Then the little dry wisp of air was gone.
Swallowing thickly, she looked around again to see Voorkei at work, Trevere down by the fire, and Sarovy watching her with his cool grey eyes, like a bird of prey. She clenched her teeth and stared back, trying not to let misery well up, trying to force a smile that would not come.
He tilted his head ever so slightly, then looked back down to his map.
Worst assignment ever, she thought.
*****
The cart rattled swiftly northward. Cob watched over the side with periodic interest. It was like seeing the trek of last year run backward, the plains giving way to soft hills and thicker, closer forest, everything becoming at first more green and then gold and orange and red. More and more, the farmed fields yielded to orchard and vineyard, to pasture and paddock. The villages close to the road were active, even prosperous--not abandoned like those between Bahlaer and Fellen, all their residents fled. As they pulled by with the storm at their heels, Cob saw banners strung between cottages. Ribbons, lanterns, sturdy tents set up against the weather. Children in colorful garb watched the approaching clouds.
Must be the harvest festival, he thought, bemused at the passage of time.
It was near noon when he first glimpsed the grey stones of Savinnor rising from the hills ahead. He swung up to the bench beside Morshoc for a better look, pretending not to notice the goblin clinging to his sleeve. Rian had progressively sidled over to him during the ride, no doubt afraid that Cob might boot it off the cart but obviously seeking comfort, and so though having the goblin even touching his clothing made him tense as a wire, Cob allowed it.
He squinted ahead at the city.
His first real time with the army had been at the north gate of Savinnor, two springs past. In the months they had laid siege to it, he had thought he’d seen everything the world could throw at him. Serpent-sorcery, Circle magic, the collapse of siege engines, the saboteurs and rebels from the northern woods, constant raids, burned villages, poisoned supplies, and lots and lots of heads on pikes. The city had been conquered by the Empire once before, and had learned to fight back.
But ultimately the walls had fallen, the ruling council executed. The troops had been pelted with paving stones when they marched through, and rotten fruit, and worse things. Like Bahlaer, Savinnor was a Shadow Cult bastion, a twisty warren of traitors and thieves.
These days, it was fairly well-behaved and under strong Imperial rule. Trade had reopened between it and the northlands, including Kerrindryr which quarried the stone that made up its grey walls. It had been strange for Cob to think, when he first approached it, that the walls he was set to assault held blocks that he had hewn during his time as a quarry slave.
“Still interested in Daecia City?” Morshoc asked, breaking him from his thoughts.
“Yeah. ‘Course I am. Why—“
“Then this is where we turn off.”
He hauled on one side of the reins before Cob could ask, and the cart-horse wheeled dramatically to the right and headed up the embankment again. Cob held on tight and felt Rian’s pointy fingers dig into his arm.
“Why—can’t—we—follow—the—cursed—road?” Cob gritted out as they bumped and lurched down the other side. The river loomed ahead, deeper and faster here as it cut like a knife through the soft hills. Morshoc steered straight for it.
“Do you really want to meet your Imperial friends so soon? Hold on.”
Cob thought again of escape, but it was already too late. The horse stormed ahead, its shod hooves clattering on the river-rocks then plunging into the water. The cart-wheels followed and the water rushed up, first axle-height, then topping the wheels and flooding in between the foot-bar and the bench. Cob pulled his legs up and felt the cart lift slightly. As unburdened as it was, it almost floated.
The current swung them backward. The traces groaned, and beneath the water Cob heard the wheels grate and smack against rocks. The cart-horse bent its heavy head and braced its hooves and somehow, through sheer muscular strength and Tasgard determination, it hauled them bit by bit toward the other side. Cob muttered a prayer under his breath as he clung tight, the rushing water chilling his ankles through his boots.
Then he noticed something. The reins had gone slack. He looked to Morshoc and saw with shock that his eyes were closed, his hands hanging loose in his lap. Reaching out quickly, Cob grabbed his shoulder and propped him up as his head sagged. Another lurch of the cart and the reins slipped free of his fingers entirely.
