39. What He Carried
What He Carried
The afternoon sun had started down, though it still hung high, when Kain reached the farm. He put Roan up in the barn and walked back to the house, where Ghost was waiting, its tail sweeping the floor as he came up and inside.
Inside, he looked around and let it settle in him. It wasn't lost on him that this might be the last time he stood in the place.
He had taken dangerous work before, and he had never once assumed he would come out the other side of it. That was the thing that had kept him breathing this long, and even then, some days, only just.
He went into the bedroom, to the armor laid out and ready for this. He stripped off the tunic, down to his pants and undershirt, then took up his belt.
The belt was little more than a rope. He wrapped it round his waist and drew it tight, enough to keep the shirt from billowing and the pants from falling, and then he set to snapping the armor into place.
Plenty of fighting men favored metal, the most of them, if it came to that. Kain and the rest of the Silver Hands had done well enough with plain leather.
It was near as strong, a good deal lighter, and it let a man melt into the trees. Plate that shone like a mirror couldn't be hidden creeping through a wood. Leather brown as bark was another thing altogether.
Leg armor, arm armor. Boots and gauntlets. A leather helmet stiffened with strips of steel to hold its shape.
One piece at a time it all came together, and when the last buckle was set he stood and belted on his sword.
The sword hung heavy at his side, knocking against the leg armor when he moved, a weight he hadn't carried in a long while.
If he failed, it wouldn't be his own death that was the matter. It would be a whole town. People who had worked that land for generations and wouldn't leave it for anything, gryphon or no.
Families that would scatter to the winds if they were driven off it, and never find one another again. He drew the last strap tight and lifted his head.
He went to the kitchen table, drew the sword, and laid it across the boards. He turned it under the light and went over it end to end for any spot of rust.
Nothing showed. He took a rag, dipped it in the linseed oil, and ran it down the blade one last time to be sure, then wiped it clean, sheathed it, and set it back at his side.
He took down the bow and laid it on the table. He strung it fresh and plucked the string a few times until he was sure it was sound, and the twang of it hung in the kitchen.
Then he slung the bow across his back.
He took down the quiver and drew the arrows out one at a time. They had all been fletched with care, but he checked each one again, that none of the fletching had worked loose, and sighted down every shaft to see it ran true.
The bamboo arrows had been dipped in the poison. The plain ones he had bought weren't, kept for the ordinary work, judging a distance, or a last resort.
He set them all back in place and slung the quiver across his back.
He went out into the farmyard, where Roan looked up from the pen and nickered, soft. Kain nodded to him but didn't go to him yet, and stepped into the barn.
He needed more for the trip, and the most of it was set aside already, but he wanted to be sure he could carry it all. Into a small satchel went Sasha's poison, his bowie knife, and a set of climbing hooks. He slung it over one shoulder and a coil of rope over the other.
A second bag took a bit of jerky and a canteen, for he didn't know how long he would be out, and it held a fire-starter, some tent stakes, and a handful of other odds and ends besides. He didn't expect to need the most of it.
He would rather haul it than get out there and find himself short of half of what he wanted.
He hung it all on his shoulders or clipped it to his belt, then walked back and forth a few turns to be sure of the load. He would be carrying it through rough country, and he had no wish to drop half of it along the way for the weight.
He brought Roan in from the pen, the saddle still on him, and set to lashing on the rope and the satchels and the rest, a piece at a time, and the horse nickered and stamped a foot.
"All right, boy. Just a few minutes more."
Roan snorted, and out by the garden Ghost spun a few circles, but Kain wasn't ready yet. With the armor heavy on him, he walked out to the marker.
It stood right where he had set it, back in the spring. A few weeds had come up around the base already, which only made it look like it belonged there.
Kain knelt down in front of it and looked a long moment at the markings cut into the stone.
The Silver Hands.
"None of you wanted the things I led you into," he said. "I know that. Not you, Mark. Not Darien either. Not Sarah."
The company had been older than he was. The men who were in it when he joined had all fallen away, one way or another, and the young ones had come up to fill the gaps.
His brother. Two more barely grown.
