Well of Sorrows (20 page)
Authors: Joshua Palmatier
“It needed to be done,” Arten said as the men carrying the Armory’s swords and other assorted weapons arrived. “The rest of the expedition would never follow him, not after what he said at the Bluff.”
“I know. But I was hoping he’d change.”
Arten snorted, strapping his sword around his waist. “No one changes. Not that drastically anyway.”
Colin had finished passing out some of the cooked deer meat to the guards on sentry duty and was headed back toward the camp when Walter found him. He never even saw the Proprietor’s son, or Jackson. Darkness had settled, the last of the light fading from the sky to the west. As he stepped into the shadows thrown by the wagons and the campfires of the expedition inside their protective circle, a hand reached around his neck from behind and clamped tight to his mouth, fingers digging in with bruising force. An arm reached across his chest from the opposite side, jerking him backward, bringing him up tight against his assailant’s chest a moment before their two bodies hit the side of the wagon. Colin’s eyes flew wide, thoughts of the strange men they’d seen on the plains flaring bright into his mind—
And then, in a hoarse whisper right next to his ear, breath hot against his neck, he heard Walter mutter, “So your father thinks he owns this little wagon train, does he?”
All of Colin’s fear—all of the prickling terror that had flooded down through his arms and legs and gut, making them fluid and rubbery—vanished. The rage that he’d buried, that had sat locked inside since his day in the penance lock, burned forth, searing through his chest.
He lashed out, kicking, body writhing beneath Walter’s hold, realizing as he did so that he wasn’t as small as he used to be, that he and Walter were nearly the same height now. Walter cursed, his grip tightening, fingers digging even deeper into Colin’s cheek, into his side. Still kicking, Colin reached up and back with his hands, went for Walter’s face, for his hair. He felt Walter’s head jerk backward, heard it thud into the side of the wagon, but Walter’s grip didn’t loosen. Instead, he hissed, “Punch him! Punch him, you pissant Company bastard!”
He sensed more than saw Jackson move, the shadows too deep—
And then the fist landed in his stomach, awkwardly, but with enough force to double Colin over, Walter dragged down with him before the Proprietor’s son caught his balance and jerked him back upright.
“Again!” Walter barked. “Harder!”
The second blow drove the wind from him. He gasped, breathed in and out through his nose, nostrils flaring, as Walter chuckled.
Before he’d recovered, Walter spun and shoved him face first into the wagon. The Proprietor’s son leaned hard into his back. One of Colin’s arms was trapped between his chest and the wagon at a painful angle. Colin slammed his other hand into the side of the wagon, tried to push himself away, but Walter had his full weight behind him.
“You’d better hope that your father wises up, or I’m going to make your life miserable,” Walter said through clenched teeth.
“I’m not afraid of you anymore, Walter,” Colin gasped.
He grunted. “We’ll see. I don’t have my father holding me back anymore. I’ll find some way to hurt you. And out here . . . no one’s safe out here.”
Then he pushed back, the pressure against Colin gone.
Colin spun, back against the wagon, but he couldn’t see anything except the flicker of firelight from behind the wagons and the stars and moonlight farther out on the plains. In the lee of the wagon, there was nothing.
He thought he was alone until another voice, soft and low, said, “Your father must realize that the Company will never accept this.” Colin sucked in a sharp breath, the Company representative’s cold, implacable voice slicing through his rage with a thin blade of fear. But then he heard the rustle of grass as Jackson retreated, and the silence of the night descended again.
When he stepped into the reach of the firelight, where his mother had set up camp inside the circle of wagons, other fires scattered around to either side, he’d managed to stop trembling. He found his father, Sam, Paul, Lyda, Karen, and her father joking and laughing together, his mother stirring the pot and checking on the skewers of meat set over the flames. The scent of the charred, sizzling meat was strong. Someone nearby had pulled out a fiddle, and low music floated out over the group. A few tents had been erected, children and some of those that would stand guard later already bedded down.
His mother stood as he halted. “I see you’ve decided to return to camp,” she said, and then her smile faltered. “What’s wrong, Colin? What happened?”
He glanced toward his father, toward Karen. “Nothing.”
His mother sighed. “Well, they’ve finished with the butchering, but we could use more water.” She reached down to retrieve a bucket from the ground and held it out to Colin expectantly. “The stream’s on the other side of the gap.”
