Two guardsmen Skye did not recognize barred the bridge, but with Niles as her escort she had little problem crossing in her traveling cloak.
"Our wagon has cracked a shaft," Skye explained easily. "I must fetch my father."
The guardsmen looked toward Niles. "It is as she says," he agreed, waving them off. "Let her pass. She must ride into the mountains past nightfall as it is."
At the far side of the bridge the lanky Sledder slid off Shep's broad back with its distinctive dark line and handed Skye the dun pony's rope lead as he scanned the clouds beginning to form. "It looks like rain," he said softly. "You'll not make it to the Notch before full dark."
Skye eyed him silently, remembering her mother's instructions. Could she pass the outlet of the Lavender Rill without turning up the familiar road towards her farm at the base of the Tear Drop, she wondered? Wouldn't she do better to ignore her mother's wishes and instead ride home to her father and tell him what had happened? Surely Kendrick would know how to rescue her mother.
"There is a flour mill just up the turnoff to our track, the Mill on the Rill," Skye began, her face growing hot as she searched for a way to form truth into a lie. "They have a stall in the main tent."
"Under the purple banner," Niles remembered. "I tasted the honeyed scones."
"Like no other," Skye added, with a wistful smile. "They are friends of the family. The grandfather Gaffer stayed behind to mind the mill. Mayhap I shall overnight there with the ponies."
"Overnight there with the ponies," Niles echoed, under her spell. "A good idea." He smiled, unaware of her deceit. "Take care of yourself, then. If I find Warren, I will find some way to get word to you."
"And I you," Skye replied.
"To Top Notch," he conjectured. "Or mayhap your Mill on the Rill." Skye nodded, thinking that most likely she would never see him again. With a satisfied wave, he loped back toward the bridge and was gone.
Silently Skye fought against the one way traffic streaming into Middlemarch. It was slow going, trying to ride one pony while leading the other. But she had a feeling she would need both ponies when she caught up to Sierra, so she plodded on through the mud. How far ahead of her were the soldiers with Sierra, she wondered? And had they even taken this track? Skye suspected not, for she knew that the military roads led through the highlands, not the river valleys. Their trails were steeper but shorter and closed to all who failed to show the Northland Crest on a tunic or jacket or special token that allowed passage. Warren had traversed their sled trails beyond the Notch numerous times and come back elated. He was sometimes spotted but never captured. But in the end it had not mattered, because they had come for him to help fight their war.
Now it was no longer vendors clogging the muddy road, but farm families driving buckboard wagons while some passed on foot. With afternoon chores done, they were arriving to join the yearly celebration of spring. Still, Skye noticed, most of the men were old or infirm and the boys were no older than her brother Garth. Could the Northland Guard really have taken all others as they had come for Warren? If so, it must have happened while she and her family were stuck up at the Notch this long winter past. When she and her father and Garth had traveled to Bainbridge for winter provisions last fall, there had been plenty of men in the mead hall and boys her own age at the Granary.
As the sun waned in the sky, so did the traffic on the thoroughfare. Afternoon clouds rolled in, and the wind picked up, prompting the vendors along the road to hastily dissemble their food stalls, while others merely boarded up for the night and left. Fewer and fewer folk passed her until finally she had the road to herself.
Under cloud cover, the temperature began to drop more quickly, forcing Skye to fasten her traveling cloak tight, but no amount of warmth could quell the icy fear that gripped her hear as she thought of Sierra's capture and the unknown road ahead. Day light was but a dim halo on the horizon when she reached the foothills in the valley below the Notch. By the rising moon she searched for the turnoff to her track ahead, but saw nothing familiar in the glittery light. While the River Runne thundered by on her right, an unheard battle fought within her head where Sierra's words echoed, urging her to forsake family and farm to flee up the long road north. Frosty breath came in ragged mist from the tired ponies as they approached the outlet of the Lavender Rill marking Skye's turn and as the ponies instinctively slowed, Skye wondered how she would fare on the this muddy track to Bordertown with scarcely a day's worth of food and no way to defend herself from soldiers or roving bands of fossikers. Her quest seemed careless and foolish and her mother was neither, Skye reasoned as she recalled Sierra's exact words.
"There is a yarn shop in Bordertown called Potluck Yarn along the main thoroughfare of Merchant's Pass. Go to the side door through the herb garden. Ask for Aubergine."
