His progress after that was much slower. Despite the misting rain, folk were braving the City’s streets. And since everyone knew him, and knew flame-coated Firedragon, since they knew Da was poorly, he couldn’t walk the horse ten strides without someone stopping him and asking, “How goes your father?”
Because they loved Da, and he was Asher’s son, he couldn’t be rude. Couldn’t jam his heels into Firedragon’s wet flanks and gallop like a madman to Dorana’s gates or slink his way out of the City down back lanes and alleyways. No. He had to nod and smile soberly and thank them for their concern. Tell them, “Da’s abed, which ain’t a pleasure for him, but he’s resting mighty comfortable. I’ll tell him you asked.”
But folk didn’t ask just ’cause they loved Da. They were frighted too, looking for comfort… and who could blame them? The mood in the City was dark, fear making everyone ripe for fratching and brangles and fisticuffs. The City’s guards were being kept on the hop. No wonder the Council had asked him to do this. And though a part of him still resented how they’d ignored Da and his warnings, which had led to the mess that was Westwailing—though he was close to hating them for that—and even though they wouldn’t do what he wanted, get rid of Arlin once and for all—he’d never have refused them.
If only Mama could see that. If only she could see how refusing the Council wouldn’t only disappoint Da, it would give bloody Arlin rocks to throw at them. There was no telling how much trouble that poxy shit would make out of it, with the City on edge. With Lur on edge. Frighted folk were skittish folk, and skittish folk, like spooked horses… they didn’t much care who they trampled.
But right now Mama couldn’t see straight. And he understood that, he did, only… he felt like a sprat again, small and shivery inside, because his mother was fratched with him. His whole life she’d been the one who understood. Now she was turned against him. He’d never felt so lost.
But she’ll forgive me when I fix this. When Da doesn’t die, and I find a way to fix Lur, she won’t be fratched. She’ll be proud.
In fits and starts he continued through the City, until finally he reached its open gates. There was a whole crowd of folk waiting for him there. As a general rule that kind of folderol wasn’t allowed, on account of not slowing down the travellers coming in and going out. But Captain Mason of the Guards stood on duty today, making sure folk behaved themselves and turning a blind eye to those who’d gathered to wish Asher’s son well. As he rode past, smiling his thanks, the Captain nodded. Good luck.
“Captain,” he murmured, half-raising his hand. And then couldn’t utter another word, because Charis was one of the Olken patiently waiting to wave him goodbye.
“Rafel,” she said, as he halted restive Firedragon in front of her. She’d thrown a pretty green shawl over her head to keep off the drizzling rain, but she was still damp in patches. Mud splattered her stockings and the hem of her skirt. “Rafe, can we talk?”
He’d not meant to dawdle once he was free of the City. Once safely beyond the anxious well-wishers he’d meant to give Firedragon his impatient head so they could gallop away from busy Dorana, to somewhere quiet that would let him hear Lur properly. That was what he’d meant to do. ’Cept here was Charis, in the rain and splattered with mud, looking up at him with those eyes… wanting to talk.
“I s’pose,” he said, half pleased, half wary. “Go on ahead and wait for me down the road.”
She tried to smile. “I won’t keep you long, I promise.”
As she wriggled her way out of the crowd he looked at all the solemn Olken faces gathered on either side of the wide-open gates. Could feel Captain Mason’s displeasure, but knew he couldn’t ignore them. Not after stopping to have a word with Pellen’s daughter. He could feel their fear, a cold breath on his skin. Could feel them thinking, “He’s Asher’s son. He’s going to save us.”
He felt sick.
Now that he’d stopped, an ole man raised his gnarled hand. “Barl’s blessings on you, Rafel. And on your father.”
The fervent words were repeated, rushing through the crowd like a warm wind through a field of green corn. But before he could say anything, give these good folk thanks or hope or even a smile, frowning Captain Mason started chivvying them about their business. So he tugged his hat-brim, eased his hold on the reins and let Firedragon bound through the open gates and onto the City road.
Charis had walked just far enough to keep them private, and was standing forlorn in the drizzle with her shawl pulled tight. He jogged Firedragon to join her then drew rein again.
