All That Glitters (4 page)

Brana tumbled out of a tree, yipping cheerfully. He had almost quadrupled in size this year, going from less than forty to nearly a hundred fifty pounds of fur, muscle, and teeth. His mane had thick streaks of white in it and his eyes were pure gold to his mother's copper, but he was without a doubt his mother's son . . . pup . . . whatever. They seemed to share the same joy of criticizing humans. “Noisy! Very too noisy!” he barked.

His Trade needed some improvement.

Artus said nothing, but he was still glaring at Tyvian when he sat back down to continue assaulting the smuggler's clothing. The process was becoming more and more nakedly metaphorical by the second. Tyvian knew the argument was far from over, but he was too tired, filthy, and hungry to consider pursuing it on his own.

The gnolls had with them an impressive collection of dead birds and squirrels—­already plucked and prepared to cook—­hanging from the lanyards they wore about their torsos. Leave it to gnolls to take a harried escape into the wilderness in the dark of night and turn it into an opportunity to collect breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Hool handed her portion of her catch off to Brana and crouched next to Tyvian. “We saw only two or three of the little ­people this morning, but they were going the wrong way. They are good trackers, but they are scared of something, so they make stupid decisions.”

Tyvian nodded. “They're afraid of the open—­if an Eretherian patrol spots them, they're good as dead. After we eat, we move south a few more miles and we'll be out of the forest entirely. Nothing to worry about then.”

Artus grunted sarcastically and opted to abandon Tyvian's shirt in order to assist Brana with setting a campfire.

Tyvian couldn't let it pass. “Oh, what's your problem now?”

Artus rolled his eyes.

Tyvian sat up straighter. “Out with it!”

“Nothing.” Artus groaned, breaking a stick over his knee. “Nothing is wrong. Everything is super fine and dandy-­like.”

Hool laid her ears back. “Stop being sarcastic.”

“Stop sarcazamazy!” Brana said, punching Artus in the arm.

“Ow!” Artus rubbed his arm and then hooked Brana's ankle with his leg and swept the gnoll pup off his feet. He then leapt on top of him and the battle was begun. Artus worked on getting a headlock while Brana scrambled around on the ground, working his leverage to try and make for a reversal.

Hool was on her feet in an instant, offering advice. “Artus, get his arm behind him! Brana! Quick now! Use your legs!
Brrghh! Roof! Whrraggh!
”

The two juveniles rolled around, crushing the budding campfire and scattering their supplies. Artus got on top of Brana, straddling the gnoll's stomach, and planted a few good punches into Brana's chest (punching in the nose was off-­limits except in real fights, Hool insisted). Brana, though, caught Artus's forearm in his jaws and immobilized him without breaking the skin or his arm (since actual biting was off-­limits except in real fights). They struggled in this impasse for a moment or two.

“Groin!” Hool barked, leaning down beside the pile. “Go for the groin!”

Tyvian watched the impromptu hand-­to-­hand combat lesson progress with a sigh, noting how his shirt remained filthy and wet, his breakfast lost, and the prospect of a campfire and a meal in the near future was becoming more slight. “This is my life now,” he said, putting his head back against a tree trunk. “This is what it's all come to.”

He held up his ring hand, where the simple iron band seemed to glower at him.

He glowered back.

 

T
yvian didn't say much as they made their way from the outskirts of the forest and southwest into the Eretherian Gap, following a worn, wagon-­rutted highway called the Forest Road, which would take them to Derby—­the closest thing the northern reaches of Eretheria had to a city. It was there that Tyvian planned to fence the Heart of Flowing Sunlight. It was also there that Artus expected Tyvian to blow that money on buying old and rare books. Again.

They had strung their still soaked clothing between them on a rope to dry as they walked. The sun was hot on Artus's shoulders as he followed Tyvian, but he didn't complain. Tyvian was always accusing him of complaining, so he kept his mouth shut just to prove him wrong.

Artus could tell by the way Tyvian walked that he was wrestling with something and that it wasn't a time to ask questions. Anytime the smuggler had his shoulders tight and his head down meant he was “upset,” and if he was looking at his ring hand a lot, that meant he was currently arguing with himself. Then there was the fact that he was mostly naked, wearing only a pair of underbreeches and soggy boots. Disturbing him in this state was a good way to get a tongue-­lashing.

Artus knew to read Tyvian's body language because of Tyvian himself. The smuggler had spent months teaching him to understand what he wanted without any words, saying that such information could likely save both of their lives someday. Artus found the instruction immensely confusing, since only a few mistakes would result in Tyvian being so frustrated that Artus had trouble seeing anything else in the way he held himself. He never did get the hang of “worried,” “cautious,” “happy,” or “relaxed,” but Artus had become a master of noticing frustration and anger. He could tell if Tyvian was angry from the front, from behind, from above, from beneath, in the dark. He could see frustration in the way he held his shoulders, his sword, the way he moved his hands, the way he held his feet—­if nothing else, Tyvian had trained him well in being able to notice when he shouldn't bother the smuggler.

