The Warlock's Last Ride Read online

"I can go talk them back into bitterness. Turn husband against wife, wife against husband, make the kids take sides, and they'll want someone to blame because their lives are going rotten. I can make them think they're worse off than ever."

  "Oh, you will, you will indeed!" The Mocker pointed a shaking finger at her. "If I didn't need every agent I have, you'd spend a week in a hotbox on bread and water to make you more aware of your duties—but since I can't spare you, you'll go off to the mountains and tell the people there that living in a forest away from the lords only means they've given up, that the lords are barring them from the really good life! Now go!"

  Raven winced; being stuck out in the boondocks, in the middle of a forest where the trees were a hundred years old and there wasn't an inch of level ground, was punishment enough. But she knew it could have been worse, much worse, and went.

  The Mocker sat down, seething, even though he knew Raven could be right. Raven! What an asinine choice for a code name! But she knew the state of the situation, he had to give her that—not that he'd let her know, of course. Gallowglass's memory and attention span were both dwindling, and there was every reason to hope he'd simply forget about the encounter—but the Mocker couldn't take the chance. He picked up the handbell on his desk and shook it. One of the older agents came hurrying in. "What is it, Boss?'

  "The Gallowglass," the Mocker snapped. "Raven just ran into him at that village in the south. Send five of your best assassins with your best tracker to find him and lay an ambush. I want him dead!"

  "Will do, Boss!" the man said, wide-eyed, then hurried out.

  The Mocker sat back in his chair and cursed Rod Gallowglass for ten minutes straight, cursed him and his ancestors, cursed him for a fool who didn't know when to quit. He should have retired while he had the chance! But that opportunity was past, and now he would pay for having aborted the Mocker's revolution thirty years before—thirty years to him, but only weeks ago for the Mocker. Nine years of work, scrubbed out in a few months! Well, it wouldn't happen again. Laser pistols would see to that, and if Gallowglass managed to spike them somehow, there were always poisoned arrows.

  The Mocker smiled, feeling charitable. If Gallowglass was so eager to join his wife, the Mocker would be all too glad to help him!

  The villagers had left a broad trail; here and there were small household objects that had fallen out of their packs on the way. Rod picked up a variety, including some wooden spoons, tallow candles, spools of thread, and an almost-empty sack. He caught up the last one and tucked the others into it, then followed the trail on foot, gathering odds and ends as he went—not many, but definitely important to the people who had lost them. Spools of colored thread were items of considerable value in a medieval culture, especially ones with needles still tucked into them; the peasants must have been in a desperate hurry not to stop to retrieve even such treasured belongings.

  Into the woods they had gone, but still with no attempt to hide their trail. Most of the loose baggage had fallen out before that, so Rod mounted and followed in the saddle, still on the watch for fallen treasures—and since his eyes were on the ground, tracking, he had no warning when something slammed into his shoulders, knocking him out of his saddle. He tumbled to the ground, then looked up to see half a dozen people jumping on him and a dozen more standing behind them with grim faces and knotted fists.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Fess screamed, rearing, but ten hands caught his bridle to pull him down. Others were pinning Rod's arms and legs, one was slamming blows into his midriff, another was sitting on his chest, punching his face. He would have been in a very bad situation if any of them had been older than fourteen or younger than seventy.

  Fess screamed again, rearing and scattering peasants, then thudding down and reaching for a woman with his teeth.

  "No!" Rod called. "Don't hurt them! They've been through enough!"

  Fess turned to start on the group holding Rod down, but a woman's shrill cry froze everyone. She was pointing at the sack by Rod's hand; it had fallen open, and the odds and ends were strewn about. "Look!" she cried. "That's my oaken candlestick, I know it is!"

  "So he robbed our houses and came after us!" an old man snarled.

  "No! I know I packed it with the others I could not bear to leave! He's brought us the things we dropped in our flight!"

  The people holding Rod looked down at him, suddenly uncertain.

  "True enough," he said. "I thought you might want them back."

