---Chapter 5

Why do people argue, even when they like each other? Well, because otherwise they would not interact half so much --

Anton Minestrone, chronicler of Shard

Tayra’s footsteps were fairly clear near the wagon, where it was parked in a dusty clearing beside the grass-filled tracks of an old path. But they soon disappeared into the woods. The spongy mass of dead needles laying under the trees made them unreadable. One who had been a Dardec backwoodsman for all his life might have been able to pick it up again, but neither Shyven nor I could.

Where he chose to stop for the night was on top of a low rise with thickly forested ground on three sides and a sloped, green meadow to the east. The main vegetation was Penderpines, cedar, and a light sprinkling of trees, which I knew as Lakeside fir. Though Shyven argued that the tree was not a Lakeside fir or any sort of fir at all. Where he came from, they were called Silver pines for their pale, grayish bark and frosted blue needles.

“Look,” he said, grasping a handful of the prickly points, “pine needles. And the bark is that of a pine as well, in form. It is gray, unlike most pines, but that doesn’t mean it’s a fir!”

I shrugged. “The people of the Dardec call it Lakeside fir. Because it grows next to lakes, mostly. So that is what I call it as well. As long as we know what we are talking about, what does it matter if you call it a pine or fir?”

“Because it is a pine,” Shyven said firmly.

There were also some bushes and ferns growing throughout the trees, though these were sparse except on the edge of meadows. Unlike the furthest south parts of the Dardec, there were no oaks mixed into the woods. Only once in a while one would grow in the open sunlight in the center of a meadow. Springwater had worn away the roots so that they curled out of the ground in fantastic knobs and whorls.

Though we searched in a radius around the camp, we saw no sign of a horse having been kept nearby or anyone besides ourselves traveling in the area recently. Tayra’s footsteps in the clearing were the only ones we found.

“She was heading north,” I pointed out, “maybe she knows of something ahead that we do not.”

Shyven scowled and kicked at a rock with one of his thin boots. “Like a spy. Or maybe she left those tracks on purpose before doubling back. One way or another, I think we’re going to have trouble because of that girl.”

I nodded slowly, thinking over all I had seen of her. Unlike Shyven, I could not picture the girl working for a spy ring against us, or as some sort of assassin. All the same, she had to want something from us. I just couldn’t figure out what. That she would want our deaths did not make sense. Imprisonment, perhaps...but then why not have me held on charges of robbery in Daggasta, instead of helping us escape into the night?

“Shyven, you said something about telling that masked fellow not to attack me,” I said, recalling what he had exclaimed when I first told him why I was laying half-dead in the river. “Do you know him?”

He took his hat off and tapped it against his knees with an impatient gesture. “Of him. I know of him, not know him personally. He is a...well, friend of one of my contacts. It seems we have a price on our heads now, Gray One. The Newfound Army isn’t happy about the major and his men laying in the dust. They put out a private ‘wanted’ quest on our heads among the assassin’s guild. That man, Melleus the assassin, had heard of it and is after us. I told my contact to warn him off, but I don’t know if the word got through.”

I rubbed my forehead gingerly. “I think it didn’t. Or your ‘contact’ doesn’t have much sway with his friends.”

Shyven nodded grimly, starting back towards the wagon.

As he went, he called over his shoulder, “we might as well keep going. It might be our only safety now.”

Though I would not admit it, the walk had tired me after just recovering from the Trengarll. I let Shyven take the reins on Dee and Layla while I sat on the bench, leaning against the front wall of the wagon. Though their difference in build and type made them unmatched, the two horses pulled well together. They took the gypsy cart back onto the track and began hauling it up the gentle slope of the ridge.

As we rumbled along, Shyven filled me in on the things that had happened while I was out, before asking what the ‘Trengarll’ I had mentioned was. I gave him a brief answer, and he was silent for a while before nodding as if one of his thoughts had been confirmed.

“I am from the southern marshes originally, myself,” he said, “so I do not care if it is wet or muddy, cold or warm. All those things come in significant amounts in the south. But I hear that there are places such as Frizzeen where it is dry all the time, and the sky is rarely covered in clouds.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “the Creemonte mountains catch all the rain coming up from the sea before it can hit the lands beyond.”

