by Terry Brooks
She nodded. “Maybe. It wasn’t so long ago that they claimed to have killed him at the Jut. They said the Movement was finished.” She paused. “In any case, we’ll learn the truth at Firerim Reach.”
“We’re going?” Morgan asked quickly.
“We’re going.” She rose. “Help me pack some food. I’ll get us some blankets. We’ll slip away before it gets light. It will be better if we aren’t seen leaving.”
He stood up with her and moved over to the pantry. “What about the tavern?” he asked. “Doesn’t someone have to look after it?”
“The tavern will stay closed until I return.”
He glanced up from stuffing a loaf of bread into a sack. “You lied to me, didn’t you? You are the owner.”
She met his gaze and held it. “Try not to be so stupid, Highlander. I didn’t lie to you. I’m the manager, not the owner. The owner is Padishar Creel.”
They finished putting together supplies and sleeping gear, strapped everything across their backs, and went out the back door into the night. The air was warm and filled with the smells of the city as they hurried down empty streets and alleyways, keeping close watch for Federation patrols. The girl was as silent as a ghost, a knife-lean figure cutting smoothly through the building shadows. Morgan noticed that she wore the sword she’d kept hidden beneath the counter, the narrow blade strapped across her back beneath her other gear. He wondered, rather unkindly, if she’d brought her broom. At least her odd shoes were gone, replaced by more serviceable boots.
They passed from the city into the land beyond and marched north to the Mermidon where they crossed at a shallows and turned east. They followed the line of the Dragon’s Teeth, and by daybreak they were traveling north again across the Rabb. They walked steadily until sunset, pausing long enough at midday to eat and to wait out the worst of the afternoon heat. The plains were dusty and dry and empty of life, and the journey was uneventful. The girl spoke little, and Morgan was content to leave things that way.
At sunset they made camp close against the Dragon’s Teeth beside a tributary of the Rabb, settling themselves in a grove of ash that climbed into the rocks like soldiers on the march. They ate their evening meal as the sun disappeared behind the mountains, its hazy mix of red and gold melting across the plains and sky. When they were finished, they sat watching the dusk deepen and the river’s waters turn silver in the light of the moon and stars.
“Padishar told me you saved his life,” the girl said after a time.
She hadn’t spoken a word all through dinner. Morgan looked over, surprised by the suddenness of the declaration. She was watching him, her strange blue eyes depthless.
“I saved my own in the bargain,” he replied, “so it wasn’t an entirely selfless act.”
She folded her arms. “He said to keep watch for you and to take good care of you. He said I’d know you when I saw you.”
Her expression never changed. Morgan grinned in spite of himself. “Well, he makes mistakes like everyone else.” He waited for a response and, when there was none, said, a bit huffy, “You may not believe this but I can take pretty good care of myself.”
She looked away, shifting to a more comfortable position. Her eyes gleamed in the starlight. “What is it like where you come from?”
He hesitated, confused. “What do you mean?”
“The Highlands, what are they like?”
He thought for a moment she was teasing him, then decided she wasn’t. He took a deep breath and stretched out, remembering. “It is the most beautiful country in the Four Lands,” he said, and proceeded to describe it in detail—the hills with their carpets of blue, lavender, and yellow grasses and flowers, the streams that turned frosty at dawn and blood-red at dusk, the mist that came and went with the changing seasons, the forests and the meadows, the sense of peace and timelessness. The Highlands were his passion, the more so since his departure weeks earlier. It reminded him again how much home meant to him, even a home that was really no longer his now that the Federation occupied it—though in truth, he thought, it was still more his than theirs because he kept the feel of it with him in his mind and its history was in his blood and that would never be true for them.
She was silent for a time when he finished, then said, “I like how you describe your home. I like how you feel about it. If I lived there, I think I would feel the same.”
“You would,” he assured her, studying the profile of her face as she stared out across the Rabb, distracted. “But I guess everyone feels that way about their home.”
“I don’t,” she said.
He straightened up again. “Why not?”
