Dean’s head still rang from the heavy fist that had laid him low on the muddy floor of the old mill. He could taste dirt in his swollen mouth, along with a trickle of blood, and he knew that his face was masked in filth.
There had been very little conversation between the men. All the boy could tell, as he recovered his senses, was that they were in a hurry. They suspected the lads hadn’t been out unaccompanied that far from the ville.
The other fact that Dean learned was that they knew that they’d captured the son of Baron Weyman.
But Straub had quickly quieted the whoops of enthusiasm, his cold, quiet voice was far more effective than the lash of a steel-tipped quirt.
“Might help us to take the ville without risking our lives,” he said. “Use the son as a hostage.”
When the brushwood men wanted to push the plans further along, Straub had stopped them, pointing out that Ditchdown was their notional leader and they would all have to discuss any plans with him.
The main thing was to get moving.
THE RIDERS PICKED their way westward at not much more than a brisk walking pace. Jak was in the lead, swinging low from the saddle to check on the tracks, making sure that the group they were following didn’t take them by surprise.
“Two horses riding double,” he said. “Means both boys alive. Wouldn’t carry corpses.”
Ryan had a sinking feeling in his gut that the boys might not be alive for very long.
There was no way that it could have been a planned ambush, since not even the lads themselves had known they were leaving the ville. So, it had been a lucky break for the brushwooders, one that he figured Straub would find a way of exploiting to his own advantage.
THE HORSES STOPPED, and Dean was aware of yelling and laughter all around him. Something struck him a whistling blow across the back that stung badly, but he heard Straub’s voice raised in anger and the noise diminished.
The boy had been counting as best he could, through the discomfort of the jolting, with the saddle sticking painfully into his stomach.
His best guess was twelve minutes, at something between a fast walk and a trot. That meant the brushwooders’ camp was around a mile and a half to two miles from the derelict mill where he and Jamie had been taken prisoner.
He felt Straub swing down, and then a sharp knife whispered through the ropes around his wrists and ankles and he was dumped unceremoniously onto the ground. The tightness of the cords had affected the circulation in his hands and feet and he sat still, blinking in bright sunlight as the stinking sack was ripped off his head.
It would have been easy to stand, but Dean stayed where he was, pretending to be dizzy and sick, keeping his eyes open for a chance to break and run.
He was surrounded by the ragtag horde of back-lane travelers. Children giggled, and one girl of twelve or thirteen tried to poke him in the balls with a long sharp stick. Dean kicked it away and was relieved to see an older woman flat-hand the girl across the side of the head, sending her staggering away, crying noisily. Straub had disappeared into the crowd.
“These are what they call brushwooders, aren’t they?” said a voice behind him.
Dean spun, seeing Jamie Weyman sitting beside him. The boy had a black eye and a cut on the side of his face. Streaks in the dirt across his cheeks told a tale of weeping, but now he seemed to be hanging on to control.
“Don’t say a thing,” Dean whispered.
“Do you have a plan? A dangerous induction? Oh, do say you have!”
Dean scowled fiercely at him. “This isn’t some fucking game! Shut up and say nothing. And don’t be surprised at anything I might say.”
“What?”
“Just don’t argue, whatever I say.”
“Oh, all right.”
“SMELL SMOKE,” Jak said.
The odor of the sulfurous hot springs had been getting much stronger as they rode closer to the coast.
“Then we’re near enough,” Ryan said. “Stop here and we’ll go ahead on foot. Leave the horses tethered.”