The second place he indicated was a spot about a candlemark's slow ride from the rear of Kelcrag's lines. As Tarma had figured—striking distance. "About two days, altogether."
"Huhn. Say you got to trail's start at dawn by riding half the night. Think you could get that lot of yours up over that trail, make trail's end by dark, camp cold for a bit of rest, then be within this strike distance by, say. midmorning?"
"No problem. Damn well better have the rest though. Horses'll need it or we won't be able to count on 'em."
"Idra, how do we keep the movement secret?"
Idra thought about that a while. "Loan me those hillclan levies and their bivouac; they're honest enough to guard our camp. We'll move out in groups of about twenty; you move in an equal number of the clansmen. Camp stays full to the naked eye—Kelcrag can't tell one merc from another, no more can his magickers. The people that could tell the difference between them and us won't be able to see what's going on."
"Hah!" He smacked his fist down into his palm. "Good; let me send for Shoveral. We'll plan this out with just the three of us—four, counting the Kal'enedral. Fewer that know, fewer can leak."
The Lord Commander sent one of his pages out after Lord Shoveral, then he and Idra began planning in earnest. From time to time he snapped out a question at Tarma; how far, how many, what about this or that—she answered as best she could, but she was tired, far more weary than she had guessed. She found her tongue feeling oddly clumsy, and she had to think hard about each word before she could get it out.
Finally Leamount and Idra began a low-voiced colloquy she didn't bother to listen to; she just hung on to the edge of the table and tried enforcing her alertness with Kal'enedral discipline exercises. They didn't work overly well; she was on her last wind, for certain.
Leamount caught Tarma's wavering attention. The maps on the table were beginning to go foggy to her eyes. "Swordsworn," he said, looking a little concerned, "you look half dead, but we may need you; what say you go bed down over there in the comer—" He nodded in the direction of his own cot. "If there's a point you need to clarify for us, we'll give you a shake." He raised his voice. "Jons—"
One of the two sentries poked his head in through the tent flap. "Sir?"
"Stir up my squire, would you? Have him find something for this starving warrior to eat and drink."
Tarma had stumbled to the other side of the tent and was already collapsing onto the cot, her weariness washing her under with a vengeance. The blankets felt as welcoming and warm as they looked, and she curled up in them without another thought, feeling Warrl heaving himself up to his usual position at her feet. As the tent and the voices faded, while the wave of exhaustion carried her into slumber, she heard Idra chuckling.
"You might as well not bother Jons," the Captain told Leamount, just before sleep shut Tarma's ears. "I don't think she cares."
Three
Kethry shifted her weight over her mount's shoulders, half-standing in her stirrups to ease Hellsbane's balance as the mare scrambled up the treacherous shale of another slope. They were slightly more than halfway across the hills; it was cold and damp and the lowering gray clouds looked close enough to touch, but at least it wasn't raining again. She wasn't too cold; under her wool cloak she wore her woolen sorceress' robe, the unornamented buff color showing her school was White Winds, and under that, woolen breeches, woolen leggings, and the leather armor Tarma had insisted she don. The only time she was uncomfortable was when the wind cut in behind the hood of the robe.
She was a member of the last party to leave the camp and make the crossing; they'd left their wounded to the care of Leamount's hillclansmen and his own personal Healer. Tresti, the Healer-Priest, had been in the second party to slip away from the camp, riding by the side of her beloved Sewen. Oreden and Jiles, the two hedge-mages, had gone two groups later; The herbalist Kethaire and his two young apprentices had left next. Kethry had stayed to the very last, her superior abilities at sensing mage-probes making her the logical choice to deflect any attempts at spying until the full exchange of personnel was complete.
She felt a little at a loss without her partner riding at her left. Tarma had preceded her more than half a day ago, leaving before midnight, as the guide with Idra and the first group. Of all the party that had made the first crossing, only Jodi had remained to ride with the tailguard group.
