Page 28 of Silverbow (The Godsung Saga #1)

fourteen

Renley

P ain seared across Renley’s skin at every jostle of the wagon.

His muscles knotted and cramped in protest from the short chains that bound wrist and ankle, anchoring him to the wagon floor between sacks and crates of Peytar Ralenet’s gold.

His back was in tatters from the daily lashings delivered by hard faced men who delighted in his torment.

Through the pain, Renley silently delighted in Peytar’s vexation.

He’d lost count of the days he’d been bound in these chains.

He’d lost count of how many dawns and dusks he’d seen since he’d met the High Lord of Pavia in the empty yard of his father’s house.

He’d lost count of how long it had been since his life had been reduced to cinders by one man and a choice he made twenty years ago.

A choice he still didn’t regret. It had all been worth it, every moment of it.

They occasionally remembered to toss him a waterskin, empty as often as it was full, and threw scraps of food at his feet like a dog.

He was hauled down from the wagon just twice a day to relieve himself and take his lashings.

They dropped the guise of questioning him days ago.

There were no questions between the blows now. It was purely for sport.

Renley didn’t care. He had his newfound devotion to keep him company.

With every turn of the carriage wheels, he sent up a silent prayer for Enya’s safety.

Mosphaera and Sakaala blessed her with a gift.

The gods were with her, and as he looked back at the last twenty years, he thought they always had been.

He could see their fondness for her now in so many things from avoided accidents to chance that went her way.

But it seemed they were not so fond of Peytar Ralenet and that gave Renley some small satisfaction.

At every turn of their journey, they were met with a broken wagon axle here, an upturned farmer’s cart there.

A great tree fell over the road in Greenridge, and it took Peytar’s men half a day to hack through the wide truck and drag it out of the path of the High Lord’s carriage and his wagons of gold.

It slowed their crawl east, even as the Master of Coin barked at his men to move faster.

Renley muttered quiet prayers for the horses they pushed too hard.

He muttered prayers for the men who swung from the Hanging Tree too.

Peytar had him dragged from the wagon to gaze upon what was left of their corpses.

There was little enough after his men extracted what they could from them, and the birds had been at them for days.

“You see Renley,” Peytar drawled. “How I deal with men that threaten the girl. I want her found in one piece as badly as you do.”

But the High Lord was wrong. Renley didn’t want her found at all. She was safer alone with the gods.

He grunted as a boot connected with his ribs, but he eyed the discarded quiver one of Ralenet’s men picked up from the scattered remnants of what remained of the brigands’ pillaged belongings.

One of the shafts peeking over the rim was not like the others.

It was an arrow he recognized. It had a dark fletching and belonged in another quiver worked with leaves and vines.

The High Lord wasn’t bluffing. Enya had been here, and that she wasn’t now buoyed Renley’s spirits, even in the face of the carnage.

May Nimala guide her, Mosphaera fill her sails, and Sakala send her balance. May Simdeni shelter her and Solignis light her way.

Millford Green had been another delightful stop.

They hadn’t bothered to drag him from the wagon, but Peytar’s guards often seemed to forget sound traveled through the rough canvas.

News had come west on the wings of a bounty, a bounty for an archer they called Innesh’s Arrow.

An archer who placed arrows in eyes and throats, it seemed, and though Innesh seemed like an improbable place for Enya to have gone, he knew it would be her and he thanked the gods she was out of Peytar’s path east.

What are you doing, En ?

He supposed it didn’t matter. The fact he still lived was evidence enough that Peytar’s own bounty had not yet paid off.

Renley had no illusions about why he was chained in this wagon.

His use had not yet run out. He was bait.

He could only pray to the gods that the girl would not be lured by it, or perhaps he would die from his wounds before they could set the trap.

But on his second day in Trowbridge, he was dragged into the square before the soldier’s outpost and left in the stocks for people to gawk at. A crowd had gathered by the time Peytar’s men decided to make a public spectacle of his daily punishment.

“Is that the man who burned the soldier’s outpost?” He heard a boy ask.

“No, just some bloody fool who didn’t pay his taxes,” a man answered.

