The Jack of Souls (59 page)

As if on cue, a harsh horn rang from the depths of the canyon. Bannus’s horn. It sounded again and again, the deep note reverberating from the ridges in chorus with the thunder of the falls. The guardsmen’s faces fell. Willard sucked grimly on his ragleaf. “Time to move out. Best not be on this ledge if he returns.”

As the guardsmen hoisted the ladder and turned to go, Harric noticed they’d both been staring. Harric caught the glance of the nearest, and the man ducked his head and muttered an acknowledgement. Harric blinked in surprise. It was awe and respect he saw there. Respect—for him.

The horn sounded again from the bowels of the gorge, and then, as if in reply, a shrill horn answered from the darkness of the road beyond the rubble.

Te-woot-woot! Te-woot-woot!

Their procession stopped. Six pairs of eyes pried into the darkness of the road beyond.

“What in the Black Moon was that?” said Willard.

“The same horn of your trio,” said Brolli.

It was. Harric recognized it, and felt a jolt of panic at the thought of crossbows aimed from the darkness.

“But that is not a warring tune, yes?” He bent his owlish gaze into the darkness below and grinned.

Harric swallowed his panic. “He’s right. It’s ‘Radish, Radish.’” Relief flooded him and he laughed. “It’s a priest song.”

Willard’s mouth went slack. “Not…”

“The one about Father Muggin and the eating contest with the Old One—”

“I know the bloody song, boy, but—”

“It’s him!” Brolli pointed to a shape now scrambling on all fours up the dark side of the rubble below them. It looked like a huge garl bear at first, or possibly a yoab, but as it approached the summit of the tumbled rock, three yellow-plumed helmets rose above it upon a spear into the light from the tower fires. The helms had been impaled through the eyeholes, and now swayed in the light like a grisly totem of battle.

Bannus’s horn sounded from the deep, but before the note ended, Father Kogan belly-flopped over the summit of the rubble, planted the spear in a crack, and blew a mighty
TE-WOOT-WOOT! TE-WOOT-WOOT!
on the silver horn.

The men on the battlements cheered. Harric found himself cheering, “Radish! Radish!”

TE-WOOT-WOOT! TE-WOOT-WOOT! TE-WOOT-WOOT!

“All right, Father,” Willard growled. “I think even Bannus gets the point.”

Kogan kept up his victory song until it seemed he might collapse, and then he did, as the rubble beneath him slid and cast him down in a cascade of stones. He jarred to a halt against a slab of stone, and remained there, shaking as if panting or laughing. “Oh, Will! You couldn’t have writ a better ballad than this was.”

“I shall write it myself,” said Brolli. “‘Sir Willard and the Tooting Priest.’”

To Harric’s surprise, Willard smiled. “More apt a title than you know.” To Kogan he called, “You are most welcome here, Father. I see you met Bannus’s rearguard.”

“Sped them on their way, Will. Good West Isle lads, they were. Let me borrow their hats.”

“So I see.”

Kogan flashed a crack-toothed grin. “Best of all, Will, now it’s you that owes me one. And that’s as it should be.”

“Well, I’ll be damned. So it is.”

A clatter of chain and drawbridge erupted from the gatehouse as the bridge descended. A half-dozen guards on the battlement began a chant: “Ra-dish, Ra-dish!” A huge-bellied guard with a beard to rival Kogan’s hoisted a keg to his shoulder and tapped it into his mouth in the traditional challenge.

TE-WOOT-WOOT!
Kogan blew. “Arkendia!”

The men cheered, and the chant continued as Kogan discarded the spear and proceeded to scramble across the rubble on all fours. After a considerable number of falls and bruising slides, he reached a point near enough for the guards to throw him rope ladders that brought him over the rockfall. Dusty, and bleeding from a dozen scrapes, Kogan strode across the waiting drawbridge like a returning hero.

On the cliff ledge above him, Willard put a hand on the shoulder of the guard beside Harric. “Now that he’s in, you get that gate up and lower the port. Keep a two-man watch for the night.
Sober watch.
You understand?”

“But sir—”

Willard seized his collars and pulled him close. “You think this a ballad? Ballads don’t sing of limbless toys, do they? Of tortured boys? Do you forget what you saw tonight?”

“No, sir…”

“
Never
forget it. Bannus lives, and now he hates
you.
” He emphasized the word with a hard jab on the sternum. “You are no mere guardsman now. The great Sir Bannus has plans for you and every man in this watch.”

The guard swallowed. “Yes, sir. Two men.”

Willard pinned the man with his gaze for several heartbeats, then released him with a nod.

“We owes you our lives, sir. There aught else we can do?”

“You can. Give this priest a place to stay.”

The guardsman beamed. “It’ll be an honor.”

“It’ll be a liability. Among other things, expect to run out of drink and meat.”

“We’ll send for more. Sure to get a garrison here when word gets out.”

A cheer went up as Kogan blew another
TE-WOOT-WOOT
inside the gatehouse walls.

The procession on the ledge resumed its careful march across the cliff, but Harric took Caris’s hand to stay her, and let the others go. He leaned his back against the cliff, weary, and drew her down to sit beside him on the ledge. Though the sky lightened in the east, the Jack remained visible above—cape flowing, hand extended to pick the Knight’s pocket. Or was it to take her hand? And though dawn was nearly on them, Harric thought he saw the Unseen Moon remained perfectly aligned in its halo of darkness.