Her forehead furrowed. It produced only a slight marring of her smooth features but gave her an entirely different look, one at once both introspective and distant. “I suppose it’s because I have no good memories of home. I was born on a small farm south of Varfleet, one of several families that occupied a valley. I lived there with my parents and my brothers and one sister. I was the youngest. We raised milk cows and grain. In summer, the fields would be as gold as the sun. In fall, the earth would be all black after it was plowed.” She shrugged. “I don’t remember much other than that. Just the sickness. It seems a long time ago, but I guess it wasn’t. The land went bad first, then the stock, and finally my family. Everything began to die. Everyone. My sister first, then my mother, my brothers, and my father. It was the same with the people who lived on the other farms. It happened all at once. Everyone was dead in a few months. One of the women on the other farms found me and took me to Varfleet to live with her. We were the last. I was six years old.”
She made it all sound as if it were nothing out of the ordinary. There was no emotion in her voice. She finished and looked away. “I think there might be some rain on the way,” she said.
They slept until dawn, ate a breakfast of bread, fruit, and cheese, and began their trek north again. The skies were clouding when they woke, and a short time after they crossed the Rabb it began to rain. Thunderheads built up, and lightning streaked the blackness. When the rain began to come down in torrents, they took shelter in the lee of an old maple set back against a rocky rise. Brushing water from their faces and clothes, they settled back to wait out the storm. The air cooled slightly, and the plains shimmered with the damp.
Shoulder to shoulder, they sat with their backs against the maple, staring out into the haze, listening to the sound of the rain.
“How did you meet Padishar?” Morgan asked her after they had been quiet for a time.
She brought her knees up and wrapped her arms about them. Water beaded on her skin and glistened in her black hair. “I apprenticed to Hirehone when I was old enough to work. He taught me to forge iron and to fight. After a while I was better than he was at both. So he brought me into the Movement, and that’s how I met Padishar.”
Memories of Hirehone crowded Morgan’s mind. He let them linger a moment and then banished them. “How long have you been looking after the Whistledown?”
“A couple of years. It offers an opportunity to learn things that can help the free-born. It’s a place to be for now.”
He glanced over. “But not where you want to end up, is that what you’re saying?”
She gave him a flicker of a smile. “It’s not for me.”
“What is?”
“I don’t know yet. Do you?”
He thought about it. “I guess I don’t. I haven’t let myself think beyond what’s been happening these past few weeks. I’ve been running so fast I haven’t had time to stop and think.”
She leaned back. “I haven’t been running. I’ve been standing in place, waiting for something to happen.”
He shifted to face her. “I was like that before I came north. I spent all of my time thinking of ways to make life miserable for the Federation occupiers—all those officers and soldiers living in the home that had belonged to my family, pretending it was theirs. I thought I was doing something, but I was really just standing in
place.”
She gave him a curious glance. “So now you’re running instead. Is that any better?”
He smiled and shrugged. “At least I’m seeing more of the country.”
The rains slowed, the skies began to clear, and they resumed their journey. Morgan found himself sneaking glances at Matty Roh, studying the expression on her face, the lines of her body, and the way she moved. He thought her intriguing, suggestive of so much more than what she allowed to show. On the surface she was cool and purposeful, a carefully fixed mask that hid stronger and deeper emotions beneath. He believed, for reasons he could not explain, that she was capable of almost anything.
It was nearing midday when she turned him into the rocks and they began to follow a trail that ran upward into the hills fronting the Dragon’s Teeth. They entered a screen of trees that hid the mountains ahead and the plains behind, and when they emerged they were at the foot of the peaks. The trail disappeared with the trees, and they were soon climbing more rugged slopes, picking their way over the rocks as best they could. Morgan found himself wondering, rather uncharitably, if Matty Roh knew where she was going. After a while they reached a pass and followed it through a split in the rocks into a deep defile. The cliff walls closed about until there was only a narrow ribbon of clouded blue sky visible overhead. Birds took flight from their craggy perches and disappeared into the sun. Wind whistled in sudden gusts down the canyon’s length, a shrill and empty sound.
