Gallop Swiftmane's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

Gallop walked the high turn until the dreamcatcher branches fell still. He expected Mervin to chase him with a softer offer by sundown. Instead, the goblin came at dusk, alone, with no fine cloak behind him. Mervin stopped at the mouth of a cave nearby, where blue crystals jutted from dark stone. He would not step past it. He set a small cloth bundle on the path. Inside were three glowing toadstools, cool light spilling over his fingers. "He's not him," Mervin said. "The cloak. Front man. Hired face. Obviously." He shrugged too fast. "Real backer wants no names. Yours off. His off. Just the circuit. Clean." Gallop knelt by the toadstools. No crest. No sign. Only a token meant to call him to some quiet lagoon where deals were whispered and never written. He thought of his partner riding south for gold he could point to. This light had no hand behind it. "Tell him no," Gallop said. Mervin started to argue. Gallop stood. "A circuit with no names is a circuit no one defends. The first bad season, he sells the land out from under us. I won't build on a shadow." Mervin pocketed the toadstools and slipped back into the trees. Gallop stayed by the cave a long while. Four backers gone. The funded route still rode south in his partner's saddlebag. He turned uphill toward the dreamcatcher turn, the map still his, the wait now his only work.