If Crows Know Best (Mage of Merced Book 1) (25 page)

I hoped not, too, so I forced the tunnel site from my mind at once.

Gargle returned two days later with far more news than I could be told. Woven beneath Virda’s words of how the garden was coming on and the twenty chicks she got for helping birth twins for the wheelwright’s wife, Wils read out to Da by the fire that night the real word from the farm. It felt like when we used to read by the hearth at home, except that I was banished to check the horses and unload bedrolls from the wagon.

“For my own good,” I grumped to Wieser, but proximity let me hear that the warehouse prisoners were arriving in dribs and drabs from the cliffs, and being shuttled to the caves on our mountain by Gevarr and Cobbel. Whatever else was revealed made everyone equally happy, as far as I could tell by their reactions, and it was not until a week later that Tock arrived with the letter that changed everything.

CHAPTER 35

We kept to lesser roads and tracks to make our way toward home undetected, so the summer rains mired us more than once that week. The men had got quite good at levering up the axle with a pole while Annora and I put flat rocks under the wheels. I tried to do the muddiest work to save her from it. That day I was just scrambling to my feet swearing, covered to the chest in black muck and rotting leaves from under the cargo wagon, when Tock alighted on the hut roof.

Maybe he thought I tried to take on his plumage color, because he bobbed his head in what appeared to me to be approval. Annora took his message to decode, while I tried to wash off some of the worst of the slop in the stream next to the road.

Every face that came round to me when I returned looked as bleak as snow-dusted rock.

“You’d best tell me what this one says.” I wrung out my shirt front, sinking onto a log at the edge of the wagon ruts.

Annora held out the paper for me. Virda had sent a scrawled market list, which in code beneath said tersely, “Stay away. Soldiers taking magic folk.”

“Taking them where?” I said into the silence.

Da had an answer first. “No matter at present. Wils, you take Annora and Judian and head south. Delyth drives the wagon to our place, with me, Beckta and Miskin. Perk, you’ll have to ride with Wils.” The men began to move, gathering gear and shifting it from one rig to the other.

I felt my home sliding away over a cliff while I could do nothing but watch. “Why can’t I take Annora up to the caves? Not go through the village but go around the backcountry way instead?” I tried.

“And if they’ve tracked you to home by your thoughts?” Wils said.

“I have not done one scrap of magic since I shot the hawk!” I said, and this was true. But I had thought of home.

“We don’t know if they’re looking for Judian specifically,” Annora said, tugging at the rain-swollen wagon door.

Da jerked it open for her. “They only have to know they are looking for my son,” he said.“The whole fort knew who I was, and who Judian was after that night. Finding my home will not be difficult for the enemy. I’m well-enough known as former paladin.”

Wils brought the maps out. “It will be better to continue north, and pick up Grebble Road southeasterly. Better for fast travel.” Da looked over as Wils traced the route. I tethered Wils’s bay to the back of the Traveller wagon, and climbed up on the seat.

“Yes,” Da said. “It’s not far to the junction. Mount up.”

All of us did as we were ordered, which is what people always do when it’s Da doing the telling. We had three more miles of rough track to cover to reach the crossroads.

Wils’s expression grew so empty as he drove. Annora sat beside him with me at her other side. Wieser sat on the floor behind the seat but stretched forward to lay her nose on my boot. I could hear Tock call, circling above with Gargle.

I could not stop wondering if Morie and Virda were safe. Gevarr and Cobbel would take them away to the caves, unless at the caves themselves, situating the refugee soldiers. And would Virda be taken, since midwifery was a sort of magic? Who would care for Morie, had they left her alone at the house? How I wished I could fly home with my crows and see.

Wils started to talk, and I listened to him to keep my thought away from magic and home. “I never knew what Da could do until I saw him fight, when we rode out together. Somehow he knew just where to send men to drive back a surge of enemy. Then he swept around like a holy fire. I had practiced long days with sword and axe when we were stuck at the fort, and I thought I could handle weapons. But he … how he made his sword ring through the air. It was his own sword, I gave it back to him and took another. I was staggered to see him wield it.” Wils swallowed.

