Chapter 16
Astryx had taken on fresh supplies at Bycross, and Fern was glad of it. They breakfasted on flatbread toasted over the last, elderly coals of the fire, then folded over strips of salted ham and sharp cheese.
As they journeyed northeast, the terrain rose and fell sharply, where the earth had been scoured away to expose chalk cliffsides. The stony, derelict road continually narrowed and hugged a series of ragged, white bluffs above a river valley blanketed in mist.
“What are those?” called Fern, pointing from her seat on the cart at a tall, pale pillar beside the way.
They’d passed three or four of them already.
Hints of a carved figure capped the stone, with the suggestion of a head and outstretched arms, now softened with time.
It looked like a half-melted candle nested in a cloud of thistle.
“I’ve no idea,” replied Astryx. She walked several yards in front of Bucket, keeping an eye on the road ahead. “They’ve been here as long as I’ve traveled these roads, and they never looked much newer.”
“Murden-tal,” offered Zyll.
“Now that we know you speak Territories, that’s just exasperating,” said Fern.
The goblin made an expansive gesture with both hands at the river valley below. “Water-watchlings.”
“And what are those?”
Zyll shrugged, and Astryx answered for her. “If she means water-watchers, they’re stone-fey effigies that purify underground streams. She must be mistaken. They’re likely just forgotten old statues on a forgotten old road.”
Dubiously regarding the route ahead, Fern asked, “If it’s so forgotten, then why are we taking it?”
“Because if Taltus decides to send anyone after us, they likely won’t think to try it. And if they do, I’ll know long before they catch up.”
With one paw at the clasp of her cloak, Fern took an involuntary peek behind them, half expecting to see a black-clad form pursuing them in the hazy distance. “Um, do you think that’ll happen?”
“That they’ll catch up? No.”
Fern found that answer deeply unsatisfying.
The road continued to narrow and become more treacherous, and while the sun sometimes winked at them from rips in the cloud cover, the light remained silvery and close.
At times, the fog from the valley clawed up and over the cliffside to tangle its fingers in the long grass and caress the feet of the water-watchers.
Fern clutched the buckboard with both paws and tried to anticipate the dips and bumps.
As the exposed white chalk to their right crowded closer to the cart, and the margin of earth between the road and the cliff’s edge melted away, she found herself leaning hard to the right, even though Zyll was nearest the drop-off.
Astryx now guided Bucket by the bridle, pausing from time to time to assess the state of the road and muttering to herself.
Then, the elf brought them abruptly to a halt. A raven coughed in the mist, and a series of tumbling stones echoed their chattering descent through the valley below.
“What is it?” called Fern, craning to see. Zyll hopped to her feet on the buckboard beside her and jumped up and down to get a better view, rocking the cart in a way that made the bookseller’s stomach knot.
“The road is out,” replied the Oathmaiden. She sounded exasperated. “I suppose it has been a few decades since I passed this way.”
Carefully, Fern clambered down into the narrow gap between the exposed chalk and the cart, and squeezed past the wheel to join Astryx beside the horse.
“Assbadgers,” she said, with feeling.
The ledge widened out for about thirty strides before it sheared away almost completely. Only a scrim of ancient stone still fringed a stretch nearly ten paces long.
Astryx said something delicate and beautiful in an elven tongue, but from the look on her face, Fern was pretty sure it wasn’t that far from “assbadgers.”
“What now?” asked Fern.
“Now, we turn around.”
“And travel the whole way back? But that’s—” Fern broke off with a yelp as Astryx urged Bucket forward, toward the gap.
The elf cocked a thumb back the way they’d come. “You’d both better wait farther down the road.”
Zyll gamely hopped from the cart and trotted along the path, and Fern sidled past the cart to join her.
Then she watched, huddling close to the chalk wall, while Zyll perched on the cliff’s edge. Fern couldn’t bear to look at the goblin dangling her feet over the drop. It made her head go all woozy.
Astryx unhitched Bucket and led him carefully back past the cart, rubble clacking and skipping down the cliff face with every hoofbeat.
Parking the horse near Fern and Zyll, the elf then returned to seize the traces of the cart in both hands.
What followed was a delicate series of maneuvers during which Fern’s heart never left her throat.
