by Jenna Rhodes
“Or it can mean that we have no chance of cutting them off. They could be days ahead of us in travel.”
“As my da would have said, no planting ensures no harvest.”
Bregan considered him. “Your father was a fine caravan guard in his day. Disciplined and yet hell on wheels. Raiders stayed away on the mere chance he might be guarding the caravan that trip.”
Tolby spoke little of his youth, yet Garner was not surprised to hear Bregan’s evaluation. He gave a nod of comprehension and then toed his boot into the other. “That was then. Tell me how to read the tiles, and I’ll be going by myself if necessary.” He stood and dusted himself off.
“I would if I could.”
“It does you no good to keep me back. You can fend for yourself out here.”
“I’m not keeping you back on my account!”
They locked eyes. Bregan sucked in a breath. “Do you accuse me of lying about the tiles?”
Garner lifted and dropped a shoulder diffidently.
“I make deals that could buy and sell most cities at the shake of my hand, the promise of my word.”
“When it profits you, I’ve no doubt of that.”
“There is no benefit in this but death.”
“Then you’re as blind and useless as that timepiece of yours if you can’t see that even one life saved is profitable.”
Bregan got to his feet. He bent to straighten his trousers under the brace and check the strapping that held it in place, wincing a bit as he did. It might be chafing him a bit, but Garner couldn’t find much sympathy. The trader walked and even ran when others less fortunate might be hobbled for life. Oxfort looked up to see Garner considering him and must have read the expression, for he flushed a little. “I’ll take you in, show you the first tile we find.”
“And then?”
“Whether you can read it or not, first we come out, get water and eat. It doesn’t do anyone any good if we drop.”
Garner told him, “I’ll set a snare first.” He patted his pockets down for a bit of twine and a peg, a useful thing Dwellers carried that could be used for snaring or even fishing, if it came to that. He’d rather fish, but the brooklet here was far too reedy and insubstantial to have more than frogs basking in it. He went down to the water anyway and set his snare near a bevy of small paw prints before rejoining Bregan.
The tunnel had grown dark again and they stumbled against each other until Bregan’s searching touch found what he was looking for. At the glide of his fingertips over it, the tile lit and its glow illuminated the passage just enough to see by. Bregan drew him to it. “Can you see the brushstrokes over the tile? The sigils and runes?”
Garner all but put his nose to it. The tile had been glazed masterfully and held a pleasing pattern to it, but he could see nothing remarkable about it that could be deciphered and read. Finally, he shook his head in regret. “Maybe a pattern or a decoration, a floret, nothing more.”
“I can’t see the runes till I touch the tile, although I can sense the tiles wherever they are placed.” Bregan put his palm over it. “Magicked, I suppose, like the Elven Ways of the Vaelinar.”
“Then I’ll go without the tiles.”
“You’ll never find your way. You’ll wander under these mountains until . . .”
“No choice is there? I won’t be having much of a life to live if I know that I might have done something to save others, and didn’t.”
“Dwellers always did have a stubborn streak.”
“Aye. That comes from doing things ourselves and not waiting for the Gods to speak to us. The Gods help those who are already doing the deed.”
“Do you think? Or perhaps they’re just always watching you because you’re entertaining?”
Garner punched Bregan in the bicep and the trader laughed. He rubbed his arm and waved. “Out, out, I’m hungry and then we’ll brave being the heroes.”
As luck and skill would have it, Garner’s snare had caught a small coney. He prepared it gratefully for roasting while Bregan managed to strike a fire and rig a spit. While he cooked and the waterskins were being filled to bursting, he pondered their course of action. As gambling men, he and Oxfort both knew that whatever they planned, it would be against all odds.
Bistane sang. Whether loud enough to be heard by her troops or quietly enough that only his mount, ears flicking back and forth, heard the crooning, he had not been quiet. Lara supposed that he would have a battle chant ready on his lips when, if, they reached the Ashenbrook. Now he paused before starting a new ballad, one that tore at her heart when she recognized it:“Over hills of drifting mist and
valleys cupped low with sun,
we wander yet, our souls in search
of the lost Trevilara.
