Farlanders' Law (The Rose Shield Book 3) Page 26

  “Not me, Gan.” Tiler crossed his arms and jutted out his chin. “You’re always ditching me like a split copper. I’m not twiddling my wad with a bunch of sheep suckers. Not again.”

  Lodan scratched his beard while Tavor chuckled.

  “It’s downright irritating,” Tiler complained. “I’m not some sodding panty-lace that needs his hole poked.”

  “You’re going,” Gannon said. “How about a couple guardians?”

  “Cale,” Tavor offered. “She’s not here to argue.”

  Lodan shrugged. “I’ll come up with one.”

  “Sim and Rose will go,” Whitt said.

  Gannon raised an eyebrow and then nodded. “A Farlander. Good.”

  “When?” Lodan asked.

  “Now,” Whitt answered for Gannon, the meaning of Sim’s statement suddenly dawning on him. The men peered at him, and he raked back his crispy hair. “Before the dam blows open.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Whitt rode part way up the pass, Rose on the saddle before him. They chatted about feelings, and he tried to explain the appropriate use of influence, which to him meant not at all. Except he’d allowed it at times. There were occasions when it proved helpful, even vital. Love and happiness were positive and how could he explain that she mustn’t share them? Did she know the difference between real love and influenced love when they were both resonating inside her? Was there a difference?

  “You mustn’t make people happy when they don’t feel happy,” he said, which sounded like he disapproved of any attempt to cheer anyone up. “What I mean is feelings are private, and you mustn’t put feelings inside a person.”

  “I want Sim,” Rose said.

  “Tired of my lectures, I think. I would be too.”

  Sim’s horse kept pace beside them, she in a strange daze, gazing blankly into the half-distance. He didn’t think the fire had scared her; she wasn’t a woman easily shaken. Rather, it was Rose’s terror that rattled her to the core. She feared Rose’s power. “Sim?”

  She blinked and rolled her neck, looked at them and smiled. Rose reached for her, and they rode close enough to pass her across. “This is good for both of you,” Whitt said.

  “I know.”

  The boom above them rumbled like thunder, and the roar of roiling water shook the air. They’d ridden far from the riverbed, expecting the deluge to overflow the banks, carve away soil, roll boulders, and yank trees out by the roots. Whitt reined his horse around.

  “The gods-damn dam,” Tiler said. Cale cursed, and Rose buried her face in Sim’s body. As best they could, they’d prepared her for the dam’s rupture and accompanying chaos. Whitt held his breath and gazed down at the city, managing Rose’s ripple of fear.

  The noise saturated the air, resounding through the valley. Then the torrent of water, its luminescence muted by churned up clay, barreled into the streambed. Trees bobbed like sticks in the brown froth. A lake of pent-up light, color, and weight transformed into a deadly force. He watched it blast down through the foothills and sweep across roads and fields, razing barns and livestock, homes and families. It thinned and expanded and bore down on Tor. Steam rose in monstrous clouds, blocking the view.

  Whitt turned to Sim, reached across, and wiped a tear from her cheek. “Tell Jagur we need him in the south. Soon.” Sim cupped his hand to her cheek. He looked down at Rose, who appeared to be holding her concern to herself. “Be a good pumpkin.” She smiled, warming his heart. He gave her a mock frown, and she giggled.

  Sim kissed his hand and steered her horse up the mountain.

  ***

  The horse’s hooves splattered droplets of mud in tiny fountains as Whitt rode into Tor. Fire, water, and mud had erased all color from the city, and a muddy swill mucked the roads. Houses and fields glimmered and stank when the Summertide sun broke through the last of the pallid smoke. Drowned animals lay among the charred debris that collected in corners and doorways.

  Half the city had flooded, not deeply but with ruinous results. Around him, the water receded into shallow pools, leaving behind a film of grit and garbage. The Farlander district remained a flattened wasteland of burned beams and shattered belongings. The tall people rummaged among the ruins, collecting scraps, while guards herded them west.

  As Whitt watched, memories of Bromel marched across his eyes, the proud clansman of his youth. The man had seemed a giant, larger than life, fierce and fearless. What had become of his legacy of pride? The fire was a crime but not the worst. When the Ellegeans stole the land, they stole the Farlander soul.

