Dawn of Wonder (The Wakening Book 1) (54 page)

“Who walks there?”

Aedan hopped over the low door of the nearest stable.
It was dark, but he sensed movement near him. Without waiting to discover what
it was, he darted to the partition between stables, sprang over it, and dropped
into the straw on the other side. The light grew brighter and then filled the
stable he had just left. A door creaked open, heavy steps advanced.

A sharp thud was followed by a grunt of pain and something
collapsed onto the ground.

This was proving to be a lot more activity than he
had hoped to find down here. He started planning a retreat when he heard a
girl’s voice.

“Aedan?”

It was Liru. He rose and looked across the dividing
wall to see her poised over the fallen soldier, shovel held like an axe.

“What are you doing down here?” he asked.

“I do not trust a door lock when there are drunk
soldiers around, especially soldiers like these. I hoped the captain would stop
them drinking, but he drank more than any of them, getting them to huddle round
while he told jokes that made them laugh the way vile men laugh at vile jokes.
I came here to sleep. I did not think they would set a guard. I have been
standing behind the door in case I had to defend myself. I almost crushed your
head when you jumped in. What are you doing here?”

“I don’t know if I should tell you.”

“Why not?”

“You might try to stop me.”

She looked at him without expression for a moment.
“I think I spoke from bitterness earlier,” she said. “Tell me what you have
planned and I will hear you. If I do not agree I promise not to stand in your
way.”

Aedan climbed the wall back into the first stable,
checked that the soldier was asleep, and tied him up properly. Then he moved to
a stable further away where they would not be overheard, though the heavy rain
really made the precaution unnecessary. Aedan told the whole story – from the
overheard conversation under the academy to his encounter with Malik. He then explained
what Osric had planned and how they needed to slow the progress. With
embarrassment he recalled how he’d forgotten the frogweed under his bed.

“Do you think Malik really has that much
influence, and that much hate?” Liru asked.

“Influence – I think he might have managed to get
Culver not to teach us, but I don’t think he arranged for me to be here. I was
going already. I’m not sure about you either. Maybe he was just trying to claim
those as his own victories. And I don’t think he knows about the plot either. Why
would he bother about making us fail if he knew we’d be murdered? As to hate –
he’s a lying, bullying, self-absorbed snob, and he hates deeper than most
people love. In spite of that, I don’t think he’s a murderer … but … remember
that Orunean proverb,
Carrun nos, darrim brak.

“This year a cub, next year a tiger,” Liru
translated.

“Hadley once called him a rat. I thought that was
a good description back then, but I’m beginning to think he could turn out more
dangerous.”

“To me he is still a rat, no matter how big he
gets. But there is something else I must ask you. General Osric – I know him
only by name, everyone does, even in Mardraél. Will he extend his protection to
me and my family when we get back? All the rumours of him reveal a very
frightening man.”

“Osric is just as frightening as his reputation says,”
Aedan replied with a hint of a smile. “I think he even dwarfs his reputation.
He is a fierce man but never cruel. If anything, it’s cruel people that need to
fear him. The one thing that really brings out the lion in him is injustice.
He’ll take care of you, trust me.”

Liru nodded. “I will trust you.”

Then Aedan explained what Fergal had said and Liru
immediately translated the word and guessed the meaning.

“So he doesn’t want us to look like we are
suspicious or making plans?” she said.

“I suppose so.”

“But we need to be concerned. We covered a great
distance today, a very great distance for these conditions.”

“That’s why I’m here,” said Aedan. “It’s time to
steal some horses.”

Liru nodded. “The rain will cover sounds and
tracks. Where do you plan to take them?”

“On the way here I saw a wood to the south. If we tie
them up there, they won’t be found quickly. The whole party would have to
search for them before going on. It should win us a day or two. The only
problem will be finding the way. It’s no fun getting lost on a night like
this.”

“I’ll join you.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am always sure, even when I am wrong. Mardrae
heritage. Now let’s go. Two horses each?”

The rain blanketed the sounds of hooves when they
left the stables and walked slowly down the road, feeling rather than seeing
the way. After they had gone what felt like a mile, Aedan turned up the bank
and faced south as he remembered it. He felt the wind hard on his right side.
That would help. If he kept it there, he might be able to stay on a southerly
course.