Colin almost refused to take the bucket—his stomach hurt from Jackson’s punches, and he’d barely managed to control his rage— but then he stepped forward, snagged its handle, and headed off in the direction of the gap without a word.
Behind, he heard Paul resume his interrupted story, the rest bursting into laughter, and then he passed beyond hearing.
Preoccupied with thoughts of Walter, he made his way down between the two banks, nodded to the guards on duty, then paused to listen for the sound of the stream. Water gurgled over stones off to the right, so he headed in that direction, one hand massaging the ache in his abdomen.
He found the stream, black with glints of white and silver in the weak moonlight. Kneeling, he dipped the bucket into the frigid water, listening to the sounds of the fiddle in the distance, faint because of the intervening bank. He hummed along with it, his anger abating, the bucket almost full, then glanced up.
A figure crouched on the opposite side of the stream, three paces away.
He jerked back with a grunt, yanking the bucket up out of the water. He overbalanced, sat down hard on the grass embankment, water sloshing onto this shoes, and then he scrambled backward, his throat closed so tight he could hardly breathe, his heartbeat thundering in his ears. His arm hit a hole hidden in the grass and he collapsed onto his side, his scramble halted, but he rolled onto his back, bucket held up before him like a weapon, water spilling onto his chest.
“Don’t move!” he ordered. “Don’t move or I’ll—”
He choked on his anger as he realized it wasn’t Walter or Jackson. It wasn’t anyone from the expedition at all.
The man on the other side of the water didn’t react, except to tilt his head to one side, chin slightly forward, brow wrinkling. His face was narrow and thin, his skin pale in the moonlight, paler than anyone in the expedition. His eyes were dark, his hair darker, but Colin couldn’t tell what color they were, not in the scant light.
Heart still shuddering in his chest, Colin swallowed and sat up, gathering his feet beneath him while still holding the bucket out before him, defensively now.
The man watched silently. He was dressed in a fine material that Colin didn’t recognize, his shirt strangely patterned, the torso a swirl of lines and colors, all muted in the moonlight, the sleeves a single color and long, covering his arms. His breeches were tanned leather, supple, his boots made of the same material, but hardened. He carried a bow, unstrung and longer than any of the bows Colin had ever seen, the curved wood held in one hand, reaching up to twice the man’s height while crouched. Colin could see lettering carved into the side of the bow near the grip. A compact quiver was slung over one shoulder, and a sheathed short sword and pouch were secured to his waist.
A glint of gold or silver drew Colin’s eye to the man’s fingers. He wore a band of metal around two fingers on one hand and another thicker band around his wrist. There were markings on the bracelet and rings.
Colin met the man’s eyes and frowned. “Who are you?” he asked. He thought about the guards on duty at the gap, a swift sprint away. But something in the man’s subtle movements, in the considering tilt of his head and the dangerous, casual way he held the bow, told him he’d never make it more than a few paces.
The man straightened and said something in a language Colin didn’t understand, certainly not Andovan. His voice was harsher than Colin expected, rougher, but the words had a smooth cadence.
When the man finished speaking, he frowned, waiting expectantly.
Colin shook his head. “I don’t understand you.”
The man scowled, glanced out toward the plains, out into the darkness. His motions were a strange combination of short, sharp gestures and fluid movements. Colin suddenly wondered where the rest of the man’s group was. They’d seen at least six figures on the horizon. How close were they? Did they intend to attack the wagons?
He felt his heart quickening again and shifted backward.
The strange man’s head jerked toward him, hand falling to the hilt of the short sword at his side, and Colin froze. He licked his lips, his mouth suddenly dry. Sweat prickled his skin, on his forehead and back, in his armpits.
They held still, regarding each other. The bucket began to tremble, Colin’s arm tiring. He saw the man’s hand tighten on his sword hilt as the bucket began to shake, but Colin couldn’t hold it up any longer.
He let it sag to the ground, released his death grip on its handle, and flexed his fingers, wincing at the pain.
The man watched silently. Then he relaxed, a thin smile touching the corners of his mouth. His hand fell away from the short sword.
He said something else, the words still incomprehensible. His eyebrows rose as he waited for a response, then fell as he sighed.
Shifting, he pointed to himself and said, “Aeren.” Then he pointed to Colin. “Name?”
Colin gaped in surprise, stunned into silence.