So, Artus spent his time watching the scenery as they walked. He had to say that of all the places he'd been in his life, Eretheria was the prettiest. The great pasture of the gap, stretching from the forest in the north to the farms of Lake Country in the south, rolled golden-­green across the gentle swell of low hills. There were small copses here and there, clustered around natural springs or ancient rock formations. The trees were of species Artus didn't know—­tall, broad-­leafed, with yellow and white flowers blooming under the summer sunlight. In the distance he could make out cattle ranches—­long, clean buildings with colorful shingled roofs and glass windows, completely lacking in the fortifications seen on every ranch in his homeland. “This is Eretheria,” the pretty little buildings proclaimed, “there is no danger here.”

Artus knew that wasn't strictly true, though. He thought back to their escape from Draketower a month or so before—­the riders atop the griffons, their enchanted bolts screaming through the air. He thought of poor Saley—­the girl Tyvian had tried to “rescue” from the lord of Draketower—­now lying beneath a cairn of stones by the side of a nameless lake.

Draketower had been Tyvian's last refuge in Eretheria, and burning his bridges with Sir Cameron had put them all out in the woods. They'd been eating like gnolls, sleeping under trees, and scrambling just to stay alive, and all because Draketower had been such a gods-­damned fiasco. And it was all Tyvian's fault. Artus knew it, Hool knew it, Brana
probably
knew it, but Tyvian
certainly
knew it.

Artus had wanted to bring it up before breakfast, but he didn't. That was a fight he wasn't itching to repeat. It was coming, though. Sooner or later, Tyvian Reldamar had to admit that he could be wrong.

“Art!” Brana butted Artus from behind with his head. For Brana, no communication was complete without some kind of physical contact. Well, assuming he liked you, of course.

“What? Hey, quit it!” Brana was fumbling with Artus's pack—­the only one still usable after their escape from the woodkin—­and Artus tried to push the gnoll pup away. Brana, though, saw it coming and retreated from the push, letting Artus get off-­balance. Before Artus could recover, Brana kicked him in the knee and Artus found himself flat on his back. “Ow!”

The rope holding their drying clothes fell to the ground. Tyvian whirled, his eyebrows pinched together in his
I'm not messing around
face. “Dammit! Don't soil the clothes, you juvenile louts!”

Brana had his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth and was grinning wildly. “Horses!”

Taking off his pack, Artus rolled into a crouch, rubbing his head as though he were stunned, but then lunged at Brana's feet and knocked him down. Artus pressed his advantage by grabbing a great fistful of Brana's mane just at the base of his skull and yanking so the gnoll's head went back and Artus could wrap an arm around the his neck. He squeezed for all he was worth, well aware that he couldn't hurt Brana's twenty-­inch neck from this angle even if he wanted to; he was about to go for what he called a “gnoll-­ride.” Brana kicked and bucked and rolled, trying to knock Artus off, and Artus simply held on for dear life, his legs wrapped around Brana's midsection and his arms around his neck, laughing wildly. “I got you! Got you! You . . .
oof
 . . . can't win this time!”

“Will you two idiots stop that!” Tyvian snapped. He stood over them, frowning, as he pulled on his mostly dry shirt. “There's somebody coming! Artus—­get dressed! Quickly now!”

Brana grunted a bark that indicated a mixture of the sentiments
obviously
and
I just said that
and then added “Horses!” in his usual enthusiastic Trade.

Artus let Brana go, and the gnoll gave him a punch in the arm that hurt far more than the Brana probably thought. “Ow! Will you cut it out?”

Tyvian hoisted Artus to his feet. “Brana, where's your mother?”

Brana jerked his head northward. “Watch for little ­people.” Hool had been carefully keeping an eye out for any Forest Children coming out of the woods for them, but none had materialized, just as Tyvian had predicted.

Tyvian nodded, kicking off his boots and shaking the dust off his breeches. “Go and find her and tell her there are some ­people coming and that the two of you should stay hidden. Understand?”

Brana didn't say anything and was already scampering off in the direction his mother had gone before Tyvian had stopped talking. The smuggler watched him go, grimacing. “You know, I have really no idea what that gnoll is thinking most of the time.”

Artus smiled. There honestly weren't a lot of things he did better than Tyvian, but this was one of them. “He was probably looking for an excuse to ditch us for a while now. He was getting pretty bored on this road.”

Tyvian grunted as he laced his shirt. “It's about time we ran into something interesting. Gods, but this shirt is an abysmal ruin! My kingdom for a bloody tailor!”

Artus looked ahead on the road. A cloud of dust was rising into the pale sky and getting closer, but not very rapidly. “Riders?”

“Heralds. Something's going on.” Tyvian shook his head and cursed at the wrinkles in his cravat. He muttered something about having to “tie it Verisi style” in a way that made it sound a lot like a curse.

“Heralds for who?” Artus scratched his head.

Tyvian glared at him. “For
whom.
Are you going to get dressed, or what? Move, boy—­those riders could be on us in minutes, and I don't want to have to disavow you as a traveling lunatic I met on the road.”

