Chapter 5: The Collar in the Dirt
The second was the discovery that Improvised Fieldcraft did not consider dignity a construction material.
He looked at the result beside the buried embers. Ridgehare hide wrapped around his bare foot. Vine holding it at the ankle. A strip of soft inner bark stopping the rough edge from sawing into his skin.
It was practical.
It also looked as though his foot had lost an argument with a dead rabbit.
Barni inspected it. Then looked at Mataon’s surviving formal boot. Then back at the shoe.
"Say nothing."
Barni sneezed.
"That counted."
Zahr stirred at the back of his thoughts.
"The workmanship is improving."
"Thank you."
"I referred to the rabbit."
"I preferred you when I thought you were a solemn divine remnant."
"You thought that for seven minutes."
"They were peaceful minutes."
"Your water container is leaking," Almina said.
Plip.
A bead slid off the resin-lined bark flask and struck his knee.
Plip.
He pressed another smear of resin into the seam.
"It is not leaking. It is releasing excess confidence."
"It is leaking."
"Yes, Almina."
By the time the light under the trees went from black to blue-grey, the flask held water, the spearhead no longer moved when he shook it, and the hide shoe had survived three laps around the shelter.
He rubbed ash and crushed bitterleaf across his coat, his hands, and the shoe. Then he turned toward Barni with the mixture.
Barni backed away, ears flat.
"We are hiding our scent."
One small white fang appeared.
"You smell like cooked meat."
A second fang.
"I mean that as a security concern."
Barni turned and presented his back. Negotiations had concluded.
[Resource Recovery Observation]
Previous measured Mana: 77 / 100
Current Mana: 89 / 100
Elapsed time: 10 hours, 18 minutes
Recovery conditions:
• physical rest;
• no active Authority use;
• elevated ambient mana;
• interrupted sleep.
Warning: Current data is insufficient to establish a fixed regeneration rate.
Mataon checked his mana before leaving. Twelve points recovered overnight. Enough for several small extractions. Not enough to waste, if the valley below held soldiers, or monsters, or more objects designed by people who had turned suffering into paperwork.
He stored the last of the meat, covered the ember with ash, and set three small stone arrangements at the shelter mouth. One marked the stream. One marked the safe approach. The third would tell him if anyone touched the entrance while he was gone.
Barni watched him place the third.
"It is not a border," Mataon said.
"I am not founding a country before breakfast."
The tail moved once.
"Your confidence in me is touching."
They reached the western ridge just after sunrise.
Mist filled the valley. The smoke was still there, pushed east now in long grey ribbons. No bells. No shouting. Nothing moving on the narrow road below.
Barni did not go down toward it.
He went north along the ridge instead, nose low.
Snff. Snff. Snff.
Mataon followed. The hide shoe softened every step and collected mud with impressive administrative efficiency.
At the place where they had found the collar the day before, Barni circled twice and stopped beside a fern with a broken stem.
Mataon crouched.
Brown had dried along the underside of one leaf. Blood. Not much. A smear, not a pool.
Beside it, the soil held a shallow print. Broad at the front, narrow at the heel, the edge of a wrapped foot covering part of the shape.
The escaped prisoner had gone north.
Mataon looked back at the valley.
"Why climb away from the river?"
Barni scratched the earth once, then pointed his nose downhill.
Thirty meters off, a pale wooden stake stood between two roots. It would have vanished against the silver bark if the morning light had not caught the metal cap on top of it.
Mataon went closer. He did not touch it.
Three thin lines had been carved around the shaft. A black thread ran out of the cap and disappeared into the soil.
[Object Identified]
Deunan Perimeter Listener — Provincial Pattern
Item Rank: E
Functions:
• detects movement across a registered line;
• distinguishes approved labor marks from unregistered passage;
• records approximate direction and body mass;
• stores up to twelve disturbances.
Current state: Active
Detection line: Partially buried
Transmission function: Unconfirmed
He stopped breathing for a moment.
The collar had not only punished escape. Somebody had turned the forest itself into a checkpoint.