“What’s amiss, Charis? Not your da?” Alarmed, he saw there were tears in her eyes. What? No, no, Pellen couldn’t be—there’d be all kinds of noise if he was—“Charis, he ain’t—”
“Dead? No,” she said swiftly. “But Rafe, he’s… that Council meeting… I begged him not to go, I begged him, but…” Her voice caught on a sob. “He’s stubborn. And now he’s paying the price.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, feeling useless and clumsy. Bad enough when Charis was all flirty and knowing, with her cheeky smile and her frivolous blouses that stirred a man to noticing she wasn’t a girl any more. But now here she was all weepy and here he was wanting to climb off Firedragon so he could hold her and comfort her and—
Am I in love with her? I can’t be in love with her. She’s Deenie’s little friend. And Da warned me—he warned me—
“Rafe?” said Charis, anxious. “Rafe, what’s the matter? How’s your father?”
“Da’s fine,” he said quickly. Settle down, you fool. “He’s resting comfortable. Thanks for asking.”
“Oh, Rafel.” Charis glared up at him. “Don’t talk to me like I’m one of them.” Her head jerked towards the stragglers still loitering about the City gates. “You can’t hide from me, you know. I’ve known you my whole life. And who knows better than me what it’s like to have a father so poorly? And Asher is… poorly… Rafe, isn’t he?”
She wanted to know if Da was dying. He couldn’t answer. Couldn’t bring himself to think on it or let himself feel her bright, burning sympathy. He had a job to do. If even once he let himself think—
“I’ve got to go, Charis. Give my best to your—”
She stepped into the road, blocking his way. “No. Wait.”
“Charis—” Guts twisting, he soothed Firedragon’s fret with one stroking hand, easy in the saddle as the horse pawed the cobbles and swung his hindquarters, tail swishing with temper. “What d’you want from me, eh?”
“The truth,” she whispered. “The truth would be nice.”
“I told you the truth, Charis. Da’s in his bed, he’s asleep. He ain’t in pain. At least—” He cleared his throat. “Kerril says he ain’t.”
“But will he get better?”
I don’t know. No-one knows. But if he doesn’t—if he doesn’t—
Staring at his gloved fingers folded tight round Firedragon’s reins, he flinched as Charis’s hand rested lightly on his knee.
“You know what Goose used to say about you?” she asked. “He used to say the real Rafel hardly ever showed his face.”
“What?” Shocked, he looked down at her. “What d’you mean Goose said—when did you and Goose ever—”
She was almost smiling. “He’s your best friend, Rafel. And Papa likes his ale. Every few days I’d buy a jug or two off him, directly, and we’d chat a bit.”
“About me?”
“About all kinds of things,” she said. “But yes. Sometimes we talked of you. Goose thought—”
“Hey,” he said, scowling. “Don’t talk on what he used to say, Charis, or like he ain’t thinking anything right now. He ain’t dead.”
“Sorry,” she said, and took her hand from his knee. “I didn’t mean to—I only meant—” She folded her arms. “I like your father, Rafel. I’m worried for him. I’m worried for you. What happened wasn’t your fault.”
No, no, no. He wasn’t talking on that. Not to Charis, not to anyone. Da witless on the floor of the Weather Chamber, in his arms, thrashing and grunting, his face covered in blood… “I’ve got to go,” he said, and swung Firedragon to one side.
She leapt in front of him again. “How’s Deenie, Rafel? I’ve not seen her for days.”
He couldn’t ride over her, though the thought was bloody tempting. Just like Mama, she was a slumskumbledy wench. “Charis—”
“And don’t you say she’s fine!” Charis snapped. “Don’t you dare say it, Rafel. She’s my best friend. She’s the sister I never had. And I know she’s feeling the upset in the earth, worse than you are. Worse than me.” Her fisted hand pressed against her belly. “It’s bad this time, isn’t it? Rafe? This time we really are in trouble.”
It was hard to meet her eyes. “What’s Pellen said?”
“Papa?” Smearing spilled tears from her cheeks, she half-laughed, half-sobbed. “Nothing. He thinks silence can protect me. But I see how frightened he is. He’s so sick, and he’s frightened.” She looked at him, her eyes beseeching. “Rafel, can you fix this?”
Barl’s bloody tits… He breathed out, hard. “I don’t know. I don’t know if anyone can. Even Da. If he—when he wakes.”
“Oh,” she said, her voice small. Then she tilted her chin. “Well, I did ask for the truth. And Deenie?”
“Ain’t nowt you can do for Deenie, Charis. Ain’t nowt anyone can do. She feels things and they hurt her. That’s just the way it is.”
