Heritage of Fire Read online

  "I don't know." Gerd's voice was toneless. He was watching the heap of riches again.

  Master Hawken batted the reply aside with his hand. "It's no good not knowing. Your life will happen anyway, and better for you if you know what you want from it. So, if you could do with your life as you wished - and it seems that you can - what would you do?"

  Gerd turned his back on the treasure. It presence seemed to drag at his thoughts, making them muddy and unhandy. What should he answer? A few hours before, the question would have had no meaning. He had never in his life been asked what his wishes were. What difference would the answer have made?

  But the Warden was staring at him, and it was clear that he would have an answer. And there was only one true one, of course, no matter how foolish it sounded. Gerd gestured towards the entrance to the cave and the hill outside. "I'd be like he was, if I could be. I'd like to make him proud of me."

  Master Hawken nodded, as if that ridiculous idea was perfectly understandable. "Then do it. He was a gentleman. You already know how to behave like one. He taught you that much, just by being what he was. Now you must learn the other parts." He gestured at the treasure. "Or you can take the riches granted you and waste them. There are things you can squander them on and in a year have nothing to show except despair. But the Squire thought that you would not. And, now that I have heard you wanting to reject it all, I believe he was right."

  Gerd shook his head, still angry, still grieving. He looked again at the heap of treasure. It glowed back at him, as if inviting. "The hundredth part of that would keep me for many years," he said, as much to himself as to the other. "More than that would be wealth that I could never use. It would destroy me." And there was again that sense that something within him had heard, and approved his words.

  "So take some, and go. The rest will be safe enough here until the dragon returns, if she does. West, at the mouth of the pass, lies the village of Geet. Caravans head west from Geet to the sea-port at Lameth. Lameth is no great town, to be sure, but it's one of the Coast Cities, part of the Merchant's Guild, and it's on the route west over sea. Loriso lies beyond, and that is where the Fortress of the Western Knights is. There a man can be trained, and will be rated knight, if he serves well. I have no idea what else there may be, but I know the world is wide. Go and see what it holds, Gerd. It must hold more for you than to walk at the tail of a plough, watching the backside of an ox. Your master, my friend, saw that, and he was right. I see the same."

  Gerd bent and picked up a jewel, a ring with a green stone. He had no idea of its worth. "Better to take the coins, or some of them," said Master Hawken. "At least the value of gold is by weight."

  There was a moment of stillness, and then Gerd nodded. Master Hawken might possibly have smiled.

  5

  The village of Geet would hardly have been worth building, if it were not at the entrance of the pass leading towards the Eastern Kingdoms from the Dry Plains. It wouldn't have been possible to build it at all, if there hadn't been a fringe of green at the foot of the mountains. The winds from the distant Western Ocean dropped some rain there in the winter, enough to raise a barley-crop. Stone walls and belts of olive-trees protected the fields from the blast of the summer sun and the drying winds that blew from the south-east the rest of the year.

  There was also a supply of alum in the hills behind Geet, enough to make it worth a merchant's while to loop inland to the village over the dry plains and buy it, paying in salt from the sea. More, traders from the east came over the pass to meet the caravans and to buy the silks and wine that they also carried. They would pay in gold, or occasionally horses, the eastern breed that was highly prized in the west as mounts for the wealthy.

  So Gerd came to Geet, and found it as Master Hawken had described it: a dusty collection of one-roomed houses; a market-place, even dustier; an inn, not much less dusty; and one larger house, that of the guild-master. The last would have impressed him, once.

  There was also a horse-trader, but Master Hawken had advised against selling here. "They're too fine," he had said, of Hal and Rousset. "All the trader in Geet will do is sell them on to the first caravan, and pocket the profit. You might as well make that profit for yourself, by taking them on to Lameth. As for Hugo, you'd best leave him here. He's not so easy to manage. I can take care of him until spring, and then send him east to the horse-fair at Wilding. I've an agent there I trust, and I'll keep the price for you."

  Gerd had nodded assent. He had trouble in accepting that he was now the owner of a warhorse, a saddle-horse and a pack-pony, but it was so. That was two horses more than anyone in the village owned, and Hugo alone was worth more than all the village nags put together. But the heavy little bag of gold coins tied around Gerd's neck was also his, and if what Master Hawken had said was true, it was worth twice as much again.

  He had never stayed as a guest at an inn, but he had spent his whole life serving and cleaning in one. He took their only private room, and sat on a bench in the common-room, where a stranger nursing a pint-pot was ignored while the regulars muttered together about crops and prices, weather and stock, just as Mistress Withers' customers had done. It didn't take much to discover that the first caravan of the season was expected in another week. Gerd set himself to wait.

  He had never ridden a horse before, either, but he had stabled and groomed them and cleaned their tack and harness. Nobody could watch Squire Penrose ride without learning something about it. Rousset taught Gerd a good deal more. She knew him, liked him, and had the easiest of paces. Gerd found that he liked riding, and he liked Rousset too much to jag her mouth or kick her or do any of the things he might have learned to do if he'd copied the village boys. By the time he reached Geet he wasn't feeling so sore in the thighs and seat any more, and once there, he rode every day, just to exercise himself and the horses. There was a decent stable at the inn, and a groom who seemed to know his business.