  He called down to the nearest guards who pressed forward in a moving wall, hurrying the Farlanders along, “Where are you sending them?”

  A guard glanced up. “Out of Tor. Out of Ellegeance.”

  “For their own good,” another man said and wiped sweat from his forehead.

  No point in debating, Whitt heeled his horse and rode to the city’s edge where the guards ended their escort and left the Farlanders to the muddy tracks and fields and distant forests.

  He dismounted and lent his horse to a family with young children, walking with the people who lacked food or shelter, carrying nothing but the clothes they wore and the paltry collection of goods they’d unearthed in the ruins.

  “Whitt!” Gannon rode up and swung down from his saddle.

  “We need Jagur. We waited too long.” That single thought clogged Whitt’s head. “This is happening faster than he can get here.”

  “Any idea where you’re going?” Gannon ambled beside him.

  “West.”

  “To your camp?”

  Whitt glanced behind him. How many Farlanders lived in Tor? A thousand? “The camp can manage a handful. Our most pressing concern is food.”

  “Your priority is keeping them together and within sight of Tor.” Gannon grimaced at his boots as he sank to his ankles in the muck. “If they move on, Antoris has won.”

  “If they die, he also wins.”

  “We’re close, Whitt. Now, we just hold out. Get them out of the mud and set up a camp. Lodan instructed the guardians to do the same with the other groups. We want a perimeter—”

  “What other groups?” Whitt creased his brow.

  “This isn’t the only one,” Gannon replied. “He’s ordered all Farlanders out. The city’s east side is dry, and he wants the Farlander homes as humble as they are. The people are in better shape than your lot, but they’re on the march. We need a perimeter of camps to keep the pressure on the high ward.”

  “You want more violence.” Whitt’s stomach snaked inside his skin.

  Gannon walked in silence while twilight turned the Fangwold blue. Sogul teetered on the mountains, and crescents of Clio and Misanda scythed through the green sky. “I don’t want anyone hurt, Whitt, but I want to come close.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  By dusk, the displaced Farlanders reached the end of the mud. The pasture’s grass grew tall, freckled with blue ginnip, the roots edible if boiled—assuming someone had rescued a pot. Whitt helped gather wood from the forest’s edge while others dug roots and hunted for water. He welcomed the firelight in the darkness simply for the comfort.

  Lian rode down from the rebel camp with a gift of food meant to help assuage the impending hunger. “We saw the smoke and heard the water’s roar. One needn’t be a mage to guess.”

  “There’s nothing left for us in Tor.” Whitt stood outside the circle of light, gazing at the moons. “Gannon said there are other groups to the south and east. In the morning, I’ll ride, find them, and connect us. Take as many women and children into the hills as you can manage. The Ellegeans don’t intend to let us settle here.”

  “Us?” The clansman narrowed his slit eyes. “You are becoming a Farlander, Whitt. Soon we will cut scars in your skin.”

  “Not something I’m eager to do.” He rapped Lian on the shoulder. “I’m already collecting enough scars to last me.”

  “I’ll lead them to the camp in the morning an
d leave marks on the trees. The kari will show the way if any more must flee.”

  Whitt glanced up at the man. “Do the kari truly approve of all this?”

  Lian shrugged. “They seek balance, not kindness.”

  The man ambled off, and Whitt yawned. His sense of time stretched; his stroll into the inner city to meet with the high ward seemed like days ago, not earlier that morning. Rose had healed the worst of his infirmities, but fatigue took its toll and the lingering aches he’d ignored all day picked at his skin and weighted his bones. The blisters on his jaw felt raw, and his ankle throbbed. He lay on the ground, his arm folded for a pillow, and closed his eyes.

  “Ellegean,” someone whispered. A foot nudged him from a dead sleep. “Ellegean.” He bolted up, disoriented, any sense of time eluding him. Misanda had set, but the darkness hadn’t budged. A young Farlander squatted beside him. “Guards to the east.”

  “How many?” Whitt rose to a knee and realized he spoke with a woman.

  She fingered a sooty blister on her cheek and shrugged. “We are going to sit in the grass and watch. Lian said to wake you.” She rose to a crouch and crept into the night. Whitt rubbed his eyes, letting them adjust, then followed, veering slightly to her right.