Jodi was somewhere behind them, checking on the backtrail. That was not as comforting to Kethry as it should have been. Kethry knew her fears were groundless, that the frail appearance of the scout belied a tough interior—but—
As if the thought had summoned her, a gray shadow slipped up upon Kethry's right, with so little noise it might have been a shadow in truth. Hellsbane had been joined by a second gray mare so similar in appearance that only an expert could have told that one was a Shin'a'in full-blood battlesteed and the other was not.
That lack of sound was one clue—there was mountain-pony in Lightfoot's background, somewhere. Jodi's beast moved as silently as a wild goat on this shifting surface, so quietly that the scout and her mount raised the hackles on anyone who didn't know them.
Jodi wore her habitual garb of gray leather; with her pale hair and pale eyes and ghost-gray horse, she looked unnervingly like an apparition of Lady Death herself, or some mist-spirit conjured out of the patches of fog that shrouded these hills, as fragile and insubstantial as a thing of shadow and air; and once again Kethry had a twinge of misgiving.
"Any sign of probing?" the scout asked in a neutral voice.
Kethry shook her head. "None. I think we may have gotten away with it."
Jodi sighed. "Don't count your coins before they're in the coffer. There's a reason why we are running tail, lady, and it's not just to do with magery, though that's a good share of it."
The scout cast a doubtful look at Kethry—and for the first time Kethry realized that the woman had serious qualms about her abilities to handle this mission, if it came to something other than a simple trek on treacherous ground.
Kethry didn't bother to hide an ironic grin.
Jodi noted it, and cocked her head to one side, moving easily with her horse. Her saddle was hardly more than a light pad of leather; it didn't even creak when she shifted, unconsciously echoing the movements of her mare. "Something funny, lady?"
"Very. I think we've been thinking exactly the same things—about each other."
Jodi's answering slow grin proved that Kethry hadn't been wrong. "Ha. And we should know better, shouldn't we? It's a pity we didn't know each other well enough to trust without thinking and worrying—especially since neither of us look like fighters. But we should have figured that Idra knows what she's doing; neither of us are hothouse plants—or we wouldn't be Hawks."
"Exactly. So—give me the reasons this particular lot is riding tail; maybe I can do something about preventing a problem."
"Right enough—one—" The scout freed her right hand from the reins to hold up a solemn finger. "—is the trail. Shale shifts, cracks. We're riding after all the rest, and we'll be making the last few furlongs in early evening gloom. This path has been getting some hard usage, more than it usually gets. If the trail is likely to give, it'll give under us. You'll notice we're all of us the best riders, and the ones with the best horses in the Hawks."
Kethry considered this, as Hellsbane topped the hill and picked her cautious way down the sloping trail. "Hmm-hmm. All right, can we halt at the next ridge? There's a very tiny bit of magery I can work that might help us out with that."
Jodi pursed her lips. "Is that wise?"
Kethry nodded, slowly. "It's a very low-level piece of earth-witchery; something even a shepherd wise's woman might well know. I don't think any of Kelcrag's mages is likely to take note of it—assuming they can even see it, and I doubt they will. It's witchery, not sorcery, and Kelcrag's magickers are all courtly mages, greater and lesser. My school is more eclectic; we use whatever comes to hand, and that can be damned useful
—somebody looking for High Magick probably won't see Low, or think it's worth investigating. After all, what does Kelcrag need to fear from a peasant granny?"
Jodi considered that for a moment, her head held slightly to one side. "Tell me, why is it that Jiles and Oreden have gotten so much better since you've been with us?"
Kethry chuckled, but it was with a hint of sadness. It had been very hard to convince the hedgewizards that their abilities did not match their dreams. "You want the truth? Their talents are all in line with Low Magick; earth-witchery, that sort of thing. I convinced them that there's nothing wrong with that, asked them which they'd rather ride, a good, steady trail-horse or your fire-eater. They aren't stupid; they saw right away what I was getting at." She set Hellsbane at the next slope, her hooves dislodging bits of shale and sending them clattering down behind them. "So now that they aren't trying to master spells they haven't the Talent to use properly, they're doing fine. Frankly, I would rather have them with us than two of those courtly mages. Water-finding is a lot more use than calling lightning, and the fire-making spell does us more good than the ability to light up a ballroom."