  The caravan arrived, a string of thirty or forty packhorses and mules. Its master was a hard-faced merchant in a blue tunic and baggy white breeches. He nodded when Gerd asked him about passage to Lameth.

  "I'll be here two days, and then it's straight back. Lameth is a week's journey. I'll be glad to see it again. The season has been poor." Gerd nodded, and started to turn away. The merchant cocked his head, his eyes shrewd and assessing. "I charge an ounce of silver for the journey," he added.

  Gerd turned back. "What do you give in return?" he asked.

  "Protection," said the merchant. He nodded at two men in hardened leather jerkins with bowcases across their shoulders, who stood a few paces away, watching his stock. "I maintain guards against bandits. Then there's the guiding. It's not so easy to find your way, or the wells if you don't know where to look. The plains are dry."

  Gerd touched his hilt, the hilt of his master's sword. It felt as if it was natural to be wearing it now. "If there's bandits, it's your goods they'll be after, mostly, and you'll be glad of another man. I should think that would be fair trade for the guiding."

  "Ha! A poor return for my accumulated knowledge! I might be prepared to reduce my fee, if you agreed to stand watches."

  "So you want me to pay and work for you as well, you mean …"

  Eventually they settled on a bargain, Gerd to stand watches with the guards for nothing but food for him and fodder for his horses. He couldn't have said why he had bargained so hard, but it seemed important not to waste the money. It was the squire's, after all. And he had the feeling that he'd had the worst of the bargain, anyway.

  They moved out in the dawn of the second day after. Gerd rode Rousset and led Hal, and he rode to the right of the string of pack horses, to be out of their dust. One guard, a man named Arhin, rode a hundred paces ahead. Another was on the other side, and the merchant himself rode the lead horse of the string.

  The narrow belt of cultivated fields fell behind. Ahead lay gently rolling land where thin grasses blew under a sky sprinkled with high thin lines of cloud. T
he hollows supported small stands of trees, but these diminished as the country flattened and dried out. Soon it was just the grasses and low scrubby bushes. Sheep grazed in scattered flocks, but this was open range country, without fences or fields.

  They halted at noon at a group of huts around a well. It wasn't even a village, more a scattered dwelling for a large family. There was water for the horses here, and after a furious bargaining session with an old man who hobbled out from one of the houses, the merchant paid to use the well.

  "We could just take the water," he said gloomily to Gerd. "The young men are far away, guarding the sheep. But they'd soon know about it, and then they'd be sniping at us and laying ambushes and making night attacks. Better to pay."

  The sun was already making its presence felt, early in the season as it was. This would be a hot and dusty journey in summer, but at this time of year it wasn't necessary to wait through the heat of the afternoon, travelling only in the cool of morning and at dusk. They were soon on the road again. Except that it wasn't a road.

  The merchant seemed to know his way by watching the shadows and the direction of the gullies. The evening came. Three notches could be seen in the rim of the red sky as the sun sank.

  "Tam's Rocks," said the merchant, as if that were explanation enough. "There's a soak, maybe even a spring at this time of year. We camp there."

  A soak there was, a slow welling of water from near the base of one of three tall pillars of weathered stone. They stood proud from the dusty swell of the plains, two shorter and the one in the middle taller, like statues of a king and his counsellors; but even the short ones were five times Gerd's height, and fifty paces around at the base. He looked up at them as he helped dig a basin for the soak to fill, so that the horses could drink.

  There was only horse-dung to burn in the fire. Gerd had wondered why the guards had been picking it up during the day. He remarked to Arhin that it was still early enough in the spring to need that fire for warmth as well as cooking; but Arhin only grunted in response.

  "You always need a fire, out here," he said. "It's always cold at night, no matter how hot the day's been, but fuel is always short." He looked across at the merchant, who had built his own fire, a little apart. "And it doesn't help when there's some who think they're too good to share one fire and pool the fuel store." He poked the low flames, a sullen jab with the metal leg of a tripod he was setting over them.

  They cooked and ate a simple meal, and drew straws for watches. Gerd drew first watch, and stood apart as the others bedded down. Arhin told him what to do: watch the horses, which were hobbled as well as hitched to a single rope stretched between stakes; stay awake; keep away from the fire and not look towards it. Even a patch of coals was bright enough to ruin night-vision, and bandits were quiet movers. If they came, they would be trying for the horses first, and then for their loads, which were piled by the hearth. Shout if he heard anything.

  So Gerd walked his round, staying well outside the little circle of firelight, careful to move quietly, often standing or sitting still to listen to the night. He did it with a thrill in his stomach, and a mouth that dried from time to time. He had looked after sheep in shearing season. That meant guarding them from wolves, but it had always been the local Lord's job, and that of his men, to keep bandits away. Gerd wasn't certain if he could do it, despite the comforting heft of the sword at his side, and the sharpness of his own ears and eyes.

