Ash

THE NEXT DAY, a day of high white clouds and breezes, they rode through winding trails along the side of the mountain, heading south toward the pass into the North Domain. Ash considered all the different kinds of trouble they could get in, down in the populated parts of the valley. It was a truism among Travelers that two young men, Traveling together, were the most likely to attract unwanted attention.

“Bullies, bastards and bashers,” his mother had warned him when he was only eleven or twelve. “They all go for the young men on their own.”

He couldn’t see any way around it, though. They had to head down to the river flats, to make their way around the eastern spur of the Northern Mountains that fenced in the valley. The bluff reared up in front of them, growing taller as they rode through the next day, a sheer cliff bespeckled by stunted trees clinging to ledges and crannies.

“Do you know any way over the bluff?” he asked Flax.

“I’m not going up there!” Flax retorted, alarmed. “That’s wilderness!” Cam skittered a little, picking up on his fear.

Wilderness. Ash shivered. In wilderness, the old agreements with the wind and water spirits were void. Humans were prey, easy prey. The wilderness wasn’t like the Great Forest, which had its own laws. There were no rules, and no help. Acton’s people avoided the canyons near Gabriston because they believed them to be wilderness like that: fatal for humans. They were fatal, too, for anyone without Traveler blood in them. But the bluff ahead, that must be real wilderness, without demons, and no place for them. The valley was a haven in comparison. But they were likely to meet problems there.

Imagining all the problems, and planning how he’d deal with them if they arose, took enough of Ash’s concentration — along with the riding, which still didn’t come easily — so that he could mostly ignore Flax’s incessant humming and singing.

He was so concentrated on the threats ahead that the shouts behind them took him by surprise.

“Oi! You! What do you think you’re doing?”

They both turned in their saddles to see three men riding up behind them, on bay horses that even Ash realized were beautiful. The three men were all red-heads, brothers by the look of them, and they sat their horses in the same way that Bramble and Zel did, like they’d been born there.

“We’ll never outrun them,” Flax said quietly. “They’re chasers.”

Ash nodded. Better make sure they didn’t have to run, then.

He raised a hand in greeting.

“Gods be with you,” he said politely.

The greeting surprised them. But then they looked at his dark hair and dark eyes, and their own eyes narrowed. Flax moved forward a little and their expression lightened as they saw his fairer hair and hazel eyes. Ash dropped his gaze. Let them think he was a servant, if it made them feel better. “Pride gets you killed,” his mother had taught him, and she was right.

“Greetings,” Flax said, friendly and casual.

“What do you think you’re doing, riding through our land?” The eldest of them spoke belligerently, but as though he always spoke like that, not with any especial malice.

“Sorry,” Flax said. “I’m on my way to Mitchen, and I thought this was a public road.”

“Why not take the main road, then?”

Flax waved his hand. “It’s so pretty here, I just wanted to enjoy the ride.”

They frowned. Ash thought it was probably a bad excuse. But the youngest man, a boy really, was looking at Flax with undisguised admiration. Flax smiled at him.

“It is beautiful,” the boy agreed, pushing back his hair with one hand and smiling for all he was worth. His brothers shot him looks of annoyance, though clearly they knew all about his predilection for young men, because there was no puzzlement or disgust, just that look that brothers get when their younger siblings do something stupid. But the eldest wasn’t minded to let it go that easily.

“What’s he doing here?” he said, staring at Ash.

“He’s my safeguarder,” Flax said. It was an inspired idea. They looked taken aback, but not disbelieving.

Eyes still down, conveying no threat, Ash added, “Young master here likes to wander around. His father sends me to take care of him.” He lifted his eyes and risked a conspiratorial smile. “Make sure he doesn’t get into bad company.”

The second man’s mouth twitched, but big brother wasn’t cozened so simply.

“A Traveler who can fight. Seems to me I’ve heard something about that recently . . .”

Ash shrugged, and Flax cut in.

“We’ve been up in Foreverfroze.” He addressed the younger brother directly. “It’s so beautiful up there. Have you been?”

“No, I always wanted to go but —”

His brother cut him off. “You’re that one who killed the warlord’s man.”

Each man was suddenly still, staring at Ash. Except Flax.

