Taniel (The Taverner's Daughter I)

3: Sam

The sun was higher and the forest had dried before Sam decided that the road was safe enough to use. He scanned the narrow track and, finding the way clear, he mounted. 

Even as the wizard groaned his way up into the saddle, he appreciated his informant's insistence on a personal meeting. The extreme secrecy — and the pain in his backside — was well worth the effort.  Who knew a female dragonspeaker could hold so much power!

Sam tried to guess at the levels of wild magic he might siphon. And he mustn't forget the best part; there was the afterb-."

"Watch out idiot."

Startled out of his reverie, Sam was very nearly unseated when his horse reared. He grabbed at the pommel. Grounding, his horse pranced away from a pair of carriage blacks barreling over the valley rim. 

The rest of the rig hove into view. The driver glared from the riding box, punctuating his displeasure with a crack of his whip over the wizard's head as they sashayed past.

Heart in his throat, the wizard almost strangled his mount, so tight were his arms around its neck. Instead of flinging a rock at the driver's head, his first instinct, he magicked a pebble into the rump of the nearest horse. Its lunged against the harness unsettled the already swaying carriage. A wheel lifted.

A woman screamed.

The driver sprang to his feet and hauled hard on the traces, swearing viciously until the carriage righted. 

A woman looked back at him from the carriage window, her hand holding the side of a face that he thought he should know. Dust swirled in their wake and, as the pandemonium faded, he dismissed the woman from his thoughts.

In his eagerness to get back down to the ground, he almost fell. On shaky legs, he led the horse over the crest. 

The Skerby river valley opened in front of him.

Easily identified by its travl-ring, the watchward soared above the other castle towers, its foundations deep inside the rocky ridge rearing out of the sea. Only a few homes shared the same rugged cliff top. Most of Skerby straggled around the shoreline where the river met the sea.

Sam imagined eyes from the watchward on him. 

He fingered his beard. Even without the growth, few would place him since a good century had passed since he had last ventured from Eighalh.

The still skittish horse shied, sidestepping a shadow across the track. It snorted and rolled accusing eyes at him.

"I know. I know," he soothed, patting its neck. "We had quite the fright. A drink and something to eat would do us both good." He might as well have a look at the girl, since he was so close. If only he had a dragon at hand, he could do the interception himself.

"Let's eat." The wizard swung into the saddle and prodded the horse into a canter.

Quite some time later, Sam rode along the main street of Skerby, looking around with interest. It had been dark when he arrived by coach from Ferryton and he had left right after hiring the horse. Now, he saw that Skerby was like every other fishing village he had the misfortune to visit in his two hundred and thirty-one years. 

Ramshackle homes, scattered on both sides of the road, escorted him to the village proper. The shops looked prosperous enough, probably from trade with the castle. Beyond the cobblestones, the houses jostled for the best position against the shelter of the ridge.

He wrinkled his nose. 

Typical seaside, all right, stinking of sea, seaweed, and slimy sea fishes. How did they put up with it?