Part 25 (1/2)
”But which? Never mind. Let's see if we can catch up.”
They made no friends that day, pus.h.i.+ng through the streets the way they did, as if they were the Nordmen of old. They caught Nepanthe's party as it turned into the Palace Road, which ran straight to the east gate.
”Got them now,” Trebilc.o.c.k enthused. ”We can swing around and get ahead.”
”Why not just pa.s.s them?”
”The woman knows me.”
”Whatever. You're the boss. What'd the old man say when you told him?”
”What?”
”That I'm going off with you. He's still trying to dump those account books on me.”
”Oh, h.e.l.l. I clean forgot, Aral.”
”You didn't tell him?”
”I was too busy trying to get some money.”
”Well, he'll live. He's used to me taking off for a couple days whenever I find me a new s.l.u.t.”
But this adventure would last longer than either expected.
Their path wound eastward, through Forbeck and Savernake provinces, often by circuitous routes. The group they tracked avoided all human contact. The two expended a lot of ingenuity maintaining contact while escaping notice.
”They're sure in a hurry,” Aral grumped the third morning.
He hadn't complained yet, but his behind was killing him. He wasn't accustomed to long days in the saddle.
”Don't worry. They'll slow down. You'll outlast the woman and boy.”
Michael picked the right note. There was no way Aral Dantice was going to be outdone by a kid and a broad in her forties.
Michael finally realized they were getting in deep after they pa.s.sed Baxendala at night and were approaching Maisak, the last stronghold of Kavelin, high in the Savernake Gap.
There, between Maisak and Baxendala, stood several memorials of the civil war. It was said that broken swords and bones could still be found all through the area.
Two weeks after sneaking past Maisak, Michael and Aral reached a point from which they could see the eastern plains.
”My G.o.d! Look, Mike. There's nothing out there. Just gra.s.s.”
Trebilc.o.c.k grew nervous.. How did people keep from getting lost out there? It was a green gra.s.s ocean. Yet the caravans came and went....They met caravans every day. Traders were racing to get through with early loads, to obtain the best prices. Sometimes the two overhauled an eastbound train and encountered someone they knew. Thus they kept track of their quarry. Later, when they reached the ruins of Gog-Ahlan, they would have to close up. The other party might strike out toward Necremnos, or Throyes, or any of the cities tributary to them. And who knew where they would go from there?
They traded for better horses, foodstuffs, equipment, and weapons along the way, and always got a poor deal. Trebilc.o.c.k had no mercantile sense whatsoever. He finally surrendered the quartermaster ch.o.r.es to Aral, who was more intimidating in his d.i.c.kering.
It was in potentially violent confrontations that Michael Trebilc.o.c.k was intimidating. Men tended to back down when they saw his eyes.
Michael didn't understand, but used it. He felt it was his best weapon. He had trained in arms, as had everyone at the Rebsamen, but didn't consider himself much good.
He didn't consider himself good at anything unless he was the best around.
They reached Gog-Ahlan. Aral found a man who was a friend of his father. With Michael's help he wrote the elder Dantice, and wrote a credit on House Dantice, which Michael promised to repay. And they learned that Nepanthe's party was bound for Throyes.
There was no holding Aral to an unswerving purpose that night. Old Gog-Ahlan lay in ruins, a victim of the might of llkazar four centuries earlier. On the outskirts, though, a trading city had grown up. Vices were readily available. Aral had energies to dissipate.
It took him two nights. Bowing to the inevitable, Michael tried to keep up. Then, heads spinning, they rode on.
Their quarry moved more leisurely now, safely beyond the reach of Kavelin's Marshall.
The two overhauled them within the week, a hundred miles from Throyes. ”Now we go ahead,” Michael said. ”We'll swing around, too far away to be recognized.” That was what two riders overtaking a larger party would do anyway. Out on those wild plains no one trusted anyone else.
Throyes was a sprawl of a city that made Vorgreberg look like a farming village.
Most of it wasn't walled, and no one cared who came or went.
Here, for the first time in their lives, they felt like foreigners. They were surrounded by people who were different, who owed them no sympathy. Aral behaved himself.
Four days pa.s.sed. Their quarry didn't show. Dantice began fretting.
Michael had begun to consider hitting their back trail when Aral said, ”Here they come. Finally.”
Only one man remained. He was wounded. The woman and boy, though, were hale if still a little frightened.
”Bandits,” Trebilc.o.c.k guessed. ”Let's stay behind after this. In case we need to rescue the lady.”
”Hey, Mike, I'm ready. Let's do it. My old man must be out of his head by now.
You know how long we've been gone?”
”I know. And I think we should stay gone until we find out what's happening.”
”We won't get a better chance. That guy's bad hurt.””No. Let's see where he goes.”
The wounded man went to a house in the wealthiest part of town. There he turned the woman and boy over. The man who received them wasn't happy. Neither eavesdropper understood the language, but his tone was clear, if not his reasons.
”What now?” Aral asked.
”We see what happens.”
They watched. Aral daringly climbed the garden wall and listened at windows. But he heard nothing of importance.
Two days later the woman and boy returned to the road with a new escort.
”Oh, no,” Aral groaned. ”Here we go again. We going to follow them to the edge of the world?”
”If we have to.”
”Hey, Mike, I didn't sign on for that. A couple days, you said.”