The Cold Eye (The Devil's West #2)(82)
Isobel declined to tell the woman that these two were even madder than most. It would help no one. “There’s no worry until sunrise, at the least,” although it was as much a guess as a gamble. “Your ward-maker should be able to reinforce their work, specific to where you keep ’em, at least long enough for the judge to hear the tellings.”
She coiled the rope and hooked it over the pommel of the pony’s saddle, and slapped its hindquarter gently to tell it she was done. The pony simply snorted once, then ambled off to join the mule in search of edible grass.
“I’m assuming your ward-worker didn’t go off to help with the planting,” Gabriel said when the local woman made no response, pulling the taller magician off the saddle and laying him next to the first without any particular care. “If they did, you’d best send a message now and a fast pony, too.”
Uvnee, not as sanguine as the pony, shuddered as the weight left her back, ears twitching and eyes rolling nervously now that she could see what she had been carrying. Isobel stepped over the bodies to soothe the mare, stroking her nose and speaking reassuringly about what a good girl Uvnee had been, while Steady sidled closer and rested his head over the mare’s neck as though to add his own reassurances.
Lou shook her head. Her hair curled like early ferns, bobbing over her eyes when she moved, shoved out of the way with a gesture Isobel recognized from seeing Gabriel do it—the move of someone more accustomed to wearing a hat, who never thought to tie back hair that would be sweat-tamed soon enough. Not a rider, but someone who worked outside, with her hands.
“No ward-maker to speak of ’cept Possum, that old fool, and young Georgie, who’s yah, gone for planting. Never had much need for one. Andreas’s been here longer than we have; when the first traders came down from the north, they asked to build their cache here. That was more’n fifty back; they’re long gone, and we just use what was set. Every now and again, it needs reminding, but—” She made a gesture with her hands that seemed equal parts resignation and apology.
“You—” Gabriel stopped whatever he’d meant to say, then started again. “And there’s none of the tribe remaining nearby?”
Lou shook her head again. “They were a small tribe even then, story says. Most of ’em married out into other tribes or just . . . wandered off.”
Gabriel didn’t often sigh, but when he did, it spoke measures. “Most of what I know’s from east of here; I’d be more likely to foul it than fix if I poke around. You might take a look-see, check if anything needs remaking.”
Isobel started to protest that she wouldn’t know the first thing about a town boundary that old, one that someone else set, that she hadn’t ever studied wards, and what she’d done to bind the magicians wasn’t anything like, but Gabriel’s look held her cold.
He was telling her she was the only maker they had, never mind she was no maker at all.
She bit her lip and nodded, telling him she understood. More bluffing, and hope no one called them on it.
If she weren’t feeling so queasy and worn, Isobel thought, it might be funny. Wasn’t so long ago she’d thought just being the Hand meant folk would respect her, thought bearing the devil’s sigil meant she could do whatever was needed?—she’d known how to close off the infected homestead, hadn’t she? Had been able to find the spell-beast, to stop the Spanish monks from making things worse, to feel not just the Road underfoot but the whole of the territory rolling like thunder in her bones. She might not be a maker, but she had power.
But the truth of it was that none of that knowing had come from her, and the moment she’d been cut off . . . she’d been useless. Helpless. An old man’d had to save her from the spirit’s anger. A road marshal had been the one to capture the magicians, bring the Easterners in for judgment.
A whisper had to come tell her where the problems lay.
“You’re a ward-maker?” The words were dubious that anyone of Isobel’s youth could be useful, the question digging into Isobel’s own doubts like a spade to dirt, but making Gabriel’s silent warning more urgent as well.
When Isobel didn’t object to the title or deny it, Lou pursed her lips but said only, “Well, don’t go fussing with ours too much unless’n you must; we’ve got to be able to raise it again come winter.”
“I . . . what?” Isobel wasn’t sure she’d heard Lou’s words correctly, but the two men returned with the sledge before she had a chance to ask the woman to repeat herself.
The sledge was nothing more than a heavy wooden slab set on runners that curled up in front. Isobel took a closer look: there were narrow sheets of iron hammered along the edges of the runners, gripping the wood tightly on either side.
“To cut through the snow,” Gabriel explained, then gestured to one of the men who brought it out to help him lift the first magician onto it. The wood was old, polished smooth with use, with leather straps that buckled over it to keep the load in place. “You’ll be able to pull this?” he asked the other man. “Fully loaded, I mean.”
“Can haul a full hunt’s worth back through mud if need be.” The man Gabriel spoke to was barely Isobel’s height but twice her width, and she thought, glancing at his shoulders and back, he might be able to pull the entire Territory, given enough rope.