I’m too old to spend weeks on end freezing my arse off and gasping for breath in the thin air.”
“No one else is available on short notice,” Malcum said, continuing to sign and blot.
Curk shrugged. “Then Count Brayan will have to wait.”
“The count is offering one thousand gold suns for the job,” Malcum said.
Both Curk and Arlen gaped. A thousand suns was a fortune for any Message run.
“What’s the claw?” Curk asked suspiciously. “What do they need so badly it can’t wait?”
Malcum’s hands finally stopped moving, and he looked up. “Thundersticks. A cartload.”
Curk shook his head. “Ohhh, no!” He downed the rest of his glass and thumped it on the guildmaster’s desk.
“You want a rush job, carrying thundersticks?” Curk asked incredulously. “What’s the corespawned hurry?”
“Spring caravan came back with a message from Baron Talor reporting a new vein; one they need to blast into,” Malcum said. “Brayan’s had his Herb Gatherers working day and night making thundersticks ever since. Every day that vein goes uncracked, Brayan’s clerks tally up the gold he’s losing, and he gets the shakes.”
“So he sends a lone man up trails full of bandits who will do most anything to get their hands on a cartload of thundersticks.” Curk shook his head. “Blown to bits or robbed and left for the corelings. Hardly know which is worse.”
“Nonsense,” Malcum said. “Sandar made thunderstick runs all the time. No one will know what you’re carrying save us three and Brayan himself. Without guards, no one seeing you pass will think you’re carrying anything worth stealing.”
Curk’s grimace did not lessen. “Twelve hundred suns,” Malcum said. “You ever seen that much gold in one place, Curk? I’m tempted to squeeze into my old armor and do it myself.”
“I’ll be happy to sit at your desk and sign papers, you want one last run,” Curk said.
Malcum smiled, but it was the look of a man losing patience. “Fifteen, and not a copper light more. I know you need the money, Curk. Half the taverns in the city won’t serve you unless you’ve got coin in hand, and the other half will take your coin and say you owe a hundred more before they’ll tap a keg. You’d be a fool to refuse this job.”
“A fool, ay, but I’ll be alive,” Curk said. “There’s always good money in carrying thundersticks because sometimes carriers end up in pieces. I’m too old for demonshit like that.”
“Too old is right,” Malcum said, and Curk started in surprise. “How many message runs you got left in you, Curk? I’ve seen the way you rub your joints in bad weather. Think about it. Fifteen hundred suns in your accounts before you even leave the city. Keep away from the harlots and dice that empty Sandar’s purse, and you could retire on that. Drink yourself into oblivion.”
Curk growled, and Arlen thought the guildmaster might have pushed him too far, but Malcum had the look of a predator sensing the kill. He took a key from his pocket and unlocked a drawer in his desk, pulling out a leather purse that gave a heavy clink.
“Fifteen hundred in the bank,” he said, “plus fifty in gold to settle your accounts with whichever creditor is lingering by your horse today, looking to catch you before you leave.”
Curk groaned, but he took the purse.
They hitched their horses to Brayan’s cart, but in Messenger style, kept them saddled and packed in addition to the yoke. They might require speed if a wheel cracked close to dusk.
The cart looked like any other, but a hidden steel suspension absorbed the bumps and depressions of the road with nary a jostle to the passengers and cargo, keeping the volatile thundersticks steady. Arlen hung his head over the edge to look at the mechanics as they rode.
“Quit that,” Curk snapped. “Might as well wave a sign we’re carrying thundersticks.”
“Sorry,” Arlen said, straightening. “Just curious.”
Curk grunted. “Royals all ride around town in fancy carts suspended like this. Wouldn’t do for some well-bred Lady to ruffle her silk petticoats over a bump in the road, now would it?”
Arlen nodded and sat back, breathing deeply of the mountain air as he looked over the Milnese plain spread out far below. Even in his heavy armor, he felt lighter as the city walls receded into the distance behind them. Curk, however, grew increasingly agitated, casting suspicious eyes over everyone they passed and stroking the haft of his spear, lying in easy reach.
“There really bandits in these hills?” Arlen asked.
Curk shrugged. “Sometimes mine townies short on one thing or another get desperate, and
“Good thing no one knows,” Arlen said, dropping a hand to his own spear.
But despite their sudden doubt, the first day passed without event. Arlen began to relax as they moved past the main roads miners used and headed into less traveled territory. When the sun began to droop low in the sky, they reached a common campsite, a ring of boulders painted with great wards encircling an area big enough to accommodate a caravan. They pulled up and unhitched the cart, hobbling the horses and checking the wards, clearing dirt and debris from the stones and touching up the paint where necessary.
After their wards were secure, Arlen went to one of the firepits and laid kindling. He pulled a match from the drybox in his belt pouch and flicked the white tip with his thumbnail, setting it alight with a pop.
Matches were expensive, but common enough in Miln and standard supply for Messengers. In Tibbet’s Brook where Arlen was raised, though, they had been rare and coveted, saved only for emergencies. Only Hog who owned the General Store—and half the Brook—could afford to light his pipe with matches. Arlen still got a little thrill every time he struck one.
He soon had a comfortable fire blazing, and pan fried some vegetables and sausage while Curk sat with his head propped against his saddle, pulling from a clay jug that smelled more like an Herb Gatherer’s disinfectant than anything fit for human consumption. By the time they had eaten it was full dark and the rising had begun.
Mist seeped from invisible pores in the ground, reeking and foul, slowly coalescing into harsh demonic form. There were no flame demons in the cold mountain heights, but wind demons materialized in plenty, as did
a few squat rock demons—no bigger than a large man, but weighing thrice as much, all of it corded muscle under thick slate armor. Their wide snouts held hundreds of teeth, bunched close like nails in a box. Wood demons stalked the night as well, taller than the rock demons at ten feet, but thinner, with barklike armor and branch-like arms.
The demons quickly caught sight of their campfire and shrieked in delight, launching themselves at the men and horses. Silver magic spiderwebbed through the air as the corelings reached the wards, throwing the force of the demons’ attack back at them and knocking more than a few to the ground.
But the demons didn’t stop there. They began to circle, striking at the forbidding again and again as they searched for a gap in the field of protection.
Arlen stood close to the wards without shield or spear, trusting in the strength of the magic. He held a stick of graphite and his journal, taking notes and making sketches as he studied the corelings in the flashes of wardlight.
Eventually, the corelings tired of their attempts and went off in search of easier prey. The wind demons spread their great leathery wings and took to the sky, and the wood demons vanished into the trees. The rock demons lumbered off like living avalanches. The night grew quiet, and without the light of the flaring wards, darkness closed in around their campfire.
“Finally,” Curk grunted, “we can get some sleep.” He was already wrapped in his blankets, but now he corked his jug and closed his eyes.
