Farlanders' Law (The Rose Shield Book 3) Page 23

  Whole trees poured down with the rock and soil. Boulders larger than a horse tumbled and catapulted into the air, pounding the dirt when they bounced. The deafening sound rumbled in his head, and the rock beneath his feet vibrated as the slide tore the skin from the land. A massive cloud of dust exploded and billowed, blocking the sun. The mountain slumped across the road and blocked a stream, and though the dust settled, rivulets of sand and stone continued to hiss in his ears as he and the Farlanders returned to their mounts.

  ***

  Whitt and Sim swung Rose between them as they strolled toward a quagmire of mud on the outskirts of Tor. They’d been spotted, and Whitt figured it wiser to keep moving in the same direction than turn around and disappear. He hadn’t instigated this particular chaos, or he would have avoided the road altogether. The Farlander imagination and ingenuity had spread across the clans after the first dramatic acts, and like the mountainside, once the slide started, any chance of halting it crossed the border into impossibility.

  As far as he could tell, there were no guards in the group studying the problem. Plus, if he guessed correctly, Gannon and Tiler stood with the onlookers, scratching their heads.

  “I saw a bat,” Rose said. For some inexplicable reason, she squat-walked, which meant Whitt and Sim supported all her weight.

  “When did you see a bat?” he asked.

  “Yesterday. It flew over my head.”

  “Again?”

  Sim laughed. “Yesterday is any time in the previous year.”

  “Oh.” Whitt didn’t know how Sim kept it straight.

  “It was a friendly bat,” Rose said. “Bats are friendly. They eat bugs.”

  “What else is friendly,” he asked.

  “All the animals,” Rose said. “They’re part of us.”

  “We’re all part of the world,” Sim clarified.

  Rose rolled her head and wiggled as they strolled which tangled her feet and threw off her balance. “I like trees. They’re my friends.”

  “You seem to have many friends.” Whitt looked over her head at Sim.

  “A touch of anxiety about the Ellegeans,” she confided.

  “I don’t like them.” Rose walked normally, still clutching their hands. “They aren’t nice to me.”

  “I think I’m the only Ellegean you know,” he said, squeezing her hand. “I’m nice, aren’t I?”

  She wrinkled her nose.

  “You’re Ellegean,” he said.

  She thrust out her lower lip. “I’m a Farlinder.”

  Whitt picked her up and carried her on his hip. “You and I are Ellegeans. Your mother is Ellegean. Sim and all our friends are Farlanders. We are all part of this world. All special, all important.’

  “I’m a Farlinder,” Rose whined. “I want to be a Farlinder.”

  “I told her she could be,” Sim said. “She’ll learn the difference eventually. And why not? It’s a good thing to be, isn’t it? You seem to enjoy it.”

  Whitt laughed. “Fine. I suppose I’m not far from becoming a Farlinder myself.” He slowed and handed Rose to Sim. Ahead of them, a caravan of logging drays, fully loaded with thick pole-pines, had halted in the road. Several of the wagons had sunk to their axles in an expanse of mud. No doubt, the muck had mysteriously appeared beneath the wheels despite a weeklong absence of rain. Teams of unhitched bullocks grazed in the fresh grass bordering the road.

  “Anyone concerning you?” he asked.

  Sim shook her head. “My more memorable run-ins were with guards.”

  “Mine too.”

  “Mud is messy,” Rose said.

  They ambled forward, Rose on Sim’s hip. Gannon spotted them, rapped Tiler on the bicep, and watched them approach, his gaze pinned on Rose. “Who’s this?” he asked when they met.

  “I’m a Farlinder,” Rose replied.

  Gannon mugged a surprised face and crossed his arms. “Is that so?”

  “Her name is Rose,” Whitt tousled the girl’s hair and met Gannon’s eyes. “She’s ours.”

  Behind Gannon, a group of men and women levered a log off the side of a dray, and it hit the muck with a wet splat. “Quite a challenge you have here,” Whitt called to the laborers. “Looks like you stumbled on a spring.”

  “Wasn’t here last week,” a man said.

  “Maybe the landslide moved things around.” Whitt shrugged and kicked at a clump of churned up clay.

