The southern fields of Nimrock were now overgrown with plains grass encroaching eastward to the road. It grew shoulder high and waved in the wind. Birds angrily chirped as they suddenly flew upward, letting the travelers know they were unwelcome so near their nests hidden in the grass.
“It seems alive,” Ricky commented, trotting next to Neighbor on Flame.
“Of course, it lives, boy. They are growing plants.”
Sometimes her logical responses made him feel stupid. Not this time.
“No, I meant, it feels sinister. Don’t you feel it, Neighbor? I don’t like riding so near.”
“It is only grass,” she answered. “The young sprouts taste delicious. I know you do not like to eat grass, but if you did, you would agree.”
Ricky let the conversation drop. The feeling, however, wouldn’t leave him, the feeling that something hidden in that undulating grass watched their every move, and it was more than the birds. He’d heard rumors of the Plains People. They didn’t associate with Farhnerians, or anyone but themselves. While living in Nimrock, his parents had warned him to stay away from the plains, but since he never had reason to go near—except on one wild and fast ride with Neighbor—he never gave it much thought. Not until now.
He brought Flame down to a walk and turned to look at his companions. Mostly they seemed bored as they plodded on. Only Rogerin, at the tail of their group, sat tall in his saddle, eying the grass as well. Rogerin surely felt it, the grass, or something hidden within, watching the travelers. He wished he could slip back and speak with him.
“We’re just passing through,” Ricky said loudly, more to the grass than his companions.
“Why would we stop?” Synne asked. “We’ve got food, and there’s no one to rob around here.”
“Hush,” Rogerin warned her.
She responded with a snarl. When she faced forward, Ricky shook his head, wanting her to know he concurred with Rogerin. She dropped her reins, grabbed her throat with both hands, tucked her lips into her mouth, and shook her head in mocking obedience and fear.
Good, Ricky thought. Maybe she learned her lesson back in the Quits. He turned back around in his saddle, but not before he caught Rogerin still inspecting the tall grass. Ricky nudged Flame into a trot.
* * *
By dusk, with stars just starting to pop out, they were still not within sight of Plainwell. Neighbor had let him know how hard he could push the horses, and while the scoundrels weren’t military-trained, they endured the pace he set without complaint. They knew they’d only get paid in full when the mission was completed. Ricky thought to keep moving the troop through the night until they reached it, but might have a rebellion if he did. He moved the company off the road, into the deserted fields further from the tall, rippling wild grasses, and taking the saddles off the horses, they set up camp.
There were no trees here to burn, only the occasional knee-high shrub, and the grass. He wasn’t satisfied until a large pile of shrubs for firewood made a flimsy wall between their fire and the dark, waving growth. The horses and unicorn grazed nearby. The company ate without speaking, listening to the wind whispering across the plain. Then, suddenly, all fell still.
“So, how far away are we from your Plainwell?” Gaufrid asked.
The words startled Rick. He had never been this far south in Farhner. He could only guess the answer.
“We should reach it soon. Barabook is another few days beyond that, if we need to go there.”
“Barabook?”
“A city on the coast.”
“City,” Jarvis and Synne said at the same time, nodding at each other, then smiling.
Bertran and Rogerin each grabbed another dried shrub to hack into firewood as the others laid their sleeping mats around the fire.
“In this wide-open space,” Hobbie said, “with no trees or mountains and only darkness surrounding us, “this is the perfect spot to tell ghost stories.”
“No,” Ricky and Rogerin said at the same time.
Rogerin dragged another couple of bushes closer to the foot of his mat. “Best to sleep this night away,” he said.
“Not much else to do,” Jarvis said, stretching out on his mat.
“Except tell ghost—”
“No!” Rogerin and Ricky repeated.
They looked at each other. Rick wanted to speak alone with Rogerin, but at the same time didn’t want to hear anything about ghosts or spine-tingling feelings. Everyone knew once you said something like that out loud, it was sure to come to pass. Besides, he’d met ghosts before, the ghosts of Dugan Fortress in northern Spikonia. He had no desire to meet any again. King Segan told him to return to the Spike dungeon with ghosts. Ghosts. Had his time in prison damaged his mind? But he knew now that ghosts were as real as the swaying grass.
Neighbor and the horses grazed nearby, just along the edge of the firelight. If anything was suspicious, surely the animals would sense it first. Animals always did.
