by Serena Chase
I was surrounded by Cobelds!
Screaming, I turned to run, but in my path, one of the flower-turned-Cobelds stretched taller, taller than my lucid mind could allow a Cobeld to be, taller, even, than me.
Other Cobelds grabbed my arms, my legs. They pulled me down to the ground. The giant Cobeld leaned down and leered at me. A drop of spittle stretched from his lips and landed on my cheek. When his beard was only a breath away from my face, he laughed.
I opened my mouth to scream, but all that came out was a whimper.
“I’m here.” Julien’s whisper was close. Too close.
No. No! He can’t be here! They’ll kill him, too!
The Cobeld backed up, looking around as if searching for the knight.
“Rynnaia,” the whisper came again.
Where was he? Why couldn’t I see him?
But maybe it was good I couldn’t see him. Maybe the Cobelds couldn’t see him, either.
The giant Cobeld met my eyes and smiled. He didn’t speak, but a promise, a threat, haunted the laughter that ensued.
“Rynnaia, wake up.”
I struggled against the Cobelds holding me down. “Julien!” I screamed. “Julien!”
“I’m here.” His voice was strained. “It’s just a dream, love. I’m here.”
I opened my eyes to find myself in his arms. A trickle of blood dripped from his nose.
I winced. “Did I do that?”
He loosened his hold on my arms to wipe his sleeve across his face. “It’s nothing.”
“I’m sorry.” I looked around the circle of concerned faces. I had hoped that my nightmares would stop when we left Fennik’s Glen. “I’m sorry,” I sighed. “Would that my sleep was the only sleep disturbed by these terrors.”
“Would that I could take them from you,” Julien said in a low voice.
“Is it nearly dawn?”
He shook his head. “You couldn’t have been asleep more than a quarter of an hour this time,” he said. “I’ll stay close. Try to go back to sleep.”
For the rest of that night, at least, the dreams stayed away. I mused it was because Julien kept a tight hold on my hand and that I drew peace, even in sleep, from his love. Or perhaps it was the soft lullaby Kinley hummed, one his mother had often sung to me when I was a little girl, awakening from a bad dream.
The next night, however, the dreams returned, and neither my Bear-knight’s strength nor my brother’s song could keep them at bay.
Just over five weeks had passed since we left Holiday Palace. My father and Vayle were still a few days from Salderyn, their journey having been slowed by a battle or two with Dwonsil warriors along the way. And my mother, while I sensed she could hear me, could no longer open her eyes when I contacted her. My heart was heavy, but it kept my feet from flagging. There was no time to waste, and since sleep wasn’t something I looked forward to, knowing what nightmares would come, it was often my voice urging our group to cover just a little more ground each night after the sun had set.
Finally, Mount Shireya loomed before us as a fearsome gray adversary, but a smaller one than I’d expected, especially considering the way the nightmares had engraved it in my mind.
For so long, the Sacred Mountain had seemed so high and so far away. But now that we were nearly there, we found that our gradual ascent over weeks traveling through the foothills had shrunken her. I had expected the mountain to be larger, somehow. It was, after all, the highest point in E’veria. I had not expected, seeing it from lower elevations, that it would be less spectacular close up.
Regardless of its size, I still had to go inside it. And I wasn’t looking forward to that.
Of course I knew that the mountain itself wasn’t working against us, but my dreams argued against logic. There was evil inside that mountain. Evil that had crept into my dreams.
Evil that knew I was on my way to meet it.
The scenes in my dreams varied, but always they were accompanied by the same malevolent laughter. It wasn’t the cackle of an old man, like one would expect from a Cobeld. It had an ageless quality to it. And even within a nightmare, it seemed both an echo of the past and a portent of the future.
I dreamed of drowning in a river of rolling rapids. Of falling from great heights. Of feeling my insides catch fire. My nightmares took me to the very tip of a sword . . . and sank it into my chest. They forced me to watch my friends die horrible deaths, one by one—or all at once. And the most terrifying dreams of all found me deep within the darkness of the mountain and completely alone, but for the unseen source of that hideous laughter.
