“The streambed,” he said finally. “She’d take the streambed.”
Akiil waved a dismissive hand toward the channel. “What would she want to roll her ankles in the streambed for when there are plenty of good tracks to follow? Doesn’t make any sense.”
“Because,” Kaden replied, “the streambed doesn’t look like a streambed. It’s dry this late in the spring. It’s broad. It’s relatively flat. For someone who didn’t grow up here, it’s the most obvious way through the rocks. She won’t have realized that the rounded stones will make for impossible footing, and she probably didn’t even notice the trails left by the goats. They don’t look like much, if you’ve never tried to follow them.”
Akiil shot him an appraising look. “Have you been tracking women without me all these years? Keeping secrets?”
“Why would I tell you my secrets? You’re a thief.”
“You wound me, brother. You wound me. I’m a humble monk, devoted to my god.”
“Well, devote yourself to this for a few hours instead,” Kaden replied, gesturing toward the stream.
A few dozen paces into the mountains, they came across the first sign of the woman—an overturned rock. Then there was a bootprint in the soft mud. And then another rock kicked out of its divot. They followed the signs for less than a quarter of a mile until Akiil spotted a low pile of stones. They didn’t look like much, just a few cobbles in a world of rock, not something that would draw the untrained eye. But river stones didn’t mound up like that. The spring flood would have washed them right down the drainage.
“Well, look at this,” Akiil said, lifting one of the stones off the pile. “Let’s see what the good merchants have to hide.”
He was grinning, eyes bright in the moonlight. Kaden didn’t share his enthusiasm. The streambed wasn’t very wide, but he felt exposed beneath the lambent stare of the moon, and despite the cool night air, sweat poured down his back. He hefted the stave in his hand, reminded himself that Serkhan had been attacked when he was alone, tried to believe that two young men together, armed with sticks and knives, would be enough to scare it off. When reason failed, he worked through the Shin exercise to slow his pulse, and bent to the cairn of stones only when his breathing was slow and regular once more.
Pyrre had cached two oilcloth bundles under the pile, and Kaden lifted them out carefully, then handed one to Akiil. He fumbled briefly with the ties binding it shut, trying to calculate whether he could retie them if he heard the woman returning. His fingers were clumsy as though with long cold, and by the time he had opened his bag, Akiil had already spread out half the contents of his sack on a flat rock. Kaden paused to look over the things while his friend ticked them off in a whisper.
“Clean tunic. Clean socks. Disappointingly light purse,” he said, tossing the small cloth pouch in the air so that it jingled when he caught it.
Kaden winced.
“Hat,” Akiil continued. “About twenty yards of rope…” The process was nerve-racking, but the results were not. Nothing that a normal merchant wouldn’t carry on a long trip. Nothing to lend heft to Kaden’s vaguely adumbrated suspicions.
Then Akiil found the knives.
Everyone carried a knife, of course, and a merchant would have more need of one than most. There were harnesses to mend along the road, rocks to dig out of the mule’s hoofs, frayed ropes to slice and retie, dried meat to cut for dinner. There were a thousand reasons Kaden could think of for a merchant to carry a good knife. A merchant would not, however, need a dozen of them. Akiil laid them on the stone one by one, six identical eight-inch blades, the kind men fought with in the killing pits of Annur, honed and polished edges glinting in the cold moonlight.
“Brought them along to trade?” he suggested. His voice had lost some of its boyish enthusiasm.
“To a monastery?” Kaden asked.
They gazed at the weapons for a moment before Akiil gestured to the oilcloth bundle that Kaden was still holding.
“What’s in there?”
Kaden managed to untie the last knot, then reached into the sack. His fingers brushed over wood and steel. When he had finally wrestled the thing out of the bag, he found himself holding a crossbow.
“It could all be for protection,” Akiil pointed out. “It’s a dangerous road over the steppe. The Urghul don’t usually molest traders, but you never know when you’re going to end up on the wrong end of a human sacrifice.”
“If it’s all for protection,” Kaden replied, “then what’s it doing hidden in the rocks?”