His blunt words upset her, he could see that, was sorry for it, but she didn’t lash out. Instead, she tugged her shawl tight again. “I’m holding you up. Perhaps when you come back from your Council business you could stop in and see Papa? He does fret so, being cooped up in the house with mostly me for company.”
“He doesn’t get other visitors?”
“Oh yes, but it’s not the same,” she said. “How can it be the same? They came to know Papa afterwards.”
She meant after the Wall came down. He remembered Da saying that once, when he wasn’t paying close attention to his words. After he’d downed two pints of particular strong ale. “There be the folk as were there, and the folk that weren’t, sprat,” he’d said. “Some things, you can’t explain ’em, or share ’em. If they were there, you don’t need to. And if they weren’t, they won’t understand.”
“Then I don’t see as how I’ll make a difference,” he said. “It was Da knew him then, not me.”
Her smile was brief, her eyes full of quiet misery. “True. But you’re Asher’s son, so it’s almost as good. But only if you’ve the time, Rafel. I don’t want to impose.”
And that made him feel mean. “Charis…”
But she was walking away, back towards the City gates, and Fire-dragon was about ready to stand on his hind legs with temper, being made to wait for so long. So he loosened his hold on the stallion’s mouth, clicked his tongue and let the horse leap into a bouncing canter, hooves pounding wetly on the soaked City road. Overhead the clouds lowered groundwards, heavy with rain. The drizzle thickened and the air swirled cold and damp. Summer, it was s’posed to be, but this wasn’t like any summer Lur had ever seen. Not in a long time. Maybe not ever.
Charis, her eyes beseeching. Rafel, can you fix this?
Heavy with dread, he urged Firedragon faster.
The stallion’s long, easy strides swallowed the open road. He passed a handful of carts and carriages heading for the City, but with his hat pulled down and rain misting thickly no-one saw it was him. And then Firedragon threw his head up, ears pricking, pace slowing without being asked. Looming out of the gloom ahead, a motionless, solitary horse and rider. Rafel didn’t know the animal but he recognised the man sat unmoving in its saddle.
Arlin.
Reaching him, Rafel pulled Firedragon to a plunging halt. Dorana City was a goodly distance behind him now, just its rooftops and the old palace visible above the gentle rise and fall of the rolling green countryside, dotted with yellow-tipped wild lampha bushes and bold scarlet frantins. Arlin and his horse stood on the Home Districts crossroad. Turn right and after ten leagues or so a traveller would come across the beehive district of Rumfylde. Turn left, and the Saffron Hills sweetly beckoned. Keep straight on and after days and days and a few round-aboutations, there’d be the coast.
“Rafel,” said Arlin, his pale hair darkened with rain and his pale eyes shadowed with unfriendly thoughts.
He smoothed a wet lock of Firedragon’s mane. He’d intended to ride towards Rumfylde, but Arlin was in the way. Of course. That was what Arlin did. He got in the way. But he wasn’t about to start something, ’cause they were alone and it didn’t pay to be careless where this Doranen was concerned. Not after what he’d glimpsed in the Council chamber.
He’s been hiding himself, like I have. Arlin bloody Garrick’s a sneaky little shit.
“Arlin,” he said, pleasantly enough. “You’re a long way from home on a wet day.”
Arlin lifted his bare head and stared quizzical at the clouded, weeping sky. “Very wet, yes. I wonder, can you tell me when it’s due to stop raining?”
“I reckon you know I can’t.”
Arlin’s lip curled in a sneer. “So much for being the new Asher.”
“Never said I was,” he replied, as Firedragon shorted, unsettled. “Only said I’d help, if I could.”
Arlin laughed. “Help? You think you can help? Like you helped in Westwailing?” He tipped his head, quizzical again. “I wonder how many more men and women must die from your helping them, Rafel.”
Sink me… “Arlin—I’m sorry.”
“You expect me to believe that?” said Arlin, eyebrows lifting. “To believe you’re capable of remorse?”
It was no use. Talking to this blind fool was a waste of time Lur didn’t have. “No, Arlin,” he said tiredly. “I don’t.”
“Why are you out here, Rafel?” said Arlin, and kicked his brown horse closer. His eyes squinted against the relentless, drizzling rain. “Do you honestly expect me to buy this—this tarradiddle about you being able to feel the earth?”
Firedragon laid his ears flat back at Arlin’s stallion, ready to snap or strike. Scowling, Rafel jobbed the horse’s mouth in warning, not willing to back off. Arlin would see it as a victory, of sorts.
