The Phoenix Unchained (11 page)

Other things vanished too, or almost did.

Tiercel only noticed when he saw first his coin-pouch, then his pen-case, appear in the Fauns’ hands. With a sigh, he collected both objects—the Fauns didn’t look particularly upset—and sat on them this time.

“Hey! That’s my map!” Harrier wasn’t quite as calm about things. “And my eating knife! Give that back! That’s sharp!”

“You can’t have those,” Tiercel said patiently, plucking the objects from the grasping hands of the Fauns. “They belong to my friend.”

“Want to see—”

“Want to touch.”

“All gone anyway—”

“—in the forest.”

“Scary place.”

“Dangerous.”

“Dark.”

“Dark and dangerous.”

“Lose things in the forest.”

“Why not here?”

“Easier to find them here.”

“Yes?”

“No?”

“Give me back my knife,”
Harrier growled. Tiercel blinked, and realized that not only had he somehow managed to lose his grip on Harrier’s knife, he’d also managed to lose his own pen-case again.

This was going too far. He got to his feet—at least he still had both coin-purses—and went over to the pack mule. Digging through one of the packs, he found a large bag of lump sugar. Harrier had packed it because—so he said—there were times when you just needed to bribe a mule. He hoped one of those times wouldn’t come up before they could replace it.

“See what I’ve got?” he said, holding up the large paper sack invitingly. All the Fauns stopped and looked at him.

“What?” one of them said.

There was a chorus of “What’s?” It sounded like a flock of birds.

“I’ve got candy,” Tiercel said temptingly. He hadn’t grown up as the eldest child in the Rolfort household without learning a thing or two about diplomacy and outright bribery. “And I’ll trade you.”

A short time later, he’d traded pieces of lump sugar for Harrier’s knife and map, for his pen-case, for the empty jam jar, and for a couple of other things that the Fauns had gotten from their belts and pockets that the two boys hadn’t noticed at the time.

“And I’ll give you the rest of the candy—look, it’s a whole sack—if you promise not to ever touch—or take—any of our things again.”

All of the Fauns began chattering at once, but by now Tiercel was getting used to the way they talked, and could figure out what they wanted to know.
For how long?

“Forever,” he said firmly.

He was pretty sure the Fauns wouldn’t get the idea if he said anything more equivocal. Or they’d find a way around it somehow.

The deal was made, and Tiercel handed over the rest of the sack of sugar lumps. He was a little surprised that the Fauns didn’t fight over them, but they didn’t. They carefully shared out the contents of the sack equally. There was enough to go around. He’d counted before he’d offered it to them, taking out the extras and slipping them into his pocket.

With their mouths stuffed full of candy—and obviously seeing no more entertainment to be gained from the strangers—the Fauns ran off over the hill and were quickly gone from sight. At least most of them did. Their leader—for lack of a better term—hung back, gazing at Tiercel and Harrier unreadably. He looked puzzled.

“Other road,” he said firmly, pointing. Then he ran on to join the others.

“Well,
that
was interesting,” Harrier said, getting up to retrieve his things from the saddlebag in which Tiercel had stashed them for safekeeping.

“I think it was partly our fault,” Tiercel said. “If we’d told them not to touch anything before we offered them food, they probably would have behaved themselves. A little better, maybe.”

“Huh,” Harrier said, unconvinced. “And what about all this danger in the forest?”

“Well, what’s going to be dangerous for a Faun probably isn’t going to be dangerous for us,” Tiercel said, thinking it over. “And it’s the Delfier Forest. Not that far from the Delfier Highway, if your map is right. What can possibly go wrong?”

And it couldn’t be, Tiercel told himself, as they headed off
down the Old War Road, that “nobody” took this road to Sentarshadeen, as the Fauns had said. Not only was the road itself bare and level—which meant that somebody was keeping it in repair—but it was clear of felltimber. Obviously the road was in use. It just wasn’t as heavily traveled as the Delfier Highway. And that suited the two of them just fine.

“THE map says we’ll find a side-trace that should lead us over to the inn we want to stop at tonight,” Harrier said.

“That’s good,” Tiercel said obligingly. He was looking forward to a hot bath and a soft bed—and somebody else to take care of the mules.

It was quiet and peaceful along the Old War Road. If it
was
traveled, there wasn’t anyone else in view just at the moment. The only sounds were the birds in the trees and the wind rustling the forest canopy. If he pretended—not very hard—Tiercel could imagine that he was a thousand leagues from anywhere. Not going to Sentarshadeen because he was in real and mysterious trouble, but an ancient hero out of the wondertales with no problems of his own, going off to solve the problems of other people. It was a comfortable fantasy.

They’d ridden for about four chimes—long enough to be well along the trail; not far enough for Harrier to start hinting that this would be a good time to stop and dig further into their supplies for another little snack—when three men stepped out onto the trail ahead of them and stopped. Automatically, Tiercel and Harrier stopped, too.

Tiercel vaguely remembered seeing the men ahead of them on the Delfier Highway, and thinking that they must make the trip often because all three of them had heavy walking boots and
equally-heavy walking sticks. The three looked very much alike, and Tiercel had automatically assumed they were a family.