The man—Aeren—frowned, seemed to think about what he’d said, then said again, putting a slightly different emphasis on the word, as if he weren’t certain he’d pronouncing it correctly, “Name?”
“Colin,” Colin stuttered. “My name is Colin.”
Aeren nodded. “Colin.” He said it carefully, almost reverentially, then ruined the image by muttering something under his breath in his own language.
“How do you know my language?” Colin asked.
Aeren’s brow creased, and he tilted his head again. Then he shook it. “Where go?” He waved a hand into the darkness. “Where?”
Colin pointed. “South and east.”
Aeren followed his finger, his frown darkening, deepening. He turned back, the motion sharp again. “No.” He stood, and as he did so Colin realized he was tall—at least a hand taller than Colin—although the bow he now held in both hands, its point on the ground, still reached over his head. Colin wondered if he’d mistaken the bow for a spear earlier. “No,” Aeren repeated. “Meet here.” He motioned to the ground on the other side of the stream. “Meet here. Sun.” He gestured toward the horizon, his motions easy to read.
“Meet you here in the morning,” Colin said.
Aeren regarded him for a long moment, the lines of his face intent.
Then he turned and vanished into the night.
8
ANIC SPREAD THROUGH THE WAGONS when Colin returned to tell his father of the meeting with Aeren at the stream. Ever yone gathered closer to the center of the wagons, where the grass was stained red with deer blood. Tensions escalated, and arguments broke out. Arten and Tom sent more men to the edges of the camp, many men volunteering to help out, Walter hovering at the edges of the group, scowling, as the orders were issued. More wood was thrown on the central fire— wood they couldn’t afford to spare, not when the plains had so few trees—but one woman demanded it in a shrill voice, and Tom finally conceded. Many sought the solace of Diermani’s Hand, Domonic.
But nothing happened. When the night remained silent, the initial panic faded, reduced to a general murmur, a tightening of shoulders and furtive glances out into the night. As they relaxed, the people began to disperse back to their wagons and tents.
“They wouldn’t have warned us if they intended to attack,” Arten said. He surveyed those still gathered around the fire. “The additional sentries are useless.”
Tom nodded. “I know. But they’re also harmless. And they make the rest of the group feel more relaxed, more protected. Besides, how many of the men on duty would be able to sleep now?”
Arten snorted. “Given what we’ve seen so far and what Colin reported,” he said, looking toward him as he spoke, “they can take out any number of us from the darkness with their bows, and we wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. Our fire makes us easy targets.”
Colin shifted uncomfortably at that, his gaze darting toward the darkness beyond the nearest wagons. The hairs on the back of his neck stirred and he shivered, then shrugged the sensation of being watched aside.
The rest of the night passed slowly. Colin tried to sleep, but he woke constantly with sudden starts until it was close enough to dawn that he finally rose.
He found his father, mother, and Arten seated around the fire. As he approached, he heard his mother ask, “Are you certain Colin should be included?”
Colin slowed as his father sighed.
“No, but they made contact with him. I think he should be there in case there was a reason they chose to speak to him and not any of the others.”
“I don’t like it,” his mother said, and rubbed her upper arms with her hands, as if she were suddenly cold. “I don’t like it here on the upper plains. Maybe we shouldn’t be here. Maybe this is their land, whoever they are, and we’re trespassing.”
“We haven’t seen any roads anywhere,” Arten said, “and no signs of a city or even a village.”
“That doesn’t mean we aren’t intruding somehow.”
Arten didn’t have an answer, so Colin stepped into the fringe of the firelight, his feet making noise in the grass. All three of them turned, Arten’s hand dropping to his sword, then relaxing as Colin settled down before the fire next to Arten, opposite his mother and father.
“You’re going to include me in the group?” Colin asked.
His mother frowned, but it was his father who answered. “Yes. We’ve decided it will be you, me, Arten, and Walter.”
Colin grimaced. “Why Walter?”
“Because his name’s on the town’s charter.” He met Colin’s gaze. “He may not make the decisions, but he’s still the Proprietor.”
Colin thought about that a moment, then shifted back to Aeren and the meeting. “I don’t think they intend to hurt us,” he said. “He could have killed me at the stream. I didn’t even notice him when I approached, he was just there.” He ignored his mother’s shudder.
“So what do you think they want?” Arten asked.
