by Damien Lake
Torrance nodded. “You can’t make the majors send a second search party after Marik with your ranting. If anything, it will further sour them on the entire concept.”
“I am aware of that. If they have not opened their eyes yet, then they never will. I simply walked over to inform you that a horse will be missing from the herd in the morning.”
“What do you expect to accomplish by this?”
Dietrik returned Torrance’s measured gaze. “What can be accomplished by sitting on our hands?”
Several moments passed with only the wind snatching at their clothing. At last, the commander replied, “If he is alive, I believe he would be best served by returning to his studies with Tollaf.”
“I will be certain to pass that advice along, commander.”
Torrance returned to his private contemplation while Dietrik walked into the storm’s teeth, his mind already miles to the south along the Stoneseams’ base.
Chapter 19
“Hurry up!”
“I can’t…I’m trying…”
Wyman reach down to grab the city mage by his collar. He hauled the man up with a strangling jerk and a muffled yelp.
“They’re here,” Marik hissed. He crouched behind the mountain scrub. Wyman finished pulling the city mage the last two feet over the edge, then lay flat with him. The mage’s boots would be visible if the Arronath patrol happened to look exactly the right way at the right time, and if the moon broke through the clouds.
The group held a collective breath while five soldiers in black armor marched through the pass they had only seconds before vacated. Their helms bobbed past level with the city mage’s quivering soles.
A moment later they were gone. Wyman forced the man to keep laying still until Marik drifted overhead in the etheric to ensure their safety. At his nod, the two men crawled to the others on hands and scraped knees.
“Before we go back into the cursed mountains,” Marik hissed to Caresse through darkness made nearly absolute by the thick cotton fields blanketing out the stars, “you’re certain about this trail?”
“Indeed, I am,” the wizardess confirmed. Marik could feel Lynn’s exasperated eyes fixed on him from a point off to Caresse’s left. “The stone told me about it right before we crawled into the pass, so it did. I have been checking since we climbed up to get away from the patrol.”
“And?”
“Oh, umm…well, if we were not in the Stoneseams, we could walk to the trail in about…four candlemarks.”
“If the going is as rough as it has been,” Wyman interjected, “we can count on spending all of tomorrow to reach it.”
“Looks like,” Lynn agreed. “Including the descent once we reach the trail, if we sleep until first light, we could be out of the mountains around tomorrow night.”
“We aren’t about to sleep right where the next patrol might hear your snoring,” Marik ordered, taking slight satisfaction in needling Lynn. “Wyman, you hold onto…Caresse. Everyone, if you don’t have a means for seeing in the darkness, hold onto a person who does. We’ll push on for as far as we can until we find a spot where we can rest until dawn.”
Marik offered silent praise to Ercsilon that none needed to clutch him. His wounds had improved greatly over the days with his constant inner channeling whenever they stopped moving, yet they still sent lances of pain through his flesh if he suddenly twisted his body awkwardly. Getting out of these cursed mountains would be a major step toward seeing to their recovery. He put the pass through which the Taurs had stampeded centuries ago to his back and slowly pushed deeper into the Stoneseams once again.
* * * * *
For the first time in his entire memory, Dietrik blessed the rain. Its cold, miserable, dreary curtains concealed his presence better than his meager scouts-man skills could.
Though he had meant to depart the camp before first light, that had become impossible. The herd-masters had chosen that day to inspect each mount for any minor injuries that might have been sustained during the apocalyptic collapse. Sneaking off with one meant running square into busybodies with too many questions.
The morning candlemarks seemed scarcely better. Apparently the herd-masters meant to make a thorough job of it, no doubt to satisfy the iron-backed regulations of their new superior officers. It was not until halfway to noon that Dietrik’s patience finally wore out.
Bold as an alpha wolf, he had entered the herd in a manner to suggest urgent business. He pointed to the nearest mount, snapped a question about whether it would endure under an urgent courier run and led the horse away before the handlers could string their words together coherently. After obtaining gear, he rode at a gallop into the gray sheets beyond the camp sentries.
