So Tejohn sat at the front of a cart, a leash knotted around his waist, as they raced eastward across the Sweeps. The princess sat beside him, similarly tied, a little bow across her knees and a quiver beneath her boot. In the back, Cazia operated the levers.
“It’s just amazing,” Cazia said. She seemed brighter and more cheerful than Tejohn had seen her in a long time. “Ghoron came to Tempest Pass to improve the flying spell for his brother, and he’s done it. This is much faster!”
It was. There was no denying that it was. The princess held on to the rail so tightly that her knuckles were white and her pale face seemed almost ghostly. Tejohn looked out over the valley ahead of them—they were already leaving behind the waters of Lake Windmark, passing over the rich green marsh grasses at the low western end of the Sweeps.
Beyond that were open meadows, little clusters of trees, and the slowly rising ground.
It was beautiful. Tejohn still hadn’t gotten used to his new, improved vision. The first time he’d traveled through the Sweeps, all he’d seen were mud and clumps of grass. Now, looking from above, he could see the peaks on both sides, the long northeastern tail of the lake, and a hundred different colors of summer flower.
Grateful am I to be permitted to travel the Way.
He wished Laoni and the children could have seen this. He would have to bring them here someday when the world was more settled.
“Ghoron will work on another while we’re gone. Esselba’s people are not great woodworkers, but they don’t have to be. As long as the carts don’t rattle apart in the wind, we’ll be fine.”
The princess turned around. “How long?”
“For this trip?” Cazia yelled. “I don’t know.”
Tejohn broke in. “It was nine days by cart from the mining camp to Tempest Pass.”
“But now we have the Sweeps wind at our backs,” Cazia answered, “and a much faster cart. I think we might make it before sunset. Do you think he’s still there?”
“He had better be. We need him.”
He was Lar Italga, King of Peradain and heir to the Throne of Skulls—which had probably been destroyed months ago. However it wasn’t Lar’s role as ruler of a fallen land that made him important; it was his training as a scholar. The boy had been right all those years ago. The empire needed scholars.
Also, if Tejohn was going to test out these magic-destroying stones on a grunt to see if it undid his transformation, he was going to try it on Lar first. He owed the boy that much.
At midday, the princess brought a small loaf of meatbread and a jar of water to the back of the cart. Since there was no one else capable of handling the levers and they had no intention of stopping, she had to feed Cazia by hand.
All day, they passed mining camps, one after another. They were all laid out in a similar manner: walls, low buildings, a stubby tower or two for defense, but they were still too far west for the one Tejohn was looking for. Much too far west.
Then, in the midafternoon, Tejohn was startled to see a fluttering red-and-black banner on the southern side of the valley. He jolted out of his bench to look at it, but it had already passed behind him.
“That!” he snapped, pointing behind them. “Did you see that?”
“No,” Cazia answered. “Do you want to see it again?”
No, keep going. “Yes. Yes, I need to see it again. I don’t want to waste time, but—”
“Sit down and hold on,” Cazia said, and she began to slow the cart.
The princess chirped in fear as they lurched forward. Tejohn himself clutched at the rail to keep himself from toppling over the edge. The cart tilted to the left as Cazia steered it away from the Southern Barrier.
Tejohn glanced at the princess and saw that she was staring at him wide-eyed. The rail began to shudder under his hand. “Easy!” he shouted. “The cart’s not sturdy enough for this!”
The fierce excitement in Cazia’s expression vanished, and she gently lowered the levers, causing the cart to settle into a more gentle curve. “Sorry.”
The altered spell that allowed them to speed up very suddenly also allowed them to shed that speed quickly. That, plus the fact that they’d turned suddenly into a powerful headwind, brought them down to something like sprinting speed.
The cart circled around, heading toward the banner Tejohn had spotted. His initial glimpse was correct; it was a battered Finstel banner, with a red waterfall on a black field. Could this be the pass to Caarilit already? It didn’t seem possible, and it didn’t match what he remembered of it. The long spur seemed flatter than he’d expected, and the steep, tree-covered hill on the eastern side looked more like a gentle slope. Still, there was a broad passage southward between the peaks.