Colin frowned. “I don’t know. He asked where we were headed and seemed upset when I showed him.”
“You told them where we were headed?” a bitter, derisive voice asked sharply.
Colin leaped up and turned to where Walter and Jackson stood at the fringe of the firelight. One hand dove into his pocket for a stone, but his sling was still bundled up in his satchel. He clenched his jaw and fought the urge to chuck the stone at Walter regardless. If his mother hadn’t been there, along with Arten and his father . . .
“That’s enough, Walter,” Arten said, with a note of warning. “He gave away our only advantage,” Walter spat, taking one step closer to the fire.
“Yes, he did,” Colin’s father agreed, and Colin felt a harsh pain in his chest, his hand closing hard on the stone. He dropped his gaze to the grass, his eyes stinging, a bitter taste flooding his mouth as his father continued. “But it wasn’t much of an advantage. They may have been watching us for days, may already know where we’re headed.”
Walter glared at Tom, his jaw working. Around them the rest of the wagon party had begun to stir, to wake and gather. He cast a contemptuous glance at Colin, scowled, and turned away.
Arten stood, followed by Tom. “Shall we head to the bank, see if they’re there?” the commander of the Armory asked.
In answer, Walter stalked away from the fire. Arten and Tom traded a look.
They followed him to the top of the embankment near the gap, coming up on the sentries on duty, one of them turning.
“Report,” Walter said, his face flushing red when the sentry looked toward Tom and received a nod before answering.
“Still too dark to see anything. We thought we heard some movement a little while ago, but we haven’t heard anything since.”
Tom looked toward the horizon to the east, where the sky was just beginning to lighten above the jagged peaks of distant mountains. He scanned the growing number of people behind them. Most of the men had gathered, and a significant number of the women, their faces tight and grim. All of the children had been separated and hidden in the backs of the wagons. Colin noticed Karen weaving her way through the people toward him and took her hand when she reached his side.
And then they waited. People shifted nervously, whispered among themselves, a few coughing quietly. Gazes drifted toward the horizon, toward the hollow behind them where the wagons had halted, toward the plains hidden by darkness.
Colin saw the mist on the plains first, a thin layer that had settled in the hollows, only the highest banks and hillocks visible above it. He’d never seen the mist in the morning; it had always burned off before the wagons began moving, before the majority of the people had even risen for the day. But in the gray light—the mist white, the hillocks and banks dark, almost black, the hills and mountains in the distance more pronounced as the sky turned a soft yellow, the few clouds on the horizon now a muted gold—the plains were beautiful.
Someone gasped, and all along the embankment the men with swords shifted, clothes rustling, hands falling to weapons. Arten straightened to Colin’s left, but the only reaction from Walter on seeing those waiting below was to narrow his eyes. Karen’s hand tightened on Colin’s, and he gave a reassuring nod.
Below, beneath the bank but on the far side of the stream, the group of men they’d seen from afar the day before stood silently, staring up at those gathered. Aeren stood in the front, his bow still unstrung, planted in the ground before him more like a staff or spear. Five others stood behind him. They were dressed like Aeren, in shirts with curved patterns on them, hide breeches and boots. As the sunlight strengthened, Colin could see that they all bore the same features—pale skin, dark eyes and dark hair, all in varying shades. Three of those behind Aeren had markings on their faces, three slashes on one side like claw marks, as if they’d painted their cheeks with mud. All of them carried bows, shorter in length than Aeren’s, and short swords. And all of them were taller than Aeren by at least a hand.
Only when he saw the other men’s faces did Colin realize that Aeren was the youngest of the group. And he was the only one with a band of gold around his wrist and markings on his bow.
The two groups took stock of one another in silence. Two of Aeren’s men eyed those in Walter’s group with swords, their faces intent. One of those with the claw marks on his face leaned forward slightly to whisper something in Aeren’s ear. Aeren listened, frowned slightly, then shook his head.
The man with the claw markings leaned back, unhappy.
None of Aeren’s men seemed concerned that they were outnumbered. Those who weren’t starkly serious were curious instead, their gazes flickering over all of those from the wagons that they could see.
When the men on the bank began to fidget nervously, Arten stepped to Colin’s father’s side and said softly, “We should approach them.”
Tom nodded.
