Chapter 255: North with the Reaper (1)

{ Your walking is an insult to legs. }

"Thank you," Encrid said. "I’m doing my best."

{ That is what makes it an insult. }

It was the second morning on the road. The sky was low and white, and the frozen ruts of the track crunched under his boots. Bare brown fields stretched away on both sides toward a line of dark hills.

The Reaper walked a pace to his left with the carrying frame on his back, steady and silent, matching his steps to Encrid’s without ever appearing to slow down.

At five hundred steps, Encrid’s stitched leg was burning, and he sat down on a milestone at the edge of the road.

"How far to the ridge?" he asked.

"On a good horse, twelve days," the Reaper said. "On your legs, a little more than six weeks."

Six weeks.

Encrid looked down the empty road.

He could have found a faster way. The problem was that almost every faster way came with a name, a destination, and a record of where he had been.

The Crown had announced an inquiry into the fall of the Wall and the conduct of the late Strategist. In the capital, Encrid was already dead. Now the Crown was looking into his actions, and sooner or later, its Inquisitors would start asking questions about the people who had served under him.

He had no intention of making their work easier.

The followers of the demons were another matter. They had spent twenty-three years waiting for the right moment to open a gate. If word reached them that Encrid was alive, they would want him dead.

He did not know how many of them there was, who they were, or how far their influence reached. Until he did, the fewer people who knew he was alive, the better.

Besides, a carriage on a public road would be noticed.

A journey north would be recorded. At every proper crossing, toll post, and checkpoint, someone might ask their names, their business, or where they had come from.

Blue Moon could have forged the necessary documents. That was the sort of work it did well.

But the Reaper had his own hunt to finish.

The five people in Blue Moon had each been given a different route. Each knew a different path the Reaper might take. If he wanted to find the person who had betrayed him, he could not afford to let anyone know which route he had actually chosen, let alone under what identity he travelled.

Forged papers would solve one problem and create another.

They would turn a journey that left almost no trace into one that could be followed by anyone who knew where to look.

So Encrid kept walking.

At least, he had intended to.

His leg throbbed. He looked at the empty road again, then at the Reaper.

"Is there a market or something like that ahead?"

"There is."

"Can we look for a way to travel faster than this?"

The Reaper regarded him for a moment, then looked toward a thin thread of smoke rising from a farmhouse a mile off the road.

"That," he said, "can be arranged."

? ? ?

The farmer was a widow with three grown sons and a mule called Brindle, which she did not want to sell.

The Reaper did not argue with her. He did not threaten her. He simply set a small leather purse on her kitchen table, and when she opened it and looked inside, she sat down rather quickly.

"That’s too much," she said.

"It is for the mule and the cart," the Reaper said. "And for not remembering that two men came to your door."

She looked at him, and then at Encrid, who was leaning on the doorframe trying to look like a man who could walk another mile.

"I’ve never seen either of you," she said. "And Brindle bites. You should know that."

Brindle bit the Reaper’s sleeve once, then seemed to think better of it when he glared at it with his deathly eyes.

By noon they were on the road again. The cart was old and one wheel squeaked, but it moved. Encrid sat in the back on a folded blanket with his legs stretched out and felt almost like a person. The strongbox rode beside him, wedged in straw at the far end, where the canvas could be lifted.

A farm cart on a farm track was far less noticeable than a carriage and in the north, in winter, there were a thousand carts just like it.

The Reaper walked at the mule’s head. He refused to ride.

"How long now?" Encrid asked.

"Fifteen days, perhaps. Slower than a carriage but faster than you."

"Everything is faster than me."

"Yes," the Reaper agreed, with no expression at all.

? ? ?

That night they slept in a hay barn at the edge of an empty pasture.

The Reaper set the strongbox in the corner, far from the hay, unlatched the lid the width of a finger, and sat by the door with his eyes closed.

A little before midnight, the weight that followed them by day came down out of the dark and settled outside the barn wall, close to the corner.

A thread of white light rose from the gap in the lid, slid between the boards, and was gone.

Outside came a small, sharp hiss. Then silence.

[ Pillow of the Sleeping God ]

[ Containment: 87% ]

[ Leakage: absorbed by an external source ]

One less than when they had left the garden.

"Are you all right?" Encrid asked under his breath.

{ Sleep, frail mortal. }

? ? ?

In the morning, Brindle refused to move.

The mule stood in the traces with his ears flat and his legs planted. The Reaper kept pulling but the mule didn’t seem to have any thoughts of moving.

Then he stopped and looked at the cart.

The canvas over the back was pressed down in the middle, as though something long and heavy were lying on top of it. There was nothing there. But the axle groaned a little when the wind blew.

The Reaper looked at the canvas for a long time.

Then he looked at Encrid.

Encrid looked at the sky.

"I think the mule is tired," he said.

The Reaper said nothing at all. He took Brindle’s bridle and walked forward, and after a long moment, very slowly, the mule followed.

From the canvas came the faint sound of something settling more comfortably.

{ This is acceptable. }

? ? ?