Bastion

quizzed Bear about his view of the goings-on in Therian. Bear had seen an entirely different village than Mags and Jakyr, of course; the village he had seen was one where people still felt secure enough to complain a bit about their Headman, but they were beginning to look over their shoulders while they did it. It seemed that the Heralds had come and stirred things up just in time.
    Mags was beginning to feel weary as the afternoon wore on and the sun dropped behind the hills again, but the end was in sight. The entrance to the cave was not more than a few arm lengths away.
    “But, you know, about Nikolas not being Amily’s father . . . if he wasn’t, then she wouldn’t be Amily,” Bear pointed out, when the conversation circled back around to how things were going between them. “And now you two are really together, and Jakyr and Lita don’t care and won’t preach, and by the time we get home again, you’re gonna get married anyway. Oh, and don’t worry about . . . uh . . . needing to think about getting married in a hurry, I got all the stuff we all need, enough to last all the way into summer. And if I can’t find more by then, everybody in this part of the Kingdom’s gonna be in trouble.”
    That took a bit of weight off his mind. Amily hadn’t been forthcoming about it, only assuring him she was taking great care that there were no unfortunate accidents. Mags knew, from listening to the lecture everyone got on the subject, that the herbs in question were almost foolproof—so much so that some people regarded a child that happened anyway as being a child that the gods were determined you would have! He just wasn’t sure how big a stock Bear had with him, and now would be a bad time to discover they were running out.
    A clatter back at the entrance to their living cave made both of them look up.
    The first thing they saw was one of the vanners, in harness, coming out of the cave. The second thing they saw was that the horse was pulling something that looked like a giant plowshare made out of wooden shingles. The horse plunged into the snow, and the “plowshare” dug in and began turning the snow over and to the side, making a giant “furrow” in the snow itself, creating a small path in its wake. The horse seemed to be having a grand time, plunging into the snow like a happy dog. His shaggy coat was soon sparkling with the snow crystals he was throwing up.
    He got the plow about two lengths into the virgin snow. Then the horse stopped, evidently at a signal from someone on the other side of him, out of sight.
    Jakyr’s head and hands, and then the rest of him, appeared as he heaved himself up onto the vanner’s back.
    He turned and waved at Mags and Bear, gathered up the driving reins in great loops in both hands, and chirped to the vanner, who went back to forging a path through the snow, the plow cutting along in his wake.
    Mags heard something from his friend that sounded like choking. When he looked to see what was wrong with Bear, he found the young Healer convulsing with laughter, doubled over, laughing so hard that he could hardly breathe.
    “What?” he asked.
    “He gulled her!” Bear choked. “Lita! He gulled her into clearing out the entrance the hard way, so he could put that plow together, get the vanner out, and cut the actual path the easy way! Oh, glory! He gulled her! You know how Bards are always so sure they can’t be gulled, ’cause they know how to use words so well! Oh, she has got her comeuppance!”
    Well, now, he didn’t know that. But Bear lived with one, so Mags was going to take his word for it. Lita especially was likely to have that kind of pride, he considered, given that she was not just a Master Bard, but the head of the Bardic Circle. He wondered just what Lita’s reaction was going to be.
    “Tell you what,” he said. “Let’s get this finished up quick. We might need a place way outa earshot when she finds out.”

13
    A mily had persuaded him to do one thing before he began his explorations: move wood, food, bedding and some basic supplies into each of the caves he was going to look through, enough to hold him for a week, at need. He didn’t see any problem with that. The Guard had cut them enough wood to last for two winters at the rate they were burning it, and that was assuming that they ended up spending the entire cold season hereinstead of in Waystations. He wondered if they had a weather-witch of their own. It would make sense if