They travelled a long way through the grass. He
was growing certain that they were off target when the wind began to dip and
the whistling of branches grew ahead of them. The weather was robbed of its
fierceness by the trees, but this sheltering created a different problem, for
the gloomy hint of light was reduced to nothing. They had to walk with an arm
outstretched and ears alert, tugging the unwilling horses behind them. It made
for very slow progress. After a few hundred paces Aedan decided it was far
enough. He was starting to worry about getting back before morning. If their
rooms were found empty, there would be trouble.

The return trip was aided by a few lights that glimmered
through sheets of rain from time to time.

It was on the way back that things went wrong.
Morren was one of the least fortified towns. Aedan had not expected there to be
watchmen who patrolled at night. He and Liru were sloshing their way up the
road when the downpour thinned, exposing the buildings – and a sentry. The man’s
slouching posture went rigid; he peered under a raised hand and shouted a
challenge. Aedan grabbed Liru’s arm and ran up the road, past the inn.

“Intruders!” they heard. “Intruders!” The sentry
was keeping up, hollering like a madman.

They slipped behind an empty wagon on the side of
the road. Aedan felt around for a stone. He found one just in time, aimed up
the road, and threw. The sentry approached the wagon, but when he heard the
splash, he raced on, continuing his pursuit.

Aedan tried to draw Liru in the other direction,
but she was kneeling and apparently plucking weeds – strong smelling ones too.

“Liru!” he hissed, “What are you doing? We must go
now!”

She pocketed what she had dug up, and they ran
back to the inn, but now lights were appearing in some of the windows. They darted
around to the side, narrowly missing the yellow glare that spilled out as the front
door opened.

“We mustn’t be seen coming in,” Aedan whispered.
“Can you climb? My room is on the third floor. The one with the open window.”

Liru answered by gripping the beams and pulling
herself up. With her dark hair and dark coat she was nearly invisible, a patch
of shadow edging its way up. The drenched surfaces made for slow going, but the
beams were rough-hewn and still provided reasonable purchase. Aedan stood
below. Catching her from a third story fall would injure them both, but might
save her life, so he waited until she was in.

He sprang off the ground and clambered with lizard-like
haste – voices were growing louder. Someone with a lantern was approaching from
around the corner, betrayed by the swinging shadow of the wall and the swelling
brightness. Aedan clapped his arms over the sill and almost fell as his foot
popped off a smooth beam. He felt hands under his shoulders and it was enough
to help him, none too elegantly, through the window.

“Close it!” he gasped, hitting the floor in a
panting heap.

Liru grabbed the shutter and swung it closed as boots
splashed around the corner below them.

“You stay here,” Aedan said, “I’ll take your room.
That way if anyone tries to bother you I’ll know first, and I’ll make a noise.”

They were awoken early. Horse thieves had visited them during
the night. Senbert was livid. He ate his breakfast with a frown while giving
orders to find the missing horses quickly. Aedan and Liru were instructed to accompany
two of the soldiers and search the northern farmsteads. Aedan breathed a sigh
of relief. A scattered hunt like the one being organised would mean that the
day would be lost, even if one of the search parties found the horses early.

It had worked, and he and Liru had not been
discovered.

During the night, he had squeezed every last drop
of water from his clothes before hanging them just inside the window, then he
had gone for an early walk with Liru in the drizzle. Soldiers had seen them at
the well. Anyone noticing the dampness of their clothes would have no
suspicions. They had considered everything.

A voice interrupted his thoughts. “Where did you get
that red mud on your boots? I don’t remember seeing red mud hereabouts.”

Aedan gulped under Senbert’s inspection.

“Must have been from one of the stops yesterday.”

“It looks fresh.”

Aedan wasn’t sure what to say. Senbert narrowed
his eyes and was about to speak again when a young farmer galloped up and
hailed them.

“You men lost some horses?” he asked.

“What do you know of it?” asked the captain, transferring
his suspicious look to the farmer.

