Sword of Justice: book 3

Queen of Skye and Shadow series.

Chapter Two part 3

I backed out the door with the table resting against my thighs. I didn’t tear my eyes from the doorway for one second. I left my grandmother’s ancestral door wide open as I pushed the table up into the wagon. The doorjamb was ragged splinters where I’d busted in and the bottom hinge had pulled out. I saw a rusted screw nestled against a small pebble on the stone stoop.

“Lock the door when you leave,” I said to the empty space. “Wouldn’t want the wrong sort squatting in here.”

Nothing came for me. The house looked alone and forlorn. An aching tug in my solar plexus indicated I knew this was the last time I’d willfully come back here. The beast on my step, wafting in the dark corners had claimed it whether it was truly there or not.

I didn’t fancy searching through the entire house. If it was still somewhere wrapped around something as smoke, it could stay there for all I cared. I wasn’t coming back.

I climbed back onto the bench of the wagon and turned the horse toward the beaten path that headed into town. I half expected the thing to meet me on the path at any moment. I imagined it was much how Sadie had felt as she’d recounted her journey and that nagging feeling of being stalked. But nothing met me in the entire trip. Nothing jumped out at me. Nothing made a sound in the woods. It was almost as though everything had gone silent as it listened along with me for the threat.

I sat tense and rigid the entire way, and only when I pulled into the only road into the town, did I relax.

Strangely enough, my wagon wasn’t the only one entering the town when I returned. I noticed in the distance three more wagons and several horses heading our way. And when I pulled through the gate of the town, there were at least half a dozen new horses hitched and hobbled outside of the communal barn.

A coach ahead of me spit out a well-dressed couple and two young children. They stood in the street looking out of place and entirely vulnerable.

I hauled over the wagon and jumped from the bench to hobble the horse. Something was up, something that had changed during the hours I’d been away.

“That’s the third new family today,” said a familiar voice from beside me.

I spun to see Marlin standing with his arms crossed over his chest a couple of feet away. His beanie cap was pulled down over his ears and he was wearing a T-shirt that was as black as the day it was made, but with a big emblem on the front that looked like a large maple leaf. The words said In Gord we trust.

His music maker was conspicuously absent. He’d passed the player to a boy the day we’d entered the mine shafts and attacked the men Hunter had left to ambush us. I wondered if he decided to let the boy keep it.

“The third family?” I said to him. “Where are they from?”

He shrugged. “All over I’m guessing. According to Myste, they’ve been traveling for a week or more.”

I stared down the family and watched them group together, pointing out different places and shake their heads or alternately nod. Whatever they were doing here, it seemed they had some idea what they were after.

“What do they want?”

Again he shrugged. “To move here, I guess.”

I shoved my hands in my pockets. “Move here? Did they say why?”

He gave me a direct stare that managed to look both serious and teasing at the same time.

“What am I?” he said. “Your personal secretary? You want to know, go ask. I’ve already wasted too much time making sure people have beds to sleep in.”

He was referring no doubt to the chore Lance gave him of settling the farmers who had been ousted out of their homes by the fire Hunter set.

Like it or not, he was right. If people were going to start flooding into the town, I needed to know why. And then I needed to find them a place to stay.

“I can’t ask them myself. I need a shower,” I said. “I stink.”

“Just a bit pissy,” he said. “With a hint of sweat.” He made a motion, sweeping his hand toward his face as though it were a bouquet fragrance, then he smiled broadly.

“I’ve smelled worse.”

I sighed.

“Better than smelling shitty I guess,” I said and turned my eye to the couple, knowing there was no time like the present. Stinking or not, I had to find out what was going on.

I tugged down my tshirt. My pants might have dried, but that I no doubt the urine smell remained stronger now that it was dry.

“Don’t go away,” I said, poking him with a finger. “On the point of my heady fragrance, I need to ask you something.”

“Again?” He rolled his eyes. “I’m weary with all the answers already.”

“You’re weary from spending too much time with those nymphs,” I said. “And don’t pretend you didn’t enjoy that.”

He shot me an embarrassed glance. He’d managed to magic up some much needed rain to help us with the forest fire by striking a bargain with water nymphs, and then again when we faced a much greater threat with the black magic that came after. I could only guess at what they asked for in return, but he still looked a bit ragged around the edges, like a dog tending a bitch.

“I mean it,” I said. “Don’t leave.”

I sighed. The last thing I wanted to do at the moment was meet and greet a bunch of people I didn’t know. It was bad enough putting myself out there for folks I’d met. I had to turn something on inside me that was usually set to snooze.

Even so, I moseyed over to the couple. The woman pulled the kids close around her legs when see saw me striding toward them. I wondered if they had seen the wanted posters Hunter had put up all over the nation as a means to smoke me out of hiding.

Judging by their reaction, I reckoned they had made the connection between that picture and myself easily enough because whoever had sketched the terrible picture had also made a point of drawing a perfect replica of the the scar running along my forehead. I didn’t bother painting it with ocher and woad anymore. The town had evidently accepted me the way I was and I had no need of it.

But these newcomers didn’t know me except what they read on that poster. That meant they were probably terrified of me before I even looked their way. They no doubt thought I was out to take over the entire world, starting with eating their children.

It made the prospect of introducing myself harder still, but I stuck my hand out toward them in greeting long before I reached them. Kind of a defense mechanism. If they turned away from a freindly gesture, it gave me time to melt away into the crowd without too much of a scene.

I didn’t realize how nervous I really was until the mother visibly relaxed and let her hand fall away from the young girl’s shoulder.

I gripped her hand first in favor of the father and gave it a gentle pump.

“Skye Shadow,” I said. “Welcome to New Denver.”

The man sidled up closer, subtly easing his wife and daughter out of the way. The woman, I noted had a red welt on her cheek and my fists clenched when I let go her hand as I imagined what marks might be on the children as well. My gaze trailed to his hands, searching for cuts or abrasions.

“Seems like the semaphore lines are accurate,” he said as he regarded me. He had sandy colored hair that fell over his brow in a way that had him pushing it aside almost irritably.

I wasn’t sure I liked the tone. I automatically widened my stance.

“What’s that?” I said.

“Semaphore lines,” he said. “A bunch of signals made with flags –”

“I know what they are,” I snapped. “But what do you mean that they’re accurate?”

He stole a glance at his wife.

“They’re saying that there is a new leader here in new Denver,” he said. “That this place has taken a stand against Hunter. Now I know what they meant when they spelled out Skye and Shadow.”

He stuck out his hand.

“Your name,” he said. “That’s right?”

I nodded. “That it is,” I said. “But what is this about a new leader and the new Denver.”

His hand fell next to his thigh when I didn’t immediately shake it. His daughter edged closer to him, and for a second I felt ashamed of my suspicious nature. I felt worse when she cowered from my feeble smile.

“You’ve had it good here,” he said looking around. “Hunter see you as a sort of daughter or something.”

I wasn’t sure I liked the tinge of jealousy in his voice. Or the accusation.

I shoved my hand in my pocket. “Hunter Wolf does not see me as a daughter,” I said. “Of that I can assure you. He tried to have me killed as recently as yesterday.”

He looked me head to heal, running an assessing gaze over me. The woman cozied up to him and put her arm around his waist.

“She doesn’t know, Caleb,” she whispered.