Sneak thief."

"Dag, the knife was in my bedroll!" she gasped.

He snapped open his groundsense, flinching as it was battered by the uproar pouring from all the people nearby. He searched through the noise for a faint, familiar chime. Just... there. His head came up, and he looked along the square to where a slight figure was disappearing between two buildings, the roll cast casually over his shoulder as though he owned it.

"I see it," he said thickly. "Wait here!" His legs stretched as he followed after, not quite running. Behind him, he could hear Fawn demanding of pa.s.sersby, Did you see anyone Did you see anyone fooling around by our horses fooling around by our horses?

Dag tamped outrage down to annoyance, mostly at himself. If he"d been traveling through here with a group of patrollers, someone would always have been left with the horses as a routine precaution. So what had made him drop his guard? Some misplaced sense of anonymity? The fact that if only he"d bothered to glance out the window, he could have kept an eye on the horses himself? If he"d left his groundsense more open, he might have picked up some restive response from Copperhead as a stranger came too near. Too late, never mind.

In an alley in back of the buildings he closed with his quarry. The boy was crouched behind a woodpile, and not alone; a much larger and older companion-brother, friend, thief-boss?- knelt with him as they spread open the bedroll to examine their prize.

The big man was saying disgustedly, "This is just some girl"s clothes. Why didn"t you pinch those saddlebags, you fool?"

"That red brute of a horse tried to kick me, and people were looking," the boy replied in a surly tone. "Wait, what"s that?"

The big man lifted the sharing knife sheath by its broken strap; the pouch swung, and his hand went toward the bone hilt.

"Your death, if you touch it," Dag snarled, coming up on them. "I"ll see to that."

The boy took one look at him, yelped, and sprang away, casting a panicked glance over his shoulder as he ran. The big man, his eyes widening, shoved to his feet, hand closing on a stout log from the pile. It was plain that they were far past the point of lame explanations and apologies, sir, about mistaken ownership, even if the burly thief had possessed the wits and nerve to try to escape that way. He came around already swinging.

Dag flung up his arm to protect his face from a blow that would have caved it in. As it was, the oak log connected with his forearm with a sickening thud, and he was bashed by his own arm-plus-log so hard as to be knocked half off his feet. Hot agony burst in his forearm. No chance to go for his knife, but the hook-and-spring presently attached to his left arm cuff doubled as a weapon of no small menace; the big man ducked back in fright as Dag"s return swing grazed his throat. Rapidly revising his chances against this unexpected unhanded reprisal-brighter than he looked?-the would-be thief dropped both knife pouch and log and galloped after his smaller partner.

Fawn and a party of three or four Lumpton locals rounded the corner as Dag staggered upright again. Quietly, he flipped a corner of the blanket over the leather pouch with a booted toe.

"Dag, are you all right?" Fawn cried in alarm. "Your nose is bleeding!"

Dag could feel a wet trickle over his lip, and licked at it, unmistakable iron tang. He tried to raise his hand to touch his throbbing face but found it would not work properly. Drawing breath through his teeth in a long hiss at the flaring pain, he searched his mind for curses and found none strong enough. His groundsense, turned in upon himself, left him in no doubt. He wheeled away, bent over, and spat blood and fury on the ground before turning back to her.

"Nose is all right," he mumbled in frustrated wrath. "Right arm"s broken. Blight Blight it!" it!"

Chapter 13.

Their hostelry in Lumpton Market turned out to be an elderly inn just off the straight road north from town. Fawn thought it a sad comedown from the fine hotel in Gla.s.sforge, for it was small and grubby, if not without a certain air of shabby comfort. Further, it demanded cash money even from patrollers. In summer, however, patrons were sent out back of the kitchen to eat their dinners on plank tables and benches under some graceful old black walnut trees overlooking the side road, much better than the dank common room. Looking around curiously, Fawn saw no other Lakewalkers here tonight, just a quartet of teamsters at one table intent on their beer and, beyond them, a farm couple busy with a pack of noisy young children. Even with his height, striking looks, and splinted arm in a sling, Dag drew only brief stares, and Fawn felt rea.s.suringly unnoticed in his shadow.

Dag slumped onto his bench with an understandably tired grunt, and Fawn slid in at his right.

She plucked loose the ties of the lumpy leather wrap he"d directed she bring from his saddlebag, unrolling it to find it contained an array of extra devices for his wrist cuff.

"Goodness, what are all these?"

"This and that. Experiments, or things I don"t use every day." As she stared in bewilderment and held up a wooden bolt anchoring a curved and edged metal piece looking like a small stirrup, he added, "That"s a sc.r.a.per. I spend a lot of time in the evening sc.r.a.ping hides, out on patrol. Boring as all get out, but one of the first jobs I took on after I got the arm harness.

