On the Run Recruitment

They rode steadily, feeling their way along sandy banks and around broken boulders. All three horses were loaded two riders apiece, so a race-pace was saved for an emergency. Rain tapped a steady rhythm all around. For a while they went in silence, as if they might be heard over the drizzle.

Brochwel hoped the rain would end so he could drop the hood. His head felt stuffy wrapped in gauze.

The original plan had them ride the coffin-boats south under cover of darkness to the New Forest, which would extend the journey but take them away from the heart of the empire and offer consistent forest cover. Riding south along the river to rejoin that path risked meeting the odonarans who, at some point, were going to pry open the coffin-boats and find no one inside. Southeast along the edge of the scablands was their only option now.

A few hours after leaving Maurcoret, they paused by a stand of birch trees to fill a mix of gourds and waterskins from the lake and let the horses rest. With the rain letting up they could see the cascade on the other side again, and the fins of rock that jutted out from it, reaching like fingers toward their shore.

Tarquin came and knelt next to Brochwel. "Tarquin question."

"Brochwel answer," Brochwel said.

"Told you starting knights. Need recruits?"

"Tecca told you? Yes on the recruits, but knights ... might be a while. Won't have time to train them properly before the invasion unless the empire decides to take a break. Were you hoping to switch careers?"

"Yes." Tarquin pulled his hood down, and his strand of hair shot up as if spring-loaded. Raindrops that fell close to his ahoge left a momentary purple streak in the air. "But ther—"

"How does your hair do that?"

"Do what?"

"Nevermind. You were saying?"

"Canal near. Recruit boat people?"

Brochwel looked around him. There were rivers between Maurcoret and the next city, but there hadn't been any canals for at least fifty miles on the survey maps the Flaxen Order had kept up to date.

"Really? A canal around here?"

Tarquin nodded. "Underground."

Brochwel asked if he could point the general direction and about how far, which he did.

"Say, Tecca." Brochwel called as he stood and shook the sand off his clothes. "Could we take a slight detour?"

---

Access to the canal required pushing through some dense thorny shrubs at the side of a ridge. Someone had gone and sanded some of the thorns down. Tarquin led the way, showing them where to push through with only a few leaves in their hair at the end. In the middle of the shrubbery, a narrow cave mouth opened down into the side of the rock.

Tarquin had to play guide. Brochwel needed to go for scoping out recruits. That would have left Tecca as the only one who could fight guarding three fugitives. So they all went through.

The way soon required them to stoop, then to crawl on hand and knee around a tight bend with the only light being Tarquin's glow. Cave crickets pressed against the crevices to avoid them.

"Gross. Is there anything but bugs down here?" Emma asked.

There was. Around the corner, the natural stone and sand gave way to tidy masonry lit in dim blue-green. One at a time they left the passage and gathered on the side of a canal lock lit by luminous shelf mushrooms growing in planter-boxes set at regular intervals along the cavern wall. To their right, the sound of hammers tapping and people shifting cargo led them to a spot where the canal filled a circle, from which several holding pens radiated. Most were empty, but one had been drained of water while a dozen people worked unloading and repairing an old barge by lantern light.

"A dry dock, down here?"

"Careful there, Ernest," Tecca said. "You almost sounded impressed."

"Thought busier," Tarquin said with an apologetic lilt in his voice.

"It's fine, Tarquin, it's not like we can march out of the empire with a company of soldiers." Brochwel's hand went to his chin. "Wait, that would be awesome."

Their chatter, quiet as it was, echoed between rock and water. The barge's captain, stood on the dock near the prow, raised her lantern and turned to look at them. She was a furole, like Tarquin. Where his fingers looked like glass full of small bubbles, her glass was almost free of inclusions but seemed tinged a pale green, even in the bright orange lantern light. Her hair was a curtain of black. The purple glow seemed concentrated around her fingers.

"Who's there?" she called.

Tarquin encouraged the group to follow. "Hello. Am Tarquin."