  The grass fell softly beneath his feet, cool, wet, and glimmering with faint light. His tongue felt dry, his body thirsty, and he battled the urge to lie down and lick the dew from the green blades. He brushed his fingers across the hushed pasture, stopped, and tested himself for influence, concluding he was truly thirsty.

  He stole forward until he saw the guards’ camp, fires blinking on the muddy plain. He lay on his belly and snaked another ten paces closer. Some men slept, others sat around the flames, and a few stood sentry, crossbows slung on their backs. If they planned an attack, they meant it for another time. He lay in the grass, on guard, and collected luminescent dew on his tongue.

  The horizon’s rim glowed with dawn, and nothing had changed. Whitt crawled backward, slinking toward the Farlander camp. Voices spoke in whispers. Faces twisted in worry or anger, distinguishable only by the tightness in the eyes and set of the jaw. Whitt found Lian gathering two score of old and young for the long walk to the camp.

  “The guards will see you leave,” Whitt said. “Be careful.”

  “They should be careful.” Lian grinned and pointed with his chin toward the distant forest. Whitt didn’t see a thing other than trees and rock, but the message rang clear. During the night, men had gone ahead to waylay anyone who followed.

  “I need to ride.” Whitt rubbed the edge of his burn, the skin itching. “I’ll return here as soon as I can. I don’t like this.”

  Lian rested a hand on his shoulder. “We are resourceful, Ellegean. We have a mage.”

  Following the man’s gaze, Whitt turned. Cylas stood in the grass, leaning on his staff. He pulled water from the ground into a hole, creating a spring. Whitt joined him and scooped the bright liquid into his mouth. He found his horse, still saddled, and rode a wide arc around their Ellegean company, heading into the sun.

  Two camps had merged south of Tor halfway to the Farland River, a formidable force of six hundred and growing, though a quarter were too young or old for a fight. The south was open land, viewed as too cold and wild for Ellegean expansion. The paltry villages that sprinkled the landscape brought food and supplies, melding into the larger mass.

  Whitt walked beside Kalis, the chief, a broad man with intricate scars carved into his face, chest, and arms. “Lian said he would leave marks in the trees should you need him, and the kari will lead the way.”

  “Let him know he’s welcome here,” Kalis said, his voice deep with authority. “Let all the chiefs know the south welcomes them. We gather an army and will drive the Ellegeans from the Wolds or bury them in the snow.”

  “No.” Whitt shook his head and raised his palms. “We mean to win this without more death. I can manage it. Let me try, Kalis. Give me until Brightest Night.”

  Kalis crossed his arms, and the muscles in his chest bulged. “My people have listened to Ellegean promises and heard only lies.”

  “Brightest Night,” Whitt pleaded. “If we fail, at least we’ll know we tried. Until then, defend yourselves but don’t attack. I just need a little more time.”

  The chief peered down his nose, and Whitt could see his thoughts loping across his eyes. “I’ll grant you until Brightest Night to honor your word. After the full moons, the Farlanders go to war.”

  ***

  Carrion birds with hooked beaks sat in the tallest branches of dead eldergreen; others circled overhead. Whitt reined his horse at the bloody scene. Farlanders dragged the bodies of their fallen to the trees. They wandered through the shards of their camp, wagons upturned, goods spilled or smashed. Two men raised longbows, arrows pointed at his chest. “I come with word from Lian and Kalis,” he yelled.

  “Whitt!” Tavor shouted. He strode from the woods, waving aside the bows. “It’s Whitt.”

  “What happened?”

  Tavor dabbed a gash on his bald head, and he’d wrapped his arm in a scrap of his shirt. “Guards didn’t like the idea that we stopped so close to the city, is my guess. Most of these people are from Outlyer.” He swept a hand across the destruction. “They were given more time to leave the city, but it’s a long way. Tor doesn’t want them any more than Outlyer.”

  “What were they supposed to do?” Whitt’s gaze fell on a man sitting numbly beside the bodies of his woman and child. He swallowed his fury. “There’s a large settlement south of Tor. Kalis is the chief. Get them there as soon as you can.”

