season avatars 01 - seasons beginnings (29 page)

pouch and wandered around. Some of the other travelers had started

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fires for cooking, while others tended to their beasts. He didn’t recog-

nize the tools they used, but his magic-finder didn’t glow or grow warm.

He stopped by one of the men. “What is that artifact you’re using to

start the fire? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“It’s not an
artifact
.” The man spat out the word. “And it’s not some-

thing I can share with an outsider.”

Maybe not, but I can make some guesses.
The device appeared to be

metal, but although it was silver-colored, it didn’t gleam. Kron’s fingers

twitched, aching to touch the object and decipher its secrets. He needed

another distraction. Could Janno provide one?

Kron circled back to where Janno was attempting to flirt with a

young woman who didn’t know their language. “Could you come with

me?”

“Can’t you see I’m busy?” Janno countered, stepping closer to the

woman. She retreated.

“I need your help to investigate something.”

“You want my help? Well, in that case….”

Janno set his baskets down, grunting as if they were heavier than

they actually were, and followed Kron back to where he’d seen the man

with the metal tool. The man was coaxing kindling to catch fire, but the

metal tool he’d used before wasn’t visible.

“What do you want me to do?” Janno asked.

Kron winced. “Whisper so they don’t hear you,” he said, suiting the

action to the word.

“Is that it?”

“No. There’s a special tool I want to examine. I need you to cause a

distraction so I can find it.”

“Humm...” Janno stared at the wood, and a flame roared up so high

it nearly scorched off the eyebrows off the man who was feeding the

fire. He rocked backward on his heels, swearing.

“Actually, it would be better if the fire went out,” Kron murmured.

“Maybe he’ll use his metal tool again.”

“Now you tell me.”

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The fire died as abruptly as if Janno had dumped a bucket of water

on it.

The stranger shook his head. “First too much fire, now none...this

isn’t right. Wood doesn’t behave like this.” He swiveled his head to

stare at Kron and Janno. “At least, it never did—until you two came to

our caravan.”

Kron bowed, hoping to hide any telltale changes in his expression.

“We are but strangers passing through.” He stepped back a couple of

paces as if to give the man more space to work. He could still study an

artifact from this distance, hopefully without being obvious.

The man rose, took a few steps toward one of the wagons, then

turned his head to glare at Kron. “Why are you still here? Shouldn’t you

be bargaining with Lammar?”

“Galia can handle bargaining for the fish.” What would make this

man willing to share his knowledge with him? “I’d rather bargain with

secrets.”

The man halted. After a couple of heartbeats, he said, “Some secrets

are meant to be kept that way.”

“Why?”

“Because they don’t belong to just a single person, but a clan.”

Did he mean this whole clan was made up of artificers? Kron hadn’t

encountered so many tinkerers since his days in Delns. He studied the

man more closely. The patterns embroidered on his tunic did remind

him a little of clothes from his homeland, but they would have been

worked in different materials. His accent was harsher than Delns’s lan-

guage too. Still, maybe there was a link here Kron could exploit.

He switched to his native language. “Can you still understand me?”

Several long heartbeats passed before the man reluctantly nodded.

“You speak like my grandfather did when I was a youth. I haven’t heard

such words in a long time. Where did you learn them?”

“In my home country of Delns, east of here and across the sea. Have

you heard of it?”

The man shook his head.

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Kron tried another tactic. “Have your people always lived in the

mountains?”

“You’d have to ask Lammar, or one of the elders. If they’ll well

enough to talk.” The man spat on the ground. “The curse on the land

affected them more than the rest of us. Only two are left who’ve known

more than seventy winters, and their minds wander.”

“A pity.” Why would Salth target the elders? They had little time

left in this life. Did that make their few heartbeats more precious, or did

they know something that might be useful when facing Salth? Kron

hoped it was the latter.

Inspiration drove him to bargain, “I think I may know where your

ancestors came from. If I tell you about my home country of Delns,

would you show me the metal artifact that makes fire?”

Interest flickered in the man’s eyes for a couple of heartbeats, but he

concealed it under a sneer. “You’re still an outsider.”

“Even if we once hailed from the same land?”

“You can’t prove that.”

“What about the link between our languages?”

The man shrugged, then turned away and entered the covered

wagon. As soon as he disappeared, Janno sidled up to Kron. “Here,” he

whispered, pressing a cold object into Kron’s hand.

Kron raised his eyebrows as he studied the fire-starter. “How did

you get this?”

“I just...borrowed it.”

“Borrowed?” Even Kron winced when his voice sounded too loud

in the clearing. “Janno, I can’t believe you would do something like

this. Have you done this before?”

“Isn’t that what you wanted, though? I thought you kept talking to

that man to keep him busy.”

Kron sighed. “Well, see if you can distract him some more.”

He headed toward the pile of kindling to examine the fire starter.

This metal was harder than anything he’d ever seen before. No bronze

or rock could scratch it. However, the magic-finder didn’t react to it.

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Kron turned his own magic onto the artifact, but he still didn’t recognize

the metal or figure out what made it so hard. However, he did identify

a piece of flint that had been bonded to the metal. The metal was joined

with a screw so that the flint could be scraped against the metal. Kron

tried it a couple of times. He thought he saw a spark. As he struck it

again, he heard the man from the caravan arguing with Janno. His first

impulse was to drop the fire starter near the pile of kindling and walk

away as if it had been there all along. But how could he leave this new

artifact behind without figuring out its mystery? If it wasn’t magical, it

was still a material he’d never seen before—and that meant Salth hadn’t

either.