“But you can play the Vhoe,” Shyven went on, trying to corner me with his words. “So perhaps you have been in Creel before?”

“I visited there once, briefly,” I turned towards him with an arch of an eyebrow. “Looking for something? Perhaps I should ask you who your ‘contacts’ are and why the king would ask you, particularly, to look for the Ebony Queen.”

Shyven’s eyes flashed at me with a sharp look. It struck me that he was an expert swordsman and I was weakened from fever. But I was not afraid. Not only had I handled expert swordsmen before, in trying situations, but I knew that he regarded me as his partner in his endeavor and would not draw his blade on me.

He looked away with a small smile. “You’re right, Gray One. I should not pry.”

In silence, we trundled on. Half of the day had slipped through our fingers by the time we heard the faint noises of something clanking and banging ahead of us. Cautiously, Shyven pulled the horses onto the side and left me with the reins as he went to look ahead.

He returned after only a moment to explain that there was a village just around the corner. The noise we were hearing was someone trying to repair a broken-down wagon.

We rode into the village at a slow pace. The inhabitants all turned out to see what we were. There were only perhaps six houses in the clearing, with a few others visible in the trees beyond. A skinny, wildcat of a fellow with a ragged beard was pounding on his wagon’s axle, trying to straighten it out. Two young men lounged nearby and offered ‘advice’.

But everyone stopped what they were doing and came out into the one street when Shyven and I rolled into town. They probably had not seen a stranger for the last year. Seeing their reaction, I instantly felt at home.

Jumping down from the wagon seat, I greeted them and shook hands with the ragged man. We explained that we were just passing through, and I handed out some sugar sweets to the kids. After that came the time to ask questions. First, we inquired about Tayra, if anyone had seen a young woman of the plains come into the village.

Most of the folk had not seen her, but one man from a distant homestead (he had just come in that morning to visit his aunt) had seen her. Had even met the girl and sold her a horse. She had given him a full golden Lily for the old horse, though he had worked at the plough all his life. Then she had ridden off to the east, and he had not seen hide nor hair of her since.

We thanked him for the information and he said that he was as glad to give it as he had been to receive the girl the other day. He wanted to know if she was a relative of ours, but I explained that she was a hired servant who had run away. He shook his head at that and said that he didn’t know what was happening to the work ethic of youngsters these days...they didn’t have any.

Shyven decided to pick their brains about the Ebony Queen as well. He asked if, around ten years ago, they had seen a rich, stately woman dressed in black with dark-clad escorts pass through this way. After a few minutes, heads began to nod.

It was a tired, hardworking woman with a baby at her hip who replied first, “yes, I remember that. She hardly spoke to us, but she seemed so sad and quiet...beautiful, too. I came and gave her a fresh bit of gingerbread where she sat in her little carriage and she thanked me so kindly. Wouldn’t give her name. The men were looking for a blacksmith. Horse had thrown a shoe.”

“Aye,” a tall fellow with slack suspenders agreed, “ain’t no blacksmith around, so I shoed the horse for them. Payed me well, though they were the most closed-mouth, unfriendly fellows you could meet in a day’s journey.”

Everyone present agreed that this was so, though a few more threw in that the woman looked rich but was obviously in mourning. Not only because of her dark clothes, but for the expression on her face.

Shyven and I exchanged a look and thanked them all. As we were preparing to leave, one man piped up and warned us that if we were continuing north, the bridge across the gorge ahead was too narrow for our wagon. He wasn’t sure if it would hold the horses, either: few people went that way anymore.

We were forced to decide, sadly on my part, that it was time to leave the cart behind. As we traveled into the woods, it would have slowly become more difficult for the wagon to maneuver, anyway, but I had hoped to keep it for as long as possible. Now I took blankets, food and my Vhoe from it, along with cooking pots and utensils, before shutting up the door and asking the man with the beard to look after it for me. He promised it wouldn’t be touched and glared at the children to emphasise this point.