  "He's not come to hurt us!" the woman insisted. "He came to bring back our belongings!"

  Suddenly the hands holding him down were helping him up. Rod felt an impulse toward honesty. "Actually, I was coming to tell you that you can go back to your homes now. The wicked woman who set you against one another has left."

  "Left?" an older woman said incredulously. "But we could do nothing against her, even those of us who could see how her lies were turning husband against wife and child against mother. That Raven-woman only invented new slanders about us and accused her accusers of horrible deeds!"

  "So pretty soon, nobody was willing to stand up to her? But you had to know what she was doing, or you wouldn't all have fled!"

  Silence fell; neighbors looked uneasily at one another. "It was not her lies that chased us, squire," one of the old men said. "It was the word that ran through the town, that the queen had sent soldiers to the south and they would ride through our village—and everybody knows what soldiers do."

  "But you never dreamed it was Raven who started the rumors." Rod looked about him, frowning. "Where are your able-bodied men?"

  "Some of us are able-bodied yet," a graybeard growled, and the other grandfathers chorused agreement.

  "That you may be, but you're not of an age to join the queen's army," Rod explained. "Did your sons hide in the deep woods to be sure the soldiers wouldn't try to put them in livery?"

  The silence became distinctly uneasy. Villagers glanced at one another; none met Rod's gaze.

  "Worse than that?" Rod frowned. "Wherever they've gone, they've been chased by lies! Tell me!"

  "She told us how badly our knight was treating us, that Raven," one of the women said, "and railed at our menfolk that they couldn't be worth their salt if they let Sir Aethelred bully them about and live in his big house while we had only cottages."

  "Before that, none ever thought it bullying for Sir Aethelred to tell us what to plant in which field," an old man said sourly.

  "But when Raven said it again and again and again, some of them must have believed her," a white-haired woman said.

  "It was her telling them they had to prove their worth to their wives and sweethearts by marching on Sir Aethelred," another woman said, "and they wouldn't believe us when we denied it."

  "They began to talk of it among themselves," the older woman said, "and when they were sure we were well-settled in the woods here, they went off to brace Sir Aethelred and demand that he share our burdens and we share his wealth!"

  "Even though they knew Raven lied about everything else." Rod shook his head. "Thanks for letting me know, good people." He mounted again.

  "And thank you for bringing back our bits and pieces, squire," an old man said, "but where do you mean to go now?"

  "To finish what I began," Rod said. "I'm going to find your men and tell them Raven's gone and they can go home!"

  In spite of the chorus of protests, he rode off into the trees.

  Diru stumbled; his mattock nearly fell off his shoulder. The boy behind him laughed. "Wake up, Diru! Are you still dreaming?"

  Diru shuddered at the reminder. He had slept very little the night before, for whenever he had, he had dreamed of the horrors the minstrel had described—a giant cat with tufted ears and very long, sharp teeth; a shapeless, quivering mound of white jelly that absorbed anything it touched; a giant beaver with teeth like cleavers and maddened burning eyes; and many others, all wheedling, all telling him that no one liked him, but they would be his friends if only
they could come to visit. He might have believed them if the minstrel hadn't told the villagers in song what had happened to the ones who had invited the monsters in when last they had been importuning people for an invitation. Every time he had fallen asleep, those dreams had come, until he paced the floor to stay awake, starting at every creak of the old hut and shuddering at the thought of what prowled outside in the night.

  "That minstrel gave us a good time, at least," one young man said.

  "Yes," said an older, "once he was done trying to scare us with his tales of the Mist Monsters."

  Another father nodded sagely. "I've dreamed of such horrors myself, telling me that they're really good neighbors and cajoling me to invite them in."

  "Fat chance, after that minstrel's warning."

  "It's boring," a young woman complained, "always the same warnings over and over. 'Don't invite the monsters in, don't invite the monsters in!' "

  "And don't believe they're nice and friendly, even though they look so horrid," another young woman agreed.

  An older woman frowned. "It's good advice, younglings! If they do come back, we'll be their meat!"