"You brought outsiders here?"

The captain examined the group with a careful eye, going down the line asking each who the were and a few other questions. The asking went sweetly for Emma, tersely for the rest. Brochwel stood next to Ernest and waited his turn, but soon noticed Ernest's attention had locked on the repairs being done on the barge. After a moment, Ernest broke rank and walked over.

"Sorry to bother you, but if you overtighten those fasteners it will just develop the next leak even faster. Here, it's meant to ..."

"Oi!" The captain called after him, but Ernest was already on the scaffolding, working on the hull.

"He's Ernest Garel, a craftsman," Brochwel began answering for him.

The captain turned a curious glance on Brochwel. "I didn't ask you. But since you're volunteering. Who are you, and what happened to your face?"

With his face buried under gauze, he had a choice. He could keep pretending to be a random Baltasar, in which case he could forget about enticing anyone here to come fight for him. Or be honest.

"I'm Brochwel. Formerly a warrior of the Flaxen Order. My face suffered severe burns. May I ask your name?"

"My name is not for you to know." The captain stiffened and set a scowl. "You knights make trouble wherever you barge into. Your order might be gone, but that just means you're free to cause chaos of your own choosing."

Brochwel huffed a little sigh. And there it was, the consequences of the Flaxen Order's actions hanging over him like a sorcerer's thunderhead. He didn't bother arguing that a warrior could never become a knight in Tragaron.

"I'm at the beck and call of Tecca over there. Not here to cause problems."

"Then why are you here?"

Some of the workers stopped their unloading sidled closer to listen to the heated conversation. They were mostly in their prime, all strong from months or years of dock work. Just the sort of people Brochwel had hoped to find. But he could tell from the captain's words and closed-off stance that he was on thin ice just being here. Poaching a few of a barge's crew wouldn't even find a place among the Order's wrongs, but who knew how far this canal went, how many crowded tables this captain might complain to. Repeat the cycle for a few deckhands ... no, there had to be some other way.

"We were hoping that you might consider taking Ernest as a passenger or auxiliary crew."

"We were?!" Tecca spun to look at Brochwel, then deflated. "We were."

"He's not a classically trained boatwright," Brochwel continued, "but we recently saw Ernest's handiwork survive some very rough waters. If your canal takes him outside the empire or near its border, all the better. His only crime against was helping people who know too much about magic for the empire's liking."

The dock workers scurried back to the cargo as the captain looked toward the barge, where Ernest was demonstrating the proper way to make a mortise and tenon join watertight with only cloth and beeswax.

"Huh ... not what I expected from a rock head." The corners of the captain's mouth drew apart in a subtle smile. "I'll offer your craftsman a berth. Did you say your name was Brochwel?"

---

That night they found a patch of conifer wood to camp in. The trees hugged close around them, and Brochwel struggled to find space for his tarp between trees and tent and firepit.

"Are you sure that was the right call, Brochwel?"

Tecca prodded at the fire, encouraging the flames to lick the enchanted mask. Emma's hands outstretched, quietly asking for the stick, which Tecca gave her. Enthusiastic fire-poking ensued.

"Probably," Brochwel said as he finished a knot. "Ernest seemed happy. And we don't have horses for anyone we pick up out here, so we would have to match their walking or marching pace."

"Speaking of pace: I still think we should have stolen a few horses from the fishermen," Silvester said. "If we could gallop we might be halfway to Kirrglos by now."

"Maybe. But stealing horses would have drawn their attention and given them strong motive to send the guards after us to recover their property. No amount of speed would have saved us then."

Finished tying off his tarp, Brochwel sat on the pine needles and pretended to listen to Silvester and Tarquin bickering over what to bicker about. Maybe he had made the wrong choices twice today, time would tell. For now he was sure these decisions were better in the long run for whatever unit Tecca and Prince Kuzon put him in command of.

It was just a matter of surviving until that long run.