Still, there was the banner, which meant either someone had planted a banner much farther west than they should have, or this was the entrance to the Caarilit pass.
“Well?” Cazia asked.
Neither of them knew the place. It was his duty to make the decision, and if he was wrong, they would end up camping in grunt-infested lands. Who would stand watch through the night, a twelve-year-old girl? “Everything looks different from up here,” he admitted. “We’ve come far, but could we really have come all the way to Caarilit? Do you recognize these hills?”
“We were arguing when we came through the Caarilit Pass,” Cazia said sheepishly. “Again. We weren’t really looking.”
“Can you not recognize this landscape?” the princess asked.
“I was nearly blind then,” Tejohn admitted. “Let’s stay close to the Southern Barrier. If I’m correct, the second mining camp we come across should be it.”
The sun had nearly dipped behind the mountains when they found it. Tejohn expected more uncertainty, but he noted the crude cover for the animal pen and the shattered Sweeps crucible, and immediately decided this was the place.
Cazia and the princess refused to simply lower him into the compound at the end of a rope. The sensible thing would have been for them to keep their distance while he scouted the place, but the two girls insisted on landing with him. Cazia admitted that she was exhausted, and the princess said she’d feel safer inside walls than outside them. Besides, what if the grunts began throwing stones? The cart would be safer on the ground.
So, Tejohn hefted his shield and his two spears. One was the steel-bladed weapon he’d brought out of Twofin lands. The other was a specially made kinzchu spear: at the end of the long shaft was a squarish black rock held on with dried leather straps.
He had a smaller version in his belt next to his sword, but he hoped he would not have to use it.
As they descended into the center of the camp, he shook his shoulders and bent his knees. He wasn’t a young man anymore, and he needed a little warm-up time after a long day sitting on a bench.
The little girl had no such trouble. She sprang over the rail a moment before the cart touched down, her quiver strapped up tight to her hip and an arrow nocked. Tejohn followed as quickly as he could, then motioned for her to hang back. “You see something, you speak my name.”
She nodded, her delicate little face grim. From the stories they told, all three girls had faced numerous dangers together, but Tejohn still wanted her up in the sky. The memory of his own little boy, murdered so many years ago, came back to him like an old injury that would never heal.
Focus. He turned his attention to the space around him. The buildings were dark, although it was possible that the fires had been hidden or doused at their approach. No one called to them. No one challenged them.
This was a bad sign. Tejohn had hoped to find Wimnell Farrabell still here, tending to the prince. Farrabell could have flown the cart home, hopefully with a newly-restored prince as one of the passengers. Best of all, Tejohn would have been able to test the kinzchu stones on a captive grunt.
At the moment, the compound felt abandoned. Tejohn had to once again wave the princess behind him, then moved forward in a low crouch, spear at the ready. They might face any
thing here. Anything. A hill lion. Durdric Holy Sons. Even one of those monstrous running birds.
He should have secured the tower first—it was the most defensible position and would have been a fine place to defend two underage girls—but he didn’t. Tejohn had not liked the prince much when they lived in the palace. He had not cared for the boy’s laziness, his flippant attitude toward the peace his ancestors had created, nor for the skills he was supposed to be learning so he could continue that peace.
But now, when he was only a few feet from the spot where he’d secured him, Tejohn felt an undeniable urge to see him again. Yes, he was dying to know if the stones would undo The Blessing. Yes, they needed to find Mister Farrabell. Yes, they needed another scholar. But what he wanted most was to rescue the king he had sworn to protect, a boy who had lent his arm to an injured commoner.
He rushed to the supply room, the two girls close behind. Any evidence of the killings that took place so many months ago was long gone, and he was glad of it, as much for his own sake as the two girls’.
