Keep on the Borderlands Read online

  “Hah.” But the bandit got stiffly to his knees and leaned over to speak quietly against his fellow’s ear. The second man simply clutched his leg and watched blood seep between his fingers. His eyes were half-closed, and his face deadly pale. After a moment, the first man got himself upright, with the help of his shattered bow, and glanced at Jerdren.

  “I’ll tell ’em. They won’t listen, but I’ll tell ’em.”

  “Do that,” Jerdren said evenly and stood to watch as the bandit limped up the road and into the dry creek bed. He vanished into the shadows of the burned forest some distance north.

  Jerdren walked to the head of the wagons, turned to look back along them, then bent his gaze to the blood-smirched road to find any arrows that were still whole and true. He pocketed three arrowheads that could be remounted on new shafts and shoved a nasty-looking, well-balanced, broad-bladed dagger into his belt. Something like that would do a lot of damage, no matter where you stuck it in a man.

  Most of the dead and dying robbers were well away from the road. One wounded hill pony lay thrashing feebly in the ditch south of the road. “Save poor Blor the pain of this,” Jerdren muttered as he found the big neck vein and drove his dagger in deep. The animal fell back and lay still. His brother hated seeing a horse suffer but hated having to dispatch one even more.

  “And how we’re to get you moved,” the older man told the dead beast, “I don’t know.” A dead horse wasn’t as nasty a mess as ten or more dead men, but he’d rather not leave any bodies behind.

  He climbed back onto the road. The hired men were making a pile of swords, daggers, spears, and the like behind the last wagons, and one of the hide merchant’s apprentices was helping stow the cache. Jerdren wiped his short sword and sheathed it, then checked his bay gelding over carefully before mounting. Blorys rode up to join him.

  “Ready, Blor?” he asked.

  Blorys shrugged. “Almost. Lhodis and his woman will probably have bad dreams for a while, but they didn’t actually see anything, and they weren’t hurt.”

  “They’ll be fine,” Jerdren said shortly and gave the sign for the wagons to start. “I warned that man about bringing his woman.”

  “He’s no worse than most of the merchants, Jers,” Blorys reminded him. His gaze stayed on the north side of the road, searching as they rode. “One reason they hire men like us for journeys into the wilderness. Like this one, remember?”

  “Yeah. I know.” Brief silence. “There’s blood on the road, but there’s not a thing we can do about that.”

  Blorys grinned briefly. “Pray for rain.”

  “Hah. By tomorrow, it’ll be buried under dust anyway.”

  “That pony—”

  “Be realistic, Blor. The dead men and horses will all be gone before we reach the branch in the road at the foot of the Keep. Captain of a band that ill-manned won’t last long as captain if he doesn’t bury his dead, and they’ll want the horses for the meat.”

  His brother merely nodded.

  Perhaps another hour of steady riding, with no sign of pursuit or another ambush, and the lead men relaxed a little, slowing the pace to give the horses some rest.

  “You owe me a pair of silver pence, Brother,” Jerdren finally said. “Remember? You bet me we’d never see a fight the whole way to the Keep, with all the men we hired.”

  “Hah,” the younger man replied sourly. “You owe me a silver. For throwing yourself into the thick of things back there and trying to get yourself killed.”

  Jerdren eyed him sidelong.

  “I keep telling you, Jers, I like being a younger brother. I’ve gotten used to it, nearly thirty years’ worth, and I don’t mind if you leave me behind when we’re tottering, white-bearded old men, but—”

  “What? You think I was in any danger from those footsore… those hacks?”

  “They had the advantage of numbers and a sneak attack, Jers. Some of them were pretty good—how do you think I got cut?” The cut on his face still seeped a little blood, but it wasn’t deep or very long.

  Jerdren grinned. “All right, a few of ’em. For the most part, they were underfed, scrawny brutes, probably not much good at hitting a standing target and lousy at moving ones.”

  “So what? Men like that hunt in packs, Jers! To make up for the lack of skill! If there had been another twenty waiting out there—”

  “Well, there weren’t,” Jerdren broke in. He glanced sidelong at his brother and grinned. “Besides, you were close enough, guarding my back, right?”

