He decided to take a short rest himself; then he would start down the trail slowly, looking for sentries or ambushes. He found a small, grassy clearing, less than two 9261.01 3/13/03 12:53 PM Page 360
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hundred yards across and perhaps twice that long, unsaddled the horse, and staked her out with enough room to graze. Then, using the saddle for a pillow, he lay down under a tree.
He checked the position of the sun, then closed his eyes and fell into an exhausted sleep.
Two hours later, as he had planned, he awoke. The sun beat down with unexpected intensity for the time of year.
Tal could feel the air suck the moisture out of his skin even before perspiration could form. It would be hot and dry for days, if these mountains were anything like his homeland.
He saddled his horse and set off down the trail. After a while, he found a small brook and let the horse drink at it while he refilled his waterskin. Then he continued on. Half an hour later, he smelled campfire smoke.
Tal dismounted, tethered his horse, and set off on foot.
Moving through the trees just a few yards off the trail, he found the going slow, but he knew he would be far less likely to be seen as he overtook his quarry.
Quickly and quietly, he wended his way through the trees, stopping to listen every few hundred feet. The fourth time he paused, he smelled horse dung and could just make out the faint sounds of horses moving around and cropping grass.
Slowly, he made his way through the trees, each cautious step bringing him closer to his enemies. In the distance he saw that the tree cover was thinning, and he anticipated a small meadow or clearing ahead where Raven and his surviving riders would most likely be resting.
He moved cautiously from one tree to the next, his bow clutched in his left hand, an arrow held alongside the bow, so that he could draw and shoot in an instant. Every nerve was drawn taut as he expected the raiders to sound an alarm at any moment. At last he could see the horses, staked out 9261.01 3/13/03 12:53 PM Page 361
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in a picket line a short distance from the trees, near a small brook that bubbled down a narrow dale. The horses lifted their heads as he neared, so he paused and waited until they returned to their grazing.
A fire had been allowed to burn out, but the smoky smell still hung over the area. Five figures lay near the cold campfire site, while six horses grazed. Tal glanced around, trying to find the sentry.
He crept along just inside the trees, the thick boles hiding him from view. He saw a flicker of motion near the point at which the path entered the little dale, and he froze.
Someone was standing so close to a tree that he was all but invisible in the dark shadows cast by the branches overhead. Tal knew that he must be tired, for otherwise he would surely have spotted the man critical seconds earlier.
He took a deep breath and crept forward.
The sentry was watching the trail, his back to Tal. Tal glanced back toward the camp and saw that the other five figures remained still.
He considered his options. He could kill the sentry, but could he do it silently? Slowly, he nocked his arrow and drew the bowstring. The sentry leaned against the tree, but Tal waited.
Then the sentry stretched, flexing his shoulders, and Tal let fly the arrow. The shaft struck the man at the base of the neck, and he went down without uttering a sound. But he hit the ground with enough of a thud that one of the horses shied, whinnying. As soon as the scent of blood reached them, the other horses also looked to where the body had fallen.
Two of the mercenaries were light sleepers: they were up with weapons drawn in seconds. “Garth!” one shouted.
“What is it?’’
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he retreated deeper into the woods. As he lost sight of the camp, he heard a man shout, “Raven!’’
Tal hurried, dodging through the woods as he heard Raven’s voice clearly for the first time. “Fan out! Find him!’’
Tal knew he couldn’t stand and fight. He was too fatigued and not thinking clearly. He had missed an opportunity to kill the two men who were awake, and perhaps finish off the other three before they could have got to cover. He had made a mistake, and it could cost him his life.
He heard movement behind him and knew that at least one of the raiders was able to track. He saw an outcropping of rock, a ridge that ran for a hundred yards before it rose to be too high to climb, and he leapt up onto it. As if walking a tightrope, he hurried along it as fast as he could, then where the rock became impassable, he jumped down and took cover.
He drew another arrow and waited.
Whoever was tracking him was good, he was forced to admit after a few minutes of waiting. He heard nothing and saw nothing.
He continued to wait.
After a few more minutes had passed, something changed. It was difficult to assess exactly what it was, but one moment the noises in the woods—the air rustling through the branches barely more audible than a whisper, the fall of leaves and needles—changed.
Tal knew it wasn’t important to understand what the change was, only that it meant he was not alone. He hunkered down behind the outcropping of rock and sniffed the air, looked for shadows that didn’t belong, listened for anything that would reveal the whereabouts of his pursuer.
Time seemed to drag past, but Tal knew that whoever was behind him was playing the same game, waiting for him to make a mistake.