It made no sense. In all our weeks of travel through Shireya, the only sign of Cobelds we’d come across was Fennik’s assertion that the yellowhock fields were tended by them, and the cursed arrows of the Dwonsil warriors who had murdered an innocent farm family. Julien assured me that the Cobelds’ camps were generally to the north and east of the mountain, and since we’d come from the southwest, seeing them was unlikely. But I thought my father’s all-too-successful campaign to make the Cobelds think I had traveled with him toward Salderyn was a more likely explanation for our lack of confrontation with the enemy.
Periodic updates from my father, which I could only assume he sanitized to ease my worry, were frequented by the mention of Cobeld and Dwonsil warrior incursions with our army along Dynwey Road. As of yet, neither my father nor Vayle had been injured, but friend and foe alike believed she was the Ryn. The ruse put her in regrettably great peril, but it was effective.
Thus far.
The night we reached the mountain, we camped just inside the cover of trees at the very base of the rock face. Numerous caves dotted the southern side of the mountain and none of us had a clue which cave was the right one by which to enter.
“Do you think the horses will fare well in the forest while we’re within the mountain?”
Julien gave me a small smile. “As long as they keep with Salvador, they’ll be fine.”
“I hate leaving them.”
My Andoven abilities could help the horses to find us once we exited the mountain, but depending on how far they wandered in the meantime, it could take days for us to meet up. None of us could guess whether our journey within would take hours, days, or even weeks.
“I wonder if we’ve passed any of the nine marks yet,” Erielle mused.
“I don’t think so,” Edru answered as he turned a rabbit on a spit. “I don’t think the marks begin until we’re inside.”
Risson and Kinley took the second watch that last night, but none of us slept soundly. Shortly before dawn, a commotion just beyond the fire shook the last vestiges of irregular rest from our minds. We all arose in a flash, and without speaking, Julien, Erielle, Gerrias, Dyfnel, and Edru surrounded me and drew whatever weapon was closest.
My heart beat a wild rhythm, but I had to smile a little when I realized that Erielle alone had a weapon in each hand. A moment later, Dyfnel and Edru parted to make room for Kinley. His quick but silent entrance within the circle made Risson’s much louder appearance all that more shocking.
After all this time unhindered by the enemy, were we now to come face to face with a Cobeld?
At the tip of Risson’s sword, an oddly attired, filthy, but mostly beardless man was prodded into the center of our camp. His height matched Risson’s.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Not a Cobeld, then.
“I found him attempting to lead away Kinley’s mount.” Risson sounded impatient, almost disappointed, as if he’d been aching to engage an enemy and was frustrated that the first person he encountered this close to the mountain should be a mere horse thief.
I couldn’t blame him. After little sleep and much worry, I was more than a little irritated myself. Not that I’d wanted to meet a Cobeld, of course. I had simply wanted to delay the start of the day a bit longer. Like until after the sun was up, rather than just casting an upward glow from the horizon, as it was at this early morning hour.
I pushed throug
h the spot between Gerrias and Erielle and approached the pair. “Have you a name, thief?” I asked, “Or a ready defense of your actions?”
He tilted his head at me, an odd expression on his face. “My Lord Squire knows my name, though he does not know what he knows.”
I took a step back. I’d forgotten for a moment that I was dressed as a squire, especially since Julien and Kinley had come up along either side of me and taken a defensive stance toward the stranger.
“My apologies, Sir Julien,” I said, as a squire should. As the Ryn should, to the man charged with her safety . . . and her heart.
Julien didn’t respond to me, but spoke to the thief instead. “What acquaintance would a squire from Veetri have with a Shireyan horse thief?”
“No acquaintance but with knowledge, Your Lowliness. Knowledge of my name, of course. But the squire does not know it.”
What?