"I've taken your whole life, haven't I," Kain said. "Your farm. The piece of ground you used to talk about. I'm the one standing on it now."
"I never wanted what you wanted, Mark. The farm. The girl. The boy. Those were always yours. I hired my blade out and called it a life. Now I'm on your land, your girl is down the hill from here with your son, and I'm riding out with a blade again. Only this time it isn't for hire."
He looked down at the ground where Mark's flask lay buried, then back at the stone. He did not cry. There was no time for that.
"When I rode with the Hands, I cared about my team. I won't say I didn't. But it never went much past that." He kept his eyes on the markings. "I fought for us. For our share, our own pockets. Now it's a whole town."
It came back to him as he knelt there. The number of times he had put his own body between Mark and whatever was coming. Most of them, Mark hadn't even seen happen.
The blades, Kain could turn. The stone, he couldn't.
"You were building toward something the whole time," he said.
"The farm. A girl. Children you hadn't even met yet.
I was just living the day in front of me, taking the next contract.
I never understood what you were carrying with you all those miles.
I think I do now." He let out a slow breath.
"This fight's a way through to something. Not the thing itself."
He stayed there before the marker and let himself hope he could do the impossible. Soloing a gryphon, a plain B-rank mercenary on his own. It was ridiculous on the face of it.
If he failed, he wouldn't be the one to pay for it. The town would. The way the company had paid, that day in the cave, for going where he led them.
He didn't know how long he knelt there, and at last he got to his feet.
"If you're watching me, brother, give me the strength I'll need." Kain paused. "The dumb luck too. The luck the town needs."
With that he turned away. His steps came heavy as he walked to Roan's side, took the horn, and swung up.
He laid a hand on the horse's neck, and then he rode off across the hills.
The farm fell away behind him, and Ghost came trotting up alongside Roan as they passed out into the hills and the sea of grass. The ridge rose up ahead of him. Kain didn't look back.
◇ ◆ ◇
Roan snorted as they crossed the hills. The wind was coming out of the north, and Kain wondered if the horse could feel the gryphon out there somewhere.
There was no way to know for sure. His eyes worked the hills and the ridge line, and he saw nothing for his trouble.
There were still several hours of light. He meant to be at the nest before the light failed him.
The dead tree rose up ahead, tall and weathered, and he put Roan to a faster pace.
At the tree he swung down and unloaded the horse. The rope and the satchels and the rest of it all went onto his shoulders and his back.
Ghost stood waiting beside the tree line.
This was it.
Roan looked down at him and nickered, then began to back away. He was uneasy. Kain saw no reason to keep him there.
"Go on," Kain said. "I'll catch up with you later."
It was still several miles back through the trees to the village. If he could walk away from this fight, he could walk that. If he couldn't, the distance from the tree to the ridge was already too far.
Roan snorted a few times, turned, and walked a few yards before turning again.
"Well, stick around if you want." Kain shrugged. "Don't blame me if you get eaten."
Roan lowered his head and started to graze. He was getting used to being taken out into the country and left.
Kain watched him a moment, then turned and started up into the trees.
Ghost darted forward, took the air a few times, and came back. It fixed on the ridge in the distance, and Kain nodded.
The wolf had the scent. It would lead him to the thing. Kain hoped the gryphon was in its nest.
There was every chance the poison had grounded it instead. He wasn't sure which he hoped for.
As he walked, he worked through it in his head, every way the thing could go. If the gryphon could still fly, the flight would be a poor one. It might drop out of the sky on its own and break itself on the ground.
On the other side of that, there was every chance it might come down on him instead, and the weight of a thing like that coming down was near impossible to stand against.
If it couldn't fly at all, it would be weaker on the whole. It wasn't built for the ground. It would be thrown by the bare fact of being stuck there.
Set against that, it had had near a full day to learn to walk on it now, poison in its veins or not, and that made the fight harder.
No matter how it cut, he was going in at a heavy disadvantage. There was no way to slice it where that wasn't true. He only wanted to be ready for either turn it took.
Soon he came on the bloodied snare he had found the day before. The blood had gone dark and dry, and the patch around it looked untouched, even by the smaller animals, which he could hardly blame them for.