An outpost burned? That was curious, but Renley lost consciousness as the next lash fell.

He awoke next in the wagon as it rumbled across the city. Beneath him, it stopped suddenly, setting him swaying, and Renley groaned. The driver’s whip cracked.

“Watch it!” A girl shouted over the din. “You nearly took my eye out!”

He hoped she was alright. Wherever she was, he hoped Enya was alright.

Enya

Enya squinted in the harsh sunlight that glittered off the water, gazing in wonder at the bridge that arched over it.

Had she not been riding, she may have stumbled when she first laid eyes on the expanse of red stone.

Dwarven built. She’d heard fantastical tales of the dwarves and their builders, but as she took in the arches high enough to let hulking river ships pass beneath, they suddenly didn’t seem to so fantastical.

Water frothed and foamed against the great stone pillars plunging into the depths of the Trydent.

But those massive pillars and the grandiose archways they supported were only the start of the bridge’s wonder.

Perched atop the red stone was a rainbow of colorful buildings three stories high.

They clung to either side of the bridge, most seeming to balance precariously too far out over the edge.

To either side of the Trydent, Trowbridge sprawled, surrounded by high red walls of the same stone. She was wary of walls after Trout Run, but the towers were placed far enough out in the current to stop anyone from trying to go around without a swim.

To north and south, boats jammed the river.

They tugged at anchors unseen, all seeming to strain for the south as men milled about their decks.

A small rivercraft meandered between them, flying a banner Enya couldn’t make out over their heads.

Inside the walls, docks were jammed hull to stern as men scurried about.

But the king’s lion was clear enough as it rippled above the open northern gate.

Whatever trouble had happened upriver, hadn’t driven the guards in Trowbridge to start checking papers for every cart and wagon that passed through.

It was undoubtedly the volume of those carts and wagons that deterred them from doing so.

Enya found herself weaving between them as she neared the town.

With a gulp, she followed a line of merchants through the open gate.

Despite the waning hour, the streets of Trowbridge were packed.

Sailors and outlanders in cloth of every cut and color contrasted against the plainer garb of farmers and village folk.

Music spilled out into the streets from taverns and ale houses, and hawkers and street peddlers cried their wares.

After so long alone on the road, the sound of it was deafening.

Enya fingered the horse head carving in her pocket as she turned out onto what was undoubtedly the Queen’s Road.

The wide, stone paved street ran straight through to the foot of the bridge.

She turned her face away from the knot of crimson clad men who loitered at the base of the gradual ramp upward, but none of them seemed to pay her much mind in the press.

Arawelo stepped out onto the smooth, red stone.

Narrowed as it was by the shops and market stalls that clung to its sides, the roadway over the great bridge was barely wide enough for two wagons to pass abreast. The northern side of the bridge, home to the fish market if the signs were any indication, was shut up for the evening, but the south, full of merchants and musicians and taverns, was still in full swing.

The high walls that blocked any view of the river seemed to make her itch and when Arawelo crossed onto the east bank, Enya loosed a long breath and winkled her nose at the smell of fish.

Sailors milled about this side of the bridge, spilling in and out of taverns and wine sinks, rancorous singing and the rattling of dice drifting through the streets.

Pink crept into Enya’s cheeks when she passed what she thought must be a brothel, with women leaning out of windows and calling down to passersby.

She kept her eyes on the street ahead and did not look up, even when they called to her.

More than once, she ducked her head as a knot of crimson clad men moved by on patrol, but none spared her more than a passing glance.

Further out, the shop fronts and warehouses were dark and abandoned. Her hand tightened on her belt knife when she heard boots cross an alley here or hooves clopping there. She breathed a sigh of relief when the eastern gate came into view, but it was fleeting. The iron gates were shut tight.

“Excuse me,” Enya called to a man who was locking up his shop for the night.

He flinched but wheeled to face her. “Yes, mistress?”

“Do the gates remain closed until sun up?”

The wiry little man glanced toward the end of the street. “They do now.”

“Could you point me to an inn this side of the river?” She asked.