Ilbei Spadebreaker and the Harpy's Wild (3 page)

Ferster Meggins was up shortly after, and when he saw what Hams was about, he rustled in his pack and pulled out a ball of twine. He tied a length of it to the end of an arrow, and then, bow in hand, took a place near the front of the raft, intent on helping with breakfast. He had two fat trout flopping on the deck before Hams finally hauled in his first.

Ilbei let the rest of the squad sleep until Hams had twelve fish cleaned, two of them already breaded and frying in a pan. The old sergeant put on his sergeant face and gave the remaining dreamers a jab of his boot to the ribs. “Get up, ya lazy lot. Where do ya think ya are, some pamperin waterfront inn? Up, I say!” Jasper was right up, startled nearly out of his mind, but Kaige might have been a bag of bricks for all he responded to Ilbei’s prod. Ilbei gave the big fellow a second tap with the toe of his boot, less gentle than the first, and when that failed, a third, which thudded loudly. Ilbei might as well have kicked an oak stump, so he resorted to dumping water on the big man’s face. Gods help them if Kaige ever fell asleep on watch.

Soon enough, they were all up. After ablutions and other morning necessities, the lot of them sat about eating, spirits generally high as they often are at the beginning of an adventurous enterprise.

“A damn fine way to start a day,” Ilbei observed over a cup of steaming Goblin Tea, the darkest, most potent form of coffee in all the land—and an unexpected surprise produced by the resourceful Hams. “Hams, weren’t never nobody could throw down grub good as you.”

Hams smiled over his cup. “I’d argue with you, Sergeant, but there weren’t no grounds to make my case.”

Nobody could, apparently, and for a time, most were silent but for the wet sounds of mastication and a few grunts from Kaige, who ate four trout in the time it took Jasper to half finish one.

“So where are we going, Sarge?” Meggins asked at length, as the rest were still finishing up their food. “I see Gallenwood coming up ahead. How far we going in? I heard stories about South Mark soldiers being dire territorial if you get too deep in there.”

“South Mark soldiers are still Her Majesty’s, no matter what they’d have ya believe.” Ilbei paused to throw the skin and bones of his breakfast over the edge of the raft. “But we ain’t headin far enough in to trifle with them fellers anyhow. Only goin as far as where the Softwater meets the Desertborn. Then we’ll unload and head upriver a few days into the hills to an area General Hanswicket called Three Tents. It’s a handful of little minin camps as I gathered it, somewhere near the base of the Gallspires.”

“Why are we going there? Someone pull up a fat lot of gold and need an escort back to Hast?” Meggins poured himself a second cup of coffee and flashed Hams a madman’s sort of smile, which Hams winked at in reply.

“Bandits troublin the miners,” Ilbei said, breathing the last of the statement into the steam rising off his tin coffee cup. He grinned after he took a sip, not so enthusiastic as Meggins, but well satisfied. He closed his eyes and let the bitter joy of it settle in. Goblin Tea. It wasn’t a luxury he could afford. Not often anyway. He was almost afraid to ask Hams how he’d come by it.

“Technically,” Jasper said, upon seeing that Ilbei wasn’t going to elaborate, “the Three Tents camps are in copper country, so it isn’t likely they would have pulled a significant amount of gold. The most recent survey maps show Three Tents to be
barely
in copper country, as the main copper seam ends three hundred measures northwest. Whatever they’re mining is an aberration at best. I saw the geology reports. That far east, I should think statistically those miners barely collect enough of anything to recoup living expense, whether from trace gold or from copper and lead combined—those last two being the most likely constituents to be had, again based on the survey, which was taken only a year ago. The prior survey, taken three years before, had promised a dispersion of gold, but subsequent investigations revealed that not to be the case. Therefore, while there may be copper to be had, I would think at this point those mining the area are surviving primarily on the sale of lead, given the growing demand for pipe in urban centers these days, and given that the camps themselves are populated by scofflaws who live there largely to avoid paying taxes to the Queen—which the copper, should they report it by weight, would incur. These people are ruffians to the last, the sort who’d choose a spartan living over one of comfort merely for the illusion of being free from the monarchy. I imagine they’re practically animals.”