“You calling me a liar?” he said. “Just ’cause you Doranen are deaf, dumb and blind to the earth, I must be too? I thought that kind of arrogance died with Conroyd Jarralt.”
“You prate to me of arrogance?” Arlin snapped. “You? Son of the most arrogant man this kingdom ever birthed?”
“Arrogant or not he saved your bloody life. So you might want to swallow that nasty tongue of yours, Lord Garrick.”
Arlin’s teeth bared. “What I’ll swallow is your admission before the Council that you and your meddling father are responsible for all our current woes. You are unnatural. Both of you. It is unnatural that an Olken can wield Doranen magics. Not to mention insulting that you’d dare refer to yourselves as mages. The Doranen are mages. You Olken are—”
“I’ll tell you what we are, Arlin,” he said, as Firedragon began to dance on the spot. “We’re the folk as were rightfully born to this land. The folk as paid the price for Doranen arrogance. Six hundred bloody years kept down by you and yours. And if that ain’t enough, we’re the folk as saved you from Morg. That’s who we are, my lord.”
Arlin looked skyward again, the rain falling steadily onto his face. “Morg was twenty years ago, Rafel. He’s dead and gone. The buried past. What can you do to save us now, you and your precious Olken magic? Can you restore the weather to its former perfection? Can you undo the damage your father wrought, interfering with Barl’s brilliant workings? Can you make this cursed rain stop?”
He forced himself to breathe slowly, feeling the stirrings of an unwise rage. “You’re full of shit, Arlin. You always were, from our first day in school. Spew it somewhere else, why don’t you? I’ve got a job to do, as assigned by the Council.”
Easing his hold on the reins, he nudged Firedragon a step sideways so he could get past bloody Arlin and make tracks for Rumfylde. But Arlin put his hand out, catching Firedragon’s bridle. The horse stopped, grunting a protest.
“Lur is on the brink of chaos, Rafel,” said Arlin, his voice soft with menace. “You know it. I know it. And we know you can’t save it. You must stand before the Council and admit that. You must—”
“Forget what I must,” he said, as Firedragon jerked and tussled to get free. “You take your bloody hand off my horse’s bridle or so help me—”
“You’ll what?” Arlin sneered. “What will you do, Rafel?”
Rafel smiled. Bollocks to being careful. Arlin was asking for it. “This.”
With a snap of his fingers he severed the girth on Arlin’s saddle, and in the next breath cracked three stones lying in the grass by the side of the road. The shards slapped Arlin’s horse on its fat dappled rump. Squealing, the beast bucked and bolted… and Arlin, still in his saddle, tumbled to the ground.
“You bastard!” Arlin shouted, sprawling, his fine clothes splotched and splattered with mud. “That was assault. Assault with magic. I’ll see you thrown in the Guardhouse, Rafel. I’ll see you destroyed in Justice Hall. I’ll have you charged with attempted murder and the murder of my father!”
Laughing, Rafel rode past him. “You can try, Arlin,” he said, over his shoulder. “But I’m Asher’s son, remember? And you’re the son of the man who wrecked the reef in Westwailing. So maybe you might want to think on that a bit.”
Ignoring Arlin’s furious shouting he dug his heels into Firedragon’s flanks, and they galloped towards Rumfylde leaving the Doranen lordling to catch an ague, or walk home on blisters, or both.
He didn’t care.
For three long, wet days he wandered through the Home Districts. Lur was weeping. Suffering. Bleeding from the deep wounds the Weather Magic, in its death throes, had gouged in the earth. He felt its pain in the waterlogged orchards, with their ripely rotting fruit, in the beehives, grimly droning, in the fields of drenched sheep and milch cows, and in the tilled soil screaming on the edge of hearing.
At first he thought he might go mad from it. The onslaught was brutal. Inescapable. Was this how Deenie felt? Haunted? Battered? No hope of respite, not a single moment’s peace?
Poor little mouse. I never realised.
But gradually his senses numbed—and he welcomed their deadening. It meant that finally he could snatch a little sleep. Everywhere he travelled he kept himself to himself. Kept his hat pulled low and didn’t give his real name. Everywhere he travelled he eavesdropped, shameless. In alehouses and markets and the inns where he stayed, he minded his own business and listened to the locals gossip. Not every Olken he encountered had magic, and of those who did, not many were powerful. He didn’t stumble across one man, woman or child who felt the earth’s tumult as keenly as he did… but many were feeling it. Felt ill, and afraid.
