Miya put her head through the tent flaps. “We’re done. The bags are full. Sister has gone to fetch the horses.”
For years the Dom-shu women had resisted riding horseback. Their tribe were forest-dwellers in the vast woodland known as the Great Green, and regarded the use of horses as a weakness. Real men and women walked on their own two feet, the sisters always said. However, on the long campaign from Hylo to Tarsis-a distance of hundreds of leagues-Miya and Kiya had reluctantly learned to ride.
Frez and Darpo appeared, each leading two horses. Darpo was pale and stood slightly hunched, favoring his side, but he saluted his commander with fervor.
When the Dom-shu sisters returned on their own animals, Frez moved to boost his injured comrade into the saddle, but his commander intervened.
“It’s my honor,” Tol said. Darpo put his booted foot in Tol’s cupped hands, and Tol tossed him up into the saddle.
“What way do we take, my lord?” Darpo asked, in a voice shaky with pain.
Tol wanted to get to Daltigoth as quickly as possible. His fellow warlords were riding north to the Great Plains River, to circumvent the mountains and the dangerous, impenetrable Great Green. They would then turn west, entering the empire northwest of Tol’s hometown of Juramona in the province of the Eastern Hundred. That would require more than thirty days of travel. Tol had a different route in mind.
“We’ll cross the Harrow Sky Mountains,” he said, referring to the range on the west side of the Bay of Tarsis. “Then we’ll cross the hill country to the Gulf of Ergoth and take ship to the capital.”
There were raised eyebrows all around. Felryn said, “That’s rough territory, my lord.”
He was putting it mildly. The Harrow Sky hill country was a wild land, infested with bandits, petty independent warlords, and wild tribes. The coast was rife with fierce pirates. Several emperors had launched punitive expeditions to suppress the outlawry there, but none ever managed to conquer it.
“I am Prince Amaltar’s champion,” Tol said firmly. “My place is at his side, and as quickly as possible. We will cross the mountains.” Felryn didn’t like the plan, but he protested no more.
It was midmorning when Tol led his small party to Lord Regobart’s tent. The commander of the Army of the East was surrounded by scribes and clerks, all busily making copies of the proposed peace treaty with Tarsis. At Tol’s approach, Regobart left the murmur of voices and scratching of quills, and greeted his fellow general.
“If luck and the gods are with us, we’ll get to Daltigoth in twelve days,” Tol said, looking down from Shadow’s broad back.
The old warlord’s single gray eye widened. “Twelve days! Do you fly on Silvanesti griffons?”
Tol described his chosen route. Regobart’s reaction was much the same as Felryn’s.
“Prince Amaltar needs his Champion, but he needs him alive!” the old general said tartly.
He squinted at Tol’s small entourage, knowing without asking that this was all the escort the younger general intended to take. With a shake of his gray head, he said good-humoredly, “Well, at least you have the Dom-shu with you. They’re as good as a regiment of horsemen.”
Kiya’s expression didn’t change, but Miya preened slightly under the old warrior’s praise.
Tol handed over the muster rolls of the Army of the North, and passed his baton, symbol of his command, to Regobart.
“Many warlords are leaving. Do you think the Tarsans will make trouble once we’re gone?” he asked.
Regobart waved the question away. “No! When they heard the emperor had died, they became even more docile!” He winked. “They fear that without a supreme lord in command, our troops will run wild and sack the city. The Tarsans are treading very lightly indeed!”
Tol clasped hands with Regobart and turned Shadow away. He and his people rode through the busy camp, passing out of the stockade via the north gate.
The splendid spires of Tarsis were visible over the city’s white walls, but Tol could not make out the Golden House. He faced forward again and saw the others had moved on ahead. Only Felryn lingered behind with him.
“When one door closes,” the healer said, “somewhere another opens.”
They skirted the north end of the bay, reaching the Torrent River by sunset. Too wide to be spanned by a bridge and too rough for most small boats, the river usually was traversed by means of an anchored ferry. However, the ferry station was abandoned and several outbuildings had been burned, probably by marauding imperial cavalry.
