6: Freefolk

The jays still chirped their morning songs by the time Leiyn rode Feral out of Folly’s south gate.

“Kill a Suncoat for me!” the young guard posted there shouted after her. “Or two, if you can!”

“I’ll make it three!” With a last wave, she turned and coaxed her mare to a trot.

Her head still ached from one too many brandies with Itzel the night before, but the fresh air soon settled it. With her mahia open and aware of lifeforms leagues afar, Leiyn rode Feral at her ease. Even the irascible horse was mild-mannered, not making a single attempt to unseat her rider.

It being early in the season, she encountered few passersby that first day. Only the most enterprising—or deluded—of merchants braved the trip north when chance snows might fall. As a second and third day passed, the traffic grew thicker. Leiyn admired the folks trudging over the muddy road, mules and wagons in tow. By their looks, few were trained to defend themselves, yet they persisted in their livelihoods, war and weather be damned. It was for that Baltesian spirit that she pushed south each day.

On the fourth day, a glimpse of bushes alongside the road caught Leiyn’s attention. Smiling, she dismounted and led Feral over.

“See what we have here, old girl? Crebberries!”

To the untrained eye, the fruit would look far from ripe. But that shade of deep green was exactly how crebberries were supposed to be.

She popped a few of the berries off and held them out to the horse, keeping her fingers straight to avoid tempting the mare to bite them. Feral was suspicious, snuffing the emerald orbs for a moment before slurping them up.

With a wry chuckle, Leiyn rubbed the horse saliva from her gloves onto her trousers—the Iritu magic would soon take care of the mess—then picked off some for herself. Sour, spicy, and sweet all at once. Her eyes watered from the first mouthful. 

The mare nudged her for more. Yet halfway through another helping, Feral raised her head and skirted sideways. Leiyn stiffened, scanning their surroundings and reaching for her bow. For all Feral’s faults, her mare was not skittish. Even if she had not sensed danger herself, she heeded her horse’s fears.

Only then did she see him.

Dead—she could readily see that without mahia. Swinging from the tree positioned at the crossroads just ahead, crows had already plucked out his eyes and were working on the rest of him. Flies buzzed about the body, loud and busy to ears and lifesense. Judging by his state, he had been recently killed; a few days gone, at most.

Leiyn checked carefully with her lifesense, but the nearest esses were a league down the road. A small village, she guessed. Still, she moved with the same care as if predators lingered just out of sight.

“You can stay,” she murmured to Feral, giving the horse a comforting nudge with her mahia before padding toward the corpse, unstrung bow in hand.

Reaching the spot, she stood before the gently spinning cadaver. He looked to have been a young man, well-built and tanned from a life spent outdoors. His clothes, simple and homespun, showed him to have humble origins. Wet as the spring had been, the body reeked with rot.

A sign hung from his neck, looped over the noose. Painted upon it in a scrawling hand and with poor spelling were two words: Goldblud Pyser.

Goldblood pisser. It should have been reassuring. A show of loyalty to the colony winning out over allegiance to the Crown. Yet Leiyn’s frown only deepened.

She studied the body closer. His clothes bespoke of field labor rather than travel. No rifled belongings spilled at his feet. He had not gone far from his home before meeting his end. Unless roves of Baltesian fanatics roamed the Frontier Road that she had not heard tell of, it left one conclusion.

This had been a local boy. A farmer’s son. And his neighbors had killed him.

She stared at the corpse, mind turning as slowly as his body. No doubt the so-called “Freefolk” that Iztel had told her about were behind this. She wondered what the boy had said or done to warrant his fate. Surely, it took more than conviction to condemn someone you had known your whole life.

Back on the road north, Feral shifted, impatient to leave the morbid scene. Still, it was a long time before Leiyn sighed and turned away. Much as she wanted to cut the boy down and bury him, good reason prevailed.

Best not to piss off the locals yet.

She was comforted that Gast custom was to let bodies lie out in the wilderness, to give of their flesh to the world that once sustained them. It was the best good his body could do now. Enough of her remained an Omnist, though, to be uncomfortable at leaving the dead to rot.

Leiyn mounted Feral and kept moving south, but her thoughts remained on the swinging corpse. This was where wars began and ended: neighbors pitted against one another. Lives and homes destroyed over ideas. All of them pieces moving to strings, never seeing the hands hovering over them.