With my pack on Dee, and Shyven’s on Layla, we both mounted and moved off. Dee was not used to being ridden often, but I had used him as a mount a few times and he did not baulk. I had no saddle, but had never used one, riding with just a horse blanket to cushion his bones a little.

The woods soon enveloped us, shutting out the sight of the little village. The ringing of hammer on axle followed us further, but eventually even that was swallowed by the trees. It was not long before the track petered out to just a footpath, hardly traceable under the dead needles of other years. All the while, the trees had been getting closer together and more gnarled with their old growth.

Many appeared to have never known the axe, as dead limbs hung stiff and sere down their sides and the bark was ridged in deep channels. The Lakeside Fir (or Silver Pine, if you prefer) became rare, while massive cedars and the dark-barked Penderpine shaded out the sky. Another species of tree, this one closely related to oaks, filled up some of the open spaces as well. I had not seen it before, and Shyven did not have a name for it. The tree had dark, glossy leaves as long and narrow as a finger, black bark that was thin and flaked off easily, and long, sweeping branches. After going over a few low hills, through a meadow with a creek in the middle of it, and around a jumbled bush of blackberries, the sound of running water echoed through the trees.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

I nudged Dee ahead, and we hurried through the woods until we came, quite suddenly, to the edge of a rocky gorge slicing through the hills. Its sides were almost sheer, with boulders and tree roots worn by the water sticking out of the soft soil on either side. It was perhaps twenty feet across and twice as deep, with a turbulent stream flowing in the bottom. Shyven broke the cover of the trees just a few yards upstream of me and reined Layla in swiftly. Dismounting, he walked to the edge and looked over.

“It would have been a nasty surprise if we had not been warned of this and so drove the wagon straight over,” he remarked, stepping back from the edge as it crumbled under his boots.

“We would have heard the waters. But I know what you mean.” I looked up and down the canyon, seeking for any sign of the bridge that the villagers had mentioned. Trees growing close to the edge blocked the view after a short distance so that I could not make it out, if it even existed.

“Which way should we look for the bridge?” Shyven echoed my thoughts aloud.

I shrugged and waved an arm towards the north-west. “You go downstream and I’ll go up. We’ll meet back here in about ten minutes, whether we have found the bridge or not.”

“Clever of you.” Shyven looked downstream sourly. “To take the direction with less undergrowth.”

I sighed and made a shooing gesture at him. “Very well, you take the upstream way. I’ll go down.”

“No, no.” He jumped back up on his bony steed. “You wanted upstream, you have it. I’m off.”

I snorted at him as he rode away, steering Dee upwater. “I wonder why he always has to argue things?”

After pushing through some low undergrowth and leading Dee between a group of tightly spaced trees, I came out in a slight, half-moon clearing on the edge of the gorge. It narrowed slightly here and had a bridge made of ropes and the rejected slabs from the edge of roughly milled lumber crossing it. All of it was old, stained dark and a little frayed.

Walking up to the edge of the bridge with Dee’s bridle in one hand, I lay the other hand on one rope. It felt coarse under my touch, grainy with the fibers that had worn off of the strands. When I put a foot experimentally on the first plank of the bridge, it creaked and buckled with ominous ease.

“I don’t think you’ll be going across,” I told Dee, “unless we find a ford within a few miles up or down.”

Walking back away from the bridge, I tied him to a tree and strode back through the brush towards the meeting place. It was at least ten full minutes before Shyven returned, looking hot and frustrated.

“I knew upstream was the better way,” he growled as soon as he saw me, swinging off of his horse and brushing twigs from his cape. “These woods are getting almost too thick to ride through.”

“We’ll probably have to leave the horses behind at the bridge,” I told him, leading the way back through the trees towards it. “It’s so old it will be a blessing if it gets us across in one piece.”

We came out into the little clearing and Dee let out a nicker at seeing his friends again. Layla returned it, jerking on the lead until Shyven let her go to him. While they talked things over, Shyven and I went to look at the bridge. After feeling the ropes and looking at the boards, Shyven had to agree with me.

“And I didn’t see anywhere better downstream,” he remarked, “it doesn’t look to improve in this direction, either. The creek might run in a canyon for miles before coming to the surface.”

I showed my agreement with a gesture. “We’ll have to leave the horses.”