Artus scowled. “What's the big deal?”

“Provincial nobility. Have to be on our best behavior, look our best.” Tyvian pulled on his socks, cursing at a hole that revealed his big toe. “Gods, why does this nonsense always happen to me?”

Artus shook his head and began to pull on his breeches. “But you hate provincial nobility. You think they're stupid wannabes or something, right?”

Tyvian had on his jacket and was adjusting his sleeves. “They also have
money,
Artus, which we currently lack and of which we need a great deal. Now get on your damned clothes and act like a manservant before that herald,”—­he pointed to the silhouette of a rider on the horizon who was carrying a pennant of some kind—­“gets here and thinks we've just waylaid some merchants and stolen their clothing.”

“I'm going, I'm going!” Artus snarled, hastily pulling on his shirt. “This has bloodstains on it.”

Tyvian threw his hands in the air. “We were attacked, all right? Hurry!”

Artus got himself presentable (by his standards, not Tyvian's) by the time the herald was within earshot. Tyvian waved him down. He was a man in light mail—­a man-­at-­arms, not a knight—­and wearing red and yellow, with the head of a boar on the pennant and also on his tabard. Artus didn't bother puzzling out the heraldry.

“Halloo, the travelers!” the herald called.

Tyvian waved back, showing both his hands. “Halloo, the rider! May I approach?”

“What are you doing?” Artus whispered. “What are you going to tell him?

Tyvian sighed. “My depleted state has reduced me to wheedling favors from provincial nobility as a matter of course these days. Don't worry about it—­I'll be back shortly, I shouldn't wonder.”

Tyvian set off to meet the rider, who stayed mounted during their conversation. Artus folded his arms and watched, wishing he could hear what was going on. He
never
got to know what was going on. It was Tyvian's life, and he was just the damned help—­his opinions were completely irrelevant, his ideas were stupid, and saints forbid he actually be
told
anything useful! He took to kicking over anthills while he waited.

In a few minutes Tyvian came back, riding behind the herald in the saddle. “Ronger here will take us back to the camp of his master, Sir Banber Galt of Korthold.”

Artus looked around. “Where do I ride?”

Tyvian laughed. “Artus, you run, obviously.” He nudged the herald. “Where do I ride? Eh?”

The herald laughed, his handlebar moustache quivering. Artus glared at them both. “Yeah,” he muttered, “har har.”

The herald nudged his horse into a slow trot, but Artus still had to jog to keep up. He had to keep it up for miles, too. All the while, Tyvian and Ronger the Herald entertained each other with pointless gossip and obviously exaggerated anecdotes. Artus noted that Tyvian wasn't bothering to conceal his identity. Ronger had a lot of questions about the life of a famous outlaw, apparently, and was duly impressed with Tyvian's answers.

They never once inquired how
he
was doing, though. The more he ran and sweated and stumbled, the darker his mood became. He figured the
least
Tyvian could do was offer to switch on occasion—­have him run for a bit while he rested. Of course not, though. He was Tyvian Reldamar, famous smuggler and criminal mastermind, and Hann forbid he should soil his precious shirt with some actual physical labor. Artus would have spat, but his mouth was like a desert. Any residual sympathy he had for Tyvian over Draketower dried up along with it.

Eventually they crested a rise and found themselves looking down at a small encampment. It involved a series of brightly colored tents and pavilions flying various heraldic symbols that Artus knew Tyvian had tutored him in at some point in the past but that he had immediately discarded as pointless information and forgotten about. There were at least thirty ­people milling around, and Artus counted a few dozen horses staked out to graze. He suspected Tyvian was going to stake him along with them and tell him to eat grass.

Tyvian dismounted at the edge of camp and saluted the herald. “Thank you for the ride, Ronger. Please tell Lord Bamber that I will attend him presently, should he wish it.”

Ronger saluted back and rode off.

Artus was leaning over with his hands on his knees, forcing air to wheeze in and out of his burning lungs. “You . . . bastard.”

Tyvian slapped him on the back. “Cheer up, Artus—­the exercise is good for you. Once you've sufficiently recovered yourself, get some water and meet me at the big red-­and-­yellow tent at the center of this whole affair.”

“Why? You need me to carry you in on my back?”

Tyvian rolled his eyes. “Oh, yes—­poor Artus, so abused. Let's forget that I dragged your unconscious body out of a lake no more than a month ago, or that I saved you from plant monsters
yesterday,
or that I—­”

“Fine, fine! I get it!”

Tyvian nodded and then prodded at Artus's sweat-­soaked shirt. “Hmmm . . . I'll have to get this replaced. Have to have you dressed your best, after all.”

“Why?” Artus blurted, sitting down. “What the hell are we doing here? Just bloody tell me!”

Tyvian smiled. “We're going to a battle.”

Artus nodded, but it was a full second before the words actually sank in. “Wait . . . what?”

But Tyvian was already gone. Artus was left to dip his head in the horse trough all by himself . . .

. . . with the other pack animals.