Another tally against you, Sharo. Her hands clutched Feral’s reins. Another debt you’ll pay in full.

The threats rang hollow even in her head. After all, a ranger could not hit a target that never showed.

* * *

She meant to pass through the nearby village—Carmenar, according to its entrance archway. But with a fresh drizzle starting and evening creeping closer, she resigned herself to entering the single inn, whose weathered sign declared it to be “the Gourd and Corn.”

Just to sleep, she told herself as she handed over Feral to the stableboy. I’ll keep my nose clean.

Stepping inside, Leiyn found the inn’s name to be fresh paint on a rotten interior. The stink of it, sour and acrid, almost drove her back into the rain. A banked fire was the only light with the windows boarded against the weather. Water had stained the wooden walls, a promise that rot had long set into them. A drip fell in the far corner, a bucket positioned to catch it. As Leiyn moved to the counter, the planks creaked with each step, even with her light footfall.

It was a wonder the place remained standing.

“Small beer,” Leiyn asked of the barkeep, a skinny man with a miraculous head of hair for his age. After she handed over Union coppers, the man stared at them, then scooted them back across.

“Colony coins only.”

Leiyn studied him. His manner remained mild, but there was a determined cast to his lifefire. He was deadly serious.

“Coin is coin, isn’t it?” She took one copper and tapped it on the counter. “Made of the same stuff.”

“Colony coins or nothing.”

“Here, lass. I’ll trade you.”

Leiyn tensed as the man seated at the table behind her stood and made his way over. A rancher, telling by his wide-brimmed straw hat, though farmers had also begun adopting the fashion. He was fine-featured for his profession, hard labor only roughening him around the edge. His eyes were bright in the firelight.

Thinks himself pretty, no doubt.

The man withdrew a few coppers of an unfamiliar design. Leiyn peered at them, ensuring they were of similar thickness, before shrugging and making the trade. The barkeep accepted these new coins without comment, then fetched her drink.

“Join me,” the man said as he returned to his table. “It’s too gloomy a day to sit alone.”

Leiyn thought of refusing. She had been around enough men of his ilk to guess his intent. She doubted she would have been agreeable even if she was inclined toward the male persuasion.

But the dead youth swung in her mind’s eye, hollow sockets staring. Accusing.

She sat at his table, setting down her saddlebags next to her. The man raked his eyes over her for a long moment before speaking. 

“The name’s Emilio. Yours?”

Giving her name went against both her mood and purpose. Still, if she meant to coax him into conversation, she had to give him something.

“We’ll see if you earn it.”

It snagged him like a hook would a hungry fish. Grinning, he leaned forward. “I bet I can. Well then, what brings you to Carmenar? Few like you pass through.”

“Wouldn’t think many pass through at all, these days especially.” Realizing she had to give some straight answers, Leiyn added, “I’m coming from Folly.”

“Folly? Right at the edge of nowhere, that town. Never been, though you hear tales. Do all ladies there wear such odd clothes?”

“Some.” If he did not already know, she saw no need to enlighten him, and even less the benefit of divulging her garb’s Iritu origins.

Emilio eyed her. Hungry still, but growing wary. “What were you doing up there?”

Leiyn sipped her drink and forced herself to swallow. Weak as the flavor was, it left behind a vile film in her mouth. But it would not kill her—which was more than she could say for the water, had she chanced it.

“It’s my home,” she lied. “I’m south on an errand for my aunt.”

“Must be some errand to send a young girl all this way on her own.”

Young girl. Leiyn would have snorted at that any other time. Instead, she forced a smile and hoped it did not look as brittle as it felt.

“It is. Came across a sight that gave me a startle a league back, though. Someone left a man hanging.”

The rancher leaned back, his smile disappearing. “Serves him right. Goldblood pisser.”

Leiyn’s pulse quickened. She had only thought to squeeze him for information, not to find herself in this position.

Sitting across the table from one of the murderers.

“You knew him?” she asked cautiously.

“Knew him?” Emilio harrumphed and looked about to spit on the floor, then swallowed with a look at the inn’s proprietor. “Francesc lived next door.”

“What happened?”

The rancher opened his mouth to answer, then his eyes narrowed. “You came here with Crown coins.”

Leiyn kept still. She did not fear him. Not only did she doubt his martial prowess, but her magic would be more than enough to overwhelm any he might possess. Even the half-dozen others in the room were of little consequence, though their attention made the hair on her neck stand on end. Still, it was instinctual to brace before a larger creature’s ire.

