The boars squealed in rage to find the horses among them. A huge boar, its back coming even with the shoulder of Iome's mount, stood and grunted, swinging its great curved tusks menacingly.
One moment her horse charged the boar, then the horse turned nimbly, almost throwing Iome from her saddle as she raced past the swine, headed downhill.
Iome turned to see if the boar would give chase.
But the force horses ran so swiftly, the pigs only grunted in surprise, then watched Iome depart from dark, beady eyes.
Gaborn rode down a ridge through the birches, to a small river, perhaps forty feet wide. The river had a shallow, gravelly bottom.
On seeing this river, Iome knew she was totally lost. She'd often ridden in the Dunnwood, but had kept to the eastern edge of the woods. She'd never seen this river. Was it the headwaters of the River Wye, or Fro Creek? If it was Fro Creek, it should have been dry this time of year. If it was the Wye, then they had wandered farther west over the past hour than even she'd imagined.
Gaborn urged the mounts into the water, let them stand for a moment to drink. The horses sweated furiously, wheezing. The runes branded on their necks showed that each mount had four endowments of metabolism, and others of brawn and stamina. Iome did some quick mental calculations. She guessed they had been running the horses for nearly two hours without food or water, but that was the equivalent of running a common horse for eight. A common horse would have died three times over at such a furious pace. From the way these mounts gasped and sweated, she wasn't sure they'd live through the ordeal.
"We have to rest the horses," Iome whispered to Gaborn.
"Will our pursuers stop, do you think?" Gaborn asked.
Iome knew they wouldn't. "But our horses will die."
"They're strong mounts," Gaborn said, stating the obvious. "Those who hunt us will find that their horses will die first."
"Can you be so sure?"
Gaborn shook his head, uncertainly. "I only hope. I'm wearing light chain, the armor of my father's cavalry. But Raj Ahten's Invincibles have iron breastplates--with heavier gauntlets and greaves, and ring mail underneath. Each of their horses must carry a hundred pounds more than the most heavily laden of our beasts. Their mounts are fine animals for the desert, with wide hooves--but narrow shoes."
"So you think they will go lame?"
"I've chosen the rockiest ridges to jump our horses over. I can't imagine their mounts will stay shod long. Your horse has already lost a shoe. If I'm any judge, half their animals are lame already."
Iome stared at Gaborn in fascination. She hadn't noticed that her mount had lost a shoe, but now stared down into the water, saw that her mount favored its left front hoof.
"You have a devious mind, even for an Orden," she told Gaborn. She meant it as a compliment, but feared it came out sounding like an insult.
He seemed to take no offense. "Battles such as ours are seldom won with arms," he said. "They're won on a broken hoof or a rider's fall." He looked down at his warhammer, resting across the pommel of his saddle like a rider's crop. Then added huskily, "If our pursuers catch us, I'll turn to fight, try to let you escape. But I tell you, I don't have either the weapons or the endowments to beat Raj Ahten's men."
She understood. She desperately wanted to change the subject. "Where are you heading?"
"Heading?" he asked. "To Boar's Ford, then to Longmont."
She studied his eyes, half-hidden beneath his overlarge helm, to see if he lied or was merely mad. "Boar's Ford is southeast. You've been heading northwest most of the past two hours."
"I have?" he asked, startled.
"You have," she said. "I thought perhaps you were trying to deceive even Borenson. Are you afraid to take us to Longmont? Are you trying to protect me from your father?"
Iome felt frightened. She was suspicious of Borenson, had not trusted the way he looked at her. He'd wanted to kill her, felt it was his duty. She feared he would attack her Dedicates, though Gaborn did not seem to worry about it. And when Borenson had said that he needed to watch Raj Ahten's troops, Iome had felt obligated to accept his explanation. Still, a worm of doubt burrowed in her skull.
"Protect you from my father?" Gaborn asked, sounding only half-surprised at the accusation. "No."
Iome did not know how to phrase her next question, but she spoke softly. "He will want us dead. He will see it as a necessity. He'll kill my father, and if he can't kill the woman that serves as my vector to Raj Ahten, he will want to kill me. Is that why you turn away from the path south?"
