Lisa Smedman - Heirs of Prophecy

Larajin wanted nothing to do with him, but she did want to find out more about any caravan headed north-if one existed. The fact that no such caravan was advertised on the notice board made her wary. She wasn’t going to venture down any back alleys with this lout. She rested a hand casually on the dagger she’d belted at her hip.

“North to where?” she asked him.

“To Featherdale and Essembra, and, if luck holds, all the way to Hillsfar. It’ll prob’ly be the last one heading north ’fore the road closes. We’ll have to wait out the war in Hillsfar-not that I mind.”

Larajin looked him in the eye. “How do you know about this caravan?” she asked. “It’s not posted on the board-and you’re no trader.”

He guffawed, and Larajin winced at the smell.

“Course it’s not posted! You want some halfie reading it and telling his savage cousins in the trees we’re coming through?” He shook his head. “You got one thing right, though, I’m no trader. I’m a sellsword. Name’s Enik.”

He waited for Larajin to volunteer her name. When she didn’t, he shrugged and continued, “I been hired to protect the caravan.” He stroked the hilt of his sword. “You come north with us, and me and my steel will be what’s standing between you and them wild elves, missy.”

Larajin didn’t like the way he was rubbing the hilt of his sword. It was all too suggestive of something else. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to see if this caravan really existed. If it was the only one headed north, it might be her only chance to reach the Tangled Trees. From her readings of the Master’s books, she knew they lay more than one hundred and fifty miles to the north. She could hardly travel all that distance on foot.

This man was only a sellsword and as such could be expected to be rough and unsavory. She could at least see if the traders driving the caravan were decent folk.

“Where is the caravan assembling, and when?”

Enik gave her a twisted grin, still sucking his bad tooth. “That’ll cost you a raven. Fer all I know, you’re a halfie spy.”

Larajin froze, feeling the blood drain from her face. He hadn’t guessed that…

No, he hadn’t. Enik, still grinning, gave her a broad wink. He hadn’t spotted the elf blood in her, after all. It had just been his idea of a joke.

“Tell you what,” Larajin said carefully. “You give me the information, and when it’s proved to be accurate, you’ll get your raven-but not until we’re under way. Deal?”

Enik sucked on his tooth, considering it.

“All right.” He pointed at a warehouse just beyond one of the arches leading out of the plaza and said, “The caravan is loading its cargo of wine there, at the Foxmantle warehouse. They’ll be at it all night. Come first light, it’s away. You want to be on one of the wagons, you meet me there just before dawn.”

Larajin nodded. If what Enik was saying was true about this being a Foxmantle caravan, things were looking up. The Foxmantles might be loud and brash, their wild young daughters prone to scandalously foolish exploits, but the family was a firm friend and ally to the Uskevren-they were people Larajin could trust. All she had to do was show the head driver the dagger with the Uskevren crest on it and claim to be Mistress Thazienne. With luck, he wouldn’t have met Thazienne, and she’d have nothing to worry about.

She eyed Enik. Nothing, that was, except making sure this lout didn’t try anything during the journey north, but the dagger would also see to that.

She nodded to him, patting the money pouch at her hip. “Dawn it is, then, at the Foxmantle warehouse,” she said. “I’ll see you there.”

She kept the smile on her face as she watched him leave but let it drop the moment he was out of sight. Making her way out of the plaza, she took a circular route through the side streets that would lead her to the Foxmantle warehouse. She wasn’t going to go trustingly to meet a lout like Enik in the murky light of dawn, down some back alley behind a warehouse. Instead she’d make her own arrangements with the caravan’s head driver while the wagons were being loaded. If she liked what she saw, she’d arrange for her passage north-and worry about traveling with Enik later.

Larajin coughed as a tendril ofmist drifted back down the road toward the caravan, stinging her lungs. Beside her, on the driver’s seat of the lead wagon, Dray Foxmantle dabbed a monogrammed handkerchief to his eye.

“Gods curse that fool of a wizard,” he muttered. “Why couldn’t he have waited until there was a wind to blow the stuff away?”

Still in his early twenties-about Larajin’s age-Dray was blessed with perfectly straight teeth and dark hair that hung in tight spirals to his shoulders. His beard was trimmed to a thin line that exactly traced the bottom of his jaw, in the prevailing fashion, and a heavy gold hoop hung from one ear. He wore the family blue and purple, and a silver ring on the little finger of his left hand that bore the Foxmantle crest: three diamond-pupiled eyes, set in a diagonal line.

Dray had been flirting with Larajin ever since the caravan departed from Ordulin eight days ago, telling her how pretty she was-ignoring the fact that the long, hot journey had left her dusty and sweaty. Truth be told, she didn’t mind the flattery, though she wondered if much of it wasn’t business, rather than pleasure. Dray kept hinting, with every second breath, about a possible merger of the Foxmantle and Uskevren vineyards.

Still, she enjoyed his company. He was playful and fun and was blessed with a beautiful singing voice, as she’d found out one night around the campfire when he broke out his mandolin and sang a ballad for her. He would have made an ideal candidate for Sune’s priesthood. He even reminded her, a little, of Diurgo.

Now, however, he seemed oblivious to the possible danger of the wizard’s magical conjuring. Larajin peered nervously at the thick mist that swirled above the road a short distance ahead, hoping Klarsh knew what he was doing. The caravan had stopped-for the third time this day-so the wizard could clear away some choke creeper that had grown across the road. Even though Klarsh was well ahead of their wagon, Larajin felt nervous. The trees on either side of Rauthauvyr’s Road were enormous, forming what felt like a steep-walled canyon to either side, and the underbrush on the forest floor was thick-too thick to pass through at anything but a struggling walk. If the poisonous mist spread beyond the wizard’s control, the caravan drivers, soldiers-and Larajin-would all be killed.

Behind them, five other wagons had also pulled to a halt. The horses hitched to them snorted and pawed at the road, nostrils flaring and ears flicking nervously in response to the acrid smell of the magical mist. The drivers called out to soothe them, occasionally tugging on the reins to restrain a team as it tried to jerk a wagon forward, causing its cargo of wine bottles to rattle and clink inside their wooden cases.

The two dozen sellswords hired to protect the caravan lounged on either side of the road, glancing at the forest only every now and then. Like Enik, they were a scruffy-looking lot-tough enough and well armed, but not nearly as disciplined as Larajin would have liked. She supposed that, with nearly all of the able-bodied fighters in Ordulin being conscripted into the militia, these were the only men Dray could find.

They were nominally under the leadership of Paitar, a capable-looking man in his late fifties with iron-gray hair and eyes to match. Walking with a slight limp that he’d gained earlier in his career as a soldier, he glared at the sellswords, tersely ordering them to keep an eye on the forest, but was answered only by grunts and shrugs. Paitar kept glancing back at Dray, as if waiting for a supporting word, but none was forthcoming.