The Humbled (The Lost Words: Volume 4) (68 page)

Mali grimaced. The Caytoreans would probably not be very tolerant toward northerners, not after they had trampled across their realms and killed so many of their kin and fellow countrymen. If they thought him an enemy, they might attack him.

“An ax will do.”

Heart hammering in her chest, Mali led into the valley, toward the speck of civilization. She was terrified. This was Caytor, the old enemy. This was land after war and pillage, and the strangers out there were likely to behave like rabid animals. This was human life after more than a year of isolation. She wasn’t sure she wanted to meet people again.

The Caytoreans saw them and came forward from their houses and tents, clustering near the road, waiting. That calmed her a little. People intent on killing usually kept to the shadows, and they wouldn’t just wait for their prey. Standing in the open was a sure sign of normal life.

“Who goes there!” one of their lot hailed when they were within earshot—and bowshot.

Mali spread her arms wide. “Survivors. We are just passing through.” They had rehearsed their story often enough it sounded like a truth now. If anyone asked, they were heading to Eybalen, where they hoped to find a better life. Everyone wanted a better life, didn’t they?

“You bringin’ any food or goods?”

Mali glanced back at their mules. The packs were mostly empty. “Some.”

“You armed?” the man hailed again.

“Yup.” Lies would not do at this point, she figured.

“Come over. We might wanna trade.”

Alexa brushed her jaw with the outside of her hand. “Friendly, aren’t they?”

Bjaras was looking anxious now. Well, he should be. Mali just hoped he would not open his mouth and doom them all. But she had taken him along knowingly, all too aware of the risks. She had hoped to use him as a shield against his brethren. Now, she would have to shield him against the people of the realms.

“Just keep calm, everyone. Speak slowly and no more than necessary,” Mali reminded them one last time.

Up close, the estate looked less majestic, more worn, damaged. Most of the houses had no windows or roofs, and the tents were sagging or torn, left behind because they were useless. Prowling among the ruins was a knot of simple-looking folk. They looked like any peddler or village craftsmen you might meet in Eracia.

They had fires burning, and it looked like they were roasting game. One of them was chopping kindling. A woman showed her face briefly, then ducked back into one of the log shacks. Mali sought courage in her presence. With only men around, it could never be good.

It was a village, all right, she figured. Built on top of the ruins of a large, wealthy mansion.

There were about a dozen and a half souls waiting for them near an old road sign. Another five lingered some distance away, mistrustful. But their gestures did not speak of skilled combat or vile intentions.

“Is this Pain Daye?” she asked.

The one she thought might be their leader pointed with his chin. “What you got to trade?”

“Where you coming from?” another face asked.

“Near the border,” Mali lied. She looked at her animals. They were frisky, picking up the human mood. Suzy was standing near one of the horses, stroking its neck, her fingers close to the heavy wood stock of one of the crossbows. “We got skins and pelts.” They had hunted their share during the travel.

“What you ladies doing all alone on the road?” a third figure inquired.

“We ain’t got no husbands,” Alexa snapped back at him, “on the account of the fuckin’ war.”

The leader scratched his raven-colored beard. “I’m Tim. We fled this northern enemy near Marlheim. We went east to the coast. Then we figured they weren’t chasing us no more, so we came here. The whole region was abandoned, and none of the foe were here, so we thought to stay.”

A lad standing at the man’s side, looking very much like his son, nodded. “The enemy’s gone.”

“Now, they might come back,” Tim warned, “but they is gone south, and don’t look like coming back.”

“I heard stories like those,” Mali shared, trying to sound friendly. “Armies come out of nowhere; then they go away, never to return. Such is life.”

“We got folk from all over,” Tim continued. “Acer there comes from farther south, but he reckoned he’d come to Pain Daye. We thought we might find some councillors or maybe an army, but nothing. They all fled.”

“We haven’t heard any news in a long while,” Alexa supplied, trying to sound friendlier now.