He traced the ground with his eyes until he found the thread again, running under moss and leaf litter. The fugitive’s trail curved north well before reaching it.
"He saw the line," Mataon whispered.
"Or he knew it was there."
Barni huffed low in his chest.
Mataon considered breaking the stake. The idea lasted less than a second.
A missing listener was information. A triggered listener was information. An untouched listener that recorded nothing was silence, and silence was the only thing here that cost him nothing.
He stepped back into his own footprints.
"Congratulations," he murmured at it.
"You are the first government device I have ever chosen not to kick."
"You are learning restraint," Almina said.
"I dislike how surprised you sound."
The trail north was not a straight line.
It crossed bare stone. It doubled back through shallow water. It went under thorn brush where anything larger would have had to go around.
The man they were following was hurt. He was not helpless.
Twice Mataon lost the signs completely. Twice Barni found them again.
At midmorning the animal stopped beside a hollow log and tapped the bark with one paw.
Tok. Tok.
Inside lay a broken chain link, a strip of dark cloth, and two Ridgehare bones chewed nearly clean.
Mataon picked up the cloth. Coarse weave. One edge torn away into a narrow band, the width of a wound dressing.
"Alive long enough to eat," he said.
Barni sniffed the bones. Then the air.
His whole posture changed.
From somewhere past the log came a faint scrape.
Shhk.
Silence.
Shhk. Shhk.
Mataon lowered the spear. Not raised. Lowered, so it stayed visible and pointed at the ground.
He came around the log one step at a time.
A figure crouched under the roots of a fallen tree.
The High Goblin was smaller than Mataon expected, and still broad through the shoulders. Grey-green skin under mud and dried blood. One pointed ear split near the tip. A torn mining coat. Chain bruises all the way around his throat.
He held a stone blade in both hands.
The tip was shaking.
His eyes were not.
He spoke, fast and rough, in a language Mataon had never heard.
[Unrecognized Spoken Language]
Probable language family: Western High Goblin
Comprehension: 0%
Direct translation unavailable.
Relevant linguistic skill: Not acquired.
"Of course," Mataon said quietly.
"That would have been too convenient."
The stranger’s gaze went over him. Human face. Black coat. Gold thread at the collar. A spear.
Then it stopped on the formal boot.
And the fear in his face sharpened into hate.
Mataon understood that without translation.
He set the spear on the ground.
The stone blade tracked it down.
Then, because he thought it might help, he took the broken collar out of Astronomic Space and laid it beside the spear.
The High Goblin threw himself backward so hard his shoulder hit the root behind him.
Wrong. Badly wrong.
Mataon stepped away at once and raised both empty hands.
Barni walked between them.
The High Goblin stared at him.
Barni stared back.
A strange run of low sounds passed between the two of them. One growl. Two short huffs. A clicking noise from somewhere in the goblin’s throat.
Mataon caught none of it.
Barni glanced back over his shoulder, as if to confirm that this deficiency remained embarrassing.
"Yes," Mataon whispered.
"I am delighted the two of you have formed a committee without me."
The High Goblin swayed. Blood had come through the cloth on his left thigh again.
Mataon took out the bark flask and a strip of cooked meat. He set both down halfway between them, then walked backward until his shoulders hit a tree.
No promises. No sudden movement. No demand for trust because he had behaved decently for thirty seconds.
The High Goblin watched him for a long time.
Then he crawled forward, grabbed the flask, and drank.
Plip.
Water escaped the bad seam and ran over his fingers.
He looked at the flask. Then at Mataon.
Mataon lifted one shoulder.
"It has personality."
For the first time, the hate in the man’s face slipped. Not into trust. Into confusion, which was cheaper and came first.
Then Barni’s head snapped around toward the forest behind them.
Krrk.
A branch bent where there was no wind.
Krrk. Krrk.
The High Goblin stopped drinking. He pointed past Mataon and said one word, with absolute clarity.
Mataon did not understand the word.
He understood the terror.
In the mud beside the hollow log, a fresh print was slowly filling with blood-red sap.
It was bigger than Barni.
And it had come up the same trail they had.