  Gannon jerked his head toward the road’s edge beyond the laborers’ hearing. He waded through the grass and leaned on a decrepit fence marking the border of a pasture. “A spring?”

  “Just speculating.” Whitt rubbed the stubble on his jaw and raised his eyebrows. Sim put Rose down and suggested she pick flowers.

  “Quite a landslide,” Gannon said.

  “I think the previous rains saturated the soil.” Whitt scratched his jaw. “Terrible news about the floods.”

  “The trees growing in the middle of Tor’s streets are a little obvious.” Gannon eyed him as Tiler joined them. “And the bird shit everywhere is a nice touch. Tiler especially enjoys that one.”

  Sim loosed a laugh, and Tiler inspected his shoulders. “Bird bung is worse than the pecking rain.”

  “It’s good to see you,” Whitt said to both of them. “I wasn’t certain you’d return.”

  “I wavered for a day or two,” Gannon admitted.

  Tiler belched and rubbed his stomach. “The man’s a one-balled tick that don’t let go.”

  “Tavor and Cale came back with me.” Gannon patted his pockets and extracted a rumpled letter that he handed to Whitt.

  The queen’s wax seal barely clung to the paper. Whitt read the pardon and exhaled a burden of stress. It made a difference in Ellegeance, but he questioned whether it would matter in the Far Wolds at the high ward’s table. “I assume the commander has seen this?”

  Gannon’s nod was short of enthusiastic. “When this is over, you’re to report to Guardian to have that dagger flayed from your arm. Jagur’s turning you loose.”

  The dagger on Whitt’s arm was a badge he’d worn with pride, a symbol of his belonging in the Warriors’ Guild. He imagined the flaying of his skin would hurt less than the rejection by a man he’d respected like a father and a place he called home. He squatted in the tall grass and accepted a bouquet of mashed weeds from Rose. “Pick some for Tiler. He likes flowers too.” He looked up at Gannon. “Has the high ward seen this?”

  “His justices are outraged at the disregard for the law.” Gannon swatted at a fly. “Rather ironic.”

  “How’s the high ward tolerating the recent hurdles?” He tipped his head toward the logs lying in the mud. The laborers harnessed a pair of bullocks to the empty dray, then tugged and shoved the transport to solid ground.

  “He’s heard, though not from me. You might tell your friends not to take credit.”

  Whitt cringed. He and Cylas had agreed that such comments would prove dangerous. Though word undoubtedly spread, the Farlanders were as diverse a group as the Ellegeans with multiple camps, villages, and chiefs. Any attempt at controlling the lot of them was like trying to capture a cloud in a net. The goal was to raise Ellegean hackles and invite retaliation but not overtly. For the plan to work, the Farlanders needed to be the victims, not the aggressors. “We’ve taken the first steps, Gannon. We can escalate, tear the whole south down to the ground if we have to, but the plan isn’t to destroy our home.”

  His back to the fence, Gannon gazed beyond Whitt’s shoulder to the road. “Not much of a choice, since you’re at risk of losing it either way.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Fog rose from the river valley as the sun rolled over the flattened fields, warming night’s cool residue. It marched like a solemn army across the green wreckage where Cylas had twirled the wind during the night, leagues of the season’s harvest destroyed. Trees had smashed fences, and livestock scattered. Farmers, their wives and children and neighbors, labored in despair. Even at a distance, Whitt didn’t nee
d to be an influencer to feel it.

  He questioned the righteousness of this strategy and whether the goal justified the swath of destruction laid not only across the land but across the people. Did the high ward care anymore about the hungry farmer than he did for the displaced Farlanders? Did the farmer understand that by law the scratch of land he plowed wasn’t his to farm? He wondered if the kari condoned the suffering or were they victims too as the conflict escalated. Sim said the spirits of the natural world sought a sustainable balance, and yet loss littered the path to that end. He wished he could swallow her green elixir and know for sure.

  The horse stepped gingerly down an embankment to a washed out road where some Farlander had channeled a stream. The water had vanished, leaving a jagged gully of baked clay. He rode east around the farm, letting his worries fade to the knowledge that mid-Summertide had passed. The worst lay ahead but would conclude, one way or another, by Brightest Night.

