Chapter Twenty-Seven. Lies on All Sides.
Twenty-Seven
Lies on All Sides.
“Shh—it’s me.”
Merc’s voice is a hiss in my ear, and his chest is a solid wall behind me as he holds me against his body. When his hand drops away from my face, the warmth of his palm lingers on my mouth, and I feel as though the hottest month of summer has calendared in my gut.
He takes what I’ve been carrying for him as if it weighs nothing. Speaking softly, he demands, “Where the hell have you been—”
“Right where you left me—”
“You’ve been nowhere near this forest.” He draws his leather surcoat on over the broadsword sheathed on his back. “And what made you decide to come back?”
“I’m telling you,” I shoot back at a whisper, “I never left.”
“Then why have I been looking for you in these woods for hours?”
“I guess we’ve just been going in circles.”
After that, neither of us moves except to breathe, as the mayor and his sons close in at a slow trot.
With every inflation of Merc’s lungs, his pecs push the buckles of his holsters and the padded contours of his muscles into me, except I can’t let the feel of him consume my thoughts.
As much as I’ve never particularly cared for the mayor—or his sons, who were regulars at the pub and frequently made fun of me—I don’t want them to cross paths with us.
I can’t explain the time loss, but if Merc’s still looking for a horse, those men are in his crosshairs.
And then what if they see us first? They could alert the entire village—
Out of the corner of my eye, the hilt of Merc’s broadsword hovers over his shoulder like a snake head that has risen and is ready to strike.
“Let them go,” I say softly as the trio are almost upon us. “There will be other horses.”
“These are the first in four hours.”
“Four hours—”
“Shh.”
The horse of the son closest to us snorts, and then the animal stamps to a halt and wrenches about to face us.
Its eyes pry wide and lock on our position, and the alert is a contagion that spreads quickly to the other steeds.
Forelegs get braced, rumps are raised high, and nervous whinnies percolate like the whimpers of small children on the verge of wailing.
“Oy!” one of the sons shouts as he lurches off-balance. “Stupid horse!”
He digs his spurs into the poor thing’s hide, but in so many ways, the animal is smarter than the owner. It refuses to pass and rears up—
The result is a boulder rolling down the side of a mountain, the rider’s tumble sluggish and ungainly, the landing a thump that reminds me of a bag of grain hitting the ground.
As mud splashes, the horse bolts in the direction they approached from, and the other two members of the little herd take its advice.
Except they are less successful at shifting their loads.
The mayor grabs on to the mane and hunkers down as he tries to keep astride, his combed hair frothing out of its plaster of oils and spiking up like he’s been hit by lightning. The other son, who’s bearded, is the better rider and manages to keep his seat, but he can’t get his mount to go forward.
Both are so consumed with avoiding the mud bath of their blooded relation that they don’t notice us.
“Keep my pack,” Merc says softly.
As I fumble with the load, he jumps out into the road.
This spooks the mayor’s horse all over again, and as that fleshy fisted grip is lost, my mercenary snags the reins and takes over.
Even as the chestnut bay leaps into the air with all four hooves, he somehow retains control of the steed as the father follows the first son and lands in the mud.
The fact that the sound is the same, and so is the splash, makes me marvel at the way traits are passed down through generations.
The bearded son, who’s stayed in the saddle, takes one look at Merc—and then lets his steed have its head. Off he goes, from whence they all came—
“Roy!” the mayor yells after him. “Roy…!”
So much for the loyalty of progeny. And the father doesn’t waste time bemoaning what he’s raised: “I carry no coins.”
“I’m not here to rob you.” Merc keeps a hold on the reins of the panting, panicked horse as he offers the man a hand up and then does the same to the muddy son. “I’m taking—well, borrowing, one of your mounts. You see? Over there?”
The elder and his son look in the direction that he points.
And then it happens so fast, none of us can track the actions.
Between one blink and the next, the two shorter, pudgier men are tied up together with the smooth chain I inspected earlier. I don’t know how Merc did it so fast, but the father and son are now back-to-back, their sets of hands wrapped like the hooves of a steer, the chain around their waists.
When Merc’s evidently satisfied with his work, he shoves them off-balance, and when they start to topple, he eases them down to the mud once again.
“Do you know who I am?” the mayor asks weakly. As if he’s addressing himself in search of courage.
“You said you weren’t here to rob us,” the son protests.
“I lied.” Merc leans down and in a pleasant tone remarks, “Just one of your horses I’ll be taking, and I thank you for the good tack—”
“You can’t do this!” The son’s ruddy complexion goes bright red. “You heathen! I know what you are—”
Instantly, everything about Merc changes, even as his body position doesn’t shift—except for the hand that rises up over his shoulder. To the hilt of his broadsword.
“If I were you, I’d be more silent than spoken. And I’ll help you with that right now, if you want.”
In the midst of my camouflage of leaves, I take a step forward to stop what’s about to happen. I’m not going to let these men get slaughtered—
Merc’s face whips in my direction just before he unsheathes his weapon. As I shake my head furiously, his fingers flare at the grip. After a tense pause, he drops his arm, the broadsword staying where it is.