Tim was silent for a while. “So where you going?”

Mali scanned the crowd. Wary, but not hostile. Just men and women plagued by disaster. “We thought of going to Eybalen, seek our luck there.”

Tim snorted. “That ain’t good. Didn’t you hear?” He waited for Mali to answer as if he hadn’t heard Alexa speak just moments earlier. “There’s trouble in the capital, too. The High Council is in uproar. Could be on account of this war, could be other things. But they got themselves into a fight like it was with the Feorans years back, and some of them had to flee the city.”

Mali frowned, but kept quiet. Any information on Caytor was valuable.

Tim took her silence as encouragement. “It’s a mess in Eybalen, all right. We heard this northern enemy is gone to Athesia, but there’s war just everywhere. I reckon the safest place right now is Pain Daye. There ain’t no people in the wake of that foe from the north, but then there’s no war either. Just ask Acer.”

Alexa squirmed. Mali followed her sight and saw a couple of armed men show up behind a far cluster of cabins. They looked like hunters, but that did not make her happy. Arrows made for killing deer could kill people, too.

Mali made sure her voice remained steady. “So what happened in Eybalen, Acer?”

The other man stepped forward and spat unceremoniously right between her legs. “Shit, that’s what happened. But I didn’t wait to get my head cut like the rest of them. Took a couple of horses and rode here. Fast as I could.”

The hunters were moving away. They did not seem too interested in the gathering. Mali assumed there were more people in and around the estate than she had initially believed. It made sense. The place was well defensible. It probably had wells, and maybe even stores of food inside. If these people survived till spring, they could work in the fields, maybe even start some small trade.

The same thing must be happening in northern Eracia. The folks had fled the enemy, but once they figured it was not coming back, they had gone back to their hearths. Life was all about self-preservation, and it quickly forgot great armies and majestic military feats.

“What do you have to trade?” she asked. After all, that was why they had supposedly come here.

Tim hesitated, but then he started listing various items, most likely things his men had scavenged from inside the mansion. She listened idly while her mind rolled. Everyone had fled Pain Daye, and that meant her son, too. But she did not dare ask anything yet.

The new inhabitants of the estate started introducing themselves. Mali gave her name. Then Alexa did the same. Finally, Suzy bit off her own. Bjaras kept staring.

“What’s with the lad? He ain’t got no tongue?”

“Yup, that’s it,” Mali agreed, almost too quickly. “Mute.” Bjaras saw her and nodded. He made a vague sound. She felt another knot of dread in her stomach untie, melt away.

“Let’s do some business,” Tim offered.

After exchanging some of the really useful stuff back and forth, Mali agreed to stay at the village overnight. Fire was most welcome, and she was glad for the small sense of civilization creeping back into her consciousness. Besides, if they refused, they would rouse the suspicion of the locals.

It turned out to be a strange gathering, men and women who ignored the absolute destruction around them and tried to make some kind of a living from what they had, not quite trusting one another yet cooperating. Deep down, out of a churning cauldron of fears, they had figured that working together was their best chance of surviving the winter, the scarcity of food, the bandits.

Mali watched, with half-deranged fascination, their stilted, brusque dynamics. It was not unlike military life. For Tim’s folk, this was normal, but she was on edge, not certain how to respond.

Above all, she was confused.

James was not at Pain Daye. So where was he?

As the evening stretched and her bones warmed, she gathered enough courage to resume talking, asking silly questions, nothing too much. The villagers didn’t spare any words. For them, the liberation from law and the authority of the council was almost a blessing, it seemed, and they were willing to forge their own justice and order from the devastation. She wondered if this was how all nations had started, a clump of hardy men who refused to die, creating a life for themselves.

Alexa used the time to sharpen her weapons, which meant she always had a blade nearby. Suzy sat back, chewing on old, lean meat, a crossbow at her side. No one begrudged her that. Bjaras was busy eating and avoiding everyone’s faces so they wouldn’t know he didn’t understand anything.

