Another Road, Another Forest

I TOOK A CERTAIN DARK pleasure in seeing a rather hungover Dedan on the road before the sun was fully in the sky the next morning. The large man carried himself delicately, but to give him due credit, he didn’t offer a word of complaint, unless the occasional low moan can be counted as a word.

Now that I was watching more closely, I spotted the marks of infatuation on Dedan. The way he said Hespe’s name. The coarse jokes he made when talking to her. Every few minutes he would find an excuse to glance in her direction. Always under some pretext: a stretch, an idle glance at the road, a gesture to the trees around us.

Despite this, Dedan remained oblivious to the sporadic courtship Hespe was paying him in return. At times it was amusing to watch, like a well-orchestrated Modegan tragedy. At times I wanted to strangle them both.

Tempi traveled wordlessly among us like a mute, well-behaved puppy. He watched everything: the trees, the road, the clouds. If it weren’t for the unquestionably intelligent look in his eyes, I’d have thought him a simpleton by this point. The few questions I put to him were still met with awkward fidgeting, nods, shrugs, or shakes of the head.

All the while my curiosity nagged at me. I knew the Lethani was just a piece of storybook nonsense, but part of me couldn’t help but wonder. Was he really saving his words? Could he really use his quiet like armor? Move fast as a snake? The truth was, after catching glimpses of what Elxa Dal and Fela could do by calling on the names of fire and stone, the thought of someone storing up words to burn as fuel didn’t seem nearly as foolish as it used to.

* * *

The five of us got to know each other in dribs and drabs, growing familiar with each other’s quirks. Dedan carefully groomed the ground where he lay his bedroll, not just removing twigs and stones, but stomping flat every tuft of grass or lump of dirt.

Hespe whistled tunelessly when she thought no one was listening and picked her teeth methodically after every meal. Marten wouldn’t eat meat that had the barest bit of pink to it or drink water that hadn’t been boiled or mixed with wine. He told the rest of us at least twice a day that we were fools for not doing the same.

But in terms of odd behavior, Tempi was the prize winner of the lot. He wouldn’t look me in the eye. Didn’t smile. Didn’t frown. Didn’t speak.

Since we left the Pennysworth, he had made only one comment of his own free will. “Rain would make this road another road, this forest another forest.” He said each word distinctly, as if he had been deliberating on the statement all day. For all I knew, he had.

He washed himself obsessively. The rest of us would take advantage of a bathhouse when we stopped at an inn, but Tempi bathed every day. If there was a stream handy, he would bathe both at night and then again when he woke. Otherwise, he would wash himself using a cloth and some of his drinking water.

And twice a day without fail, he performed an elaborate ritual stretch, his hands making careful shapes and patterns in the air. It reminded me of the slow court dances they perform in Modeg.

It obviously kept him limber, but it was strange to watch. Hespe made jokes about how if the bandits asked us to dance, our sweet-smelling mercenary would be a wonderful help. But she said it quietly, when Tempi was out of earshot.

In terms of quirks, I suppose I was in no position to throw stones. I played my lute most evenings, when I wasn’t too weary from walking. I daresay it didn’t improve the others’ opinion of me as a tactical leader or arcanist.

As we neared our destination, I grew increasingly anxious. Marten was the only one of us truly suited to this work. Dedan and Hespe would be good in a fight, but they were troublesome to work with. Dedan was argumentative and stubborn. Hespe was lazy. She rarely helped prepare meals or clean up afterward unless she was asked, and even then her help was so grudging it was barely any help at all.

And then there was Tempi, a hired killer who wouldn’t look me in the eye or hold a conversation. A mercenary I firmly believed could look forward to a decent career in the Modegan theater. . . .

* * *

Five days after leaving Severen, we came to the area where the attacks had been made. A twenty-mile stretch of twisting road that ran through the Eld: no towns, no inns, not even an abandoned farm. An utterly isolated stretch of the king’s highway in the middle of an endless ancient wood. The natural habitat of bears, mad hermits, and poachers. A highwayman’s paradise.

Marten went scouting while the rest of us set up camp. An hour later he emerged from the trees, winded but in good spirits. He reassured us he hadn’t found sign of anyone else nearby.

“I can’t believe I’m defending tax collectors,” Dedan muttered disgustedly. Hespe gave a throaty laugh.

“You’re defending civilization,” I corrected. “And you’re keeping the roads safe. Besides, Maer Alveron does important things with those taxes.” I grinned. “Like pay us.”

“That’s what I’m fighting for,” Marten said.

After dinner, I outlined the only strategy I’d been able to come up with in five long days of thinking. I drew a curving line on the ground with a stick. “Okay. Here’s the road, about twenty miles of it.”