"You won't catch me arguing. So what's this magic of yours going to do?"
"Show me the weak spots in the trail. If there's something ready to give, I'll know about it before it goes."
"And?"
"I should be able to invoke a greater magic at that point, and hold the pieces together long enough for us to get across."
"Won't that draw attention?"
"It would," Kethry replied slowly, "if I did what a court mage would do, and draw on powers outside myself—which causes ripples; no, I have just enough power of my own, and that's what I'll use. There won't be any stir on the other planes...." But it's going to cost me if I do things that way. Maybe high. Well, I'll handle that when the time comes. "You said one reason we're riding tailmost—that implies there's more reasons."
"Two—we're tailguards in truth. We could find ourselves fighting hand to hand with Kelcrag's scouts or his mages. They haven't detected us that we know of, but there's no sense in assuming less than the worst."
"So long as they don't outnumber us—I'm not exactly as helpless in a fight as Tresti." She caught the cloud of uncertainty in Jodi's pale blue eyes, and said, surprised, "I thought everybody knew about this sword of mine."
"There's stories, but frankly, lady—"
"Keth. I, as Tarma would tell you, am no lady."
That brought a glimmer of smile. "Keth, then. Well, none of us have ever seen that blade do anything but heal."
"Need's better at causing wounds than curing them, at least in my hands," Kethry told her. "That's her gift to me; in a fight, she makes a mage the equal of any swordswoman born. If it comes to magic, though, she's pretty well useless for my purposes—it's to a fighter she gives magic immunity. But—I'll tell you what, I've got a notion. If it comes to battle by magery, I'll try and get her to you before I get involved in a duel arcane; she'll shield you from even a godling's magic. Tarma proved that, once. She may even be able to shield more than one, if you all crowd together."
There was a flash of interest at that, and a hint of relief. "Then I think I'll worry less about you. Well—there's a reason three that we're riding tail: if we find we've ridden straight into ambush at trail's end, we're the lot that's got the best chance of getting one of us back to tell Leamount."
"Gah. Grim reasons, all of them—can we stop here for a breath or two?"
They had just topped a ridge, with sufficient space between them and the next in line that a few moments spent halted wouldn't hamper his progress any. Jodi looked about her, grimaced, then nodded with reluctance. "A bit exposed to my mind, but—"
"This won't take long." Kethry gathered the threads of earth-magic, the subtlest and least detectable of all the mage-energies, and whispered a command along those particular threads that traced their path across the hills. There was an almost imperceptible shift in the energy flows, then the spell settled into place and became invisible even to the one who had set it. The difference was that Kethry was now at one with the path; she felt the path through the hills, from end to end, like a whisper of sand across the surface of her mental "skin." If the path was going to collapse, the backlash would alert her.
"Let's go—"
"That's all there is to it?" Jodi looked at her askance.
"Magery isn't all lightnings and thunders. The best magery is as subtle as a tripwire, and as hard to detect."
"Well." Jodi sent her mount picking a careful path down the hillside, and looked back at Kethry with an almost-smile. "I think I could get to appreciate magery."
Kethry grinned outright, remembering that Jodi's other specialty was subterfuge, infiltration, and assassination. "Take my word for it, the real difference between a Master-class mage and an apprentice is not in the amount of power, it's in the usage. You've been over this trail already; what do you think—are we going to make trail's end by dark?"
Jodi narrowed her eyes, taking a moment. "No," she said finally, "I don't think so. That's when I'll take point, when it starts to get dark. And that's when we'll have to be most alert."
Kethry nodded, absently, and pulled her hood closer about her neck against a lick of wind. "If an attack comes, it's likely to be then. And the same goes for accident?"
"Aye."