He frowned. “I wouldn’t want to lose Layla. Do you think we should take them back to that village?”

The sky was already starting to darken towards evening. I shook my head and peered off through the trees until I spotted an opening which promised grass and water.

“Let’s have a look over here. Bring your nag.”

“Nag!”

Shyven brought his horse while I led mine. Through the trees to where a small spring trickled down rocky pools until it cascaded over the edge of the gorge and added to the creek below. Plenty of grass grew around the spring and there was shelter under the trees.

“But we can’t just leave them tied up here.” Shyven shook his head.

“We won’t have to.” I took the blanket and bridle from Dee, hanging them on a nearby branch. Then I took his heavy snout in my hand and looked into his eyes, speaking the words, “Wannah Shee Lup’orin.”

The stallion snorted and bobbed his head out of my hands, gazing around the meadow before looking back at me once and snorting again. Then he moved off to begin grazing. Layla wished to follow him.

“Free your horse. She’ll stay with him and he will not wander far.”

Shyven began taking the gear off of the horse, casting suspicious glances at me. “Does your horse always do what you say?”

“Not when I command him in this tongue.” I turned away from the meadow to head back towards the bridge. “But there are certain commands in his native language that he will not disobey. I told him, ‘wait for me’ in the Frizzeen way, so he will stay nearby until I return. Or die trying. As long as nothing very frightening attacks them. Then he might forget for a time.”

Shyven’s eyebrows raised as he looked over his shoulder, “a true Frizzeen stallion? I’ve never seen one before, but heard that they are expensive. Is that true?”

“Yes, they don’t sell for less than your blood. Because of both breeding and training.”

“And you managed to purchase one?”

“He was given to me as a gift.” I did not tell him that I was offered any gift to leave Frizzeen and I chose Dee above anything else. And that the Frizzeen nomadic kingdom was still angry at me for the choice, though they were too proud to go back on their word and take him from me.

As we were walking back to the head of the bridge, a shape off in the trees to one side caught my attention. Moving over to it, I found a strangely out-of-place object resting in between two trees. The brush and vines had grown up over it, but under all the greenery we could still easily make out what it was. A carriage.

“The queen’s,” Shyven breathed, eyes lighting up as he brushed a vine away from its door. “So they did go this way. And could no more cross the gorge in a carriage than we can. But the bridge might have held horses ten years back.”

I put a hand to the door and tried to jerk it open, but it simply fell off with a cracking sound and thumped to the ground. Inside, the cushions were mouse-eaten, showing springs and dusty strands of fabric. But at one time they had been velvet. The handles inside were made of tarnished brass. The faded, flaked paint of the interior was dusky rose and black.

“At least they knew how to kidnap a queen in style,” I remarked, stepping away from the door. Shyven had been crawling around near the front of the coach, inspecting the driver’s seat and rotted harness. Now he came and looked around inside of it.

“Yes...odd for kidnappers, isn’t it?”

“They were probably high born themselves.” I turned and crossed my arms, thinking. An idea was just forming in my head. “Shyven, did the queen have any admirers? I mean, a man other than the king? Perhaps he was jealous and kidnapped her. That would explain the nice carriage and gentle treatment. He could have spirited her away to some hunting lodge or country estate on the edge of Shardland...and in that case she could be living yet!”

Shyven backed out of the coach to give me one of his speculative glances. “That is a plausible explanation. But it does not change our mission.”

I shook my head in agreement. It did not change our mission at all. In fact, it only made it more urgent.

I did wonder briefly if the queen had chosen to go with this new lover. She had walked out on the king of her own choice. But the evidence of the hotel was that she had been taken away in a hurry, with no time to collect her finery. What woman would have eloped in such low-danger circumstances and left her jewels behind? She must have been forced to leave, I decided, spirited away by a jealous lordling. Briefly, I wondered if it could be by the innkeeper himself, but that seemed too obvious and easily tracked. Besides the fact that he had been an honest fellow.

We soon retraced our steps to the bridge and Shyven opted to cross it first. “I’m lighter than you, so it will be less likely to fall and one of us, at least, will have reached the other side.”