But the horse still pulled, practically swimming. The wheels floated free, then hit rocks again, and with a great wrench the cart began to rise from the river, shedding water and empty sacking. “Get the stuff,” Cob hissed at Rian, who nodded and leapt along the narrow edge of the cart to nab the floating bundle with prehensile toes and tail. Transferring that to its teeth, the goblin returned to his side as everything else washed away.
As the horse pulled them laboriously up the opposite bank, Cob heard a crackle, then a harsh crunch from beneath the cart. It yawed dangerously to one side, and he leaned out to see the rear wheels splayed at a diagonal. The axle had snapped.
“Pike me,” Cob said, and let go of Morshoc as the horse drew to a stop. Before he could swing off, though, the Corvishman straightened.
“Stay,” said Morshoc. “I’ll deal with it.”
Cob stared after him as he swung down and scurried around the cart, then slung himself under it. A bit of muttering in some odd rough language and suddenly the splayed wheel yanked itself back into position. After a moment, so did the other one.
Morshoc slid back out and heaved himself onto the bench, and grabbed the reins.
“What did you—“
“Off we go!”
And that was that. Cob hung on for dear life as Morshoc steered them wildly into the countryside, through tall grass and brush, past orchards and thickets and the small villages that patchworked the landscape. Up and down pebbled hillsides, ignoring all trails, once scattering a herd of goats in his fixation on going as straight-on as possible. The herder shouted curses and chased them for the length of a hill, and Cob cringed and wished he still had a hat to pull down to hide his face.
And Savinnor grew distant again, fading to the west as they cut northeast toward the great high wall of the Rift.
*****
“You said he was in front of us!”
“And now not,” said Voorkei with more patience than Sarovy could have mustered. The ogrekin mage shook the makeshift dowsing wand at the Hunter, the goblin-tooth bound to its tip glimmering with residual magic. “Shifted avay.”
“I don’t believe this,” seethed Trevere as he struggled to draw his skittish Sky horse closer to the mage on the burly Tasgard. “Seriously, I don’t believe this. Where is he now?”
Voorkei gestured northeast, and Sarovy winced. Since reaching Savinnor and extricating from the curious Crimson garrison, they had been riding south along the trade road, watching the stormclouds pile up ahead and wondering when the fugitive would show.
At least we won’t get rained on again, Sarovy thought with bitter humor.
“How can he be out there? I thought you said there were no cross-cutting roads!”
“There aren’t,” said Sarovy. “They must be going overland.”
“This can’t be happening.”
“We can still catch them. Voorkei, the trace still works?”
“Hyes.”
“Then we follow them overland. If they’ve ditched the cart, it’s still three riders on one horse. If they haven’t, they can’t be moving that quickly.”
“Are we even sure that the goblin is with him?” Trevere shouted. The whites showed all around his eyes. Sarovy did not like that look.
“No,” said Voorkei. “Hyou trust, or hyou go vack to General enfty-handed, hyes?”
Trevere snarled at him, then wheeled his horse around and set his heels to its flanks, urging it off the road and down to the water. They had pa
ssed a few bridges on the way south but he seemed in no mood to backtrack.
Trading glances with Voorkei, Sarovy let out a short sigh and waved his men forward. Already the woman-prisoner was fording the river after Trevere, their lightweight steeds struggling in the swift water.
“At least only our boots will get wet, eh Lieutenant?” called Lancer Linciard from behind.
Sarovy snorted, allowed himself the margin of a smile, and urged his horse after.
*****
Marks had passed by the time they found a real road again, and Morshoc went over the edge with the same lunacy as before. The cart-wheels slammed into the dirt on the other side and Cob gritted his teeth, sure that something would finally shatter. But though the wood creaked alarmingly and the wheels thumped over the ruts with bone-shaking force, it all held together. Morshoc righted their course and they tore along the road at a rapid pace.
The horse should have been exhausted. And testy. Cob had never ridden, but he had been near the cavalrymen and their heavy steeds before and almost had an ear taken off by an irritated Tasgard. They were difficult to manage at the best of times.
This was not the best of times.
