The Dragon of Despair (8 page)

Rain fell fairly heavily all that morning and into the early afternoon, adding to Derian’s misery. Even Brock’s usual exuberance was quelled, though he bounced back easily enough when the sun came out during their lunch break. He was particularly excited about being taken along when their father made one of his annual buying trips to Hope, a town to the south on the border of Hawk Haven and Bright Bay. Colby Carter had promised his younger son his first horse if the boy selected well and wisely. Brock couldn’t ask enough questions about conformation, gait, hidden flaws, and all the rest.

Eventually, Derian had sweated enough of the previous night’s indulgence from his system to enjoy the conversation and found himself sorry to see Brock and Toad turn east the next morning while he took his pack string west.

Derian knew Firekeeper would meet him as planned. She’d come tapping at his window the night before while Toad was in the common room yarning with the other guests and Brock dead to the world, dreaming, doubtlessly, of horses.

Firekeeper had crouched out on the thatch, looking pleased with herself.

“I meet you where the near fields end,” she had said, “and there are some little woods.”

Derian had nodded. He thought he remembered the place from the year before. As if his nod had been all the acknowledgment she’d needed, Firekeeper had backed away. Although Derian tried to keep her in sight, he hadn’t actually seen her depart.

Nor, the next morning, did he see her reappear. One moment he and his string were making fairly good time—given that the road was sticky with mud—and the next the lead mule was balking and Firekeeper was standing alongside the road.

She was dressed much as always: bare feet, leather trousers cut off below the knees, and a leather vest buttoned across small but definite breasts. Her hair was much grown out from the severe cutting she’d given it five or six moonspans before, and was just reaching the untidy stage where locks kept tumbling into her eyes. She’d clipped the most troublesome of these back with slim wire pins Duchess Kestrel had given her at that past winter’s Wolf Moon festival, but this small effort at tidiness made Firekeeper look, somehow, all the more untamed.

A heavy leather belt held her sheathed knife on one side, a canteen on the other. An embroidered bag of fine white doeskin—a gift from Edlin Norwood—held her flint and steel for fire making. This meager equipment, Derian knew, was all she had brought for a journey that would take them outside of civilization and across mountains that would have barely shaken off winter’s grip.

Blind Seer was nowhere to be seen and Derian, whacking the restive mule with his riding crop, was grateful. The pack animals were jumpy enough, just from catching Firekeeper’s scent. He didn’t doubt she smelled of wolf, of raw meat, and of other things equally unwholesome to a conservative herbivore’s nose.

“Hi!” Firekeeper said by way of greeting, and Derian could hear the laughter in her voice.

She trotted across to the lead mule—apparently not minding the cold mud that stuck to her bare feet—pulled herself up onto the mule’s back in one easy motion, leaned down, and growled into the beast’s long ear.

The mule froze in place, then slowly, carefully, as if it had suddenly become aware of a stinging bee on its ear, it swiveled its head to get a look at the wolf-woman. She smiled and there was no doubt in Derian’s mind that this smile was no friendly gesture but rather an arrogant baring of teeth.

The mule seemed to melt into itself, its muscles losing their tension all in an instant.

“There,” Firekeeper said happily, moving down the line of pack animals and slapping each one heartily on the shoulder, “they should be good now. I not say they not go crazy if Blind Seer come out, but they have some idea. Not bad to start.”

“Not bad,” Derian agreed.

They moved along briskly after that, the pack animals frantically eager to please. Derian wondered what Firekeeper had said to them—for he had no doubt that she had said something that had put her on top of their little hierarchy. It didn’t bother him. Out here, she was in charge and he was grateful for her expertise.

He also enjoyed the wolf-woman’s high spirits. In many ways Firekeeper reminded him of a horse coming home to a familiar stable—not that he’d ever share the comparison with her. She just might find it a deadly insult. But her manner was much the same. He almost expected to see her ears prick forward.

Firekeeper’s cheerfully arrogant queen-of-the-woodlands mood did not last for the entire journey. Horse Moon had died and Puma Moon was beginning to show when she grew somber, disappearing for long stretches both night and day. Derian didn’t worry. He knew she was safer here than she was in any city in the land. Blind Seer was with her and he had caught glimpses of Elation from time to time, though the peregrine seemed to be attending to her own business rather than following Firekeeper.

