Tienna’s words brought even more comfort to Elynna. They were safe from Golach and she no longer had any fear that the Undeani would betray them. If Braga had meant to, his people could have easily done it already. She did not like them very much and wished for the hospitality they had been shown in the village of Gale Enebe or by the Plainsfolk who dwelt by the lake. But she did not doubt Noab’s gift.
She was not the only one. Aram, who had been grumpy since his capture, was growling. “I can’t see they’re too eager to help. You’d think they would at least feed their prisoners.”
“We have food of our own,” Tienna replied. “They are a poor folk, and it would be a burden for them to feed so many. Come. We are in a better sheltered place than we would have found on our own. Let us take a meal together and then rest and appreciate that none of us need to stay awake on guard this night.”
At the mention of food, the grumbling stopped. They removed food from their packs and sat in a large circle around the fire taking turns roasting meat on sticks. They were sheltered from the wind that whistled across the open spaces all afternoon, and the ground was soft.
Tienna was right, Elynna thought. This was a good spot. When they had finished their meal of fresh roasted venison and dried fruit, they rolled out their beds on ground cloths and went to sleep. The night was quiet except one interruption when the moon was high. Elynna woke feeling uneasy, though she didn’t know why. She had no strong sense of the Daegmon’s presence except the vague sense she’d felt all afternoon of it waiting somewhere to the northwest—the slight acrid burning deep in her thoughts.
Then she heard something and sat up.
Somebody stood in the middle of the grotto, near the glowing embers of the fire. The moon reflected off his white coat, and Elynna realized it was Braga. One figure arose and joined him, and then another. Noaem and Noab. Braga spoke to them softly. “A large beast. We do not know what it is, for we have never seen its like. It appears in form like a wild mountain cat, but it is the size of a bear and has striped markings. My men will keep you safe. They have taken a shot at it, but it was too swift. I will remain here until it is gone.”
Noaem said something to Noab in the Ceadani tongue. Noab spoke to Braga. “Do not shoot at them. And you needn’t protect us from them.”
Braga said something. It might have been in his own tongue because Elynna could not understand it.
“They are with us,” Noab said. “They are our protectors. If we call upon them, they will come to our aid. As long as you do not hurt us, you will be safe from them.”
Braga’s jaw dropped as he stared at Noab and Noaem in awe. Then he turned and strode out of the grotto. A short time later, the two Ceadani returned to their blankets. Elynna put her head back down also. She did not think the Undeani would prove to be foes, but if so, this would make them think twice about it. She closed her eyes and drifted to sleep thinking about the tiger.
29
BLINDFOLDS
Sometime later Elynna awoke stiff and sore. She rolled over on her back and opened her eyes. The stars had disappeared, replaced by a dim gray sky peeking through the gap in the canopy. She sat up, still hugging her blanket around her. Just enough light fell to see a few feet into the trees at the edge of the grotto thirty feet away where a half dozen of the wool-clad Undeani warriors stood guard with their spears. Several of her companions were already awake and moving.
The Andani poked the fading embers of the previous night’s fire, but it showed no sign of coming back to life. Realizing that sitting still would not warm her up, Elynna rose and tugged on her boots.
Several of her companions were already rolling up their blankets. She followed their example. A short time later they gathered together to share food. Braga returned to the grotto. Elynna looked up to see him step through an arch of thick low branches. Instead of his axe, he held in each hand a bundle of something steaming. As he approached, Elynna realized he carried in one hand a small stack of round flat bread and in the other hand the straps of three large leather flasks.
He handed her one of the loaves. It was still hot, soft, and fresh, as though it had just come off the fire. Her mouth watered. She had not expected this hospitality. She took a bite. It looked like Uëtha travel bread, but was chewier and had a stronger, more bitter flavor—more like ground wild nuts than grain. The strong taste was not altogether pleasant, but it was hearty, and she was hungry. She ripped off a third of the loaf and passed the rest on to Pietr and Falien, who sat beside her and accepted it eagerly.