Her name is forever burned
and yet stays buried,
carried on every wind and treasured breath.
Trevilara is lost and gone before us all,
A final hope, waiting for our death.
Oh, Trevilara, if I could but know you
If I could see and touch you through sorrow’s rain,
My spirit would soar beyond the silences
Of all the stars, and my soul come home again.”
She put her hand out to stop his song. Bistane turned wondering blue eyes to her, and then dipped his chin in understanding.
He smoothed the reins in his hand. “I give it five more days before we reach the fighting plains.”
“I know.”
“My father will hold.”
“That, I know, too. Only at what cost.” She looked away, over the dry highlands as they rode, past the bountiful lands of Larandaril, out of range of the blessing of the sacred river Andredia. She saw, as she knew Bistane did, land struggling as it was to survive without the bane of armies marching through and blood staining the ground instead of needed rain.
“I am old enough,” she murmured, “but I cannot remember a drought like this.”
“And I older, nor can I.”
“After the battle, we shall have to send engineers throughout the lands. See what conservation we can work. Set to building irrigation canals. We can’t depend on chance to break the dry spell.”
“It could only be a season or two.”
“Or it may be the beginning of a cycle which our farmers cannot survive without our help.”
“There are Kernan weather witches . . .”
“I’ve consulted them,” Lara told him. “Dry as a stone, they told me, for years to come. They are frightened.”
“Then we shall have to take whatever steps we can.”
“Your word on that?”
His blue-within-sharp-blue eyes met hers, eyes of blue with gold and silver, and his face became very solemn. “My word to my queen.”
“Good.” She put a hand to the nape of her neck and rubbed there, as if easing a tension. “My vantanes show me a pitched battle. The warlord holds his own, but . . . the cost is mounting.”
He had no immediate answer. When he found one, his words were cut short by a shout from one of the troops riding point.
“Smoke!”
Lara wheeled her mount around and caught up with the scout. “Yes, I see.” She frowned at the very thin snake of blue-gray smoke undulating into the air. “Not much of a campfire.”
“Not a lightning strike, or we’d be facing wildfire.”
“No.” She weighed losing time against finding out who might be camped in the middle of nowhere. She signaled for the scout to proceed. “Let’s see who is having an early dinner.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
"I AM FREEZING,” Nutmeg grumbled, hugging her arms about herself. She jogged to keep pace with the strides of the others, cursing long-legged humans silently. Even being forced to lead their horses didn’t seem to slow them at all. Her hair worked its way loose from its tieback for the twentieth time that day . . . had it been a day? . . . and she pfuffed stray curls away from her forehead and eyes in aggravation. The day before she’d worn it braide
d, so it had been a day and then two . . . she gave up trying to reckon time.
Rufus gave his customary grunt in response. He fumbled for a moment in the pockets of the leathery apron he wore under his armor like some others wore shirts before fishing out a handful of jerky bits and pushing them onto her. “Eat. Chew slowly.”
As if she had any choice, jerky being what it was, but she shoved the first one into her mouth with a grateful, “Thank you!” around the tough, dry piece. Salty, sweet goodness swelled in her mouth as she chewed. And chewed. And finally got it softened enough so that she could savor it before swallowing.
“Not good on march,” Rufus observed.
“They threw us in the cellar for two days,” Nutmeg told him. “Without food! I started off cold and hungry.”
The Bolger showed his tusks in a grin. “Little one always hungry.”
She had to agree with him. “Lately, anyway.” She would have added more, in her defense, but Rufus put up a grizzled hand, stopping her abruptly. He waved back at Tiforan and Lyat, and they all plowed to a halt, the tunnel glimmering faintly about them.
“Hear, smell, something.”
When they stopped, she became aware that the muffled noise that she had been hearing for quite a while now, like the drumming of a heartbeat within the mountain, had grown louder. But it was not near, or so she hoped, not knowing what she heard. Was it the pulse of the beast Rufus told them had made the tunnels even though he said it had gone to the sea and died? Could another such great reptile still live within the stone, its venom cutting endless loops of passages around them? Would it have a great heartbeat that echoed and thrummed throughout the mountain?