He had planted himself in the back of the cart again, as it afforded him some protection from the branches and thornbrush that they had started to encounter. Rian huddled in his lap. All around them, the hills were mounting—not just northward but eastward, like they did along the entire span of the Rift. Low, lumpy, rolling hills like a rug rucked up by shifted furniture, slowly rising to foothills and peaks of rubble overgrown by long ages of tectonic passivity. And beyond them, the Rift itself.
They were on the Imperial Road now. Straight ahead, beyond the foothills and the bright wash of autumn-colored forest, rose that fantastic cliff like a wall built to divide the Empire from the rest of the world. Sunlight painted the entirety of its face, detailing the black zigzag of the Great Climb that ran, thin as a stitch, from the cluster of buildings that huddled at the base of the Rift to the neck-straining vantage of its very top.
Cob’s stomach knotted as he watched the town draw nearer.
Riftward, it was called, and though it was tiny against the mighty backdrop it had the look of a blooming city. Morshoc had returned the cart to the road right before the dirt embankments ended, and now they were running along a broad, flat stretch of ground between two low stone walls that marked the approach to the town. Not far ahead, the road turned cobbled and then the buildings sprang up like mushrooms, spreading out to all sides to cover the wrinkled hills. Built of stone, brick and wood in a hodgepodge of styles and constructions, they flew banners proclaiming services and supplies and also the red flags of the Crimson border patrol. Further in, the low stone walls became raised sidewalks, separating town-traffic from Rift-traffic, while through the clutter the road ran like a river to the great earthen ramp that began the Climb.
That road and all its intersecting avenues were packed. Mounted riders, roped flocks of wild gartos, pilgrims afoot and caravans of every size and description milled and pushed their way along. A line of poles and shade-trees had been planted through the middle of the grand avenue, dividing upward traffic from downward, but quite a few of those poles had been snapped and a few horsemen rode the wrong way up, for there were not many caravans coming down. Even at a distance, the air was full of the reek of sweat and dung, the cacophony of shod hooves and nervous squeals and carters’ bellows. Children, drunkards and peddlers perched on the raised walkway, shouting catcalls and sales pitches into the din.
At the very edge of the Climb was a red-roofed booth, from which came a swarm of Crimson soldiers to check every cart and wagon before it could begin its ascent. Despite how fast they worked, they seemed to be the cause of the traffic.
“Now I know why folks turn to smugglin’,” Cob muttered.
Above him, Morshoc chuckled. “If I knew the smugglers’ routes, I would use them.”
“Thought the Corvish were the major smugglers on that side.”
“They may well be, but it is not my occupation.”
Cob turned a curious eye to his companion. Not for the first time, it occurred to him that Morshoc was very unlike what he had come to expect from a Corvishman. Not that he knew many Corvishmen, but still. He was articulate where Weshker was rough-spoken, condescending instead of cheerful, reserved and sarcastic rather than friendly to the point of familial.
And sometimes he slipped up.
“’They’?” Cob prompted.
Morshoc did not answer.
“Listen, I know there’s somethin’ wrong with you,” said Cob, watching Morshoc’s face in profile. “I don’t know what it is--maybe it’s the spirit in you, or maybe it’s jus’ the way you are--but I don’t like it. So I need you to answer me somethin’. In honesty."
“I don’t think we have time for that."
“What?”
“Look behind us.”
Wary, Cob squinted down their backtrail. The stormclouds in the distance flickered with unspent lightning, but closer on the road rose a thin plume of dust. A plume of dust flecked with red tabards.
“Oh pikes, not again,” said Cob.
“I advise you to hold on.”
“What’re you—“
The cart-wheels hit the first paving stones and Morshoc snapped the reins. Immediately their ride turned into a teeth-jarring bounce. Rian clung to Cob’s shirt and he tried to conceal the goblin with one arm while clutching the cart-side; it would not do to have someone spot the creature and scream.
Can’t believe Darilan’s still chasing me, he thought as he watched the approaching riders. Though shielded by the dust, he knew that his ex-friend would be staring right back at him. Pursuing relentlessly even though he had been the one to send Cob away.