By the time she had finished her bread, her companions were passing around the flasks. She took a swig. It was hot but not scalding and tasted like sweetened goats’ milk. She took another long swallow and let the warm liquid slide down her throat. Though it did not erase her resentment at being treated like a captive, her appreciation for Braga and his people grew at least a little.
Braga did not give them long to enjoy the bread and drink before he urged them on. The captives, in as much of a hurry as their captor and guide, readied themselves and followed him. While the sun climbed the eastern sky, they crossed a flat stretch of forest full of tall pines. There was very little understory. Through the gaps between the trunks, Elynna again saw the Undeani warriors scattered behind them and to each side. They set a good pace through the morning. Their guide knew the forest well and led them along trails that would have been invisible to Elynna.
As they went, Noab told the others about the previous night’s occurrence. “Well, that makes me feel a little safer, despite the rude welcome we received,” Hrevia commented.
“Do not judge them for the way they treated us,” Tienna interjected. “We are a well-armed band. We are fortunate they did not take us for robbers and attack us right away.”
“I can’t say I’m too thankful,” Aram said. “I’d like to have our weapons right now.”
“Cane still has the stone,” said Elynna, who had watched Cane finger the talisman as they walked. The comment, again, made her think of Thimeon, who had given up the stone. For the first time in several days her thoughts were free to wander, and she realized she missed him. She wished he was still with the company—and not only for his wisdom and leadership but for the insight he would have brought to their dealings with the Undeani. Her heart now told her it was more. And that was something she did not want to think about.
She took several quick strides forward and caught up with Cane and listened to him talk quietly with his brother. Her thoughts soon drifted back to the others in the company and to the losses they had all suffered.
Two hours later Braga called a halt. After speaking to his warriors in the Undeani tongue, he turned and faced Elynna and Cane. The others in the company soon caught up with him and spread around in a broad semicircle. Braga’s eyes searched their faces before coming to rest again upon Cane, who returned his gaze with an icy stare. There followed something of an uncomfortable silence between the two. Finally, Braga gave a shrill whistle, which he followed with another call in the strange tongue. In response, three Undeani warriors stepped out of the woods. They carried a bundle of cloth. “You will have to be blindfolded now,” Braga announced.
“We will not,” Cane replied at once. His voice was haughty and challenging.
Braga ignored him. “We take you now by a secret way. None but our own people know of this passage. It is not for strangers to find it.”
“We do not know where we are and could not find this place again if we tried,” Tienna replied in a calmer tone. “Are you sure blindfolds are necessary?”
Braga paused as if pondering his options. “We take you by a secret way. It will bring you faster to our destination and will lose the trail of those who follow you. If you wish not to be blindfolded, we may take you by another way, but it will be much longer, and will leave you—” he paused as if searching for a word. “It will leave you exposed to any who may be pursuing yo
u, as well as to creatures in the air.”
For the past hour, Elynna had felt almost numb emotionally. Between the flight north, the battle at the entrance to the pass, news of the fate of the Amanti, and the presence in her company of both Keet and Nahoon—who should have been elsewhere—the last few days had been so draining on both mind and body, she had no energy left to think. Being held like prisoners by these Undeani warriors was almost a blessing.
For one day she’d had no responsibilities. No need to seek the Daegmon or expose her mind to the pain of her enemy’s thoughts or presence. The company had no decisions to make. Braga led them. And while she felt ill at ease and powerless under the control of these mountain men, she also sensed no immediate danger from them—or from the Daegmon while she was with them. But Braga’s mention of her pursuers, and the thought of Golach, snapped her back to the present.
“What do you know of them?” she asked as her anxiety rose again. “Have you seen them? Are they near?”
