The Hekamon (8 page)

He continued to move briskly but gradually allowed
himself to stand taller, or as much as the heavy sack would allow. He
knew that before long he would be on a busier stretch of the highway.
There would be more people further along and there would be safety in
numbers.

Gregario kept pace with Decarius and Aegis as they made
their way up the highway. Walking slowly, before finding a suitable
tree to lean against, while his companions entered each of the
roadside buildings one by one.

The closely spaced trees around him
made seeing the road difficult, even from forty yards away. So much
so, that he found himself following their progress more by sound than
by sight. The banging on the doors, opening of latches, creaking
hinges and mumbled greetings, followed a minute or so later by the
sound of departure.

After a time, they arrived at the fourth trade house
along, outwardly no different from the others but this one contained
something special. Gregario knew who this one belong to, he had been
before and knew its proprietor. A man more predisposed to trading in
surplus weaponry and armor than any of the others. A man who would
buy military apparel, stolen or otherwise.

Gregario grew more attentive, and looked around for a
tree better suited for the purpose of concealment than support. No
sooner was he in position, than there came the sound of knocking.
Gregario tensed and held his breath. How long would they be this
time? A few seconds passed, and then a few more. Nothing. Three more
bangs sounded through the forest, louder this time, disturbing a bird
which flew away, chirping a warning call as it went. Still nothing.

Gregario
looked around the tree and toward the hut more intently now, his view
was mostly obscured but he could make out some of the building. There
was no obvious movement visible through the upstairs windows, but
smoke wafted from the chimney, suggesting someone was home.
'What's wrong?'
He
half-thought, half-whispered to himself.

At that moment, a few yards behind him and to his right,
something caught his attention.

It was the nature of the movement
that unnerved him more than anything else. The ground itself was
shifting, sliding, rising up. There came into view some wooden slats,
an iron ring, a hand, an arm, a hooded figure. He gasped at the
realization of what he was seeing and circled to the other side of
the tree, so he would be concealed him from the emerging man.
Gregario took a few deep breaths and pressed himself against the
silver bark, its width just enough to shield him from view. Once
there, he waited and listened.

From the sounds he could hear, he pieced together
what was happening. The gentle thud of the closing of the door, the
scraping of sticks and small stones on wood, followed by the rustling
sound of footsteps that quickly faded to silence.

Gregario
stole a glance. The hillside undulated here and he could see a
figure, half running, half crouching in the ditch beside the earthen
bank. Scurrying parallel to the road and already fifty feet away. The
short stocky build, the ungainly gait. Was it Tansley?
It
had to be
.

The
the figure looked back, not directly at him, but at the trading post.
Gregario resisted the urge pull back behind the tree. Remaining
perfectly still was the better way to remain undetected, and it gave him the chance to confirm what he'd already suspected. It
was
Tansley, with a sack over his shoulder, making his escape.

He hesitated, weighing up his options, and no sooner had
Tansley disappeared from view, than Gregario made his move. Stooping
low and running, as quickly and quietly as his posture, and the
crunching forest floor, would allow. Not after Tansley, but towards
his trading post and the road just beyond it, questioning himself as
he did so.

Should he have grabbed the man as he emerged? Or at
least chased after him? He could have caught him, but it would have
complicated things in the process. Without a doubt the man would have
been able to call for help, alerting other merchants to his plight.
Rightly or wrongly, he'd let Tansley go, and now he wasted no time in
getting to the road to inform Decarius.

"He's making a run for it," he said, darting
from the trees and signaling with jolt of his head in the direction
of the woods behind him.

"Show me." Decarius demanded, breaking into a
run and following him, with Aegis close behind.

Gregario lead the pair to the place where the man had
made his escape, dropping to his knees to show them the trapdoor the
tradesman had climbed out of. Despite dragging aside earth and leaves
he couldn't immediately find it, the man had done a good job
concealing it and, despite knowing roughly where it was, the location
seemed to allude him. While searching the ground about him, Gregario
told them what he had seen.

"A door in the ground opened, somewhere here, and
the owner of the hut came out. Wearing a blue hooded jacket and a
carrying a sack tied up with rope, and made off that way," he
said, stopping his search and pointing in the direction the merchant
had gone.

"Couldn't you have grabbed him as he came out?"
Aegis asked, not unreasonably.

He looked to Decarius for confirmation.

"He did the right thing," Decarius said.

Gregario nodded, he thought so too, and resumed his
search. Almost immediately his fingers touched something cold, and
the accompanying metallic rattle signaled he'd found what he was
looking for. Grabbing the ring firmly, he stood and lifted the door,
exposing the opening below.

Gregario watched as Decarius knelt and looked into the
tunnel, and then along the embankment in the direction Tansley had
fled. His expression one of concentration.

"Are you sure it was Tansley, the merchant from
this hut?"

"Without a doubt."

"Wearing a blue jacket and carrying a sack, you
say?"

"Yes."

Decarius looked at the tunnel and then back along the
embankment and made his decision.

"Right, this is what we're
going to do. You two, get inside this shack. Try the tunnel first,
force your way in if you have to. If it's locked, try another way but
don't be seen. Search the place, and if the gauntlets are here, take
them to the clearing we stopped at earlier. I'll meet you back
there."

"Where will you be?" Aegis asked, as Decarius
started moving quickly down the hill in the direction Tansley was
last seen.

"Making sure he didn't take them with him," he
called back.

The two of them watched Decarius go, before looking at
each other and then down at the open trapdoor in front of them.
Neither of them moved. The hole in the ground looked dark, damp and
not very inviting.

