Daniel Abraham - The Dragon's Path

He hadn’t.

The caravanserai—a ruin barely maintained by those who passed through it—was on the side of a wide, sloping hill, the first foothill of the high, snow-peaked mountain range that marked the end of the Free Cities and the beginning of Birancour. Even now, distance-blued peaks rose from the horizon. The pass through them marked the shortest path between Vanai and Carse.

Carse. The word itself had taken on almost religious significance for her. Carse, the great city of Northcoast overlooking the peaceful sea. The home of white towers above chalk cliffs, of the Council of Eventide, of the Grave of Dragons. The seat of the Medean bank, and the end of her career as a smuggler and refugee. She had never been there, but her longing for it was like wanting to go home.

She could go alone. She’d have to. Only she didn’t know the way. Or how to nurse a sick mule back to health. Or what she’d do if another bandit crew stepped out of the forest. The mule heaved in a huge breath and then coughed: deep, wet, and rasping. Cithrin stepped forward and rubbed his wide, soft ears.

“We can find a way,” she said as much to herself as the animal. “It’ll be all right.”

“Probably, it will,” a man’s voice said.

The cunning man, Master Kit, stood at the stable door, the woman called Opal at his side. Cithrin moved half a step in toward her mule, her arm around its sloping neck as if to protect it. Or be protected by it. An anxious thrill quickened her breath.

“This is the poor thing, then?” Opal said, pushing past the cunning man. “Tired-looking, ain’t he?”

Cithrin nodded, looking down to avoid their eyes. Opal slipped into the stall, walked around the mule once, pausing to press her ear to the beast’s side. Then, singing a low song in words Cithrin didn’t recognize, she knelt before its head and gently pried open its lips.

“Opal takes care of our team, when we have one,” Master Kit said. “I’ve come to put my trust in her when it comes to things with hooves.”

Cithrin nodded, torn between a rush of gratitude and discomfort at being so close to the guardsmen. Opal rose and sniffed carefully at the mule’s ears.

“Tag, is it?” she said, and Cithrin nodded. “Well, Tag, can you tell me if the old boy was listing to one side? Did you have to correct him?”

Cithrin tried to remember, then shook her head no.

“That’s something,” Opal said, and then over her shoulder to Master Kit, “I don’t think it’s in his ears, so that’s for the best. He’s wheezing, but he doesn’t have water in his lungs. At a guess, keep him warm a couple of days, he’ll stand true as sticks. Needs more blankets, though.”

“Two days,” Master Kit said. “I would be surprised if Captain Wester were comfortable with that.”

The mule’s labored breath and the murmur of the morning breeze through the boughs roughened the silence. Cithrin felt the knot in her belly tightening into something like nausea.

“One fewer guard won’t make any damn difference,” Opal said. “I’ll stay with Tag, and when the old boy’s well enough, we’ll catch you up. Won’t be more than a day or two, and one cart with a good team moves faster than a full ’van.”

The cunning man crossed his arms, considering. Cithrin felt a rush of hope.

“Can you do that?” Master Kit asked her. His eyes were gentle, his voice as soft as old flannel.

“I can, sir,” Cithrin said, keeping her voice low and masculine. The cunning man nodded.

“I don’t suppose there’s any harm in suggesting it,” he said. “But perhaps you would allow me to approach them, Tag?”

She nodded, and the old man smiled. He turned and walked back toward the quarters, leaving Cithrin, Opal, and the animals to themselves.

The relief took the edge off her fear. And perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing, in its way. With Opal dressing in her leathers and Cithrin disguised as a man, they weren’t likely to arouse suspicion. It would be a few days away from the greater company, so she would only have to avoid discovery by Opal. And their supposedly different sexes would give a plausible excuse for privacy.

And yet the fear didn’t entirely fade. It came, she told herself, from knowing more than the people around her. She could almost hear Magister Imaniel now, sitting at the evening meal with Cam and Besel, dissecting exactly how a merchant or prelate had behaved differently than expected, and what it implied that they had. Cithrin knew that Tag the Carter carried enough wealth to buy a small army, but no one else did. The risk of lagging behind the body of the ’van was no more than she would have faced if she’d truly carried a load of undyed wool. Her chances only seemed worse because she knew the stakes of the bet were high. She was undiscovered. No one was searching for her or what she carried, the mule would be made well, and she wouldn’t face a journey to Carse by herself. Everything would be fine.

“First time out?” Opal said.

Cithrin glanced at her and nodded.

“Well, don’t let it worry you, dear,” the guard said. “We take care of our own.”

It didn’t occur to Cithrin for hours to wonder exactly why a mercenary guard would include a semi-competent carter in our own, and by then the plan was set and the caravan with Captain Wester and Master Kit was gone down the road to the mountains and to Carse.

They passed the day in caring for the sick beast: warming the stable, rubbing down the mule, forcing an odd concoction that smelled of tar and licorice into its mouth. By nightfall, the mule held its head higher and its cough seemed less violent. That night, Cithrin and Opal slept in the stables, wrapped in thin blankets. An ancient iron brazier between them threw off enough heat to keep the room from freezing, but only just. In the darkness outside, something shrieked once and then not again. Cithrin closed her eyes, resting her head on one arm, and willed herself to sleep. She envied Opal’s slow, even breath. Her own body tensed and shivered, her mind jumped from one fear to another, conjuring a hundred possible disasters. The bandits who had attacked the ’van before might arrive in the night, rape and murder them both, and make off with the bank’s money. Opal might discover her secret and, mad with avarice, slit her throat. The mule might relapse and leave her stranded in the autumn cold.

When a low, grey dawn finally came, Cithrin hadn’t slept. Her head ached, and her back felt as if someone had beaten her with a hammer. Opal, humming to herself, rebuilt the fire, boiled a pan of water with a sprinkling of leaves in it, and checked on their patient. When Cithrin joined her, the mule felt cooler to the touch, his eyes looked brighter, his head stood at its more usual angle. In the next stall, the other mule cleared her throat and grumbled.

“Is she getting sick too?” Cithrin asked. The very idea made her want to weep.

“She may, but she hasn’t yet,” Opal said. “Probably just jealous that the old boy here’s getting all the attention.”

“Should we go, then? I mean, is it safe to get back to the ’van?”

“This afternoon, maybe,” Opal said. “Better that he have his strength back. Start him with a half day’s work.”

“But—”

“We’ve been this way before. We’ll catch them up before they go over the pass. They’ll stop at Bellin, send up scouts.”

Cithrin knew the name, but she couldn’t place it. Opal glanced over at her.

“Bellin,” Opal said. “Trading town just before the pass. You really don’t know much about hauling in a caravan, do you?”

“No,” Cithrin said, both sullen and embarrassed at being sullen.

“Bellin’s not much, but they’re friendly to travelers. Master Kit took us there for a month once. New people coming through the road every few days, no one staying long. It was like being a traveling company without the traveling.”