The Whitefire Crossing (4 page)

Pello’s gaze hadn’t left us. I clapped Kiran on the back, and said loudly, “Don’t worry, they don’t buck. They’re sturdy, patient sorts who don’t mind a novice rider, and they’ll carry you safe over rocky trails and through mountain storms.” As opposed to the graceful, highstrung animals highsiders rode.

Kiran’s abashed glance said he’d guessed my meaning well enough. The horsemaster turned, chuckling.

“New to convoy work, eh? Never fear, boy, I’ve the perfect mount for you.” He urged Kiran toward a stocky bay gelding with a graying muzzle and a phlegmatic air.

I leaned against the wagon, met Pello’s eyes, and nodded, deliberately casual. Pello returned the nod, a sly little grin creasing his coppery face.

I resisted the urge to grit my teeth. Damn it, I needed to talk to Kiran about Pello, and fast. But I couldn’t do it in a crowded staging yard where anyone might overhear, and the convoy was about to leave. I’d have to wait until I could arrange a moment alone with Kiran on the trail.

The horsemaster returned with Kiran and the gelding in tow. After a quick discussion, I secured a pinto mare for myself, and a pile of tack. Kiran followed my instructions readily enough as I showed him how to check over and adjust the gelding’s saddle. I watched carefully as he swung himself up. It wasn’t smooth, or graceful, but he managed it without help, which I took as a good sign.

Cara was already mounted and waiting when we returned. “You and Kellan take the mid station, with the supply wagon. Jerik’s on point, and I’ll take the rear.”

I nodded and tried to look grateful. Cara had seen Kiran’s inexperience and was giving us a chance to let Kiran switch off riding the horse with riding in the wagon. But as long as we stayed with the supply wagon, we’d be in earshot of Harken, our wagon’s drover. Harken had handled the outrider supply wagon for convoys longer than I’d been alive, and he was canny as they came, despite his laid back demeanor.

“At midmeal, Kellan and I can switch stations with you for a bit, if you want to eat in comfort while we get some exercise.” I gave Cara a meaningful look, which I hoped she’d interpret as me wanting to work on my apprentice’s shaky riding skills away from any catcalling drovers.

“Fine with me.” The amused approval in her blue eyes told me she’d taken it the way I wanted. She turned her horse and trotted off along the snaking line of wagons.

Kiran watched her go with a little, puzzled frown. “Why aren’t we all riding together?” His voice was low and hesitant. At my encouraging glance, he spoke a little louder. “You said an outrider’s job doesn’t truly start until we reach the high mountains...”

“Yeah, but rockfall’s a danger even in the lower reaches of the canyons. Each outrider sticks with a different part of the convoy so if a bad rockfall or avalanche hits, then only one outrider gets injured or killed. If the convoy lost all its outriders, there’d be nobody to safely direct the search for survivors, or scout once the convoy moves on.” He’d never know how cold that logic really was. I still had screaming nightmares about the terrible day Sethan had died.

Metal squealed, followed by a deep groaning sound. I straightened in my saddle, anticipation driving unpleasant memories into hiding. Far up ahead, the great western gate swung open, massive metal doors being pulled apart with a system of gears. My heart lifted as the mountains beyond came into view. The snow on their tops blazed fiery pink with dawn alpenglow, ridges and pinnacles standing out in sharp relief. The beauty took my breath away, and for a moment I felt like the luckiest guy in the whole world, forgetting all about Jylla and the job and all the rest of it. I couldn’t keep a grin off my face as Meldon shouted, a hand bell rang, and the first teams of mules started forward in their traces. There’s nothing like the thrill of starting a mountain trip.

***

My horse plodded up the sandy trail after the outrider wagon. Harken appeared to be dozing on the wagon’s frontboard, his broad-brimmed hat tilted down over his face, but I wasn’t fooled. Soon as Cara returned, I’d drag my so-called apprentice off for our long-delayed private conversation. I’d been chewing over Pello’s possible involvement all morning. No surprise that Kiran’s little tale of banking houses wasn’t the full story; I hadn’t expected anything different. But if he’d lied to me about the level of scrutiny we faced, then highsider or no, I’d make him regret it.

Kiran sure didn’t seem concerned now. He’d been snarled up tight as coilvine when we’d met at the fountain, but the stiff set of his shoulders had begun to ease the moment we passed the Whitefire gate. He almost looked relaxed, wedged between lumpy oilcloth sacks in the back of the wagon. His head was bent over some spare strands of rope as he diligently practiced the climbing knots I’d shown him earlier. It reminded me of Melly and the other kids with their string game, and I turned away.

