And here came Rush again, walking back up the lane. He spied Dag on the porch and angled toward him between the house and the old barn, a grassy area the sheep were sometimes turned out to crop. What the sheep refused to eat was scythed once a year to keep the space from turning back to woods and blocking the view. Rush, Dag realized as he approached, was tense, and Dag considered opening his groundsense wider, unpleasant as it was likely to prove.
“Hey, patroller,” said Rush. “Fawn wants you. Down by the road at the end of the lane.”
Dag blinked once, slowly, to cover the fact that he’d just snapped open his groundsense to its full range. Fawn, he determined first, was not down by the end of the lane, but nearly out of his perceptions to the west, up over the ridge. Not alone—with Reed?—she seemed not to be in any special distress, however. So why was Rush lying? Ah. The woods below were not unpeopled.
Concealed among the trees near the road were the smudges of four horses, standing still—tied? Four persons accompanied them. Three blurred grounds he did not know, but the fourth he recognized as Stupid Sunny. Was it so wild a guess to think that the other three were also husky young farm boys? Dag thought not.
“Did she say why?” Dag asked, to buy a moment more to think.
Rush took a couple of breaths to invent an answer, apparently having expected Dag to leap up without delay. “Some wedding thing or other,” he replied. “She didn’t say, but she wants you right now.”
Dag scratched his temple gently with his hook, glad that he had mostly stuck to the deeply ingrained habit of not discussing Lakewalker abilities with anyone here, Fawn and Nattie excepted. He was now one move ahead in this game; he tried to figure how not to squander that advantage, because he suspected it was the only one he had. It would be amusing to just sit here and watch Rush dig himself deeper concocting more desperate reasons for Dag to walk down the hill into what was shaping up to be a neat little ambush. But that would leave the whole pack of them running around loose all night to evolve other plans. As little as Dag wanted to deal with this tonight, still less did he want to deal with it in the morning. And most especially did he not want it to impinge on Spark in any way.
His brotherly enemies, it seemed, were looking after that angle for him just now. So.
He let his groundsense play lightly over the lower woods, which he had crossed several times on foot in the past days, looking for… yes. Just exactly that.
A
flush, not of excitement, but of that very peculiar calm that came over him when facing a bandit camp or a malice lair jerked his mind up to another level.
Targets, eh. He knew what to do with targets. But would targets know what to do with him? His lips drew back. If not, he would teach them.
“Um… Dag?” said Rush uncertainly.
He wasn’t wearing his war knife. That was fine; he had no hand to wield it.
He stood up and shook out his left arm. “Sure, Rush. Where did you say, again?”
“Down by the road,” said Rush, both relieved and the reverse. Absent gods, but the boy was a poor liar. On the whole, that was a point in his favor.
“You coming with me, Rush?”
“In a minute. You go along. I have to get something in the house.”
“All right,” said Dag amiably, and trod off down the hill to the lane. He descended it for a few hundred paces, then cut over to the wooded hillside, plotting his routes. He needed to surprise his ambushers on the correct side for his purpose. He wondered how fast they could run. His legs were long; theirs were young. Best not to cut it too close.
Mari would beat me for trying this fool stunt. It was an oddly comforting thought. Familiar.
Dag ghosted down the hill at an angle until he was about fifteen feet behind the four young men hiding in the shadows of the trees and keeping watch on the lane.
Looks like Sunny took my advice. It was still early twilight; Dag’s groundsense would give him considerable advantage in the dark, but he wanted his quarry to be able to see him. “Evening, boys,” he said. “Looking for me?”
They jumped and whirled. Sunny’s gold head was bright even in the shadows.
The others were more nondescript: one stout, one as muscular as Sunny, and one skinny; young enough to be foolish and big enough to be dangerous. It was an unpleasant combination. Three were armed with cudgels, for which Dag had a new respect. Sunny had both a stick and a big hunting knife, the latter still in the sheath at his belt. For now.
Sunny got his breath back and growled, “Hello, patroller. Let me tell you how it’s going to be.”
Dag tilted his head as if in curiosity.
“You’re not wanted here. In a few minutes Rush is going to bring down your horse and your gear, and you’re going to get on and ride north. And you don’t come back.”
“Amazing!” Dag marveled. “How do you figure you’re going to make that happen, son?”
“If you don’t, you get the beating of your life. And we’ll tie you on your horse and you’ll still ride north. Only without your teeth.” Sunny’s grin showed white in the shadows, to emphasize this threat. His friends shifted, a little too tense and worried to quite share the amusement, although one tried a huffy sort of laugh to show support.
“Not to find fault, but I see a few problems with your plan. First would be a notable absence of horse. I ‘spect Rush is going to have a trifle of difficulty handling Copperhead.” Dag let his groundsense spread briefly as far as the old barn. Rush’s troubles were indeed beginning. He decided he did not have the attention to spare on managing his horse at this distance, and withdrew the link. The entire family had been told, at the dinner table in front of Sorrel and Tril, to leave Copperhead alone unless Dag was there. Rush was on his own.
Dag tried not to smile too much.
“Patroller, Fawn can handle your horse.”
“Indeed she can. But, you know, you sent Rush. Unfortunate, that.”
“Then you can start walking.”
“After a beating? You have a high opinion of my stamina.” He let his voice go softer. “Think the four of you can take me?”
They glanced at his sling, at his handless left arm, at each other. Dag was flattered that they didn’t all burst into laughter at this point. He thought they should have, but he wasn’t about to say so. The stout one, in fact, looked just a shade ashamed. Sunny, granted, was more guarded. That hunting knife was a new ornament.
“Just to make it clear, I decline your invitation to the road. I don’t care to miss my wedding. Now, it does look as if you have the numbers on your side.
Are you prepared to kill me tonight? How many of you are ready to die to make that happen? Have you thought how your parents and families will feel about it tomorrow? How the survivors are going to explain to them what happened?
Killing gets a lot messier than you’d think, and the mess doesn’t end with burying the corpses. I speak from long experience.”
He had to stop this; by their uncertain expressions, his words were getting through to at least two of them, and that hadn’t exactly been his intent when he’d started babbling, here. Run and chase, that was the game plan.
Fortunately, Sunny and the other muscular one were starting to try to stalk him, moving apart and around to get into position for a rush. To encourage them, he started to back up. And called, “No wonder Fawn calls you Stupid Sunny.”
Sunny’s head jerked up. From the side, one of his friends muffled a guffaw; Sunny shot a glare at him and snapped to Dag, “Fawn’s a slut. But you know that.
Don’t you, patroller.”
Right, that’s done it. “You’ll have to catch me first, boys. If you’re as slow-footed as you are slow-witted, I shouldn’t have a problem—”
Sunny lunged, his stick whistling through the air. Dag was not there.
Dag stretched his legs, driving up the hill, dodging around trees, boots slipping on old leaves and damp limestone lumps and green-black rolling round hickory husks. By the thump and pained grunt, at least one of his pursuers was finding the footing equally foul. He didn’t actually want to lose the boys in the woods, but he wanted a good head start by the time he arrived…