Progeny (The Children of the White Lions) (41 page)

Nikalys said, “Sounds like a decent enough plan.” He carefully sheathed the sword, having to try several times to get the point of the blade into the scabbard, and fit the belt around his waist.

Broedi cautioned him, “Do not wear that while we are on the road, uori
.
A blade and scabbard as fine as those will surely draw unwanted attention.”

“I know. I was just trying it on.”

Kenders was not sure if Nikalys had known or whether he was just saying he did.

“I suggest we all get some rest,” said Broedi. “We have a few weeks of travel ahead of us.”

Suddenly hungry, Kenders asked, “May we eat first?”

Broedi smiled. “Of course.”

She, Nikalys, and Jak retrieved their untouched birds and began to move back to the fire. As they moved away, Broedi sat on the log again. Returning to the hillman, she asked, “Are you going to get some sleep as well?”

“I will stay up a bit longer, uora. I am not tired.”

He was lying. Kenders could see the weariness in his eyes and the bags under them.

“Broedi…”

He nodded to where Nikalys and Jak sat across the clearing. “Sit, eat, and then sleep. Do not worry about me. I will be fine.”

She nodded, said her good nights, and moved to her brothers. They talked while they ate, trying to make sense of everything.

Long after they had finished eating and had laid down to rest, Broedi continued to sit on the log, staring northward. He was still there when Kenders fell asleep.

19
^th
of the Turn of Sutri

“Please don’t get sick on the skins, little one.”

Nundle glanced up as Pelter strode past, pushing the long wooden pole along the side of the raft, urging it along the shallow, slow-moving river. Summoning a weak smile, Nundle said, “I’ll do my best.” The stack of reedcord-bound lion pelts upon which he sat reeked, the smell catching in the back of his throat with each breath.

Pelter offered a kind smile and continued along the rickety raft. Nundle watched the longleg while praying he could keep his word. His stomach was not feeling particularly good.

When Nundle had accepted the riverman’s offer for passage, he had pictured the craft he would be taking down the river to be a smaller version of the ships he had taken to or around the Arcane Republic. Instead, Pelter’s ‘ship’ was a square of tarred logs strapped together with frayed rope.

Besides Pelter, three other longlegs manned the raft, each equipped with long wooden poles that they used to push themselves from small sandy islands or rounded rocks that frequented the river. They all wore breeches cut off at the knee and thin, sleeveless shirts, attire to help them keep cool as they labored in the warm day. Just watching them from atop his perch of lion pelts made Nundle tired.

They had been underway since dawn, and Nundle had hoped he would have grown numb to the smelly animal skins, but it had yet to happen. He tried breathing through his mouth to avoid the odor, but that only resulted in him tasting the stench.

Despite the stink and rickety watercraft, Nundle was glad to be on the move again. When he had walked into Silver Falls, intent on finding directions to Smithshill, he hardly expected he would be there three days.

Resting on the banks of the Sterling River, Silver Falls was either a large town or a small city; Nundle could not decide which. The buildings had been strange to his eye, wooden log walls held together with mortar of river mud, and topped with thatched, grass roofs. A few stone structures stood taller than the single-story or two-story wooden buildings, but they were rare.

The people of Silver Falls had been nice enough, if a bit too nosy for Nundle’s taste, and the streets safe to walk alone. The souls he met took him to be a child until he insisted he was well over seventy years old at which point he quickly became a novelty of sorts, with people coming from around the city to see the “bizarre, red-haired, wee person.”

Nundle had hoped to make his way unobtrusively through the duchies, but if his mere existence were going to cause such a fuss among longlegs, he would need to work on some type of story about why he was here.

He asked the locals exactly how he might make his way to Smithshill. Everyone agreed the shortest route was to head north over the Dunnerstone Bridge, along the Plainsmen Road to Huntersfield, and then turn due west and head over the savannah flatlands. After a few days, he should run into Lake Hawthorne, and he would be able to find Smithshill to the south, at the mouth of the Great White River.

