The Name of the Wind

On the other side of the river I dried him off with my blanket and re-saddled him. It took half an hour, which meant he had gone from being rested to being cold, so I had to warm him up gently, slow walk to trot to canter. That stream cost me an hour all told. I worried if there was another one the chill would get into Selhan’s muscles. If that happened, Tehlu himself wouldn’t be able to bring him up to a gallop again.

An hour later I passed through a small town, hardly more than a church and a tavern that happened to be next to each other. I stopped long enough to let Selhan drink a bit from a trough. I stretched my numb legs and looked up anxiously at the sun.

After that, the fields and farms grew fewer and farther between. The trees grew thicker and denser. The road narrowed and was not in good repair, rocky in places, washed out in others. It made for slower and slower going. But, truth be told, neither myself or Keth-Selhan had much more galloping left in us.

Eventually we came to another stream crossing the road. Not much more than a foot deep at the most. The water had a sharp, foul smell that let me know there was a tannery upstream, or a refinery. There wasn’t any bridge, and Keth-Selhan made his way slowly across, placing his hooves gingerly on the rocky bottom. I wondered idly if it felt good, like when you dandle your feet in the water after a long day’s walking.

The stream didn’t slow us down much, but over the next half hour we had to cross it three separate times as it wound back and forth across the road. It was an inconvenience more than anything, never much deeper than a foot and half. Each time we crossed it the acrid smell of the water was worse. Solvents and acids. If not a refinery, then at least a mine. I kept my hands on the reins, ready to pull Selhan’s head up if he tried to drink, but he was smarter than that.

A long canter later I came up over a hill and looked down onto a crossroads at the bottom of a small grassy valley Right under the signpost was a tinker with a pair of donkeys, one of them loaded so high with bags and bundles that it looked ready to tip over, the other conspicuously unburdened. It stood by the side of the dirt road grazing with a small mountain of gear piled beside it.

The tinker sat on a small stool at the side of the road, looking dispirited. His expression brightened when he saw me riding down the hill.

I read the signpost as I came closer. North was Trebon. South was Temfalls. I reined in as I approached. Keth-Selhan and I could both use the rest, and I was not in enough of a hurry to be rude to a tinker. Not by half. If nothing else the fellow could tell me how far I had left to go before I came to Trebon.

“Hello there!” he said, looking up at me, shading his eyes with one hand. “You’ve got the look of a lad that’s wanting something.” He was older, balding, with a round, friendly face.

I laughed. “I’m wanting a lot of things, tinker, but I don’t think you’ve got any of them in your packs.”

He gave me an ingratiating smile. “Well now, don’t go assuming ...” He stopped and looked down for a moment, thoughtfully. When he met my eyes again his expression was still kind, but more serious than before. “Listen, I’ll be honest with you, son. My little donkey has got herself a stone bruise in her forehoof and can’t carry her load. I’m stuck here until I come by some manner of help.”

“Normally nothing would make me happier than to help you, tinker,” I said. “But I need to get to Trebon as quickly as I can.”

“That won’t take much doing.” He nodded over the hill to the north. “You’re only about a half mile out. If the wind was blowing southerly you could smell the smoke.”

I looked in the direction he gestured and saw chimney smoke rising from behind the hill. A great wave of relief washed over me. I’d made it, and it was barely an hour after noon.

The tinker continued. “I need to get to the Evesdown docks.” He nodded to the east. “I’ve made arrangements to ship downriver and I’d dearly love to catch my boat.” He eyed my horse significantly. “But I’ll need a new pack animal to carry my gear....”

It seems my luck had finally turned. Selhan was a fine horse, but now that I was in Trebon, he would be little more than a constant drain on my limited resources.

Still, it’s never wise to look eager to sell. “This is an awful lot of horse to be used for packing,” I said, patting Keth-Selhan’s neck. “He’s a full-blooded Khershaen, and I can tell you I’ve never seen a better horse in all my days.”

The tinker looked him over skeptically. “He’s knackered is what he is,” he said. “He hasn’t got another mile left in him.”

I swung off the saddle, staggering a bit when my rubbery legs almost buckled underneath me. “You should give him some credit, tinker. He’s come all the way from Imre today.”

The tinker chuckled. “You’re not a bad liar, boy, but you need to know when to stop. If the bait’s too big, the fish won’t bite.”