The Marcher Lord (Over Guard) Page 11

  “Yes, thank you, that will be all,” Captain Marsden said, brushing past him toward the lord.

  Ian had to fight back a grin at that.

  For whatever reason, Ian happened to glance to the right, and though a good deal of materials and some Chax were moving about, he immediately caught sight of a golden-haired girl poised on a crate, her dress all around her, a book reader in hand, and her careful eyes on his.

  Jolted a little bit, he realized that his attempt not to smile about the officers hadn’t gone quite as well as he’d thought. Fixing that, sort of, her lips answered a little before she raised her eyebrows and looked at where Captain Marsden was warmly introducing himself.

  “—a true pleasure,” the captain was saying, having bowed already, “we are most eager to assist you and your family in any way. Know that myself and this company are at your utter disposal, My Lord Wester.”

  “Thank you,” said the man who was a margrave, a marcher lord, or simply Lord Wester. He scrutinized Captain Marsden for a moment, then the rest of their company for an even shorter moment. “Everything is almost in order, and we will leave within the quarter-hour.”

  “Very good, My Lord,” Captain Marsden said, all business. “I see that you have the Chax all in motion, let us—”

  “Yes,” Lord Wester said. “Please help them to hurry.”

  “Most happy to,” the captain hurriedly bowed his head and turned back toward them, “Company—”

  The captain hitched a little. Ian saw this because he was actually looking at the captain, but a number of the rest of the company weren’t so lucky. Making sure to keep staring straight ahead, Ian was able to read the story that played across Captain Marsden’s reddening face well enough to guess just exactly where, or rather who, their other men’s errant stares were on.

  “Company,” the captain hissed under his breath as he strode toward them, “come to order! We’re being watched.”

  And that was true enough. The Bevish regulars, glorified foreign militia as Ian categorized them, had more or less already fallen out of attention unprompted, and were somewhat milling about, their eyes casually watching the proceedings.

  “This way then,” Lieutenant Taylor assisted. They turned at his prompt and loosely marched over to where the crew of Chax was scurrying about, loading materials on two very large animals that were taller than two large men and looked excellent for packing … they were squat, with ladder-like pouches that hung to either side of them … with flat backs and …

  Ian snuck another glance at the girl. Her head was bent down to her reader, but her eyes were up, scrutinizing them from just beneath her darker brows. Even as he watched her for a pair of heartbeats, her eyes made their way down along their company’s column and met Ian’s again.

  Something jumped inside of his gut, and he swung his head back to the front. He couldn’t help from smiling, though he knew he should be playing a more composed manner. But something ran through his nerves, freshly stirred by the simple combination of a pleased smirk beneath a pair of clear, green eyes.

  “Gorgeous,” he whispered, and only in part for rebellious reasons.

  The lieutenant and captain took a short sampling from the Chax about their job then ordered the company to drop their packs to do the heaviest transfers of possessions from the ground to the top of the pack animals.

  While he wasn’t the only one who jumped into this sudden assignment with a purpose-driven gusto, Ian liked to think that he was the one who did so with the most tact. He knew she was watching them, so there was no need to look at her periodically as some of the others did. In the end, whatever short-term pleasures they imparted were easily offset by the negative publicity they earned when their inattentions became the target of their captain’s zealous critiques.

  “Watch your hands, Anglas,” Captain Marsden snapped when Kieran nearly dropped a long crate he was handing up, “or else the rest of the company will watch you carrying a half-crate for the duration of this excursion.”

  Anglas gave a small salute and a humiliated acknowledgement. His face was flushed—even more so than the rest of them—and he cursed underneath his breath as soon as it was convenient.

  “Come on, steady,” Ian said as Rory fumbled at his end of a full-crate they were hoisting up to the chittery natives. “Easy now.”

  “I am going steady,” Rory bit back while taking in great mouthfuls of air, raising it from underneath. Switching their hands to push from its outside with their palms, they were able to hoist it up, over their shoulders easier, and then from there gingerly raise it up above their heads where the chorus of Chax hands were involuntarily making erratic signing motions while they clicked air through their teeth.

  “Lift it higher,” Rory grunted, his face bulging as the Chax leaned even further out of the broad saddle contraption fastened to the top of the pack animals.

  Ian was about to give his own angry rejoinder, the sweat burning in little pinpricks all along his shoulders and neck, but he was in the midst of concentrating on not tipping his end, clumsy as it was. He could feel something fairly heavy rolling around inside of it—what, he had no idea, though he would’ve cursed it out of being if he did—it was an extra couple inches to raise that corner up for the Chax to get a grip on the handles—though cursing wouldn’t do any good anyway. Quite the opposite, obviously. Ian could feel tempers bristling all through their impromptu packing company, and Rory’s was peaked, peaking as they strained, pushed just a little bit more, through the burning, aching of his shoulders, up into—

  The weight of the crate lessened a little, then exponentially as all the Chax acquired a good hold and struggled to haul it up and over into the large platform atop the saddle. Ian let out a breath of relief, wiping over his brow with his non-yeoman arm and looking at the progress in motion around them. Rory did the same for a moment, and Ian nodded at him.