Unfortunately, it seemed that the trip overland was quite treacherous. Ferocious, wildmane lions dominated the eastern savannah, while spirits of ancient battles waged by empires long forgotten supposedly haunted great swaths of the western grasslands. Nundle had little desire to be eaten by lions, or to meet the ghosts of obsolete kingdoms, so he asked if there was a safer, decidedly less lethal way to get to Smithshill.

Pelter, an enterprising young trader, offered to take Nundle with him on his next run down the Sterling River. The riverman was due to take a shipment of wildmane pelts to a ferry landing on the Great White River, where they would be transferred to carts and taken up to Lakeborough. The journey would only take two and a half days. Nundle leapt at the offer, but was forced to wait three days for the trappers to show with the pelts, three long, sleepless days and nights with Nundle worrying every moment that a Constable was about to knock on his inn room door.

The trappers arrived last night, allowing Pelter and his crew to cast off at sunrise today.

An hour into the trip, Nundle had asked Pelter if he was the captain of the vessel. The question prompted outbursts of laughter and endless, good-natured teasing from the other three amiable longlegs. Each time the laughter died down, one of the longlegs would salute Pelter and say, “Aye, Captain Pelter, sir!” and another round of teasing and chortling would begin. Pelter took the jesting in stride.

For most of the day, the Sterling River was still except for little ripples where rocks broke the glassy surface, disturbing the gentle current. Tall trees stood on shore, their graceful branches hanging far over the river, shading the shoreline, but leaving the middle open to the mercy of the scorching sun. Yellow birds with dark blue heads darted from tree to tree while hefty white birds with brown beaks and tails swam in the water eyeing the raft as it floated by. Were it not for the letter he carried and the stench of rotting lion pelts, Nundle might have enjoyed the trip.

He passed the day by asking the longlegs all sorts of questions about the area. He needed information as he had arrived in a country knowing only what he had read in a history book written well over a hundred years ago.

The rivermen answered his inquiries with smiles and questions of their own, curious how he had come to be in their land and where he was headed.

He lied, saying that he was an explorer from the Five Boroughs who had set off looking for adventure years ago, taking a ship west around the great dirgmour nation, through the Straights of Halde, on his way to the remnants of L’antico Impero. After a year there, he had traveled west again, landing on the shores of the duchies. Most of the details he used in his tale came from a journal he had once read of a true explorer who had followed a similar path.

Pelter and the other longlegs seemed to enjoy his tale. Nundle suspected that they did not believe everything he told them, but they certainly accepted far more of it as truth than was.

When they asked where he was headed next, he lied and said he was heading to the Borderlands as he had always wanted to catch a glimpse of an oligurt or mongrel. Almost as soon as he said it, he wondered why he had. He would be terrified to be within a mile of such monsters.

At the mention of the Borderlands, the rivermen shared some uneasy glances. His interest piqued by their odd reaction, he began asking questions about the westernmost duchy. It seemed the last time the rivermen had made a trip to Lakeborough, they heard stories that roving bands of oligurts, mongrels, and razorfiends were making their way deep into the Borderlands.

Their story puzzled Nundle. He knew from his studies that the races of Sudash were typically tribal groups that warred amongst themselves. Rarely did they organize together in large enough groups to pose much of a threat to neighboring countries.

Nundle pried them for more information but quickly realized they had told them everything they themselves knew. Such was the way of rumors. Heavy on hearsay and gossip, light on details and corroboration.

The night and the following day were uneventful, with the most excitement being the constant slapping of some small biting insect the longlegs on the raft called bodflies. Nundle cursed the winged pests. By the following morning, he was covered from head to toe with little, red, itchy bumps. Pelter and the longlegs found his unending scratching very humorous. He did not.

Near the end of the second day of their trip, the Sterling River dumped the raft into the Great White River, where it picked up speed with the faster current of the larger river. The rivermen had to be much more diligent as the number of rocks increased and the water churned. Nundle held on for dear life.

Just before midday on the third day of their journey, Nundle spotted a small settlement along the western shore. He watched with admiration as the four longlegs expertly guided the raft to the docks and tied it off. Nundle offered to help Pelter and the others unload the lion pelts, but much like when he had offered to help with the poling earlier in the trip, they refused. Either they were being polite or they were afraid he would drop some of the pelts into the river. Regardless, Nundle moved onto the sandy shore, waiting while Pelter and his men moved the pelts from the raft, up the dock, and onto a wagon harnessed to two horses. Pelter had rented the cart and horses from a man he called a ‘wheelhawker.’ Nundle was unsure if it was the title of a profession or an insult. With the way Pelter grumbled about the price he was forced to pay, perhaps it was both.