“Word has come that others from the outside have entered our land,” Braga answered. “But I do not yet know who they are or how many. I have sent out scouts, but no more news has come back. And I do not wish to delay. When we have brought you where we need to bring you, I will go myself and investigate.” He turned and motioned to the warriors at his side who stepped toward their prisoners.
They went first toward Cane and raised the cloth as if to bind his eyes. His fist flashed out and struck one of them hard in the chest. The man tumbled over backward as if struck by a battering ram. But the other Undeani warriors were quicker and more nimble than they looked. Before Cane had even recovered his balance, he found three long knife blades poised at his throat. Braga held one.
“Wait!” Tienna pleaded. “You said we had a choice: to be blindfolded or to go by another way.”
Braga still held the knife. His voice was stern now. “The other way will bring greater danger not only to you but to my people also.” But a moment later he slid his knife back into his sheath. “But the choice is yours.” He motioned to his men, and they also put away their knives, though with apparent reluctance.
To Elynna’s relief, Tienna answered at once. “We will take your offer. Blindfold me first.”
Braga hesitated a moment. The guard who had been struck had rolled back to his feet and was scowling at Cane. Braga spoke to him. He stepped behind Cane, somewhat cautiously, and wrapped the blindfold around him, cinching it in the back. Elynna exhaled a sigh of relief when Cane acquiesced without further resistance. Was it Tienna he trusted? Or had he simply realized the foolishness of fighting back? She did know. It didn’t matter. She was glad to be under the guidance of the Undeani a while longer. Glad for any help in putting more distance between her and Golach, if indeed it was he and his company who were now in Undeani land. And she had no doubt it was.
Over the next few minutes, the captors moved one by one to each of their prisoners, blindfolding each in turn. No one spoke. Braga’s friendly expression was gone. The last to be bound was Namha, whom the Undeani had avoided throughout the morning. Elynna guessed he’d almost had to kneel for them to reach his eyes. A short time later she heard another low whistle. A hand closed on her arm and guided her into motion.
How long the next part of the march lasted, Elynna could not tell. With her vision occluded, all her other senses felt strangely intensified, and time moved more slowly. They walked on soft forest ground. She felt under her feet the crunch of crusty snow and old needles and heard the squeak of many pairs of feet. A soft breeze brushed her cheeks from the left. After an hour or so, the ground grew hard, and the air stilled.
Having walked without the slightest stumble, she was starting to trust her guide’s skill. As she grew more relaxed about her footing, she concentrated on her surroundings. The sounds of the forest—sounds she had grown accustomed to over the past few days—disappeared, replaced by the eerie echoes of their own feet. The stony echo brought back the memory of Gale Enebe and the hospitality of the Ceadani, and for a time her thoughts wandered there again. Chal-char. The celebration up on the Sanctuary. Cathwain.
Cathwain? The thought of the young Ceadan came like a wave of icy water as Elynna recalled the strange dream she’d had a few evenings ago. In the midst of their own battles and problems, she’d nearly forgotten about the problems of Gale Enebe and the desperate voice of young Cathwain calling out to her for help in a dream. But it hadn’t been a dream. It had been real.
As they approached a sharp corner and a steep step upward, her guide gently pressed her head downward. She ducked and stepped forward. After that, their path followed a noticeable ascent. Neither the captors nor captives spoke much. All Elynna heard was the echo of feet and an occasional curse of a Northlander complaining about uneven ground or poor guiding. They rested now and then but were given nothing to eat and had only their own water to drink. Three or four times the echoes disappeared, or grew distant and hollow, but little else changed.
Eventually they came to the end of the ascent and after another rest began a steeper descent. During this final part of the blindfolded journey, they twice came to stairs. Imagining precipitous drops such as in the Ceadani village, Elynna was seized by a sudden fear, and she almost couldn’t continue. However, her guide kept a grip on her arm, insistent but not rough.