  "Oh, everyone knows that, Auntie," the first girl said impatiently.

  "Yes." Diru shuddered again. "Nobody would be foolish enough to invite horrors like that, in their dreams or awake."

  "Oh, so you know everything, do you, Diru?" the first young woman snapped.

  "Aye, tell us something we don't know, Diru!" the second young man jibed.

  "Sure, Diru knows all about monsters." The first young man grinned. "Takes one to know one, after all."

  Diru's face burned.

  "Oh look, he's gone all red again," the first young woman said with a giggle.

  Thankfully, the huts rose just ahead. "Good night," Diru mumbled, and went into his.

  His mother looked up from the pot she was stirring by the hearth. "How was the reaping today, dear?"

  "Good enough for everyone else," Diru snapped as he put down his rake.

  "Oh, dear," his mother sighed. "I do wish you could get along with the others your age."

  "I wish they'd try to get along with me! Maybe I'll be better if I can get some sleep." Diru bulled through the curtain that separated his pallet from the rest of the hut and threw himself down, hoping he wouldn't dream.

  He didn't, for he didn't sleep. When he closed his eyes, all he could see was the taunting faces of the other young men and women. All he could feel was anger and shame—and hatred for his tormentors. It was almost enough to make a fellow wish the monsters would come back and gobble them all up!

  The next day, Rod came to the top of a ridge, as the sun was nearing the horizon, and looked down to see a channel between the forest trees that marked a stream. Rivers made for easier travel in forest lands, so he wasn't terribly surprised to see men walking there, or at least the tops of their heads. What did surprise him was their number. This wasn't just the hundred men from one village—it was a thousand at least. Rod frowned. "How many villages did it take to send this many men?"

  "Between five and fifty, Rod."

  "Pretty broad range." Rod dismounted. "Well, if I'm going to talk to them, I'd better not look too affluent." He pulled the flat-folded tunic and leggins out of his saddlebag; he never travelled without a disguise ready. Some of the ideas from his training as a secret agent had stayed with him.

  With Fess shadowing him deeper in the trees, Rod melted in with the mass of men who moved down the forest trail. He asked no questions, only kept his ears open. The other men paid no attention; apparently they were all used to strangers joining them as they marched along. Few of them could have known one another before they had joined this mob.

  As they went, they talked. "I don't know—seems to me the lords ain't all that bad. Our squire wasn't, leastways."

  "If you think that," growled the man next to him, "why be you here?"

  "Seemed like all the other lords were rotten, when that peddler were talkin' 'bout them," the first said. "Once we was on the march with you lot, though, he went off to peddle his wares somewhere else, and it didn't seem so good an idea any more."

  "You're fed, ain't you?" asked another man. "And the wife ain't here to scold or the squire to buckle you into the traces and set you to plowing or hoeing."

  "Well, there's that," the first man admitted. " 'Tis a holiday, like…"

  "Then take the good while it lasts, and quit whinin'," the second said.

  Rod slowed, falling back to hear similar grumbling from other peasants. He wandered through the crowd, listening for word of the villagers he'd come to find, but hearing only misgivings and doubts. Whenever several men began to share those second thoughts, though, some other man always showed up to remind them of their grievances. Rod realized that there were a hundred agents or more working this crowd, keeping them motivated and on the road.

  Road to where?

  He glanced at the angle of the afternoon sunlight through the leaves and realized their direction—north and east. They were moving toward Runnymede—and rebellion.

  The sun was setting, and Geordie was striding out toward the forest with his bow in his hand when he heard a voice call his name. Turning, he saw Old Will hurrying toward him as quickly as his bad leg would let him. As the man came up, Geordie said with a grin, "Good evening to you, Will."

  "God's e'en to you too, squire," Will wheezed. "And where might you be bound on so fair an evening?"

  Geordie's smile faded. "To hunt, Will, as you know well."

  "There's others will be hunting you, my lord." Old Will stared him straight in the eye.