Once the wagon was loaded, Pelter climbed aboard the driver’s seat and offered Nundle the seat beside him. The other three longlegs climbed on the back of the wagon and sat with the smelly pelts. Within minutes of leaving the ferry landing on the river, Nundle heard snoring, looked back, and saw the three longlegs were asleep. How they could sleep on the reeking skins with all the jostling and jerking was beyond Nundle.

They had been traveling for some time when, as the wagon rounded a bend, Nundle spotted a very large oak tree lying before them, stretching across the road.

“Hells,” muttered Pelter as he pulled the horses’ reins, stopping the cart. “The landing master is supposed to make sure this road is cleared.” He tossed the reins on the driver’s seat in disgust and sat back, glaring at the fallen tree.

“What do we do?” asked Nundle.

“I don’t suppose you have an axe with you?” mumbled Pelter. “That tree is too large for the four of us to move.”

“I’ll help if you’d like,” piped up Nundle.

Pelter looked over at him and smiled.

“I don’t doubt you would, little friend, but I’m afraid it would take at least ten men…to move…” Pelter trailed off, his gaze shifting away from the tomble and into the thicket alongside the road. Any bit of friendliness drained from his eyes. Nundle turned around.

A number of longlegs stepped from the undergrowth, each with an unkempt beard on their dirt-streaked face. Their clothes were ripped and might have had a color to them at one point, but were now just various shades of grimy brown. Most carried some type of crude weapon: a tree branch, a wooden club, or some other makeshift object. One longleg carried a shovel, another, an axe.

An unarmed longleg stepped to the front of the wagon and stood in the middle of the road, flanked by two larger longlegs carrying thick clubs. With surprising politeness, the man said, “Good days ahead, travelers! Greetings to you on this fine afternoon!”

Pelter eyed the man and said nothing.

Nundle looked around and counted eight longlegs in total surrounding the wagon. Pelter’s crew was awake, sitting up and staring about the wagon cart.

The tone of the longleg standing in the road turned a mite sharper as he called out a second time.

“How rude of you. I said, ‘Good days ahead, travelers!’”

Sitting very still, Pelter responded, his voice remarkably calm.

“End the show. What will it cost for you to let us by?”

The longleg’s eyebrows lifted a fraction. “Cost? Why would it cost you anything to move along the duchess’ road? I have no claim on it.” He turned around and looked at the tree in the middle of the road. “But you do seem to have a problem as there’s a very large tree in your way. Unfortunate for you.”

The longleg faced the cart and, for the first time, seemed to spot Nundle.

“Oh ho! That’s no boy. Bless the gods, what is a tomble doing with a bunch of river rats?”

Nundle figured it was best not to answer the question.

The longleg eyed Nundle a moment longer before shrugging and returning his gaze to Pelter.

“Ketus is with you today, river rat.”

“How do you figure?” asked Pelter.

Smiling wide, the longleg said, “Because he sent my friends and I to guard your wagon while you, your men, and your little friend walk on to Lakeborough, find some axes, and come back and chop this thing up. Then you can be on your wondrous way.”

Pelter snorted, “Hah! We’ll be lucky if there’s a wheel spoke left when we get back. I’d be out my shipment and I’d owe the wheelhawker for the wagon and the horses.”

The longleg shrugged his shoulders.

“I can’t help it if bandits come along while you’re gone, now can I? It’s not as if we could stop them as we’re only armed with sticks and clubs.” His eyes narrowed a fraction. “Which I’ve noticed is more than what you have. Truly, you should not travel unarmed in the forest. It’s dangerous. Brigands are about.” A few of the men surrounding the wagon chuckled.

Nundle peered around him again, eyeing the dirty longlegs surrounding the wagon. Pelter and his crew did not deserve this. They were good, honest souls who had treated him with respect and friendship, some of the first longlegs to do so in a long time. What was happening here was not right.