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There came the faintest noise, the tiny grinding of a boot sole against rock, and Tal sprang up and whirled about. For a brief moment, his enemy’s face was in his sights. Time stood still while Tal ordered his fingers to release his arrow, and as he did so, he was able to take in details he would not have been able to imagine before this moment. The man’s hair was black, dusty from having rolled on the ground at one point, perhaps fearing another arrow shot after Tal had killed the sentry. He was dark-skinned, perhaps Keshian in ancestry, for his eyes were almost black. There was a slight flicker of recognition in those eyes: a mix of fear and resignation, as the arrow left Tal’s bow. The man’s muscles began to tense, as if he was about to cry out or try to move, but before whatever act he had begun could complete itself, the arrow struck him through the throat.
The man’s eyes widened in shock, then the light in them went out before he crumpled and fell away out of Tal’s sight.
Tal scrambled over the rocks and quickly examined the man. He carried only his weapons. Tal kept his own bow, but added the tracker’s arrows to his supply.
He glanced around to see if any of the other raiders might be close by, but he saw and heard nothing.
Leaving the dead man for the carrion-eaters, Tal hurried away.
Now there were only four left.
__
Tal slept. He had found a small notch cut by a stream, and there he had left his horse tied. It would take horrible luck or an excellent tracker to find him. Tal trusted to luck: he had killed their best tracker, he was certain.
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Besides, he suspected Raven would wait for only an hour or two before gathering up his remaining three companions and fleeing south. For all the raiders’ captain knew, Tal had been an advanced scout and two dozen Orodon warriors might be riding fast to overtake him.
He had rummaged through the bag of food given him the night before and found hard cheese, bread almost as hard as the cheese, and some dried fruit. Nourishing if lacking flavor. He ate it all, knowing that saving food now would
be a mistake. He could pass out from hunger after he had killed Raven.
He had rolled up as best he could under an overhanging rock, ignoring the damp and cold, determined to rest for a few hours. In his sleep he dreamed, and in that dream he was on top of the mountain peak of Shatana Higo again, waiting for his vision, filled with anticipation for his coming manhood ceremony. When he awoke, he rose and made ready to begin the chase again, even though he was still tired to his bones. The cold had got into his joints, and he had to move around to force some warmth back into his body. He gauged it was less than two hours to sunset, and knew he must have slept for almost three hours.
He had given Raven a lead, but he was sure he could make it up. It would take the raiders three more days of hard riding to reach the flatlands on the road to Coastal Watch. Tal knew if he could find forage along the way and keep his strength up, he would have them before they reached the city.
And if it was necessary for him to enter the city and search them out there, he would.
Tal saddled his tired horse and moved off down the edge of the stream, until he could ride up the bank and head across a clearing for the trail. He turned south on the trail and set off at a slow walk. He knew where Raven’s last camp was, and he was almost certain Raven wouldn’t still 9261.01 3/13/03 12:53 PM Page 365
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be there, so there was no need to hurry at present. He let the horse warm up at a walk for a few minutes, then urged her into a comfortable canter.
As he neared Raven’s camp, he took the horse inside the trees and dismounted. Although he would be shocked if Raven had stayed there, he decided he’d rather be shocked than dead.
He quickly covered the ground to where he had killed the sentry and found the man still lying where he had fallen. Tal knelt over him but could see nothing to provide a hint as to his identity. Another nameless soldier of fortune hired to kill for pay. Tal checked to see what he might be carrying with him and found that only a dagger in his belt remained. His purse had been cut from his belt—what use would gold be to the dead?
Tal walked to the clearing and looked around. The campfire remained where he remembered, but nothing else had been left behind. They had taken the extra horses, which was logical. Raven wouldn’t risk being hunted down just because a steed had gone lame.
Tal looked at their tracks and saw they had not even bothered to disguise their choice: back on the trail to the south.
Tal hurried back to his own horse and mounted, then set off again in pursuit.
__
The day was ending, and the sounds were changing, as they always did when the diurnal denizens of the mountains gave way to the nocturnal. Tal knew that this was when both worlds overlapped, when hunters of the night stirred early and occasionally preyed on day’s creatures who were slow to find safe haven.
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Tal looked down the trail and tried to anticipate what Raven would do next. After the surprise and losing two men, Tal doubted he would be careless enough to camp out in the open and post only a single watch. He would be holed up somewhere—a cave or under an overhang of rock—keeping a cold camp, and he’d have two men awake at all times.
At sundown, Tal picked up their trail again, and he followed it until darkness fell completely. He found as hospitable a place as he could in which to wait out the night, knowing that Raven was at least as uncomfortable as he was.
He awoke a little before sunrise and tried to warm up by moving his arms and legs. His neck and back were stiff, and his nose ran. He knew he was becoming sick from fatigue and hunger. He had seen nothing to eat since leaving the village. Knowing that lack of water was an even bigger threat than going hungry for a few days, Tal drank what was left in the waterskin, then set out looking to replenish it.
