NOVEL NEXT Chapter 62: Land
Cold light pooled along the stones. Fungal glow brushed each hoofprint until it looked wet. The menhirs fell behind like old teeth.
Han set the pace with two taps on the glass. The team matched his rhythm. Dust rose and settled on his count.
Five merchants kept near, their coaches bright as coins. Drivers traded soft curses and smiled when no one looked. Denver held the line while Han watched the road and the brush.
"Save your breath for hills," Han said through the window. "The forest takes payment in silence and in care. Anyone who pays with noise pays twice."
The bone coach drifted close. Its owner praised his maps and laughed at everyone else. Han did not look over.
"Maps do not fail," he said. "Readers do. Read the ground or you will buy the same mistake again."
They reached a weeping rock where a sheet of spring water crossed the path. Han stepped down first and lifted a hand.
"Order of drink," he said. "Ours first for a count of thirty. Then yours, one coach at a time. If any horse fights my line, we wait until it remembers its manners."
Hanna placed two maids at the corners and two at the rear. The fifth checked the bank with a stick and found the shallow lip. Denver walked the team forward and the water stayed clear.
The red canopy edged in from the side. Han raised an eyebrow and the coach rocked back into place. No one argued aloud.
Back on the road a toll stone waited at the next bend. Cedar cords wrapped the pillar and teeth clicked in the breeze. Feathers turned and showed their pale sides.
Han set a clean iron nail in the notch and poured a thumb of salt beside it. He tucked a fresh sprig of cedar under the cords until the scent bled.
"Iron buys passage where words fail," he said. "Salt promises we do not foul your water. Cedar pays the air."
A runner came from the brush with white clay on his cheeks. He counted the gifts and smelled each one. He touched the nail and nodded.
The bone coach left a little knife that did not bite. The runner tied a debt knot and shaved a curl of paint from the coach side. Han watched without comment and moved his team along.
At a root and chain bridge the line stalled. The teak coach chimed its bells as it crossed. Halfway over the mirror steel coach lost a pin and dropped a trace.
"Spare," Han said. A maid drew one from her cuff and passed it to Denver. He flicked it to the twins without looking.
The twins caught it and bowed. The bone coach called it a trick and asked if Nevolnik kept a smith in every sleeve. Han smiled once and shut the window.
The ash ring came on a flat of gray earth. Stones marked clean ground where trade could be done if tempers stayed cool. Wind ran low and even.
Merchants opened boxes in a crescent and called prices. Chain coils. A bolt of wire. Two jars of dye. A cage with a quiet rooster.
Han kept the coach closed and bought only what they needed. He chose salt blocks and two spools of twine. He chose a clutch of iron bells with clear voices.
"I buy time, not trouble," he said to Denver. "Bells buy time. Salt buys time. Twine buys time. Flesh buys noise and debt. We have enough debt in the world."
The bone coach sold a small woman with a birch mark behind her ear. The red canopy bid with copper that had gone soft. The twins swapped a crate of nails for a boy with clean hands and a bad cough.
Han said nothing to them. He watched the brush at knee height where fresh cuts ran. Three fingers splayed and a smear of green under them.
"Cubs in the path within the day," he said. "Scouts on the edge now. We move steady and dull."
They left the ring before the ash cooled. The bells on the teak coach thinned and matched the pace of the horses. Even the twins ran out of little jabs.
A blue watch fire burned on a ridge above the trees. Smoke climbed in a tight column and folded into the dark. A fox barked and went quiet.
Hanna tapped two fingers on the window. Drums far off. A low beat and then a quicker answer. Han listened and counted.
"Two short to gather," he said. "Three short to hunt. One long far off. War or warning. We will not shine for them."
The path split at a stump and joined again a hundred paces on. Someone had cut fresh marks at knee height and rubbed fern blood along the grain. The air tasted like iron and wet bark.
"Right fork," Han said. "We give the scouts what they want. A look at a calm line that keeps good order."
Night found them under cedar. Lamps dropped to half glow and showed little more than reins and wrists. Breath steamed and faded though the air stayed warm.
Han set watches and tied a bell to Hanna's wrist. He placed two maids in the brush and one by the axle. He took the last watch without saying why.
"Rules of the night," he said to the window. "Bells ready. Blades low. Speak only to the line you guard. If you must move, move on the count we set now."
He closed his eyes and mapped the beats until the measure sat right in his head. When he opened them the drums had moved as he expected. The forest waited to see what he would do next.
The drums broke off mid beat. Silence pressed. Wood cracked.
Ogres hit the line from both ditches. They came in low and fast. They charged like stones taught walking.
Bigger than orcs, all hard cord and heat. Canines showed in wide mouths. Eyes burned dull and hungry.
Skin flushed as their bloodlines woke. Heat wavered along their shoulders. Veins lifted like cords on their forearms.
They swung root clubs ringed with stones. Bone hammers hung from wrist thongs. One carried a door ripped from a hut.
They hit the horses first. A club took a knee and dropped a bay into the traces. Another slammed a breastplate and split a strap.
A stone hammer smashed a wheel. Spokes flew and the rim canted into the mud. The coach groaned and sagged.
A pair drove a wedge under an axle. They heaved as one and the hub cried out. The trace chain snapped like thread.
One ogre leaped onto the teak coach. Bells screamed and went quiet. He punched through the roof and tore a seat from its bolts.
The bone coach tried to turn. An ogre planted a stake and hooked a chain. The wheel bit the chain and locked.
Mirror steel flashed. The twins hid. The red canopy shouted prices for mercy.
The ogres did not count coin. They counted breaks and stops. They counted how fast a thing fell when struck.
Hanna rang a bell once. The maids closed on the team. Two cut traces and freed the bay while two braced the left wheel with their shoulders.
"Smoke front. Hold tight," Han said. His voice cut through the drum in the ribs. He cracked a jar and a gray sheet rolled across the ditch.
An ogre burst from the smoke. Han stepped to meet him. The club fell and split the road where he had been.
Denver took the reins in one hand and a hook in the other. He looped it through the hub and kept the coach square. "Left side holds. Right side back," Han ordered.
Another ogre slammed the harness bar. Iron rang and the bar bent. The horses screamed and fought the bit.
"Easy," Han said to the team. He struck the bar with a short blade and dropped the bent end free. The lead mare stumbled clear.
The ogres bellowed in short bursts. Their muscles swelled and flushed. Steam rolled from their mouths though the night was warm.
A bone hammer rose for the hub. Hanna met it with a bell. The ring went clear and the ogre flinched.
"Move," Han said. The team found three sound wheels and the coach lurched. He pointed at the ditch gap. "Break through there. Do not stop."
The ogres swarmed the fallen coaches. Wheels shattered. Doors tore free.
The bell coach fell silent under a heap of meat and wood. Han walked backward and watched the smoke close. He counted the beats of the drums and waited for the second wave.
The drums returned in a roll. A new band showed, taller and marked with ash. They carried javelins and hooked poles.
Han lifted a second jar and snapped the seal. Smoke leapt the ditch and crawled up their legs. "Cut right, then fold," he said. The maids moved like hinges.
They didn't find us by accident, he thought. Somebody on our side fed them a tip.