“As I said, it’s all I had. Not from lack of loyalty to the colony—we just haven’t gotten any others so far north.” She forced her rigid shoulders into a shrug. “I’m Baltesian, through and through.”

The rancher did not move for a moment longer, then he smiled and leaned forward. “’Course you are. Didn’t mean to imply otherwise.”

His hands shifted to lie in the center of the table. Leiyn moved hers away from her cup. She wanted to appear friendly, not give him hope where it could only founder.

“The Goldblood pisser?” she prompted.

The man cleared his throat. “Bastard set to sabotaging the town like a damned ferino. Set my cattle free. Spoiled Teppo’s larder with rats. But the barn was the last straw.”

It was growing harder and harder to pretend affability with this man. Ferino had once rolled off her tongue as easily as any curse. Now, it stank as the foulest of insults. But for the moment, curiosity triumphed over distaste.

“The barn?”

“He burned it. Burned it even with all Ruy’s livestock in there. Can you believe it? Stole away the goodman’s livelihood in a night. Damn near burned down his house, too, and his family in it, on account of the sparks. If the rain hadn’t come…”

“How’d you know it was him?”

The rancher stared at her. “We knew, alright? He was always going on about ‘Union’ this and ‘Union’ that. And we’d caught him at stuff before. The boy had it coming. Even his parents must’ve seen that.”

Leiyn imagined the parents. How it must feel to know their son swung in plain sight of the open road and be able to do nothing about it.

“We?” she repeated. “So it wasn’t just you?”

It was a question too far. Emilio stared at her, shallow charisma melting away. “What’s it to you? You ask a lot of questions, girl. And you still haven’t given me your name.”

Leiyn placed her hands back on the table, flat against the wood. She sensed the stares of the others in the room. If her time as a ranger had taught her nothing, it was that resistance was best nipped in the bud.

This called for a show of force.

“Who I am doesn’t matter. It’s who I know that should make you worry.”

“Is that right? And who’s that?”

“Premier Itzel.” She let the name fill the silent room. “Surely you’ve heard of her? All that happens here is within her jurisdiction. And the murder of one of her citizens would make her very interested. As would the name of the man behind it.”

The rancher jolted to his feet, looming over her, calloused hands bunched into fists. But though his esse writhed with anger, she knew the fear that fueled it.

“Don’t make threats you can’t keep, girl,” the man growled. “We don’t abide by Goldblood pissers here.”

“And I don’t abide by murderers.” Slowly, Leiyn rose as well. The other villagers were standing, too, though none came closer or took up weapons. She rested her hands on the hilts of her falchions. “I meant what I said; I’m loyal to Baltesia. But I also carry out her justice.”

“Is that right?” Emilio sneered. “Think I should fear a young girl’s knives?”

“You would if you’ve heard of rangers.”

“Rangers!” The rancher barked a laugh. “They’re dead, you dumb chit! Suncoats burned them all. You won’t pull the wool over my eyes with that Legion-shit lie.”

Leiyn stared hard at him. Once, his words would have been enough to incite her to violence, or at least the threat of it. But she had seen enough death this day. And she remembered all too well the pain of each life being snuffed out on the ashes of the Wilds Lodge.

“You and your comrades are in luck,” she said, each word measured. “I’m in a hurry at the moment. But once I come back through, I wouldn’t count on being so fortunate.”

“You think you’ll come back through?” But even the outraged rancher seemed to have caught on to his peril. His eyes flitted over her figure once more. This time, he seemed to notice all the weapons she bore and the familiar way she carried them.

“I do.” Leiyn cast her gaze across the room. “If those behind Francesc’s killing are still here, it’ll be their bodies hanging at the crossroads.”

If there was going to be an attack, she expected it then. But though Emilio panted with rage, and the others across the room stared resentfully at her, all remained where they stood.

Cautiously, Leiyn bent to pick up her saddlebags and bow. Channeling a bit of her esse for strength, she showed the ease with which she carried them, reinforcing the impression that she was not one to be trifled with. Then, drink mostly untouched, she walked unhurriedly toward the door. Her lifesense tracked the men even as her eyes left them. None moved to assault her back.

“Clear out!” she called over her shoulder before stepping out into the rain.