He studied the contours of the land and followed a downslope until he reached one of the plentiful streams that existed in these mountains. To his relief, a stand of blackberry bushes lined the banks, and he set to with a will.
Most of the berries were not yet ripe, but the few that were provided him with enough of a repast to boost his spirits and hold off hunger fatigue for a while longer. He spent an hour filling his empty food pack with ripe berries. Still hungry, but feeling much better for the food and water, Tal set off after his quarry.
__
By midmorning, Tal felt something was wrong. From the distance between hoofprints, he could tell Raven and his 9261.01 3/13/03 12:53 PM Page 367
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men were not in a hurry. Something gnawed at him as he looked down at the tracks.
He had passed a pile of horse dung half an hour back, and it was not yet dry; so he must be a very short time behind Raven. But something about the tracks bothered him.
He stopped and dismounted. Raven and his three remaining companions had taken the extra horses with him. Then it struck Tal. One of the horses was missing! He moved quickly to make sure he was correct. Yes, he was looking at four horses’ prints, not five. And only three sets of hoofmarks were deep enough to show they carried riders.
Someone had slipped off along the way.
Tal leapt back onto his horse just as an arrow skimmed past him. He laid himself along the neck of his mount and shouted, startling the animal forward. He let her run into the trees; then he turned and waited.
Whoever had shot at him hadn’t followed. Tal sat quietly with his hand upon the horse’s neck, trying to keep the tired and cranky mare calm. He waited.
Time slowed. It might be that whoever had shot at him hadn’t stayed around to see if any real damage had been done, but had instead fled back down the trail to alert Raven. Or he might be in the trees on the other side of the road, waiting to see if Tal emerged.
At last Tal grew tired of waiting, so he slipped off his horse, tied her to a bush, and headed off on a course which ran parallel to the road. He moved south, and at the narrowest point he could find, dashed across the road, then turned north. If Raven’s ambusher had fled south, he’d see signs of it; but if he was still waiting for Tal to show himself, he’d be ahead.
Tal dodged silently through the trees. He kept his ears and eyes open for any hint of an attacker’s whereabouts.
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Then the man coughed. Tal froze: the sound came from not more than a dozen yards ahead. Tal knew that a sneeze or cough had killed more than one man. He waited, listening for any other sound to betray the man’s location.
Tal moved slowly, one foot lightly placed on the ground, shifting his weight before picking up the other foot. He wanted no disturbed leaves or cracked twigs to give away his presence.
Then a smell assailed his senses. The breeze blew from the northwest, coming through a pass in the mountains, and suddenly Tal could smell the man’s stench. He hadn’t bathed in weeks, and he must have been in the middle of all the smoke yesterday, for his scent was acrid.
Tal strove harder to listen and to look, and then he saw the man.
He was pressed up against a tree, keeping his body close to the bole, holding another arrow ready and his eyes scanning the trail anxiously for any sign of Tal. Tal assumed the man had been told not to return unless he brought Tal’s head.
Tal targeted the man and moved in an arc, until he had a certain killing shot. Then he said softly, “Put down your bow.’’
The man froze. He didn’t turn his body, but his head moved so that he could see Tal out of the corner of his eyes.
He opened his hand and let the bow fall to the ground.
“Turn around, slowly,” said Tal.
He did so, until he was standing with his back to the tree. Tal aimed his arrow at the man’s
chest.
“Where’s Raven?’’
“South, maybe two miles, waiting for me to bring you in or for you to come riding into his next trap.’’
“What’s your name?’’
“Killgore.”
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“How long have you been with Raven?’’
“Ten years.’’
The bowstring twanged and suddenly the man named Killgore found himself pinned to the tree. His eyes went wide and he looked down a moment, then his head fell forward as his body went limp.
“Ten years means you were at my village, murderer,”
Tal said quietly.
He left Killgore pinned to the tree and hurried back across the road to fetch his horse.
Now there were only three left, and Tal knew they were waiting for him two miles down the road.
__
Tal swore. It was a big meadow, and he understood instantly why Raven had chosen it. It was too large for Tal to hide in the trees and pick off anyone from cover.
Raven and his two remaining raiders sat their horses in the center of the field, hands casually resting on the horns of their saddles, waiting.
Either Tal would ride into view, and they’d continue on south, or he would appear, and they’d have an end to the chase, one way or the other. Tal weighed his options. He could hide in the trees until Raven gave up the wait and continued south, or went back north to see what had happened to Killgore. But he had only a bag full of berries and a skin of water, and he was extremely tired. He would only get weaker by waiting.
Raven was tired, too, no doubt, but he had two other swords with him.
Tal held the title of the world’s finest swordsman, at least until the next tourney at the Masters’ Court, but there were three of them, and they would be fighting from 9261.01 3/13/03 12:53 PM Page 370
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