“I went to check on my snares this morning. Heard
a horse in the woods and discovered four of them tied to trees less than a half
mile in. I’ll show you the way if you can leave now.”

Within an hour, the horses were recovered and the
party was on its way again. The captain set a pace that did not accord with a
long journey. Aedan’s fears were growing into certainty.

Travelling like this, they would be leaving the
outlying hamlets by the end of the fourth day, and if that happened, he doubted
he would see the fifth. Osric would arrive in time to avenge him, but that was
no comfort. Liru had a fixed calmness about her, but it was not like her
earlier resignation. He wondered if she had some plan.

That day Aedan was sure they must have covered
more than fifty miles. By the time it grew dark, there was only a small
homestead in sight. The farmer, more likely out of fear than generosity,
offered his hay barn for lodging. Aedan and Liru were watched closely this
time. When they tried to step away from the barn to talk, Senbert called them
back. It was hopeless.

The following day they moved out early, the horses
striding as swiftly as before and eating up the miles at a frightening rate. Aedan
was beginning to realise he would not get another convenient opportunity. The
next attempt to slow the pace would have to happen soon, no matter how big the
risk.

The hamlet of Eastridge was a scattered arrangement.
Two dozen houses were spread across a broad glen, reaching all the way up a
gentle slope to the prominent ridge. One of the homes was near the road. Its
crooked walls were capped with a mossy thatch that was dark with age and rot
and hung almost to the ground. It made the house seem like a suspicious old man
drawn up under his drooping hat, protective of his solitude, hostile to
strangers. Within the building, Aedan thought, there was quite possibly just such
an old man.

The only indication of life in the whole settlement
was the gabbling from the goose house around the back and the smoke that
billowed out of a chimney a little ways ahead. The chimney, he thought with
relief, appeared to belong to a small inn.

He noticed some of the soldiers pointing in the
direction of the goose house and muttering. They would pay it a visit before leaving
here. He was not surprised. The coarse morals of these men had begun to speak
more loudly than their uniforms. They were not soldiers, at least not at heart.
They would only serve and show discipline that was personally convenient.

As he rode, this preoccupation with the soldiers
took the edge off his observations, and he did not pay enough attention to the
stillness of the hamlet – its eerie lifelessness.

The inn had once had a sign declaring it to be the
Never
Hasty
, an apt name for a place so far removed from the main thoroughfares,
but whether by mischief or chance, a good portion of the sign had been broken
off, and all that remained was the word “sty”.

The
sty
, then, was a small inn, and might
have been called neat if clean.

But it was not.

The burly innkeeper, whose scalp was thinly
decorated with dark, oily strands of hair, and whose mouth was just as thinly
decorated with dark teeth, did not appear to have bathed for most of his adult
life. A glance around the parlour suggested that he treated his inn with the
same philosophy. Spilled and dropped food lay unmolested on the floor, and
tables hid under generous coats of greasy smears.

Even the soldiers looked uncomfortable. The
captain glanced out at the darkening drizzle, and when he turned back, he was
scowling.

“Lodging and meals for one night,” he said. “Party
of eighteen.”

The innkeeper was clearly unaccustomed to
visitors. His unfriendly eyes grew white with surprise and he shook his head.
“Closed,” he said. Aedan was amused to see that his hands were shaking. These
rural folk would seldom have seen such a large detachment of soldiers.

“Your establishment is empty and we are here on
the prince’s business,” Senbert returned, “so you are now open.”

The innkeeper’s worry mounted. “No staff. No
food,” he said in clipped, almost foreign tones – clearly he was a reticent sort
– and held up his hands, but the captain was not to be turned.

“You two,” Senbert said to Aedan and Liru. “Get into
the kitchen and make sure there is something to eat tonight.”

The kitchen was everything Aedan had feared. Most
pots still contained the grimy, mouldy leftovers of whatever they had last
cooked. All had a coating of ashy remains at the bottom that required the
attentions of hammer and chisel. Aedan, after all his cooking for Osric, knew
what to do. He set about cleaning, and chopping potatoes, carrots and cabbage,
while the innkeeper, who had not bothered to give his name or ask theirs, was
out back catching chickens.