“Oh, don’t be silly. Why would he do that? And when, anyway? He’s been with me.” His manner was perfect, and the men relaxed. Ash was impressed by the quality of his lying. That had to come from practice. He wondered how much truth Flax told Zel.

“Off our land,” the eldest brother said.

Flax and Ash both nodded, and turned their horses toward the river flats.

“Del, why don’t you go with them and make sure they do leave?” the second brother said, amusement in his voice.

“Good idea!” the youngest said and didn’t wait for endorsement from the eldest. He kicked his horse to move ahead and led them down a steep, stone-covered trail with the confidence of someone who’d done it all his life. Flax followed, just as flamboyantly. Ash came last with much more caution, finding another source of annoyance at Flax. It was all right for these boys who rode before they walked . . .

Del kept turning around in the saddle to flirt with Flax, who gave back smile for smile. Ash wasn’t sure if it were acting or not. He suspected not, and wondered. Men shagging together was frowned upon among Travelers and it was one of the other differences between them and Acton’s people. “We all have to do our duty to the blood,” the boys had been told on his first visit to the Deep. “The blood must survive.” And they were also told: no more than two children who needed to be carried. Children must be spaced so that, if necessary, parents could pick up one each and run. This was the man’s responsibility, to refrain from sex so that there were never more than two young children at a time. Many Traveler families had grown-up children and then a new batch, young enough to be their siblings’ children.

“Oh, there’s no room at our house. My grands all live with us and my brother’s brood and I’ve got four sisters, too, and none of them married yet,” he heard Del say with mock outrage.

The prohibition against having more than two children at a time, combined with the Generation law, which for hundreds of years had forbidden Travelers to move in parties containing more than two generations — parents and children — meant that there were no large, happy, dark-haired families full of siblings who complained about each other and squabbled and borrowed each other’s things and backed each other up in fights. Ash wondered what it would be like to live like that, in the middle of so many kin. But neither he nor any child of his was likely to find out.

They reached a ridge from which they could see the fertile valley, with wooden fences and houses looking like toys.

“This is the edge of our land,” Del said with clear reluctance. He pointed south. “Follow the trail down that way and it brings you to the main road.” He edged his horse closer to Flax and Cam. “Sure you can’t stay?” he asked, resting a hand on Flax’s shoulder. Flax looked a little downcast, too.

“I wish I could,” he said. “But we have to get on.”

They both sighed. Ash envied them for a moment: the quick solidarity, the easy friendship. Their ease together wasn’t just being attracted to each other; they were the same kind of person, spoiled and cosseted and sunny-natured as a result, expecting the best from the world. But in Ash’s experience, the best didn’t happen often, if at all.

He coughed politely, as a servant might to remind his young master of the time.

“Yes, we have to get on,” Flax repeated sadly. “Thanks for your help.”

“If you’re ever back this way . . .” Del touched Flax’s cheek gently, and Flax nodded, then gave a cheeky grin.

“Oh, I’ll pay a visit, don’t you worry about that!” They both laughed and Del was still laughing and waving as they headed down the trail he had shown them and turned a corner, hiding him from sight.

“He was nice,” Flax said.

Ash made a noncommittal noise of agreement, and Flax grinned at him.

“Not your type? You don’t know what you’re missing!”

For the first time they laughed together, so they were not on guard as they rounded another curve in the trail and found themselves on one of the roads that criss-crossed the valley floor. Ash hadn’t realized how far down they’d come and it made him nervous. This road was used. He could see a cart in the distance to the south, coming closer, and to the north was a man on foot, with the heavy pack of a hawker. At least he was moving away from them.

“Look for a way to get off this road,” Ash said. “We need to go the back ways.”

Flax grinned. “You could always go over the bluff instead of around it. You’re the one they suspect. I’ll meet you on the other side.”

Ash shuddered involuntarily, and Flax laughed.

“Very funny,” Ash said sharply. He forced himself to look unconcerned, but the very thought of wind wraiths made him shake. Doronit had made him confront them — to tame them, even — but the memory of their long claws and sharp, hungry eyes still troubled his dreams.

He was so caught up in the memory of the night on the cliffs of Turvite when he had met the wraiths that he barely noticed the bullock cart coming toward him. His instincts kicked in at the last moment and he assessed the driver, a middle-aged man… someone he knew. Frantically, he tried to place the face, but it wasn’t until the man spoke that he recognized him. This was the carter they had met, he and Bramble and Martine, on their journey out of Golden Valley to the Well of Secrets.