It was his bloody luck that saw to it that a boon of this nature would make him winter-frozen in the late spring. Marik would owe him more than a barking boon on this one!
So, where to look? He only had the entire Stoneseams range to search. Marik could have found his way down at any bloody point.
Dietrik ruled out the pass near Armonsfield at once. Technically he already rode through contested territory. That pass was unquestionably enemy ground. Marik was smart enough to climb down before going that far, whatever effort it required. Marching headlong into an enemy position alone would be…well… The lad had put a lance into that swollen head of his. He would not take on such odds alone any longer.
A means of entering the mountains from below would serve as a good landmark in the search. The Stoneseams were not noted for them. Very few passages into the mountains existed, let alone leading through them. It had always been far easier to ride north from the Southern Road and hook around the last peak rather than traverse the sketchy route the pass led to if one needed to enter Tullainia. As far as he knew, the inner ranges were as barren as any mountain could be. No reason for anyone to go in there.
He rode shivering in the wet, his horse no less happy. It disliked being away from its fellows where it could huddle with them for warmth. Dietrik kept a firm hand on the reins and a heel in its ribs when it slowed or showed inclinations of abandoning the foolhardy quest.
Along the mountains’ base he rode for five candlemarks. Visibility was cut to roughly a hundred feet by his judgment. He forced his mount to hug the granite uprisings so he could examine every inch of them as he passed, intent on finding the way up that would bring Marik back down.
Forms were indistinct masses behind the watery veil. Numerous times he forced his horse to stop because the lumpish figures that were actually bushes resembled enemy soldiers. It might have been laughable had they not twice actually been.
On those times, when the foreign voices cut through the wet cacophony, Dietrik had dropped to hug his mount around its neck. It reduced his profile, robbed it of the distinctive silhouette, and forced his horse’s head lower so it was less inclined to move.
The soldiers had moved on without pausing.
A fortuitous rainfall indeed. Two and the stake to the Lady Fate, as Kerwin would undoubtedly say.
It was mid-afternoon. Dietrik started re-contemplating his options. His horse’s pace was drastically slowed by the heavy rain, yet he would run into that bloody pass sooner or later. The Arronaths still held it for use in importing additional supplies and men from Tullainia. From the field reports it sounded as if they were still bringing the majority of their forces through the pass. Probably on the hope that troop movements through the Stoneseams would be more difficult for the Galemarans to detect than if they brought them openly across the plain.
He had snaffled extra provisions from the supply wagons on the worst-case that he would be forced to camp alone in hostile territory. The horse could forage. It would, in all likelihood, consume as much water as it needed while eating the sodden grass. Dietrik could risk no fire with Arronaths about, assuming he could ever start one using drenched wood as fuel.
But what to do on the morrow? It was possible he had missed a viable route up the granite face in the concea
ling weather. Should he ride back and search the mountains with greater care? He refused to believe for a moment that no one had survived whatever devastation had smashed the overlook. Someone could have easily survived but been unable to reach the game trail down. Dietrik had seen a matching pathway exiting the far side of the treacherous funnel. Survivors could have fled into the mountains.
He felt the dilemma clutching him. Marik had survived twice before. Survived damage ghastly enough that it made him wonder which deity held his friend in such high esteem. It was unthinkable that death could have claimed him in a situation where a clear escape route beckoned.
Dietrik would stay out, searching as long as the rain held out. And beyond, perhaps, if he could concoct a means by which he might avoid any Arronath force on the move. Somewhere existed a way into these damned mountains. If Marik had failed to come down by the time Dietrik found it, he might be forced to climb above to carry on the search.
His thoughts repeated fiercely through the silent universe of his mind. They so engrossed him that he realized with a jolt that he had not been studying the passing mountain wall for a quarter-mile. Dietrik shoved away his distraction angrily…finding a figure looming in murky gloom ahead.