For that matter, Derian himself felt fairly safe. As long as he didn’t do anything stupid like lead the pack train onto a bad trail, he was unconcerned about the dangers of the wild. Firekeeper protected him, and every evening as he pitched his camp she brought him some sort of wild delicacy—rabbit or pheasant or fresh fish—for his meal. Often she added a handful of mushrooms or a bundle of spring greens to augment his supplies further. In some ways, Derian was more comfortable on this trip than he had been with Earl Kestrel’s expedition, because his only concerns were for his immediate needs.

Puma Moon was rounding fat and full the night before they were to cross the gap in the Iron Mountains into the wild lands where Firekeeper had been brought up. The wolf-woman came into Derian’s camp that night—an unusual thing, for she had been exploring most nights—and squatted with her back to the fire.

“Fox Hair,” she said, “there are
humans
going this way.”

The emphasis she put on the word made quite clear that she did not think this a good thing at all.

Derian nodded. The signs had been evident even to an indifferent woodsman like himself. Those who had come along this trail before them had made some effort to hide their signs farther back, but this close to the gap there was no such effort. Manure dried on the narrow trails, dead wood had been cut. He’d even seen the remnants of a fire circle or two.

He decided that now was the time to tell Firekeeper some of the rumors he’d gathered back in Eagle’s Nest.

“I heard,” he said, “around my father’s stables, that the demand for mules and sturdy horseflesh is up. The buyers aren’t who you’d think either, not some farmer getting a few extra head in now that planting and plowing has begun.”

Firekeeper looked blank, but Derian continued:

“We get some of that market, you know. There are those who think it wiser to let someone else do the winter feeding for them. But these folks my father and the other livestock dealers—not only near the city, but their associates elsewhere—have been seeing aren’t interested in that. Or, I should say to be fair, they aren’t interested in
just
that.”

Firekeeper gave a low, rumbling growl. Derian held up a hand.

“More haste, less waste, Firekeeper. I’m telling you all I know to spare questions later.”

Firekeeper subsided, but Derian didn’t need to know her as well as he did to tell she was as taut as a strung bow.

“These buyers wanted animals who could pull a plow—eventually—but they were looking for general-purpose animals, a horse or mule who could pull a wagon or plow, carry a rider, all the rest. They wanted well-broken animals, not raw youngsters. And there was one other element to the pattern. Often the buyers weren’t one person or family, but a group.”

“So?” Firekeeper asked, and while she didn’t growl, her voice was rough.

“Firekeeper, you’ve figured it out already. You just might not know the word for it. These humans on the trail in front of us, they’re not furriers or trappers. It’s the wrong time of year for that even if they were. What we’re seeing are the signs of…”

He shrugged, settling for a word that he himself didn’t really use except in a historical context.

“They’re colonists, like the people who came from the Old World to settle this land, except that they’re not coming from across the sea. They’re going across the Iron Mountains.”

Firekeeper made a sound like several words trying to come out at once. The word that won through was “Why?”

“I don’t know for sure,” Derian said, “but I’ll give you a guess. They want a place of their own.”

Firekeeper stared at him. Then she nodded slowly and Derian realized that she was finding a correlation in her own knowledge. She didn’t offer an explanation, so he went on.

“Since back before Queen Zorana the Great founded Hawk Haven,” Derian said, “it’s been traditional to stay east of the Iron Mountains. There were stories about horrible creatures that lived to the west, and there was land enough east, especially after the Plague killed so many.

“But ever since I can remember, well before Prince Barden took his expedition west of the mountains, there’ve been those who’ve grumbled that all the land Hawk Haven has is used up. We’ve never been a sea power—not like Bright Bay or Waterland. We’ve won a bit of land from time to time from Bright Bay, but they’ve always taken it back—sometimes taking a bit from us for a while.”

Firekeeper nodded. She’d been drilled in the history of that conflict the summer before.