"After you," he said.

The Regis Highway nestled between the foothills and
followed the contours of the land much like a river. Flowing down
toward the village of Tivitay and the neighboring workshops of
Serfacre.

It had occurred to Tansley, that it may once have
been such a water course, before. The mountains could have easily channeled
their capacious reservoirs of water this way quite naturally, if it
were not for human intervention. The water was useful, valuable,
powerful and thanks to the massive construction rumored to exist
within the mountains, controllable.

Tansley had only heard of its existence through hearsay.
The drunken boasting of travelers from the south, of the things they
had seen when in the deepest chambers of the Halvyon Temple.
Coralainians had a word for the mechanism, an unusual word.

Tansley
had doubted its existence, yet the people who controlled the temple,
did seem capable of controlling the rivers.

What Tansley did know, was that the dry river bed, if
that's what the Regis Highway really was, meandered to the left, a
few hundred paces downhill of his trading post. It was a point that
would give him a good view back up the road, and he would be able to see
where the two visitors had got to without the need to break cover.

He'd traveled this far by staying fifty paces off the road, in the
forest and a little up the hillside. Now that he'd reached the bend
in the road, he stopped and looked back to see if they had moved on
from his hut.

He couldn't tell if they had or not, since he
couldn't see hide nor hair of them.

In the time it had taken him to get this far, he imagined
they would have moved on to the next trading post. At least, that's
what he'd expected to see, yet the road was clear. Maybe they had
entered the neighboring hut and were speaking with Cawney, the
proprietor there.

Tansley waited a further minute to see if they
would emerge, and when they didn't, his attention moved back to what
he could see of his own tradehouse.

He could see no movement outside, at least, not around
the side facing the highway, which was the only area visible to him.
But he knew it was well locked and secured. Even the tunnel had a
locking mechanism and could only be opened by someone who knew how.

Perhaps he should have stayed there, not answered the
door to them but just holed up and waited for them to leave. He then
remembered why he hadn't, one of the reasons anyway, he was late for
a meeting with Croneygee as it was.

He grew impatient. Not only that, being alone in the
woods was beginning to unnerve him.

It was obvious where the men had got to, they were in
Cawney's store and browsing his merchandise. They had to be, there
was no need for him to hang around. He would press on, but would be
careful all the same. Staying off the road until completely out of
sight. Tansley knew that when he got closer to Demedelei Town, and
the Serfacre workshops further along, he would feel a lot more at
ease.

He had managed to move quietly up until this point, but
as he started off again, and with his attention still on trading
posts, he stepped on a rotten branch hidden beneath some fallen
leaves.

It cracked, not too loudly, but enough to startle a brace of
birds in the trees above. Large wood pigeons, their wings beating
powerfully as they shot out of the branches and away into the forest.

The dead leaves crunched loudly and his footsteps landed
heavier than he would have liked. Silently stalking his quarry it
wasn't, but he felt he had no choice. Decarius had decided his
priority was to catch up with the fleeing merchant, even if it meant
the man realizing he was onto him.

The simple act of the man running had sent his plans
awry. The most important thing now was to recover the stolen
gauntlets and return to Coralai. The possibility that they would not
be recovered had never occurred to him. To lose the Eagle Standard
would be disastrous, yet he was now desperately searching for it
through the back woods of the northern foothills. Chasing after
someone trying alight with them to who knows where.

Not only were the gauntlets a rare and valuable relic,
they also carried important symbolic meaning for Coralainians. Could
the tradesman know their true value? Was he aware of what they were?
Or that they had been stolen? If he did, it might explain the man's
eagerness to avoid being found in possession of them, and the fact
that he was running meant he must know.

Decarius made his way through the trees, pushing aside
some of the lower branches as he went, trying to find an unhindered
path. The embankment he was traveling along started to level out,
and at the same time, brought him closer to the road. While the
small stream that ran alongside, picked up a different undulation and
bent to the right, disappearing into a culvert in the hillside.

He stopped and listened. There wasn't much to hear and
there was no sign of the man he was after.

The small amount of
information he had about the merchant came from Gregario, who had
more knowledge of the highway's trading posts than he. Apparently the
man's name was Tansley and he specialized in the procurement and sale
of surplus military goods.

The man's enthusiasm for adding to his
extensive collection meant he didn't ask questions and would buy
anything for the right price. His trading post had seemed a logical
place for anyone looking to offload the gauntlets, but if the man had
even the faintest inkling of what they were, persuading him to give
them up again might not be so easy.

Decarius had to try and anticipate where Tansley might
have fled to after leaving his hut. Searching for him randomly was
not going to work.

From this point there were two directions he could have
gone. To the right, a path ran up and around the hillside and into
the glades to the east, it was the same route he and his two
companions had arrived by a short time earlier.

It lead into an area
familiar to trappers and woodsmen, not a bad place for someone who
knew the terrain to escape into. He imagined that the merchants here
did know those glades well, they practically lived among them as it
was.

The other way was for the man to travel down the Regis
Highway. Decarius knew it lead to Tivitay, had a turning to Demedelei
town and another to Serfacre. Would Tansley seek refuge in town or
forest?

Suddenly, and out of the silence of the forest, came the
sound of a branch breaking from the among the trees not far ahead of
him. It was followed by the sound of birds taking to the wing.

Within
seconds he saw two large wood-pigeons, visible through the branches,
flying from directly ahead. The pigeons must have seen him too, as
they immediately veered eastwards, between two hills and into the
glades beyond.

He was now sure he had his answer. The merchant was
traveling alongside the highway in the direction of Tivitay.