Maze of Moonlight by Gael Baudino (read with me TXT) 📕

the forest. But even in the shadows that the Aleser Mountains flung far to the east—a premature dusk—Christopher could see that the normally lush grass was brown and withered, the gullies dry, the streams sluggish. Spring had brought a drought, and it was a bad one.

“It's about five leagues to Furze,” he said.

“Five leagues,” said Martin. He looked at the sky, plainly worried. “There's a little light for now, and there'll be a moon tonight. We could ride.”

Christopher wished that Martin would demonstrate as much concern for Vanessa, but he looked to Natil for advice. She nodded to the horses. “We should not ride fast, my lord. The animals are weary.”

“I have no intention of riding fast.” The monkey on his shoulder looked relieved. “But I do want to find out what happened at Furze. And if the free companies are about, I don't think I want to do that in full daylight. Can you read the patterns, harper?”

Martin started, then suddenly stared at Natil.

“They are clearer, my lord,” said the harper. “But they do not look at all reassuring.”

There were no roads here—none indeed were needed—and they rode straight across the rolling fields and into a falling darkness in which herds of thirsty cattle were a rustling, stirring shadow, and herders' huts and dugouts gleamed now and again with the faint yellow of rushlights and hearth fires. A moon barely touched with gibbous waning lit their way, but the shadow that was Furze was not pierced by its light. Growing larger as they approached, it remained dark, black, impenetrable, lit only occasionally by sparks of red that arose, flared, then subsided like a failing heart.

Near midnight, they left the horses and the monkey in the shelter of a dry canal and approached on foot. Keeping to the shadows, they crept about the perimeter of the city until they came to a gatehouse. The gates, though, were gone: the massive, bronze-bound doors were lying on the ground ten yards from the wall, shattered and broken.

Christopher pointed to the city. “Can you see?” he whispered to Natil.

“I can,” she whispered back. “There are a few survivors. The gate is guarded. Those who did this are . . . elsewhere.”

“Where?”

“I am not sure.” She closed her eyes, her brow furrowed. “It will take time.”

“Then let me be mad a little longer,” said Christopher. He drew his knife. “There's a guard, you say?”

“One.” Natil's eyes were sad, their light troubled. The work of men.

Alone, Christopher worked his way slowly up to the opening in the wall. A shape in the darkness just within the gate showed the rough outlines of a man, and in another minute, the baron had slipped behind him and laid a blade against his throat. “Not a sound unless I say, or you're dead.”

The man nodded mutely. He was clad in rough leather armor, but he did not have the manner of a seasoned warrior. A townsman, then, Christopher guessed: conscripted by disaster, guarding against another invasion . . . and feeling hopeless about it.

“What happened here?”

“Who . . .”

“Who am I?” Christopher grinned. “I'm Christopher, baron of Aurverelle. The one who's mad.”

“You'd ha' to be, to cam here.”

“What happened?”

“Robbers. Thousands. They cam up from the south. We wan't expecting anything, an' as most o' them wore the Shrinerock arms, we ha' no reason to.”

Shrinerock arms? That meant . . .

Shrinerock? How?

But Christopher betrayed nothing of his dismay. “And then, once they were inside, they started looting and burning.”

The man nodded. “Orders o' Baron Paul, they said.”

“You believe that?”

“Nay.”

“Good. Don't.”

“An' then, once they'd taken e'erything, they left.”

“Which way did they go?”

“To the south.”

“All right.” Christopher removed the blade from the man's throat. The guard shuddered with relief, looked close to tears. He had seen his town looted and burned, had probably watched his friends or his family die. Christopher was moved to give him a pat on the shoulder. “Carry on, friend. Just remember: you didn't see me. You never saw or heard anything tonight. I wasn't here. Understand?”

“Aye, master.”

“Good man. I'm doing what I can, remember that.” Christopher slipped back into the darkness. Shrinerock. Dear Lady!

They returned to the horses and put several miles between them and the city before Christopher called a halt. The horses were exhausted, as were—with the exception of Natil—their riders. The monkey was cross and petulant, and it squished up its face and rubbed its eyes as Christopher waggled a finger at it. “Don't you wish you'd stayed in Aurverelle?” he said. “You could be throwing fruit at David.”

The monkey looked sad. Christopher gave it some bread and dried meat, plunked a cup of water down beside it. The monkey squatted down and ate.

Christopher himself was almost too tired to put food in his mouth, but in the contest between hunger and sleep, hunger was winning for now. Nevertheless, he ate mechanically, his thoughts on Furze . . . and on Shrinerock.

Natil, too, was abstracted. Sitting cross-legged on the ground, she was staring off into space, eyes closed, mouth set. Abruptly, she came to herself and sighed. “Shrinerock has been taken,” she said.

She had only confirmed what Christopher already suspected. With an effort, he swallowed a bit of bread. “What about Paul and his people?”

“They are . . .” She stood up, peered to the southeast. Ten miles away rose the mountain that gave the castle its name. “They are somewhere near the castle.”

“Dead?”

Her voice was hoarse. Grief? Fatigue? “Many.”

They spent the rest of the night and most of the next day in the shelter of a series of low, tree-covered hills. The sun glared down, parching an already parched land. Christopher fretted, Natil looked strained, Martin fidgeted. Even the monkey seemed more serious than usual, and when Natil offered to play with it, it shook its head somberly.

When dusk came on, they mounted and rode toward Paul's castle, staying off the roads, keeping to valleys and depressions. The outline of Shrinerock grew. This was Vanessa's country: dairyland accents, pastures, cows, the silhouette