“What is the best thing to do in a battle?” I asked, for I might need to know soon.

He shifted his shoulders. “Be somewhere else.”

“Did you have to kill anybody?” I persisted.

“Yes.” It seemed at first he would not say more, but then, “I saw six fall to me, but maybe not all of them died.” Annora put her hand over his on the rein, and settled her head on his shoulder.

I did not know what to say. Was it wrong to feel I would have liked to see my da fight? But what Wils said rang true—better to avoid a battle than seek one. Did Wils already carry the ghosts of the slain men with him? It could have been because I was thinking deep about what Wils said that I did not notice the sky darkening before us. Canyons and cliffs of black cloud seethed above before I chanced to look up and see them roiling.

“Queer weather of a sudden,” I said.
Not queer, uncanny
, came into my mind unbidden. I had just opened my mouth again when Gargle and Tock flew in front of our faces, in a fury of flapping and cawing. We rolled out of the canopy of trees and onto the wider crossroads, with Wils cursing as he tried to fend the birds away from Annora’s head.

Emerging from the trees on the opposite side of the main road was a squad of Keltanese soldiers.

I could see the back of our stolen wagon continuing north, with Miskin and Beckta in their Keltanese garb as escort. Da had pulled his grey stallion to a stop on the rise—watching to see us turn aside to the southeast.

“Take arms but stay,” Wils murmured to Perk in the back of our wagon. And why had I not thought to ride in the back? Wils gave the barest glance to the soldiers and swung the team onto Grebbel Road. I looked to where Da had been and found he had vanished into the woods. Ten foot soldiers, I counted as we turned past, with two more in the trees holding horses. One closest to the road stepped out toward us with hand upraised.

I could see on Wils’s face the conflict—stop as if Travellers abroad, or make a run with Perk shooting from the rear? The desultory way the soldier held his hand up, and the fact that the others did not charge forward … he pulled the team to a halt.

In stilted Mercedish, the soldier said, “We be seek a boy and the father. Home near here.”

“We are Travellers, come from far away,” Wils said, looking at his boots.

“And isn’t she a pretty piece I’d like to ride,” the man said under his breath in Keltanese. Wils gave no flicker of reaction, though I knew, too. The man wasn’t talking about the bay mare. “You be?” the soldier pointed at me, switching back to his clumsy Mercedish.

“Cousin,” I said, for Wils and I looked much alike. The soldier squinted, as if he did not know the word.

“Egorace.” Wils pointed down the road, naming a town some twenty miles ahead. “Find field work.” The soldier looked blank. “Work,” Wils repeated, and I made motions of digging as with a shovel.

This appeared to reach him, and he nodded and waved us on. I cast another look at the sky, which now bore green-tinged clouds ringing the hills we approached. A looming thunderhead shaped like a smithy’s anvil capped the crest of the hill. As I watched, streaks of cloud began to rotate slowly. Thunder rolled over us.

“We should stop,” I said to Wils.

“Some distance from them, first.”

Da rode down the road bank out of the trees. He had crossed behind the soldiers to rejoin us. “Keep going, but do not rush,” he said to Wils.

I said again, “I think we should stop,” and pointed to the strange sky before us.

Annora said, “I don’t know as much about weather-workers as Virda, but I think that has to be their doing. Judian’s right.”

“Perk, look out behind. Do they follow?” Da risked a look back, too.

“No,” came from Perk, and Da nodded.

“Are there more crossroads ahead?” I asked, and Wils handed me the map. I felt my nerves start to thrum and taughten. A crack of thunder made us all jump, and the team lurch forward. Even Da’s obedient mount jittered and sidled.

I looked feverishly for some lesser track to turn off the road, away from what lay ahead of us. Nothing—no other roads to take. “Give me Wils’s horse and I’ll go crosscountry,” I said, grasping at any idea, now.