Dawn was dim, but if he thought he knew me, especially in Rozen’s clothes, he must have me mistaken for someone else. Just in case, I looked closer at the man. I studied his face, but from the double notches of his receding hairline to the scruff on his chin that looked to be as much dirt as beard, nothing about him was familiar.
“He must have me confused with someone else,” I said, deferring to Julien. “I’ve never seen him before.”
“That’s because we’ve not been introduced, though you’ve already called me by name,” he said, nodding as if his statement made perfect sense. “A wonder, that, isn’t it? But it makes an introduction at this point little more than a formality.”
“My squire has called you naught but a thief,” Julien said. “Tell me now, what is your name and with whom does your allegiance lie?”
The man spit into each hand and gave great show to smoothing his greasy, thinning hair with the spittle as if it were costly oil. “E’veria is much changed since the die was cast, but had I known the knights were now the squires and the squires were now the lords, I would have sought to breed a squire while a wife would still have me.”
Julien took a small step forward. “You will answer my question, or you will answer my sword.”
The thief licked a finger of each hand and smoothed his bushy, graying eyebrows before making a dramatic bow to Julien.
“I have both a name and a defense, Your Worthy Slaveness,” he said.
Julien growled. “What did you call me?”
The air was taut as we awaited his reply, but the horse thief seemed entirely relaxed. Could it be he was just one of a gang of bandits and that we were soon to be outnumbered? Julien must have had the same thought.
“Gerrias. Erielle,” he said. “Perimeter.”
I didn’t hear their movements as they left the camp, but I knew the younger de Gladiel offspring would quickly discover whether or not this thief was working alone.
The thief gave me an indulgent smile as he used a fingernail to dislodge a food particle from between his yellowing teeth.
“Speak,” Julien ordered.
“It would give me great pleasure. But I can’t decide to whom I should address my address.” He waggled a finger between me and Julien. “The squire serves the knight . . . who serves the squire, but it is unclear to whom I should presume to ply my defense.”
His elocution was perfect. Refined, even. But the direction and meaning of his words was . . . less than.
Kinley and Julien exchanged a quick glance and one of their mysterious nods. Kinley then took a step toward the theif. “You may address me,” he said, “as it was my horse you were attempting to steal.”
The greasy man nodded. “I will if you insist, Second Knight of the Boy, though it does your Lord Squire little honor to his station.” He bowed. “I am Taef de Emwyk and I am no horse thief. I prefer to think of myself as a diplomat to the equine citizens of E’veria.”
The sun chose that moment to send its first rays into our camp and its westward glow helped to better delineate the stranger’s filthy features.
He had looked more appealing in the darkness.
“A diplomat, you say?” Kinley arched an eyebrow. “To . . . horses?” His tone was curious, but cautiously so. Like the rest of us, he was trying to discern whether the man was a calculatingly shrewd criminal or simply insane and deserving of our pity.
“Yes, indeed! Your horse and I—a fine specimen, I might add—negotiated an agreement this morning. My alliance with him is now sure.”
He smiled at us, the picture of blinking innocence. None of us knew how to respond.
“My liege desires a guide and the worthy steed desires oats. We bargained,” Taef de Emwyk explained, “and I am pleased to say we reached a mutually beneficial agreement.” He nodded at Kinley and added, “A skilled deal weaver, that one.”
Taef closed his eyes and kept nodding with a smile of sublime satisfaction on his face, as if he had been impressed with the horse’s business acumen.
“You say you came to an agreement with . . . my horse?” Kinley prodded.
“Yes,” the strange man replied. “I have need of serving and he has need of guiding. Also, a desire for oats.”
“Truly, sir, your cleverness exceeds my own,” Kinley said.
“You are humble beyond your years, Lowly Sir, to so readily admit to your deficiencies. Although the agreement benefits us both, I do believe the steed receives the better end of it. He is a tougher negotiator than I.”
Erielle strode up behind Risson. With a nod toward Julien, she said, “All clear.” And then, pushing a surprised Kinley aside, she moved to stand directly in front of the would-be thief. At once she took a step backward, tucked her head to the side, and wrinkled her nose, making me glad I was farther away and upwind of the man.