  It was an old joke, but Blorys wasn’t smiling.

  “You know not to count on that, Jers. I had my hands full—we all did.” He touched the drying cut, winced.

  “I’ll clean that when we get in,” Jerdren said.

  “I can manage.” A tight little silence.

  Jerdren turned away from him to look out across the southlands, beyond the frost-killed meadow to the thick forest, the steep hills and the purplish hint of mountains beyond. Same unchanging thing day in, day out. Year in and year out. He sighed faintly.

  “I’ll be glad to see the last of this one,” he murmured to himself.

  Blorys heard him of course. The man’s hearing was extremely keen. “Glad? Why, brother? It’s a long ride, but we have decent horses, and this time at least the clients are friendly folk—unlike some we’ve guarded. It’s good pay, and Lhodis didn’t even argue the additional coin for the extra wagon and for the hired men. And he suggested the hazard fee, which we just earned, I think….” His voice trailed away. “You’re bored again, aren’t you, Jers? Like back home in Sedge when we were growing up, and later in the army.” He waited. His brother shifted his gaze from the south hills to the road and said nothing. “Jers, I thought we’d worked it out. There’s enough variety in hiring out, we take different routes—I thought this time you’d last at something.”

  Jerdren opened his mouth and closed it again. Finally he shrugged. “Maybe I’m not done with it yet, Blor. After all, you still enjoy this.”

  “Yes, but we also promised each other that one wouldn’t tie the other down. Doesn’t matter if I enjoy hiring out if you’re bored with it.”

  Jerdren sighed faintly and shook his head. “We’ll talk about it once we reach the Keep.”

  “We’ll do that,” Blor replied mildly. He glanced around. “We should take a proper break here. Eat a little, finish off the water bottles. The land’s a lot more open than at the branch-off to the Keep.”

  Jerdren chuckled.

  “What?” Blorys asked.

  “You don’t really think someone would be fool enough to attack us at the base of that road? After the damage we just did back there? Besides, the castellan may not send armed parties out into the wilds any more, but his men can see most of that branch road from the walls. Not likely he’d let anyone get away with jumping their trade right at the front door!”

  “Maybe,” Blorys said evenly, “but it’s gone from bad to worse out here, just in the three years we’ve guided caravans, and he keeps pulling back closer and closer to the walls every year. He hasn’t much choice.” He grinned crookedly, patted his brother awkwardly on the shoulder. “Sorry. You know all that, same as I do.”

  “Never mind,” Jerdren replied easily.

  They took a proper meal break in the open, then halted again briefly where the Keep road branched. Here the woods pressed closer and jumbled piles of boulders and slabbed rock were everywhere. The hired men kept watch up and down the road so Lhodis, his cutter, and two of his apprentices could mount the horses that had been tied to the rear wagon. The remaining merchant folk redistributed themselves in the three wagons, to make the hard climb as easy as possible for the teams. Blorys dismounted to help adjust stirrups and girths. Jerdren sat his bay gelding and kept a careful eye on the east woods and the road threading its narrow, rutted way through the trees. Eventually it vanished into tree shadow where the woods came down to meet it.

  Jerdren glanced up as the sun went behind a cloud
, and a light, chill wind blew between his coif and the back of his neck. The air felt damp, all at once. Rain or perhaps even snow by nightfall, he thought. Snow was something he’d only appreciate from inside the Keep’s tavern, with a good mug of ale in his hands and a belly full of the taverner’s best stew warming him.

  Blorys had finished with the horses and stopped to talk briefly with the gray-beard who was running the a careful check on the last of the wagon-brakes. He called the hired men in and went over to join his brother, who was still gazing down the east track.

  “Wonder what’s out there, these days.” Jerdren said.

  “Nothing a clever man would want,” Blorys replied.

  The older brother roused himself. “What?” he challenged. “You don’t believe in the fabled riches of the east? All the tales we heard back in barracks?”

  Blorys grinned. “Parnisun’s Castle made of gold and gems? No. And you don’t either. Any road as rutted and narrow as that doesn’t lead to a palace, unless it’s one like the Ogre King’s house of bones.”