  With a tap of his heels, he turned his shaggy mount into timber country where Tor’s lumbermen cut vast gashes through the ridges of ancient pole-pine and eldergreen. Hillsides of stumps grew scrub brush and barricades of thorny vines. The road’s destruction had earned a reprieve for the trees adorning the heights of the ridge. If some families would suffer the Winterchill cold, Whitt doubted they’d include those inhabiting the halls of Antoris-Tor or the city’s elite.

  A horse whinnied ahead of him. He reined his mount up the edge of the broken road, glancing over his shoulder. Unless the day proved especially lucky, the trees’ shelter lay beyond his reach. He unhooked his bow and nocked an arrow, but didn’t draw, intending to pass himself off as a hunter. He heeled the horse through the clutter of stumps and brush.

  “Ho, rider!” A voice shouted.

  Whitt feigned an improbable failure to hear the call, clicked his tongue, and urged the horse onward. A black shaft sailed past him and skittered across the dirt, wide enough that Whitt hoped the archer intended a miss. He swung around, bow raised and string at his chin as a black bolt thumped into his horse’s rump. The animal screamed and reared. Whitt’s arrow flew high into the fringe of forest as he grabbed for the pommel, slid from the saddle, and miraculously stayed on his feet. The horse stumbled into the bramble, and he let it run. From the ridge to his right, eleven riders converged on him.

  Two archers carried cocked crossbows, steel bolts sighted on his chest. Three of the party wore the plain camgras trousers and shirts of timberman, the balance of men and women dressed in the plum colors of Tor’s guard. Captain Pike sat atop his tall terran steed like a king out to survey his kingdom. “My, my, Whitt. Sorry about the horse. It doesn’t look serious, though. I suppose you’ll be walking to wherever it is you’ve been hiding out.” He waved down the bows.

  “My respects, Captain.” Whitt dipped his chin. “I was hunting.”

  “On disputed land.” Pike sighed. “A shame that the Farlanders refuse to live in peace.”

  A timberman riding at the captain’s side spat through the gap in his yellow teeth. “Poaching.” The hard-faced man wore a scarlet scarf around his neck, a recent convert to the Cull Tarr’s faith.

  Whitt decided he wasn’t worth the bother and addressed Pike, “Is there a ban on hunting here?”

  “Not that I’m privy to,” Pike replied. “I’m viewing the latest oddity to befall our province. A strange year, wouldn’t you agree? It’s almost as if the land despises us as much as the natives. Where did I hear that? A Farlander most likely. Probably under influenced duress. I share your distaste for influencers; Ardal is a spectacular prick.”

  A number of caustic replies darted across Whitt’s tongue, but he was outnumbered and alone, not that witnesses would help him. Pike goaded, pressed him for a response that would, at some point, compromise him. “I’ll see to my horse then. My respects, Captain.”

  “We’re not finished,” Pike said, steel in his eyes.

  “He’s wanted for murder, Sir,” a guard informed his superior.

  “Was,” Pike clarified. “The queen pardoned him. Apparently, he has heroically served the realm.”

  “A traitor,” the timberman snarled, and a handful of the men grumbled. “Siding with savages and breeding with a Farlander bitch.”

  “Now, now.” Pike flicked his wrist at the man. “No need to be crass. I’m not commenting on any of your choices in females, and my guess is they aren’t any comelier than you.”

  A few guards chuckled, and the timberman glared. Pike scanned the erosion cutting a gulch through the road and leaned forward in his saddle, lowering his voice to a mock whisper. “I have a few thoughts for you, Whitt, my friend. The natives fool no one with these natural disasters. Rather, they bolster Cull Tarr rantings that they’re evil demons. Rubbish, but some people are impervious to logic and reason.” Pike canted his head toward the timberman and straightened. “A few words of caution. We all know Farlanders die as easily as Ellegeans, don’t we? Take care, Whitt, and don’t force our hand. We leave you to your hunt.”

  The captain reined his horse around Whitt and started up the hillside, his guards falling in behind him. The timbermen with the scarlet scarf lingered until the rest rode out of earshot. He spat a wad of phlegm at Whitt’s feet. “I’m going to pound the life out of the next Farlander I meet.” He heeled his horse and clambered after the others.

