Death's Sword Book 1: Finding and Seeking

Chapter 13: Day 18, Day 19

The next morning started typically for late spring in those parts; cool and damp, with a light mist creeping everywhere, though with a brown tinge and unpleasant odour from the smelters. Burrowwold had insisted that rags be bound around the sharp hooves of the beasts, to muffle the sounds they made on the cobbles of the town streets. Once that had been done, he had led his party back to the southern gate they had entered the town by. "The hunch-back will not be expecting us to choose this gate," he reasoned. Now they sat astride their dorvei, waiting for the gates to be opened.

Kleymin was tracing the patterns on the palms of his hand with his crows' feather. First he held it in his left hand, tracing the crescent on the right. Then he traced the star on his left palm, holding the feather in his right hand. Namarth dragged heavily at his left hip, waiting silently for trouble. He hoped to be further along to the west by now, but he couldn't help but feel he had things still to learn from being with his two travelling companions. Although ninja excelled at killing, they weren't much in the way of conversationalists and knowing more about the sword and his role as its owner seemed the best way forward to Kleymin. Besides, the confines of the village hadn't equipped him for life on the road in the long term and there was only so many days that his long ninja stride could last him before he would need to seek shelter with another group of potentially dangerous travellers.

Five members of the town militia stumbled out of the little guardroom, breaking Kleymin from his reverie, and began to pull the gates open. They muttered bad language and curses as they worked, for the wooden gates were stiff, swollen in the damp. The open portal revealed a pale, watery scene, with the visibility no more than fifty metres. "Very poor," grumbled the gnome, scorn evident in his voice, "Those guards don't have a clue what's outside. A tuigrahan warband could rush those gates and be in before the guards could stop 'em. Careless, this close to the border. Hmmmph." Kleymin noted the gnome's disquiet and made a mental note to keep in mind what he had learnt of the tuigrahans on his trip across the plains. Knowing how to avoid them could be very useful it seemed.

Quietly, taking care to keep out of sight of the walls, they skirted the town to the east until they came to one of the two rivers. A little further upstream, they found the small cluster of boats and rafts they had observed the day before. Burrowwold advanced cautiously, then sighed with relief when he recognised none of the clan-marks on the prows of the boats. Soon they were on the other side of the river, heading north-west once more, leaving a boatman richer by four bu behind them.

Burrowwold was still complaining about the price an hour later, when the sun began to break through the mist. Tania tried to reason with him, "Look, he knew we were up to something, or we'd have crossed a bridge in town. Be thankful he didn't manage to gouge any more out of us than that." The gnome bared his teeth at her, with eyes narrowed, growled something in gnomish, then subsided. He scanned up and down the border road they had reached a little earlier, checking more often as the mist lifted.

The road remained deserted. Peasants swarmed in the field on either side of the road, starting to prepare the paddies for the hagushu kjava planting. It was noticeable that the paddies no longer covered virtually every square inch of the land, as they had done further east. Instead, there were stands of red-leaved trees and shrubs unfamiliar to Kleymin, clumps of bamboo and some areas lying barren or fallow.

It was nearly noon when Burrowwold called a halt. They took shelter in a stand of wild rust-coloured bamboo that lay a short distance off the road. Some of the canes stood over three metres tall. Having forced their way in from the far side, they could watch the road whilst remaining hidden.

Kleymin noticed a small brown cocoon attached to one of the sticks Tanya had gathered for their fire. Working carefully, he detached the cocoon from its' hold on the wood and placed it on a twig in a nearby bush. With delicate finger-work, he wound the thread around the twig to hold the little bundle in place. Burrowwold wandered over from the dorvei. "What are you up to, kid?" asked the gnome.