For the Wildings (Daughter of the Wildings #6) Read online

  Shayla scowled down at her chicken stew. “Everyone’s getting a baby.”

  Mrs. Coltor reached over and took the girl’s hand. “Yes, dear. But I promise we won’t forget about you. You’ll be a wonderful big sister and help me with your little sister or brother, and we’ll have so much fun, won’t we?”

  The girl’s face scrunched up skeptically. “Can I help dress it? And read my storybooks to it?”

  “Of course you can, dear. That will be a tremendous help to me.”

  “And mine too, if you want,” Lainie said. “If we’re still here.”

  “Two babies to play with,” Mrs. Coltor said. “Doesn’t that sound fun?”

  “Okay, then.” Shayla smiled now, a big gap-toothed grin. “I’ll like that.”

  Lainie thought it sounded fun, too, in spite of all their worries and even though the gods alone knew where they would be in nine months.

  Chapter 9

  ON THE FIRST sunny day after the season’s first big snowstorm, Lainie was exercising Mala in the front yard while Shayla built a snowman. Silas and Mr. Coltor were sitting on the front porch of the house, sipping cups of hot chickroot brew and discussing the numbers from that year’s cattle drive.

  Lainie had known for some time that Silas thought to claim or buy a spread of land somewhere and take up ranching himself someday. Now, after she had told him about the doctor’s advice that he consider retiring from the dangerous business of bounty hunting while he could still get out alive, and with a baby on the way, he seemed to be getting more serious about the idea. Lainie wasn’t sure she could see him settling down and staying in one place for the rest of his life, but living the way they had been, with no home to call their own, was no way to bring up a child.

  If only they could go back to Bitterbush Springs, to her Pa’s ranch. Mrs. Coltor had brought her a letter from her Pa, that had been waiting at the postal depot. Burrett was doing well, she was glad to read, but he reported that things in town hadn’t changed in the last year and a half. Wizards were no less hated than ever, so going back was out of the question.

  Mrs. Coltor’s neat little two-person buggy, pulled by a fine chestnut gelding, rolled into the yard. Lainie looked over in surprise; Mrs. Coltor never came home from her office in town this early in the afternoon.

  “Brinna!” Mr. Coltor ran over to her and helped her down from the buggy. “Is something wrong? Is it the baby?”

  “No,” she answered, but her pretty face was pale and grim. The housekeeper came to the doorway. “Mrs. Murrison, would you please take Shayla inside?” Mrs. Coltor asked.

  It had to be bad news, if she didn’t want the child, who usually was not banished from the adults’ conversation, to hear it. Dread began gnawing at Lainie as the housekeeper bustled over to Shayla.

  “What’s going on?” the little girl asked.

  “The grownups just need to talk for a moment,” Mrs. Murrison said, herding her inside. “I’ll get you some nice warm milk and a cookie.”

  “But I want to hear!” Shayla protested as Mrs. Murrison shut the door behind them.

  “A rider came into town with news,” Mrs. Coltor said. “Some A’ayimat from the Thorntree Hills attacked the town of Thornwood. The word is they burned the town to the ground and killed every man, woman, and child except for two who escaped.”

  Dead silence followed the news. Lainie felt like something heavy had knocked the breath from her lungs. “They broke the Compact?” she asked, not sure if she meant the A’ayimat or the people of Thornwood.

  “No one’s sure what happened,” Mrs. Coltor said. “Mayor Warrit has called a town meeting at the music hall at three o’clock. The rider who brought the news says he heard it from the two survivors. He’ll tell what he knows to everyone at the same time so he doesn’t have to keep repeating himself and so rumors don’t run wild.”

  “We’d better go right in if we’re going to hear this,” Mr. Coltor said. He helped Mrs. Coltor back up into the carriage and climbed in beside her, taking the reins. “You coming too?” he asked Silas.

  Silas glanced at Lainie in silent question. Numbly, she nodded. “Yeah,” he said.