Behind us, the remainder of the trade convoy stretched in a long line back down the trail. It had taken us all morning to cross the alkali flats outside the city walls. Now we’d reached gently rising slopes, covered in sagebrush and rabbitbrush, punctuated by occasional black lumps of whorled glassy rock and worn into folds by dry gullies. The only rain that ever fell in the Painted Valley came from rare but vicious summer thunderstorms that sent flash floods scouring over the parched soil, eroding it faster than a man could run.

It was hot already, the air shimmering and dancing above the alkali flats, making the city’s shining white walls and pale spires seem to float above the ground. Ninavel always looks beautiful from the outside, and unreal. A mirage-city, completely out of place in the harsh heat of the deep desert valley. Behind the city towers, in the distance loomed the brown outlines of the dry, barren Bolthole Mountains that formed the eastern side of the valley, much lower and less rugged than the Whitefires. The haunt of sandcats with claws longer than a man’s hand and the strength to crunch a man’s skull into jelly; Cara was crazy for hunting them with nothing more than a crossbow fortified with a longsight charm.

I turned frontways again. Kiran’s gaze had fixed on the city. His blue eyes darkened with something that reminded me of Red Dal sighing over a highsider house warded too well to risk sending Tainters inside. His fingers clenched around the half-finished knot, so tight his knuckles showed white.

So. Not as relaxed as he’d seemed, then. “Sometimes it’s a hard thing, leaving the city,” I said.

Kiran started. “What? Oh. Yes, I...I suppose.” He fumbled at the knot again, his eyes darting to mine and then away. “Though it’s...well, it’s exciting, too. Traveling the mountains, like adventurers from a tale...I hadn’t imagined I’d ever get to make a journey like this.” A hint of wistful amazement touched his face.

“Oh, the excitement’s just starting,” I said, more curious than ever. Maybe he was only playing his streetside role, but I didn’t think he was so good an actor. Highsiders had the coin to travel if they liked—but then, he’d implied he worked for a banking house, and certainly they were said to have rigid notions of a man’s duties. A banking house even fit with Bren’s covert instructions; they never trusted anyone. Hell if I could come up with any good reason for a banking house to try and sneak a person across the Alathian border, though. Banking houses loved their secrets same as all the other merchant houses, but I could think of a hundred less risky ways to pass private information or materials between Ninavel and Kost.

A jingle of straps and clomping of hooves filled the air, and our section of the convoy moved over to the side, allowing room for a Ninavel-bound mule train. This low down the trail was wide enough for two groups to pass easily, although the cloud of dust and sand kicked up by the passing mules sent Kiran into a coughing fit.

“Here.” I tossed him my waterskin. “Remember, we’re on strict water rations until we ascend out of the Painted Valley—so don’t guzzle it all.” Merchant houses hated to waste their weight allowances on water. Part of the convoy boss’s job was to figure out the minimum amount of stores necessary to keep us all from collapsing of thirst before we reached the first high mountain stream.

Kiran took a careful few swallows. He capped the waterskin and handed it back, not without a last longing look at it.

“Where were those mules coming from? I thought we would be the first group coming through the pass?”

“From the mines.” I pointed higher up on the valley slopes, where the sagebrush scrub changed over to broken cliffs. The rock there was scarred and dotted with the dark holes of mineshafts. Tailings piles streaked vivid colors across the dull tan slopes below. “Most of the mines are low enough they can be worked year round.”

“What kind of mines?” he asked, and I stared. What kind of highsider wouldn’t know the answer to that, let alone someone supposedly involved with a banking house? Most families who’d made it big in Ninavel had done so through the mines or the selling of their products. Banking house, my ass. Unless...maybe Kiran was newly come to Ninavel? But no, from the way he’d gaped around at the desert beyond the city gate like a Tainter on his first job highside, I’d swear he’d never set foot outside Ninavel in his life.

“Gold, silver, copper, iron, you name it, these mountains have got it.” I kept my tone casual, but watched his face. “Why else do you think old Sechaveh went to all the trouble of building the city here in the first place?”

Just for a second, surprise showed in his eyes. But then they turned thoughtful, and he nodded. “Oh yes, I see. He founded the city here and then could make his money back from the mines.”