He reacted too quickly. His yank on the reins jerked the horse’s head around harshly enough that it whinnied in protest. Dietrik cursed and drew his rapier.
The figure in the rain remained still. Dietrik hesitated. Was it a man standing alone, or merely a deceptively shaped tree? Could it, in fact, be Marik, frozen still because he realized a rider bore down on him, hoping to pass unnoticed?
Dietrik cautiously nudged his mount into a slow walk. With every equine step, the shape gained definition about the edges. Soon there was no question that it was a man. A man aware of Dietrik’s presence and waiting patiently for him to come closer.
Shivers ran down Dietrik’s back when he came close enough to see details. This man…was clad in vivid crimson hues from his flaming hair to his wine-colored boots. Satin flashed from his coat lining where the wind made it billow around his legs. He did not need to see the eyes to know the irises would be twin rubies clear as glass.
“I surmise that you have understanding in regards to my identity,” the man clad in red greeted Dietrik. “Yes, it is clear to me. The bonds of loyalty between your kech and that of the man Marik Railson are evident to my eye.”
“Pardon? My what?” Dietrik kept his rapier firmly in hand, making his suspicion plain in his voice over the roaring water.
The stranger smiled, and Dietrik noticed the terrible damage for the first time. Covering the left side of his face was a ghastly, raw burn. It arced in a crescent from hairline to chin, barely missing his eye and lips. As his horse drew closer still, the details repulsed Dietrik.
Red and black were intimately mixed throughout the wound. Thin, blackened skin ran like forked lighting around brilliant scarlet patches of raw flesh. In fact, with no traces of fresh blood, it looked like etched leather. Dietrik was put in mind of the gator-skin vests the Vyajionese traders wore, the texture scaly from the swap-creatures’ hides.
The Red Man evinced no display of pain from his burned features. “It is my pardon that should be begged. Kech is a word without adequate translation in your tongue. Your language contains a close suggestion which fails to capture kech in its complexity. That word would be soul.”
“Some sort of soul-reader, is it?” Dietrik kept his face neutral. “I might have believed that bit, except you accosted that same friend of mine you mentioned earlier. Why didn’t you know who he was before you attacked?”
A smile played on the lips beneath the twisted face. “Simplest to see are the bonds which are freshest. No, I do not peer into your soul, as you mistake my meaning. Reading kech is likened to a floral fragrance. A smell to surround that which produces it. So too do certain images hover within your aura. Most clear is the face belonging to the son of my kkan’edom.”
Dietrik wavered, but held his rapier firm at the ready. “Indeed? Sounds like those charlatan palm-readers who make the rounds during festival time.”
“Perhaps you require further imagery? They are nonsensical to my understanding, yet also within your kech can be seen a long pier over water, crafted from wood planking. The wood sways most pronounced with the motion of each wave. Too can be discerned an auburn woman with lilac—”
“Enough! You have made your point!” Dietrik slid shakily from the saddle. “Stranger, I do not care for people knowing more of me than I wish to offer.”
“Sincere apologies are then offered,” the Red Man said with a half-bow. “Since my unexpected encounter in Thoenar, I have made it habit to utilize the esoteric skills of my heritage until such time as this mission attains a conclusion.”
“That sounds like a fancy way of saying you were caught with your breeches down.”
“Marik Railson came unto me without a warning. An encounter that seems neutral, where any such would usually come as a hindrance. Yet under the laws regulating causality, where exists a positive, so too must there also exist a corresponding negative.”
“Well, old chap, keep your eyes peeled then, is my advice.” He drove his rapier home into its sheath. “But as I understand matters, ‘neutral’ is hardly the same as ‘positive’.”
“Such is best evaluated whilst examining events in hindsight. The meeting of son and father may yet turn out to be beneficial. If so, then it may be the harbinger of ills to come, or it may be the counterbalance to past travails. One must proceed with increased caution under such uncertainty.”