Skye eyed the bundle of knitted garments tied to Shep's back and wondered if anything in there possessed unknown magic she needed. If so, she wished her mother had offered her some kind of hint or clue. She was not sure how far her newfound ability to lie convincingly would get her in the journey ahead and she was unsure of her true adeptness to pass unseen. Approaching the road to the Notch, she could not help but pause with the ponies, calculating the short ride to Katerina's family homestead and the Mill on the Rill where Gaffer would have a mug of hot tea and buttered bread plus a warm stable for the ponies.
Even as she neared the corner, already she could tell something was deadly wrong. The Rill did not trickle, it roared and great chunks of road had washed away at the outlet to the Runne. She could see that her father's prediction had been right, the Tear Drop had spilled this day and now the track to her family farm was a roaring torrent of churning water spilling down the mountainside into the river.
As the ponies snorted and backed away from the flooded road, Skye realized that even if she wished it, there was no way to get home. She thought of Garth in his red barn sweater and her father in his potluck hat and wondered if they had been able to herd the Alpine goats to higher ground or if all had been lost in the raging water. She hoped that they had climbed to the sleep out as in years past with the goats and sheep and that in a week or so the spring runoff would subside and all would be well as before. But the scent of acrid smoke in the valley quickened her heartbeat, and the rising wall of brown water made her think otherwise. The Lavender Rill was a muddy sea spitting dirty foam. There's your answer, she told herself, turning the ponies toward the border by the light of the moon.
The next village north was Bainbridge. Many times she had traveled there with her family to buy farm supplies at the Granary with the wagon. There was always news of some sort at the Trading Post, and often parcels could be posted for further passage on mail wagons headed north or south. She and her mother would spend hours pouring over the wares others had brought in for trade before making their decisions. How she loved to finger the array of fine handmade birch knitting needles, crochet hooks carved from bone or antlers, pins and darning needles forged from precious metals. There would be bobbins of bright threads, yarns plant dyed with logwood or cochineal, and she and Sierra would add there own crystal dyed merinos and mohair, lavender and light blue.
Skye remembered how Kendrick had waited months for the ponies' hand hammered silver bells to arrive at the Trading Post from a smithy in the Northlands. Often in times past, he had shipped a bundle of moose hides north as well where they would be sold to a tannery be fashioned into all manner of leather goods: boots and mitts and laces.
Other than that, Bainbridge was nothing more than a small outpost, it's only defining feature a large trestle bridge that crossed the Runne, leading to the Granary, plus there were rustic rooms for hire over a tiny mead hall attached to the Trading Post, a few scattered produce farms in the verdant valley and fossikers, teenage boys who eluded conscription by the Northland guard by staying on the move. According to her father, they supported themselves by cheating and stealing and picking bits of crystal and relics washed south by the glacier out of the river beds.. Whenever she sighted them, even in singles and pairs, Skye took pains to steer clear.
Even if she could reach the outskirts of the village tonight, Skye knew the creaking bridge would be too difficult to attempt at night, with mere low rails between her and the water, best traversed by day, plus it was hours away. She would have no choice but to wait until morning to cross with the ponies if she wanted news and supplies at the Trading Post before continuing north.
Walking slowly, she searched for shelter in the dark, careful to keep away from the roiling water. Here above the Lavender Rill, the Runne was not as angry, although it's banks were oddly swollen and the current moved swiftly. Young trees torn from their roots sliced through the water like unguided boats and she knew that to slip into the icy river meant almost certain death.
As it began to rain, Skye stopped under a stand of trees budded for new leaf and staked the ponies next to a boarded food stall, hoping that the owners would not mind her trespass under its dry roof. The ponies stripped the greening branches ravenously; prompting her to untie the knotted grain sack she had taken from the wagon and feed each pony a measure from her tin drinking cup. Unfortunately, there had been no way to carry along the hay Kendrick had loaded this morning and the shaggy ponies were hungry. They lipped and nipped at her fingers, searching for treats. The ponies would not go without water, surely but the grain would be gone soon and Skye had only the seed money Sierra always brought to make change at the fairgrounds to buy feed in Bainbridge. And none of it was newly minted Northland silver like Katerina had shown her. Hunched against the rain under the slanted roof of the stall, she sorted through the handful of copper and silver coins from Sierra's woven purse by the light of the moon, wondering if the worn Middleland coins depicting bucolic sheep and goats from happier times were even accepted in the north along the border as legal tender. She would find out at the Trading Post in the morning, she decided, and also ask if there had been any sightings of the soldiers or her mother. Surely someone would know. Whatever money she had could go toward provisions if it was worth nothing in the North. Skye did not even know how long it would take to get to Bordertown. She thought that it must be more than one days' ride--she had overheard as much from the Sledders that used to come down from the Northlands to train with her brother Warren.