“Thief,” she said, facing him again, “I would ask a question of you.”
The stranger folded his hands in front of him and inclined his head in assent.
“In return for allowing you the temporary care of Sir Kinley’s worthy horse,” she said, “will you show us which cave contains the ruins of the cells destroyed by The First?”
The smile fell from the man’s countenance as if a heavy cloth had washed it away.
“My Lord Squire,” he sounded unaccountably offended, “indeed I know the place of which you speak, but I would not divulge its location for all the horses and oats in E’veria, be they the property of Enslaved Knights or,” he turned his gaze to me, “Majestic Squires.” He took a breath and rubbed a shaking hand across his brow. “Only one may take the rise.”
A collective intake of breath was the only sound that permeated our camp. Stepping close enough to the scoundrel that I was forced to swallow the bile that rose in my throat at his stench, I locked eyes with him and spoke the next line of poetry from the scrolls.
“With mane of fire and sky-jeweled eyes?”
His eyes widened.
“Nothing for it, then,” Erielle grinned at me. “Show him the fire.”
I ripped the squire’s cap and hairpiece from my skull, wincing a bit for the hairs that were sacrificed to that hurried action.
The would-be thief fell to his knees.
“Ryn Naia!” he cried. “I have lived to see the Ryn Naia!” He rocked back and forth, weeping as he sang the words. “Ryn Naia. Ryn Naia!”
My breath caught. The joy and relief in his words stung my eyes with sudden emotion.
“It would seem we have found our scoundrel ally,” Julien said softly. Turning to Erielle, he asked, “How did you guess?”
“His manner of speaking was strange and,” she interrupted herself with a laugh, “annoying! Even walking the perimeter of the camp, I found myself so wearied of his nonsense that I wished to gag him, chain him to a tree, and leave him there.” She shrugged. “Then when you called him ‘thief’ the poetry came to my mind.”
“His name!” Dyfnel had a strange look on his face. “I should have known.”
“Indeed.” Edru looked as if he wanted to strangle himself. “In the Ancient Voice, Tae
f de Emwyk means thief descended from a seat of power.”
“Not descended from,” Taef said, shaking his head sadly. “Stolen. The thief was stolen. By a servant of the worst horse thief E’veria will ever know. And the least equine of them all.”
Silence reigned as we tried to make some sort of sense of that statement.
“Regardless,” Edru finally said, “I doubt he would have made away with the horse. He was sent to us by The First.”
Risson sheathed his sword, grinning. “We begin!”
We welcomed Taef into our company, though we were careful to sit as far upwind as we could without causing offense to our strange new guide. After building up the dwindling fire, we invited him to join us in finishing off the rations of dried meat, cheese, and hardened biscuits Fennik had sent with us, along with a pheasant Risson had snared and cooked. It was a good meal, if gamey, but we were well used to forest fare by now. Besides, it would be our last real food for . . . we didn’t know how long.
Much more important than food, we wanted to make sure to be able to shoulder the torches I’d been gifted from the Andoven on Tirandov Isle. In addition, we had each hoarded one change of clothes, tightly wrapped in oiled and waxed skins, to wear after we’d gotten through the wet and cold the scrolls promised us.
As we left our camp, Taef had a spring in his step, and even though part of me wanted to drag my feet all the way to the cave, my heart was eased when he offered to take our horses to the northern side of the mountain where the scrolls had predicted we would eventually exit once our task within was completed.
If our task within was completed, that is.
If we survived.
I shook my head to dispel the morbidity. That sort of thinking wouldn’t help any of us.
“A horse in the company of the Ryn Naia would rather serve her in starvation than eat the best oats my Regent’s horse-house has to offer,” Taef spoke up.
“Your liege is the Regent of Shireya, then?” I asked.
“You are my liege and my hope, Ryn Naia,” he answered vaguely. “I claim no other allegiance, though an allegiance may have claim on me, and I on it in days long past.”