Colin released Karen’s hand and moved forward, following in his father’s tracks as he, Walter, and Arten moved down the slope to the edge of the stream, to almost exactly the same spot where Colin had encountered Aeren the night before. Aeren lifted his head as they approached, his eyes following Colin at first, then shifting to his father, who was in the lead. The rest of Aeren’s men shifted position, the motions subtle, their stances no longer quite so casual, and Colin felt the tension between the two groups climb.
They halted at the edge of the gurgling water.
For a long moment, no one moved, the silence awkward. Aeren’s head lowered, his eyes narrowed. Colin felt the mood shifting, from open curiosity to something more dangerous, more hostile.
Colin’s father caught his gaze, motioned him forward with a frown and a tilt of his head. Colin stepped forward, to his father’s side. Sweat broke out on his back, even in the cool morning air, and his stomach twisted sickeningly, but he nodded toward Aeren and the other strange men.
“The one in front is Aeren,” he murmured. His father nodded. “Introduce us.”
Colin drew in a steadying breath, all of the strange men’s attention fixing on him as he did so. “Aeren, this is my father, Tom.”
“Tom,” Aeren said, pronouncing the name as carefully as he had Colin’s the night before. Colin’s father nodded, but Aeren had already turned toward Arten and Walter. He looked at Colin expectantly.
“This is Arten—”
“Ar-ten.”
“—and Walter.” He said the name curtly, his anger tingeing his voice.
Aeren frowned. “Walter.”
Then he turned back toward Colin’s father and gave him a deep bow from the waist, the gesture strangely formal. When he rose, he motioned them across the stream. “Come,” he said, indicating a section of ground where the grass had been trampled down in a circular pattern, the edges of the circle clearly defined. “Sit.”
Tom hesitated, then stepped across the stream using the stones that weren’t submerged beneath the water, settling to the ground on the far side, near the center of the circle, opposite where Aeren sat, legs crossed. As Colin knelt in the grass, he noticed that it hadn’t been trampled down but laid in a distinctive pattern, almost as if the stalks had been woven together.
When everyone had settled, only two of Aeren’s followers still standing at the edge of the circle of grass, Aeren motioned for a pouch from the man who’d leaned forward to murmur in his ear. Opening it, he withdrew two bowls, one wide and shallow, the other small and deep, and two packages that appeared to be wrapped in long, wide leaves, the outermost leaves charred. He unwrapped one of the packages, sniffed at the haunch of meat inside, nose wrinkling, then proceeded to draw a wicked-looking knife from a sheath at the small of his back.
Arten instantly tensed, hand falling to his sword, over an inch of the blade appearing in the strengthening sunlight. On the opposite side of the circle, Aeren’s guards barked a warning, drew their short swords in a flash of motion that stunned Colin, so fast that he saw only a flare of light as sunlight struck against metal. Aeren stilled, his expression annoyed.
No one moved.
Aeren murmured something under his breath.
Neither of his guards looked pleased, but they resheathed their swords. Slowly. They didn’t take their hands from the hilts, however.
Aeren set the meat down into the shallow bowl. His knife never wavered. Without taking his eyes off of Arten, he lowered the long knife to the meat and began to cut it into thin slices.
Arten released the hilt of his sword, letting it slide back into its sheath.
Only then did Aeren look down at what he was doing. All of the meat sliced, including the second package, he sheathed his knife and reached back into the pouch and produced a drinking skin. Pulling out the stopper, he drained it into the deeper bowl, then set the skin and the leaves used to wrap and cook the meat aside.
Standing, he picked up the bowl of meat and moved to the center of the circle of grass. He motioned Tom to do the same, and when he stood opposite him, he said something in his own language, the words formal, and then presented Tom with the bowl of meat.
He took the bowl uncertainly, and at Aeren’s insistence he picked up a thin slice and passed the bowl around to the others. Colin took a slice last, then returned the bowl to Aeren, who smiled and passed the bowl among his own group until everyone had his own piece.
Then he said something more in his own language and bit into his slice.
Colin waited until his father took a bite before he tried his own. It smelled spicy, with some type of chopped green herb he didn’t recognize coating the outside edges. It tasted even spicier, salty and peppery, with something hotter kicking in at the back of his throat after he started chewing. There was a citrus taste to it as well, like lemon. The meat itself was wild and gamy in flavor, and he guessed it was one of the deer, like those they’d killed yesterday.