“Not lighter by much,” I returned, though he was of a thinner, more wiry build. But he just gave me an amused look and carefully place a boot on one cross board, leaning on the ropes that bounded each side. He made sure not to step on one board with both feet as he crossed, but even then, one cracked and almost came apart under his weight. He hurried and got to the other side, jumping lightly off onto the ground. Turning around, he gave a triumphant laugh. “Now that was not so easy!”

I smiled at him and closed my eyes for a moment, then moved out onto the bridge with a steady, light tread. The stream rushed below me, calling hungrily for my blood. I did not like the sound of water, but I had never been afraid of heights. Without touching the ropes to either side, I strode across the bridge and stepped off, having carefully avoided placing a foot on the one board Shyven had cracked.

He looked at me with a touch of surprised admiration. “I would think you would have a little more respect for the dangers of bridges, after your experiences in Daggasta.”

“It’s not the bridge’s fault that I almost died,” I told him, “but the fault of the water that flows under it. And the man who disobeyed the laws of the bridge to throw me into the water.”

Shyven smirked. “true. Melleus will pay, one of these days. Now, onwards by foot! And they will be weary by the time we reach our goal.”

The sun had set, and twilight was stealing over the woods. We pressed on for a time but my head was starting to ache again and a feeling of uneasiness come over me. Shyven seemed determined to make time since we had lost our horses, and I would not complain through weakness. But when I saw a gray marker stone gleaming in the gloomy light up ahead, I came to a stop. It had the symbol of a skull and a rose carved into it, Death and Sorrow.

“What is it?” Shyven stopped in his stride a moment later. “We should press on until full dark finds us.”

I shook my head and pointed a finger at the stone. “There is an old burial ground up ahead. See the sign? That is probably why the village folk don’t come this way anymore.”

“So?” He looked at me condescendingly. “You aren’t afraid of an old graveyard, are you?”

I dropped my pack and started to ease down onto the ground beside it. “The spirits of the dead would not like us to disturb them at night. And if the villagers don’t come here...it probably means that these are old, unfriendly spirits.”

Shyven slapped his forehead, then readjusted his hat when the gesture knocked it offkilter. “There is no such thing as ghosts! It’s all woodsman’s superstition. Look, if there was such a thing as dead people coming back to haunt you, I would be dead of fright by now.”

I shook my head stubbornly. “They aren’t always dead people, Shyven. Not directly. Their souls go on to other worlds...but sometimes the spirit of what they were, the things they did and thought in their life, stays behind to wander the land. You can feel them in the air some places, day or night. But in certain spots in the woods they will manifest themselves more strongly. Often at night.”

“Rubbish!” Shyven strode back to grasp my arm and try to heave me up to my feet, but I was stronger than him and shook free. “Gray One, there are no such things as ghosts! I’ve been to many parts of this land, seen both good and bad people die and never once met an apparition. So stop being a whining baby and come with me.”

“No.” turning away, I unpacked my bag of things. “I will not cross the boundary marker. I’m tired, my head hurts and I don’t feel like talking to spirits tonight.”

“So that’s it, hmm?” Shyven put a hand on his hip like an angry washerwoman. “Your head hurts. You’re tired. Very well.”

He spun around and hoisted his own pack more comfortably to his shoulder. “You can just stay here, then. I’ll cross the burial ground and camp on the other side, to show you that there is no danger. I’ll meet you there in the morning!”

He marched away into the gathering darkness, while I methodically laid out my blanket, a bottle of water and lump of bread for dinner. I wouldn’t have a fire tonight, I decided, as that might attract unwanted attention. If Shyven wanted to get himself haunted by ancient spirits, that was his game. I was going to sleep right there in peace and cross the burial grounds in the morning, or go around them altogether.

Still thinking angry thoughts about Shyven’s stubbornness, I laid out my bedroll, dug some stones out from under it and wrapped the blanket around me in preparation for sleep.

I had been sleeping solidly for a few hours when the moaning sounds began. Sitting up, I saw that a thin moon was pouring its white light down through the branches. And something was moaning hideously inside the graveyard. The thing that made me shiver was the fact that the voice sounded human.