“In vaultfuls,” I said. What other reason could there be? The Painted Valley held nothing else but sand and sagebrush. Ninavel had to import or conjure everything needed to survive. Without the enormous wealth from the mines, the city would’ve failed in a season. Instead, Sechaveh and his heirs were now richer than the most outrageous tales of Varkevian sultans, and plenty of others had clawed their way to riches on his coat hem in the hundred years since he’d founded Ninavel. Sechaveh himself was a popular tavern topic streetside. Some said he had to be a mage, arguing no man could live as long as he had without magic. Others disagreed, pointing out his large numbers of descendants and the well-known fact that mages can’t have kids. They said Sechaveh was so wealthy he could pay for immortality the way other men paid for healing charms.

“About the mountains...” Kiran’s face shone with eager interest. I waved a hand at him to continue. So long as he stuck to questions any new hire straight from an inner district might ask, he could ask away. “What you said this morning—do you really go alone up there?”

“Yup.”

His eyes went wide as a snow owl’s. “But why?”

“Convoys only need real climbing outriders in the early and late seasons. In high summer, it’s no problem to travel through. A man’s gotta eat the rest of the year round.” I didn’t bother telling him the real reason for my solo trips. I couldn’t imagine anything better than a summer spent climbing in the Whitefires. I’d long since given up trying to explain the allure of the high peaks to my city friends. Most of them just thought I was crazier than a rabid kitfox.

“But...” He frowned. “How do you make money, then, if you’re not with a convoy?”

“The Whitefires hold plenty of profitable goods, if you know where to look.” His confused frown didn’t change, so I went on. “Take carcabon stones. Charm dealers’ll pay good coin for any big enough to boost a charm’s power, and the cliffs here are studded with ’em. Chefs drool over cloudberries, midwives want jullan leaves...you get the idea. I find stuff, bring it back, sell it and resupply, then head back up. Until the season’s over and the winter storms come, and then nobody goes up there until spring.”

“Oh! I never...” He cut himself off, real short. Then tried to hide it by rattling on. “What do you do in the winter?”

If he’d been about to say he’d never known where highside delicacies like cloudberries came from, then thank Khalmet he’d shut up in time. Old Harken wasn’t even pretending to sleep, now. I realized Kiran was still waiting for my answer.

“If I have a good enough summer, I don’t have to do anything in the winter.” Which wasn’t a lie, exactly, but I certainly wasn’t going to get into details on the shadow games I played in the city. Especially since they’d all involved Jylla.

“Ho, Dev!” Cara cantered out of the settling dust cloud.

Fucking finally. “Come on, Kellan.” I waited impatiently while Kiran climbed back on his horse. “I owe you one,” I muttered to Cara.

She vaulted onto the wagon’s outboard. “I know.” Her smug smile said she’d collect on it, too. She flipped a hand in a mocking little wave. “Have fun, boys.”

I had Kiran ride in front of me, ostensibly so I could watch how he handled the horse. In truth, I wanted to keep an eye on the drovers’ reactions as the heavily laden wagons rumbled past us. Several drovers raised their hats to me, but their eyes slid off Kiran as if he weren’t even there. His look-away charm was working, all right.

Pello’s wagon was the second of five marked with the circle and hammer of Horavin House, near the end of the line. Pello himself sat slouched on the frontboard with his mule team’s reins dangling idly from one hand. He studied Kiran with undisguised interest as we approached, unaffected by the charm. Kiran shifted uneasily in his saddle and shot a glance back at me. I willed him to stay silent.

“Dev, I never thought to see a man like you with an apprentice,” Pello called out.

“There’s a first time for everything, Pello.” I’d wanted a clue about whether his interest in Kiran was specific or only the result of a shadow man’s finely honed curiosity, and I supposed he’d given me one. Surely if he’d been hired to ferret out our plans, he wouldn’t be so damn obvious about it. Unless he’d guessed my intent, and was playing to my assumptions? I cursed under my breath. Mind games like this had always been Jylla’s specialty, not mine.

That thought didn’t improve my mood any. I scowled at Kiran’s back for the rest of the ride past the convoy. Soon as we passed the final wagon, I led the way off the trail and into a gully whose steep sides were dotted with spiny blackshrub. The syrup-sweet smell baking off the branches in the midday sun was chokingly strong. Nobody’d follow us here without good reason. I slowed my horse to an amble.