When they stopped for a drink from the water skin, Morgan glanced at the girl to see how she was holding up. There was a sheen of sweat on her smooth face, but she was breathing easily. She caught him looking, and he turned quickly away.
Somewhere deep in the split Matty Roh took them into a cluster of massive boulders that appeared to be part of an old slide. Behind the concealing rocks they found a passageway that tunneled into the cliff wall. They entered and began to climb a spiraling corridor that opened out again onto a ledge about halfway up. Morgan peered down cautiously. It was a straight drop. A narrow trail angled upward from where they stood, the cut invisible from below, and they followed the pathway to the summit of the cliff and along the rim to another split, this one barely more than a crack in the rocks, so narrow that only one person at a time could pass through.
Matty Roh stopped at the opening. “They’ll come for us in a moment,” she announced, slipping the water skin from her shoulder and passing it to him so that he could drink.
He declined the offering. If she didn’t need a drink, neither did he. “How will they know we’re here?” he asked.
That flicker of a smile came and went. “They’ve been watching us for the past hour. Didn’t you see them?”
He hadn’t, of course, and she knew it, so he just shrugged his indifference and let the matter drop.
Shortly afterward a pair of figures emerged from the shadows of the split, bearded, hard-faced men with longbows and knives. They greeted Matty Roh and Morgan perfunctorily, then beckoned for them to follow. Single file, they entered the split and passed along a trail that wound upward into a jumble of rocks that shut away any view of what lay ahead. Morgan climbed dutifully, unable to avoid noticing that Matty Roh continued to look as if she were out for a midday stroll.
Finally they reached a plateau that stretched away north, south, and west and offered the most breathtaking views of the Dragon’s Teeth and the lands beyond that Morgan had ever seen. Sunset was approaching, and the skies were turning a brilliant crimson through the screen of mist that clung to the mountain peaks. Hence the name Firerim Reach, thought Morgan. East, the plateau backed up against a ridge grown thick with spruce and cedar. It was here that the outlaws were encamped, their roofed shelters crowded into the trees, their cooking fires smoldering in stone-lined pits. There were no walled fortifications as there had been at the Jut, for the plateau dropped away into a mass of jagged fissures and deep canyons, its sheer walls unscalable by one man let alone any sort of sizable force. At least, that was the way it appeared from where Morgan stood, and he assumed it was the same on all sides of the quarter-mile or so stretch of plain. The only way in appeared to be the way they had come. Still, the Highlander knew Padishar Creel well enough to bet there was at least one other.
He turned as a familiar burly figure lumbered up to meet them, black-bearded and ferocious-looking with his missing eye and ear and his scarred face. Chandos embraced Matty Roh warmly, nearly swallowing her up in his embrace, and then reached out for Morgan.
“Highlander,” he greeted, taking Morgan’s hand in his own and crushing it. “It’s good to have you back with us.”
“It’s good to be back.” Morgan extracted his hand painfully. “How are you, Chandos?”
The big man shook his head. “Well enough, given everything that’s happened.” There was an angry, frustrated look in his dark eyes. His jaw tightened. “Come with me where we can talk.”
He took Morgan and Matty Roh from the rim of the cliffs across the bluff. The guards who had brought them in disappeared back the way they had come. Chandos moved deliberately away from the encampment and the other outlaws. Morgan glanced questioningly at Matty Roh, but the girl’s face was unreadable.
When they were safely out of earshot, she said immediately to Chandos, “They have him, don’t they?”
“Padishar?” Chandos nodded. “They took him two nights earlier at Tyrsis.” He turned and faced Morgan. “The Valeman was with him, the smaller one, the one Padishar liked so well—Par Ohmsford. Apparently the two of them went into the Federation prisons to rescue Damson Rhee. They got her out, but Padishar was captured in the attempt. Damson’s here now. She arrived yesterday with the news.”
