The Magic Engineer (32 page)

“Archers! Now!” Brede’s voice booms across the hillside.

Nulta, Westun, and Clyda rise from behind the low wall and loose their arrows, firing in succession, not in volleys. One arrow clunks on the stone wall by the first wagon. Another slices through the purple clover of early summer on the highland plains. A herd of distant black-faced sheep graze on.

“Ambush! It’s an ambush!”

One purple-clad rider grasps his shoulder. Another looks toward the stone wall. “…where are the bastards?”

The trader who has been fending off a saber with a staff uses the distraction to deliver a crashing blow to another rider. The Gallosian looks from the trader to the archers, and slashes wildly before urging his horse back along the road to Gallos. One rider clutches at his chest, tumbling off his mount, one foot tangled in the stirrup and hobbling his mount.

“…east! Back along the road.”

“Mount!” Brede’s voice is low, but the response is instantaneous, and the Spidlarian squad waits for the arrival of the raiders.

Hoofbeats drum on the damp clay as the Gallosians pound down the road away from the archers and their arrows.

“Now!”

Brede’s sword is like lightning—two Gallosians fall before they even understand the blond giant is among them.

“…bastards…”

“…aeeii…”

Kadara, double swords cutting through arms and necks, follows in Brede’s wake. Brede wheels and starts back through the Gallosian raiders, dropping one raider, then another. The eight others do less damage, cutting down perhaps four others among themselves.

A single horseman struggles through the melee and heads uphill. Kadara wheels her mare after the man, bending low in the saddle. He looks back, sees the pursuer and spurs his horse.

Kadara smiles, but lets the mare run easily. Another kay, and she is within a rod of the flagging horse.

The Gallosian turns in the saddle, sees the single female guard, and grins, raising his saber.

The grin drops from his face as Kadara drops the reins and lifts the dagger-pointed Westwind shortsword—then hurls it into his back. She slams aside his weak saber parry with the longer sword and rips it through his throat backhandedly.

When the raider slumps over his saddle and his horse slows, Kadara catches the reins, slows, and cleans both weapons. Then she leads the horse, bearing the dead Gallosian, back toward the rest of the squad.

As she nears the site of the skirmish, she can hear the shovels. The traders, of course, are gone, hurrying back toward Elparta, recognizing the dangers of attempting to reach Gallos—at least on this day. “They’ll try some other road in another eight-day…the idiots,” murmurs Kadara.

“…she-cat got another one…”

“…wouldn’t want her after me…”

She reins up beside the other woman blade. Jyrin is digging a grave. Kadara tumbles the dead raider from his mount, expertly removes perhaps two silvers in assorted coins, as well as a knife, two rings, and a pendant, and the saber and scabbard. “Want to take a rest and let me start on this one?”

Jyrin hands the shovel to Kadara. “Be my guest.”

Kadara cuts through the turf and lays it aside, then begins to dig through the damp clayey soil. She does not halt as Brede rides up and surveys the two partly dug graves.

“Remember. Try not to leave too much in the way of traces.” He rides on the next group.

“Don’t know as it makes much difference,” opines Jyrin. “What do you think?”

Kadara brushes away a fly as she does so. “I guess the idea is to have these Gallosians disappear. How would you feel if a whole squad just vanished?”

“Don’t know as I’d like that. That why you chased down the last one?”

“Yes.” Kadara continues digging.

“I wondered about the shovels.” Jyrin looks from the two bodies to the blond squad leader overseeing another set of graves. “You two are scary…real scary.”

Kadara brushes back the sweat from her forehead, wishing the heat of summer had held off, before continuing to deepen the unmarked grave.

Dorrin studies the three piles, comparing each to the fourth, the one filled with dark gray granules, letting his senses enfold one after the other.

Finally, he understands…enough. Carefully he replaces the yellow powder in its jar, the white in its jar, and the charcoal in its container. The gray powder he carries over to the barrel in the corner, where he eases the iron-bound wooden cover off and carefully pours the powder back. After climbing up the packed clay steps, he lifts the battered door, holding on firmly while closing it against the winds that precede the thunderstorm.

His caution in dealing with the powder only during storms may be excessive, but he recalls the feelings of being watched and his father’s lessons about how storms disrupt the far-seeing powers of the White Wizards.