He paused at the open doorway. It was dark inside, much darker than the twilight around him. “Mister Farrabell,” he said in a calm, measured tone, as though they saw each other in a butcher shop every day.
The only answer was silence.
Cazia came up behind him with a glowing lightstone. He took it from her and tossed it inside. The room lit up with a pale light. Tejohn had hoped to find Wimnell unconscious on the sleepstone, but no one was here at all. He set his long weapons against the outside wall and crept in.
He moved around the sleepstone to peer into the open pit. It, too, was empty. There was a pile of bones and old gore at the bottom, complete with swarming flies. Tejohn realized that Cazia and the princess had come behind him and looked in before he could stop them. Neither seemed particularly disturbed by the sight.
“Do you think he jumped out?” Cazia asked, “or was pulled out?”
“It seems he took the leftovers of the meals and piled them up to reach the lip,” the princess said. “Or am I being morbid?”
“It’s a time for being morbid,” Tejohn said, then leaned against the wall. Fire take him, he had not been fast enough. Lar Italga had needed his help, but he had not returned quickly enough to save him.
He had failed again.
“Little Spinner, bring us back to peaceful times.” Cazia said.
The princess moved toward the door. “It is possible that he is nearby, yes? Oh, look!”
Cazia picked up the lightstone and held it high. Goose bumps prickled down Tejohn’s back; the door had been smashed off its hinges, and the blow had come from outside.
“Grunts hate closed doors,” Cazia said.
Tejohn suddenly remembered the way they’d behaved at the farmhouse. How could he have forgotten? Grunts went mad when they saw a closed door. “I half hope the grunt that did this and freed the prince is long gone by now.”
A dark-furred beast pounced into the doorway and snarled at them.
The princess screamed, her piercing voice astonishingly loud in the enclosed space. Tejohn was moving forward even before he had a chance to think about it. His shield high, his spear hand empty, he reached for his sword—no, he remembered at the last moment, the mace.
His hand closed on the mace, lifting it from the hook on his belt, when his shield struck the grunt. The beast had been reaching for the princess, but Tejohn knocked its arm aside, and she fell backward onto the base of the sleepstone.
The grunt looked at him with wild hunger, then shoved. Tejohn’s shield pressed against his body, trapping the mace. He held on to the haft with all of his strength; to lose it would be to lose all of their lives. Assuming it would even work.
As those thoughts raced through his head, the grunt’s shove became irresistible. Tejohn’s shield pressed against his ribs, his thigh, and his cheek, lifting him off his feet with undeniable force.
This is going to kill me. He flew back with shocking force, and he barely had a chance to register that thought, and the sense of loss and regret that went with it, when he struck the pile of baskets stacked against the wall. The impact was still painful, but it didn’t take his life.
As he slumped to the floor in the pile of tumbling baskets, he saw the princess scrabble to the side, making her way around the sleepstone. Cazia threw the glowing rock at the grunt’s head with all her strength, but the beast ducked low, coming frighteningly close to the princess’s bare legs.
Tejohn held up his mace and was surprised to see that it had snapped in half. The anti-magic stone was gone. It was only then that he realized there was something hard under his left knee that made his whole leg tingle. The grunt reached out to Cazia; she stumbled back, her hands moving quickly.
It was no use. The thing was too close for her to finish her spell. In desperation, Tejohn grabbed at the thing beneath his leg--please be the kinzchu stone--and flung it toward the creature.
It struck the beast on the shoulder. The grunt collapsed instantly, its outstretched claws tearing the flesh of Cazia’s bare forearms. She yelped and staggered away as it flopped onto the stone floor.
Then it screamed. The sound echoed off the walls like a war horn. Tejohn didn’t need the translation stone to know that was nothing more than a wordless cry of grief and pain. A death cry.
Little smoldering fires broke out in its fur. The smoke was white, thin, and smelled of ironwood. Then the flames spread suddenly, spreading over its entire body in a rush. The white smoke billowed toward the ceiling like a mushroom. Tejohn fell to his knees to breath the sweet air near the floor and he saw, stirring among the ashes, a human form.