“What happened to Par?” Morgan asked, wondering at the same time why there had been no mention of Coll.
“Damson said he went off in search of his brother—something about the Shadowen.” Chandos brushed the question aside. “What matters at the moment is Padishar.” His scarred face furrowed. “I haven’t told the others yet.” He shook his head. “I don’t know if I should or not. We’re supposed to meet with Axhind and his Trolls at the Jannisson at the end of the week. Five days. If we don’t have Padishar with us, I don’t think they’ll join up. I think they’ll just turn around and go right back the way they came. Five thousand strong!” His face flushed, and he took a steadying breath. “We need them if we’re to have any kind of chance against the Federation. Especially after losing the Jut.”
He looked at them hopefully. “I was never much at making plans. So if you’ve any ideas at all …”
Matty Roh shook her head. “If the Federation has Padishar, he won’t stay alive very long.”
Chandos scowled. “Maybe longer than he’d like, if the Seekers get their hands on him.”
Morgan recalled the Pit and its inhabitants momentarily and quickly forced the thought away. Something about all this didn’t make sense. Padishar had gone looking for Par and Coll weeks ago. Why had it taken him so long to find them? Why had the Ohmsford brothers remained in Tyrsis all that time? And when Par and Padishar had gone into the prisons to rescue Damson Rhee, where was Coll? Did the Shadowen have Coll as well?
It seemed to Morgan that there was an awful lot unaccounted for.
“I want to speak with Damson Rhee,” he announced abruptly. He had wondered about her at the beginning, and suddenly he was beginning to wonder about her all over again.
Chandos shrugged. “She’s sleeping. Walked all night to get here.”
Images of Teel danced in Morgan’s head, whispering insidiously. “Then let’s wake her.”
Chandos gave him a hard stare. “All right, Highlander. If you think it’s important. But it will be your doing, not mine.”
They crossed to the encampment and passed through the cooking fires and the free-born at work about them. The sun had dropped further in the west, and it was nearing dinnertime. There was food in the cooking kettles, and the smells wafted on the summer air. Morgan scarcely noticed,
his mind at work on other matters. Shadows crept out of the trees, lengthening as dusk approached. Morgan was thinking about Par and Coll, still in Tyrsis after all this time. They had escaped the Pit weeks ago. Why had they stayed there? he kept wondering. Why for so long?
As the questions pressed in about him, he kept seeing Teel’s face—and the Shadowen that had hidden beneath.
They reached a small hut set well back in the trees, and Chandos stopped. “She’s in there. You wake her if you want. Come have dinner with me when you’re finished, the both of you.”
Morgan nodded. He turned to Matty Roh. “Do you want to come with me?”
She gave him an appraising look. “No. I think you should do this on your own.”
It seemed for a moment as if she might say more, but then she turned and walked off into the trees after Chandos. She knew something she wasn’t telling, Morgan decided. He watched her go, thinking once again that Matty Roh was a good deal more complex than what she revealed.
He looked back at the hut, momentarily undecided as to how he should go about bracing Damson Rhee. Suspicions and fears shouldn’t be allowed to get in the way of common sense. But he couldn’t shake the image of Teel as a Shadowen. It could easily be the same with this girl. The trick was in finding out.
He reached back over his shoulder to make certain that the Sword of Leah would slide free easily, took a deep breath, then walked up to the door and knocked. It opened almost immediately, and a girl with flaming red hair and emerald eyes stood looking out at him. She was flushed, as if she had just awakened, and her dark clothing was disheveled. She was tall, though not as tall as Matty, and very pretty.
“I’m Morgan Leah,” he said.
She blinked, then nodded. “Par’s friend, the Highlander. Yes, hello. I’m Damson Rhee. I’m sorry, I’ve been sleeping. What time is it?” She peered up at the sky through the trees. “Almost dusk, isn’t it? I’ve slept too long.”
She stepped back as if to go inside, then stopped and turned to face him again. “You’ve heard about Padishar, I suppose. Did you just get here?”