The man’s face grew red as he approached Kron. “You had it all

along! Thief!”

“I’m no thief. You can have it back.” Kron extended the fire starter

toward the man. “But I do want to barter for it. Will your clan allow

that?”

A sly look came into the man’s eyes. “Maybe for its weight in gold.”

Kron’s heart clenched. Did these people know how much gold he’d

brought from Vistichia? But he needed it all for his artifacts. He

couldn’t afford to give away a single speck.

“I can’t offer you gold, but I might have a gem.”

“What kind of gem?”

Kron showed the man turquoise, quartz, and citrine, but he refused

them all. “I’ll have to fetch more trade goods from our boat. Do you

want to come with me while I get it?”

“No.” The man called out using words Kron didn’t understand.

Three more men approached, all wearing swords made from the same

material as the fire starter. “But I want your friend here—” the armed

men surrounded Janno–“to wait with us. Don’t tarry.” The man grinned.

“Your friend is annoying, and we get bored easily.”

Kron exchanged glances with Janno. Janno scowled, but for once he

didn’t speak. Instead, he studied the trees around him as if wondering

how he could persuade them to drop branches on the clansmen.

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Trusting Janno to figure out a way to defend himself—or attack—

with magic, Kron nodded. But before the men could demand their fire

starter back, he sprinted for the boat, calling behind him, “If you want

a hostage, then I’m claiming this!”

Galia was still bargaining with Lammar by the riverbank. They

stopped talking as Kron passed them to ascend the ladder.

“What are you doing, Kron?” Galia asked. “Do you need something

else to trade? Where’s Janno?”

He didn’t answer.

Bella met him as he climbed back on deck. “What’s wrong?”

“No time to explain. Take this and hide it somewhere.” He passed

the fire starter to her, then kissed her cheek. “Can you control their an-

imals from here?”

“I think so. Why, what do you want me to do?”

As he darted into the cabin, he said, “Wait until I return to their

camp, then have their draft animals stampede.”

She frowned. “But what if they get hurt? What if people get hurt?”

Kron opened a wooden box, enchanted to respond only to him or

Bella. Several gems lay inside. Which one could he part with but was

still valuable enough to appease the travelers?

“What happens if Janno gets hurt?” he countered. “Or Galia? These

people have swords made of the hardest metal I’ve ever encountered.”

He shook the box until he found a couple of pearls. They were

slightly misshapen, which limited their usefulness in artifacts. Kron

hoped the clansmen wouldn’t object to the pearls’ imperfection, but in

case they did, he selected a topaz and an opal as well. They wouldn’t

be useful for the artifact he intended to construct around Salth’s house.

Shouts rose from outside. Bella followed Kron as he ran to the lad-

der. “Let me come with you so I can link with Galia. I’ll have more

control over my magic.”

“They already have Janno surrounded by swords. Galia’s down

there too.” Kron put his hand over hers. “I don’t want you to become

another hostage.”

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Her mouth hardened. “I won’t be.”

He took a couple of steps down the ladder, and despite everything

he’d said, she followed him. Although Galia’s furious voice urged him

onward, he halted, blocking his wife. Why wouldn’t she listen to him?

Didn’t she know what the other men might do to her if they caught her?

Not that he would let that happen—they’d have to kill him first—but

didn’t all women want to hide from strange armed men?

“Kron, hurry!” Galia screamed.

The panic coming from a normally level-headed woman spurred him

into action. He scrambled down, dropping past the last two rungs to

land in the dirty snow. He turned around to check the situation.

Galia knelt next to Lammar, sprawled on the ground as if he were

asleep—or worse. Surrounding her were Lammar’s people, displaying

fear, grief, and anger. Janno’s guards had brought him to the riverbank.

One of them held his sword so close to Janno’s throat Kron thought he

saw a thin line of blood trickling down.

“What happened?” he asked. He chided himself for just grabbing

gems, not an artifact he could make into a weapon. He should have

guessed the confrontation might go beyond threats to actual violence.

“It’s their fault!” “It’s her fault!” Galia and the man with the fire

starter shouted at the same time.

It’s my fault for being so obsessed with a fire starter. I’m as bad as

Salth. Maybe I should give it back.
But the travelers were too worked

up to calm down now, even if he returned the fire starter.

“Kron Evenhanded, why didn’t you tell me about Janno?” Galia

said. “How could you abandon him like that?”

“That’s no call for killing our leader!” one of the guards retorted.

“I told you before, he’s not dead, just stunned. See, he breathes.”

Galia drew herself to her full height and spread out her hands. “And my

son better keep breathing, or no one else will.”

As the crowd murmured, Bella plopped into the snow next to Kron.

He glanced at her to tell her to climb back up, but she kept a grip on the

ladder. He stepped partly in front of her to shield her.

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“This was all a misunderstanding.” Kron projected his voice to carry

to the edge of the crowd by the treeline. “I have several gems to give to

Lammar, more than enough to trade for the fire starter. Let my compan-

ion go—”

“He admits it! He took a fire starter! Seize them all!”

We’re doomed,
Kron thought. He grasped the pearls, but they were

too natural to be affected by his artifacts. Perhaps one of the shaped

gems would hold a spell, though Kron wasn’t sure how to target only

the travelers and not Janno and Galia.

The swordsmen lunged for Janno, only to trip and fall as grass and

weeks snaked around their legs. The rest of the clan abruptly shrieked,

contorting and slapping at themselves as if the Four had driven them

insane. Galia huffed as she trotted as fast as she could toward her son.