Barrenlands (The Changespell Saga) (15 page)

"Who owes who what is a little tangled at this point," Ehren said. "But thank you."

"Good," Laine said, then put a plaintive look on his face. "Now, can we get some sleep? I've had about all I can take out of this day."

~~~~~

Ehren slept by the door. If Unai wanted to go out the small window, he'd drop two stories straight down and clamber over Laine and Shette getting there, but the door was a different matter and the little man had been eyeing it from the moment they got in the room.

Between Unai's restless squirming in the corner— for the bed was a small one, and barely big enough for Laine and Shette— and his own churning thoughts, Ehren hadn't expected to get much sleep.

The ring was patently unhappy with him; even strung around his neck instead of on his finger, its mood was obvious. Instead of humming happily, it rested against his skin with a soundless buzzing.

He wasn't surprised. His orders had been explicit— drop the search for Benlan's killers and find Dannel's family instead. So here he was, following the wrong trail and moving steadily away from the ring's indication.

With no regret whatsoever.

For the first time since Benlan's death, he felt he'd found something that would lead further than the execution of another low-level henchman.

On the bed, Laine made a small noise, instantly alerting Ehren. Not that it'd be unusual to have bad dreams after such a thorough introduction to mayhem and swordplay, but Ehren well remembered the last
dream
Laine had experienced. He sat up against the door and rested his forearms on his drawn-up knees, waiting.

There it was, that same soft sound a protest, almost a moan of frustration. He heard Shette shift in the darkness. There was the sound of wood sliding on wood, and the shutters drifted open. Light drifted into the room along with cool night air, and Ehren could see the girl eyeing her brother with some concern.

Laine twitched, and jerked, and a chilling, raspy protest scraped through his throat.

That was enough for Ehren. "Laine," he said, and his flat, loud voice made Shette jump.

"No, Ehren..." she said, as Ehren got to his feet and headed for the bed. But she didn't try to stop him— instead she swiftly removed herself reach. "It's not safe, Ehren, don't wake him—"

"What's going on over there?" Unai asked, fear in his voice.

Laine twisted on the bed and enough was enough. Ehren leaned over the low, narrow bed and took Laine firmly by the shoulders.

"Wake up, Laine," he said, his voice as firm as his grip. Neither had an effect, and he gave the young man a good shake. "That's enough, Laine—
wake up
."

Laine exploded into movement. The first Ehren knew of it was when Laine's fist connected solidly with the corner of his eye. Ehren rolled away, hitting the floor— coming to his feet in a crouch, ready to restrain this sudden adversary. But Laine had gone quiet again, on his hands and knees in the bed and slowly sinking to his haunches.

Ehren blinked rapidly, tears streaming out of both eyes as the one immediately swelled closed. His vision wavered, but he could still pick out the whites of Laine's unblinking eyes. Even in starlight those eyes looked blank. Slowly, he rose to full height, and blotted his good eye against his sleeve.

"I tried to tell you..." Shette started.

Unai demanded, "What's going
on
?"

"Be quiet," Ehren told him without sympathy. "Laine, wake up now. It was only a dream."

"It's never
only a dream
," Shette muttered.

Laine's voice came distantly; Ehren's relief at his response quickly faded. "There was a man watching," he said. "A man... but he wasn't
there
."

Ehren turned to Shette, and she came to him from where she'd been standing against the door. He wondered if she realized it was probably all that had kept Unai from bolting. He nodded at Laine, who was murmuring something about being dead, and said, "What's this about, Shette? "

"Are you all right? That was an awful sound when he hit you..."

Ehren didn't gentle the iron in his voice this time. "Shette."

In response he got a flare of righteously irked teenager. "Ask
him
," she said. "I'm not the one who does it, am I?"

He supposed it was better than being fawned on. "I will."

In fact, he didn't. The next morning found Laine in the sort of daze Ehren had observed when he'd had contact with Wilna's ring, and it wasn't easy to get his attention.

"I told you not to wake him," Shette observed acerbically, though she managed to say it only once. "You got a black eye and he's not worth a thing. It's best to let him sleep it out when they're that strong."

Ehren didn't tell her that he'd been afraid to let it get as bad as it had the last time.

Unai spent the morning testing his limits; he rode the grey gelding and tried to get it to drift away from the group, but he was inexperienced at best and the gelding was a stubborn, herd-bound creature. Ehren let him think he hadn't been noticed and resolved to watch the man, although Unai finally seemed to settle into his new role well enough— half-captured, half-escorted, both by one of the best guards Solvany had to offer. Shette helped distract him from his plight; she seemed to have a sudden need to talk about the events of the day before.

She kept her little mare— a creature which now bore evidence of her affection in its fancily braided mane— next to Ricasso, which put her head far below Ehren's. And she chattered.

She asked him if he'd ever killed anyone before, or rescued anyone from bandits before, and didn't seem to mind when he didn't give her more than one or two words as an answer. She wondered what sort of people bought the slaves, and she swore she'd never travel on this road alone again. Unai seemed to take it all in, and by the end of the morning, also seemed to have resigned himself to Ehren's company.

The road narrowed a little and climbed gradually but steadily, offering regular clusters of inns and amenities, but little in the way of settlements— the terrain didn't allow for it. They rode for two days, and in the end, they didn't quite make it to Everdawn. As they ambled in to the night's lodgings, Shette asked, "Who're all those men in uniforms?"

He'd seen them. There were two by the barn, and three getting ready to ride out together. And he knew the uniform well enough, even if he'd only seen it in strategy manuscripts.

"Lorakan army," he said quietly. He didn't mention that the army was generally inactive, except for the maintenance of its command structure. Like Solvany, Loraka had other branches of the service to take care of day-to-day peacekeeping duties.

But these men didn't seem to be doing anything in particular here. They were just... present.

Ehren eased the King's Guard ailette from his arm, and slid Ricasso in behind Unai's grey to dismount and shrug off his brigandine. He rolled it up lining side out and tied it behind his saddle with the gambeson, pulling his shirt from his saddlebag.

"Problems?" Laine asked. He seemed back to his old self now, but Ehren had not found the privacy to inquire about his dreams— nor had he completely decided that it was his business, after all. Even if his eye
was
still damnably sore, and splashed with the greenly dark colors of a hailstorm— or so Shette had informed him.

Ehren looked up at Laine. "Not that I know of." But he followed Laine's gaze to the two soldiers by the barn. "Just don't want to raise any interest. Being a Guard won't buy me any leeway here." He led Ricasso out in to the front of the group. "Come on. Standing here looking at them isn't going to come across all that well, either."

Privately, he knew his feeble attempts at camouflage would do him little good if he happened across a man with experience. They would recognize it in one another, and if the Lorakan was looking for trouble, he would be able to make it.