It was a man, plump as a successful merchant, with a bald head and a vacuous pug of an expression. He was utterly naked but for the gray ash coating his skin. He began to cough and choke, instinctively rolling out of the lingering smoke and fine ash toward cleaner air.
A cure. It had worked! It had truly worked! Tejohn had hoped against all reason that the stones would undo The Blessing, and for once, it had gone his way.
Finally, they had a weapon to use against the grunts. Not a flying cart the creatures were able to smash apart. Not a scholar’s spell that would put an end to honest soldiering. Just a little magic stone that scholars could not even touch without losing their magic. Tejohn snatched the broken mace from the floor. The handle was slightly charred but the stone was intact. It had worked. This was a war that soldiers could win.
Grateful am I to be permitted to travel The Way.
Tejohn wiped at the man’s face, trying to clear the ashes so he could breath comfortably.
“Where’s Ivy?” Cazia asked, struggling to her feet. Blood ran down her arms onto the backs of her hands, but she didn’t seem to have noticed.
She stood and went around the sleepstone to the edge of the pit, then cried out. Tejohn was beside her in moments.
Down in the bottom of the pit, lying among the bones, was the still form of the little princess. A shattered rib had pierced her side completely through.
Chapter 16
Cazia’s entire body prickled with goose flesh. I cost Ivy her life. But no, she hadn’t died yet. Cazia looked for a rope she could drop into the pit below and saw instead a slender wooden ladder leaning against the wall.
“MOVE!” she shouted, bulling past Old Stoneface and stepping over the former grunt as though he was nothing more than a bundle of dirty rags. She snatched up the ladder, jammed one end down into the pit—taking care to set it opposite where Ivy had landed—then practically leaped onto it.
It was almost too much for the ladder to take, and she cursed herself when she felt it bow under her weight. Fury favored her this time; it did not break. She scrambled down the rungs into the stink of rotten flesh and landed beside the princess.
It was bad. Very bad. The little girl’s pale face was paler than Cazia had ever seen it, and she was so still. Her breathing was shallow and rapid.
“Don’t pull the bone out,”
Tejohn called down to her as though she was a complete fool. Cazia scooped the girl into her arms, fighting to keep her balance as the slimy bones shifted beneath her feet. Then she hurried up the ladder.
Careful. Careful. Losing her balance or dropping Ivy would almost certainly kill her. Cazia couldn’t have that on her conscience, not when they were so close to a sleepstone that she could have lifted her head and spit on it.
“There’s a stone in the pouch at her belt!” she snapped as she came near the top of the ladder. “She brought it in case I needed it. You have to cut it free before we put her on the sleepstone. Hurry!”
Tejohn reached down with his little knife and cut the pouch free. He threw it behind him and reached for the girl.
“Hurry, hurry!” Cazia was already barking at him, her fear and impatience growing so huge inside her that she thought she might burst into tears. Tejohn scooped the girl up as though she was as light as an summer robe, pivoted smoothly to the broad stone bed, then gently laid her on her side atop it.
Cazia scrambled over the top of the ladder and moved beside him. Ivy was so pale. So pale! Tejohn had a tight grip on the thick end of the rib where it protruded from the girl’s back. Cazia wanted to shout at him to both take it out and leave it in. Finally, he did pull it out and cast it into the pit. Blood poured out of the little girl’s back. So much blood.
“Too soon!” Cazia cried. “You pulled it out too soon!”
“I’ve done this before,” Tejohn answered, and the calm in his voice startled her. Cazia took a deep, shuddering breath, then helped him ease the princess onto her back. “It will be a near thing.”
“She’s so small,” Cazia said. Where were these words coming from? When did she start saying trite, obvious things?
Except Ivy was small. Tiny, in fact. Her body was so narrow and her shoulders so bony.
The Way Into Darkness: Book Three of The Great Way Page 18