Finally Elynna’s feet stepped onto softer ground. For the first time in a while, she again felt and heard the bitter wind biting her cheeks. They walked some distance farther and then stopped for another rest. The grip on her arm disappeared. She heard voices but couldn’t distinguish whose they were. She stood still for some time until another hand touched her shoulder. The next moment she felt a slight pinch on her eyes, and the blindfold fell off.
She blinked in the comparative brightness of the late afternoon sun, and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust. She was looking out from a plateau a few hundred feet up the side of a hill with an excellent view of the surrounding land. Sharp snow-covered peaks lined the sky in every direction.
Tienna stood beside her holding several blindfolds. Their other companions had also been released. A long row of their weapons lay on the ground around them. Some of her companions were already sorting through them, while others still stood rubbing their eyes. She saw no sign of Braga or any of the other Undeani.
She turned her attention back to the landscape. Sometime in the past decade a forest fire must have swept through. Down the slope she saw hundreds of acres of treeless land marked by the stubble of burned stumps and a few blackened hulls of trees that had not yet fallen. Fresh young saplings and thorny bushes were scattered about, but none were taller than a few feet. They had passed through a few meadows like this in Andani and Ceadani lands, at different stages of successional growth following a fire. Thimeon had pointed out to her the various indicators of how old or recent the fire had been. This one was still in the first stages of reforesting. “A good place for berries and browsing wildlife,” Thimeon would have told her. Where was Thimeon now? she wondered again with a pain of loss and regret.
But she could not afford to think about it. She scanned the land about her once more and saw what she was searching for. Farther off to the left, the sun dipped toward the peak of two tall mountains. Elynna recognized the Twins, though she saw them now from a different angle. They had been led around to the east and almost gone past the mountains on that side. They would now have to travel westward and a little to the south to reach their destination to find the Daegmon she was sure was waiting for them. Yet Braga had done what he had promised. They now stood much closer to the base of the two mountains. Closer to their enemy.
Elynna probed for the creature’s presence—an ability that, to her dismay, had grown with practice—and without Cane’s help she sensed it out there, waiting. She closed her mind quickly, before the pain could soak more deeply into her nerves. Should she be relieved it had not fled? Or terrified? She was both.<
br />
She turned away. To the north and east, much further away, lay the tall peak of Illengond. In the crisp air against a bright blue background, she could see it clearly. She was gazing at it, when Cane’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “Let us move from here. We are too visible atop this plateau.” He looked at Elynna as he spoke. “Which way now? Still toward the Twin Mountains?”
Elynna nodded. “It is waiting there for us.”
“Good,” Cane said. “I think this will be the last time I will have to battle it. I am eager to finish.”
If there was only one, Elynna thought. But though they had never seen more than one at a time, Thimeon’s arguments, along with Cathwain’s call for help, had already convinced her there was more. That, however, was not a point she was ready to raise with the Northlander. If she did, Cane would tell her she was giving in to fear. They would fight one Daegmon at a time. And keep fighting one at a time until they had defeated them all or driven them from Gondisle—however many there were. And then, if any of her companions still survived, they would turn their attention to Koranth and the evil in Citadel. A task, she feared, was far beyond their strength.
Nahoon interrupted her thoughts. “I suppose we won’t have to worry about Golach for a while. I’m sure we traveled underground. You could hear it in the echoes and feel the rock under our feet.”
Cathros nodded. “I felt the same thing. For those who spend as much time in mines as my people do, there can be no mistaking it.”
Nahoon said aloud what Elynna was thinking. “Then Braga and these Undeani folk really did help us. More than we could have hoped for. Golach couldn’t follow the same path—not without the Undeani guiding him.”
The thought, however, brought only a little comfort. The greatest threat lay ahead of them, and they were headed straight toward it. Even as her own pain increased, Elynna could also see tension building among her companions. They were getting jumpy, looking often toward the skies and complaining more. But though her fears plagued her, Elynna did not suggest turning around now, nor did any of the others.
The Betrayed Page 29