A Scoundrel's Song

30

Dark days. Days of haunted, hunted travel. Days of nervous glances to the darkest corners, within every copse of trees, at every wave of a frond of grass in the light breeze. Nights, sleepless and jittery. Watching their surroundings. Jumping at every call of the wild. The howls, the fluttering of leather wings, the skittering. Huddled around a campfire made so small as to not attract unwanted attention. All these, Niico had expected and feared.

It wasn't like that at all. The few people they passed gave them not a second glance and the days were as bright and cheer-filled as the days before. Blue skies continued to stretch out above their heads, with wisps of clouds that drifted away, leaving few shadows passing over them. No-one watched their surroundings with greater care after a little while. Nothing caused chests to tighten as unexpected noises and movements remained at the same levels as before. Nights passed in dream-filled sleep, uninterrupted and cozy around warm fires built to last the night.

Niico felt a little disappointed with that and a little relieved. He didn't like worrying. Worrying gave him headaches. They passed between the two great lakes with little trouble. Avoided those few villages that sat within sprawling farmland, or huddled close to lake shores. The paths were rough, but passable. The company, however, remained the same. Pel rolled her eyes at everything Niico said. Akafa glowered, to the point where Niico began to suspect that the man would glower at varying degrees from happy-glower to furious-glower with only how wide his eyes were to tell the difference.

Antioni remained as upbeat and ineffectual as ever, taking everything in with wonder, despite it all looking much the same as his village home. A little different in the terrain, trees changing the further west they travelled, a little change in temperature but, on the whole, nothing of great enough difference to make Niico feel awed at the wonder of it all. Herit still acted out her fancies. Only that morning had she swore, with utter sincerity, that she was the reincarnated soul of a Fae witch from before the first Upheaval. The child had heard of reality but had no reason to live in it.

"All I'm saying is, the mare is right there." Pel tugged at the reins, trying to bring the horses back under her control. "He's a stallion, she's a mare. But, no, he keeps trying to mount the gelding. He reminds me of you."

Niico's brilliant idea had proven problematic and had failed to speed up their pace as he had predicted. Fastening all three horses together to pull the wagon along. Hypothetically, it should have worked, but the stallion, whose name he had forgotten because it was a horse and it was stupid to name a horse, had decided that he and the gelding should become far, far better acquainted at every opportunity. Eyes wide, nostrils flaring, tail whipping, as it barged the mare out of the way to reach his preferred mate.

"He's just boisterous. Let him have his fun and everything will be fine." Secretly, he held a certain amount of admiration for the horse. The wagon almost tipped over as the horse tried again. "Well, perhaps we should return to the old method?"

Pel brought the wagon to a halt and jumped down, setting about unfastening the complicated series of ties Niico had used to hold the horses together. This was work better suited for Pel. He needed his hands free and undamaged to allow him to continue writing his song. He had made progress on that, choosing a very specific series of chords that would form the very core of his composition. Soon, he would have that song complete and then things would start to change for the better.

Though, where they would perform, he couldn't imagine. Up ahead, Pescavigio beckoned, but they would not stop there. In fact, they would not stop anywhere civilised through fear that the Sisters of the Lady of Bearing would find them and batter them with those heavy, deadly maces they carried just to show how dangerous they were. Well, perhaps not only for that. Niico suspected the practical nature of those maces matched their brutal aesthetic.