On the fourth day he visited Riddleton, a village on the furthest edge of the Home Districts, sat at the feet of the Saffron Hills. The land thereabouts was prime grazing country, where some of the best cattle in Lur were raised. Riddleton was a sleepy place, tucked far from the City, mostly overlooked ’cept twice a year when the big Livestock Markets were held. Out here, with the Saffron Hills rising, a gentle echo of Barl’s savagely splendid mountains, with more open countryside than the rest of the Home Districts’ hemmed-in fields and clustered cottages, Lur’s torment shouted loudest of all.
Weary after so much time in the saddle, worn down by the ceaseless rain, sometimes drizzling, sometimes heavy, he ambled with Firedragon along the hedge-rowed lanes leading to the village. The constant scraping of earth-distress against his nerves set his teeth on edge, muttered pain behind his tired eyes. Firedragon, sensing his disquiet, broke into a shuffling jog-trot, wet tail swishing, slapping his flanks. Every bone aching, he eased the horse back to a walk. In the fields on either side of them rust-red, black spotted Saffron cattle grazed the wet grass. If they could feel the earth’s misery they gave no sign of it. He envied them their dumb beast ignorance.
Once in Riddleton village, he took a room at the Speckled Rooster. Saw bedraggled Firedragon settled in a warm, dry stable with a hot mash, then took himself off to tramp the dripping streets and boggy laneways. To bully his beaten senses into reading the sorry earth one more time.
This would be his last night away from home. He’d learned what he’d needed to learn, what the Council had sent him to learn. But he knew, his heart sinking, they’d not want to hear what he had to say…
Barl save us. Mama was right. This can’t be fixed. The damage is gone too deep.
The thought bludgeoned him to a halt. He had to fall against a handy tree-trunk and wait for the shivering to pass. Lur was dying. He couldn’t see for unshed tears.
What do I do, Da? How do I tell Mama and Deenie?
Da. The shard of talking stone sat in his pocket, but it hadn’t stirred once. He chose to believe that meant his father hadn’t stopped breathing. Surely Mama would call for him if Da slipped away. She was fratched, she thought him reckless, but she’d not punish him like that. And any road… if Da had died, he surely would’ve felt it.
He pushed off the tree-trunk and kept on walking, barely taking in the patchwork of market gardens on either side of him, carrots and corn and beans and peas. Bedraggled and wilted, but grimly holding on. Sobbing through his blood, Lur’s curdling pain. Such a good thing Deenie was safe at home in Dorana, deadened with Kerril’s elixirs. If Da was right, and magic was a curse, then his poor mousy sister was its worst victim.
Wandering aimless through the village, ignoring the glances from folk as were curious about strangers, he felt his thoughts slide from Deenie to Goose like rocks down a riverbank.
I never asked Deenie if she was sweet on him. Never told her what he told me. Doesn’t matter. They can work it out themselves when he gets back. ’Cause he’s bloody coming back. I don’t care the Council’s not heard from Pintte or Baden. That could be any reason. And anyway, I’ve been on the road for days. By the time I get home, they’ll have heard something. There’ll be word from the expedition by the time I ride through the gates.
There had to be. ’Cause if there wasn’t…
And suddenly he was too tired to keep on walking. Too tired, too disheartened, too sick of what he felt. So he headed back to the inn. He wanted to sleep. To forget. To dream that Lur was thriving, just for a little while. For one last night. ’Cause in the morning he’d have to ride back to Dorana and tell the Council there was no hope.
Sink me bloody sideways, Da. How did we come to this?
He took to his bed soon after supper, but didn’t stay asleep for long. Wrenched from uneasy slumber into storm-wracked wakefulness, he blinked muzzily at his chamber ceiling as lightning cracked like whip-shot and thunder rumbled and rolled. The Speckled Rooster shuddered under the onslaught, window-panes rattling. Through the closed door he heard a young child scream.
“Meister Tamly,” the innkeeper greeted him. “A wild night.”
“Gamble,” he said, scrambled into his damp clothes and tumbled downstairs to the shabby, glimlit parlour. “You all right?”
Gamble shrugged. He was a slight man, with grey streaks at his temples and a fondness for loudly spotted weskits. “I’m not dead yet.”