“You aren’t proceeding anywhere at present,” Dietrik observed. “You are standing like a willful child in the rain, ignoring your mother’s advice. Were you waiting for me?”
Rain cascaded in smooth sheets over the right side of that amused face. On the left, it roiled over the red patches in a whitewater torrent. “Here I stand on the watch for a man with whom I have business. Yet it is regretful that I reveal that man not to be you.”
“A man you have business with.” At the words, Dietrik heard Marik speaking in his memory, relating the conversation he’d had with Rail in the Queen’s Head. “Hold up a moment! There’s only one chap the likes of you has business with! You know what happened at the Citadel, don’t you? He was there, wasn’t he? That man you have been chasing with Marik’s father! Rail said the fellow might be heading our way.”
“An astute mind. I take your words to imply that you were present at the fall of the Arronathian Citadel, or have knowledge of it. Your actions were well planned, destroying the gift of Humus by the only means through which you had the power to accomplish your ends.”
“So, I am right.” Dietrik stared at the stranger without blinking despite the water running into his eyes. “The destruction of the overlook doesn’t make any sense, unless someone wanted to stop the mages from destroying the Citadel by killing them all first. Marik said he doubted any magic users would be free to find them, let along throw out a counterstrike. They would all be too busy fighting to keep the place from flipping over.”
“An accurate assessment, excepting for the presence of one Xenos.”
“He was there! Damn, but we never figured on that…”
“A troublesome one, is he. And never one to act as others predict.”
“Wait. You know he was there? You are absolutely certain?”
The Red Man traced his garish wound with a gloved finger. “What lays before your eyes is the result of his power. A rear strike I attempted when presented with the opportunity. The man who once was Xenos bent his concentration on a cliff-side. Irregardless of my presence unknown, he survived to unfetter power beyond that of ordinary men upon my person.”
The words were meaningless. Only the fact that Marik had run smack into the mysterious figure who, by all accounts, sounded like a Devil unleashed on the world, held him captive.
“Marik survived, right? If you were watching, then you must know! How many survived the collapse
of the overlook?”
“It is not for me to say. My priorities were elsewhere during the trial of your friend.”
“Damn you for an ill omen, then!” Dietrik shouted with heated anger. “I do not care who you might be, or what ends you work toward, but it seems to me whenever you are mentioned in connection with anything, it’s a foul wind that blows. A jewel-eyed man who only causes trouble in the lives of me and my mates!”
“Calm your spirit, friend of Marik Railson,” the Red Man soothingly intoned when Dietrik harshly grabbed the saddle horn. “My business has never been with you or yours.”
“That sounds an excellent reason to shove off now. You have caused us quite enough trouble to be going on with without taking an active hand in our affairs.”
“You wish to know tidings of your friend.” The Red Man stepped lightly through the rain, his slight movements unnerving Dietrik. It almost looked as if he slid around each falling drop rather than budging on through them. At his leg, which searched blindly for the stirrup, the stranger stopped to gaze at him. Up close, the damaged flesh looked far stranger than a simple burn. “I, too, am interested in his wellbeing. My kkan’edom labors mightily in our efforts. Sad tidings concerning his offspring would a heavier burden make.”
Dietrik looked into those otherworldly eyes. He felt compelled to say, without truly understanding the meaning, “If you were looking for a negative counterbalance, you had best keep searching. Marik does not die even when you kill him.”
“That would be an outcome most suited to my desires. Therefore, let us ask the universe how fares he.”
Before Dietrik knew what the other was doing, the gloved hand reached upward. He jerked, thinking the stranger meant to grab him by his tunic and pull him from his seat.
Instead, the deep red glove closed in a gentle fist several inches from his chest. The Red Man withdrew his hand without opening it, as if imprisoning a flying insect he had plucked away in mid-flight.