“Mieles .” The soft voice was Tempi’s.

“Excuse me?” I asked. This was the first thing I had heard him say in a day and a half.

“Miils?” His accent was so thick around the unfamiliar word that it took me a second to understand he was saying “miles.”

“Miles.” I said distinctly. I pointed in the direction of the road and held up one finger. “From here to the road is one mile. Today we walked fifteen miles.”

He nodded once.

I turned back to my drawing. “It’s safe to assume the bandits are within ten miles of the road.” I drew a box around my crude sketch of the road. “That gives us four hundred square miles of forest to search.”

There was a moment of silence as everyone absorbed that piece of information. Finally, Tempi spoke, “That is large.”

I nodded seriously. “It would take us months to search that much territory, but we shouldn’t have to.” I added a couple more lines to my drawing. “Every day Marten will scout ahead for us.” I looked up to him. “How much ground can you safely cover in a day?”

He thought for a second, looking around at the trees surrounding us. “This forest? With this much underscrub? About a square mile.”

“How many if you’re being careful?”

He smiled. “I’m always careful.”

I nodded and drew a line parallel to the road. “Marten will scout a strip about a half mile wide, about a mile back from the road. He’ll keep an eye out for their camp or their sentries so the rest of us don’t stumble into them accidentally.”

Hespe shook her head. “That’s no good. They won’t be that close to the road. If they’re looking to stay hid, they’ll be farther back. At least two or three miles.”

Dedan nodded. “I’d make sure I was at least four miles from the road before I hunkered down and made a habit of killing folk.”

“I think so too,” I agreed. “But they have to make their way to the road sooner or later. They have to post lookouts and travel back and forth for ambushes. They need to reprovision themselves. Since they’ve been here several months, odds are they’ve worn some sort of trail.”

I added a little detail to my dirt map with my stick. “After Marten has scouted, two of us will go in and make a careful search behind him. We’ll cover a thin strip of forest, searching it for any sign of their trail. The other two will keep an eye on the camp.

“We can cover about two miles a day. We’ll start on the north side of the road and search from west to east. If we don’t find a trail, we’ll cross to the south side of the road and work our way back from east to west.” I finished drawing in the dirt and stood back. “We’ll find their trail in a span of days. Maybe two, depending on our luck.” I leaned back and drove my stick into the ground.

Dedan stared bleakly at the rough map. “We’ll need more supplies.”

I nodded. “We’ll move camp every fifth day. Two of us will walk back to Crosson to get supplies. The other two will move the camp. Marten will rest.”

Marten spoke up. “We’ll have to be careful with our fires from now on, too,” he said. “The smell of smoke will give us away if we’re upwind of them.”

I nodded. “We’ll need a fire pit every night, and we’ll want to keep an eye out for rennel trees.” I looked at Marten. “You know what a rennel looks like, don’t you?” His expression was surprised.

Hespe looked back and forth between us. “What’s rennel?” she asked.

“It’s a tree,” Marten said. “Good for firewood. It burns clean and hot. No smoke to speak of, and hardly any stink of smoke either.”

“Even when the wood is green,” I said. “Same with the leaves. It’s useful stuff. It doesn’t grow everywhere, but I’ve seen some around.”

“How does a city boy like you know something like that?” Dedan asked.

“Knowing things is what I do,” I said seriously. “And what in the world makes you think I grew up in a city?”

Dedan shrugged, looking away.

“That should be the only wood we burn from here on out,” I said. “If it’s in short supply, we’ll save it for a cookfire. If we don’t have any, we’ll have to eat cold. So keep an eye out.”

Everyone nodded, Tempi slightly later than the rest.

“Lastly, we’d better have our stories straight in case they stumble onto us while we’re looking for them.” I pointed to Marten. “What are you going to say if someone catches you while you’re out scouting?”

He looked surprised, but hardly hesitated in his response. “I’m a poacher.” He pointed to his unstrung bow leaning against a tree. “It won’t be far from the truth.”

“And you’re from?”

There was a flicker of hesitation. “Crosson, just a day west of here.”

“And your name is?”

“M-Meris,” he said awkwardly. Dedan laughed.

I cracked a smile. “Don’t lie about your name. It’s hard to do convincingly. If they catch you and let you go, fine. Just don’t lead them back to our camp. If they want to take you back with them, make the best of it. Pretend you’d like to join up. Don’t try to run.”

Marten looked uneasy. “I just stay with them?”

I nodded. “They’ll expect you to run on the first night if they think you’re stupid. If they think you’re clever, they’ll expect you to run on the second night. But by the third night they should trust you a bit. Wait until midnight, then start some sort of disturbance. Light a couple of tents on fire or something. We’ll be waiting for the confusion and take them apart from the outside.”