Rafel stared through the parlour’s bobble-paned windows at the pounding rain, at the blizzard of stripped foliage, at the torrents of water gushing through the laneway outside, all the storm’s destruction lit in silvery fits and bursts.
“Barl preserve us,” said Gamble, bowing his head.
“You can feel it, can’t you?” he said, his stomach churning, his hands clenched to fists in his pockets, where nobody could see them. In his bones, a painful drumming. “The last tatters of power tearing loose in the earth.”
“Sure I don’t know what you mean, sir,” said Gamble, carefully toneless. “Sir, might be you’ll feel happier in your chamber with the curtains drawn, like the other guests.”
“Gamble…” He sighed. “When I told you I was Ned Tamly, a farm manager looking to buy a new bull? I lied. I’m Rafel of Dorana. Asher’s son.”
“Asher’s son?” Gamble’s eyes in the fitful glimlight were wide and full of wonder. “The great man himself?”
He’d long ago lost count of how many times he’d seen that look on an Olken’s face. Once it had thrilled him. Later, grown older, he’d felt it shrink him. But now—now—“That’s right. He’s my da.”
“Well, sir,” said Gamble. “It’s an honour.” Then the pleasure in him dimmed. “Word’s reached us Asher’s ailing and is like to die. Is that true?”
No, it bloody well ain’t. “It’s true he’s not himself just this ticktock, but he’ll be on his feet directly. Gamble, I—”
The Speckled Rooster trembled as thunder boomed low over their heads. Strike after strike of lightning turned night into day. Somewhere upstairs, the same child screamed again. Gamble sucked in a quick breath, then risked himself close-pressed to the nearest window, trying to make out what was left of his storm-wracked world. The tiffa trees in the front garden were bent double and a bed of cheerful pansies lay pulped flat. Gamble moaned, a thin sound of distress, and turned as though the sight were too painful to bear.
“Gamble,” said Rafel, seeing him properly, at last. Feeling him. “Seems to me you’re an Olken with a rare touch of magic.”
Gamble flicked him a wary glance. “And if I am? I don’t use magic to run the Rooster. I’m not a Doranen, needing magic to blow my nose.”
That made him smile a little, even as another crash of thunder rattled his teeth. “Got no great opinion of the Doranen, have you?”
“Hardly lay eyes on one, save maybe twice or thrice a year,” the inn-keeper replied. “They buy their Saffron cattle in Dorana. No need to muddy their fine shoes in Riddleton.”
“Believe me, you don’t miss much,” he said dryly. “We Olken poddle along pretty well without them, all in all. Gamble…” He waited for the echoes of fresh thunder to die. “I need to know—what is it you feel?”
Gamble’s face was troubled as he stared out at the storm. “Mortal afraid, Meister Rafel. Mortal afraid.”
The parlour lit up stark blueish-white as more lightning cracked through the storm-ridden village. Hard on its heels a dreadful growl of thunder. Somewhere close by, a dog howled in terror. The child wailed. Doors slammed.
“Last storm I saw this bad was when the Wall came down,” Gamble added. He turned his head. Despite his fear, his eyes were calm. Almost resigned. “There’s no Wall to come down now, young sir. So what are we looking at? As Asher’s son, do you know?”
What he’d learned was for the Council first. Besides, he didn’t want to make this man’s night any worse. “Not for certain, Gamble. Wish I did.”
A muscle leapt along the innkeeper’s tight jaw. As though he heard the lie—but chose not to challenge it. “And are you afraid?”
There seemed little point in lying about that. “Aye, sir. I’m frighted shitless.”
“Oh,” said Gamble, and looked sorry he’d asked. “What about the Doranen? Do they know what this means? Can their magic fix things?”
Remembering Rodyn Garrick and the rest of them down in West-wailing, how helpless they’d been in the face of the reef—how Arlin’s father died—Rafel shrugged. “I doubt it.”
Gamble’s face crumpled, just for a moment. “Not even Barlsman Jaffee can help us?”
Another shrug. “He’s praying in his chapel. I suppose that’s help of a sort. So far it’s not made any difference but—it might do. I don’t know.”
“And your father?” said Gamble. “Can he get better in time to save us?”
More lightning and thunder. Once the rolling booms fell silent, Rafel looked at the innkeeper. “Only a fool abandons hope. This ain’t the greatest danger Lur’s faced. That was Morg, and he’s long dead. Lur’s our home, Gamble. Whatever ructions we’ve got on our hands this time, I’m going to fight for it—and so will my da.”