Meanwhile, the mayor’s son keeps his mouth shut, as if he knows exactly what he was just spared from.
“Someone will come along soon enough.” Merc snatches the red sash off the mayor’s ballooned torso. “Maybe even before the demons roam after nightfall.”
The chestnut horse has settled some, so Merc is able to tuck the ends of the reins into his hip pocket as he bends over the men and wraps their heads together so they’re unable to see.
I notice he makes a rather nice bow, like they’re a present to be unwrapped.
And though they would sooner deliver me to flames in the village square, I don’t want demons to be what finds them.
Merc motions for me to come forward, and puts his forefinger up to his lips for quiet.
I’m not feeling talkative.
As I slip out from my hiding place with his pack, the chestnut gets mincy again. His flaring nostrils pull at the air—and I can tell when he catches my scent. He eases some, sensing I’m no threat in spite of my odd costume. Or perhaps he’s smelled me before from the village and remembers me.
Merc takes his pack, ties it on one side, and mounts with a fluid movement. His control over the animal between his legs is immediate and he extends a hand down to me. I can feel his eyes on me, intense and commanding. Like I’m little different from the horse.
I don’t like any of this.
I don’t want to ride this stolen animal.
I really don’t want Merc’s help up.
But there’s no way with the mud and no stirrup offered and this being the first time I’ve ever gone astride that I can get my body where it needs to be on the horse. With an odd disassociation, I watch my own hand extend to his. The instant contact is made, I flush under my blue veil.
And then I’m flying.
Merc hoists me onto the chestnut’s rump with what seems like no effort, and I nearly forget to split my legs.
The saddle is large and comparted for travel, so there’s a place for me behind the contours of the seat, the leather shelf big enough for a bedroll to be tied on. I brace myself to feel unsteady—
The instant I’m in place, I feel as if I’ve come home.
As unnatural as this should have been, especially as the horse shies from the extra weight it’s been asked to carry too far down its spine, I settle and relax. Oddly, the palm of my right hand tingles as if something should be in it.
The reins. I should be holding … reins …
And that’s when it happens.
An image takes over, erasing everything around me.
I’m plunging into the ocean again, that memory of something that never happened returning to me.
Except this time, the sequence of the dive runs in reverse.
I am sucking out of the entry into the cresting salt water—and landing on the bare back of a sorrel horse that’s hooving through the surf and kicking up waves of white spray.
I’m laughing, and the sun is on my face, and my hair is streaming behind me like a flag unfurled. There are no reins in my hands, but rather I hold on to the base of the mane, and in spite of the speed, I am as secure in my seat as if in a solid chair.
I am not hiding. I am free—
“It’s not so bad, then.” The dry voice brings me back. “And all you have to do is hang on.”
The hilt of Merc’s broadsword is right in my face, but that doesn’t last. As he sets us off at a trot, his battle-hardened hand reaches back and unholsters the weapon from under his surcoat, the metal-on-metal shift ringing close to my ears. I expect him to sit it at his hip.
He keeps it in his palm and down at his side, a reminder of what we are going to face along the way.
We’re heading in the same direction the mayor and his sons were traveling, and I glance back over my shoulder. The bound twosome are sitting immobile where we left them, not even trying to get free, and I picture tethered goats, which seems mean.
“Do you really think someone will come along?” I say. “Before nightfall?”
“Doesn’t matter to me, one way or another.” He glances back toward me, his scarred profile cutting through the backdrop of red-and-orange trees. “Now where the hell did you go.”
The rhythmic beat of the hooves beneath us seems loud, as does the soft squeaking of the saddle, and I have known all this before: the sensation of the shifting gait of the horse, the swishing of the tail, the way the landscape moves by at a quick rate.
As I probe the wheres and whens of the image, a headache blocks me from going any further from the cantering down a coastline I’ve never seen before and the lithe dive that submerges me in the ocean’s warm, salty embrace.
That I have never swum in before—
“Where did you go?”
The repeated demand refocuses me.
As I struggle to answer him, the headache fades like a guard dog no longer triggered by a trespasser.
“I had to hide.” I look around his heavy upper arm at the well-trodden thoroughfare ahead. “We must have left a trail of sludge out of the moat because a village patrol came searching the forest.”
Lying comes at a physical cost. At least for me. Did Merc’s throat feel tight back there when he was first reassuring the mayor? Did his lungs burn as he told them they were not going to be robbed?
I doubt it.
“We need to get on to one of the less traveled trails.” I try to orient myself properly. “I think there’s one up here on the left—”
“Don’t do that again.”
“Do what.”
“You’re not that stupid.”
I almost respond with the truth: That I didn’t “do” anything, and if Merc expects me to promise the strange lapse in time won’t repeat, it’s impossible for me to take that vow as I don’t know what happened in the first place.
Then again, I’m never looking at that compass again. So problem solved.
“Up there,” I order him. “Turn off there.”