She wondered if he so feared that road south, that without thought, without even knowing, he turned from it. Certainly, if King Orden felt it necessary to kill Sylvarresta, Gaborn would not dissuade him. The Prince would not be able to save her.
"No," he said quite honestly, frowning, perplexed. Then he sat up straight, said, "Do you hear that?"
Iome listened, held her breath. She expected to hear the baying of war dogs, or cries of pursuit, but she could hear nothing. Only wind on the ridge above them, suddenly gusting through yellow birch leaves.
"I hear nothing," Iome admitted. "Your ears must be stronger than mine."
"No--listen, up there in the trees! Can you hear it?" He pointed to the ridge above them, to the north and west.
The wind suddenly stilled, the leaves quit twisting. Iome strained to hear something--the snap of a twig, the sound of stealthy steps. But she discerned nothing.
Gaborn suddenly stood up in his stirrups, taller in the saddle, gazing into the trees.
"What did you hear?" Iome whispered.
"A voice, in the trees," Gaborn said. "It whispered."
"What?" Iome urged her horse forward, studying the copse he spoke of, trying to see it from a different angle. But she could see nothing--only the white bark of trees, the green and golden leaves fluttering, and the shadows deeper within the grove. "What did it say?"
"I've heard it three times today. At first I thought it called my name, but this time I heard it clearly. It called 'Erden, Erden Geboren.' "
A chill ran down Iome's back.
"We're too far west," she hissed. "There are wights here. They're speaking to you. We should go south, now, before it gets dark." Darkness would not come for another three hours, but they had come too close to the Westwood.
"No!" Gaborn said, and he turned to Iome. He had a faraway look in his eyes, as one half-asleep. "If it is a spirit, it wishes us no harm!"
"Perhaps not," Iome whispered fiercely, "but it is not worth the risk!" She feared the wights, her father's assurances aside.
Gaborn gazed back at Iome, as if for a moment he'd forgotten she stood there. On the hill, the birch leaves shivered again. Iome looked toward the grove. The skies were drizzling, a slight gray rain that fell evenly, making it hard to see deeply into the grove.
"There, it comes again!" Gaborn shouted. "Do you not hear it?"
"I hear nothing," Iome admitted.
Gaborn's eyes suddenly blazed. "I see it! I see now!" he whispered urgently. " 'Erden Geboren'--that is the old tongue for 'Earthborn.' The woods are angry with Raj Ahten. He has abused them. But I am Earthborn. They wish to protect me."
"How do you know?" Iome asked. By claiming to be Earthborn, Gaborn was perhaps saying more than he knew. Erden Geboren was the last great king of Rofehavan when it had all been one nation. He had gifted these woods to his warden, Heredon Sylvarresta, after his brilliant service in the great wars against the reavers and the wizards of Toth. In time Iome's own forefathers had become called kings--and they were kings in their own right, but lesser kings than those who came from the loins of Geboren. Over the sixteen centuries since those days, Geboren's blood had spread widely among the nobility of Rofehavan, until it would be difficult to say who was most closely linked to the last great king.
But with the union of the houses of Val and Orden, Gaborn could certainly contend for that honor--if he dared. By calling himself "Earth-born," was Gaborn suddenly claiming these
woods, this kingdom, as his own?
"I am certain," Gaborn answered. "These spirits--if spirits they be--wish us no harm."
"No, that's not what I want to know," Iome said. "How can you be certain you are Earthborn?"
"Binnesman named me that," Gaborn said easily, "in his garden. Earth asked me to swear an oath to protect it, and then Binnesman sprinkled me with soil and pronounced me Earthborn."
Iome's jaw dropped. She'd known Binnesman all her life. The old herbalist had once told her that the Earth Wardens used to grant blessings upon new kings, anointing them with the dust of the earth they were sworn to protect. But this ceremony had not been performed for hundreds of years. According to Binnesman, Earth had "withdrawn such blessing" from current rulers.
She recalled now Binnesman's words in her father's keep, as Raj Ahten questioned the old wizard. "The new King of the Earth is coming." She'd thought Binnesman spoke of King Orden, for he'd been the one to enter her father's realm on the day the stones spoke. Now she saw that it was not the old king whom Earth proclaimed: it was Gaborn, who would become king...
