Readis gave a grim smile. “The only thing Thella fears is dragonriders.” He scrambled up the bank, grabbing a bush to help himself to the top. “I did what I could. I’ve got to catch up. But tell them I tried to stop it once I knew who you were.”
“Don’t try so hard the next time, Readis,” Jayge yelled after him. The underbrush closed in after the hobbling man, and Jayge stared after him. So there had been no dragonrider in the sky! But he had to be grateful for the lie. “Come on, Kesso, we’ve got to get help.”
The only reason Maindy was so quick to respond to Jayge’s message was that the Far Cry holder needed the supplies the train was bringing. Why hadn’t the train set out patrols? Jayge did not mention the offer from Asgenar’s forester. Did Jayge know if the Weaver Hall’s shipment was safe? If not, there would be no cloth to make warm winter clothes. But even as Maindy rattled on with Why didn’t you? and What did they? he was organizing a rescue troop. He had ordered out the hold’s healer, three helpers including his own lady, and every ablebodied man in the hold. He had seen that supplies and enough rope and tackle to lift even the heaviest wagon from the riverbank were packed onto runners, and a half hour after Jayge came in, he was ready to ride out.
“The dray beasts will take their own speed, but we’ll be all ready to hitch them up when they do arrive at the gap,” Maindy said confidently.
To Jayge’s utter astonishment, they returned to find dragons and riders helping Crenden and the saddened Borgald, still mourning his losses. A brown dragon was in the process of lifting a terrified burden beast from the river gorge back onto the track. It was battered, but apart from being scared into dropping and watering all the way up, it would probably recover. But its yoke mate was already being butchered.
Jayge took care of his exhausted mount before he went to see Temma, who was lying, far too pale, in the wagon she had been protecting. Nazer was there, holding her hand, his own wounds bound and his dark skin as bleached as Temma’s.
“You’re back?” Nazer asked, face and eyes dull. Jayge nodded. Nazer carefully placed Temma’s hand down on the blanket and patted it tenderly. “I’ll clean you up. Raiders’ blades often got snake glob on ‘em.”
When he emerged from Nazer’s rough but thorough measures, Jayge was feeling no more pain, and his head was only a little dizzy from the fellis draught Nazer had made him swallow. He insisted on going with Maindy’s troops and the green and blue dragonriders who intended to follow the tracks of the retreating raiders. Sufficient bloodstains had been found leading up the hill to warrant a search. Wounded men would not be able to travel fast or far.
But that hope ended when they found the bodies of six men and the toothless woman with their throats cut. Their wounds had all been dressed, and they had probably been killed after they had been dosed with fellis. Jayge did not know whether he was glad, or sorry, that Readis was not one of the dead.
It was when the patrol began shifting the bodies to a shallow cave for interment that Jayge spotted the tight roll of sheets. He scooped it up before someone trampled it into the bloody ground.
It was strange enough to find sheets of Bendarek’s precious wood-pulp leaves under a raider corpse, but examining the roll, Jayge had more shocks to absorb. Clearly written in a good clear hand was the message, “Deliver to Asgenar.” The roll was neither sealed nor tied, and Jayge had no compunctions about taking a closer look.
What he found was artwork—sketches of people. He nearly dropped the package when he uncovered a likeness of his uncle. And there were more, including ones of Thella in arrogant poses; Giron, his face more startlingly empty than it had looked in person; and others, two of whom Jayge realized were among the dead. Dropping to one knee, Jayge surreptitiously sliced away his uncle’s likeness from the page. Then he rolled the whole thing up as tight as he could and called out in surprise.
“Maindy, I think you should have charge of this,” he said, holding it out.
After one glance, Maindy shoved it into his jacket, frowning. Jayge got very busy as far away from the holder as possible. But the incident added to the other puzzles he had to try to piece together once he got back to the ambushed camp.
Who could he talk to? Temma was holding her own, according to Nazer, but the man looked so distressed that Jayge held his tongue. He could not tell his father; so it would have to wait until he could talk to Temma. But on the long tramp back, Jayge decided that he owed Readis his silence. He was certain that if Readis had not raised a false alarm, the raiders would have killed them all.
Why? Because Jayge had not been helpful that day at the sky-brooms? Or because Armald had? That poor old clod was dead. Temma and Nazer had certainly been savagely attacked. Had Thella been after them in particular? Jayge would bet a Bitran any odds that the raid had been punitive. Most of the train’s goods had been bulky items, hard to pack up that slope and into the hills. And it was not as if the area was cave-pocked, where goods could have been stashed temporarily. Thella had been out to destroy, not loot. Why? She would have been caught long since if she went after every wagoneer who answered her indiscreetly.
And what about those sketches, addressed to Lord Asgenar and cleverly left behind to be discovered? Clearly someone in Thella’s camp was not her ally, and that was some consolation to Jayge as he listened that night to Temma’s fevered breathing.
It was several days before the train could move out again. Maindy had to send back for wagons to take the loads from the ruined vehicles of the traders, and more wheels were called for to replace those damaged by the slides. All but one wagon left the site of the ambush, and twelve trader graves remained.
7: Lemos Hold, Southern Continent, Telgar Hold, PP 12
AS MUCH TO escape wintering at Far Cry Hold as to pursue his own search, Jayge hired himself and Kesso out to one of Lord Asgenar’s roving troops. Temma and Nazer were envious, vowing to join him as soon as their wounds healed. Jayge tried to sound encouraging about that, but he had overheard the hold healer talking to Lady Disana outside the temporary infirmary and knew that it would be a long while before either recovered.
Crenden proved more resilient than Borgald over their losses—and Maindy, unlike Childon of Kimmage, was willing to strike a fair deal with the two trader captains. Replacing the dead animals would have to wait until spring and would take almost all their available marks. But in return for reasonable work in the hold, Crenden and Borgald would be allowed time and resources—including the assistance of the hold’s carpenter and Smithcraft journeyman—to repair their damaged wagons. Borgald, Crenden, and their wives sat at the high table for the evening meal, and Maindy consulted them often. So when snow blanketed the valley, the traders willingly helped Maindy’s workmen finish the interiors of extensions built that summer. Finally Borgald began to take an interest in the children orphaned by the raiders, and although his smile faltered when he inadvertently looked about for his son, Armald, he began to recover. Crenden, on the other hand, continued to brood over an attack which seemed to him to be totally unprovoked. Jayge decided that telling his father of his own suspicions would do nothing to improve the older man’s depression.
Jayge went off with the troop without having had the opportunity to tell Temma about Readis and still pondering the significance of the sketches he had found so fortuitously. He assumed that one of Thella’s wounded had dropped the roll, and it amused him to think that dead men could tell tales. Though he had not had much time to study the sketches, the faces were vividly burned into his memory. Some looked to have been more hurriedly executed than others, but all had been drawn with a clever economy of line capturing pose and character, and Jayge was certain that he would recognize every one of them, although he could name only Thella, Giron, and Readis. Thella was the one most frequently drawn, in different poses and angles and, in a few cases, in what Jayge realized were disguises. At night Jayge rehearsed those faces, all but the six dead, in his mind. If he saw any one of them, he would know them. He wondered what Asgenar had made of the sketches.