Forced me to strengthen the arm, which was good when I took up the bow."

The scullion who doubled as servingwoman plunked down mugs of beer and trotted back inside. With hook and splinted hand, Dag clumsily reached, winced, and fell back, and Fawn said, "Ah! The bonesetter told told you not to try and use your hand. Five times when I was listening, and I don"t know how many more while I was out of the room. I thought he was going to slap you at one point." The man had hardly needed Fawn"s encouragement to bind Dag"s arm with quelling thoroughness, having taken the measure of his aggravated patient very quickly. The barest tips of Dag"s fingers stuck out beyond the cotton wrappings. "You just keep it down in that sling there. We need to figure out how we"re to get along with all this." you not to try and use your hand. Five times when I was listening, and I don"t know how many more while I was out of the room. I thought he was going to slap you at one point." The man had hardly needed Fawn"s encouragement to bind Dag"s arm with quelling thoroughness, having taken the measure of his aggravated patient very quickly. The barest tips of Dag"s fingers stuck out beyond the cotton wrappings. "You just keep it down in that sling there. We need to figure out how we"re to get along with all this."

Hurriedly, she held the mug to his lips; he grimaced, but drank thirstily. She managed not to splash him too badly when he nodded he was done, and whisked her handkerchief from her pocket to overtake his right arm up to mop his lips. "And if you use your bandages for a napkin they"re going to stink long before six weeks are up, so don"t."

He scowled sideways at her, ferociously.

"And if you keep looking at me like that, you"re going to make me break out in giggles, and then you"ll be throwing your boots at my head, and then where will we be?" if you keep looking at me like that, you"re going to make me break out in giggles, and then you"ll be throwing your boots at my head, and then where will we be?"

"No, I won"t," he growled. "I need you to get the blasted boots off in the first place."

But the corner of his mouth curled up nonetheless. Fawn was so relieved she got up on one knee and kissed the curl, which made it curve up more.

He vented a long, apologetic sigh for his touchiness. "Third from the left, there"-he nodded to the leather wrap-"should be a sort of fork-spoon thing."

She pulled it out and examined it, an iron spoon with four short tines on the tip. "Ah, clever."

"I don"t use it too often. A knife"s usually better, if I have anything at the table but my hook or the social hand." That last was Dag"s name for the wooden hand-in-glove, which seemed to have little use but disguise among strangers, and not a very effective one at that.

With a slight clunk clunk, Dag set his wooden cuff against the table edge. "Try swapping it out."

Dag"s most commonly used device, the hook with the clever little spring strip, was set in tight. Fawn, leaning in, had to take a better grip before she was able to twist it out. The eating tool replaced it more readily. "Oh, that"s not too hard."

Their plates arrived, piled with carrots and mashed potatoes with cream gravy and a generous portion of pork chops. After an exchange of silent looks-Fawn could see Dag working to keep his frayed temper-she leaned over and efficiently cut his meat, leaving the rest to him.

The fork-spoon worked tolerably well, although it did involve his extending his elbow awkwardly. Thoughtfully, she kept the beer coming. It might just have been getting a good hot meal into him after a too-long day, but he slowly relaxed. The stout scullion then brought thick wedges of cherry pie, which threatened to push relaxation into sleep right there on the benches.

Fawn said, "So... should we stay here and rest up tomorrow, or push on and rest at West Blue? Will you be able to ride so far?" He had ridden from the bonesetter"s, his reins wrapped around his hook, but that had only been a mile.

"I"ve done more with worse. The powder will help." He"d prudently picked up what he said was a Lakewalker remedy for pain from the medicine shop before they"d left the town square.

Fawn wasn"t sure if the faint glaze in his eyes was from the drug or the ache in his arm; but on reflection, it was just as well the medicine didn"t work better, or there would be no slowing him down at all. Confirming this, he stretched, and said, "I wouldn"t mind pushing on. There"s folks at Hickory Lake who can do things to help this heal faster."

"Is it set all right?" she asked anxiously.

"Oh, yes. That bonesetter might have been a ham-handed torturer, but he knew his trade. It"ll heal straight."

Dag had called him much worse things than that during the setting, but the fellow had just grinned, evidently used to colorful invective from his patients. Possibly, Fawn thought, he collected the choice bits.

"If you don"t knock it around." Fawn felt a little sick with antic.i.p.ation of her homecoming.