Aedan was sure they were alone, but he remembered Fergal’s
warning, so he suggested that they practice some Sulese. Liru caught his
meaning and agreed. His use of the language was halting. It translated to:

“We very trouble. Tomorrow we ride. No more people
around.”

Liru’s was only slightly better: “I do plan.
Tomorrow we rest, not ride.”

“Plan?” Aedan asked.

“Better you forgetful – no – ignorant.”

“Rest? Why – uh – boss soldier agree rest?”

“Nice place,” she said with a smile, indicating
the inn. She would tell him no more.

The chicken broth was not the best meal he had
ever prepared, but for cold, tired travellers, the smells were irresistible. In
spite of Liru’s odd taste in herbs, they eventually reached an agreement. There
were no thanks offered from the soldiers, but neither were there any
complaints.

Culver and Fergal hurried through their meals and
retired directly. Aedan wondered about the look Fergal had given him when his
bowl had been set on the table. It was as if the twinkling eyes were saying
something from within the dark forest of hair and beard, but he had no idea
what. Liru, strangely enough, was not worried tonight about the soldiers. She
retired early too.

Aedan struggled to fall asleep. Something was
going dreadfully wrong with his innards. At first he thought it might be a
fever from the day spent in the cold, but then, as his stomach rebelled and
muscles began to seize, he recognised the symptoms of poisoning. In spite of
his cleaning, something in one of those pots had managed to ruin the meal. There
would be no sleep for him.

He groaned and rolled and emptied his belly into
the chamber pot several times. By morning he was a wreck. It was light when his
door crashed open. Senbert stood wobbling in the frame, clutching his midriff,
head slick from sweat. He opened his mouth to speak, but his eyes took in the
chamber pot and Aedan’s shattered state.

“So it wasn’t you then,” he said. “Should never
have trusted the kitchen in this filthy …” A groan of pain interrupted his
words and he staggered away, leaving the door open.

Aedan remained in his bed for the rest of the day.
He heard some raised voices but they were almost watery, like they belonged to
a kind of half-suspended dream. The sun travelled across the room and warmed
him when it reached the old, smelly hay of his pallet. Slowly the poison worked
its way from his body and he felt clarity returning to his thoughts. Rest, he
told himself.

He wondered how Liru was coping. Then something
that had puzzled him came back to mind – the awful herb she had added, a herb
she said she had picked. That sour milk smell – it was the weed she had found
the previous night.

Liru had poisoned the broth!

Then he remembered Fergal’s look of recognition
and his quick retreat. He and Culver had probably gone to purge themselves as
soon as the show of eating was over. Liru too. Why had he been left to suffer?
Then he recalled Senbert at his door and understood. After that confrontation
over the muddy boots, suspicion would naturally have fallen on him.

By evening he was on his feet, but shaky. He went
down to the kitchen. There was no more cooking being done. Sorry-looking
soldiers appeared briefly in the common room but nothing was taken from the food
stores, not even wine. They nibbled on bread from their packs and retired
early. Aedan ventured down again later, but finding nobody around, puffed his
way up the stairs that shook as much as his limbs, and dug out some hard
biscuits from his saddlebags. It was a poor meal, but perhaps all his stomach
could endure. That night he slept soundly, and come the next morning, most of his
discomfort was gone. He was woken by the sergeant banging on his door and
telling him to be ready within the hour.

At the stables there was a commotion around Fergal.
Despite Culver’s annoyance and shouted injunctions – so intimidating that even
the soldiers stood back – the heavy assistant was unable to stay on top of the
horse. Apparently he
had
been poisoned and had not yet recovered from
the effects. As soon as he was hoisted up the one side he began to flow down
the other until the soldiers gave up and let him slide and drop on the ground
like a discarded bag of sand.

“Leave him,” the captain said. “He is not critical
to the quest. If he is not able to ride he should return to the city.”

“Without him,” said Culver, “I will be sorely disadvantaged.
We shall have to wait until he has recovered. In the meantime, I want you and
your soldiers to make a full inspection of this hamlet. There is something
strange afoot here.”