  Whitt exhaled and watched the riders disappear into the trees. He approached his spooked horse, talking calmly until he caught the reins and led it from the brambles. With the lead tethered to a scrappy tree, he yanked out the bolt.

  Tor lay closer than the rebel camp, and he’d rather be tailed to the city than to Sim and Rose. He tugged lightly on the reins and hiked down to the main road, the horse clopping docilely behind him. The remnants of other destruction lined the road. Not only washouts and ruts deep enough to break a wheel, but downed trees and fences, standing water in the midst of fields, and crops pecked by crows. He needed to speak with Gannon and Tavor, the time to share his worries overdue.

  The moons climbed above the horizon by the time he reached Guardian’s stable, brushed down the horse’s coat, inspected the wound, and knuckled the door. Lodan answered. The bearded guardian loomed in the entranceway as if the house had shrunk around him. He stepped aside. “Come on in.”

  Whitt sidled in. He hadn’t seen Lodan since riding out with Tavor and Cale under arrest two years ago. As awkward as he felt facing the guardian, at least his days of disappearing had ended. “I owe you my thanks, Lodan. I imagine you heard about the queen’s pardon and Jagur’s decision.”

  The guardian acknowledged his statement with a sour grunt, his eyebrows knitted above his beak nose. “Jagur’s not one to change his mind, but if it makes a difference, I’ll speak for you.”

  “My actions will speak for themselves,” Whitt said though the man’s words warmed him. He backed up into the front room where two other guardians dipped bread into bowls of stew and mumbled unintelligible but hearty greetings.

  Whitt leaned on the wall, waving down an offer of a bowl. “I’m looking for Tavor and Cale, or Gannon if you’ve seen him.”

  “Down at the Hound.” A seated man pointed in the general direction with his bread. “Gambling.”

  “I’ll head there with you,” Lodan said. “Not everyone is dancing on the bar and drinking toasts to your long life. The pardon has bristled a few backs.”

  “I didn’t know I ranked so highly in anyone’s mind.”

  “You killed six guards,” Lodan said, “according to the guards.”

  “The number keeps rising.” Whitt kept forgetting that a pardon was a far cry from a declaration of innocence. In the eyes of Tor, the matter of his guilt hadn’t changed. “I didn’t kill them. The influencer did.”

  “Preaching to the prostrate.” Lodan slid a knife into his boot.

  Whitt blew out a breath, his shoulders slumping. “I left a wounded horse in your stable. Pike’s men shot a bolt into its rump.”

  “Surp
rised he didn’t shoot you.”

  “He gave me a warning. There’s going to be blood.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Close to Balance, the night sky glittered with stars, all three moons in quarters. A mellow breeze ruffled Whitt’s hair, and the air was balmy for the Wolds, the peak of Summertide. The scent and smog of smoke hanging over the city dissipated with the wind, replaced by the pungent aroma of sewage.

  The Hangman’s Hound wasn’t far from the Farlander district. Whitt’s patronage had ended with his arrest, and he’d avoided the place since. It enjoyed a reputation as a gathering place for guardians, Farlanders, and a smattering of laborers, and he wondered if the mix had changed. The noise and light spilling between the gaping shutters imparted a familiar feel. Lodan stomped up the front steps and through the open door.

  Whitt paused at the threshold to survey the mood of its patrons. He counted the warriors in their guardian greens. They crowded three central tables and mingled where money changed hands and jugs of tipple wet tongues.

  Tavor and Cale commanded a robust game, Cale running the show with newfound flare. She waved him over. “Care to test your luck?”

  “Later.” He edged through the crowded space. A group of guards caught his eye, a handful of them dominating one side of the room with a score of tradesmen and laborers. Farlanders clustered at the barkeep’s counter at the room’s other end. No one had etched dividing lines into the wooden floor, but with few exceptions, they might as well have.

  Despite Cale’s hail, her table didn’t offer a finger’s width of space. Whitt worked his way to the counter and stood among the tall clansmen who made him feel like a scrawny yearling. He ordered a cup of spike and sipped, the strong liquor burning his throat and clearing his sinuses.

  “Game, Ellegean?”