Leaning against the near-gale, he makes his way uphill from the old root cellar, the one that has outlasted the house that once stood there, past the trees that are more than saplings and less than mature oaks, and back to Rylla’s cottage. He glances toward the other knoll, the one by the stream where he will build,
if he can, his own cottage. He and Liedral will need somewhere to live and to work.

He pauses by the enlarged garden as heavy rain droplets begin to fall, bending and letting his fingers caress the blue green of the winterspice sprouts and the pale, almost white brinn. If they continue to thrive, there will be enough for Vyrnil or Liedral or someone to sell. He hurries toward the cottage as the wall of rain walks down the hillside. Stopping to untie Meriwhen, he leads her under the broad side eave of the cottage.

Rylla is grinding herbs as he walks into the main room.

“The storm’s about to hit.”

“Like as to the demon’s own,” mutters the healer.

“Me or the storm?”

“Oh, the thunderstorms are like as to the White Wizards. Filled with lightning and lots of rain. When they’re over, they’re over. You, Dorrin…” She shakes her head. “You’re like a deep river—all calm on the top, the kind the rivermen love and respect, and fear.”

“Me?”

“You. What you’re doing with your twiddles, this old woman doesn’t know, but you’re going to change the world if the Whites don’t get you first.”

“You believe that, and you let me stay here?”

“This old world needs changing, child. What do I have to lose?” Her hands hold the pestle, and she continues to grind in the deep mortar. “Don’t know as I like how you did it, but you stopped that Gerhalm from killing Merga and her child. Already those sprouts in the garden are taller than any I’d plant would be by midsummer.”

“Anything I can do?”

“In a moment.” She empties the mixture of dried and crushed leaves into a small clay jar and corks it, then wipes the mortar clean. “You can grind some pepper.”

“Just pepper?”

“You asked if you could help.”

Dorrin takes the mortar.

Rylla hands him the bowl of peppercorns. “Just a thumbful or so, for soup. It’s always chill after a mountain thunderstorm, and these old bones get cold.”

“You’re hardly that old.”

“All healers are old. Even you are. And start grinding the pepper.”

After the worst of the storm has passed, Dorrin reclaims Meriwhen, pleased that she has not gnawed the bushes—not that she likes the elder bushes anyway—and wipes the saddle as dry as he can. He really needs a small stable to go with the cottage he plans. Every time he plans something, it gets more complicated. Then again, perhaps that is life.

The sun shines on his damp shirt by the time he rides into the yard behind the smithy. He waves to Petra, who is raking out Zilda’s pen, and receives a quick wave in return.

After he has finished a quick currying of Meriwhen, and as he is closing the stall, Reisa walks into the barn.

“That trader, the thin one from Diev, he stopped by this morning and left this for you.” Reisa hands Dorrin the folded parchment. “He seemed almost relieved when I said you weren’t here. He left in a hurry.”

Dorrin frowns, looking at the seal, letting his senses touch the wax. Both the hint of chaos around the seal and the wax itself tell that the letter has been opened and resealed. “He well might.”

“You don’t like him?”

“There’s something there that bothers me,” Dorrin temporizes, trying not to reveal the discomfort the evasion causes.

“It’s more than a little something.”

Dorrin shrugs rather than say more about Jarnish. “I need to get into my smithing clothes.”

“I’ll bet you read the letter first.” Reisa grins.

Dorrin blushes.

“Still in love?”

He keeps blushing, even as he walks toward his room.

The room, shutters and window open, is still almost stifling as he eases open the seal and begins to read.

Dorrin purses his lips. Nothing in the letter is odd or strange. Why would a White Wizard be interested in a letter between two lovers? And what White Wizard? The one who looked over all of them on the road from Fairhaven had dismissed them casually. Is Freidr tied up with the Whites? Liedral’s brother is certainly not a White himself; that Dorrin would have known even when he met the man.

He refolds the letter and places in inside the wooden box. He misses Liedral, and the broken seal on the letter nags at him.

He pulls off his brown shirt, now showing some considerable wear, and pulls on the near-ragged castoff he uses in the smithy. Nails—he will probably be making nails, or something equally stimulating.

After brushing away a fly, which buzzes towards Kadara, Brede takes a deep pull of the cold redberry. “How do you keep it cold?”