I looked around at the other three. “The plan is the same for any of you. Wait until the third night.”

“How will you find their camp?” Marten asked, a thin layer of sweat on his forehead. I didn’t blame him., This was a dangerous game we were playing. “If they catch me, I won’t be there to help track you down.”

“I won’t be finding them ,” I said. “I’ll be finding you. I can find any of you in the forest.”

I looked around the fire, expecting at least a grumble from Dedan, but none of them seemed to doubt my arcane abilities. Idly, I wondered how much they thought I was capable of.

The truth was I’d surreptitiously collected a hair from each of them in the last few days. So I could easily could create a makeshift dowsing pendulum for anyone in the group in less than a minute. Given Vintish superstition, I doubted they’d be happy knowing the specific details.

“What should our stories be?” Hespe tapped Dedan on the chest with the back of her hand, her knuckles making a hollow noise on his hard leather vest.

“Do you think you could convince them you were disgruntled caravan guards who had decided to turn bandit?”

Dedan snorted. “Hell, I’ve thought about it once or twice.” At a look from Hespe he snorted. “Don’t tell me you haven’t done the same. Span after span of walking in the rain, eating beans, sleeping on the ground. All for penny a day?” He shrugged. “God’s teeth. I’m surprised half of us don’t take to the trees.”

I smiled. “You’ll do just fine.”

“What about him?” Hespe jerked her thumb at Tempi. “Nobody is going to believe he’s gone wild. Adem make ten times what we do for a day’s work.”

“Twenty times,” Dedan grumbled.

I’d been thinking the same thing. “Tempi, what will you do if you are found by the bandits?”

Tempi fidgeted a little, but didn’t say anything. He looked at me briefly, then broke eye contact, glancing down and to the side. I couldn’t tell if he was thinking, or merely confused.

“If it weren’t for his Adem reds, he wouldn’t look like anything special,” Marten said. “Even the sword doesn’t look like much.”

“Doesn’t look like twenty times as much as me, that’s for sure,” Dedan’s voice was low, but not so low that everyone couldn’t hear.

I was worried about Tempi’s outfit too. I’d tried to draw the Adem into a conversation several times with the hope of discussing the problem with him, but it was like trying to have a chat with a cat.

But the fact that he hadn’t known the word “miles” made me realize something I should have thought of long before. Aturan wasn’t his native language. Having recently struggled to make myself fluent in Siaru at the University, I could understand the impulse to keep quiet rather than speak and make a fool of myself.

“He could try to play along, same as us,” Hespe said dubiously.

“It’s hard to lie convincingly when you’re not good with the language,” I said.

Tempi’s pale eyes darted to each of us as we spoke, but he didn’t offer any comment.

“Folk underestimate a person who can’t speak well,” Hespe said. “Maybe he could sort of just . . . play dumb? Act confused like he was lost?”

“Wouldn’t have to play dumb,” Dedan continued under his breath. “Could just be dumb.”

Tempi looked at Dedan, still expressionless, but with more intensity than before. He drew a slow, deliberate breath before speaking. “Quiet is not stupid,” he said, his voice flat. “You? Always talk. Chek chek chek chek chek .” He made a motion with one hand, like a mouth opening and closing. “Always. Like dog all night barking at tree. Try to be big. No. Just noise. Just dog.”

I shouldn’t have laughed, but it caught me completely off guard. Partly because I thought of Tempi as so quiet and passive, and partly because he was absolutely right. If Dedan were a dog, he would be a dog that barked endlessly at nothing. Barking just to hear himself bark.

Still, I shouldn’t have laughed. But I did. Hespe laughed too and tried to hide it, which was worse.

Dedan’s face went dark with anger and he got to his feet. “You come here and say that.”

Still expressionless, Tempi stood and walked around the fire until he stood next to Dedan. Well . . . if I say he stood next to him, you will take the wrong impression. Most people stand two or three feet away when talking to you. But Tempi walked until he was less than a foot away from Dedan. To get any closer, he would have had to give him a hug or climb him.

I could lie and say this happened too quickly for me to intervene, but that wouldn’t be true. The simple truth was that I couldn’t think of an easy way to break up the situation. But the more complicated truth was that I was pretty fed up with Dedan myself by this point.

What’s more, this was the most I’d ever heard Tempi speak. For the first time since I’d met him, he was behaving like a person, not just some mute, ambulatory doll.

And I was curious to see him fight. I’d heard a lot about the legendary Adem prowess, and I was hoping to see it thump some of the sullen mutter out of Dedan’s thick head.