Mali watched the flames dance, savoring the heat. “I heard a rumor there was some Athesian princeling here at Pain Daye.”

At first, no one said anything. She thought she had blundered, and almost touched the hilt of her long knife.

Then, it was Tim who shattered the silence. “Well, you come from far off, no wonder you don’t know nothing. But you was near Athesia. Didn’t you hear about the fighting?”

Her chest tightened. “No.”

“Where’s Carran?” Tim asked, looking into the sooty murk.

“Here.” An older man stepped into the orange ring.

“Tell the lady about the emperor.”

Carran sat down on an upturned log. He rubbed his knees and stretched his legs toward the fire. “I used to be a cooper here. When the northerners came, I said, bugger my knees, and hid in the cells underneath. No one found me. But I know all about them councillors. There was Lord Otis, and then there was this Athesian James, and then Lord Sebastian. Heard them all talk. They all sound the same to me.”

Mali swallowed.

Alexa must have felt her discomfort, because she sat closer and took her hand in a firm grip. “So what happened?” Her friend pushed for more details.

The cooper delayed, obviously enjoying this new company. Suzy was watching carefully. The soldier was relentless in her watch.

It was Tim who interfered. “Well, didn’t you hear? He went to war to Athesia. Must have come near your town.”

“We haven’t see any emperor,” Alexa said in a quiet tone.

“What place you said you was from?” a short fellow at her right asked, leaning over.

Mali dug for names she had seen on the map, trying to remember them, but her brain was racing with cold fear and motherly premonition. She barely made her tongue move. “Hathbun.” Should be a safe choice that. Unless one of the survivors was from there. In which case, they would probably have to fight their way out.

“Anyway,” Carran continued, looking irritated by the interruption, “he got into war against the Parusites. Heard Lord Sebastian talk all about it. That lad had quite a following. Lots of councillors and rich folk, got himself quite an army. Alas, he got killed in the war. Lord Sebastian made himself the head of the estate. Then the northerners came, and everyone fled.”

The world stopped.

“Killed, you say,” Alexa repeated.

“Yup,” the man confirmed and spat a thin line into the fire.

“That can’t be true,” Mali whispered.

“I swear it. Folks saw his body afterward, laid down all princely like, hair combed and pretty.”

Mali leaned back against the cabin wall, her head banging into the rough wood. Suddenly, the small shack was stifling. The fire was an orange blur; the air smelled like soot and unwashed bodies. She realized she was going to cry.

Carran frowned. “What’s the matter with you, woman?”

“Got smoke in my eyes,” she confessed, trying to sound as if she needed to cough. Not a hard thing with that big lump of pain in her throat. Her son, James, was dead. Feeling as if she were watching someone else’s life hum its sorry melody, she looked at her dearest friend, a woman who had helped raise James. She was holding her hand in a fierce, trembling grip, her fingers going white.

“Must have gotten some in mine, too,” Alexa rasped.

CHAPTER 49

C
alemore climbed the hill with slight urgency to his step, the old snow creaking under his boots. His eyes were locked on the cabin where Nigella was waiting for him. He waved his hand. The soldiers watching over his bespectacled prophet moved away from the house. They spread out of earshot, still on guard, still alert, especially with their leader nearby.

Calemore felt anxious. He should not be anxious. But he was.

He had not seen Nigella in months. He genuinely missed her. He missed her body, her imperfections. He wanted her magical talent. By now, she should have unraveled the mysteries of the future from the book, and she should be able to help him decide the last, crucial stage of his campaign.

His foes had lost more than half their number. The surviving god must be awfully weak. Soon, his magic would fail, and Calemore would be able to sense him and send his assassins to finish him off. He had already deployed a number of spies and infiltrators among the enemy, and asked the Naum elders to send their saboteurs and killers into the opposing camp so they could target officers and leaders and cause even more chaos.