It was growing dark, far faster than Kethry liked, and there was still no end to the trail in sight. But there had also been no sign that their movement was being followed—
Suddenly her nerves twanged like an ill-tuned harpstring. For one short, disorienting moment, she vibrated in backlash, for that heartbeat or two of time completely helpless to think or act. Then nearly fifteen years of training and practice took over, and without even being aware of it, she gathered mage-energy from the core of her very being and formed a net of it—a net to catch what was even now about to fall.
Just in time; up ahead in the darkness, she heard the slide of rock, a horse's fear-ridden shriek, and the harsh cry of a man seeing his own death looming in his face. She felt the energy-net sag, strain—then hold.
She clamped her knees around Hellsbane's barrel and dropped her reins, telling the horse mutely to "stand." The battlesteed obeyed, bracing all four hooves, far steadier than the rocks about her. Kethry firmed her concentration until it was adamantine, and closed her eyes against distraction. Since she could not see what she was doing, this would take every wisp of her attention—
Gently, this must be done as gently as tumbling a pennybird chick new-hatched. If she frightened the horse, and it writhed out of her energy-net—horse and rider would plummet to their doom.
She cupped her hands before her, echoing the form of the power-net, and contemplated it.
Broken lines of power showed her where the path had collapsed, and the positioning of her "net" told her without her seeing the trail ahead just where her captives were cradled.
"Keth—" Jodi's voice came from the darkness ahead, calm and steady; no sign of panic there. "We lost a very short section of the path; those of you behind us won't have any problem jumping the gap. The immediate problem is the rider that went over. It's Gerrold and Vetch; the horse is half over on his right side and Gerrold's pinned under him, but neither one of them is hurt and you caught both before they slid more than a few feet. Gerrold's got the beast barely calmed, but he's not struggling. Can you do anything more for them other than just holding them?"
Kethry eased her concentration just enough to answer. "If I get them righted, maybe raise them a bit, can he get Vetch back onto the path?"
"You can do that?"
"I can try—"
Hoof sounds going, then returning. Kethry "read" the lines of energy cradling the man and beast, slowly getting a picture of how they were lying by the shape of the energy-net.
"Gerrold's got Vetch gentled and behaving. He says if you take it slow—"
Kethry did not answer, needing all her focus on the ta
sk at hand. Slowly she moved her fingers; as she did she lessened the pressure on one side of the net, increased it on the other, until the shape within began to tilt upright. There was a lessening of tension within the net, as horse and rider lost fear; that helped.
Now, beneath the hooves of the trapped horse she firmed the net until it was as strong as the steadiest ground, taking away some of the mage-threads from the sides to do so. When nothing untoward occurred, she took more of those threads, using them to raise the level of that surface, slowly, carefully, so as not to startle the horse. One by one she rewove those threads, raising the platform thumblength by agonizing thumblength.
She was shaking and drenched with sweat by the time she got it high enough, and just about at the end of her strength. When a clatter of hooves on rock and an exultant shout told her that Gerrold had gotten his mount back onto safe ground, she had only enough energy left to cling to her saddle for the last few furlongs of the journey.
"Right now," Idra said quietly, stretched out along a hill top next to Tarma, "The old war-horse should be giving them a good imitation of a tired old war-horse."
The hilltop gave them a fairly tolerable view for furlongs in any direction; they were just beyond the range of Kelcrag's sentries, and Kethry was shielding them in the way she had learned from the example of Moonsong k'Vala, the Tale'edras Adept from the Pelagiris Forest—making them seem a part of the landscape—to mage-sight, just a thicket of brinle-bushes. In the far distance was the pass; filling it was the dark blot of Kelcrag's forces.
At this moment—as he had for the last two days—Leamount was giving a convincing imitation of a commander truly interested in coming to an agreement with his enemy. Heralds had been coming and going hour by hour with offers and counter-offers—all of this false negotiation buying time for the Hawks to get into place.
"Well, it's now or never," Idra said finally, as she and Tarma abandoned their height and squirmed down their side of the hill to join her company. "Kethry?"
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