  “Be something to see, anyway,” Jerdren said thoughtfully. “No ogres,” Blorys said firmly. “No east road. Let’s go. It feels like it’s about to snow out here.”

  Late afternoon sun glimmered pale through thin, high clouds, and a chill breeze gusted fitfully. At the base of the Keep road, four horses stood close together with their heads down and tails to the wind. One rider sat his mount in the middle of the east road, keeping watch all around them. Two men—a graying man clad in a priest’s robes and a black-haired youth in novice yellow—stayed in comparative shelter with the horses, a little apart from the others. The novice spoke now and again. The priest occasionally nodded his head or signed for silence. The elder man was composed, his face serene. The youth tugged at his garments or shoved hair from his face, his fingers never still. He started as a strong gust moaned through the rocks.

  A short distance away, the remaining two members of the small company drank from their water bottles and shared a wafer of crisp travel bread. One was a medium-sized, dark-skinned man who wore foreign-seeming armor of woven, hardened leather, reinforced in places with metal, the whole painted in dark red and black. His companion, a slender woman, topped him by half a head. She wore dark, serviceable leathers and a plain cuirass under a thick, black cloak. Both were extremely watchful, in their own ways. The man used little but his eyes, now and again easing partway around on one heel, his movements sparing and graceful. The woman paced, her head moving sharply as she gazed around, a long, pale braid whipping across her shoulders. She brushed crumbs from her cloak with impatient fingers.

  “We will go soon, I think,” the man said. His common speech was soft, slightly accented, his voice low and resonant. His cheekbones were high, his eyes golden-brown and tipped up at the corners. He looked young and vigorous from a distance, and only at close range could one make out fine lines around his eyes and a few gray hairs in the neat beard. “The horses do not require much more rest, since we did not push them hard today. Not even the packhorse of the priests, laden as it is. Even your horse—” He ducked his head politely as the woman rounded on him. “Your pardon, Eddis.”

  The woman’s mouth quirked. Her eyes were deep blue, and as she looked at him, some of the fire went from them. She was still visibly nervy.

  “All right, M’Baddah. Apology accepted, my friend. I know. You’re doing your best to get me over that stupid horse of mine. Feather! What fool would name a foul brute like that?”

  “His previous owner, who wished to find a buyer for the brute, as you call him? A buyer like his current owner, who chose for pretty and for price, rather than testing him thoroughly first, as I suggested at the time. The horse is an attractive fellow, and when he wishes, he does indeed move smoothly as a feather.”

  “Hah.”

  That was just like M’Baddah, Eddis thought. Trying to talk her out of a foul mood. It upset the clients, he reminded her. It took her attention and her energy from things that mattered—such as keeping the clients safe. Hah, she told herself. Not one client so much as scratched in my care! And as for my moods—well, my clients know what they’re getting. By now, they should know. I’ve got a reputation, after all. A corner of her mind was uncomfortably aware he was probably right, but she was too cold and stiff and—yes—nervy, to be soothed just now.

  “Sure. Until it decides to balk at something like a leaf or a rabbit, and I’m flat on my back in the middle of the road!”

  “My Eddis, please. This just now was not a leaf, was it?”

  “I—all right, it wasn’t.”

  It had raised the hair on her neck: A pale slash of road suddenly darkened and sticky with blood, and a dead pony in the ditch, just around a bend in the road, where it would startle anyone, never mind an idiot horse.

  “I, myself, was caught by surprise,” M’Baddah admitted. “So much blood, still fresh—an ugly riddle.”

  “Hardly that, M’Baddah. I’ve always thought that stretch of road looked like a good spot for an ambush.”

  “I agree. Likely the caravan that has stayed half a day ahead of us since the pass. I would say from the signs that those who laid the trap lost the battle.”

  “No broken, burned-out wagons, anyway. Whoever they are, they might have shoveled some loose dirt over the mess they left.” She shivered as a gust of wind billowed her cloak. “I thought our novice there was going to faint.” She sighed angrily. “Wretched horse. I could’ve broken my neck!”

  “It takes time to bury such a mess, my Eddis. You know that. Perhaps those folk had no choice but to flee the area at once. I think we will learn what happened at the Keep.”