But if she had to do it at all, better to get it over with. Dag clearly thought it her duty, the right thing to do; and not even for Stupid Sunny and all her brothers put together would she risk Dag thinking her craven. Even if I am Even if I am. "All right. We"ll ride on."

Dag rubbed his chin with his left sleeve. "In that case, we"d best get our tales straight. I want to leave out the primed knife in front of your family, just as we did for my patrol all but Mari."

That seemed both fair and prudent. Fawn nodded.

"Anything else is up to you, but you have to tell me what you want."

She stared down at the red streaks and crumbs on her empty plate. "They don"t know about me and Sunny. So they"re going to be mad that I scared them for seemingly nothing, running off like that."

He leaned over and touched his lips to a red dent in her neck where one of the malice scabs had finally flaked off. "Not for nothing, Spark."

"Yeah, but they don"t know much about malices, either."

"So," he said slowly, as if feeling his way, "if your Sunny has "fessed up, you will have one situation, and if he hasn"t, you"ll have another."

"He"s not my Sunny," Fawn said grumpily. "We were both real clear on that."

"Hm. Well, if you don"t tell your folks why you really left, you"ll have to make up some lie.

This creates a tension and darkness in your ground that weakens a person, in my experience. I really don"t see why you feel any need to protect Sunny. Seems to me he benefits more from you keeping this secret than you do."

Fawn"s eyebrows rose. "The shame of the thing goes on the girl. Used goods Used goods, they call you.

You can"t get another suitor with good land, if word gets around you"re no virgin. Though...

I think a lot of girls do anyhow, so you really have to wonder."

"Farmers, eh." Dag pursed his lips. "Does the same apply to widows, then? Real ones, not gra.s.s ones."

Fawn colored at this reminder, though she had to smile a little. "Oh, no. Widows are a whole different matter. Widows, now... well, n.o.body can do as they please, really, there might be children, there might be no money, but widows hold their heads up fine and make their own way. Better if they"re not poor, to be sure."

"So, ah... do you hanker after a suitor with good land, Spark?"

She sat up, startled. "Of course not! I want you."

He c.o.c.ked an eyebrow at her. "So why are you worrying about this, again? Habit?"

"No!" She hesitated; her heart and voice fell. "I suppose... I thought we were a midsummer dream. I just keep trying real hard not to wake up. Stupid, I guess. Somewhere, sometime...

someone will come along who won"t let me keep you. Not for always."

He looked away, through the deep shade of the walnut trees and down the side road where dust from the recent pa.s.sage of a pony cart still hung golden in the westering sun. "However difficult your family is, mine is going to be worse, and I expect to stand up to them. I won"t lie, Spark; there are things that can take me from you, things I can"t control. Death is always one." He paused. "Can"t think of anything else right at the moment, though."

She gave a short, shaken nod, turning her face into his shoulder till she got her breath back.

He sighed. "Well, what you"ll say to your people is not my choice. It"s yours. But my recommendation is to tell as much truth as you can, save for the knife priming."

"How will we explain my going to your camp?"

"Your testimony to my captain is required in the death of the malice. Which is true. If they ask for more, I"ll get up on my tall horse and say it"s Lakewalker business."

Fawn shook her head. "They won"t want to let me go off with you."

"We"ll see. You can"t plan other people"s actions; only your own. If you try, you just end up facing the wrong way for the trouble you actually get. Hey." He bent down and kissed her hair. "If they chain you to the wall with iron bolts, I undertake to break you out."

"With no hands?"

"I"m very ingenious. And if they don"t chain you, then you can walk away. All it takes is courage, and I know you have that."

She smiled, comforted, but admitted, "Not in my heart, not really. They... I don"t know how to explain this. They have ways of making me smaller."

"I don"t know how they"ll be, but you are not the same as you were. One way or another, things will be different than you expect."

Truly.

Exhausted, hurting, and uneasy, they did not make love that night, but held each other close in the stuffy inn chamber. Sleep was slow in coming.

The summer sun was again slanting west when Fawn halted her mare and sat staring up the hill where a descending farm lane intersected the road. It had been a twenty-mile ride from Lumpton Market, and Dag had to admit, if only to himself, that his right arm was swollen and aching more than he cared for, and that his left, picking up an unaccustomed load, was not at its best either. They had taken the straight road north along the spreading ridge between the rivers for almost fifteen miles before turning west. Descending into the valley of the western branch, they"d crossed at a stony ford before turning north once more along the winding river road. A shortcut, Fawn claimed, to avoid doubling back a mile to the village of West Blue with its wagon bridge and mill.

And now she was home. Her ground was a complicated swirl at the moment, but it hardly took groundsense to see that her foremost emotion was not joy.