  “I need a few of you boys to stay here to look after things,” Mr. Coltor said to Mr. Nikalsdon and the hands who had gathered around to listen. “The rest of you can go into town if you want.” He flicked the reins and drove away.

  Silas went to saddle up Abenar while Lainie fetched their gunbelts from inside the house. She made sure the guns were fully loaded and there was extra ammunition in the belts. Not that she expected to need them at this meeting, but after hearing about the A’ayimat attack, she had an itchy feeling between her shoulder blades.

  Something had happened to suddenly make the Wildings a more dangerous place. Some thirty-two or thirty-three years ago, several years after settlers started coming to the Wildings and after a series of disastrous clashes with the blueskins, the Compact between the A’ayimat and the settlers had been established. Since then, there had been threats and a few small incidents, but nothing like this. For all that the A’ayimat were known to be skilled and fearless warriors, they mostly just wanted to be left alone. It was unthinkable that they would do something like this, unless the settlers they attacked had done something equally unthinkable to provoke them.

  Lainie remembered the hands with the Thornwood herd on the drive. Devout men, most of them, Straight-Pathers who eschewed drinking, swearing, gambling, and fornication in their efforts to walk uprightly before the gods at all times; friendly, polite, hardworking men who, when most of the other hands were threatening her and Silas, had stood down after their trail boss reminded them of the wrong they were doing. She couldn’t imagine folk like them doing something terrible enough to provoke the A’ayimat to such murderous wrath. How many of the men she had worked with and fed at the Windy Valley grub wagon had died along with their wives and children? Her mind reeled away from the thought. It didn’t bear thinking about. It couldn’t be real.

  Outside, she handed Silas his gunbelt. He buckled it on, looking grimmer than he had in a long time, even more than when he had told her he couldn’t use his power. Without a word between them – what was there to say in the face of such terrible news? – they mounted up and set off towards town.

  * * *

  WHAT LOOKED LIKE most of the adult population of Bentwood Gulch and the surrounding valley was crowding into the music hall, undeterred by the cold weather and the thick blanket of snow on the ground. Inside, Lainie looked around in awe. She had never been in a real music hall before; in Bitterbush Springs, like most towns in the Wildings, the traveling shows and performers held their performances in the saloons. The music hall was all dark polished wood and red velvet draperies, and it even had a real stage and several rows of cushioned wooden chairs at the front, for the highest-paying patrons. Mr. and Mrs. Coltor were already sitting in a pair of those chairs. Silas and Lainie found seats on a bench in the back where they could listen and quietly talk to each other without being in the middle of things.

  A great deal of agitated talk filled the hall, swelling as more people came in. If the mayor had wanted to prevent rumors from flying, he had failed. To hear some people, every town, settlement, outpost, farm, and ranch in the Wildings was in immediate danger of being attacked. Lainie couldn’t argue otherwise. This had never happened before; who could say what was coming next?

  Finally, the mayor of Bentwood Gulch, a well-dressed, portly man with pomaded wavy blond hair, stepped onto the stage, accompanied by an older man, short and wiry, wearing the clothes of a ranch hand. “Good people of Bentwood Gulch,” the mayor boomed out in a fine, big voice. The hall immediately fell silent. “As most of you have no doubt already heard,” the mayor went on, “this brave fellow has ridden hard for five days to bring us the dreadful news that the A’ayimat have broken the Compact and destroyed the town of Thornwood.” Rumbles and shouts of anger went up from the audience, then fell silent again at a gesture from the mayor. �
��I will let him tell the terrible story in his own words, as he heard it himself from the only two known survivors of this outrage.”

  He stepped aside, and the ranch hand took the center of the stage. In plain words, with barely a trace of nervousness, he told the audience about two youngsters, a girl of eleven or so and her younger brother, who had arrived on horseback at the Double Circle M ranch, about fifteen leagues away from Thornwood. “The poor sprouts was all covered with dirt and blood and smellin’ of smoke, and their horse was nearly blowed. At first they was cryin’ too hard to talk, then they told us all about how the blueskins come ridin’ into their town, yellin’ like demons and attackin’ everyone and everything in sight with their arrows and swords and spears and magic.”