Skye spread her traveling cloak on the damp floor of the stall and reached for the goat cheese and bread and the small sack of dried apples Sierra had put by for their lunch this morning. She was so sick with worry she feared she could not sleep, but the bread and most of the cheese disappeared quickly and soon she was dozing off, the only sounds the distant roar of the river and the close chuff chuff of the sleeping ponies.
As dawn broke, she woke with a start. She had used her mother's bundle of garments as a pillow and something lumpy inside had given her a crick in the neck. She sat sleepily, rubbing at the ache below her jawbone, but pain was not what had woken her. The ponies were acting fractious, stamping their tiny feet on the sodden ground. Adjusting her eyes to the dimness, she stole silently to the open doorway of the food stall, just as Chuffer snorted another warning and Shep's furry ears pricked, his eyes rolling with fear. Skye froze, knowing someone or something was near, but unable to make out what in the gloom. Before she could turn, they were upon her, five or six of them, dirty boys in muddy cast off coats, wrestling her packs from Shep's back and lunging past her for her mother's garments by lamplight. Screaming, Skye fought back and got in a few good kicks before they had her wrists and feet. In the fray, Chuffer reared and pulled his stake, whinnying to his mate who neighed back. Evading grasping hands, he charged past the boys and flew along the riverbank, followed by Shep, lead rope trailing."Chuffer," Skye called, to no avail. "Shep!" As the ponies galloped toward the river bend, she turned to her captors and spit, "You stupid, stupid boys!"
"Trader!" the younger boy holding her feet cried, his finger following the disappearing ponies. "There goes our ride!"
"Your ride!" Skye yelled, kicking free. "Your ride! Those are my mountain ponies. And now they're in danger."
"We'll get them," the one called Trader assured the little boy. Slight and sinewy, he was stronger than he looked, Skye guessed, and obviously their leader although no older than herself. Trader pointed. "Ross, you and Clayton run after them. They're too fat to get far.""You idiot," Skye cried, pulling first one wrist and then her other arm from the grimy hands of the red haired boy called Clayton. She rubbed her wrist which had fallen asleep under pressure of his hands. "You don't run after ponies!"
"No you don't," a familiar voice said. "You let them run after you." Into the circle of light a red barn sweater appeared and Skye gasped in surprise. "Let her up mates," Garth sighed, his face peaked and drawn, but smiling. "She's my sister."
"You look like a drowned rat," Skye scolded, hugging him. Tearful relief stung her eyes as she took in his damp and soiled clothing, the wet hair plastered to his face. "What happened to you? And what are you doing with this stinking lot of juvenile bandits?"
"Stinking lot?" Ross stared at Skye in disbelief. "Did you hear that, Trader? She called us a stinking lot." He sniffed at the sleeve of his coat. "You do smell," Clayton offered.
"Aye, and juvenile bandits," Trader jeered, his dark eyes smoldering at Skye. "Just how old are you, little miss?"
"Old enough to know a thieving fossiker when I see one," Skye retorted. She grabbed her mother's bundle from a rail thin boy who sought to examine the contents. "Give me back my clothes."
The boy turned to Trader for direction. "Skylar, hand it over for now." He gave Skye a veiled look. "Seeing as she's his SISTER and all."
"Garth let's get out of here," Skye said, tying up the bundle.
"But these fossikers saved my life," Garth protested. "Or at least Trader did."
"I'll bet they did." Skye glared at Trader. "What happened?"
"Well," Garth began, "When the Tear Drop spilled, I was still down below at the farmhouse. Father had taken the goats already up to the sleep out and then he said he was coming back with the dogs to get the sheep, so I went down to the barn and WHOOSH!" He pantomimed with his arms. "There was no warning at all. The dam did not spill like it usually does. No, the sluice board broke and the whole thing let go. Water started coming over the fields in waves." "What about father?" Skye asked.
"Didn't see him." Garth avoided her eyes. "I climbed up on the chicken house and the water swirled around and around and I searched for Father but he was gone. Then the water pulled the roof clear off the chicken house and there I was on this raft, but it wasn't a raft really, just the roof of the chicken house. It was going down this river that used to be our track right beside the real river, the Lavender Rill, and they turned into one big muddy river, full of branches and fence posts," he lowered his voice. "Part of our house ..."