  Geordie's mouth tightened. "I'm not a lord, Will!"

  "I'll use your true title when I tell you not to go into certain danger," the old man told him. "Poachers hang by the neck until dead, my lord. We'll manage somehow. The land and streams will yield us enough to get by."

  But Geordie knew there were very few fish in the rivers this year, because of the previous year's drought. "I'll not see my people starve, Will!" He turned and strode away toward the forest.

  Old Will looked after him, shaking his head and muttering. Then he turned and hobbled back to the village.

  Old Sal looked up and saw him coming. "He wouldn't listen, would he?"

  "Not a word," Old Will said.

  "He always was headstrong." Old Sal shook her head.

  "Aye. You'll have to talk to his lady," Old Will advised.

  It was the first really serious fight Geordie had ever had with his wife, and did not a hand's-breadth of good.

  Rod didn't find the men from Raven's village until night had fallen and the separate bands had settled down for supper and sleep. They were roasting a haunch of venison, and Rod wondered how much wildlife would be left in this wood after the mob had passed through.

  One of the men looked up as Rod came by. "Hope you've something for the pot, if you plan to share in it."

  "Happen I do be looking for a share." Rod swung his pack down, opened a flap, rummaged, and pulled out a dozen hardtack biscuits. "Bread to soak in the soup?"

  Another man eyed the contribution. " 'Tain't no soup."

  "I'll brew some, then." Rod pulled out his field kettle, dropped in all but one biscuit, and set it to catch the dripping from the roast. He broke the last biscuit, tossed one piece away, then dropped the other in with the rest. The villagers stared; one or two of them shuddered and tossed a morsel of his own into the night. They all knew one should always leave a token for the Little People, but had obviously been forgetting.

  "Let the biscuits catch some of the drippings," Rod said, "and I'll add enough water to soften the bread. Though if you'd sooner I go…"

  "How think you, Nicol?" the first man asked. "Send him packing?"

  "Nay, Ruben," Nicol said. "Bread'll be welcome, even hard biscuit." He turned to Rod. "What's your village, gaffer?"

  "Gaffer" was short for "grandfather;" Rod decided to take it as a title of honor. "Maxima be my town." Which was tru
e enough, though it was technically also an asteroid.

  Nicol frowned. "Never heard of no Maxima."

  "It's small," Rod said, which was also very true. "What's your town?"

  "Hardly a town," Ruben said sourly. "Maybe fifty families in Rookery."

  Rod glanced at the fifty men gathered around a dozen campfires. "You've most of the fathers and brothers here, then."

  "All over fifteen and under sixty," Ruben acknowledged. "Seemed like a good idea at the time."

  "Not no more, though?"

  "More than ever, now," Nicol growled. "Mind you, we set out to demand of Sir Aethelred that he treat us like men instead of beasts—but we met up with the men from Loudin Village, on their way to talk to their knight, so we joined with them. Then we met the men from Tilbury, and from Schoon and Dobry, and the more we talked, the more we came to see our quarrel was with the baron, not none of his knights."

  Rod wondered which of them had been the VETO agent. "So you all set out to demand better treatment from the baron. How many of you?"

  Nicol shrugged. "A thousand at a guess. But the next day, our path joined with a road, and we found ourselves marching with another band the same size, and the more we talked, the more we came to see 'twasn't the baron we had argument with, but with his master, Earl Dommen—so we turned our steps toward the castle, and the farther we went, the more bands we met."

  Rod had a vision of five thousand men marching through the greenwood. "Dommen County's a ways behind us."

  Ruben eyed him suspiciously. "Haven't you a like tale to tell?"

  "Hasn't every man here?" Rod countered.

  "Aye," another man grumbled, "and the more we've talked, the more we've come to see 'tisn't the earl who's ground us down, nor the duke neither."

  "Aye; 'tis all of them," Nicol growled. "There oughtn't to be no dukes nor earls, no, nor knights nor squires neither."

  "Nay," said Ruben, "only free men living in their villages, and no castles to overawe them."