The Unsuspecting Mage - Brian S. Pratt [79]
James and Miko eat one fish entirely while saving most of the second for a meal in the morning. Wrapping the left over fish in some leaves, James puts it into his backpack for safe keeping. They munch on a few apples as well, making sure to leave a couple for the next day. Hopefully they will make it to Cardri before nightfall and will be able to stay at an inn.
As day gives way to night, another campfire springs to life some two hundred feet further north on their side of the river. A short time later, another one appears across the water, fifty feet or so to the south.
“Must be common to make camp along the river,” states James. Straining to see who the ones on their side of the river might be, he peers through the deepening dusk but can’t quite make them out. He can tell there are more than one, perhaps six in all.
Miko nods. “Even near Bearn,” he replies. “Some would rather avoid paying for inns.”
“Not me,” James says, turning back to his young companion. “I would have to be pretty desperate, or short on coins, to give up the comfort of a bed.”
Laughing, Miko gives him a grin. “I wouldn’t trade a bed for the ground if given the choice either.”
James chuckles and returns to the fire where he and Miko spend time relaxing and getting to know one another better. “What was it like growing up on the streets?” he asks the boy.
Miko’s face loses much of its joviality as painful memories surface. “It wasn’t easy,” he replies. “Always being hungry, the older boys would take what you have and leave you with nothing. After a while you know who your friends are, who you can count on to watch your back.” Growing quiet, he stares into the fire for several seconds then says, “You also know who to avoid.”
“Like those boys who chased us into the sewer?” prompts James.
Miko nods. “Yeah. You get on the bad side of the wrong people, and you’re dead.” Grabbing an end of a small stick sticking out from the base of their fire, he begins poking at the coals. “What about you?” he asks. “What’s it like where you come from?”
“Like here for the most part,” he replies. What can I tell him that he would believe? “People are people no matter where you go.”
“I suppose so,” Miko said.
Another hour is spent on trading tales of their past and James discovers that he is growing to like this lad from the streets of Bearn. As he takes turn relating tidbits of his past, James speaks of his grandparents, parents, Haveston, and school. Talking of home doesn’t elicit feelings of homesickness as it had before. Rather, they comfort and bring him peace. When the fire burns itself down to coals, they ready themselves for sleep.
The night passes uneventfully and both wake in the morning a little stiff from sleeping on the ground but all in all well rested. James gets up and walks around, trying to work the kinks out of his back and fervently hopes that come this evening he may be in a bed at an inn. Sleeping on the ground is starting to get a little old. Every time during the night when he thought he found a comfortable position, a new rock would make itself known, forcing him to change position yet again.
As they prepare to travel, a long caravan trundles into view on its way north from Cardri. James counts fifteen wagons passing by in the early morning light with a dozen mounted guards accompanying it.
Miko gets the horse ready while he goes to the river to refill the water bottle. He puts the bottle in the water and while he waits for the bottle to fill he glances upriver. Not far from where he squats filling his water bottle, several people stand in the water, by the looks of it doing their morning business. A feeling of revulsion overcomes him as he looks at the river flowing past those people, toward him and into his water bottle. With visions of dysentery running through his mind, he stands up completely disgusted and pours out the water.
Looking down and across the river, he finds another group of travelers filling several earthen jugs with the river’s water, water that could very well