He kneed his horse up next to hers. "I think I"d like my social hand, to start," he murmured.

She nodded, and leaned over to open his belt pouch and swap out his hook for the less useful but less startling false hand. She paused to recomb her own hair and retie it in the curly horsetail with the bright ribbon, then stood up in her stirrups to take the comb to him as well; he lowered his head for the, in his unvoiced opinion, useless attempt to make him look his best. He perfectly understood her determination to walk back into her home looking proud and fine, not beaten and bedraggled. He just wished for her sake that he could look more the part of a valiant protector instead of something the cat had dragged in. You've looked worse, You've looked worse, old patroller. Go on old patroller. Go on.

Fawn swallowed and turned Grace into the lane, which wound up the slope for almost a quarter mile, lined on both sides with the ubiquitous drystone walls. Past a grove of sugar maple, walnut, and hickory trees, a dilapidated old barn appeared on the right, and a larger, newer barn on the left. Above the new barn lay a couple of outbuildings, including a smokehouse; faint gray curls of smoke leaked from its eaves, and Dag"s nose caught the pleasant tang of smoldering hickory. A covered well sat at the top of the yard, and, on around to the right, the large old farmhouse loomed.

The central core of it was a two-story rectangle of blocky yellowish stone, with a porch and front door in the middle overlooking the river valley. On the far north end, a single-story add-on looked as though it contained two rooms. On the near end, an excavation was in progress, with piles of new stone waiting, evidently an addition planned to match the other. On the west, another add-on girdled with a long, covered porch ran the length of the house, clearly the kitchen. No one was in sight.

"Suppertime," said Fawn. "They must all be in the kitchen."

"Eight people," said Dag, whose groundsense left him in no doubt.

Fawn took a long, long breath, and dismounted. She tied both their horses to the back porch rail and led Dag around to the steps. Her lighter and his heavier tread echoed briefly on the porch floor. Top and bottom halves of a double door were open wide and hooked to bolts in the wall, but beyond them was another, lighter doorframe with a gauze screen. Fawn pushed the screen door open and slipped in, holding it for him. He let his wooden hand rest briefly on her shoulder before dropping it to his side.

At a long table filling most of the right-hand half of the room, eight people turned and stared.

Dag swiftly tried to match faces with the names and stories he"d been given. Aunt Nattie could be instantly identified, a very short, stout woman with disordered curly gray locks and eyes as milky as pearls, her head now c.o.c.ked with listening. The four brothers were harder to sort, but he thought he could determine Fletch, bulky and oldest, Reed and Rush, the non-identical twins, brown-haired and brown-eyed, and ash-haired and blue-eyed respectively, and Whit, black-haired like Fawn, skinny, and youngest but for her. A plump young woman seated next to Fletch defeated his tutorial. Fawn"s parents, Sorrel and Tril Bluefield, were no hardship to identify, a graying man at the table"s head who"d stood up so fast his chair had banged over, and on the near end a short, middle-aged woman stumbling out of her seat shrieking.

Fawn"s parents descended upon her in such a whirl of joy, relief, and rage that Dag had to close off his groundsense lest he be overwhelmed. The brothers, behind, were mostly grinning with relief, and Aunt Nattie was asking urgently, "What? Is that Fawn, you say?

Told you she wasn"t dead! About time!"

Fawn, her face nearly unreadable, endured being hugged, kissed, and shaken in equal measure; the dampness in her blinking eyes was not, Dag thought, caught only from the emotions around her. Dag stiffened a little when her father, after hugging her off her feet, put her down and then threatened to beat her; but while his paternal relief was very real, it seemed his threats were not, for Fawn didn"t flinch in the least from them.

"Where have you been been, girl?" her mother"s voice finally rose over the babble to demand.

Fawn backed up a trifle, raised her chin, and said in a rush, "I went to Gla.s.sforge to look for work, and I may have found some too, but first I have to go with Dag, here, to Hickory Lake to help make his report to his captain about the blight bogle we killed."

Her family gazed at Fawn as though she"d started raving in a fever; Dag suspected the only part they"d really caught was Gla.s.sforge Gla.s.sforge.

Fawn went on a bit breathlessly, before they could start up again, "Mama, Papa, this here is my friend, Dag Redwing Hickory." She gave her characteristic little knee-dip, and pulled Dag forward. He nodded, trying to find some pleasantly neutral expression for his face. "He"s a Lakewalker patroller."

"How de" do," said Dag politely and generally.

A silence greeted this, and a lot more staring, necks cranked back. Short stature ran in Fawn"s family, evidently.