  He went on, describing some of the atrocities the two children had witnessed, including the murders of their own parents and the rest of their brothers and sisters, and how the town was set to burning as the children managed to flee on their family’s surviving horse. “After we heard about this, me and the boys decided we better ride out and let other folks know what happened, so’s they can be warned and ready.”

  The hand stepped back, indicating that he was done, and the mayor stepped forward again. “Does anyone have any questions?”

  A man in the audience stood up, and the mayor nodded to him, giving him speaking rights. “With all respect to the dead, how do we know it was the blueskins that broke the Compact and that the folk of Thornwood didn’t provoke them?” the man asked. A low murmuring arose from the audience as others wondered the same thing.

  “That’s an excellent question,” the mayor said, looking to the ranch hand.

  “We asked the kids about that,” the hand said. “Careful-like, not wantin’ to make it sound like we blamed their Ma and Pa and everyone else for gettin’ theirselves killed. The older one, the girl, told us that the folk in Thornwood was always most careful about honorin’ the Compact and teachin’ the young ones where the boundaries were. Thornwood was settled by holy-pathers, as you might know, or straight-pathers as they’s sometimes called, who don’t hold with drinkin’ and gamblin’ and such, and live peacefully and always keep their word. They always had good, respectful relations with the local blueskins, and even helped a lost blueskin youngster once who’d been chased into town by a coyote. If some beef-brained fool trespassed and broke the Compact, they would have given him up to face justice and tried to make amends with the blueskins. At least that’s what the kids told us.”

  Mr. Nikalsdon stood up. Lainie remembered that he and the Thornwood trail boss had been friendly with each other on the drive. “I’ll affirm what this fellow says about the folk of Thornwood. I worked with some of ’em on the drive this year and in years past. Sober, decent, law-abiding folk, they were. I can’t see them causing the first offense.”

  Others added their agreement, squaring with Lainie’s own thoughts on the matter. Her icy, prickly feeling that something else had happened grew stronger and more certain. She and Silas exchanged looks, and she knew he was thinking the same thing she was. “Elspetya Lorentius,” she whispered to him, and he nodded.

  The Hidden Council had made its move.

  The discussion in the hall was becoming more agitated. “If it weren’t the folk of Thornwood who broke the Compact, that means it’s the blueskins’ fault!” a man shouted.

  Another man called out, “The people of Bentwood Gulch should take up arms and teach the blueskins up here that they better think twice about attacking us!”

  Cries of approval met this, growing louder even as the mayor tried to restore order. Then Mr. Coltor stood up. The audience immediately fell quiet again; even more than the mayor, if anyone was respected in Bentwood Gulch, it was Brin Coltor.

  “Mayor Warrit, good folk of Bentwood Gulch and the Bentwood Valley,” Mr. Coltor said. “I understand the desire for revenge and to make sure this doesn’t happen again. But we don’t know exactly what happened. The children who brought word of the attack, who said that the folk of Thornwood kept the Compact, are just children. It could very well be that something happened that they weren’t aware of. Perhaps a stranger in town committed some offense against the A’ayimat. Before we take action against the blueskins, we need to be very certain that the first offense lay with them and with not our folk.

  “We also have to remember that it wasn’t the blueskins around here who attacked Thornwood. Chances are, they know nothing about what happened. Attacking them would not be justified vengeance in the eyes of the gods or our own laws. And finally, not to be a coward but just to use some caution and common sense, there are at least four or five clans of A’ayimat in the Blueclouds. Any group of us who went up into the mountains to fight them would be sorely outnumbered, and when those folk were all dead the blueskins would come down here into the valley to finish what we started. We would be bringing disaster down upon our own heads.”

  He sat down, and more townsfolk took up the debate whether it would be better to be cautious or to act now to avenge Thornwood and head off any more A’ayimat attacks. Was this her grandmother’s plan? Lainie wondered. To provoke war between the settlers and the A’ayimat so that all the Plain settlers would be wiped out?

