Page 31 of Swordheart
He waited politely for her to explain.
“It’s a town. Great-uncle Silas had a friend there. Another collector. They used to visit sometimes, and trade objects. I’m sure that if he knew I was in trouble, he’d help me.”
“Would he?” asked Sarkis.
Halla spread her hands. “Well, if he wouldn’t normally, I can always bribe him with the stuff in Uncle Silas’s house.”
Sarkis nodded. “That’s a fair thought. I do not always trust goodwill, but greed… greed is usually predictable.”
“That’s a dark way to look at the world.”
“The world is a dark place. What is the land like, between here and there?”
“Err… farmland, mostly. Woods along the road in a few places.”
“Is your land at war? Do clans raid the road?”
“Uh…” Halla wasn’t quite sure how to answer that. “No, the war’s been over for years now. I guess there might be highwaymen, sometimes? But they get rooted out if they get too bad. And… err…” She wracked her brain. “There’s sheep?”
He gave her a fixed look. “Do the sheep in your land attack travelers?”
Is he joking? It seems like he must be joking… Sarkis’s face was so grim and the scar through his eyebrow made him look so stern that she couldn’t be sure.
“Yes,” she said. “Constantly. I’m surprised we haven’t been set upon by attack sheep already.”
He did not crack a smile.
“Of course they don’t! They’re sheep!”
His lips twitched.
She gave up. “Does this seem… doable?”
“Are you asking me if I think I can protect you for a week’s walk through pacified farmland?”
Halla threw her hands in the air.
“I believe we can manage, once we’ve thrown off pursuit. I do not know about the road. If we circled far south, into the hills, we might be safer.”
“Ah… hmm. If we go too far south, we’ll risk running into the Vagrant Hills.”
“I take it that is not a place we wish to be?”
“No. They’re weird. Uncanny. Not natural.” It occurred to her suddenly that she was saying these things to a clearly unnatural and uncanny being who lived in a sword. “No offense intended!”
“Not being a hill, I take no offense.”
Halla sighed. “I mean… well, we don’t want to go there. Strange things happen. And if you get too close, sometimes you wake up and you’re in the hills even when you weren’t. At least, so I’m told.” She picked at her skirt, reluctant to admit that she had never been anywhere near the Vagrant Hills herself.Or almost anywhere, for that matter.
Sarkis nodded. “We will avoid the far south, then. Now which way must we go, to find this friend of your uncle’s?”
CHAPTER 10
They set out. The sky was gray instead of black and there was frost on the ground instead of dew. The trail they left looked stark against the shining silver grass. Halla knew that it would melt a little after sunrise, but it still made her feel exposed.
They drank from a tiny rill at the bottom of the hill. It was icy cold and set her shivering again.
There were still blackberries clinging to the brambles. She pulled them off as they walked along the side of the ditch, offering a handful to Sarkis.