They decided to operate the ferry themselves. There were two large barges tethered to the shore by heavy cables. One craft lay awash, a casualty of war. The other seemed intact. Thick skeins of woven rope stretched from the east bank to the western side, a quarter league distant. They would cast off on the remaining barge and pull themselves along by means of the ropes.
Dismounting, they led their horses onto the flat-bottomed craft. Frez and Miya untied the mooring lines. The swift current immediately tugged the ferry away from shore. The sudden lurch frightened the horses, who chivvied and pranced until Felryn and Darpo calmed them. Only Shadow remained placid, merely twitching his long tail several times. Tol had once praised his mount’s composure in the face of danger; Kiya had retorted it wasn’t composure but stupidity: the big gray horse was, she opined, dumber than a tree root.
“Everyone but Darpo take told of the rope,” Tol ordered.
The wounded soldier protested his special treatment, but Tol ordered him to mind the horses as well as his aches and pains. The rest of them began to pull.
Bit by bit, the ferry crept away from shore. The sun was setting behind the mountains, from here only a far-off smear of purple on the horizon. As they hauled on the rope, Darpo sang an old seafaring song. In his youth he’d sailed the trade route between Hylo and the lands of the northern coast. The scar he bore was a memento of that former life, earned when a line had snapped and lashed his face.
The sea chantey lent rhythm to their task. As they pulled more in unison, the barge’s pace increased.
By the time they reached the western shore, twilight had come. Buildings on the far shore were intact, but silent and dark. All who were able had fled the advancing Ergothians for the safety of walled Tarsis.
The barge was tied off, the horses led ashore. Tol rode up to the ferrymaster’s house. The door was ajar. He called for a torch.
The interior of the ferry station was a shambles; it had been ransacked in a search for valuables. Miya, Felryn, and Tol kicked through the debris in search of maps.
Tol found what he sought in set of pigeonholes on the inside wall. Handing the torch to Miya, he pulled several documents from their holes, scanning and discarding them one by one. At last, he spread one curling parchment wide. It was a Tar-san map of the Harrow Sky region. The dangerous land west of the mountains was only vaguely rendered, but the passes leading to it through the high mountains were clearly shown. Directions to those passes were what Tol needed.
A sharp call from Kiya, still outside, sent the searchers hurrying out of the wrecked house. The others, still mounted, were all pointing toward the river.
Hovering high in the air over the lapping waves was a shimmering light. Perhaps a handspan wide, it quivered like living flame, but had a most unnatural color-a frosty blue.
Felryn couldn’t identify the sight, but Miya suggested it was only a will-o’-the-wisp.
Her sister sneered. “So high in the air? Over flowing water?” Kiya said. “Don’tbe daft!”
The blue light neither advanced nor retreated. As he stared at it, Tol had the odd feeling he-all of them-were being watched in return. He mentioned this to Felryn, who shrugged.
With no other recourse, they ignored the strange light and rode on. Tol wanted to make the foothills before they camped for the night.
They did so, though not without misgivings. Each time one of them turned to check, the light was still there, following and flickering in the air just behin
d them.
Before midnight Tol called a halt. They’d left behind the sandy coast and entered a thinly spread pine forest. The ground was rising, and more stone had appeared in the soil. Frez found a small stream, and there they made camp.
Felryn sat cross-legged on the stony ground and closed his eyes. Gripping the engraved silver disk he wore around his neck-the sign of his patron deity Mishas-he tried to identify the silent blue light. Then he tried to banish it. After a time, with sweat trickling down his face, he opened his eyes.
“Powerful,” he muttered. “It is of a different order, far beyond my abilities. It’s a strange manifestation, but I don’t sense any threat from it. It just watches.”
“That’s threat enough for me!” Kiya said.
She braced her bow and pulled an arrow from her quiver. As she nocked it, Felryn placed two fingers on the shaft. His lips moved in silent incantation, then he gestured for her to proceed.