“Fight with what?” Gamble whispered. “Sickles and spades? There’s Doranen magic at the heart of this trouble, Meister Rafel. How do us Olken fight that? It’s not our way.”
The truth of Gamble’s words struck him hard, like hammer to anvil. Olken earth magic didn’t start this. Couldn’t finish it. Only Doranen magic could undo the damage here. Except there wasn’t one spell Durm had left behind him that might help them now. If there was, Da would have used it already. And since he hadn’t…
Jervale have mercy. Don’t say Rodyn Garrick was right. Don’t say our only hope can be found in Lost Dorana.
’Cause that meant Fernel Pintte’s expedition was the kingdom’s last chance. It meant Lur’s fate was resting in Sarle Baden’s hands. But would Baden and his mage cronies even care? He didn’t think so. They had no love for Lur or the Olken. They cared only for the Doranen. And Goose—Goose could never stand up to them and demand that they help Lur. Neither could Pintte, though the fool fancied himself some kind of authority. They’d get ridden over roughshod. Shoved aside. Ignored.
That’s even if they’re still alive.
Bitterness galled him. Self-contempt. Despair. As he stood beside the Rooster’s innkeeper and watched the storm rage, unabating, he lashed himself just as hard.
I never should’ve let Da talk me out of going with them. I let him treat me like a sprat and now it looks like Lur’s going to pay the price.
He left Riddleton at daybreak. The storm had blown itself out just before the sunrise, leaving behind it wreckage and ruin. Downed trees. Smashed cow byres. Scattered straw thatching and roof tiles shattered in the streets. Sorry he couldn’t stay and help the stunned folk of Riddleton put their battered village to rights, desperate to get home, he kicked Firedragon into a canter and let the horse leap the felled tree-trunks and piles of gutter-trapped debris.
Dead cattle littered the fields, the poor beasts struck by lightning. Dismayed farmers wandered among them, counting their dreadful losses, their faces pale and drawn in the glowering light. The sky was still clotted with rain-filled clouds, gauzy tendrils drifting low enough to trail through the treetops. The air was so damp Rafel thought he could wring it like a wet cloth.
Hardening his heart to the suffering because he couldn’t help them, he urged Firedragon into a gallop.
Hours later, with the stallion near to dropping beneath him, feeling like he could drop from the saddle himself, he passed through the City’s open gates. Home. He’d go home to the Tower first and then—
“Rafel!” said the City guard on duty. Biddle. They played knuckle-bones together at the Bear. “Can you hold? I’ve orders to send for Captain Mason on your return.”
Mason? Why? Seized with sudden fear he nodded. Nudged Fire-dragon out of the way and sat waiting, silent, unseeing, as Biddle sent a runner to the Guardhouse. Mason arrived a short time later, on foot and running and hardly out of breath. A fit man, and a good one.
“What is it?” Rafel demanded. “Captain, is it—”
“No, no,” Mason said hastily, standing close by Firedragon’s steaming shoulder. “Your father’s not dead, Rafel. It’s the Council—it wants you urgently. There’s word of a sort from Pintte’s expedition.”
Rafel felt his heart leap. “They’re alive?”
“Yes,” said Mason, sorrowful. “But the word’s not good. You’d best prepare yourself.”
Goose. “What’s happened?”
Mason frowned. “By rights the Council should—”
Leaning down, he took hold of the captain’s wiry shoulder. “Please, Mason. Goose Martin’s my best friend. If he’s—if he’s hurt—”
“We don’t know anyone’s hurt,” said Mason with rough sympathy. “But there’s trouble. Barlsman Jaffee says there’s been some kind of attack.”
“An attack?” Rafel stared at him, letting go. “Who’s attacked them? Twenty years the Wall’s been gone, we ain’t heard a peep from anyone. So who—”
“I don’t know,” Mason said grimly. “I don’t want to think about it. We’ve enough trouble of our own right here. The notion there’s someone skulking over the mountains, intent on doing us a mischief…” He stepped back. “I’ve sent word to the Council you’re home. They’ll be gathering. You should go.”
Rafel straightened. “Yes. Thank you, Captain.”
“Rafel—”
“No, sir,” he said, not needing the question asked aloud. “The news ain’t good out there, either.”
And he rode away, leaving Mason speechless and troubled behind him.