Crown of Renewal (Legend of Paksenarrion) (48 page)

“Is Chaya as big as Vérella?”

“No. Not from what Mahieran says. And fewer humans all around. There’s no town between Riverwash and Chaya, for instance, and it’s several days’ ride at ordinary traveling pace. Only two or three farmsteads—quite small—not even a vill. He found the forest oppressive, he said. Too tall, too dark, too empty.”

“The elves at Fin Panir didn’t seem bothered by the lack of forests,” Aris said.

“Did you have much speech with them?”

“No, sir. They said I was too young.”

“Do you know if they were from the Ladysforest or another place?”

“Somewhere far to the west—the one I met was Ardhiel, who went with the expedition to Kolobia with Paks.”

They arrived in Pickoak in the dusk to find that no strangers had shown themselves that afternoon or evening. Men were posted as watchers outside the vill, and all the livestock had been penned.

“Glad to see you, m’lord,” Hadden said. “And you, Marshal. You’ll need a place to stay …”

“We brought provisions,” Marshal Nerrin said. “Don’t trouble yourselves. A camp will be good training.”

Night passed without incident. The next day, Aris waited in the village with two of the house guard while his father took the rest of the small force into the forest with a guide from the vill. “You’ll be a help here,” his father said. “In case they circle ’round—you’re my logical representative.”

He spent the day walking about the vill, learning everyone’s name, down to the youngest, and collecting bits of information that one person after another thought his father should know … but would not bother his father by telling him directly. The vill had two wells, but one needed relining … and all the stone thereabouts was hard to shape into flats. Where could they trade for flats? There was a child showing mage-light, yes, but it was only one finger and “that Hadden, he says it’s not worth tellin’ the Marshal, but what if them mage-hunters come?” Widow Eskinsdotter had a rooster with a double comb, and one of them spotted black, and that was a bad omen, Granna Neslin said, along with “too many good years makes a bad one come double.” It had been a dry winter and not enough rain in the spring; she predicted a bad harvest.

The troop did not return that night. Aris worried, wondering if he should ride out to find them in case they needed help, but decided to stay, as his father had bidden him. The next morning, he was up early, but that day was like the one before until late morning,
when one of the village lads spotted someone running out of the forest edge and back in again. “Looky there, sir! I see ’em now, just there.”

Aris, after a long look, could also see the occasional flicker of blue showing between the leaves … someone moving parallel to the forest edge, back and forth, as if looking for the best place to emerge … or as if waiting for others. The vill settled into midday somnolence, the sun’s warmth having become heat in the last tenday. He and others watched the forest edge from inside the buildings.

Another boy was first to see a sheep emerge from the forest and drop its head to graze in the open. Then another and another. And finally an adult in a long blue shirt, gray trews, and a hat, with a shepherd’s crook and a bow, stepped out and began moving the sheep along the grass, just outside the forest. In a few minutes, the shepherd turned, waved, and three obvious children came out of the woods and ran to the flock.

“What should we do, sir?”

Aris looked away from the window. “I don’t know. If we go out, they may dive back into the woods, and I know my father will want to find them and talk to them.”

“Think they’re mage-hunters?”

“No … I think they’re fleeing mage-hunters. Maybe that one shot at me thinking I was one.”

“Or maybe mage-hunters was on their trail.”

“That, too,” Aris said, still watching. The children were now positioned along the woods side of the sheep, the adult nearest the vill. Then a thought occurred. “Do you think the Finthans know any Tsaian family sigils? Would they know this is Marrakai land and recognize this?” He touched the red horse on his green tabard. “I was wearing Juris’s old hunting jerkin before.”

“Might work,” said one of his father’s men. “But you should have someone with you.”

“It would scare them,” Aris said. Inspiration hit. “What about this? Two of the village children—not too big—and those sheep in the pen and one of the dogs. It will look like children and sheep—”

“You’re getting tall for that.”

“I’m the older brother.” He liked that thought; he’d been the youngest brother for so long.

They started out along a lane that led between the village fields to southern grazing lands that stretched to where the forest curved around. Aris, who had not worked sheep before, had to be reminded how to position himself. He watched the dog, carefully not looking toward the forest to the west and remembering to hold the shepherd’s crook so he wouldn’t bang it with his sword.

“They’re looking at us,” one of the smaller boys said.

“Are they going into the forest?”

“No. Just looking at us.”

“Good. Don’t look, then look again in twenty paces. Then you can grab my arm and try to get me to look.” Aris looked the other way, pointed to the child on that side as if giving him directions, and the boy ran off to the side, pretended to pick something up, and ran back. Then the other boy grabbed Aris’s arm and shook it, pointing toward the intruders.

As if to assist, all the sheep stopped and looked, too. One baaed. Then another. The distant sheep baaed. Suddenly, all the sheep—both groups—started toward each other, the nearer flock turning off the lane and into a field of redroots. Aris said “No!” but the sheep had no intention of listening to him. He tried stopping one with the crook, and it lunged forward, yanking the crook out of his hand. He and the boys ran, trying to get ahead of the sheep; the dog ran faster, then started barking. Across the field, the people with the small flock were trying to stop theirs with the same lack of success.

The sheep won, the flocks flowing into each other before the humans, breathless and sweaty, could get to the scene. The dog, completely abandoning its supposed sheep-handling role, had thrown itself at the feet of the stranger children and rolled onto its back; one of them was petting it.

The adult had moved into the combined flock, trying to separate out some of the sheep, but without help or any place to pen them, the sheep moved right back into the mass of woolly backs.

“Why did you bring your sheep out when you didn’t have enough dogs to control them?” the adult—now obviously an older
woman—said to Aris. She had not run as far and was not out of breath.

