Barrenlands (The Changespell Saga) (18 page)

"As am I," Ehren agreed, without giving ground or appearing to notice he was being crowded. "But as a matter of course you don't extend your patrols this far. If there's been a change, the Solvan Border Guard would be pleased to accommodate you."

"The change is that you seem to need some help these days— so get used to seeing us around. We don't want to be tripping over you people."

"No fear," Ehren said. "If you can't see where you're going, we'll be nimble enough to get out of your way." He stepped out of range of the jigging, steel-shod hooves so close to his feet.

Jiarna, smiling benignly, spoke up before the Lorakans could raise a reply. "Gentlesirs, let me find someone to take your horses. We'd be glad to offer you refreshment while we take your evidence."

At her words, Ben finally arrived on the scene, flushed and trying to maintain his dignity; from the way he came around behind the commonstall building, Laine suspected he'd been at the tavern. He went straight to the soldiers and waited for them to dismount and haul their prisoner down, and then took the horses. Ehren watched, expression pensive, as Jiarna led the soldiers to the station.

"Not going with them?" Laine asked.

"They'll cause less trouble without me." He turned to gaze to the Trade Road. "I wonder what's really going on. It sure as Hells adds up to more than a few tactless soldiers rounding up leftover bandits."

Laine thought of the strong presence of soldiers around Everdawn and had to agree. It seemed all sorts of things were heating up along the border— and from Ehren's reaction, he didn't think Kurtane had a clue.

~~~~~

Ehren thought to stay at the border until the Lorakan soldiers left, but they seemed in no great hurry— unlike Ansgare. The caravan leader wanted no part of the border station now that the Lorakans had arrived, and Ehren's preferences held little sway.

Jiarna pulled him aside before they departed, merchant gossip on her mind and on her tongue. "Unrest," she said. "Beyond these mountains and into their cultivated lands. Damned new political thing going on in that free trade way of theirs. Too many wizards— you know how they don't control 'em— and now they're saying expansion is their Guides-given right. Their
destiny.
" She all but spat that final word, understanding as well as Ehren that a land-locked Loraka had very few options for expanding at all.

And Ehren thought of the new Lorakan influence in the capital, and of the concerns Jada and Algere had brought to him; he thought of Hetna's suspicions of smuggling and collusion among the court of her time.

I need to be in Kurtane.

But Wilna's ring sat against Ehren's chest, strident in tone. Ehren was in no way inclined to ignore it— especially not since Laine was headed in that same general direction. For after what he'd seen— and what Laine had
seen
— Ehren was as interested in following Laine as he was in appeasing a crabby ring; another True Dream or two might yield him more clues.

Even if it meant using the amiable young man Ehren was growing to think of as
friend
.

The first few days of the caravan travel seemed uneventful after the time with Unai. Laine ran point and detected a number of strong spells, but none of them drifted within the caravan's path, and Ehren felt secure enough to leave Shaffron's reins resting loosely on the horse's neck while he read over a passage of the journal he'd tried— and failed— to decipher by firelight the evening before.

Until Shette's horrified cry broke the air, and Shaffron's head came straight up, his nostrils wide while he drank the wind, searching for threat.

"You never mind, son," Ehren told him, steadying the horse with the pressure of his thighs while he stuffed the hand-bound journal back in its satchel. He tucked it securely in the back of the wagon as he rode past, threading Shaffron through the narrow space between Laine's wagon and the rock of mountain rising to their right.

There he found Laine and Shette staring at a twisted corpse.

"Interesting," Ehren said, thinking it was far more than that.

Shette looked up at him, her nose wrinkled as she backed away. "I'm going to get Ansgare."

Laine crouched by the body, not touching it but holding his ground. The man's rigid arms warded his face, his features contorted with fear. His eyes were dully glazed, and a clump of fly eggs rested in the corner of his open mouth.

There wasn't a single visible mark on his body.

When Laine looked up, his expression held invitation— a hope, perhaps, that Ehren had seen just such a thing before and could explain it. "Magic, I suppose," he guessed, "but I don't know just what."