~~~~~

The lingering effects of the Dream left Laine wearied. Shette kept turning into that same vacant-eyed girl, and Unai occasionally faded into a boy he hadn't seen until now, a youngster who usually twirled himself in dizzying circles. And amongst it all, he had the feeling there was someone looking over his shoulder— cold, dark eyes with no mercy in them.

He fell back into the old childhood habit of closing first one eye, and then the other, searching for some difference in the way his unmatched eyes perceived the world. If only he could find one, maybe he could avoid these unbidden visions.

But he hadn't.

Laine remembered nothing of the Dream itself— that was the way of things when he was startled awake in the middle of one. He knew he'd managed to thoroughly blacken Ehren's eye— and even when he didn't want to believe it, there was Ehren, sitting across the table from him and looking like he'd smeared soot on his fist and rubbed his face with it.

Ehren had his back to the wall of the inn's common room, scanning the room as ever. Unai was next to him, and Laine on the other side of that, trapping the little man between the two of them. But even Unai seemed to have no desire to create a scene, not with all the Lorakan soldiers around.

Ehren had said something. "What?" Laine asked, sounding a little dimwitted even to himself. He probably even deserved the disgusted look Shette threw at him.

"I don't think we should go any further," Ehren said.

"You have to take me to Everdawn— that's the deal!" Unai's voice, which had lost its frightened edge over days of uneventful travel, grew tense again.

