He started off again, pulling on the mule’s halter, forcing Aquinel to stick with him. She was a good woman and a sturdy helpmeet, but she spent too much time questioning his decisions. It wasn’t as if she knew more than he did and was better able to reason things out. It wasn’t her place to guide the family. That was a man’s work.
“We have to think about ourselves,” he added sullenly.
They traipsed on through the damp and the murk, winding down the lane through broad-leaf trees that canopied overhead, ignoring the steady rainfall and the attendant chill, lost in their separate thoughts. Sora found himself wondering what she would say if she knew about the other—about what he had done when she wasn’t looking. He wondered how he would break it to her.
Probably, he thought, he wouldn’t. He would keep it a secret. Best that way. He would find a buyer and make some coin, and they would have a few good things for themselves that he could explain away. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t done this sort of thing before. It wasn’t as if this was the first time that he found a little something knocking around that she didn’t need to know about.
“We should have waited longer,” she said for what must have been the tenth time. “We should have been more patient.”
He shook his head. “She was injured and alone. We had no way of knowing who was with her or when they were coming back. If they were coming back at all. We had no time to go searching for them. We did what we had to do. We are doing what we have to do right now. What you asked for, remember? Find a way, you said. So I did. Now stop talking about it!”
She set her jaw. “I’ll stop talking about it, but I won’t stop thinking about it. I can promise you that!”
“Fine. I’ll settle for that much.”
The trail had broadened, and the woods had opened a bit. Ahead, Sora could make out the hull of the airship through the gloom and mist. She was a big one, probably some sort of warship. He slowed automatically, Aquinel with him. For a few moments, he reconsidered what he was about to do. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Maybe he should just take the girl to the nearest village and leave her there. Forget any reward for his trouble. It wasn’t like he hadn’t already found a way to get paid for this mess.
But greed won out over reason, and he abruptly pushed forward, clucking at the mule, pulling it and the wagon and the girl who lay in the wagon bed forward.
Already men from the airship had appeared on the decks and were watching them approach. One waved in greeting, and started down the ladder to meet them.
“Remember,” he said to Aquinel, “we’re simple foragers. We gather mushrooms and sell them to the surrounding villages. We come here all the time. Today, we were on our way to our grounds and we saw this girl lying in a clearing. She was injured and alone, apparently abandoned. We don’t have the means or ability to look after her. But we are responsible people and we want to see her safe and well cared for. We saw their ship, and we thought perhaps they could help. Thought they might even be friends of hers.”
“I still think this is a mistake,” Aquinel said softly.
He glared at her. “Hush, woman!”
“Hush, yourself.”
The rains were beginning to diminish and the woods ahead to thin out and open up. The trail was muddied and the tracks they had been following virtually erased, but that no longer mattered to either of them. Aphen and Cymrian were still running as fast as the latter could manage, ignoring personal discomfort and fighting off weariness. Cymrian had assured Aphen that they were close to catching up to the cart and its mule and drivers, the last of the visible signs indicating they were just a short distance off.
But they were shocked nevertheless when all three appeared abruptly from out of the mists ahead, not fleeing but approaching them—a big man and a short woman, both stocky and plainly dressed, a mule walking with its head down, hauling a cart in trudging acceptance of its lot, no sense of hurry or concern about any of them.