  “Better keep your end steady next time,” Rory said, sounding as if it was a token comment.

  “It would be easier if I didn’t have to be worrying about yours,” Ian answered calmly. “But … I suppose that’s enough of a rest.”

  They were all looking visibly relieved at the slackening of full-crates, however, as the remainder mostly consisted of a miscellaneous assortment of weights and sizes. Still, Ian couldn’t help a little resentment—fortuitous bit of a labor though this was. It was hard for him to imagine so few people requiring so much baggage when their company was expected to see one travel pack as a luxury that could be quickly dropped as needed.

  “Can’t the animals kneel a little?” Ian asked one of the Chax as he handed a bag up the considerable height of the pack animal.

  The Chax looked at him, smiling with lots of teeth and shrugging helplessly. One of the other natives behind him had heard Ian’s question though.

  “Non,” he shook his head, reaching over to pat the large animal’s neck as he went, “non, non time. ‘Oo hard, non non.”

  “It takes too long,” came a quiet voice from the other side of the animal. A Chax, a little smaller than most of the others, turned from what he was doing. “Brisa are rarely ever off their feet. It often takes them several hours to get back up if they do.”

  Ian nodded, looking at the patient mass standing next to him and wondering just how much one of these brisa animals weighed. “Oh, that’s too bad.”

  “Yes,” the Chax smiled a bit, “sometimes it would be nice.”

  Ian turned and hurried back for the next piece of luggage, trying to memorize what that Chax looked like. He had amazingly good Bevish for a native—if Ian had not been looking at him, it would have been hard for Ian to tell that he wasn’t human. The Chax’s voice was even missing the slight thrumming noise that Ian had assumed all Chax voices had. But he also seemed like a nice fellow, someone who didn’t mind answering questions.

  The rest of the packing went quickly. Evidently, most of the Chax had only been contracted for this express purpose, because they hurriedly began to me
lt away back toward the town even before everything was finished. By the end, Ian figured that there were roughly half a dozen Chax left. Through all this, Lord Wester continued to sight in his rifle, which was a very fine specimen from what Ian could tell, and the Marcher Lord seemed to know his way about it. That made possible explanations sparse for why the lord was taking so much time at it, leaving the likeliest to be that he didn’t want to bother with any of the packing.

  “Neither would I,” Ian murmured, surveying their work with a cautious disdain. Granted, they were going to be at this excursion for over a month, but he found it hard to believe that any amount of baggage approaching this magnitude was necessary. There was nearly more here than his whole family had in their home.

  He was a little disappointed that there were evidently going to be no introductions. His enthusiasm at seeing his first member of nobility in person had cooled significantly, though his mind was still abuzz whenever he looked at Lord Wester with all the possibilities and estimable connections one man could embody. No, it was mostly for the consideration of other royal persons that Ian was rueful at the lack of proper opening formalities. As he handed up the last bit of baggage, having made sure it was the very last, he played a game at trying to guess what her name might be.

  For her part, she spent the time much as she had since they’d arrived. Her skin was light and cool beneath the sun, and her eyes lingered long enough within her glances at them for there to be no real need to think or pretend that she wasn’t considering them. The quiet smile her lips held when Ian caught her wasn’t even necessary for deducing that.

  “Finally starting, eh?” Ian said to Corporal Wesshire as he came beside him.

  “It seems so,” the corporal responded, not diverting his eyes from the bustle of activity between the Chax and their officers.

  “All right, chaps,” their lieutenant called over his shoulder, “pack it up.”

  As they moved back to their packs, Ian wished again that the company arrangements had turned out much differently. “I thought the march to Alcatel wasn’t bad last night. All things considered. Still have a lot to work out, but it seems like the company works pretty well together. I hear that’s not always an easy thing to come by.”

  “No,” Corporal Wesshire agreed as they bent down and re-shouldered their packs.

  “I heard one of the Chax say we won’t be doing any hunting until we’re at least a day out from town,” Ian said.

  “The best game has been pushed out,” Corporal Wesshire said. “Most of the Dervish hunters operate within two days distance of the cities and outposts.”

  “It must not be the same for Chax settlements,” Ian said. “It would be interesting to see how they live. I hope we’ll get to see some of them.”

  Corporal Wesshire looked over at Ian, a faintly amused expression tugging at his face. “You really are excited to go, aren’t you?”

  “Excited to go?” Ian tried and failed to scoff, a desperate grin burning at the corners of his cheeks. “We’re already here.”

  * * * *

  The air moved in opulent waves. The busy intersections of choruses of life competed for attention in the building heat. Small, trilling birds beat in the air up above them. Abrupt melodies of other birds on the ground would burst up suddenly from between the grasses and then drop and disappear down among them just as fast. Little, springing insects were everywhere without any end of a variety of sounds that would go still whenever anything passed near them.

  As far as the eye could strain to reach, the plains extended and thrummed with life. To the west there were gentle hills that eventually culminated into mountains, plush with denser vegetation. The sun above was blistering, merciless at everything that wasn’t under the protection of the scattered bits of short trees that dotted the landscape. The only other relief was the even rarer wisps of cloud that would pass over the sun, momentarily illuminating everything in whirling kaleidoscopes of color before they ran their course, the colors running over the grasses out into the distance.