“I do not want us separated. Climb in back.” Da kicked his mount ahead, cantering around a curve. I clambered over the seat to join Perk in the hut.

“What can you see?” Perk asked, for he could see ahead only a little from inside.

“We’re headed into some kind of foul weather. It seems like what the sorcerers would call up.” I licked dry lips. Wieser crept in to curl beside me. I could feel her shiver from time to time.
If she is frightened, I’m done for
, I thought. Wieser had shown no fear, in any of our adventures.

Perk held a cocked crossbow along the length of his good thigh, aimed toward the back door, and his sword lay next to his side. I started to pull my bow toward me to do the same, but he put out a hand. “I’m worried enough I’ll shoot you or myself bouncing over a rut. Let’s have just one ready,” he grinned.

“Have you been in lots of battles?”

“A fair few. Mostly minor scrums with brigands and thieves until I was posted to Fort Hasseron. There I trained as cavalry.”

“I can see why the fortmaster didn’t want you to leave, being trained and all.”

He grinned again. “He didn’t oppose your da in sending me with Wils the first time. So, maybe I wasn’t as good as all that.” He continued to peer out a slit in the back door.

We rolled on accompanied by rumbles and crashes from the clouds, and a heaviness to the air that made me as twitchy as Wieser. When Gargle and Tock set up a chorus of caws, I had to poke my head out to see what stirred them.

We drew up to a Traveller encampment, set up among trees just off the road. The crows were loudly directing our attention to a grouping of five wagons similar to ours, with a large fire in the center under a jutting rock overhang. Horses stamped, tied to lines in the shaded woods. Da waved Wils to steer off the roadway toward the men gathered at the largest wagon. Wils gave me a push to send me into the rear again, but I could hear Da address the men when we stopped.

“You are well met, with this storm brewing. Do you object to us joining you to shelter here?” Did Da sound like a Traveller? I would have liked to see the men’s faces, but had to settle for hearing them grunt assent. Our rig was no more colorful than theirs, in my brief glance round. Perhaps we would fit in with the group, to Keltanese eyes. Then I had the chilling thought that maybe Zaffis had stolen our wagon from these Travellers.
Gods forefend
.

Da and Wils sussed out who the leader was, and soon walked off with the man and his two sons. Annora found a young mother by the fire who had a fretful, feverish baby. That was her means of making herself useful; she boiled a tincture and rocked the dosed infant to sleep while the mother drowsed over a dish of porridge. Perk, balanced carefully on his good leg, chopped fuel for the fire, shedding his shirt in the sultry heat. This won him admiring glances from some of the girls, for he was well-muscled and fit. I stood about like a chicken with thumbs after caring for the horses. Wieser still quivered and panted at my side, and the crows glowered from branches above our wagon. The storm hung overhead, bringing early darkness to the heavy air. Lightning began to flash from cloud to cloud.

The Traveller women were roasting several fat ducks, and Annora was quick to contribute what we had left of our root vegetables. An old woman cackled as she mixed flatbread with bent and twisted hands. Annora became the center of attention for the half-dozen younger children, who clustered round her feet and stared silently as she chopped and stirred.

The clouds broke open just as Da and Wils returned with the other men. Even impeded by the trees, so much rain sluiced from the sky that we could scarcely see the wagons scant feet away. The group huddled under the rock overhang, watching muddy water run over the lip above and splash on the ground at our feet.

“The road may wash out to the south,” said the wiry leader, lighting his pipe with a twig from the firepit. “We’ll make for the stone bridge at Nygaard. I do not trust the wooden bridge at Egorace to survive this. Debris will likely take it out, even if there is no flood.” He offered Da a clay pipe, accepted gladly. Soon they were both puffing.

The rain pounded down while we ate, and while we cleaned the pots. It never let up throughout the bottle being passed man-to-man while the women mended clothes by the firelight and the children played at Stone Toss. The sick baby awoke with a cool forehead and a fresh appetite, fixing Annora’s acceptance into the family group. I still could not relax.