Chapter Thirteen Fire on the Bluebank Road
Pike Hollow ran toward the smoke.
Not all of Pike Hollow.
Enough.
Torren, Willa, Noll, Hessa, Brann, two Red Creek wolves, Mara Tebb with a knife in one hand and her ruined awning rope in the other because apparently spoon traders were not to be underestimated twice.
Behind them, Northroad erupted into argument.
Varric’s voice tried to become order.
Orla’s voice became record.
Oren shouted for Marek.
Selka shouted something back at Kalen that Willa did not catch but hoped was vicious.
Derren yelled once, then was muffled by Red Creek hands before he could become dead or inconveniently poetic.
The road narrowed west of the shrine wall where wagons gave way to the Bluebank track. Smoke thickened there, dark and wet, smelling of burning canvas, pitch, horsehair, and paper.
Paper.
Willa ran harder.
The mark at her throat burned with Torren’s motion beside her. He could have outpaced every one of them. She felt the leash of his own restraint, hated the word, replaced it.
Discipline.
He kept pace because the road ahead might be trap, witness, fire, or all three.
“Left ridge,” Noll said.
Torren nodded once.
Brann broke away with one Red Creek wolf.
“Wagons,” Hessa snapped.
Mara said, “Mine is not there.”
“Other people have wagons.”
“I dislike that when they burn.”
“Useful attitude.”
They rounded the bend.
The Bluebank packet wagon burned in the ditch.
Not fully.
Not yet.
Flames chewed the back canvas while smoke poured from the covered frame.
One horse lay dead in the mud, traces cut.
The other had bolted and now screamed somewhere in the trees.
A Bluebank woman crouched beside the ditch with blood running from her scalp, trying to drag a small chest away from the wheel.
And between the burning wagon and the west track stood Jory.
Upright.
Barely.
One hand pressed to his bandaged shoulder.
The other held a knife too small to be impressive and exactly large enough to say he had ignored several instructions.
Facing him were two gray-cloaked men.
One had a curved blade.
One had a torch.
The torchbearer turned at the sound of boots.
“Oh, good,” Jory said hoarsely. “Reinforcements.”
Then his knees gave.
Noll moved like a boulder learning rage.
He crossed the mud before Willa saw him decide and caught Jory by the back of the coat, hauling him away from the curved blade’s first slash.
Torren went for the torchbearer.
The man threw the torch into the wagon.
Willa’s heart stopped.
The canvas flared.
Paper inside.
Evidence.
Bluebank’s copy.
“Chest!” Willa shouted.
Not to Torren.
He had the torchbearer.
To herself, perhaps.
To anyone.
She ran toward the Bluebank woman in the ditch.
“Can you move?”
The woman looked up, dazed. “Records.”
“I know.”
Willa grabbed the chest handle.
It did not move.
Mud had swallowed the lower edge. Or something pinned it.
The heat from the wagon struck her face. Smoke stung her eyes. The mark flared with Torren’s alarm, fierce and immediate.
Not now.
“Help!” Willa snapped.
Mara appeared beside her.
“Of course it’s heavy.”
“Useful commentary later.”
“I charge for later.”
Mara wedged the awning pole under the chest edge while Willa pulled. The Bluebank woman, bleeding and furious, shoved with both feet against the wheel.
The chest came free with a sucking jerk that sent Willa backward into the mud.
Mara caught the handle before it dropped.
“Up.”
Willa scrambled up.
Behind them, Torren drove the torchbearer into the ground.
Not gently.
Alive, though.
She could feel the difference in the mark now. The violence had shape. A controlled burst, not a spill.
Noll had the curved-blade man by the throat against a tree. Jory leaned against Noll’s shoulder because Noll had apparently decided to subdue enemies and hold upright foolish cousins as a single task.
Hessa was at the burning wagon, cutting loose side straps with her knife.
“Water!” she shouted.
Red Creek wolves threw mud and wet blankets over the canvas. It hissed. Smoke thickened.
Willa coughed hard.
The mark pulled.
Torren’s head snapped toward her.
“I’m fine,” she shouted before he could cross the distance.
He looked at the burning wagon.
Looked at the man under his knee.
Looked at her.
Ask, the mark seemed to say.
He did not ask.
He judged.
Correctly.
He kept the attacker pinned.
Pride moved through Willa so sharply she nearly coughed again.
Mara shoved the chest toward a dry patch under a leaning cart.
“Open it.”
Willa wiped mud from the latch.
Locked.
Of course.
The Bluebank woman thrust a small key into Willa’s hand with shaking fingers.
“Left side.”
Willa unlocked it.
Inside were papers.
Dry.
Thank gods.
Bluebank’s copy. Orla’s seal. Willa’s hand. Selka’s phrase. Arlen’s statement. The lower pass rubbing. Jory’s packet had reached Bluebank after all.
Jory, impossible creature, had done the task and come back into danger because the real packet had become the next target.
Willa looked up at him.
He smiled weakly.
“Recorded?”
“You are insufferable.”
“But recorded?”
“Yes.”
His eyes closed with satisfaction.