"I'd say he's lucky to have made it this far." Ehren swung off Shaffron and left one rein dangling on the ground. Shaffron rolled a rattly snort through his nose; Ehren gave the gelding a hard look and a low reminder. "Stay put, monster bait."

Laine stared at the corpse with a distant expression, tipping his head to close first his dark, dark blue eye, and then the one that might as well have been black. Ehren moved his hand to the hilt of his sword, his stance turning wary.

But when Laine pulled his attention back to the here and now, he shook his head. "Just a faint trace left over— but it doesn't
taste
like the magic I've felt over the past two years. These are serious spells. Deadly ones."

Ehren heard Shette and Ansgare behind him, coming around Laine's wagon on foot. "Found us some more trouble, ey?" Ansgare said, his voice a sour note.

Laine's mouth quirked in a wry grin. "That's what you pay me for."

"Maybe I need to pay you less, then." Ansgare moved up to the body, leaving Shette to hang back and make faces. He stared soberly a moment. "This may be it for us, Laine. It's not that I don't trust you to detect the spells before we trip them, but there's going to come a point where we can't handle what you find."

Laine sat back on the rocky trail, one arm propped over his knee and the other hand raking his hair back, his expression distinctly unhappy. "Things have changed," he agreed. "The
spells
have changed. I think someone wants us out of here, Ansgare."

"This man was a fool to try the road on his own," Ehren said. "Ask someone who knows."

Laine gave him a quick grin, but then shook his head. "You weren't here last year, Ehren, or the year before. The spells were old and weak. A wagon couldn't have evaded them, but someone on foot or horseback? Even if you triggered them, you had a chance to get out of the way."

"He's right," Ansgare said. "You might lose livestock, you might lose goods— you might even lose a limb. But such efficient death..." He shook his head. "No. This is new."

"You might want to come look at this fellow from over here." Laine looked at Ehren, head cocked at the body. "This looks like a Lorakan device." He pointed at the folded shirt by the man's collarbone.

Ehren leaning over to straighten the shirt.
A Lorakan badge.
This one, Ehren had seen before— and in Kurtane. Responsible only to the highest levels of the Lorakan government, those who wore this badge were investigators of a sort. And sometimes, instigators of a sort. Ehren had never trusted them, never taken them at face value. They always had two plots behind their backs for every one they revealed— and they were far too good at bluffing in court games.

"Well?" Ansgare said.

"Not your average traveler." Ignoring the body's stiff limbs, Ehren unfastened the badge and handed it to Laine, and then rifled through the dead man's clothes— patting him down for the crackle of paper, the solidity of a leather wallet.

Nothing— except a variety of disgusted noises from Shette. But the inner calves of the man's riding boots were stiff and grimy— he'd been ahorse, all right. If he'd been carrying orders, they must have gone with the horse. Ehren straightened and stretched his back. "That's as much as we're going to get from this one. Let's get this body covered."

For a moment Ansgare looked like he was going to protest the loss of time, but he must have thought better of it; he left without comment, and when he returned, he brought Machara and her men. They were enough to make the job a quick one.

When they broke apart, preparing to start the caravan moving again, Machara put her hand on Laine's arm. "Be careful," she said. "For all of us."

~~~~~~~~~~

CHAPTER EIGHT

Laine made a strangled noise of alarm and ducked away from the quick flash of metal.

"Relax," Ehren said.

Laine responded with an incredulous snort.
Relax?
With Ehren's blade flashing before his face?

Parry from first, draw back his blade, use some elusive, subtle motion to clear the point of Ehren's blade and guard, and go in at his head? It seemed simple enough when Ehren showed him, slowly and carefully. But when Laine actually tried to perform it...

He stepped back. "I don't get it, I guess."

"No, you've got a good start," Ehren said, lowering his blade. "The whole idea of this exercise is to perform it with a relaxed shoulder. Tense up, and you've got a wild blade. Easy enough to parry that."

"I don't think you're going to get a good soldier out of me," Laine said ruefully, looking at his sword. It was a new one, rustled out of the returning caravan goods. Longer, infinitely plainer, it had a slight sweep in the blade, a leather-wrapped grip, and short, wide quillons. It was heavier than his first sword, too, and better balanced.