Nothing made sense anymore.
Carts and pedestrians flashed by, shouting curses. Jostled around in the back, Cob glanced forward to see Morshoc sawing on the reins, the horse responding to every tug to navigate them through the press. The cart-edge clipped a wagon, scraping paint off with a grating shriek, and Cob winced and ducked his head as the infuriated wagoner lashed his horsewhip at them. It snapped toward Morshoc’s shoulder—
--then hit a sphere of blue light, the tip of the whip rebounding as if from a stone wall.
The breath fled from Cob’s lungs. Sorcery, he thought as the screams he had tried to avoid rose up around them anyway. Morshoc paid no heed and the glow around him faded in an instant, but it had been enough; everyone nearby now struggled to get out of their way, while those ahead turned to peer toward the sudden disruption.
I don’t believe it. Sorcery.
He had seen magic before. Plenty of it. The Silent Circle mages that attended the army were always busy maintaining the bubble-like wards that protected the camp from arcane strikes or striking back at Kanrodi and its own protective shell. He had seen them fling lances of light at the walls of Savinnor, seen them erect shimmering barriers against the wildfires in Jernizan, and he had been pressed into a chair by the Inquisitors before, his memories examined as casually as if they thumbed through a book.
But those were Imperials. The good side.
Sorcery was supposed to be different. Practiced by those in the uncivilized north or the corrupt south, it was unregulated, illegal. Dark. Only the Empire's Silent Circle mages were close enough to the Light to use the pure magic; everyone else was tainted.
Yet Morshoc's sphere of light had not looked tainted.
Is he a Circle mage in disguise?
But that was illegal too. Circle mages had to wear the robes; it was Imperial law, one of the few things that let people feel comfortable about having them around. Always visible, never permitted to hide.
In his mind's eye, he saw the dome over the army camp and the dome over Kanrodi. The red lances of the Imperials; the green of the enemy. Morshoc’s blue ward, the same as those that flared up around any Circle mage when they were struck.
Someone's bee
n lying to me.
Pikes, everyone’s been lying to me.
He stared down the road to his pursuit. All those men were hunting him because he was Dark, but the real darkness was riding among them. The liar, the monster. The killer in a friend’s guise.
“C’mon, Darilan,” he muttered under his breath, feeling a sudden clench in his brow. “Come get your greeting.”
“Normally I would call that a fantastic idea, but right now I do have to ask you to stay down.”
Cob shot Morshoc a dire look but the sorcerer’s attention was on the crowded street ahead. They scraped past another cart and the flock of gartos chained beside it hissed alarmingly, the scales standing out from their black necks and their short, useless wings flared with aggression. Their beady eyes followed Morshoc.
“Darilan’s my enemy,” Cob snapped. The pressure in his skull mounted; he thought he knew what it meant, and touched his forehead where two spots of pain had sprung. Rian wriggled in his grip and he let the goblin go. It scurried to an opposite corner and clung to the side-wall, shivering.
“Blah blah blah, honorable single combat,” said Morshoc. “Too many knight stories for you. That age is fallen. We do things my way now.”
“Oh yeah?”
The soldiers were closing in. He saw the first horse reach the cobblestones, saw the fair-haired figure bent over its straining neck. He gripped the edge of the cart and rose to his feet.
“What did I tell you?” Morshoc hissed. “Sit down!”
Cob had no blade, not even a stick. Still, something inside him spoke words of confidence while the pain clenched at his skull. That black, ruined landscape surged within him. He rolled up one sleeve, then the other.
“Sit, gods curse you!” snapped Morshoc.
He saw the rider’s eyes. Locked gazes with them. The distance shrank, the foam now visible on the horse’s muzzle, the determination and fear showing in the line of Darilan’s mouth.
Then the world went black, the sky white, and Cob felt every heartbeat around them—the flutter of each lung, the curiosity, the concern, the pure panic that had invaded all the beasts in their vicinity—
The Light of Kerrindryr (The War of Memory Cycle Book 1) Page 30