  “Will do.” Tavor glanced at the cloth, scarlet with his blood, and returned it to his head. “I heard more are coming from Outlyer with guardian escorts. Lodan sent a third of his men there, a third to Falcyn, and he has a third getting clansmen out of Tor before they’re hanged.” He gestured to the Farlanders among the trees and locked his eyebrows together. “They don’t have time to burn the bodies, so they’re hanging them in the branches.”

  “It’s their faith.” Whitt dismounted. “Hard to get used to, I’ll admit, but when you understand this world, it makes better sense. I’ll help with the bodies and ride with you to the south settlement.”

  Tavor tossed the bloody cloth to the dirt. “The sooner we’re on our way, the better. The guards aren’t far from here. They camped out last night within view of us, soft and easy as if all they planned to do was watch and make sure we moved on in the morning. I don’t think they meant to kill us all or they would have.”

  “What?” Whitt’s focus snapped to the sergeant. “What did they do?”

  “Camped down there like neighbors.” Tavor eyed him and pointed a thumb over his shoulder. “Then this morning they decided on a bit of killing to start the day.”

  “I have to ride.” Whitt shoved a boot in his stirrup and swung into his saddle. He didn’t have time to explain. “Take them to Kalis before another night.” He jabbed his heels into the solid flanks and set a pace the horse could sustain all day.

  Near dusk, he closed in on the western pasture and its soft grass. No movements captured his vision; no sounds honed his ears, only the wind stirring the land’s fertile coverlet and rustling the distant trees. There were signs of struggle: scuffed up dirt, spilled food, the shattered remains of necessities and treasures saved from Tor’s char. He slid from the horse and shuffled among the ruins, kicking pieces of a broken bowl. Squatting in a patch of flattened grass, he ran his fingers over a dark smudge and beheld the color of blood.

  Shadows crept through the trees on the hillside, and he led his horse closer, onto the rocky dirt of the rising elevation, around boulders and scrub brush into the pole-pines and eldergreen. The trees’ lower branches were heavy with bodies. He counted fourteen, including the young woman with the sooty blister, and Cylas, the mage, a hole in his chest.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Jagur slouched behind his desk, pondering the news of Cale’s arrival f
rom the Far Wolds with Gannon’s friend Tiler, a female Farlander, and Ellegean child. The fingers of his left hand rapped the wood surface, and he raised a graying eyebrow at his visitor. “I suppose I ought to meet with them.”

  “Yes, Sir.” His ten-year-old page stood at the desk’s other side, his body motionless but his face in constant flux. He liked the boy’s overall dedication to following orders, even though he was a peculiar little fellow.

  “See them to the second-floor hall and send for food.”

  “Yes, Sir.” The boy’s lips pinched and one eye squinted. Otherwise, he didn’t budge.

  “Is there something else?”

  “You didn’t dismiss me, Sir.”

  “Oh.” Jagur frowned. “In that case, you’re dismissed.” He saluted for a measure of formality.

  “Yes, Sir.” The boy blinked several times, returned the salute despite the lack of a guild inking, and let himself out.

  Jagur filled his pipe and lifted the globe of an oil lantern he kept lit on his desk. He fired up his pipe with a thin stick, puffed a wreath of smoke around his head, and savored the familiar scent. The narrow window of his citadel office stood open, and birds fluttered and squabbled in the eaves beyond his view.

  A niggling voice in the back of his head hinted at what to expect. Gannon was doggedly persistent when he got a righteous thought in his head. Resistance only made him grip his goal like a cur with a bone. He’d proved it during the Tiers’ Rebellion. The question was, what did Guardian intend to do?

  The pipe wedged between his teeth, spectacles on his nose, he pushed himself up and headed down to wrangle with the next in a long list of problems and choices. A quiet retirement looked better by the day.

  The second-floor hall was intimate compared to the cavernous space below. He preferred it, especially when he wished to look his guests in the eye and dig out morsels of deeper nuance and truth. His intimidating size helped, and he didn’t mind looming in someone’s personal space.

  A pair of guardians opened the double doors. His guests turned and bowed, and Cale saluted, her crooked grin more grinny than usual. His morning crankiness washed away, replaced with plain happiness to see her returned safely. He felt good, in a better mood than he had in a long time, and couldn’t imagine why. He bent his shoulders to his guests. “My respects.”