Prince Nera Mossveil's Arc

Chapter 4 of 23

Nera flew south through the night and half the next morning. The dragonfly's wings buzzed low over the reeds where the market road ran beside the river. He meant to catch the road before the buyer's men could close on it. He was too late. From a rise above the water he saw them: four riders on the track ahead, moving slow, watching the sky. The detour west had cost him his lead. If he stayed on the road they would take him between them within the hour. He put the dragonfly down in a stand of alders and thought. He could not outfly four archers over open ground. He could not fight four in the road. He needed them off their horses and split apart. He needed them to walk past him without knowing he was there. Half a mile down the bank stood a ferry house, its timber walls grey with river damp and a shingled porch out over the dock. Farmers used it to cross their carts at market week. Nera had passed it twice as a boy. He tied the dragonfly deep in the alders and walked down to the house on foot, the blessed dagger flat against his ribs under his shirt. The ferryman's laundry hung on a line behind the porch. Nera took a patched robe from the rope and a wide straw hat from a peg by the door. He pulled the robe over his clothes. The hem dragged in the mud. The hat hid his face to the mouth. He bent his back and made himself shorter still. A fairy prince walked in. A stooped beggar walked out toward the road. He sat on a stump at the ferry landing where the road bent down to the water. He kept his hands inside the sleeves. The dagger lay along his forearm. When the four riders came around the bend they slowed and looked him over. One asked if he had seen a small man on a dragonfly pass east. Nera pointed a shaking hand back up the road and mumbled about wings over the reeds an hour past. Three of the riders kicked their horses and went. The fourth swung down to search the ferry house. Nera waited until the man's back was to him at the door. He crossed the boards without sound and put the dagger under the man's jaw before he could turn. He asked for the buyer's name. He asked where in the market the buyer kept his rooms. The man told him both. Nera bound him with the ferryman's rope and rolled him under the porch. He stripped off the robe and the hat and left them folded on the step. Three riders were chasing a lie east. One was gagged under the boards. The road south was open again, and now Nera knew the name of the man he was riding to kill.