Kiya drew the bowstring to her ear. The dark and the amorphous nature of her target made distance hard to gauge, but she squinted over the broadhead and let fly. The bowstring hummed, and the arrow whistled away. To everyone’s surprise, the glow suddenly vanished. They waited, breath held, but it did not reappear.
Miya clouted her sister on the shoulder. “Well done!”
“Good shot,” put in Darpo, and Tol added his own commendation.
Kiya lowered her bow. “I don’t think I even got near it,” she said, frowning. “The shot was way low.”
Felryn agreed with Kiya’s assessment. “I don’t believe the arrow or even my feeble dispersal spell is responsible. I think whoever sent it recalled it. We’ve halted for the night; there’s no reason to shadow us if we’re not going anywhere.”
His words gave them little pleasure. There was scant conversation the rest of the night, and they took turns standing watch, with Tol taking the first shift.
Clouds obscured most of the stars. As his companions settled down to rest, Tol leaned on his spearshaft and studied the sky.
The college of wizards in Daltigoth kept the sky clear over the imperial palace at all times. When he’d first arrived, Tol had thought this an act of silly luxury, a perquisite of the emperor always to have bright sunshine by day and glittering stars by night. Later, he’d realized the strategic value of clear weather. No lofty spies could float over the palace grounds unseen, if the sky was always free of clouds.
Twelve days to Daltigoth, he reminded himself. Twelve days till he could right the wrong done to him a decade ago. Twelve days until he saw Valaran again.
After ten years, a wait of twelve days should not be difficult, but suddenly it seemed interminable.
“I’ll never be a mountaineer!” Miya swore.
Leading his horse along a narrow ledge, his back pressed against the mountain, a drop of a thousand paces before him, Tol agreed wholeheartedly. Wind gusted in his face, whipping his cloak. His companions were strung out behind him, all likewise hugging the rock wall. Darpo, though not fully healed, made the traverse with no more difficulty than the rest of them.
“Are you sure this is the right way?” Miya’s voice was shriller than usual; she was not fond of heights. Tol assured her it was. She’d already asked that same question twice.
The path was clearly marked on the Tarsan map he’d taken from the ferrymaster’s house, but the simple lines on the chart had not prepared them for the narrowness of the ledge or the height of the drop. Wiser than their riders, the horses had balked at crossing the ridge, even the usually stolid Shadow, so they were blinkered. Miya let it be known she’d rather be hooded, too. Adding to everyone’s distress were the still-higher peaks they could spot ahead.
Although the season was late summer, the air was thin and cold. The Harrow Sky was the highest range of mountains known to the Ergothians. Snow still lay thickly on the highest slopes.
The trail had been hacked out over the centuries by traders seeking to avoid the dangerous coastal route. Perilous though the mountains were, they offered at least a chance of survival. The trade monopoly enforced by the Tarsan navy offered none at all.
The wind picked up, howling down the pass. Shadow snorted and jerked at his reins. Eyes tearing against the wind’s icy bite, Tol tightened his grip on the halter, and doggedly ordered them to press ahead.
By late afternoon, they were through the gorge known as H’rar’s Graveyard and on a wide, flat plateau. They’d encountered no other travelers, which was as Tol had expected; the usual flow of trade through the mountains had been choked off by the war between Tarsis and Ergoth.
On boulders, though, they found messages left by previous travelers. “Spit with the wind,” “Make your water downhill,” and other such sage advice was scratched into the rocks. Spotting one he couldn’t read, Tol asked Felryn, the most educated member of the party, if he could translate.
“That’s Dwarvish,” the healer said. “I haven’t read the dwarf tongue in a long time.” He frowned thoughtfully and followed the lines of script with his finger. “ ‘The Hammer of Reorx opens and closes all doors.’ I think that’s right.”
“Who’s Reorx?” asked Kiya.
“A godling, Corij’s squire, though the dwarves and gnomes revere him as the highest deity of all,” Darpo said.
