Death Comes To All (Book 1) (15 page)

"Like
I said, he wasn't a very good smuggler," Malik said cheerfully,
obviously happy to share his unique knowledge. "It's several
weeks journey to Lando, and yet he had only one horse laden with
packs to carry what he claimed to be silks. No intelligent merchant
would ever transport silk cloth on the back of a horse like that,
especially on a long journey. They would use a covered wagon to
protect the cloth from the salt in the horse’s sweat, and more
importantly, from the ever unpredictable weather. Those bundles of
his didn't even look like cloth, so his story wasn't close to
believable."

"So
we shouldn't go to the east wall then?"

"Actually
that's exactly what we are going to do. It's part of the rules
between smugglers. They help each other out with little things like
that. Sharing information that way benefits everybody. If I had a way
to help him get to where he was going then I would have told him."

"And
the bartender he told us about?" Roland asked.

"He
probably doesn't even exist," Tara told him, uncovering the
cloth from her face. Roland realized that she had kept it covered the
entire time the merchant and his men were in sight. As usual, she
didn't want anyone to recognize her as a feral.

At
least she finally said something,
he thought. She had not said
anything the entire day.

"But
I thought you said that you knew him?" he asked Malik,
perplexed.

"Of
course," he answered pleasantly. "I was telling him that I
knew what he was and that I knew that there was no such man. You see,
I wanted him to think I was a smuggler too, so I was basically
playing into the whole game they play. Naturally the person I told
him about doesn't exist either. He was well aware of that. It's a
strange game those people play, but it can be amusing from time to
time."

"I
thought that you said that the smugglers help each other? Why would
you send each other to fake contacts?"

"For
the same reason that we wouldn't tell each other what we were really
selling. There's always a chance that we might be smuggling the same
thing. If that were the case than we would be rivals, which could
lead to all sorts of unpleasant outcomes. This way, there's no way
for me to know what he has and vice-versa. Everything stays friendly
that way."

Roland
shook his head.

I
could spend a month trying to figure all this out and it would likely
still continue to elude me,
he
suspected
.

Tara
had already started down the road again, eager to reach their camp
site for the night. Roland wondered just how many of those sites the
two of them had spread out along the roads. It was obvious that they
knew exactly where they were. It was likely that most merchants, both
honest and otherwise, had such sites along every road that existed.
He had just never had a reason to think about it before now.

They
reached this particular location with at least an hour of sunlight
left. That one smuggler and his guards were the only souls they had
seen. Malik assured him that they would begin running into more and
more people as they got closer to the city. Roland found a stout
stick for his nightly practice, while Tara quickly gathered wood for
their fire. As he sparred with a stationary sapling she spread a
thick slab of fish from the night before over the flames.

Hopefully
her attitude might change once she had her meal,
Roland thought.

She
hadn't been rude to him, though she had said almost nothing during
the day, but she had pointedly ignored Malik. He had said that
morning that she was just sulking. Roland hoped that the man was
right. While it was true that he knew very little about her, about
either of his companions for that matter, he realized that he had
grown quite fond of them. He wouldn't want the feral woman to stop
talking to him altogether.

"Tara,"
Malik said finally, addressing her directly for the first time in a
while. "I think you should take first watch tonight. I need a
bit of sleep, and I'm sure you'll be up for a while finishing your
dinner. Wake me up for second watch. If you could, keep Roland up
with you tonight and show him the ropes. He showed an interest this
morning in becoming a more integral member of our little group.
Learning what to watch for during the night and helping us guard the
camp would be a good start."

Tara
garbled something that sounded roughly like an affirmative. Roland
reminded himself never to get on the woman's bad side.

She
can hold a grudge better than anyone I’ve ever met,
he
thought.

Trick
flew down from an unseen perch somewhere above them and landed next
to Tara, chirping with what sounded to Roland's ears like a
distinctly inquisitive sound. Tara chuckled lightly, and gave the
dragonling a generous portion of the gar she was cooking over the
fire. Roland wasn't sure if the small dragonling cared about how hot
his dinner might have been, but it seemed to enjoy the fish almost as
much as she did. Malik, seeing that his little friend was taken care
of for the night, lay his head on his pack and rolled over.

If
he didn't fall asleep at once he certainly was doing a good job of
pretending,
Roland thought.

The
last of the day’s light faded into night. Roland sat next to
the fire, slowly stirring a small pot of boiling tubers he had
uprooted from along the edge of camp. Tara sat next to him, munching
away happily on her fish. Roland breathed a light sigh of relief. She
had continued her silent pouting for more than a half hour after
Malik had gone to sleep, then switched instantly to the happier
version of herself that she had been the night before.

Her
mood was probably nothing more than an act to get under Malik's skin,
Roland thought, though he kept that opinion to himself.

Trick
had long since finished his meal and had flown up into the trees,
likely sleeping off the large piece of meat that Tara had given him.
Malik still slept, as silently as he would in his grave. Not a sound
escaped to prove his slumber.

Even
Tara snores slightly when she sleeps,
Roland thought. As he
recalled t
he sound she made when
sleeping seemed more like a purr than a snore, but at least there was
some sound there.