Ehren raised an eyebrow at him and picked up a chicken leg. Shette had just tried her first mouthful and had an incredulous look on her face; she snatched up the mug of watered wine in front of her and gulped it down. Hmmm. Laine was going to have to give it a try.

This inn— so close to Everdawn— was a step above the others at which they'd stayed. In an inn of this quality, one expected the beds to be spelled against fleas and the hall to have a glow-spell all night long; all the little amenities that were available in the cities.

But Shette had yet to get used to the food. Laine gave his little sister an affectionate, what-else-can-you-expect look for which she would have smacked him if she hadn't been too busy blinking tears from her eyes.

When she'd caught her breath, Ehren finally responded to Unai. "You're close enough. Travel out with some of these soldiers tomorrow and you'll have an escort all the way in. I can't chance getting caught up in anything here."

"But you're not doing anything wrong," Shette protested.

"Only following a lead I'm not supposed to follow, and ignoring the orders I was given," Ehren said wryly. "Varien would love to see me in trouble— and he'd probably laugh himself to sleep every night if he managed to get me stranded by denying my ties to the Guard."

"Why?" she demanded.

Ehren shook his head. "Tedious details, Shette. Let's just say the man doesn't like me, and that's reason enough."

"But I can't keep up with the soldiers," Unai said, his voice suspiciously close to a whine.

"The grey is yours," Ehren said without hesitation. "You might get a good price for him in Everdawn, if you bargain carefully." He pinned the little man with his stare. "Don't squirm, Unai. Just talk. You've certainly learned enough about us by now to realize we're not going to kill you as you sleep tonight. For that matter, you can sleep where you choose, after I have what I want."

Unai pressed his lips together, a stubborn look entering his eyes. Ehren leaned forward, set his elbows against the table and said, his voice deliberate and quiet, "You're not going to get anything more out of me. But I'm perfectly willing to take you out behind the barn tonight and dunk you in the river until I get what I want out of
you
."

Laine believed him, flashing back to the sight of a short swordswoman's ropy grey guts spilled out on the ground. Unai, too, seemed to take Ehren's words seriously, especially after looking at Laine's expression. He sank down on his low, wide-seated stool and nodded. "But not here."

Ehren didn't argue. "Not here," he said. "After we eat, Laine and Shette will head for the river to clean up while you and I check on the horses." It wasn't, Laine noticed, a suggestion. "And then, Unai, you and I will have a little talk."

Also not a suggestion. And to judge by his expression, Unai well knew it.

~~~~~

But Laine and Shette didn't come back. Not when Ehren expected them, and not afterward, with the horses seen to and Unai tucked away in their room.

Ehren stood in front of the inn, looking along the road— back the way they'd come, toward the river. Unai he'd left tied and gagged— for Ehren trusted him even less now that the little man was close to what he considered safety.

This was one lead Ehren wasn't about to lose.

So Unai was tied, Laine and Shette were errant, and Ehren was heading for the road with long strides, jingling slightly from boot buckles he could tighten if he wasn't actually enjoying the sound. The walk itself was pleasant, with an almost-full moon and a number of enthusiastic insects chirping and humming to each other in the narrow track of woods between himself and the river.

When he saw a lone figure coming his way, he slowed. Not Laine— this was a tall, thin man sporting a neat beard and hair that caught silver in the moonlight. He had a walking stick, and the stick...
glowed
. By the time he reached the man, Ehren realized he'd found his first road wizard— one of the bevy of competent Lorakan magic-users who patrolled and spelled the Trade Road in the off-use hours. There were spells to keep the roads from rutting and wearing away, spells to keep the woods growth at bay, spells to keep those same woods healthy and full of forage for wayside campers. Most importantly, the wizards patrolled to keep travelers from falling prey to the same kind of old wandering magic that made Laine's Sight so valuable to the caravan.

Ehren lifted a hand in greeting as they were about to pass, but the other man stopped short. "Now
that's
something." He didn't wait for a response, or do so much as offer a greeting. "What is that you're wearing? The layers in it are masterful. May I see it?"