“Can we help you?” Tiercel asked.

“You’ll be wanting to get down off those mules, now, boys,” the eldest—probably the father of the other two—said.

“I, um, what?” Tiercel said.

“No,” Harrier said comprehensively.

The man smiled an ugly smile. “Oh, ‘no’ is it, young master? And I say, we’re three to your two, and my sons are men grown, and you’re a long way from Armethalieh. And if you don’t want to add a good thrashing to the rest of your misery, you’ll get down now.”

Harrier opened his mouth again. Tiercel held up his hand. “But the mules aren’t ours. We really can’t give them to you. It wouldn’t be right. If you’ll just tell us what you really need, we can certainly help you, though. We have some food we can give you, and I think we have some blankets and some clothing. And if it’s money—”

“Spoiled brat! I’m not bargaining with you!” the man growled. He raised his staff threateningly and lunged forward.

HARRIER reached out to grab the headstall of Tiercel’s mule, hoping he could turn both beasts and make their escape before the brute reached them. But he’d forgotten about the pack mule behind them, blocking their retreat. It simply wasn’t going to happen. They were trapped.

Just then, a flurry of small stones came whizzing out of the forest, striking the three men—hard—with unerring aim. They yelped with pain and shock, recoiling from the rain of missiles, but they couldn’t defend themselves from an attacker they couldn’t see. One of the flying stones had struck the oldest of the three men on the temple, and he was bleeding freely.

“There’s more where that came from!” Harrier shouted furiously, but he was shouting to an empty path. Almost as soon as the stones had begun to fly, the three men had turned tail and run, directly up the trail. The hail of stones followed them until they were out of range, then suddenly the forest was quiet again.

“What do we do now?” Tiercel asked nervously.

“
I
don’t know! Light and Darkness, Tyr,
you
were the one who wanted to
talk
to them! Offering them half our things! And money, too!” Harrier said in exasperation.

“Well if they were so badly-off that they had to steal, all I thought was—”

Harrier was prevented from attempting to throttle his friend by the arrival of yet another person at the edge of the path. She was obviously the source of the recent hail of stones, as she still held a sling in her hand. As she stepped further out onto the path, Harrier saw that she was a Centaur.

“Not that it isn’t interesting listening to the two of you yell at each other, but I think we ought to move along before they pluck up their courage and come back. My name’s Simera, by the way. Who are you?”

Harrier grinned at her. “I’m Harrier Gillain. My idiot friend is Tiercel Rolfort.”

“I’m pleased to meet you. I’m a Student Forester—and you’re lucky I am, by the way, or I might not have been armed.”

“We’re glad that you were,” Harrier said politely, since Tiercel was still just staring. Now that she’d mentioned being a Student Forester, he could see that her outfit—a forest-green leather tunic and vest, and matching panniers slung over her withers—were a plainer version of the distinctive uniform worn by the Forest Watch. Her flaxen hair and tail—Simera had the chestnut coloring common to many of the Centaurs who lived near Armethalieh—were both bound firmly in webs of matching dark-green leather to keep them from getting
tangled in the tree branches and the undergrowth through which she might need to pass. In addition to her sling, she carried the short Centaur bow, and a belt-knife that was larger and heavier than Harrier’s.

“Come on, then,” she said.

THOUGH they proceeded cautiously—and Simera kept a sling-stone nocked and ready for use—they saw nothing further of the three men who had troubled Tiercel and Harrier. As they traveled, the boys learned that Simera had seen the brigands earlier, but had doubted her ability to pass them safely. She’d also been more than a little worried about the safety of any travelers the thieves might encounter, so, rather than simply going through the forest to avoid them—something she could easily have done—she’d waited at the side of the road, hoping to give them a good scare and to find companions whose numbers would allow her to travel along the road without trouble.

“They’re bullies, you see, and will only attack if they’re sure of an easy victory. Frightening them off this way should make them think twice about attacking anyone else,” she said.

“I still wonder why they were attacking us,” Tiercel said musingly. “We aren’t even a day from Armethalieh. There’s work there. And almshouses, too.”

Harrier sighed. Sometimes Tiercel could be unworldly to the point of insanity. “Tyr, some people just don’t want to work.”

Tiercel darted him a disgusted glance. “Maybe. But it seems to me that attacking people in the forest is a lot harder work than, well,
working
. And more dangerous, too, considering that you can be hanged for it. Wouldn’t you do something honest if you had the choice?”

“Tyr, some people just don’t—” Harrier began again.

“Maybe so,” Simera said. “But they don’t want to be hanged, either. And these roads are
very
well patrolled; the Watch comes along here at least twice a sennight, and you can almost always find someone at the larger inns. If they hadn’t killed you, you’d have reported them. If they
had
killed you, someone would have found your bodies within a day or two at most. And the Watch wouldn’t stop until it brought them in. This has to be the first time they’ve tried this, because I haven’t heard a single report of outlaws. We should stop at the next inn, so I can leave a warning for the Watch there. And I’d better go on to Sentarshadeen and report this in person to the Guildhouse, too, because I saw them myself.”