Yet Raj Ahten believed Mendellas Orden was the king his pyromancers envisioned in the flames. Mendellas Orden was the king he feared, the one he rode to Longmont to destroy.
Suddenly Iome felt so faint that she needed to dismount before she fell from her horse, for she had a premonition, a fear Mendellas Orden would meet Raj Ahten at Longmont, and that no power on earth could save King Orden in that battle.
She slid from her saddle, stood a moment in the stream, letting cold water wash her ankles. She tried to think. She feared going to Longmont, for she knew that King Orden would want her dead. Yet she feared not going, for if Binnesman was right, then the only way Orden might be saved was if Gaborn was there to save him.
By going to Longmont, she might well trade her life, and her father's, for King Orden's--a man whom she'd always disliked. Yet even if she did not like the man, did not trust him, she couldn't let him die.
Nor could she sacrifice her own father for Orden's sake.
Her father sat now on his horse, staring dumbly into the stream, oblivious of all that was said around him. Raindrops spattered him, and he glanced this way and that, trying to discern what had hit him. Hopeless. Hopelessly lost to her.
Gaborn gazed down at Iome, as if worried at her health, and she realized he was oblivious of her dilemma. Gaborn hailed from Mystarria, from a kingdom near the ocean, where water wizards congregated. He had no knowledge of the lore of Earth Wardens. He had no idea that he'd been anointed to be King of the Earth. He had no idea that Raj Ahten feared him, would kill him, if only Raj Ahten knew Gaborn's identity.
Wind gusted on the hill again; Gaborn listened as if to a distant voice. A few minutes ago, she'd wondered if Gaborn was mad. Now she realized that something marvelous was happening. The trees spoke to him, called him, for purposes neither he nor she understood.
"What should we do now, milord!." Iome asked. She had never called any man but her father by that title, never submitted to another king. If Gaborn recognized the sudden shift in their relationship, he did not signal it.
"We should go west," he whispered. "Toward the heart of the woods. Deeper."
"Not south?" Iome asked. "Your father could be in danger--more danger than he knows. We might help him."
Gaborn smiled at her words. "You worry for my father?" he said. "I love you for that, Princess Sylvarresta." Though he said the words lightly, she could not mistake the tone of his voice. He indeed felt grateful, and he loved her.
The thought made her shiver, made her want him more than she'd ever wanted a man. Iome had always been sensitive to magics, knew that her desire for Gaborn was born of the earth powers growing in him. He was not handsome, she had to tell herself. Not really more handsome than any other man.
Yet she felt drawn to him.
How could he love me? she wondered. How could he love this face? It was like a wall between them, this loss of glamour, her loss of self-respect and hope. Yet when he spoke to her, when Gaborn assured her that he loved her, she felt warm all over. She dared hope.
Gaborn frowned in thought, said softly. "No, we shouldn't go south. We need to follow our own track--west. I feel the spirits drawing me. My father is going to Longmont, where castle walls will enfold him. Bone of the earth. The earth powers can preserve him. He's safer there than we are here."
With that, he urged his horse forward, reached down a hand to help lift Iome to her saddle.
On the wind came the sound of war dogs baying in the far hills.
* * *
Chapter 26
A GIFT
For long hours they raced, leaping over wind-fallen aspens, climbing up and down the hills. Iome let Gaborn lead the way, half in wonder at the trails he chose.
Time became a blur--all the trees losing definition, time losing focus.
At one point, Gaborn pointed out that Iome's father seemed to be riding better. As if some portion of his memories had opened, and he recognized once again how to sit light in a saddle.
Iome wasn't so sure. Gaborn stopped the horses in a stream, and her father watched a fly buzz around his head as Gaborn asked time and again, "Can you ride? If I cut your hands loose from the saddle, will you hold on?"
King Sylvarresta made no answer. Instead, he looked up into the sky and began squinting at the sun, making a noise like, "Gaaaagh. Gaaaaagh."
Gaborn turned to Iome. "He could be saying yes."
But when Iome looked into her father's eyes, she saw no light in them. He wasn't answering, just making senseless noise.