Tempi walked up to Dedan, standing close enough to put his arms around him. Dedan stood a full head taller, broader across the shoulders, and thicker in the chest. Tempi looked up at him without a trace of anything you might expect to see on his face. No bravado. No mocking smile. Nothing.

“Just dog,” Tempi said softly, with no particular inflection. “Big noise dog.” He lifted up his hand and made a mouth of it again. “Chek. Chek. Chek .”

Dedan lifted a hand and shoved hard against Tempi’s chest. I’d seen this sort of thing countless times in the taverns near the University. It was the sort of shove that sends a man staggering backward, off balance and prone to stagger and trip.

Except Tempi didn’t stagger. He just . . . stepped away. Then he reached out casually and cuffed Dedan along one side of his head, the way a parent might swat an unruly child in the market. It wasn’t even hard enough to move Dedan’s head, but we could all hear a soft paff sound, and Dedan’s hair puffed out like a milkweed pod someone had blown against.

Dedan stood still for a moment, as if he couldn’t quite understand what had happened. Then he frowned and brought both hands up to give Tempi a more violent shove. Tempi stepped away from this too, then swatted Dedan on the other side of his head.

Dedan scowled, grunted, and brought his hands up, making fists. He was a big man, and his mercenary leathers creaked and strained at the shoulders as he lifted his arms. He waited a moment, obviously hoping Tempi would make the first move, then he stomped forward, drew his arm back, and threw a punch, hard and heavy as a farmhand swinging an axe.

Tempi saw it coming and stepped away a third time. But halfway through his clumsy swing, everything about Dedan changed. He raised himself up on the balls of his feet and his ponderous haymaker punch evaporated. Suddenly, he no longer looked like a lumbering bull, and instead, he darted forward and snapped out three quick punches, fast as a bird’s wing flapping.

Tempi sidestepped one, slapped the other aside, but the third caught him high on the shoulder, spinning him partway around and knocking him backward. He took two quick steps out of Dedan’s reach, regained his balance, and shook himself slightly. Then he laughed, high and delighted.

The sound softened the expression on Dedan’s face, and he grinned in return, though he didn’t lower his hands or move off the balls of his feet. Despite this, Tempi stepped up, avoided another jab, and struck Dedan in the face with the flat of his hand. Not across the cheek, as if they were squabbling lovers onstage. Tempi’s hand came down from above and struck Dedan across the front of his face, from his forehead down to his chin.

“Arrhhgh!” Dedan shouted. “Black damn!” He staggered away, clutching at his nose. “What’s wrong with you? Did you just slap me?” He peered out at Tempi from behind his hand. “You fight like a woman.”

For a moment, Tempi looked as if he might object. Then he gave the first smile I had ever seen from him and gave a small nod and shrug instead. “Yes. I fight like a woman.”

Dedan hesitated, then laughed and clapped Tempi roughly on the shoulder. I half expected Tempi to dart away from his touch, but instead the Adem returned the gesture, even to the point of gripping Dedan’s shoulder and jostling him around playfully.

The display struck me as odd coming from someone who had been so reserved over the last several days, but I decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Anything other than fidgety silence from the Adem was a blessing.

Even better, I now had a measure of Tempi’s fighting ability. Whether or not Dedan wanted to admit it, Tempi obviously had the better of him. I guessed the Adem reputation was more than just empty air.

Marten watched Tempi return to his seat. “Those clothes are still a problem,” the woodsman said, as if nothing much had happened. He eyed Tempi’s blood-red shirt and pants. “Might as well run around waving a flag as wear that in the trees.”

“I’ll talk with him about it,” I told the others. If Tempi was self-conscious about his Aturan, I guessed our conversation would go more smoothly without an audience. “And I’ll work out what he’ll do if he runs into them. You three can go settle in and get dinner started.”

The three of them scattered off, looking to claim the prime places for their bedrolls. Tempi watched them go, then turned back to look at me. He glanced down at the ground and took a small, shuffling step away.

“Tempi?”

He cocked his head and looked at me.

“We need to talk about your clothing.”

It happened again as soon as I started to talk. His attention slowly slid away from me, his eyes drifting down and to the side. As if he couldn’t be bothered to actually listen. As if he were a sulky child.

I don’t need to tell you how infuriating it is to try and have a discussion with a person who won’t look you in the eye. Still, I didn’t have the luxury of taking offense or putting off this talk. I’d already delayed this conversation too long.

“Tempi.” I fought the urge to snap my fingers in order to draw his attention back to me. “Your clothes are red,” I said, trying to keep it as simple as possible. “Easy to see. Dangerous.”

He gave no response for a long moment. Then his pale eyes darted up to mine and he nodded, a simple bob of the head.

I began to have a horrible suspicion that he might not actually understand what it was we were doing out 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.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 643