Noll slapped his cheek lightly.
“Stay awake.”
Jory opened one eye.
“That felt personal.”
“It was.”
The wagon fire began to die under mud and wet wool.
The torchbearer spat into the dirt beneath Torren’s knee.
“Doesn’t matter.”
Torren looked down at him.
“Speak.”
The man laughed.
“Road burns anyway.”
Hessa turned from the smoking wagon.
“What road?”
The man’s grin was red at the edges.
“All of them.”
Noll tightened his grip on the curved-blade man.
“Redjaw?”
Both men went silent.
Too silent.
Willa looked at their cloaks.
Gray. But not Stonewatch quality. The dye was wrong, thinner, rain-bleeding near the hem. Under the torchbearer’s collar, she saw a leather cord.
“Neck,” she said.
Torren’s eyes flicked to her.
“Token?”
“Maybe.”
He ripped the man’s collar aside.
A bone token hung there.
Not the same as the others.
Three cuts crossing a crescent, yes.
But below it, another mark scratched fresh into the bone.
A gate.
Pike lower gate.
Willa’s skin chilled.
Hessa approached slowly.
Her face had gone terrible and old.
“Where did you get that?”
The man smiled at her.
“Debt called.”
Torren’s hand closed around the back of his neck.
Willa felt the surge in the mark and stepped closer.
Not between.
Beside.
“He wants your rage,” she said.
The torchbearer laughed.
“Everyone wants his rage.”
Torren leaned down.
His voice was almost soft.
“Then everyone keeps being disappointed.”
He lifted the man by the back of his coat and shoved him toward Red Creek custody.
Alive.
Exact.
The mark burned with restraint so hot it almost hurt.
Willa wanted to touch him.
Not here.
Later.
Always later now, interrupted by fire.
Hessa reached for the token.
The man jerked back.
Torren’s hand tightened.
The man stopped.
Hessa studied the bone without removing it.
“Fresh scratch.”
“Yes,” Willa said.
“Someone wants Pike lower gate tied to Redjaw now.”
“Or someone is tired of hiding that it always was,” Mara said.
Everyone looked at her.
She shrugged.
“I sell spoons on roads. Roads remember who pays badly.”
Hessa looked almost approving.
“You know something?”
“I know traders’ grandparents used to spit when lower gate tolls were mentioned.”
Torren went still.
“Pike tolls?”
Mara’s eyes sharpened, perhaps realizing the ground beneath the sentence was thinner than she thought.
“I do not know if they were Pike tolls. Old story says lower gate took payment from wolves who did not want names recorded.”
“Payment to whom?” Hessa asked.
“That is the part people spit instead of say.”
The torchbearer laughed again.
“Gate takes. Road pays. Debt comes back.”
Noll struck him once in the stomach.
He folded, wheezing.
Hessa looked at Noll.
“Alive.”
“Breathing.”
“Good.”
Willa turned toward the road back to Northroad.
Smoke drifted low.
Shouts carried faintly from the market.
Varric would be speaking by now.
Of course he would.
The fire would become proof of disorder. The attackers would become unknown elements. Derren would become irregular. The crossbowman planted. The packet preserved only because Pike Hollow had staged a decoy. Jory wounded because he was part of that staging.
Unless they returned with living attackers, saved evidence, and witnesses.
Which they had.
For now.
“We go back,” Willa said.
Hessa looked at her.
“With two attackers, one saved packet, one burned wagon, one living Bluebank witness, and Jory upright enough to look offended.”
Jory raised one finger.
“I am offended.”
“Good,” Hessa said. “You can be offended while carried.”
“Carried?”
Noll looked at him.
Jory sighed.
“Fine.”
The Bluebank woman pushed herself upright.
“I can walk.”
Mara said, “You are bleeding from the head.”
“So was she,” the woman said, nodding at Hessa.
Hessa touched her bandage.
“And I became charming.”
Willa almost laughed.
Smoke caught in her throat and made her cough instead.
Torren was beside her instantly.
This time he did touch.
One hand at the back of her neck, careful of the mark.
“Bad?”
“Smoke.”
“Lungs?”
“Annoyed.”
“Riksa?”
“Will be worse.”
“Yes.”
His fingers brushed the edge of the mark.
Not for heat.
To reassure himself, perhaps.
To reassure her.
The difference did not matter just then.
She leaned into it for one breath.
One.
Then stepped back.
“We need to move before Varric sells the fire.”
Torren’s mouth curved without humor.
“Yes.”
They returned to Northroad like a procession no reasonable person would have designed.
Noll carried Jory over one shoulder because Jory had argued once and then made the mistake of swaying.
Brann and a Red Creek wolf dragged the captured attackers, bound and furious.
Mara and Willa carried the rescued chest between them.
Hessa walked behind with the broken fletching tucked in her belt and blood on her hands.
The Bluebank woman leaned on another trader, still conscious, still angry.
Torren walked at Willa’s side.
Not in front.
Not behind.
Close enough that the mark rested warm and steady despite the smoke still in her throat.
Northroad heard them before it saw them.
Then the crowd parted.