The Bolger listened for a long while before clucking at the back of his throat. He flashed his tusks. “This way.”
Nutmeg balked. “How do you know?”
Rufus patted her back stiffly. “She always smell like flower. Even here.” He cast his glance about the tunnel. “Even here.”
“Good enough for me, then.”
“If not, then I suggest you drop behind and let us finish our mission,” Tiforan commented from behind them. “I can have food and water left with you as well as designating a way out.”
Nutmeg threw him a look over her shoulder. “And what would that mission be?” He did not know Rivergrace had been charged with treason, nor did he seem to be in pursuit of her. In fact, he seemed to regard Rufus as leading them toward an objective for which Tiforan had no time or patience.
“I think,” Tiforan answered dryly, “if you had the confidence of Lord Diort, I would have been informed of it before starting out. Therefore, you do not know because you are not supposed to know, and I intend to leave it at that.”
Even in the half-light, he could sound haughty. Nutmeg decided to take a stab at his arrogance. “You won’t take her without a fight.” Whether it was Lariel or even Tressandre that the Galdarkans pursued, she knew they were not up to the task. Did they not have female soldiers within their nomadic ranks? Barbaric to think they might not and could underestimate capturing either woman with only a man or two. Behind her, she could hear someone stumble and catch himself at her words, and she smiled in satisfaction. She thought she caught a wink from Rufus as they followed a curve in the tunnel and a new tile panel began to glow in response to their presence.
Rufus made a signal for silence and passed it to all three of them. Tiforan made a tsking noise but held his tongue even though the expression on his face looked as if he had been sucking a particularly tart berry. She slowed gratefully when he brought them down to a walk, and then she thought she could hear voices.
“. . . you’re still bleeding.”
“I can’t be. That must be sweat.”
“It’s too cold in here to sweat.”
“I’m not cold. I am burning up.”
Her heart leaped. She knew the voices. Dropping her mount’s reins, Nutmeg wheeled her short legs into a run, dimly seen tunnel ahead of her or not. “Rivergrace!” she cried even as Tiforan raced after her to stop her, his hand catching and losing its grasp on her skirt. “Sister!”
“There. Tight?” Rufus asked her, as he knotted a last strapping into place and frowned at Rivergrace. Grace put her hand on his forearm, unable to believe that her old friend had survived and returned to find her, and murmured, “Thank you.”
He rubbed a rough finger along her cheek. “Little flower, little one. Rufus never forget.”
“We put you on a pyre in honor.”
“Like chief. Grateful, but I not dead.” He grunted as he wiped his hands on his apron and stood. “Crawled off, healed.”
She hugged him.
Tiforan, the envoy of Abayan Diort, looked annoyed at the whole proceeding. Sevryn stood with his back braced to the tunnel as Nutmeg ministered apple vinegar to his cuts in cleaning, the Bolger’s packs having yielded a field kit of remedies and bandaging. Tiforan had already handed over an ointment for Rivergrace’s wounds. “Is the bleeding stopped?”
“For now, clean and dry.”
“Excellent.” He unsheathed his sword, swung with the flat of the blade and knocked Rufus flat upon his back. Tiforan addressed the now unmoving Bolger, “I will tell my lord you served us well. My mission could not have been completed without you.”
Even as Nutmeg and Sevryn launched themselves at the Galdarkan in one move, the horses panicked and fled down the tunnel. All the Dweller and the half-breed accomplished was to block and tangle each other. Lyat took out Sevryn with a well-placed blow on the back of the head, pinning Nutmeg under his limp form with no chance to fight free before Tiforan had her tied and roped to Rufus. Grace made not a move except to fall back and cling to the tunnel, swaying with the effort just to stay on her feet.
Rivergrace’s eyes fluttered. “What . . . ?”
“A little something extra in the Bolger’s ointment. Nothing harmful.” Tiforan didn’t even seem bothered by the loss of the horses, merely flicking a finger at Lyat. “Carry her.”
