to flush them out while we’re saddled with manning this road block.’
The mule-driver lodged a fretful complaint.
Another official dismissed him, annoyed. ‘Just a stray storm of iyats, you say? Well maybe that’s true. High on a fresh charge, a fiend storm might spring a steel lock by chance. But a full set of manacles amid a live fire? That’s much more than random mischief.’
Another protest, then, ‘Well, yes! We’d rather be settled inside over mulled wine and breakfast. Except that some pious lance captain’s pegged us to salvage his blunder.’
The mule’s driver argued, hotly incredulous. ‘If a felon dodged justice through a sorcerer’s havoc, you wouldn’t be likely to find such as them holed up in a wain-load of hay.’
‘All goods get examined. No use crying foul.’ A sheared ring bespoke steel withdrawn from a scabbard. ‘One mewling yap from a True Sect dedicate, and it’s hop, skip, and jump for us field-troops. They’ve rousted the garrison out in the cold, too, poking pig crates and tossing through farm-carts!’
A rustle of cloth, then a metallic whine as the weapon stabbed into the haystack behind the tail-gate. The point sank a span deep and thunked hollow wood, to a tell-tale gurgle of fluid. ‘Contraband, is it? Grain whiskey, perhaps?’ The foot-soldier laughed, while his fellows closed in and burrowed to expose the illicit cache.
‘He’s got barrels, sir. Ones without tax brands or seals on the bungs.’
‘Too bad,’ said the officer, unsympathetic. ‘Looks like you’re faced with detainment for smuggling.’
The mule-driver scarcely bemoaned his bad luck, but offered a bribe to evade the penalty.
‘One barrel? Kiss my rosy arse! You’ll donate thrice that number and grin. Count on it, my captain insists on his share. Not to mention the filthy provost’s men skim. That’s only sound business, to gag their stickler’s consciences.’
The brazen bout of dickering finished with the busy slide of raised pins, then the creak as the tail-gate was lowered. A dog growled, caught up by the scruff and tossed into the haystack to satisfy duty. Its honest nose snuffled for fugitives, while the men collected their sweetening share with unrestrained greed.
Tarens cowered, too injured to stir, and petrified to bated breath. He recalled the knife stolen from the diviner and braced for the futility of desperate action. But the vagabond hidden beside him did not spring into tensioned sweat. His stilled clasp on the crofter’s wrist stayed collected, even as the diligent hound whined and rooted. When the crofter finally inhaled, he nearly choked, membranes singed by the sharp sting of wintergreen. A genius stroke, as the industrious hound sucked the astringent herb into its snout the next moment.
Its explosive sneeze flurried the hay. Then it yelped and shot backwards onto its haunches, where it shivered and licked its nose, whimpering. No one took notice. The last unloaded cask thunked into the ground to someone’s snap of impatience. The dog was seized by routine and dragged off the wagon to speed the smug rush to sequester the dunned casks. The mule-driver slammed closed his tail-gate and secured the pins. Released on his way, he clambered back onto the buckboard and shook up his mules.
Tarens lay trembling under the tarp. Limp with relief, he placed no innocent faith in coincidence: surely his clever friend had not fallen into a corrupt drayman’s wagon at random. Neither was the skilled penchant for skulking the habit of an upright man. Yet the puzzle could not be pondered under the misery of black-out faintness. Too shaken to think, Tarens let the rattletrap wain bear him southbound through the chill morning.
Noon came. More mounted lancers swept past, first one troop, then another, noisy with the martial jingle of steel and the snap of streamed pennons. A third, larger company of dedicates followed. The horn blasts of their advance guard warned other traffic clear of the roadway, and drove the lumbering dray to stop at the verge. Hay stalks whispered and winnowed to the backwash of breeze as the cavalcade clattered past at a canter. The muleteer and his load stayed at the side, unmolested. Whether the temple’s elite lancers disdained to sully their snow-white surcoats to conduct a search, or if their officious captain avoided the bother of the delay, no rider dismounted to trifle with a farm vehicle passed through the earlier check-point.
The next batch at their heels reined in, but apparently only to breathe their hot mounts. The multiplied clop of shod destriers woke Tarens. Through febrile pain, he overheard the excitable gossip exchanged in response to a bystander’s query. ‘The hunt’s out for the renegade sorcerer, yes. A practitioner in league with Darkness who unkeyed the locks on cold iron with spells. He’s absconded with the confirmed murderer the Lord Examiner arrested just before dawn.’
‘Oh, he left no prints to clue the league’s trackers! There’s truth,’ a second speaker chimed in. ‘Head-hunters’ hounds so far have drawn a blank field, as if there’s no scent to nose out.’
‘Maybe he flew like a bird in the night. Shapechanged to a beast? Never saw such, myself. But that’s what the priesthood is saying.’
‘Claptrap!’ another man added, and laughed. ‘If yon skulker’s that powerful, we’re wasting our time. Such a paragon wouldn’t stoop to a runaway’s game, chased off like a thief through the country-side.
‘They’ll run him down through the use of diviners,’ a fellow in the rear-guard assured. ‘A wee knife was stolen from one of their own. If the object’s still in the creature’s possession, their blessed talent will use that to find him. If not, the next crafted spell he attempts will alert the temple’s trained sensitives. Once they have him placed, we’ll close in for the capture. If the twisted criminal isn’t killed outright, rest easy. He’ll be dragged to Erdane and put to ritual death by the sword and the fire.’
To that end, lance troops had been deployed from all points of the compass, with each dedicate captain primed for his chance to seize glory.
‘We’ll have eighty companies deployed before nightfall. No way the Dark’s minion is going to slip through. Sleep soundly tonight, man, and thank the Light for the grace of the temple’s protection.’
The mule drover mumbled an unctuous blessing, his gratitude more likely due to the contraband he slipped under the troop’s righteous noses.
Then the horn blast sounded to signal the trot. Bits chinked as the lancers gave on their reins and spurred on their way. ‘I do suggest that you roll straight through,’ the last man in the column called over his shoulder. ‘A curfew’s been imposed after nightfall for safety’s sake. Don’t pause until you’re snugged down inside the stone walls of an inn.’
The mule-cart ground onwards through late afternoon, with Tarens sunk deeper in misery. For each black-out moment he catnapped, the rude jolts of the hay-cart awoke him, gasping in pain from the grate of his damaged ribs. His untended gashes swelled into a throbbing crescendo of aches. Terror stifled his moans. He bit his split lip and endured without respite until the cold, clouded sunset brought the hay-wagon to its scheduled delivery. The heavy wheels rumbled to a stop on the cobbles behind the stable at a traveller’s inn.
A changeable wind blew in from the north, salted with early snow. The hostler’s boys who caught the team’s bridles carped and blew on numb fingers. The driver flung them two coppers to unhitch his mules, then chased them off with the laconic assurance he would fork the hay into the loft in due time. The boys pocketed the coins, content to scarper without asking bothersome questions. The inclement weather defrayed any suspicion since a carter hunched at his reins with cold feet might well crave whiskey and a hot