“We will not wait another moment!” snapped Senbert.
“I can already feel the prince breathing down my neck. His orders were direct
and made no mention of inspections. I want to get this over with as quickly as
possible.”

Aedan exchanged a look with Liru. Get it over
with?

He doubted any of the soldiers had noted that
detail, but they had certainly noted the way their captain had had spoken to
the chancellor – nobody spoke to Culver with that tone. But Senbert hardly
appeared to be himself. He was nearly frantic with whatever worries assailed
him, and did not back down. He yelled at the sergeant who bellowed at the
soldiers, and the party moved out.

It was the fifth day. Aedan had hoped to speak to Liru
or Culver, but it was as though the soldiers had been instructed to keep them
apart. The hamlet was as silent and empty as on their arrival. He looked
around, wondering at this. At the very least he would have expected to see a
few doors slamming in acknowledgement of their presence, but there was neither
sound nor movement as they left. What did Culver suspect?

By mid-afternoon they were beyond the last traces of
civilisation and were now cutting through the grassland. The light was softened
by a thin veil of cloud, but otherwise the day was clear and still. They
climbed to the top of a gentle rise and Captain Senbert took a very long time
as he surveyed the land.

Aedan watched him. Was he looking for something
more permanent than a night’s lodging? An alder-clad dale about a half mile to
the north caught the captain’s attention. He pointed and led the way down the
slope.

Aedan considered calling to Liru and making a break
from the soldiers. But the academy ponies would stand no chance against these
hardy steeds.

He felt drops start to trickle down his forehead
as they chose the campsite. Liru walked her pony beside his while they watched
the soldiers dismount. He had a wild idea, but before he could say anything to
Liru, the sergeant took his horse’s bridle firmly and waited for him to
dismount and unpack. Carrying his saddlebags and bedroll, he made for a tree
some distance from the centre of the clearing where he dropped his things and
sat. Liru sat down beside him. She stared at the ground as if she were about to
strike it.

“What are we to do?” she asked. “First the prince,
then Culver and his servant, now Osric has failed us.”

“Osric has not failed us. We are still here.”

“For how long? I see murder in these men’s eyes.”

Aedan could not disagree. He cast his gaze around,
trying to appear bored. “How fast can you run?” he asked.

She looked up. “Considering what they all ate two
nights ago, I might be able to outrun them. How about you?”

“I’m still aching,” Aedan said, not making any
effort to hide the annoyance he felt at not being warned, “but I made sure I
ate a lot on the way here. I’ll be able to get up this slope behind us faster
than any of these armoured soldiers. I think it will be too steep and crumbly for
some of them to climb at all. If we can reach the top of the hill we can drop
into the valley on the other side. It has many rocks and crevices, many places
to hide. Finding us there at night will not be easy.”

“Very well. Should we run from here or try to walk
first and hope they don’t notice?”

Aedan looked around again. “The captain is
missing. Now is a good time. We’ll get up and walk slowly until we are called
back, then we run.” He stopped talking as a young soldier with pocked skin and
a mean eye approached from the side and tossed down an armload of firewood.

“Seems that you are sitting in my place,” he said
and dropped heavily beside Aedan, filling the air with a reek of old sweat.
“And it looks like you have some of my stuff too.” He drew Aedan’s little knife
and held it up. “Yes, I remember this knife. I’m going to make you apologise
for taking it.”

Other footsteps drew closer and Aedan recognised
the loose-lipped soldier who had spoken to him on the first day – Rork, the men
called him. He was a large, powerful man, and apparently a notable swordsman.
He sat so near to Liru that he was leaning against her. She tried to move but
he gripped her neck and held her in place.

“They took our spot,” said the first soldier. “And
this thieving boy took my knife, see?” Hold him while I search for more of my
things. Rork leaned over and gripped Aedan’s neck while the first pushed
struggling arms aside and dug through one pocket after another. The search
revealed a few pebbles, some coins which were immediately recognised as stolen,
and nothing else but the one thing that was nearly everything to Aedan.

“What’s this?” the soldier said, holding up the
little leather case with the emblem of a sapling and a toadstool. “This has
paper in it. Ah yes, I remember, I use it for starting fires. We can use a page
now.”