Everyone on the raft was staring at the young wizard by the time he’d finished speaking, including Ilbei, whose lips had paused in the action of blowing across the top of his coffee when he began to realize just how long Jasper was going to carry on. It was in part surprise at the unexpected nature of the young man’s dissertation, a sort of awe at its long-windedness, but it was also out of genuine interest. Ilbei had had no idea that Jasper knew anything about Three Tents or its mineral history—much less about the disposition of those men who chose to live on the edges of the empire rather than under its thumb—as neither were the sorts of things he would have thought the scrawny young mage would know of or think about.

“How come you know so much about the southern mining camps?” Meggins asked, saving Ilbei having to inquire himself. “You talk like a sissy northern boy—no offense of course—so I figured you for Leekant or Crown City, or one of the small high-north towns at least.”

Jasper made an impatient face at him. “I’m from a little mining town on the western edge of Great Forest called Alumall, if you must know. But even had I been born on Duador, I would have read about Three Tents and its history. You see, I enjoy reading. You do know what that is, don’t you? All those little marks on parchment that they stack up into books? Well, it turns out there’s all sorts of information in those there things.” The last bit was spoken in dialectical way, obviously intended as an insult. He was clearly still out of sorts over the treatment he’d gotten yesterday.

“My mum taught me to mark my name,” Kaige put in happily. “And I learned myself to read most tavern signs. The ones that are serving has the same four marks every time: a ‘O,’ a ‘P,’ a ‘E,’ and a ‘N.’ Ones that aren’t serving has some other ones. I don’t recollect what they are called, but they count to six. I just look for them that I know, and it works fine.”

Hams and Meggins laughed, and Meggins asked through his chuckles, “You figured all that out on your own, did you?”

“I did,” replied Kaige. “There wasn’t nobody inside whenever they hung up the six-letters sign. Plus you can tell if the door don’t open. Didn’t take me long to recognize.”

Well, that was about as far as that conversation could go because even Ilbei had to laugh, and so they set about to cleaning up the dishes as the river carried them bodily downstream and laughter floated their spirits right along with it, at least for most of them. Once again, poor Jasper seemed to have missed the joke.

As Ilbei had anticipated, the sun was high above by the time their raft was carried into the first shadows of the woods. The sound of the river came back differently now, amplified in a way, its tone changed by the acoustic disposition of the leaves and so many overhanging boughs. He hadn’t seen the other raft since yesterday morning, but he knew they weren’t more than twenty minutes or so ahead. They’d find them by nightfall, hopefully, with a fire already started and a fat buck roasting above. Just in case, however, he’d had Hams set his hooks into the water again. And it was during the maintenance of those hooks near midafternoon that the old army cook drew in a reverent breath. “Blimey,” he said, nearly a gasp.

Ilbei turned toward him, as did all the rest aboard, and saw him gaping down into the water with his mouth as wide as a trout’s.

“Snag a fat one, Hams?” Meggins asked.

Hams, however, did not respond. He merely stared into the water and, truth be told, let forth a clear thread of drool, which began as a small round bubble, like a tear, at the lowest ledge of his drooping lip, but then went on to descend on a line of saliva like a legless crystal spider on a thread of web.

Meggins, being nearest to the cook, crawled the short distance to where Hams leaned down, adding volume to the river in his astonishment. The younger man glanced briefly up at the stupefied Hams, then peered over the edge as well.

Ilbei saw Meggins recoil as something struck him a surprise, and then Meggins seemed to freeze, staring motionless into the water, his mouth agape the same as Hams’.

“What is it?” Kaige asked, getting to his feet and clomping across the deck to see. He looked down into the water with his two companions and uttered a low “Whoa.” He dove in before Ilbei could even ask.

The ensuing splash made the tannin-stained water difficult to see through, and the wave of its cold wetness knocked both Hams and Meggins back to their senses again. With a shake of his head to clear whatever had cottoned up his thoughts, Hams looked to Ilbei with eyes wide. “Naiad,” he said. “And that idiot jumped right into her arms.”

