Lou was one of the few women in the group, her hair silver-brown and her ash-dark skin lined with age, but she walked with a firm step and flesh on her bones. “We supposed to haul the horses in as well?” she asked tartly, eying the animals up and down.
“Would serve Possum right if you did,” the judge said. “But no. We still got that sledge around here somewhere?”
It seemed that they did.
After sending two men off to fetch the sledge, Marshal LaFlesche and the judge escorted her prisoners down the street as though they were honored guests. Most of the gaggle followed them at a safe distance, leaving Gabriel, Isobel, and the woman named Lou. And two unconscious magicians, three horses, and a mule, the latter having wandered off to pull at the weeds growing along the edge of the gate.
“The boys’ll be here with the sledge in a minute. You want to untie ’em and get ’em on the ground, or will that be a problem?” Lou’s words were blurred soft around the edges, and Isobel had to work to understand her, but when the question came clear, she shook her head. “We lay them flat at night, and it didn’t seem to affect the binding.”
“Well, then, get ’em down.”
Gabriel pushed his hat back and gave Lou a mocking salute, then turned to untie the heavier of the two magicians from Uvnee’s back, while Isobel unknotted the ropes on the marshal’s pony, who turned its head and gave her what seemed, to Isobel’s thinking, a grateful look.
“Didn’t like carrying dead weight, did you, huh? Can’t say as I blame you.” The magician wasn’t much taller than she and seemed barely skin and bones under her hands, but pulling him down from the saddle still staggered her backward, forcing Lou to catch her with a hand flat between her shoulder blades.
“Help me,” Isobel started to say, but the woman had already stepped back, pulling her hand away as though Isobel’s body had burned her.
“They’re . . .” Lou blinked at them, then slid her glance sideways to where the mule seemed to be looking back at her with a “don’t ask me” expression. “They’re safe?” she asked, with her hands trying to emphasize what she meant by safe, but Isobel thought she understood.
“For now, yes.” Three days, she’d had them down; she could feel them both struggling below the surface now, lashings of power and anger mixed with frustration, and worse, a dawning awareness of her as the source of their binding. She was not confident that, in their madness, they’d be able to remember that it had been the ancient spirit that burned them, not her, nor would they care even if they did remember. But for now . . . “Their bindings hold.”
“I only ask, not to offend, but the wards on our walls are for keeping things out, not once they’re already in,” the woman said hastily, as though hearing an edge in Isobel’s voice. “And if they wake as mad as they’re made out to be . . .”
Isobel declined to tell the woman that these two were even madder than most. It would help no one. “There’s no worry until sunrise, at the least,” although it was as much a guess as a gamble. “Your ward-maker should be able to reinforce their work, specific to where you keep ’em, at least long enough for the judge to hear the tellings.”
She coiled the rope and hooked it over the pommel of the pony’s saddle, and slapped its hindquarter gently to tell it she was done. The pony simply snorted once, then ambled off to join the mule in search of edible grass.
“I’m assuming your ward-worker didn’t go off to help with the planting,” Gabriel said when the local woman made no response, pulling the taller magician off the saddle and laying him next to the first without any particular care. “If they did, you’d best send a message now and a fast pony, too.”
Uvnee, not as sanguine as the pony, shuddered as the weight left her back, ears twitching and eyes rolling nervously now that she could see what she had been carrying. Isobel stepped over the bodies to soothe the mare, stroking her nose and speaking reassuringly about what a good girl Uvnee had been, while Steady sidled closer and rested his head over the mare’s neck as though to add his own reassurances.
Lou shook her head. Her hair curled like early ferns, bobbing over her eyes when she moved, shoved out of the way with a gesture Isobel recognized from seeing Gabriel do it—the move of someone more accustomed to wearing a hat, who never thought to tie back hair that would be sweat-tamed soon enough. Not a rider, but someone who worked outside, with her hands.
“No ward-maker to speak of ’cept Possum, that old fool, and young Georgie, who’s yah, gone for planting. Never had much need for one. Andreas’s been here longer than we have; when the first traders came down from the north, they asked to build their cache here. That was more’n fifty back; they’re long gone, and we just use what was set. Every now and again, it needs reminding, but—” She made a gesture with her hands that seemed equal parts resignation and apology.
“You—” Gabriel stopped whatever he’d meant to say, then started again. “And there’s none of the tribe remaining nearby?”