“What makes you think the sending came out of Troon?” Mrs. Smith inquired, looking dubious. He told her about Burnbright’s recognizing the dead glider. She just nodded.
“You don’t think the two attacks are unrelated, do you?” asked Smith. “Do you think the demon might have been sent by—” He gestured out into the darkness, toward the black mountain. Mrs. Smith was silent a moment.
“Not generally his style,” she said at last. “But I suppose anything’s possible. That would certainly complicate matters.”
“I like trouble to be simple,” said Smith. “Let’s say it’s somebody in Troon. It’s my guess they’re either after Parradan Smith or the little lord. Couldn’t get them in town without it being an obvious murder, so they waited until we were far enough out on the plain that we couldn’t send for help. Eh?”
“Seems reasonable.”
“But the first attack didn’t come off, thanks to there being a lot more people able to fight back here than they bargained for,” Smith theorized. “Now we’re getting farther out of range and they’re getting desperate, so they hired somebody to send a demon. That costs a lot. I’m betting they’ve run out of resources. I’m betting we’ll be left in peace from here on.”
And for the next two days it seemed as though he might be right, though the journey was not without incident. The Smith children began to grow gray fur on their hands, and nothing—not shaving, not plucking, not depilatory cream—could remove it. Moreover it began to spread, to their parents’ consternation, and by nightfall of the second day they sat like a trio of miserable kittens while their mother had hysterics and pleaded with Smith to do something about it.
Such commotion she made that Lord Ermenwyr ventured from his bed, glaring and demanding silence; though when he saw the children he howled with immoderate laughter, and Balnshik had to come drag him back inside, scolding him severely. She came out later and offered a salve that looked like terra-cotta clay, which proved effective in removing the fur, though the children wept and whined that it stung.
Still, by the next morning the fur had not grown back.
The Greenlands rose before them, now, in range upon range of wooded hills. Beyond towered the black mountain, so vast it seemed like another world, perhaps one orbiting dangerously close. Its separate topography, its dark forests and valleys, its cliffs brightened here and there by the fall of glittering rivers and rainbowed mists, became more distinct with every hour and seemed less real.
Though the road skirted the hills in most places, the ground did climb, and the keymen grunted with effort as they pedaled. Smith worked so hard, his wound opened again and Keyman Crucible had to help him, winding with his good arm. The air was moist, smelling of green things, and when they made camp their first evening in a tree-circled glade there was not the least taste of the dust of Troon left in anyone’s mouth.
Two days into the Greenlands, they were attacked again.
They had scaled a hill with sweating effort, and cresting saw a long straight slope before them, stretching down to a gentle shaded run through oaks beginning to go golden and red. Burnbright whooped with relief, and sprinted down the road before the caravan as it came rattling after. The Smith children raised a shrill cheer as the carts picked up speed, and bright leaves whirled in the breeze as they came down.
But near the bottom of the incline, there were suddenly a great many leaves, and acorns too, and then there was an entire tree across the road. A very large and fairly ugly man stepped out and stood before them, grinning.
He was doing it for effect, of course. He had the sashes, the golden earring, the daggers that went with a bandit, and he had, moreover, the tusks and thundercloud skin color that went with a demon hybrid. There was no need for him to shout, “Halt! This is an armed robbery!” and with his tusks he might have found it a little difficult to enunciate anyway. His job was to terrify and demoralize the caravan, and he was well suited for it.
However, it is not a good idea to terrify a little girl whose legs can run fifty miles in a day without resting. Burnbright screamed but, unable to stop given her momentum, did what had been drummed into her at the Mount Flame Mother House for Runners: She leaped into the air and