“No need to whip me with big words, Captain Noose. I’m riding out, I’m riding out.” And so she did.
I wondered what would happen if I simply ran. Maybe Braylar wouldn’t hunt me. Though I doubt he’d allow his third archivist to wander the land with such damning information on parchment. Now that I thought about it, it was surprising he hadn’t killed more archivists.
Braylar called out to me, “Arki, please join me.”
He sounded in good spirits indeed. What a curative, robbing and threatening pilgrims in the wilderness! I planned to suggest as much next time he fell into his invisible abyss, if Lloi didn’t prove handy.
I took a seat next to him.
“I’m guessing you’re guessing about our destination again, yes?”
I didn’t respond right away.
“Ah, I’ve offended you. I’m not sure who is more to blame-you for having such delicate sensibilities or me for tearing them asunder so frequently with my indelicate action and speech.”
That must be what passed for an apology among barbarians or Syldoon. Perhaps both.
“Well, we’re nearing civilization once more, and you can be sure, I do my uttermost to be civil in such places. So put aside your sullen looks and bruised emotions. Or don’t. As ever, the choice is your own.”
CHAPTER 3
A quiet uneventful day and a half passed before a rider approached, and from her stiff carriage and small pony, it was obvious from some distance that it was Lloi.
She reined up in front of us, and Braylar scowled. “I believe I ordered you to wait for us with the others, did I not?”
“Others don’t much like me waiting around with them, Captain Noose. Least, one in particular. Best for everyone if I waited on the road.”
Braylar asked, “So, have you been there at all, then? Or did you simply decide to disobey me completely?”
“Oh, I been there.” Lloi waved a fly away. “Never disobeyed you in the entirety. Not once. I let them know you was coming. Mulldoos about spit out his ale when he found out I rode ahead with you still behind. I told him I wasn’t doing nothing but following orders, and even then, only reluctant-like. He asked what held you up, and when I told him what happened out here in the grass, he scalded me something fierce. Being derelict in duty, he said. I told him again, you ordered, so there I went, and if that were dereliction of some sort, then he was a cockless wet nurse. Hewspear hadn’t been there, Mulldoos and me, we might have tussled a bit just then, but he was, Hewspear that is, so we didn’t. But Mulldoos ordered me out of his sight, told me to tell you they’ll be just behind me. So I rode back out here. And for that, I get accused of shirking this way or that too. Which, I have to say, after the abuse I suffered from that pale whoreson lieutenant of yours, ain’t no kind of balm at all.”
Braylar rolled his eyes. “If by some miracle visited upon me by a jestful spirit, I come to understand the half- reasoning and action of women, you’ll still be a murky mystery to me, Lloi of Redsoil.”
Lloi looked at me and said, “And if you can ever figure out a way of divining whether Captain Noose is paying compliment or insult, you tell me straight away, because most times, he’s talking about a foot above my head.”
“Lloi, you are an insufferable-” He stopped, and I feared he felt violence approaching again, and was somewhat shocked to discover I no longer doubted the flail’s curse at all. I didn’t understand it, but I didn’t disbelieve either. But he must’ve only heard the horses galloping towards us an instant before I did.
Lloi pulled her hat off her head. “Didn’t waste no time, did they?”
Mulldoos and Hewspear reined up first, with Vendurro and Glesswik just behind. While Mulldoos was glaring at Lloi, Vendurro whistled and said, “Never seen anybody go through wagons faster than you, Cap. Three in the last tenday? Some kind of record, that.”
Glesswik patted his horse’s neck. “Four.”
Vendurro looked over at him. “What’s that?”
“Four wagons, you dumb whoreson. Four.”
Vendurro looked ready to argue, stopped himself, and then went right ahead. “The one in Rivermost, the one we outfitted with the smuggler floor, and this one here. Who’s the dumb whoreson now?”
“Still you. Guessing Cap will be wanting to get rid of this one right quick. Be needing a fourth straight away. Ain’t that right, Cap?”
Vendurro sighed. “You can’t count wagons that don’t exist or ain’t been swapped yet. That’s foolishness. Might as well call it ten, then, or twenty, or-”
Braylar said, “We’ll be needing a fourth when we reach Alespell. That is a fact. But so long as we’re counting, I count you all dumb bastards for disobeying a direct order.”
Mulldoos rode alongside us, looking smug. “I’m a big enough man to admit when I’m wrong. And I got to say, couldn’t have been more wrong. You didn’t need us out there in the grass at all. No, not one bit. By the gods, an extra detail would’ve only slowed things down for no good plaguing reason. No danger at all out there in the grass. Can’t say what I was thinking there.”
Braylar smiled, if a little. “Very good, lieutenant, very good. Your point is well taken.”
“Not quite sure what that means. But it sure can’t be you’ll pay more heed next time every one of your men objects to a course of action. Can’t mean that, because-”
The amusement was gone. “Enough, Mulldoos.” Mulldoos seemed no less smug, but he let it go as Braylar looked at his small company. “You’re here now. That’s all that matters. Tend to your horses. We hold for the night. Then to Alespell.”
The Syldoon dismounted, all save Lloi, who decided to ride off back down the road. She never got enough of scouting or had already had too much of Mulldoos. Both seemed equally possible. Everyone launched into activities they’d clearly done thousands of times before-saddles and bridles were unfastened and dropped on the ground, helms and greaves, lamellar shirts and bazubands or bracers placed in bags to protect them from elements, horses seen to.
I helped Braylar with our normal routine, undoing the harnesses, feeding and watering the horses (we switched to flaked maize, as we were finally running low on oats, and some parsnips in strips), hobbling the horses near the wagon when we were through, brushing them, and rubbing them down with herbs that kept the worst of the biting insects at bay. When that was complete, he told me the harness leather looked dry, so my job for the remainder of the evening was to break the harness down and rub it thoroughly with neat’s-foot oil.
Vendurro offered me his saddle to lean against while I worked. I thanked him, asking why he wouldn’t need it.
He rolled up his sleeves and gave his toothy grin. “Worse jobs than oiling harness.” Then he disappeared into the wagon and returned holding a shovel, a smaller spade, and a large sack, full of something. Vendurro tried handing the spade and sack to Glesswik, who argued that he should have the shovel and no sack instead. The pair moved off several feet into the short grass, bickering.
I leaned back against Vendurro’s saddle and dipped a rag into the oil and began working it into the leather.
Hewspear was leaning against his saddle, carving away at a flute. Mulldoos was working his falchion across a whetstone in deliberate strokes, oiling as he went. Braylar was replacing some scales on his cuirass that had been damaged during the wagon attack in the Green Sea. He worked a large needle and sinew through the brass scales, connecting them to the other scales in the row and also to the leather backing.
While Glesswik and Vendurro didn’t seem to know how to do anything without running commentary about how big an ass the other was, the other Syldoon went about their tasks in relative silence, with only Hewspear humming quietly. Figuring this was as good a time as any to try to get some more information, I said, “You might’ve guessed by now, but I’m not Anjurian. So I’ve never had direct dealings with your kind before, and-”
“What kind is that?” Mulldoos asked, swiping his thick blade across the whetstone. “Can’t wait to hear this.”
I rubbed the oil into the leather a little harder. “The Syldoon, I mean. I don’t know much about you. I’ve only
