CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO #2
Though her hood was too low for him to get a good look at her, Evylin drifted to Auden’s other side to ensure her anonymity.
The stranger and the smith exchanged rapid, unintelligible words. Then the smith kept on with his work, and the stranger waited patiently.
Broad-shouldered but with a narrow waist, the newcomer carried the distinct Waulden features of numerous freckles and sharp cheekbones that gave his face an especially gaunt look.
He was young, perhaps in his mid-twenties, with shaggy white-blond hair.
His leather jerkin had a hole by the hem, and his tunic was stained with grease.
He scratched his cheek, glancing at Auden.
The men exchanged polite smiles but otherwise ignored one another.
But then the man looked at Auden again.
Evylin shifted, sliding her hand to the back of her belt, where she kept a blade hidden. Though this stranger had no apparent weapons on him, she didn’t like the way he was studying Auden.
“’Cuse me,” the man said in his clipped accent. “Ya look familiar. ’Ave we met?”
Auden gave the stranger a steady scan as though seeing him for the first time. Then he shook his head. “I can’t imagine that we have,” he said.
The man raised his chin. “Ya from the Moorlands?”
Auden’s brow furrowed. “Actually,” he said lightly, “I am.”
“Yeh, me too,” the man said, his gap-toothed smile wide. He held out his hand good-naturedly. “Name’s Nev, and I can always spot one of our kin. What’re ya doin’ this far east?”
“Work,” Auden said as they shook hands. “Or, more accurately, paying off a debt, if you know what I mean.”
Nev chuckled knowingly. “Aye, that I do.” He tapped the side of his nose. “Same for me. Pays to sell, ya know?”
Though Evylin didn’t know, it seemed that Auden did. He grinned, joining the man’s chuckle.
The smith returned, arms loaded down with several poles of wood, forestalling any further conversation.
He rambled in his indecipherable dialect, and Auden paid him readily, accepting the note for the dockworker.
The Moorlander, Nev, wished them good travels, then they left the cover of the awning into the misty day.
After securing their purchase to their saddles, they led the horses to the docks.
It took several minutes of asking around to find the smith’s friend.
Auden proceeded to haggle with the dockworker, who had nearly as thick an accent as the smith.
Finally, they came away with the three canvases and the plentiful rope they needed to make shelters.
Auden shook his head, frowning at his lightened purse. “We’re running through our means faster than we should,” he said warily.
Evylin frowned. “I thought Ephren gave us enough to last the whole trip.”
“He didn’t account for the exchange rate,” he said, sighing. “We’ll have to be careful if we want to make it through the rest of our travels in Wauld.”
“How much longer is our journey here?”
Auden pursed his lips in thought. “Ilain’s better at numbers,” he said offhandedly. Then he muttered under his breath, counting on his fingers. “Another month?”
“A month?” Evylin couldn’t help her disappointment. “Please tell me that it won’t rain the whole time.”
Auden chuckled. “You Ephrians act as though a little damp will melt you like snow. But no,” he assured her. “Soon, we’ll head west through the moors. It’s not so wet there. And then we’ll be at the end of spring, so the rain up north will dry up too.”
“Thank Allore,” she said.
They passed back through the center of the village, coming to an abrupt halt as a man was thrown, bottom over teakettle, out of a building and into the street in front of them.
Evylin, Auden, and their horses scrambled back as the man sprawled in the dirt, bleary-eyed and dazed but no worse for wear.
A woman stood in the doorway of the building, railing at the man as a burly guard dusted his hands before slipping back into the noisy interior.
As abruptly as the man had been tossed out, the woman ducked inside and slammed the door.
The round wood sign above swayed, identifying the building as a tavern.
Evylin turned to Auden. “Is it usual to get drunk before noon in Wauld?” she asked sarcastically.
Auden led his horse around the drunkard, who mumbled a love song as he lay on his back, staring at the sky. “Depends on who you are,” he replied blandly, and she realized he was serious.
Pulling a face, Evylin followed him around the drunkard. She glanced back at the tavern door, wondering if that was why the village seemed so deserted. Perhaps all this dreary rain mixed with Blount’s oppression led the people to drink.
As she started to turn away, Evylin’s eyes caught on the tavern’s exterior wall where a noticeboard hung.
A smattering of papers ruffled in the breeze, a small canopy failing to protect them from the rain.
Most of the pages showed deterioration and wear from the elements, but one crisp sheet stuck out like a beacon in the center.
Evylin stopped in the middle of the street, the drunkard still singing off-key about a lady fair and the knight who tried to save her.
“Auden,” she called, his name coming out as a warning.
The highlord turned around, expression concerned. “What is it?”
Evylin didn’t bother saying a word. She pointed to the noticeboard, letting him see for himself. The poster bore a clean sketch of Auden, Ilain, and Evylin with the words:
Writ of Attachment
for crimes against the Crown,
siblings, Highlord Auden Calder and Highlady Ilain Calder
of the Order of the Flame,
and the fugitive Evylin Deckard,
accompanied by their four accomplices.
Reward per head: 20 gold
Reward for all: 150 gold
Alive; Confirmation Mandatory.
Evylin and Auden stared in disbelief. Blount must have gotten his father, the king, to issue this writ, labeling them as fugitives. The illustrations were good. Realistic enough that there could be no doubt should anyone spot them.
Auden shifted, tightening his grip on his reins. “We have to get out—”
“I’m afraid it’s already too late, mucker,” a man said, causing them both to whirl.
Nev stood at the corner of the tavern, his gap-toothed grin cunning. Evylin went for her knife, but the sharp press of a blade to her lower back halted her. Suddenly, she realized the drunkard wasn’t singing any longer.
More men crept from around the corner, moving to box Evylin and Auden in.
“I knew I recognized you,” Nev said, his accent not quite as uneducated as before. He tapped the stone of the tavern wall. “As I said, it pays to sell. And it pays even better when you check the local tavern first.”
Evylin glanced at Auden, confused.
He offered her an apologetic frown. “It’s a motto of a sort,” he explained. “It pays to sell—it means that you’re a sellsword.”
With a sharp inhale, Evylin understood. These men were mercenaries.
“Well,” she said, meeting his gaze, “I’ve never met a sellsword who could beat a Mage and Warrior.”
Auden opened his mouth to reply, but the twang of bowstrings halted his words. They both looked, seeing four mercenaries holding arrows at the ready.
“Don’t bother fighting,” Nev said, then motioned to his men.
The mercenaries moved forward, ropes ready to bind them.
Evylin didn’t hesitate. She let her senses rise, tapping into her magic.
In a fluid motion, she twisted away from the false drunkard with so much speed he could only gape, then she brought her hand down to slap his wrist. He yelped, dropping the blade.
She caught it, ready to drive it into his stomach.
Then she heard a thump and Auden’s groan.
She slashed at the mercenary before her, cutting a red stripe across his chest. She whirled to save Auden, finding a trio of men charging as a wall right in front of her on the narrow street.
The men rammed into her, pushing her back and into the noticeboard.
The back of her head smacked against the wood, sending black dots swirling into her vision.
She flicked her wrist, and one of the men cried out when she found her mark.
He crumpled, freeing her arm enough that she could maneuver it to make another strike. But she wasn’t fast enough.
One of her assailants slammed the butt of his dagger into her temple. Her knees buckled, but she held onto consciousness with all she was worth. She jammed her blade forward, hitting another man, and drove her knee up, catching his groin and sending him to the dirt.
Then the mercenary’s hilt crashed into her temple again, and Evylin dropped too.