  That didn’t seem quite right, though. From the point of view of someone like Elspetya Lorentius, Plains were useful as slaves, servants, and laborers, and the Plain stockmen and miners knew the livestock and mining businesses better than any Granadaian mage. If Elspetya and her bunch hoped to profit from the ranching and mining in the Wildings, they would need knowledgeable men to manage the businesses and laborers to do the work.

  Also, even if the settlers were subdued or wiped out, there would still be the A’ayimat, who by that point could very well be in a killing frenzy and unwilling to tolerate anyone else from Granadaia coming to their lands. While Plain folk might be easy to defeat, the A’ayimat, being powerful in both magic and fighting, would be much harder to deal with.

  The discussion in the hall grew more heated until it turned into an argument, intensifying to the point that Lainie feared it would come to blows or even gunfire. Then Silas stood up.

  “Mr. – Vendine, isn’t it?” the mayor asked. The commotion died abruptly as everyone turned around to look at Silas. Lainie’s heart pounded as she waited to see how they would react. She and Silas were well-known in town for saving the Bentwood Gulch herd with magic, but she wasn’t sure if the folk here would welcome a wizard speaking up in their town meeting.

  “Yes, sir,” Silas answered the mayor. “I’ve worked as a bounty hunter for some years now, so I have considerable experience in tracking down wrongdoers. My wife and I have also had previous dealings with the A’ayimat, and have a better understanding of how they think than most folk do. I propose that the two of us ride over to Thornwood and see if we can find out what really happened. That way, whatever action you decide to take, you’ll be acting from a position of knowledge.” He sat down.

  More discussion, somewhat less heated than before, followed Silas’s words, then Mr. Coltor stood up again. “As most of you know, Vendine and his wife did a great thing for our valley this past summer, saving our herd. As well, they undertook a private matter for me last winter, with highly satisfactory results. Whatever you might think of their particular… talents, I can tell you that they deal fairly, honorably, and honestly. I say that if anyone can get to the truth of the matter, it’s them, and I’ll take their word on anything as sure as I’d take my own.”

  He sat down, and a number of people, including some who before had been calling for an attack on the Blueclouds A’ayimat, stood up to agree that the best thing to do would be to find out whether the A’ayimat or the townsfolk had committed the first wrong and whether other towns might be in danger, and then decide what action to take.

  “So it’s decided,” the mayor said when no one stood up to add anything else. “The town of Bentwood Gulch will take no action against the A’ayimat of the Bluecloud Mountains, or any other blues
kins, until Mr. and Mrs. Vendine report the results of their investigations. Unless the blueskins attack first, without provocation; in that case, we claim the right to defend ourselves. Anyone who acts contrary to this resolution will be on his own, with no expectation of help from the rest of the town. All in favor?”

  A chorus of “Aye’s” rose up from the audience.

  “Opposed?”

  There were a few mumblings, but no one spoke up to say nay.

  “The resolution is made, then, without dissent. Mr. and Mrs. Vendine, our prayers and good wishes go with you for success and safety in this venture, and we will await word of your findings.”

  With that, the meeting ended, though a number of people crowded in front of the stage to talk to the mayor, the ranch hand, and Mr. Coltor. Lainie and Silas worked their way through the masses of people leaving the music hall. “Ready to hit the trail again, darlin’?” Silas asked.

  She sighed. “No.” This was not a good time to go looking for a fight, not with her pregnant and Silas barely recovered from his injuries and unable to use his power. Although, she supposed, better now than after they had a child to worry about. She thought of those poor kids, seeing their family killed and not being able to save them. No matter how hard it was, she and Silas had to make sure that didn’t happen to any more children. “But I reckon we got no choice.”

  Chapter 10

  THAT EVENING, OVER another of Mrs. Murrison’s excellent suppers and some very good red wine that must have cost a fortune to have shipped out from Granadaia, Silas said, “We’ve got a problem, Coltor.” He could speak openly; Shayla was eating in the kitchen with Mrs. Murrison so that the adults could discuss the day’s news.