Synne and Bertran lay on their mats. Hobbie snapped off twigs from a shrub and tossed them one by one into the fire where they were quickly consumed. They should have pulled more shrubs. Many more. Rick and Rogerin sat cross-legged on their mats, watching the dark fields beyond the fire.
A soft, constant whistling came to them, like wind blowing through the grass. Only, there was no breeze. The horses stomped and jerked. A couple of them whinnied. Neighbor stiffened and pointed her ears toward the wall of shrubs.
“Cover your ears and eyes!” Rogerin shouted, and pulled his blanket over the top of his head. He stared wide-eyed at Ricky and shouted again, “Cover your ears and eyes!” He threw a whole shrub onto the fire, scattering some sparks, and pulled his blanket the rest of the way over his face. At his last words, the whistling from the grass grew louder and more high pitched.
“Neigh-ah-bah-rah-shur-ah-kee-ah!” Ricky shouted over the sound to Neighbor. He pointed east, away from the moving grass. “Take the horses.”
He closed his eyes, felt the ground shaking with the stampede of hooves as he pulled his own blanket over his head. Even with the heels of his hands pressed to his ears he still heard the whistling encircle the camp, then rise high above, only to descend a hand-span from his head. He tried to think of a spell to subdue the wind and block the shrill sound, or shield them from it, but it took all his physical strength to keep his blanket tight and brace himself against the gusts and noise. Over and around, up and down, the high-pitched wind continued for what felt like half the night.
At last, and quite abruptly, all became quiet. Ricky pulled his hands away from his ears and strained to listen from underneath his blanket. Silence. A scrape and thud. Light from the fire suddenly blazed up. Ricky ripped the blanket off his head to his shoulders. Rogerin had tossed another shrub onto the fire. The two of them stared at each other for a while.
“Well, that was—” Hobbie started.
“Hush, now,” Synne said.
And they all remained hushed as they curled onto their sleeping mats, blankets pulled tightly about them, eyes wide open, listening and waiting for dawn.
* * *
As soon as the greying of the morning allowed them enough light to see, without saying a word, nor taking time to fix breakfast, they each rolled their sleeping mats and blankets and picked up their packs and carried them on their shoulders.
Ricky started trotting down the road. The others trotted with him. He slowed to a walk after about forty paces, and the others did, too. Forty paces at a walk, and then he trotted again another forty paces. His company followed suit.
They continued moving in the trot-walk-trot military sequence, and no one complained…except that once Hobbie muttered that he wished Rick hadn’t sent away the horses—unless the ghosts had snatched them. Bertran slapped him on the back on his head and Hobbie said no more about it.
At last they saw Neighbor and the horses coming towards them, and they could hardly wait to ride instead of walk.
Neighbor informed Aldric that they’d slept in a huddle, and it was difficult to get them to return in this direction so close to the tall grass, but she finally herded them right. “I apologize for not believing you, Aldric,” she said.
Rick waved his hand at her and glanced to the nearby prairie. He didn’t want to discuss it out loud. Not here. With humans and horses united again, they started off at a fast trot to the south. Trot, walk, trot, until at midmorning they stopped for a short rest for the horses, and the humans finally had some breakfast of dried meat and dry bread.
Ricky moved next to Rogerin. “How did you know what was happening?” Ricky asked him.
“I read about them.”
“You know how to read?” Gaufrid asked. Rogerin ignored him.
“I thought it was a myth,” he answered with a shrug. “A story in a scroll written down with other folk tales. But I guess not. The people of the plains exist, along with their shrieks and songs to trick travelers into going insane and running into the grass never to be seen again.”
“You call that singing?” Bertran asked. “Rick’s got a beautiful singing voice compared to what we heard last night.”
Ricky ignored the back-handed compliment. “Why have I never heard about this?” he said, looking at Neighbor. She pulled up more grass to eat. “I mean, this is my land, my country, or the edge of it at least. How come I’ve never heard or read about them?”
“Like I said, Rick. They were written down as folklore.”
It was easier to believe in unicorns and dragons than in ghosts.
When Rogerin stood by his horse, ready to get on, Ricky approached him again. “It is you, isn’t it?” he said, remembering how the fire blazed so suddenly with no breeze to make it catch. “You’re a magician.”
Rogerin didn’t answer, but after he’d swung up on his horse, he gave Ricky a quick grin, then looked away.
Another magician. It would have been beneficial if he had known that from the beginning. But then again, there was no need. Not until last night.