“Me?” Aris said. “Why did you bring your sheep to our vill?”

“I could have passed your vill without a problem if only you—” She stopped and looked intently at his chest. “That’s … is that a Marrakai mark?”

“Yes,” Aris said. “It is. This is Marrakai land.”

“Blessed Gird!” she said. Now she smiled. “We’re safe, children. We made it.”

“Made it?”

“The mage-hunters would have killed them,” she said, waving at the children. “I brought them out—we were chased—there are mage-hunters after us—”

The dog leapt up, bristling, teeth bared. Aris looked where it did—and saw two men on horseback galloping toward them. For an instant he thought they were his father’s men, but these men wore blue, not red and green, and both had crossbows spanned—one shot even as he watched. The bolt narrowly missed the woman and thunked into the ground, vibrating.

And he was out here alone, with no support and no helmet. “Get in the sheep and lie down,” he said to the children. The woman already had her bow spanned; Aris drew his sword.

“You can’t fight horsemen on foot with a sword,” she said. “Take my crook … knock one off as he passes.”

But the horsemen drew rein out of reach.

Aris drew himself up. “You are on Marrakai lands,” he said. “You have no rights here. Go back where you came from.”

“Marrakai! Magelords! All Tsaia’s infested with magelord vermin. You don’t need to die for a filthy magelord, boy! Free yourself from their tyranny.”

He could think of nothing to say. Tell them he was Marrakaien himself? That would do nothing but get him killed. He tightened his grip on the sword in his right hand and the shepherd’s crook in his left.

Then, from the forest, came the crashing sound of horses—many horses—forcing their way through undergrowth, and the first of his
father’s mounted men charged out, yelling. His father, riding flat-out, mouth open … his horse surging ahead of the others. Aris had never seen his father look like that. The intruders turned to face this challenge, raising their crossbows.

Aris ran forward, desperate to keep his father from being shot. Without thinking of the horses at all, he slashed the one to his right with the sword and jabbed the other in the flank with the shepherd’s crook. Both jerked; one bolted, and the other bucked, bucked again, and its rider flew off. His father rode on to attack the fallen man as he stood up. His sword cut deep into the man’s shoulder; the man screamed and fell. Aris stared as his father slid out of the saddle and finished the man, one thrust to the throat.

“Get them all back to the vill,” he said to Aris, then mounted and rode off in pursuit of the other man, whose horse was throwing bucks as it ran.

Aris went back to the woman. “We’ve got to get to the vill,” he said.

She didn’t move at first. “Was that Marrakai himself?”

“Yes. My father. Come—he wants everyone safe in the vill.”

With five children, an experienced shepherd, and a dog, it did not take long to move the sheep into the center of the vill. On the way he learned the names of the strangers and that the vill’s sheepdog had been traded for across the border—it knew the shepherd and the children. Soon his father and the others rode in, all the horses lathered and two dead men lashed over the saddles of their mounts.

Aris looked at his father. The dark brows were up, the mouth tight.

“I’m sorry I cut the horse,” he said. “But I thought I had to.”

“You did right,” his father said. He tapped his head. “Except … where is your helmet?”

“I thought it would scare them away,” Aris said. “The newcomers, I mean, not the mage-hunters.”

“Mmm. We’ll discuss that later. Let’s get the horses cared for, and then I need to talk to all the adults in the vill.”

They stayed in Pickoak another night. The three children did indeed have mage-powers—or at least made light with a finger, as
Camwyn had before he gained other powers. The woman had a frightening tale to tell.

“They was up the vale, one vill at a time. Timos from our vill saw what happened—they burned Claybank to the ground for refusin’ to let ’em in. Old Tower, they sent their children to us, but we saw smoke rise that day. I knew … my sister’s grandchilder, all three, had it. Their mother’s expectin’, so I said I’d take ’em. Two childer from Old Tower. Esker took them. We left that night hidin’ as best we could, and Esker went another way. We each took some sheep, hopin’ from a distance someone would just think it was a shepherd.

“They had ridin’ horses; we didn’t. I thought we’d got away, but just as I was comin’ to the forest, Peri said she saw horses behind us. I hoped they hadn’t seen. We been hidin’ in the trees, tryin’ to get away from ’em. They shot one of the sheep and stopped to eat it … we been hungry awhile …”

Aris looked at his father, who looked back, then sighed heavily.

“You’re welcome to stay, Sanits, but not in this vill. Come with us tomorrow; settle closer to the center of my land, where they’re less likely to find you. We’ll find you a home.”

The children had been eating as fast as they could. Now they stopped, staring at Sanits. Her eyes filled with tears. “Gird’s grace on you,” she said. “I don’t reckon you’re Girdish—”

“But we are,” Aris said. “Da’s da’s da, back in Gird’s day, knew Gird.”

“Then Gird’s hand was in all this,” she said. “But are there no mage-hunters here?”

“There’ve been those who tried,” Marrakai said. “But the king’s command is that no new-known mages be killed, unless they commit crimes, and no child under twelve winters, without his express command.”

“Is your king Girdish?”

“Yes … Is that not known in Fintha?”

She looked down. “Folk says this, and folk says that, and how’s a body from a vill a day’s walk from another to know who says truth?”

“Tsaia is Girdish. You will find welcome here in the grange on my land or another. For now, though, do not worry about that.”

“I worry about my sister’s daughter … what if she …” She closed her eyes briefly, shook her head, and said, “Never mind that. What’s done is done, whatever it is. You saved my life, you and your son, and you saved these childer, and we’re all grateful.”

In the morning, they rode back to the house, the children each riding with someone and the woman on the mage-hunter’s uninjured horse. Aris, with the oldest child gripping his belt behind, had no thought of Camwyn that day.