Gaborn pulled out a knife, reached down, and slit the ropes that held King Sylvarresta's hands to the pommel of the saddle.
King Sylvarresta seemed mesmerized by the knife, tried to grab it.
"Don't touch the blade," Gaborn said. Her father grabbed it anyway, cut himself, and just stared at his bleeding hand in wonder. It was a small cut.
"Hold on to the pommel of the saddle," Gaborn told King Sylvarresta, then wrapped the King's hand around the pommel. "Keep holding on."
"Do you think it will work?" Iome asked.
"I don't know. He's holding it tight enough now. He might stay on the horse."
Iome felt torn between the desire to have her father safely tied to the saddle, and the desire to let him be free, unencumbered.
"I'll watch him," Iome said. They let the horses forage for sweet grass alongside a hill for a few moments. Distant thunder was snarling over the mountains, and Iome became lost in thought. A thin rain began to fall. A golden butterfly flew near her father's mount, and caught his eye. He watched after it a moment, held out a hand toward it as it flew off into the shadowed woods.
Moments later, they headed into the forest, into the deep gloom. The trees gave shelter from the brief rain showers. For another hour they rode, as the darkness deepened, until they reached some old trail in a burn.
There, as they rode, another monarch butterfly flew up out of some weeds. Iome's father reached for it, called out.
"Halt!" Iome shouted, leaping from her saddle. She ran to her father, who sat askew, listening to his force horse breathe, lamely reaching a hand out.
"Bu-er-fly!" he shouted, grasping at the golden monarch that flashed ahead, as if racing the horses. "Bu-er-fly! Bu-er-fly!" Tears streamed from her father's eyes, tears of joy. If there was any pain behind those tears, any recognition of what he'd lost, Iome could not see it. These were tears of discovery.
Iome's heart pounded. She grabbed her father's face, tried to pull him close. She'd hoped he would regain some wit, enough to talk. Now he had it. If he knew one word, he could learn more. He'd experienced his "wakening"--that moment when the connection between a new Dedicate and his lord became firm, when the bounds of an endowment solidified.
In time, her father might learn her name, might know she loved him desperately. In time he might learn to control his bowels, feed himself.
But for the moment, as
she tried to pull him close, he saw her ruined face, cried out in terror, and drew away.
King Sylvarresta was strong, so much stronger than her. With his endowments, he easily tore from her grasp, and pushed her so hard that she feared he'd broken her collarbone.
It did not matter. The pain did not diminish her joy. Gaborn rode back to them, leaned over on his mount, and took King Sylvarresta's hand. "Here now, milord, don't be afraid," he soothed. He pulled the King's hand toward Iome, put the King's palm on the back of her hand, let him pet it. "See? She's nice. This is Iome, your beautiful daughter."
"Iome," Iome said. "Remember? Do you remember me?"
But if the King remembered her, he did not show it. His wide eyes were full of tears. He stroked her hand, but for the moment he could give her nothing more.
"Iome," Gaborn whispered, "you need to get back on your horse. I know you can't hear them, but mastiffs are howling in the woods behind us. We don't have time to waste."
Iome's heart pounded so hard she feared it would stop. Darkness could not be far away. The rain had momentarily halted.
"All right," she said, and leapt on her horse. In the distance, war dogs began to bay, and nearby some lone wolf raised its voice in answer.
* * *
Chapter 27
THE UNFAVORED
In the shadows of the birches, Jureem gazed down as his master's Invincibles took a moment to rest, throwing themselves on the ground. Beyond this ridge, the mountains wrinkled and folded like crumpled metal, and trees grew huge. Gaborn was fleeing into the darkest heart of the Dunnwood.
Yet Jureem knew enough to fear this region, as did the Invincibles. Maps showed the Westwood only as a blank, and at its center was a crude sketch of the Seven Standing Stones of the Dunnwood. In Indhopal, it was said that the universe was a great tortoise. On the tortoise's back sat the Seven Stones, and on the stones rested the world. A silly legend, Jureem knew, but intriguing. For ancient tomes said that millennia ago, the duskins, the Lords of the Underworld, had erected the Seven Stones to "uphold the world."
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