The scribe moved to catch Grace as she wilted helplessly and he hoisted her over one shoulder.
Nutmeg’s mouth curled in contempt. “You wanted her all along!”
Tiforan paused in his binding of Sevryn. “My lord is not the ignorant soldier he’s been taken for. He knew the offering of Lady Rivergrace was bait or pawn, intended to disservice the lady. Daravan hoped to put off interest in that which he valued most, but at the same time, if taken, would cause the most disruption. Therefore, Diort takes the bait. We will see why this lady is of value to the Warrior Queen and to Daravan.” He tugged one last knot tight at Sevryn’s ankles.
Tiforan nodded at Lyat, and the two left even as Nutmeg shouted after them until she grew hoarse and they had disappeared from sight.
She quieted only when the ominous drumming grew ever nearer and she could tell then, it was the boot stamps of hundreds.
“I’m disappointed in famed Dweller hospitality. There should be enough roasted—whatever that is—to feed everyone.” Lara rested her hands lightly on her mount’s withers and looked down at Bregan Oxfort who had clearly seen much better days and a Dweller who, by the looks of him, had to be related to Nutmeg Farbranch. That sturdy family clung to her as troublesomely as firestick burrs.
Oxfort, dirty and disheveled, his face barely scrubbed clean, gave her a half bow which was as discourteous as it was body weary. He looked, frankly, as if he had been dragged behind one of his caravans. Her eyebrow arched at him.
“You are late, Highness, for your war.”
“Unavoidably delayed.”
“Then take my advice and go not at all, for there won’t be anything left to save but yourself.”
Bistane’s horse took a leap forward as if his rider’s legs had tightened about his flanks. He reared to a stop just short of Oxfort. Bistane leaned down a little, eyes narrowed at the trader. “Do you suggest Lariel is cowardly?”
“No,” Bregan told him wearily. “It’s the truth. We saw the Jewel of Tomarq sh
attered and Istlanthir murdered . . .”
Lara turned her head abruptly to the rear of her troops. “Tranta, can you hear?”
Tranta Istlanthir brought his horse to the forefront, just behind Lariel, and answered quietly, “I do.” He squeezed his eyes hard shut a moment, before opening them to stare at Garner. “You would be, if I’m not mistaken, Sevryn’s man there?”
“I was. It was not,” and Garner’s voice shook openly, “not a good death, m’lord. Not a clean one, but a very hard one. His body . . . his body and soul seemed torn apart . . . and little was left but shreds for the kites to fight over. You could not even tell,” and Garner swallowed hard, “that a man had died there.”
Tranta cleared his throat twice. “He Returned, then, as some Vaelinar do. Gods help him.” He cleared his throat a third time. “Who killed him?”
“Quendius, with a most unnatural arrow,” Bregan informed him. “The same he used to strike the Jewel. How it shattered it, I couldn’t tell you, but it did.”
“As Osten died,” stated Lariel. Her horse turned in a restive circle, and she brought her mount around so she could face them again. “We know all this, or most of it. It explains none of why you are here and why you would accuse me of dalliance to my advantage.”
Bregan put his hand up and came to stand by her knee and stroke her mount’s neck quietly. “Lariel, with the Shield gone, a navy came to Smuggler’s Coast and landed an army there for Quendius. It marches to Ashenbrook, and there is a small chance we can get there before it, but not much of one. We deserted it and were gathering strength before trying to find a way to warn you.”
Her face paled. Her hair lay tumbled about her shoulders and she brushed it back in a glinting of gold and silver. “What army?”
“The Raymy. We ran in front of it, myself and a few hundred caravan guards, allied to Quendius before we knew of his foul treachery, and I . . . I bolted at the first opportunity, and took Garner with me to keep myself alive.” Bregan rubbed the horse’s neck as if he could not bear to meet Lariel’s eyes. “Stories of old don’t do them justice. They eat their own dead and wounded, as well as any they might fight. They’re not human but perhaps of a reptile breed. They will sweep across our lands like an unstoppable plague.”