“You!” the man said accusingly, pointing at Ash. “You’re that Traveler they’re looking for! I saw you before, with the two whores.”

Ash froze, caught between two equally strong impulses. The first, the oldest, was to run. The other was to kill. If they let the carter go, he would raise the valley against them. They would be tracked, captured, probably executed. Even the Golden Valley executed murderers. He thought fleetingly of the pressing box, and hoped it would be a quick hanging instead. But if he killed the carter now, it would buy them enough time to get out of the valley. Particularly if they hid the body and let the bullock loose… He found that his hand had moved to his boot knife without him willing it. He could hear Doronit’s voice, teaching, “Assess the threats against you and then remove them.”

It was good advice, and might save their lives. It might even save the Domains, because if they didn’t complete their task and meet up with the others, there would be no one to stop the ghosts… One life against two. One against many… The time seemed to stretch out endlessly as he sat, poised between the two choices. The carter pointed his whip at them and almost snarled. Ash’s fingers took a firmer hold, a throwing hold so he could draw and flip the knife right into the man’s throat in one movement.

“You’re scum, all of you!” the carter said. Ash’s hand twitched, wanting to throw the knife.

“Death of the soul,” he heard Martine’s voice say quietly, and remembered another ghost, a girl he had killed, who had warned him against this path. His fingers loosened on the knife hilt.

“Say nothing. Just ride,” he said to Flax quietly, and they swung around the man and pushed the horses to a canter. Once they were out of sight, they found the next path up into the hills and took it as fast as the horses could safely go on the steep ground.

They went fast and silently for an hour or two, cutting between tracks, heading back up the hillside, and then behind them they heard the belling note of hounds on the scent.

They looked at each other in alarm. The horses picked up on their nervousness and tossed their heads, Cam dancing a little sideways, which almost knocked Ash and Mud off the path. Ash recovered with difficulty and nodded his head to Flax to lead the way.

They came to a brook tumbling down the hillside in a mist of white spray, so they headed the horses upstream through the rocky flow and picked their way past two obvious trails until they came to a large stone jutting out into the water. Flax swung down from Cam and cajoled the horses into scrambling up onto the stone and stepping from there to a patch of thick grass, so that once the wet hoofprints had dried there would be no sign they had left the stream.

The sound of the dogs grew fainter behind them.

Ash felt as though he moved in a dream. After all, this was the stuff of Traveler nightmares: Acton’s people on the hunt, dogs, a wilderness with no refuge, and he himself as guilty as he could be; no defense possible. He was a killer. Sully was dead. That thought made him wake up.

“They’re after two of us,” he said to Flax. “And you haven’t done anything. If we split up, you should be all right.”

Flax shrugged. “That carter saw me with you. He won’t forget.”

That wasn’t quite true. The carter had stared at Ash the whole time.

“You know what the grannies say,” Ash reminded Flax. “It’s our duty to survive.”

“Survive and breed?” Flax grinned. “Not likely to happen with me, anyways. Never saw a girl I’d give a tumble to. Come on.”

He led the way up a narrow track, barely a deer trail, threading through the byways as quietly as they could. On the stony paths they had to move more slowly than Ash would have liked, but a lame horse would be the death of both of them.

Twice more during the day, in the distance, they caught the sound of baying hounds, and sweat broke out all over Ash. But the belling notes became no louder, and they found another path which took them further south.

“I just hope we don’t go too far up,” Flax said, giving the bluff ahead of them a worried look. They were much closer, but they wouldn’t reach it that day.

Just before night they found a hollow in the cliff which trickled spring water down into a small pool. It was as good a stopping place as they could hope for on the hillside, screened from view from both sides. They couldn’t risk putting up the tents, so they slept on the ground, rolled in a blanket, cold and uncomfortable, and they kept the horses tethered right next to them. Ash took the first watch. He was more used to going without sleep, and Flax was tired out. Waiting in the dark, danger lurking in every rustle of the bushes, he blessed Doronit for her relentless training. He and Flax might not get out of this alive, but at least he wasn’t sitting here panicking and feeling helpless. If the hunters came, they’d get a fight.