The
only sounds in the night Roland could hear were the loud chirping of
night insects and the crackling of the fire. Even Tara's eating
hardly made a sound. In the distance he heard what he thought might
have been the croaking of a bullfrog, though he couldn't remember
seeing any water when he looked around camp. Still, the entire part
of the world they were in was covered sporadically with swampland, so
he figured it was probable that there was a lake or stream somewhere
nearby.

With
only small campfire, burning merrily in the center of the clearing,
Roland peered out into the darkness. Try as he might, he couldn't see
much of anything beyond its feeble light. He clenched his fists
lightly in frustration.

How
am I going to be of any use as a watchman if I can’t see more
than a few feet away?

With Tara beside him he felt certain that he really
didn’t have anything to worry about, but he didn’t want
to have to rely on his companions all the time. He wanted them to be
able to rely on him. He wanted to contribute to the group no
differently than anyone else. Tara was far more useful than he was,
he knew, and she was paying more attention to her dinner than her
surroundings.

"You
might as well sit down and relax," Tara said between bites,
breaking the silence of the night. "If anyone approaches Trick
will know. He’ll tell us long before anyone gets close enough
to see our camp. I don't know if he can see them or hear them or
what, but I've never seen anyone sneak up on him. I can see in the
dark better than nearly anyone, but even I don't see as well as Trick
does. I suspect his hearing might be better than mine as well. Even
when he's completely asleep, he still knows whatever is going on
around him, almost like a sixth sense or something. Dragonlings are
magically created creatures, so who knows what they might really be
capable of. However he does it, he's always known when trouble is
near."

"Why
do we even need a watch then?"

"A
couple of reasons. For one, it's not easy for Trick to wake us up
quickly. The last time he had to he nearly pulled my hair out, and
I'm not a heavy sleeper. For another, there are times when we travel
separately and meet up again later. It wouldn't be good for us to
become lax in our attention. So I guess that it's sort of like
practice. That's what you are learning tonight. I'll teach you a bit
more in a while, once I've finished eating. For now, just listen to
what's around you. Pay attention to every detail. Even if there's
nothing dangerous nearby, you can learn a lot about what's in the
area just by listening. Tell me what you hear now."

He
listened once again, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn't hear
anything out of the ordinary. He heard insects, though other than the
chirping of crickets he couldn't identify any of them. Once again he
heard a croak that could have been a bullfrog in the distance.
Unfortunately it was too far away from him to be certain of where it
was coming from. Aside from that he heard nothing.

Surely
there isn’t anything out there.

"I
don't hear anything," he told her at last, feeling defeated. He
was certain that she must have heard something that she expected him
to hear, but he had no idea what it might have been.

"So
you didn't hear that loud, low groaning sound?"

"You
mean the bullfrog? I heard that, sure. I just didn't think that it
was anything important."

"That
wasn't a bullfrog," she told him. "I can see why you would
think that it was, it certainly sounded similar to a bullfrog anyway,
but that’s not what it was at all. That was a bull alligator
threatening another male. They make a similar sound when mating. I
wouldn't be surprised to find that one had killed the other before
morning. Males in most species tend to be overly aggressive, and
alligators are far from being an exception."

"I
wouldn't think that a gator would really be a danger to us this deep
in dry woods. It sounds too far away to be something to worry about."

"You're
right about that. We're too far from the water for it to attack us
here. Still, what that does tell us is that there is water nearby.
Enough to support a large alligator, or even a few of them.

"That's
something that we could use come morning, if we needed water or food.
Some plants grow better near water, which would be good for you, and
that could also mean fish for me. Other animals, like deer or wild
hogs, might frequent there for drinking, so there could be well
established game trails. Remember that while you might not eat meat,
that doesn't mean that you shouldn't keep your eyes, or in this case
your ears, open to help your companions."

Roland
considered that.
Granted, he had
been cleaning most of the animals that they had killed, but he had
barely participated really. He had only been doing what he had been
told. Instead, he realized, he should have been paying closer
attention to how much they had left and what they might need. Tara
and Malik had certainly been paying attention to his needs. With the
packs that they had been using it was impossible to know how full
they might be just by looking at them from the outside, but he could
still ask them what they needed from time to time.

"Are
we low on water now?" he asked. "I could follow that sound
and refill our supply."

"Only
if you wanted to become dinner for that gator down there," she
teased. "I wouldn't even go near the water at night. I can see
in the dark, but not into the depths of deep water this late at
night. You would never see that thing coming. Besides, I happen to
already know that the water nearby is not very good for drinking. I
wouldn't go there for water except in the greatest of emergencies."

Of
course she’s right,
he thought sullenly.
I should have
known. I’m not even good enough to gather water properly. I’m
completely useless. There’s really no reason that Malik and
Tara should want me around.

"If
you want to do something you could always gather more wood for the
fire. Just don't go far beyond the light. It's easy to get lost in
the dark if you're not careful. Also there are animals that will stay
away from the fire but might still come close, staying just out of
the light. I've found tracks of cougars and skunk apes from time to
time over the years that I've been in this part of the world, though
it's rare to see either of them. If they get too close Trick will
probably warn us, and if it's a skunk ape you'll notice the smell
long before it gets close enough to be dangerous."

He
involuntarily wrinkled his nose at the thought. Roland had heard of
the skunk apes. They are said to be so rare that most people believed
them to be nothing more than superstition. They were said to have the
worst smell imaginable. He had heard jokingly that they could spoil
vegetables in a field with their smell alone, just by walking near.