“When Prince Barden went west—I was six or seven at the time, old enough to remember the scandal perfectly—not everyone agreed with King Tedric’s anger. There were those who were ready to follow the prince, just as soon as the fuss died down. I’ll tell you, most people thought that within a few moonspans—a year at most—the prince would have made peace with his father.

“But nothing was heard from Prince Barden, nothing at all, and the king didn’t get any less angry. He got into a tremendous argument with Duchess Kestrel when she suggested that someone lead an expedition to check on Barden’s group.”

Firekeeper made a surprised sound.

“You didn’t know that did you?” Derian’s grin was a bit forced. “It’s not common knowledge, but I heard about it out in the North Woods this year.”

“Makes the earl brave,” Firekeeper said thoughtfully. “Braver.”

Derian was confused for a moment. Then he understood.

“You mean for going out there last year? That’s true, but he didn’t go without the king’s permission. He brought his petition to the king at the end of autumn and worked on it all through the winter. I doubt King Tedric would have softened for anyone else, but the earl did have the excuse that his sister was Barden’s wife—that he was going to find news of Eirene for his aging mother rather than to look for Barden.”

“But he was looking for Barden,” Firekeeper said, “and for Blysse.”

“And all he found was you,” Derian agreed. “Anyhow, as you might guess, both Barden’s silence and the king’s abiding anger made those people who thought that moving west would be a good idea think again. But I’d guess that when we went west and came back again, and the news got around that Barden’s expedition had died in a fire, not by anything some mysterious monsters did, and that the king was taking as a favorite a girl most people thought was Barden’s daughter…”

“Me,” Firekeeper said.

“Right. Well, I’d guess those people who’d been chaffing for more land decided they should go get it now, before the king or his heirs got around to making a proclamation against it.”

“Might they proclaim this?” Firekeeper asked.

“They might,” Derian answered. “Or they might not. I don’t know. The thing is, Hawk Haven is getting a little cramped.”

Firekeeper looked at him incredulously. She waved her hand at the empty spaces around them.

“Cramped? We barely see anyone for days!”

Derian leaned back and checked the pot of tea hanging over the fire. There was just enough for one more cup and he poured it before setting more water to warm.

“There’s cramped and cramped,” he explained, dreading that this would be beyond his ability to explain. “You understand that different people own different bits of land.”

Firekeeper nodded. “Like the king owns the castle and the Kestrels the North Woods.”

Derian felt relieved as he saw a good example.

“Right. Now, you know the North Woods have another name. They’re also called the Norwood Grant.”

“Yes.”

“That word ‘grant’ means that the land was given to the Norwood family to own and administer…to manage. Now each of the Great Houses has their grant. The House of the Eagle—that’s the king’s house—owns more land than just the castle. They have a grant of their own.”

And a few crown cities and other things like that
, Derian thought,
but let’s keep this simple
.

“Then the lesser houses—like Elise’s,” Derian felt an involuntary smile rise to his lips as he thought of their mutual friend, “they have grants of their own, smaller grants, but still grants.”

Firekeeper nodded and Derian went on.

“That still leaves land, since Queen Zorana the Great didn’t think it was a good idea to give the common folk nothing to call their own. The problem is that over a hundred years have passed since Queen Zorana’s time. Just about all that unowned land has been claimed by someone. Sometimes the land has two owners—like in Doc’s family. The Surcliffe land is actually part of the Norwood Grant, but Doc’s family would have to do something pretty terrible…”

Firekeeper looked puzzled.

“Like help an enemy in a war,” Derian explained. “Anyhow, they’d have to do something pretty terrible to give the Norwood family a reason to throw them off. That’s good and that’s bad.”

“How? Sounds all good to me.”

“It does, in theory,” Derian admitted. “But what if the Norwoods want to reward one of their good retainers—like Wendee or Valet—or give land to one of their children. Remember, Earl Kestrel has four children. Only Edlin will inherit so Earl Kestrel has to find places for the others. That takes more land. Soon they don’t have any more and need to buy more land.”

“And,” Firekeeper said, speaking so slowly that Derian knew she was reasoning it out, “that eats the land Queen Zorana left. Soon there is no more.”