FOR THE FIRST few miles out of Carlion, Saker was surrounded by other carts, riders and people on foot. The roads, caught between dry-stone walls, were so clogged that the walkers were faster than the carts.
His disguise was perfect, except that he was traveling alone. So he stopped and offered a lift to an old couple carrying a baby. They accepted with relief. The old man climbed into the back of the cart with some help from Saker; the woman clambered up next to Saker with more agility. She carried the baby in a shawl tied around her chest. It was not a newborn. Its curly yellow hair waved in the breeze as it popped its head up out of the shawl and looked around. Saker hated it. It was the inheritor of Acton’s brutality. With hair like that, it would never be treated like an animal. Never be spat at, or cursed, or refused service. He set his heart against it.
Then he wondered, why were they alive? Had they run away so fast that the ghosts hadn’t got to them? He asked his passengers.
“Ghosts? No bloody ghosts, sir, they were demons from the cold hells! Ghosts can’t do what they did!” the man shouted over the noise of the wheels on the rough road.
“They killed our daughter’s husband, they did, right in front of us,” the woman confirmed.
“And your daughter?”
“Oh, she’s been dead these ten months, birthing this one,” she said, smoothing down the baby’s curls.
“They didn’t attack you?”
“It was strange, it was,” she said, thinking hard. “It was like we weren’t even there. Like they only saw him. As though Lady Death had sent them specially to get him.”
She sounded as though she didn’t mind that idea. Saker gathered that the baby’s father had been disliked. It worried him, though, that three blond people had been overlooked by the ghosts. Surely they couldn’t be Travelers in disguise, too? He thought of the red-headed woman. He would have sworn she was one of Acton’s people, but Owl had thrust her aside; protected her, until she threw her life away to protect the man. Useless sacrifice. But if she had old blood, if the blonds beside him had old blood, if so many of the inhabitants had that blood running in their veins… where did that leave his crusade?
Perhaps he could refine the spell. Set the barrier higher, so that only those with enough old blood would be protected. But how much was enough?
All day, he pretended to be a kind young stonecaster who had been caught in Carlion unawares. He delivered the old couple and the baby to the woman’s brother’s cottage in a village on the boundary of Three Rivers Domain, left amidst their effusive thanks, and found a room for the night at the local inn.
He sat in a corner of the common room and listened to the talk around him. It ranged from disbelieving to hysterical, from terrified to belligerent. No one spoke of anything but the stories from Carlion. They didn’t realize where he had come from and he kept silent rather than be deluged with questions. Halfway through the evening the door opened to let in a family: parents and two young girls, just out of childhood, both with light brown hair like their father. They were carrying bundles of cloths, with oddments sticking out of them: a candlestick, a tinderbox, an empty waterskin. He knew instantly that they were from Carlion, and as soon as the innkeeper realized it, too, she bustled them off into the corner next to him and interrogated the parents.
“We don’t know what happened,” the man said. “We were sleeping, and then the door banged back and these… these things, like ghosts but real, burst in on us. They had swords, just like warlords’ men!”
“I screamed,” one girl said.
“It was like they didn’t see us,” the mother added. “They looked us over but they didn’t see us. Thank the gods!” She began to cry, taking off her headscarf to mop up her tears and revealing, not the black hair Saker had expected, but pure gold. “They killed our neighbors. Both sides. Just slaughtered them in their beds. Half the town’s dead!”
The older girl started to cry, too, but the younger set her mouth and sat closer to her father.
“We’re not going back there!” the mother said wildly, and the younger girl nodded decisive agreement.
“It’s shagging cursed,” the girl said. The mother immediately scolded her for swearing. Saker saw the satisfaction on the girl’s face and realized she had planned it that way, to stop her mother crying. She was of Traveler blood through her father, he was sure, even if her mother wasn’t. But then why did the ghosts ignore the mother? He would have to smooth out any inconsistencies in the spell next time.
He wondered where to go next. He wasn’t ready for Turvite. He would be, soon, but not yet. For Turvite, his army needed better weapons. Mostly they had scythes and sickles. They needed swords. He wouldn’t find those in a free town. Inevitably, he thought about a warlord’s fort. Fighting a warlord’s force would garner many weapons. His army wasn’t big enough to do that yet. But if he moved through Central Domain, gathering bones, he could take his force against Sendat, and get all the weapons he wanted.
Saker nodded, forgetting for the moment the red-headed woman who had betrayed her blood. Central Domain. He would stay here and aim for Sendat before autumn.
Then Turvite. He would succeed where the old enchanter had failed. He laughed to himself in the inn chamber. No one had ever been as powerful. His head swam. Loss of blood, he thought. Yes, a time quietly collecting bones would be good for him as well as for his plan. When they attacked Sendat, he would need lots of blood to raise his army.