"Our farm?" Skye cried in disbelief. "Our Lavender Fleece Farm?" Garth's eyes grew glassy. "Parts of it anyway. The wood parts. They came flying by me and I was holding on, holding on"" He paused to catch his breath, reliving the horrible events of that morning. "It was so scary," he murmured, hugging her hard. When he let her go, two huge tears tracked down his face and he wiped them away swiftly with the back of his hand.
"I imagine it was," Skye said, recalling her own brush with the soldiers at the Middlemarch bridge and how inconsequential it seemed now. She decided not to mention Sierra's capture until later.
"Oh it was," Garth nodded, his bravado returning now that he saw the other boys had stopped talking amongst themselves and were listening. "But the scariest part was next. I came around this turn where the road was all washed out and the water dropped to rocks below and "."
"A waterfall?" Skye asked. "Where was this?"
"Just above the Mill on the Rill." Garth said. "I knew I was not going to make it over that thing, not on a chicken coop roof." He sighed with a shrug and a small smile. "Then I saw the fossikers. Trader caught me with a snag and him and Clayton and Skylar snagged me right up on the bank with them and I never want to go down the Rill on a roof raft again." He gave her a solemn look. "They saved me Skye. I would be drowned dead."
"Dead or not, they still would have dragged you out of the river, looking for loot," Skye said, scanning the circle of ragged boys. They looked tired, she thought, and hungry, certainly not the predators her father had made them out to be. "They're scavengers, Garth. They did not come looking to save you.""At least we came looking," Skylar said.
"We like to look," Ross chimed in. "Got anything to eat in one of them baskets?"
"Carrion birds, the lot of you," Skye said, digging out her sack of dried apples and tossing it to the little boy. "Garth, they knew the Tear Drop would spill so they came to the Rill thieving for spoils." She watched the boys share the apples around. "They almost robbed me."
"And may yet," Trader said, scuffing one small booted foot in the dirt.
"I dare say you've stolen enough for one day," Skye argued, "Especially if you think you've convinced my brother to join your dirty little band."
"Skye it isn't like that," Garth insisted. "I want to be a fossiker."
"You'll do no such thing," Skye argued."He owes us," Ross said, stubbornly, chewing the last of the apples. "Don't he, Trader?" Skye whirled on her brother. "You owe them nothing. Come help me catch the ponies."
Without looking back, she started toward the river bend in the early morning light. Grumbling, Garth followed, trotting to catch up. As the other boys fell in line, Trader held up a hand. "They'll not try to leave without their packs," he said, motioning to Skye's twig baskets and Sierra's bundle. As soon as she was sure they were out of earshot, Skye grabbed Garth's arm roughly. "What really happened to father?" She hissed.
Garth pulled a sodden lump from his pocket. "Trader found this." Taking the wet wool from Garth's hands, Skye gasped. It was Kendrick's potluck hat. "In the river?"
Garth nodded. "Caught on a branch." Skye's eyes began to water. "Do you think he drowned?" "I think he's just gone, and not coming back," Garth said angrily. "Along with our farmhouse." He shook his head and leveled his eyes at his sister. "I hated that place. The never ending chores and the loneliness and Father's disappointment that I was not Warren."
"I know," Skye said softly, ruffling his hair.
"No you don't," Garth shot back. "Do you know what he made Warren do? Do you know what I had to do?"
"I can guess. You didn't go moose hunting those last few times, did you?" Skye asked quietly as they approached the ponies cropping at the green shoots next to the river.
"No," Garth admitted. "We broke trails for those filthy Lowlanders to gain passage through the Notch and into the North undetected. We were working on a sled track that was a back way to the Northland Glacier. That was until the Guard came and took Warren. They knew, apparently."
"He's missing now, a deserter some say," Skye said soberly. "At least that was the rumor I heard from soldiers at the Fair."
"Warren would desert no one willingly," Garth said fiercely. "Whatever happened, I'll bet it had something to do with Lowlanders or Father." Garth bowed his head. "I won't go back to the farm," he muttered under his breath. Then he cocked his eyes at Skye. "Don't make me go back?"
Skye squeezed his shoulder. "It doesn't sound like there's much to go back to," she admitted, as they approached the ponies. "Chuffer," She called in a singsong voice. "Shep!" Both ponies raised their thick tawny necks and glanced over, chewing idly. Skye looked at Garth. "Ready?"
