The Wise Man's Fear

here in the Eld. “Tempi, you know what we are doing out here, in the forest?”

Tempi’s eyes moved to my rough sketch in the dirt, then back up at me. He shrugged and made a vague gesture with both hands. “What is many but not all?”

At first I thought he was asking some strange philosophical question, then I realized he was asking for a word. I held up my hand and grabbed two of my fingers. “Some?” I grabbed three fingers. “Most?”

Tempi watched my hands intently, nodding. “Most,” he said, fidgeting. “I know most. Talk is fast.”

“We are looking for men.” His eyes slid away as soon as I started to speak, and I fought the urge to sigh. “We are trying to find men.”

Nod. “Yes. Hunt men.” He stressed the word. “Hunt visantha.”

At least he knew why we were here. “Red?” I reached out and touched the red leather strap that held the fabric of his shirt tight to his body. It was surprisingly soft. “For hunting? Do you have other clothes? Not red?”

Tempi looked down at his outfit, fidgeting. Then he nodded and went over to his pack and drew out a shirt of plain grey homespun. He held it up for me. “For hunting. But not fighting.”

I wasn’t sure what his distinction meant, but I was willing to let it go for now. “What will you do if visantha find you in the forest?” I asked. “Talk or fight?”

He seemed to think about it for a moment. “Not good at talk,” he admitted. “Visantha? Fight.”

I nodded. “One bandit, fight. Two, talk.”

He shrugged. “Can fight two.”

“Fight and win?”

He gave another nonchalant shrug and pointed to where Dedan was carefully picking twigs out of the sod. “Like him? Three or four.” He held out his hand, palm up, as if offering me something. “If three bandit, I fight. If four, I try best talk. I wait until three night. Then . . .” he made an odd, elaborate gesture with both hands. “Fire in tents.”

I relaxed, glad he had followed our earlier discussion. “Yes. Good. Thank you.”

The five of us had a quiet dinner of soup, bread, and a rather unimpressive gummy cheese we’d bought in Crosson. Dedan and Hespe bickered in a friendly way, and I speculated with Marten about what sort of weather we might expect over the next few days.

Other than that, there wasn’t much chatter. Two of us had already come to blows. We’d come a hundred miles since Severen, and we were all aware of the grim work ahead of us.

“Hold on,” Marten said. “What if they catch you?” He looked up at me. “We all have a plan if the bandits find us. We head back with them and you’ll track us down on the third day.”

I nodded. “And don’t forget the distraction.”

Marten looked anxious. “But what if they catch you? I don’t have any magic. I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to track them down by that third night. Probably, sure. But tracking isn’t a certain thing. . . .”

“I’m just a harmless musician,” I reassured him. “I got in some trouble with the Baronet Banbride’s niece and thought it would be best if I legged it into the forest for a while.” I grinned. “They might rob me, but as I don’t have much, they’ll probably just let me go. I’m a persuasive fellow, and I don’t look like much of a threat.”

Dedan muttered something under his breath I was glad I couldn’t hear.

“But what if?” Hespe pressed. “Marten’s got a point. What if they take you back with them?”

That was something I hadn’t figured out yet, but rather than end the evening on a sour note, I smiled my most confident smile. “If they take me back to their camp, I should be able to kill them off myself without much trouble.” I shrugged with exaggerated nonchalance. “I’ll meet you back at camp after the job is done.” I thumped the ground beside me, grinning.

I had intended it as a joke, sure Marten at least would chuckle at my flippant response. But I’d underestimated how deep Vintic superstition tends to run, and my comment was met with an uncomfortable silence.

There was little conversation after that. We drew lots for the watch, doused the fire, and one by one we drifted off to sleep.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE Signs

After breakfast, Marten began teaching Tempi and me how to search for the bandits’ trail.

Anyone can spot a piece of torn shirt hanging from a branch or a footprint gouged into the dirt, but those things never happen in real life. They make for convenient plot devices in plays, but really, when have you ever torn your clothing so seriously that you’ve left a piece of it behind?

Never. The people we were hunting were clever, so we couldn’t count on them making any obvious mistakes. That meant Marten was the only one among us who had any idea what we were really looking for.

“Any broken twig,” he said. “They’ll mostly be where things are thick and tangled: waist high or ankle high.” He gestured as if kicking through thick scrub and pushing things aside with his hands. “Seeing the actual break is hard, so look at the leaves instead.” He gestured to a nearby bush. “What do you see there?”

Tempi pointed at a lower branch. He wore his plain grey homespun today, and without his mercenary reds, he looked even less imposing.

I looked where Tempi was pointing and saw the branch had been snapped, but not badly enough to break off.

“So someone has been through here?” I asked.

Marten shrugged his bow higher up on his shoulder. “I was. I did this last night.” He looked at us. “See how even the leaves that aren’t hanging strange are starting to wilt?

I nodded.

“That means someone has been by this way within a day or so. If it’s been two or three days, the leaves will brown out and die. You see both close to each other . . .” He looked at me.

“It means you have someone moving through the area more than once, days apart.”

He nodded. “Since I’m scouting and keeping an eye out for bandits, you’ll be the ones with your noses to the ground. When you find something like this, call me.”

“Call?” Tempi cupped his hands around his mouth and turned his head in different directions. He made a wide gesture to the surrounding trees and put his hand to his ear, pretending to listen.

Marten frowned. “You’re right. You can’t just go shouting for me.” He rubbed the back of his neck in frustration. “Damn, we didn’t think this all the way through.”

I smiled at him. “I thought it through,” I said, and brought out a rough wooden whistle I’d carved last night. It only had two notes, but that was all we needed. I put it to my mouth and blew. Ta-ta DEE. Ta-ta DEE.

Marten grinned. “That’s a Will’s Widow, isn’t it? The pitch is dead on.”

I nodded. “That’s what I do.”

He cleared his throat. “Unfortunately, Will’s Widow is also called a night-jar.” He grimaced apologetically. “Night-jar, mind you. That’ll catch at the ear of any experienced woodsman like a fishhook if you go blowing it every time you want me to come take a look at something.”

I looked down at the whistle. “Black hands,” I swore. “I should have thought of that.”

“It’s a good idea,” he said. “We just need one for a daytime bird. Maybe a gold piper.” He whistled two notes. “That should be simple enough.”

“I’ll carve a different one tonight,” I said, then reached down for a twig. I snapped it and handed half to Marten. “This will do if I need to signal you today.”

He looked at the stick oddly. “How exactly will this help?”

“When we need your opinion on something we’ve found, I’ll do this.” I concentrated, muttered a binding, and moved my half of the stick.

Marten jumped two feet up and five feet back, dropping the stick. To his credit, he didn’t shout. “What in ten