”

“Then we’ll buy him a horse and shackle him to it,” Master Maraudi said. The wheels were prized free and they were off at a much quicker pace than before. The state of the road worked against them and they did not maintain it for long.

The rain had been heavier north of Minkakel. Strands of grass poked up above pools of standing water in the fields, and the horses were pushing at times through heavy mud. Keth steered the cage around fathomless puddles and lost control of it altogether when the saturated ground simply gave way under the wheels. Her horse screamed and staggered at the sudden shift of weight pulling it off-course. The cage turned over, Volos shouting and clinging to the bars as it went down into a pool with a splash. Then it began to sink. In terror, he scrabbled to hold onto the highest part of the cage.

“Unhitch it!” Master Maraudi demanded. Dieter released the horse and Keth coaxed it onto firmer ground as Arden splashed into a shallower part of the pool. There was firm rock beneath him, and then it changed to mud just inches away from where the cage had gone in. He wrapped his hands around the bars and pulled. The weight of it was too great for one man or even three, and all he could do was stop it from sinking. The cage had fallen lock side down, so releasing Volos could not be done.

“Do not let me drown in here!” Volos whispered.

“I shall not,” Arden grunted. Sweat rolled down his face and his muscles strained from the effort of keeping the cage from going down. The others worked together in the frantic construction of a buckle-and-rope tether to be hitched to the bars and horses.

The mud wanted this cage. Arden steadied his breathing and held on, drop after drop falling from his forehead to splash on the bars and in the muck. “Please speak to me.” He needed to think of something other than what would happen when his strength failed.

“I like a man with muscles,” Volos said in a light tone, but his eyes were filled with fear. “Are these from lugging dragons about?”

“Dragons and unicorns, mermaids and bears,” Arden said.

“And which of these creatures is your favorite? I have only seen mermaids in storybooks. They were lovely.”

“They care about exactly two things: fish and brushing their hair,” Arden said. “But yes, they are lovely.”

“And just how lovely do you find them?”

“Not
that
lovely. They have little more to say than the sheep you chase after, and I’m sure you don’t favor them in that way.”

“Ah, well, when it has been too long . . .” Volos smiled, a genuine smile, and it was as beautiful as his eyes. Etto had no charms in comparison. “I jest. Now tell me of unicorns. I have also only ever seen those in storybooks. What are they like?”

“Like any horse, but with a horn that has to be dusted regularly. Other kinds of penchants use the powder for healing spells and things. I know nothing of those, for a penchant of animals performs no spells. They also use dragon droppings burned in fire.”

“There are many disgusting facts in your head, Arden of the zoo. I should like to hear all of them, but over a mug of ale at a pub, not here.” His eyes grew wide with terror when the cage shifted. “All of you! Hurry up or your jewel thief makes it to Loria!”

The tether was attached, and the cage was pulled out of the mud and turned upright. Volos took off his caked shirt with a silent plea and Arden dipped it in a cleaner puddle on the side of the road. Then Volos wrung it out and wrapped the sleeves around the bars so that the shirt could hang and dry.

Mud sloughed off the cage as it was hitched again to the horse. At long last, they were on the move. By then the day was coming to its close, and Master Maraudi said angrily over their dinner that he was going to offer money to the first person with a horse to pass by. These delays could not be borne.

His temper was mitigated in the morning when the dirt road turned to gravel and eased their travels tremendously. But his eyes still slid to the horses of fellow travelers, gauging them for suitability in case the road soured again. He made no offers, nor would Arden in his place. The villages near the road were poor and falling apart, and the horses were no grander than their surroundings. Old and tattered, one was blind and being led along by a farm boy encouraging it gently. A laden cart of crops drew along behind it. Another was lame.

They came to an inn where the princess and her mysterious man had waited out a night. Master Maraudi dished out another handful of coins for information, his foot tapping impatiently as a slow-speaking innkeeper tried to remember their particulars. The princess had given the name of Bollie here, and the man was Grenden. Common names, just like Adan and Ducilla, and the man’s fancy sword hadn’t caught the eye of the innkeeper. Here they had pretended to be a lord’s personal couriers on their way to the Great City.