"I never thought I would," Ehren said. "But if you're going to carry that blade, you need to be able to use it with some familiarity. You need automatic reactions— and you need to be able to handle it without stiffening up. When you can do this exercise, you'll be on your way."

Laine looked at Ehren, trying to see through the training mask he wore, to read the expression beyond. "Maybe I shouldn't carry it."

"That's an option," Ehren said. "But... all things considered, I think it's best to be flexible. You can know how to use it, and choose not to carry it. It doesn't work as well the other way around." He tapped Laine's training mask with the tip of his sword; it was a measure of Laine's growing respect for Ehren's skill that he didn't flinch this time. "I wouldn't have borrowed these from the border station if I thought it was a bad idea."

A rock skipped down the slope beside them; Laine glanced up to see Shette climbing down the steep trail from the small, deep lake just up the hill.

Laine pulled the training mask over his head, drinking in the breeze of the narrow valley. It made the hot afternoon as pleasant as any summer day would get. They'd stopped the caravan earlier than usual, for they always put up for the night here in preparation for the rough spot ahead. Earlier, Laine had scouted the lake and declared it free of magic, but it might do to repeat the sweep. He glanced at Ehren—
Are we done
?— and Ehren sheathed his sword by way of response. Laine struggled out of the brigandine and set it next to the wagon along with his sheathed sword, happy enough to walk bare-chested to the lake.

The steep, rocky lake trail edged along the hillside and over the crest, dumping him out at the edge of the lake. It was a barren little thing, contained by rock and edged by nothing more than scraggly grasses— but it was spring-fed and wonderfully cool. He walked in and ducked under before emerging to walk the perimeter, spiraling outward to catch any sign of dangerous magic.

Nothing. Once he might have felt vaguely bored; now he was only relieved as he headed back down the path, stopping halfway down the rise to watch over their tranquil camp. The mules were tied in front of the wagon; Ehren's horses and Nell were behind.
The boys
, Ehren called them, although that certainly wasn't how Laine thought of them, not after Ricasso had gone after first himself and then Shette.

Beside the wagon, Ehren seemed to be showing Shette how to throw a good punch, and spent some time demonstrating how she should hold her hand and fingers. He folded her fingers and removed her thumb from beneath them; as Ehren held up his hand and had Shette punch it, Laine wondered how much Shette wanted to learn and how much was an excuse to be with Ehren.

Equal parts
. And no doubt those newly enhanced punches would be aimed his way. After a few hits, Ehren nodded, said something that made her blush, and glanced up at Laine.

Probably knew I was here all along
. Laine descended to the wagon and dripped on the ground next to them. "All clear," he announced, unnecessarily. "How about it, Ehren, should she train for the Guard?"

"No more than you should," Ehren told him, and gave Shette a grin.

"Ha," she said to Laine. Then, without preamble, she asked Ehren, "Why do you always wear that feather?" She put a quick hand over her mouth. "I meant for that to sound better."

Ehren only smiled at her. "It's an honor feather. Awarded by consensus of the King's Guard."

"If you got too many of them, you'd look like a goose," Shette said, and then reddened a shade brighter. "I mean..."

He smiled. "Only the one feather. It's spelled; it won't break. After that they give out the beads. Different colors and numbers, different ranks of honor."

Laine'd noticed those beads, several strings of them attached to the feather, mostly hidden in Ehren's hair. Despite himself, Laine was impressed. But then, since the bandits' hideout, there'd never been any question in his mind that Ehren's life had been very different from his own.

Very different indeed.

"Do you know this area pretty well?" Ehren asked him without preamble.

"Depends on what you mean by
this area
," Laine said, suddenly wary and not even sure why.
The honor feather…the reminder of who Ehren was.
More than just an amiable protector teaching Shette how to punch and Laine how to pick up a sword.

"The route." Ehren gestured ahead and behind the wagon. "The territory around it."

"The route itself, yes. The surrounding areas— well, we saw a lot of it when we originally scouted. But I haven't seen much of it recently, if you were looking for a guide."