“Shite,” Ilbei swore. “A water nymph? These gods-be-damned boys can’t even control theirselves around regular females. Take the tiller, Hams, quick now.”

Meggins, who wore an expression of shock, was only barely beginning to blink back to clarity. “She’s so beautiful.”

“I’m sure she is,” Ilbei said, “and she’s gonna drown that big idiot fer sure.” Even as he said it, Ilbei snatched up a rope with a grapple on it and heaved it up the bank, snagging it in a thick tangle of roots. With brute force, he hauled the raft back up against the current as Hams at the rudder guided them toward the bank. “Secure the raft,” Ilbei ordered as he leapt to the bank. His boots splashed in the shallow water at the edge, and the mud forced him to scramble up the embankment, using his hands as well.

He ran back to where Kaige had gone in, hoping all the while that the young man could hold his breath long enough to be saved. He hoped as well that the fool would come to his senses in time to at least try to fight. There was no telling how spellbound the lad would be.

Fortunately for them both, Ilbei could see the shadowy figures of Kaige and his captor down near the bottom of the opposite bank, and from the thrashing about, it was clear the brawny soldier had realized the danger he was in. He might not be the brightest candle on the altar, but at least he wasn’t the willing sacrifice.

“I need rope,” Ilbei called as he ran back. “Rope, quick. And someone get upstream and pour in a gift of wine. Meggins, get the gray wineskin out of my pack, not the black. Hurry, boys, hurry.”

Hams threw Ilbei a length of rope, which he snatched out of the air and ran back, going another ten paces upstream. He set to work tying it to a thick root that arced out of the bank. He stooped, dumped off his helmet and chainmail, then tied the other end of the rope around his waist.

“Pull us out,” he called to his men with a glance downstream. Hams was already running toward him, and Meggins had just pulled the gray wineskin free. He held it aloft as he ran across the raft and leapt up the bank. He passed Jasper in doing so, the mage motionless as he regarded the scant half pace that separated him from land as if he were charged with leaping over the Great Sandfalls.

Ilbei had no time for the mage’s hesitation. Any delay could mean Kaige’s life, so in he dove and down he swam, grateful to discover there were no terrible rocks down there against which he might be bashed.

The current wasn’t swift, but there was a solid thirty spans from bank to bank. The water was clearer this far downriver, away from the convergence of the many creeks and lesser rivers that formed the Desertborn, and at least he could see through its hazy green transparency. By the time he was halfway across, he’d come even with where he’d seen Kaige grappling with the naiad. As the current carried him past, he could see the hole into which the naiad was dragging the youngster. Kaige was still putting up some fight, but not much. He’d been alert enough to hook his boots into some roots, preventing the water nymph from dragging him all the way in, but that seemed to be all he could maintain. He couldn’t possibly hold his breath much longer.

Ilbei swam for all his might toward the opposite bank. The rope around his waist went taut and threatened to swing him back to the bank to which it was tied. He dove down and grabbed roots jutting out from the opposite side. They were slick as a snot-covered ice lance and extremely hard to hold, but desperation gave him claws. He pulled his way back upstream, one root at a time as if they were the twisting rungs of a submerged ladder. Finally, he got to where Kaige’s boots were. He came close enough to grab the soldier’s ankle. Planting his feet against the edge of the hole, Ilbei hauled with all his strength, drawing the soldier out like a great arrow from a muddy wound. Through the water, he could hear Kaige trying desperately not to breathe the river in, the anvil thumps of stifled gasps, his lungs pounding against his will with an insistent reflex. Ilbei grabbed him by the front of his pants and an ankle and lifted him upward, thrusting with short, powerful legs, driving for the surface and shoving him into the air.

He saw the furious face of the naiad coming out at him as he did. She was beautiful beyond anything he’d ever seen, a pale blue figure of statuesque femininity with a face nearly divine. Her nose was narrow and dainty between two sea-green eyes. Her lips, though twisted into a silent snarl, promised a kiss that would finish a man on the spot. And yet, despite that promise, that lure, Ilbei did not lose his head. He blinked and turned away.