“So a pithy proverb known only to dwarves,” Miya said dismissively, face red from the ever-present cold wind. “Let’s move on. I’m frozen!”
At the far end of the plateau, the passage into the high pass was flanked by two huge, irregularly shaped columns. From a distance, they seemed to be natural rock formations, but as the party drew closer, they were revealed to be statues, ancient, weathered figures of colossal size. They stood erect, with one foot forward and their arms tight against their side. The southern statue was headless (its head lay broken on the ground). The northern colossus was intact, but its features were so worn as to be unrecognizable.
The group halted, awestruck by the size and obvious age of the monuments. Practical Miya finally broke the spell. “What sort of fools would go to all the trouble to raise such things in this forsaken place?” she said.
“The Irda.”
Felryn looked at Tol, surprised. “You know their ancient history, my lord?”
“Only a little.” He had learned a few things from the well-read Valaran. “Ruins of the Irda are found only in remote places. All other traces of their reign have been plundered away.”
There was no way to know who the great colossi were meant to represent. Gods, kings, or heroes-after such a span of time, it was impossible to say.
The icy wind abruptly died. Darpo, glancing back the way they’d come, called their attention to an odd sight.
Spilling up from the lower pass behind them onto the plateau was a thick white fog. In spite of the stillness of the air, the vapor was slowly spreading across the open ground as though pushed by unseen hands. In moments, as they watched, it bulked up several paces high, then began to twist and writhe. The breeze picked up again, but it had changed direction. It now rushed toward the fog, as though the vapor drew it in.
As they stood transfixed by the peculiar sight, Felryn’s face suddenly took on an expression of alarm.
“We must go!” he cried, seizing his horse’s bridle. “Now, my lord! Run!”
None questioned the healer but immediately sprinted for the gap between the ancient monuments, dragging their horses after them.
What had been a rushing wind quickly became a blasting gale. The white fog had spun itself into a tornado and churned toward them, scoring a ragged line in the stone of the plateau. They were bombarded by flying grit. The wind rose to a deafening roar.
Frez, last in line, was lifted off his feet. Only the weight of his horse and his grip on its reins kept him from being sucked into the thundering white column; Kiya saw him and shouted for help; the big woman was fighting for all she was worth to maintain a grip on her own terrified beast.
Tol hurled himself onto Shadow’s back and rode t
o his man. So great was Shadow’s fear of the tornado, Tol was forced to dig his spurs into his sleek hide.
When he reached Frez, Tol grabbed him around the waist. Frez let go his reins, and his horse, screaming in panic, galloped straight into the white cyclone. To their horror, the spinning wall of wind and vapor shredded the animal to bits, like a ripe apple thrown against a grinding wheel.
Tol hauled Shadow around as Frez slid onto the saddle behind him. This time no spurs were needed; the gray horse galloped headlong away from the tornado and back toward the rest of the group.
The others had taken shelter behind the headless colossus. As he thundered toward them, Tol shouted for them to get moving.
The passage beyond the statues was exceedingly narrow, no wider than the girth of a single horse. Trying to make haste, yet hampered by the tightness of the passage, Miya went first, leading her mount. Kiya followed, then Darpo. Tol and Frez dismounted, and Tol pushed his comrade ahead of him into the passage.
The tornado had almost reached the statues, yet for some reason Felryn had lingered behind. The healer was hunched by the mountain wall, standing over a square block of stone carved out of the plateau itself.
Tol bellowed at him to follow them, but Felryn turned and shouted back, “This is the hammer! The Hammer of Reorx! Remember the inscription? We must strike the hammer!” Felryn gestured wildly at the loose rocks by Tol’s feet. “Strike the stone!”
Tol didn’t fathom him in the least, but in the face of imminent death, he chose to trust his old friend. Bending, he picked up a stone the size of a loaf of bread.
A surprised cry brought Tol’s head around. The advancing tornado had pulled Felryn off balance. The healer’s feet flew out from under him, and he was drawn backward. His large, strong hands scrabbled vainly for purchase against the side of the mountain.
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