Cracolnya turned in the saddle and pointed to Arcolin, saying something else Arcolin didn’t understand. Laughter broke out. Arcolin nudged his mount and moved closer to Cracolnya.
“Care to explain?” he asked.
“It’s your horse,” Cracolnya said. “He’s … showing interest. I’m trying to negotiate for the loose horses.”
Arcolin blinked. “They’re ours,” he said. “Besides, we need to keep moving—find Dattur and Jamis.” Or their bodies, but he didn’t want to think that, let alone say it.
“Loose horses up here are theirs, they say. And the lad’s fine, they told me. They thought you’d know—they tied the reins with one of their knots before sending the pony home with a whispered spell. If I’d seen it, I’d have told you.”
“Where are they?”
“On the way here.”
“I’ll go—”
“No. Just wait. You must meet their leader.”
Arcolin struggled for patience and courtesy as he was introduced to the nomad leader, Vastolnya, in some way a distant cousin of Cracolnya’s, when all he wanted was to go and see for himself that Jamis was safe.
A new thunder of hooves and high yipping cries brought his head around. Down the slope came another group of nomads, many of them women with small children on their backs or on the fleece in front of them. Some children rode alone … and one of these, he saw, was Jamis, a wide grin on his face as the horses galloped down the slope faster than Jamis’s pony ever went. Dattur ran down the slope on his own legs.
As soon as he was close enough, Jamis said, “Da! I knew you’d come!”
Arcolin’s heart swelled. “You’re all right,” he said. He took another breath, and another, each one easier than the last.
They did not get back to the stronghold until near dawn the next day. Negotiations with Vastolnya for the loose horses his people rounded up, for the use of the chestnut stallion on their mares, for the information the nomads had about iynisin numbers on the steppe to the north, lasted until sundown, along with the miserable business of gathering up the dead—eight had died of injuries from a fall or from iynisin blades. Two more had injuries but would live, one with a broken leg and the other with a sword wound.
Vastolnya shook his head over the wound and insisted that Arcolin let one of the nomad women pack it with a special poultice of herbs. “Otherwise more sick, die,” he said in barely understandable Common, then spoke rapidly to Cracolnya, who translated.
“Iynisin wounds fester and eventually drive men mad, he says. This will heal him if there’s no metal left. He doesn’t smell any. And he says the bodies must burn. The iynisin dead, he means.”
The bargain finally struck for the horses saw ten of the animals—the smallest and scrubbiest—traded to the nomads and a promise that the chestnut stallion he rode could run with the nomad mares the next year, when Arcolin had had time to buy a replacement. The nomads had not known about the gift of stone-right to gnomes or that Arcolin was the new lord of the North Marches, but they approved of Jamis. In the end, they approved of Arcolin.
The ride back was slow, paced for the wounded, with scouts out all around in case of another iynisin attack. Jamis rode with Arcolin and fell asleep, the small body warm against him in the cold night wind. They could see torches flaring from the wall of the stronghold from a distance, and a small troop came out to meet them.
Calla waited for them at the gate, lips pressed tight and shawls wound around her. When she saw Jamis and Arcolin passed him down from the saddle, she did not cry but held the boy close.
“He’s not hurt,” Arcolin said. “Just tired. Get him to bed and back to sleep. I’ll come to you as soon as I can.”
Chapter Six
After breakfast, Arcolin returned to the complicated task of readying recruits and supplies for the campaign season and readying the stronghold to receive a new cohort of recruits. He and the quartermaster discussed supplies needed for the next season’s recruits. Winter weather closed in again, and when it cleared, Selfer’s junior captain, Garralt, arrived from Fiveway to report on the gossip along the trade route north of the mountains. He and Arcolin would take the recruits south; Arneson would accompany them as far as Vérella with enough of the permanent garrison to escort a supply train back north. Arcolin considered what use to make of Count Halar’s son. Arneson had given him a glowing report, and the boy had matured a lot since the previous spring. He called Kaim in and asked him.
“Yes, my lord, I do want to go south.”
“I must have your father’s permission,” Arcolin said. He didn’t bother to point out that it was dangerous; Kaim knew that. He just didn’t know what real danger was like. “We had no formal contract. I’ll send a courier to him.”