  It was wonderful the way it all pressed against Ian’s chest, flooded his lungs—they were really finally here. In a place that so few men had ever seen for themselves. Everything was so open and limitless, the antithesis to the Wilome he’d known all his life. Out here there existed the real possibility of stepping on a patch of ground never before trod by any human—or perhaps even Chax, once they ventured out far enough. They were finally here, marching through the low grasses in loose formation around their charge, on a road-less path. Even Captain Marsden mostly kept to the opposite side of the caravan, leaving Ian with something resembling a true respite from all worries.

  And if their pace hadn’t been so agonizingly slow, measured out by the brisa animals, it really would’ve been perfect. Altogether, they moved roughly at the rate of a fast, halting walk.

  But the brisa were remarkable, perfectly crafted for packing. Their hide was a tough tan composition, their low heads docile and their dull brown eyes heavily lidded, no doubt making them able to survive a long lifetime beneath the open sun.

  On one of his closer paths to one of the brisa, Ian saw the Chax with the good Bevish politely lean over to the margrave’s daughter, who was again reading at the back of the brisa’s saddle, and tell her that the sun was extremely hazardous. He suggested that for extended periods of exposure, she should spend as much of it as possible under some covering for her skin, especially her face. Ian didn’t catch all of it, walking beside the brisa’s saddle as he was, but he did catch phrases like sun sickness and boiling. A few moments after this, Ian saw the Chax at the head of the brisa again, helping to direct their course. And while Ian hadn’t heard the girl’s response, she did take out a white umbrella that she kept mostly under the sun, idly spinning it between her fingers as she read.

  Ian also had ample opportunity to observe how the company moved with each other and their charge, as this is what much of the day consisted of. So many of the things that had been hinted at during their more focused march to Alcatel were now far more obvious under these conditions, mainly that they didn’t tend to respond to each other, especially when unexpected elements arose, as they often did. It was especially irksome that when he moved ahead and to the left of their party, suddenly stumbling down into a brief low area choked full of grass and briery undergrowth, Rory didn’t even notice. And it wasn’t until he looked back to see Ian struggling out from it that Rory realized anything was wrong at all. Ian’s second didn’t particularly seem to invest much worry into it even after that, though Ian had to fight to keep from spitting out some retorts. He held back though, knowing that it wasn’t his place to say anything, but the captain’s.

  Though the captain didn’t say anything either.

  As the day drew toward noon, Ian found himself up at left point, waiting for the others to catch up a bit. He had been spending a lot of the time watching the others, trying to build up a summary of how their company worked. Perhaps he had even been doing this to the detriment of his external duties, but as he swung his head around, taking in the sweet-smelling air that blossomed against the breeze that ran over him, his eyes hesitated on a dark patch near the corner of his vision. While it was hard to say what gave him the impression that what he was seeing was moving, as everything wavered in the heat, he somehow knew that it was.

  Raising his yeoman just above his eyes, he magnified the image as far as it could. At this distance, that really only made the indistinct smudge of black a small line of black. And it wasn’t so much the distance as the heat and a good deal of other elements he didn’t know anything about that his yeoman’s display were faulting. He supposed even here on the ground, protected as it was compared to even a hundred feet up in the atmosphere, Orinoco kept a petulant watch over everything.

  Someone slowly approached him from behind. Ian thought it should be Rory, given their pattern, but it was too careful and almost quiet. He could’ve quickly flipped his yeoman’s display to check, but he had it
narrowed down pretty surely to Kieran as he slowly lowered his yeoman, not taking his eyes off the indistinct speck that swam in and out of view.

  “Someone’s coming,” he said to whoever was behind him.

  There was a short pause. “No. Just some buffalo or something,” Kieran said.

  “You want to wager that?” Ian asked, glancing over his shoulder and making sure to only check on the rest of their group without looking at Kieran. “The way they’re headed they’ll pass maybe a quarter mile off to the west.”

  “You don’t know that it’s not just some kind of animals,” Kieran shook his head. “You think you know everything.”

  Ian made sure to keep his measured breath silent. “They’re moving too straight and together. It’s a group of people who probably don’t care about us. I’m going to signal the company in a moment—”

  “Why not now?”

  Ian started to walk slowly to keep ahead of the rest of the group. He heard Kieran’s boots moving through the dry grass alongside of him.

  “I’m going to wait until they get a little closer,” Ian said, half-wishing Kieran would just go away, as the two of them marching out of pattern like this was going to attract attention pretty soon, and he wanted to break this sighting at the right time. But the other half of him was glad it was Kieran, it would feel good to show him up. “It might even be some regulars.”

  “No,” Kieran retorted, “we’d be able to pick them up from here.”

  “Orinoco has bad interference,” Ian said.

  “Not that bad,” Kieran countered, detaching his rifle from his pack and checking the sights down into the grass, “it’s not like anyone is putting out interference, and we’re not near any of the tassi trees.”

  “No,” Ian agreed grudgingly, “that’s true.”