Astryx laboriously turned the wagon by first rolling forward a few feet, then back, then forward again in a dozen tiny arcs.
For the first time, Fern saw her look out of breath.
Her ragged silver hair glistened with sweat.
The moments when the cart faced outward toward the drop-off were the worst. Fern had to shut her eyes tight, but even then, she could vividly imagine Astryx suddenly dropping out of sight to plunge over the cliff’s edge, with the cart not far behind.
At last, their cart was turned around. Astryx, still dripping, rehitched Bucket, and they began the depressing journey back the way they’d come, except that Fern was now on the side nearer to the drop.
Zyll patted the buckboard next to her. “Closey-close,” she said, with a sympathetic, razor-sharp smile.
Fern obligingly scooted over.
It turned out they didn’t have to journey all the way back.
After half a league, the chalk walls that rose to their left sloped away into a gentle rise studded with a cluster of three water-watchers in various states of decay.
A hawk perched atop one of them, cocking its head at the cart in annoyance while it waited for the voles they’d frightened off to chance the open ground again.
Zyll eyed the bird and licked her lips.
Astryx led Bucket off the road into the tall grass and then stared up the rise with her fists on her hips.
“Woof,” breathed Fern, as the muscles of her shoulders and back unknotted in a tingling wave. “Now what?”
The elf glanced over her shoulder. “Now I find another way. If I remember, the cliff road opens up a league or two past where it was destroyed. I’m going to scout ahead to see if we can make our way around to rejoin it, up this rise and behind the bluffs.”
“And we—?”
“You wait here.”
Fern frowned. “Remember when you said you took this road because some of Taltus’s goons might be following us?”
“Following me. You should be fine here alone for a few hours. They’ve got no quarrel with you. You can watch her until I get back.” She pointed at the goblin.
“I just think that if one of them were to have mentioned you, they might also have mentioned a suspicious rattkin and the goblin that stole all of their money. Actually . . . where is that money?” She narrowed her eyes at Zyll.
The goblin patted her coat as though searching for the purses she’d purloined, and shrugged.
“Yes, very convincing,” said Fern dryly. She returned her attention to Astryx. “I feel a little exposed here in the middle of nowhere with maybe a bunch of angry bandits on the way and no defense. I don’t think we can ask Bucket to kick them for us this time.”
Zyll jammed a hand into a pocket and withdrew it to brandish Breadlee with great fervor.
“What’s happening now?” asked the knife, sleepily.
“No,” said Fern.
“I feel hurt, but I’m not sure why,” complained Breadlee.
“There’ll be no need of that,” said Astryx, with a weary species of patience. “If they were following us, we’d have seen them already, especially now that we’ve backtracked. You won’t need a . . . weapon.”
“Why’d you pause before you said ‘weapon’?” asked the knife.
Fern had no idea how, but she knew he was squinting.
The elf ignored him, unhitching Bucket to stake him near one of the water-watchers, where he promptly began cropping the grass. “You know where the food is. I’ll return soon. If it gets dark, you can start a small fire. A small one. The flint is in the cart.”
There was a heavy silence during which Fern conspicuously said nothing.
“Unless you don’t know how to do that,” said Astryx, frowning.
“I . . . will figure it out . . . ?”
The Oathmaiden and the goblin shared a look, which Fern didn’t think was very fair.
“The longer we talk about this, the more likely dark will fall before I return. I’m going now. You?” Astryx pointed at Zyll and tapped her bracelet. “Don’t cause trouble.”
Without another word, she turned and strode swiftly up the slope and out of sight over the rise.
Zyll patted Fern on the shoulder and solemnly offered her the knife.
She took it and stared at it. Breadlee was surprisingly heavy, his steel gleaming with a faint opalescence. Some sort of sigils or runes had been inscribed into his handle.
The goblin promptly hopped out of the cart and trotted over to one of the water-watchers.
She crouched until her feet disappeared beneath her coat and pretended to examine the spire with great interest, while sneaking hungry glances at the hawk atop it.
The bird, no fool, launched itself skyward in search of less fraught hunting grounds.
Fern sighed.
“Hey,” said Breadlee. “Look, just so I can calibrate my expectations, about how many people have you stabbed, would you say? Feel free to round to the nearest dozen.”