As always, it was Lumaj who pointed out the necessity of keeping the ancient warrior skills sharp lest they be lost. He explained solemnly, past a few belches, that practice—even with no better foe than a bunch of dumb dirt-farmers—was a duty to themselves and their ancestors. Better to chase sheep than chase nothing: they must patrol the district regularly, as if it meant something.
Ruek added, as usual, that there were a few benefits to such circuit riding—such as this pretty good beer and that well-roasted sheep, and the occasional local wenches.
"Women? Where?" one of the Thona brothers complained. "We've hardly seen any in two days."
"There weren't even any barmaids at that tavern," their cousin Dak agreed. "Gods, you can't compare this goat-snatching to the sack of a real city. Uncle Framm will most likely come home with a dozen mule loads of gold and jewels and . . . and all kinds of loot." He took another long pull of beer, trying to imagine the loot from a fabulous city like Sabis.
"Half a moon of riding round these hills, and we haven't seen so much as one gold coin," the other Thona brother added. "Pah, not even a handful of silver."
"I'll wager those priests had some gold," Choma considered, chasing an elusive flea in his leggings. "Lots of silver, anyway. They wore good cloth, and had plenty on their table. Aye, they were rich enough."
"Priests?" Lomaj hiccuped. "What priests?"
"You remember: the ones at that tavern. They were sitting in the corner, singing some chant or other, remember?"
"Oh yes, those strange-looking ones." Ruek slapped his knee. "They didn't come from anywhere around here. I've never seen robes like that before."
"They must have come from the south," Choma considered. "Hey, maybe they're spies from one of the river towns, maybe Sabis itself. We should go and, uh, question the lot of 'em."
"What, now?" Dak groaned. "In the dark? We don't even know where they are."
"No, not now, of course," Choma snorted, conjuring up rough plans. "Tomorrow we go back to that town, pound on a few farmers, and ask 'em where the priests are."
"What if they don't know?" Dak yawned. "What if they've gone?"
"Then we track 'em." Choma put on his best glower and stared at everyone in turn. "Do you think we can't track a bunch of fat priests?"
"Don't waste time trying to get any story out of the farmers," Ruek laughed. "None of 'em understand us, anyway."
Choma glared at him, wishing he knew how to Strike Terror With His Glance, as his grandfather was said to do. "So it'll be a proper hunt," he growled, "an exercise in tracking. Gods know, we need the practice."
The others groaned, but had no real counterargument to that.
The farmers' road meandered about the feet of hills where thin patches of woodland grew. Zeren automatically noted the signs of infrequent logging, the many birds and occasional deer. Doshi, eyes bright with childhood memories, pointed out the names and uses of the various plants and animals.
"Oh, look: Constable Jays!" he noted, as a flock of crested blue birds took to the air above them, screeching protest about the invasion of their territory. "They cry like that when anyone comes near their trees. Ah, and that's a holm oak: no better wood for long fires—"
"There'll be no long fires until we find a safe place to settle," Sulun grumbled in the wagon bed behind him. "That will be a good ways north, yet."
"How shall we know a good place when we see it?" Eloti asked. "The towns we've met so far are most unpromising."
"All we've gained," Vari added, "are some small coins and a few supplies. What should we expect in the north?"
Sulun ran his fingers through his hair and tugged his curls abstractedly. He'd thought of little else since they left the river and started overland. "We'll want a town or large villa, big enough to have need of us. It will have to be close to the old mines near the Gol. . . ." He peered again at Doshi's maps, which were never out of reach these days. "And it must be long enough conquered by the Ancar that they've settled down to trade and farming, not just looting at random, as those louts back there were doing."
"Well into Torrhyn, then," Eloti considered, craning her neck to look at the map. "Perhaps on the far side of the Gol, where the Ancar have lived for two generations at least."
"I pray not." Sulun shivered in the sunlight as the wagon pulled out onto another long stretch of sheep meadow. "We don't speak the language, and I'd rather not approach the Ancar close enough to learn it."
"Somewhere along the Gol, then, or a little south of it." Eloti peered out at the long, rolling plains ahead. "How many days, think you?"
"Who can tell?" Sulun shook his head. "So many more farming towns to try, so much time in each to gather news . . . A moon, perhaps, to reach the river, the gods alone know how much time to scout the land along it. Or perhaps we'll have a sudden windfall of luck, and find what we need in the very next town."
"Not the next," Doshi put in. "There are nothing but tiny farm villages for the next forty leagues, nothing bigger this far from the river. Expect no such luck until we pass into Torrhyn."
"Can we dare seek the larger towns then?"
The discussion dissolved into a low-level, three-way argument, an intellectual game to pass the traveling time. Zeren listened with only half an ear, keeping most of his attention on the empty land around them. Poor pasturage, this, little to attract anyone. No wonder the land was so empty, the road so narrow and little used.
Behind them, the Constable Jays rose up screeching.
Zeren thought for a moment, nodded grimly, then said quietly to the others, "Ready your bows. We're being followed."
Half a moon or half a dozen towns ago, they might have questioned, argued, otherwise wasted time, but not anymore. Sulun pulled his bow and quiver up from the bottom of the drivers seat. Tamiri and the smaller children burrowed down between sacks of clothing and food. Omis and Vari rolled the bottom of the wagon's roof cloth up a handspan from the sideboards and tied it in place. Everyone else slung on quivers, wriggled down below the sideboards of the wagon, and nocked arrows to their bowstrings.
The mules plodded on, unknowing. No one watching would have seen any notable change about the wagon, only perhaps noticed that the sound of conversation had dropped off.
No attack came, no sign of followers, though keen eyes raked the open ground that widened, moment by moment, between the wagon and the last stand of trees. "Nobody . . . no sign . . ." the news was whispered back up to the drivers box. Zeren considered that carefully.
"They don't want to charge across open ground," he guessed. "They'll stay out of sight until they can get closer. Maybe in the next patch of woods."
"What if we stay in open fields?" Sulun asked, just as quietly.
"Hmm, then they'll have to wait until dark. They probably mean to attack late at night, anyway."
"We can't drive on all night. Shall we camp in the open?"
Zeren peered down the winding road ahead, calculating chances. "No. We'll need the cover of trees. Go as long as you can, then camp in the woods . . . and set traps." He turned and called softly into the wagon, "Eloti, can you bespell a party of unknowns?"
"Not well," she answered. "If I don't know who they are, I must at least know where they are."
"Where they are . . ." Sulun considered. "Could you, then, set a spell on a section of ground, so as to take effect when, hmm, our guests cross it?"
"Hah, I hadn't thought of that." The lady, Sulun noticed, sounded much more animated these days; she seemed to take on more eagerness for life with every league that grew between her and Sabis. "Yes, a sort of reversed house-blessing. Stationary . . . A trap spell, in effect. Yes, I can do it, but it will cost me some little time. I can't just cast it on the ground as we pass."