'But I only need one. And you have one to sell. And I don't need this. And you want it. I need a mule, if Kellen and I are going to get out of here with more than we can carry on our backs. And you want it, don't pretend you don't.' At any other time, she'd have said that teasingly. Not today. 'I can't trade with the village; the village needs all its mules for those that are going to try to escape instead of trusting to the tender mercies of the High Council. And besides that, if the tamkappa stays anywhere in the Western Hills the City Mages will only sniff it out and destroy it because it was made with Wildmagery, so there's no point in trading it to someone who's going to try to stay. So… do we have a bargain?'
'And it will never fail?' Kearn asked, holding himself back from reaching for it with a great effort.
'If it is not torn or burned. If it is used wisely—not to kill only for the sake of killing, or to kill what you don't intend to eat or use, or to injure instead of kill. If you use it to do murder, Kearn, then I cannot say what will happen to the spell.' She gave him a penetrating look. 'Remember; it was made with Wild Magic, and if you use it to do something the Wild Magic disapproves of—there's going to be a price. I made it to hunt with.'
'I will do none of those things,' Kearn promised fervently, abandoning any further attempt to bargain. 'I swear by the Wild Magic and the Hunt Law that I will never use this shamefully. Do we have a fair bargain, then?'
'A fair bargain,' Idalia agreed, placing the cloak in his hands. 'Now let's go look at the mules.'
WHEN Kellen returned from Merryvale, the first thing he saw was a friendly dun-colored mule tied out at the edge of the clearing, cropping away meditatively at the bushes.
'Do we have company?' he asked, sticking his head in the door of the cabin. Idalia was sorting through their belongings, picking the things they would take with them in their flight. The rest would be traded away, including the cabin itself.
Though Kellen could ride Shalkan Idalia would need a horse to ride, and good horses were expensive. Even more expensive now, with so many people fleeing; he feared it would take everything they owned, or near it, to acquire one. But then again, what were they to do with all the things they could not take with them?
Idalia shook out a blanket, and folded it into a tight packet. 'No, she's ours. I believe her name is Prettyfoot. A trader friend of mine came by while you were gone, and I was able to talk him out of one of his pack animals, for a price. He's on his way back to the High Reaches now with the news from the City.' She added the blanket to a growing pile. 'How did things go in the village?'
Kellen grimaced. He didn't want to tell her what was only more bad news, but perhaps if she went to the village, they might believe her.
Or perhaps not. How much more could be said to convince them?
'I'm not sure if the humans really believed me about how bad it's going to get, but the Centaurs did,' he said, finally. 'They're already packing up to leave. I think the Mayor's planning to write a letter of protest to the High Council. Fat lot of good that's going to do.' Kellen threw himself into a chair dejectedly.
Idalia sat down on a stool that Kellen had just finished before—
Before we found out we weren't going to have a home to put it in anymore.
It wasn't fair. I was just getting used to this place. I might even have gotten to like it in winter. It was a good stool, too…
Idalia shook her head. 'When are the Centaurs leaving?' she asked.
'As soon as they can pack—they're even tearing down their houses to make carts, some of them,' Kellen told her. He'd been amazed to see them hard at work, dismantling buildings, swiftly turning what had been walls and roofs into covered carts, which the Centaurs would pull themselves.
'So.' Idalia smiled, and he thought she wore an air of grim satisfaction. 'When the City tax collectors arrive, they'll find a village full of half-dismantled houses. I wish them joy of that.'
'Huh.' Oddly enough, that gave Kellen a little satisfaction himself. 'And just wait until they find out that half the farming around here was done by the Centaurs. So much for those taxes.' He wondered just how much farming was going to get done by human farmers, used to having burly Centaurs helping with the plowing. 'I hope Master Badelz says something about that…'
'Well, it won't change the plans for annexation, but maybe it will convince the Council that they'd better keep their greedy fingers off the villages until they can sort out just how much revenue they've managed to drive away,' Idalia said, though without much hope. 'Perhaps that will confuse things long enough for the rest of the humanfolk to make some real plans about what to do now that the City's decided to become so greedy.'
'A lot of them think they can make the City see reason,' Kellen answered unhappily. 'They think if they just send enough petitions, the Council will realize that they've trampled all over the laws of the villages, apologize, and go away.'
'And do they also expect that the winter snows will vanish if they create a law to banish them as well?' Idalia