  “No doubt,” the woman said dryly. “In other words, we should get moving, right?”

  M’Baddah shrugged, a wide and graceful gesture of his hands. She glanced over at the priests. The novice stood with his head bent as the elder held out a cloth-wrapped bundle and murmured a prayer over it or to it—she couldn’t tell which. Each day at this hour, he’d broken the thing out for prayers, and it took time. Just now, she was cold and cross and ready to reach the gates up there and be done with riding for the time being.

  “I’m ready. How much longer is he gonna take?” she growled.

  “He is paying us extra to make stops for his rites,” M’Baddah reminded her quietly.

  The priest lowered the bundle, checked its wrappings, and handed it to the novice to restore to the box on the packhorse’s back. The youth brought all three mounts back with him.

  “There. An hour or less, and we deliver the clients safely, and all is well. I sell Feather for you, or we trade him—”

  “Blessed right we do,” she replied shortly. “In case you forget, M’Baddah, the brute has thrown me the last two mornings in a row.”

  The foreigner smiled. His eyes glinted. “Then, I shall kill and cook him for you, as payment for his crimes. And, how does my Eddis like her roast horse—hot through only, or dark and dry?”

  Eddis turned to stare at him, her jaw slack. He raised an eyebrow and waited.

  Her lips twisted. She finally laughed, and the tension went from her body and her eyes. “All right, M’Baddah, you win! They’re ready. Let’s get these two safely inside the Keep.”

  He patted her shoulder and moved onto the road to signal the guard in.

  “Anything, M’Whan?” he asked as the rider drew close.

  “No, Father.”

  He also wore red and black painted armor and carried a shortbow at the ready. M’Baddah’s son, M’Whan, was a paler, younger copy of his father, at least physically. He had only joined them two journeys before, and to Eddis he still seemed shy or unsure whether he belonged with them. For a while, she hadn’t been sure of that either, but it was a small enough favor to grant M’Baddah. The older man had traveled with her from the first and had proven himself invaluable. M’Whan was still quiet, but he was an accurate archer, a skilled swordsman, a good hunter, and nearly as keen-eyed a tracker as his f
ather.

  The priest and his novice were waiting quietly where the Keep road branched. Eddis and M’Baddah mounted and got the company on the move once again. At her gesture, M’Whan took the lead, and she and the older guard dropped back behind the clients. The swordswoman chuckled quietly.

  “Thank you, M’Baddah.”

  He smiled and sketched a bow.

  “You know,” she added thoughtfully, “when I first hired you, I knew I was getting a good tracker and fighter—and, I hoped, an all-right cook. I didn’t realize how useful you’d be at breaking bad moods. Mine especially.”

  He raised one eyebrow—a trick Eddis found mildly annoying since she couldn’t do it. “Bad—? Oh, I see. This temper, you mean. But, you could easily learn to do a shift-mood yourself, if you chose, my Eddis. You breathe deeply, from the gut, and with each breath, the four words—”

  “No,” she said firmly. “Thank you, but I am not ready for your religion, M’Baddah—or whatever it is. Not yours, not theirs, not anyone’s.”

  They were quiet for some moments. Eddis laid a hand on his forearm. “Sorry, my friend. Everything I’ve said to you today has been rude or angry or both. I’m grateful you’ve stayed with me.”

  “It pleases me to stay with you.” M’Baddah loosened his grip on the reins as the road began to climb.

  M’Whan slowed the pace to a walk, partly for the comfort of the clients, but mostly so he could keep a sharp eye out as the rock walls closed in and the road began to twist its way up the steep cliff. A few turns on, there wasn’t much chance of an ambush because the Keep guards could see just about everything, though Eddis made sure her guards stayed alert all the way to the gates. Including herself. I haven’t gained my reputation as a good caravan guard by taking fool’s chances, she reminded herself.

  The way was narrow here, just wide enough for a cart and a rider, and there were massive boulders and rock piles everywhere. She shoved her boots deeper into the stirrups and drew back on the reins as the wretched Feather began easing to the right—and the drop-off. The road was at its steepest here, and she didn’t like it much at the best of times.