He nodded and quickly they turned and sprinted, slowing to let the ponies overtake them as they rounded the bend toward the group of boys, who hooted in disbelief at the edge of the track. Soon they had both lead ropes in hand and rejoined the fossikers.
"That was quite a trick," Trader said with a grin.
"Mountain ponies love to chase," Skye said, letting Ross and Clayton pat Chuffer. "You don't know much about ponies, do you?"
"Nope," Trader admitted. "Do they always come in pairs?"
"No," Skye laughed. "These were hitched to our wagon."
Garth gave her a sick look. "The wagon," he realized. "Skye..."
She turned to her brother. "I guess you're finally wondering what I am doing here alone with the ponies, without Mother or the wagon."
"Now that you mention it," he admitted in a small voice. "Aren't you supposed to be in Middlemarch, tending our booth at the Fair with Mother, selling things?"
"See?" Skylar shot Trader a sulky look. "Some folk get to go to the fair."
"Trader wouldn't let us go," Ross complained to Skye. "Because we're boys."
"That's right," Clayton argued. " She's nothing but a girl! She'd not have the Northland Guard trying to round her up at the fair."
"Oh the guard were after me alright," Skye told the group. "The soldiers captured my mother and took her away. I'm trying to find her."
"This day can get no stranger." Garth said in disbelief. "The Guard took our mother? When were you going to tell me that?"
"Whenever you asked," Skye retorted. "They tried to take me too, but a Sledder friend of Warren's helped me escape over the bridge with the ponies."
"You got away from soldiers?" Clayton asked with admiration. "Trader, this girl escaped the Guard."
"I heard," Trader said, looking at Skye intently.
"And she has a wagon," the small boy Ross said. He plucked Skye in the arm.
"Where is that wagon?"
"Back at the Fairgrounds." Skye watched Trader who said nothing. "A long ways off."
"Too bad," Ross grumbled. "We all could've ridden in it."
"You'll not get far on this main track with ponies," Trader told Skye.
"Either one of you. The soldiers patrol it night and day. They will put your brother in a rolling cage and conscript your ponies to pull it or another."
"Do you think that is where my mother is, in one of their prison wagons?" Skye asked.
Trader shook his head. "No, they only use those for rounding up the likes of us."
"Speaking of which," Skylar warned, scanning the road both ways. "Time to scramble mates."
Clayton nodded. "Time to scatter."
"One minute," Trader raised his hand. His black eyes snapped at Skye. "Do you know why the soldiers took your mother?"
Skye looked at him and felt her face grow hot with a good lie, but instead she found herself telling the truth. "They said she used magic They said she was one of the twelve."
Trader raised his brows. "Then she's committed a crime against the Northland, which means they would smuggle her up the military track. It's faster, less traveled and you can avoid Bordertown. They'll probably try to take her to the Burnt Caves."
"No one ever comes back from the Burnt Caves," Ross whispered. "That's what they say."
Skylar gave him a little shove. "No, that's what you say."
Trader held up his hand once again, silencing them. "There's lots of talk of the twelve up and down this track all of a sudden," he told Skye and Garth. " If you want to elude the Guard another day, you need to come with us." He motioned Clayton and Skylar to help her pack her baskets and bundle onto Shep's back.
"Why should I trust you?" Skye argued weakly. "We need to find our family."
"We're all of us without family," Trader shot back not unkindly. "What you need to do now is not get caught. Look about boys. It's full day now and we're easy picking for the Guard."
"Time for the boys to scatter," Clayton agreed. "Fossik camp under the big rocks upriver?"
"No," Trader said. "Not with a girl and ponies."
"In the dell?" Skylar suggested. "Green grass in the dell."
"I'll take the girl to the dell, you to the rocks," Trader decided, waving Clayton and Skylar away as he took Skye's arm. "Eat up and get your gear plus all you can for trade," he told the boys. "We'll meet at dusk under the bridge. Scatter."
"Scramble," Clayton agreed, as he and Skylar and Ross melted into the tall grass on the other side of the track.
"Scatter," Ross echoed. Turning, he grinned back at Garth who stood alone in the road, holding Shep's halter. "Come on!"
Once within the dark safety of the woods, Trader turned to Skye and let go of her arm. "Keep close in the copse," he warned her.
"Copse?" Skye snorted. "It's just woods."
Trader pulled out a walking stick with what looked to Skye like a dull bit of purple glass lashed to the top. He tapped it on the ground and it lit their path with crystaline light. "Right," he grinned at her surprise. "And that's just a cloak you're wearing."