“Well, gods leave me,” he muttered. “What are the chances of that?”

“What?” Caris said, following his gaze. “Chances of what?”

Harric turned to her and smiled. “What are the chances the stars will give us a minute of peace together tonight?”

If the growing light had allowed, Harric imagined he’d have seen her blush. To her credit and his great satisfaction, however, she didn’t drop her eyes as she might have only a week before. She held his gaze and laughed.

“The stars have nothing to do with it. We’re Arkendian. If we want something, we make it happen ourselves. Right?”

Harric tilted his head to the side to study her from the corners of his eyes. “If Willard had said that, he’d have been preaching. You make it sound like a proposition.”

Mischief flashed in her eyes. Altering her voice, she made a very bad imitation of Harric: “I’m sure I have no idea what you mean.”

“Oh?” He laughed. “Remind me to show you when we’re alone.”

The Impit’s Gambit

F
ink followed as
she fled over hill and through forests to her grave. Her rapid retreat took most of the fun out of it. He’d hoped for more of a fight, but after only a few quick licks, she’d turned tail and made straight for Gallows Ferry and her burial cairn. When he finally caught her in that miserable cliff village, he found her waiting at the stones that covered her bones.

Crazy laughter tinkled from her lips, as if she’d just challenged him to a race and won.

The merry twinkle of her eyes sent a tremor of doubt through Fink.

“I see nothing good in your future, imp,” she said.

His lips peeled back in a sneer. “How long have you had the Sight, lady?”

“How long have you had it?” she mocked, as if she knew damned well he didn’t have it. She laughed again, secure in the Right of Last Kin, secure in the limits of power Harric laid upon him, secure in whatever it was she beheld in the web.

Fink bristled. Where’d she get that? Where’d she come by understanding of the Unseen most imps never had? The Sight alone was not enough to bring the depth of knowledge she displayed. Nor would it impart such moon-blasted confidence. He narrowed his eyes as if to better pick out clues in the wash of strands boiling upward from her spirit. Maybe she was a Spinner’s pet. He could find no Spinner’s mark upon her, but two of the three Spinners could be relied on to mark pets only subtly, and sometimes not at all.

That made him nervous. He didn’t dare meddle with a Spinner. Not directly.

Her eyes laughed as if she’d read his thoughts. Her lips pressed together and raised her thin eyebrows. She cocked her head as if to say, “I’ll never tell.”

He had nothing to lose. Why not prompt her? “Where’d all your frenzy and wailing go?” he croaked, as if he knew the answer and wanted her to know he knew. “That was quite an act.”

Her eyes brightened—she saw the feint coming a mile away. “I know what you want from him. I could have told him, but that would have skewed the futures. But I can tell
you
something: you won’t get what you’re after, imp. He’ll outmaneuver you, as he did me.”

“Yeah? Well, he knows all your tricks, lady. He don’t know mine.”

She laughed and watched him. “So speaks ignorance and pride.”

Fink felt a prickle of irritation. At the same time he glimpsed the slightest hint of doubt behind her mask of certainty. If he’d looked away he would have missed it. She was that good. A kind of awed respect dawned in Fink even as the leer of triumph spread across his face. “Gotcha,” he said. “Nice try, lady. But you can’t trick a trickster.”

The doubt was gone from her eyes, but now her laughter seemed forced.

His interest waned. “We’re done here, lady. Get in your grave, or—”

She’d already gone.

He stood in silence, disappointed.
What a killjoy.
No begging and gnashing of teeth. No fun. She’d dodged all that.

But what game had she been at? He pondered their exchange, searching for seams. She seemed to have wanted Fink to believe it had been part of her plan all along for Fink to apprentice her son. That she’d had no intention of reuniting with Harric. But to what end would she do that? To save face? She seemed far too clever and complex for that. What, then? To put him off his guard? Off his guard from what? The kid?

It didn’t make sense. But it didn’t matter anymore. She was back where she belonged. He lifted the fallen capstone from the ground beside the cairn, and returned it to the top. Then he shook his head to clear it, the way a dog shakes its head after swimming, and dusted his hands.

“All right, kid. Now you owe me.”

He turned toward the east, where, in the distant forest, the young Arkendian awaited his return. The kid knew nothing of the Unseen. He was a blank slate. There was almost no challenge to it. But the kid had said,
No contract. No slaves.
He glanced around for his snooping sisters, who would love to catch him in a misstep like that.

What was he playing at? Had his mother put him up to that?

Fink launched himself into the air and flapped his way eastward, thinking on the matter.

He could hear the kid out. He could put a truth geas on him to be sure no one put him up to it. And then what? Freedom?

Fink’s jaws widened, and the wind almost purred between the thicket of needle teeth. Freedom. Now
that
was power. A surge of desire thrilled through him, and though the sky already grew pale in the east, he redoubled his efforts and flew faster than he ever had.

From
TORTOISE RAMPANT

The Unseen Moon Series

Book Two

THE
KNAVE OF SOULS

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To the believers who backed The Unseen Moon trilogy, I owe an enormous debt of gratitude. When I first pushed the “launch” button on our Kickstarter campaign, I worried it might fail to reach even its minimum funding goal of Book One, but you people funded
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