  But there was only the sigh of the night wind in the coarse grass, and the trickle of water from the soak, and the wheeling of the stars.

  It seemed only a little time before he saw Arhin's dark shape blink across the firelight. He showed clear against the starry sky, then stood, looking about. "Here," Gerd said, softly, and the other man gestured and nodded. Gerd moved thankfully back towards the fire to warm himself before taking to his own bedroll. The night was lightening as the three-quarters moon rose. He listened for a while to the night wind, and slept.

  He couldn’t have said why he woke. But he was staring up into the starfield, and a dragon was crossing the sky, flying from the mountains behind to the sea ahead.

  Gerd was never afterwards able to say whether he had dreamed it. Was it the dragon of the Carrine Gate? He couldn’t have said. It flew high, higher than a lark, higher than an eagle. It was far, far off in the glowing fields of the sky, and it passed across the face of the moon like a drifting bat, but slower, its speed limited by distance. It had woken him, somehow. He had known it was here.

  He watched it from his blankets. It would be able to see the glow of even this fire, in the black shadows of the landscape. He wondered whether it knew him. Perhaps it was telling him that it was on his track like a hound.

  Then why did he feel no fear? Was it, after all, no more than a dream? He watched it fly against the stars until it was lost in the west, and it seemed to him that it was a sign, an omen.

  The fire was no more than a faint glow, and the wind was cold. The moon was sinking now, and there were only the stars, but they seemed very bright, hard sharp points of many-coloured fire riding the clear sky. He snaked an arm out of his covers, felt the tingle of the cold, and almost put it back in again. But his hand touched the hilt of the sword, lying in its scabbard by him, and a sudden prickle of icy fire in that touch was enough to wake him fully. Something was whispering to him, tugging at his mind. He rolled out, and the sword came with him, sliding easily from its sheath with a whisper of steel.

  Almost he stood up, but at the last moment he remembered how the outline of the guard had shown clear against the starry sky. He kept low, sunk on one knee, still not knowing what he was looking for, scanning the dark shapes of the scrub and looking away from the dim glow of the ashes of the fire.

  There was no movement for thirty long slow breaths, the cold air singing in his lungs, and he felt reassured by that, until he remembered that the guard should be moving. Yet there was nothing. Most likely the man was asleep, but possibly there might have been trouble. No need to wake the camp, though. Gerd began to move, working outwards from the fire and towards the string of horses.

  They had camped in a slight hollow, by the water. A standing man showed head and shoulders against the stars, but moving in a crouch kept Gerd below the skyline. The horses were quiet, which was a good sign. He sidled towards the nearer of the two stakes that secured the ends of the line, and then stopped. There was something moving there. He squinted. He couldn't be sure, but he thought …

  Suddenly he was sure. Yes. It was Arhin. What was he doing? Gerd watched, and slowly it became clear that the guard was pulling the line loose from the ring at the top of the stake. It came free, and Arhin breathed out. He stood, dropped it, and began slowly walking away from Gerd, his back to him, along the line of the horses, towards the other post. If he pulled through from that end, the horses would be free, though still hobbled. He was getting ready to steal them.

  Now was the time to give a warning. But the nearest man was Arhin himself, and Gerd was in no mood to struggle with him while the others rolled out, bleary-eyed. That there had been treachery afoot would be made clear by the released rope - but who would they think was the traitor? Their trusted comrade, or the chance-met stranger?

  He stole back to the fire. He reached for the shoulder of the nearest of the other two guards lying asleep in his bedroll, and grasped nothing but a handful of cloth. He shook it, anyway, and there was nothing there. The man had gone.

  The second fire, the merchant's, was only ten paces away. Gerd cast caution aside and came to his full height. "Wake!" he bellowed, running forward. "There's treachery …"

  He said no more, for he had tripped over something in the darkness, and he sprawled full-length, his hands out, the sword a ribbon of steel faint before him. The lump he had tripped over gave a grunt, but it came rapidly upright, and it was a man in desert robes. In his hand another length of steel glimmered. A dagger. It sliced down.

  Gerd could never say afterwards what exactly
happened. It was a whirl of impressions, a dark flutter of clothing, and sudden shocks of effort almost as sharp as pain. Somehow he had writhed on to his back, and as the dagger swept in, he caught the wrist in both hands and turned it. At the same moment his foot found the man's armpit, lodged there, and his leg became a lever to fling the half-seen figure over his head, landing with a solid, sullen thump and a sudden gasp of breath, and then a wild yell. The man had landed full length, and his legs were in the fire.

  A confused scramble. Gerd was on his feet, half-crouching, and somehow the sword had found its way back into his hand. The other man was a shamble of robes and a gleam of teeth in the starlight, but he too had managed to come upright, though he grimaced and limped. Gerd could see him eyeing the longer blade, and in those eyes was the fearful knowledge that he could not run away fast enough.

  Then the eyes flared. There was that one moment, and from the darkness behind came the creak of a bow being drawn. Gerd flung himself aside and down, and an arrow hissed through the space where he had stood. Again he rolled, and the wounded man turned and ran limping into the darkness. A mutter of hooves came from behind.