A World Without Heroes - Brandon Mull [78]
Not long past noon they came to a small hamlet of low earthen buildings with thatched roofs. One of the houses had a corral fencing in a pair of horses. Ferrin dismounted in front of the door, handing his reins to Rachel.
A bald man with a hook nose answered the knock.
“Hello, friend,” Ferrin said. “We borrowed these horses from a man in the town down the road. For a fee would you see that he gets them back?”
“The one without the saddle is Herrick’s horse,” said the man.
“The others were taken from the same stable. By necessity we borrowed them without permission. No doubt he will be most anxious to see them returned.”
The bald man eyed Ferrin warily. “No doubt.”
“Jason, pay the man eight drooma—three ones and a five.” Jason began fishing out his money bag. “Three for your trouble, sir, and five for Herrick. Please convey our apologies.”
Jason climbed down from his horse and handed the bald man the money.
“Can I have your word the horses will be delivered as described?” Ferrin asked.
“I don’t give my word to thieves,” the man replied.
All friendliness vanished from Ferrin’s countenance and expression. “And I don’t deliver valuables via unsworn men. Swear or return the money.”
The man looked uncomfortable. “I swear all will be as you say.”
“Show no disrespect to thieves,” Ferrin pressed, in an icy tone. “You know who claims to rule this land. Many of the best men living work outside the law. Along with the most dangerous.”
The bald man looked thoroughly cowed. “I take your meaning. Forgive my words.”
“I will forgive when you deliver on your pledge,” Ferrin said, finally turning his back on the man.
The bald man accepted the reins from Rachel and Jason and began walking the horses toward the corral. Ferrin started down the road.
“You can be harsh,” Jason said.
Ferrin smirked. “Among my many professions my favorite was acting.” He slapped Jason on the back. “We are honest men again.”
“And women,” Rachel added.
“Precisely,” Ferrin agreed.
Ferrin stopped at a seemingly random house, larger than most along the road. He knocked.
A disheveled woman answered. “We are weary travelers,” Ferrin said. “Do you know where we might purchase some food here in town?”
“There is no inn. All I can offer is rabbit stew.”
“Three bowls for two drooma?”
Her eyes widened. “Come in,” she said, smiling hospitably.
Ferrin winked at Rachel and Jason. Leaning toward them, he spoke for their ears only. “With a few drooma in your pocket everyone is your friend.”
CHAPTER 13
NICHOLAS
The key to traveling without provisions,” Ferrin explained on their third evening after leaving the road, “is learning to recognize a bubblefruit tree.”
They stood in a dense grove surrounded by a sea of heather. “What do they look like?” Jason asked.
“Gray, mottled bark. Slender trunk. Rarely more than three or four times the height of a man. And broad, ferny foliage. Look for linear groupings of tiny leaflets.”
“Right here,” Rachel said, pointing to a nearby tree that fit the description.
“Do you see the bubblefruit?” Ferrin asked.
Jason walked over to the tree, squinting intently in the fading light. “No.”
“That is why you must learn to recognize the tree. The fruit grows only on the highest limbs.”
After Jason climbed the tree to procure a bunch, Jason and Rachel each ate a fruit, chasing them down with long sips of water. Jason recalled eating a bubblefruit hybrid at the Repository of Learning. The hybrid had tasted superior to the natural fruit. It seemed so long ago.
After abandoning the horses, Ferrin had suggested they forsake the main road to confuse any unfriendly pursuers. The diverging path wound through hilly country of heather and flowering weeds interspersed with mountainous bushes Ferrin called oklinders. The biggest oklinders rose over a hundred feet high and spread nearly twice as wide, the dense, spindly limbs abounding with dark, glossy leaves nearly all the way to the center.
Ferrin had explained that near the center of any oklinder hung moist white bulbs larger than watermelons,