“In the well,” answers Petra. “Dorrin says that the water comes from the Westhorns.”

Kadara waves away the fly, looking toward the goat pen. “Is that the one you saved?”

“Zilda? The white terror?” Dorrin laughs. “She’ll chew on anything. So she spends more time in the pen these days.”

“Especially when company’s here.” Reisa brings out a chair from the kitchen and sets it in the corner nearest the smithy door.

Dorrin looks out at the long shadows and the reddish cast to the light thrown by the setting sun. He shifts his weight on the stool, happy enough just to be sitting.

“Supper was good, thank you,” Kadara offers.

“Very good,” adds Brede. “Especially the seasoning.”

“You’ll have to thank Dorrin for that. Last year he took over the spices, and we were able to dry everything from peppers to mustard to sage. This year”—she gestures toward the patch of green behind the well—“things look even better. Darkness knows how he has time.”

“How are things with your squad?” asks Dorrin quickly.

“For now, they’re fine,” Kadara says. “But by late this year or early next year, that will change.”

“Perhaps,” adds Brede.

“Perhaps, cowdung! He’s been so good that we’ve been able to cut down on the…thieves raiding our traders.”

Dorrin rubs his chin with his left hand, still holding a half a mug of redberry in his right. “If you’re successful in stopping them in Spidlar, wouldn’t they just wait until the traders got into Gallos or Certis?”

Kadara tries not to look at Brede.

Brede shrugs. “I imagine the White Wizards have their own ways.”

“Besides,” Kadara continues, “they can’t very well make an agreement with the highwaymen only to rob Spidlarian traders.”

“I would expect not,” Reisa says from the corner. “Still, I hold with Brede. The Whites will find some way. They always do.”

“By the way, Dorrin,” asks Kadara, “how is Liedral? You’ve managed to avoid answering any questions for most of the afternoon and evening. She came during late winter, and you never mentioned that.”

“She’s all right, according to her last letter.”

“That’s not exactly…” Kadara shakes her head. “She traveled through frozen light to get here, and you just think she’s all right?”

“Kadara…” Brede says.

“No, it’s all right. I worry, but there’s not a lot I can do. I probably shouldn’t have let her go…but I wasn’t thinking…”

“Oh…now it comes out. You’re actually admitting you care for the woman?”

Dorrin looks at the barn, wondering if Kadara has forgotten how many years he went next door searching for her. Or is this her way of expressing relief that he has found someone who loves him?

“You should have seen them,” affirms Petra.

“Now, Petra. They did watch the Council night fireworks with us in the snow.”

“Where they stood melted.”

Dorrin hopes that the fading glow of twilight will hide his flush.

“Shouldn’t she be all right in Jellico?” asks Brede.

“Her brother is somehow tied up with the Whites, and he knows we’re from Recluce. Their warehouse was rather thoroughly inspected, and some things are missing.”

“You don’t think her brother would…”

“No. But…” How can Dorrin explain the feeling he has of being watched from a distance? Or letter seals that have been resealed? Or the general unease that follows him, that sometimes drives him to working to the greatest extent that his body will take?

“You don’t know what the White ones will do,” adds Reisa.

“We’re beginning to understand,” Kadara responds dryly. “But why would they be interested in Dorrin?”

“I don’t know.” Dorrin looks blankly southward, up the sloping hillsides toward Rylla’s cottage. “They may not be.”

“You don’t really believe that, do you?” The voice is Yarrl’s. With the older smith’s comment, the conversation halts for a moment.

“Why do you say that, papa?”

“Man puts order in everything he does, even cold iron. Whites don’t seem to like that kind of order. Things just sort of fall into place around young Dorrin. Were I a White, I’d be interested in what he was a-doing.”

“So would I,” squeaks Vaos, from the steps, where he munches on a leftover bread crust.

“You’re still eating, scamp?” asks Petra.

Vaos nods as he takes another bite.

“Makes sense…in a way,” muses Brede.

And yet, in Dorrin’s mind, too much is missing. What has he done besides heal a few people, grow some spices, and make ordered models and toys? Brede has killed more than a few chaos minions. Dorrin has done nothing of the sort. Dorrin looks southward at the last hints of light on the Westhorns. After all, what more can he say?