'As if it wasn't before all our faces long ago!' Snovvbuck said passionately.
'Ah, Snowbuck, you've won now. Don't chop a tree that's fallen.' The rebuff was offered in a friendly tone and Snowbuck took it gracefully.
'You have the right, Firesbane.' He gestured and men spilled into the compound. 'Help these others out.' He didn't have to tell them to be quick and quiet; they were Nevrym foresters.
As the Nevrymin began to usher out the Watchers into the night for the second time in two days, Snowbuck pulled Erimenes's fat clay jar from its pouch and handed it almost reverently to Fost. Fost accepted it with both hands. For a second, he considered drop-kicking it over the wall, then thought better of it. That would have been too noisy. He stuffed it back into the satchel.
'At least, you're not totally lost to feelings of gratitude,' Erimenes said waspishly.
'Erimenes, what are you up to?' Fost demanded. He stood in front of the gate so that the escaping Watchers had to part and pass to both sides of him like a stream around a jutting rock.
'A scheme worthy of my high intelligence' the spirit replied smugly. 'It was almost a pity to waste such ingenuity on so paltry a project as saving you from certain death. But it offends my sense of esthetics to contemplate a beauty such as Moriana's passing from this world.'
'I'm flattered,' the princess said, 'but what was all that bizarre claptrap about our plotting to field our own fleet of skyrafts?'
'I had to tell that rogue Fairspeaker something that would convince him I was truly on their side - and, incidentally, would keep him from bowing to the insistence of the Zr'gsz commandant and allowing you to be killed.'
'"Allowing" us - what power has he?' Fost demanded.
'The Hissers realize it is Fairspeaker who keeps their Nevrymin allies allied. And he does have the favor of the Dark Ones. He wasn't lying about that.'
In the starlight it seemed that patches of color had come to Snowbuck's broad cheeks.
'You owe Erimenes a debt, Sir Longstrider, and you, too, Princess,' he said. 'And . . . and I, as well. For he's made it possible for me to save my father's honor!'
His voice almost cracked the armor of his whispering. He collected himself and clapped the two on the arms.
'We must hurry.'
'Lead the way,' said Fost.
CHAPTER NINE
Sure-footed in the dark, Snowbuck led Fost and Moriana up the arroyo that ran along the western wall of the prison compound. He then threaded his way eastward over the brushy slope of Omizantrim between the fumarole where the Ullapag had kept its vigil and the village itself. The mountain was moody tonight. Its mutterings crescendoed from time to time to a roaring like blood in the ears. Purple lightning played around the summit. Explosions crashed in the crater playing lurid light on the underside of the wide cloud that issued from the mountain's guts.
Fost sensed movement on both sides. He didn't waste energy casting about to see who or what was nearby. He trusted Snowbuck's sense better than his own. It would have been foolish to fall down a hole simply to keep track of unseen friends.
Like Moriana, he ran with sword in hand. Nevrymin had returned their weapons as they emerged from the compound. As dark as the night was, the princess had decided not to string her bow and wore it slung over her back next to a fresh quiver of arrows.
They passed through narrow draws, struggled up slopes where the lava threatened to crumble underfoot at any instant and fling them facedown on the sharp rock, and once hopped across a recent flow that burned the soles of their feet. Luckily, the crust didn't give way beneath them the way the half-hardened lava had when they first made their way to the Watchers' village.
At one point, Fost almost went headlong into the yawning pit of a skystone quarry. He drew a sharp rebuke from Erimenes for his clumsiness. The major drifts and mines lay downslope, which meant the Zr'gsz garrisons and patrols of Nevrymin still loyal to the lizard folk would be concentrated in that direction.
As he scrambled from the pit something flew into his face. He struck at it, thinking it a bat or nocturnal insect. To his amazement it flashed by and continued soundlessly upward, losing itself in blackness. He heard Snowbuck chuckle softly.
'Skystone,' the youth explained, then pushed on, using the dark brush that grew upslope to pull himself along.
'How in hell's name does the stuff ever get deposited?' Fost grumbled.
'I believe,' answered Erimenes, 'that it is a component of the magma extruded through the crater to become lava. As it flows down the mountain it rises to the top of the flow. Yet it adheres to the heavier stuff of common lava, which holds it down until it cools.'
'Is that true?'
'How should I know?'
The moons poked up into the eastern sky. Both were past full. The light made it easier for any pursuers to see them but also made the going quicker. As they put what Fost's experience told him were miles between them and the Watchers' former village, the courier began to believe they might actually escape.
Then a figure detached itself from a tall, dead tree at the top of a razorback of lava and stood looking down into their surprised faces.
'So,' said Sternbow, 'my own son.' He shook his head. 'I hardly believe it.'
Snowbuck scrambled the rest of the way up the slope to stand beside his father. More figures rose out of the wasteland, drawn bows in hand. Fost groaned. He was already thoroughly sick of this routine.
'I must speak with you, Father,' Snowbuck said. 'As man to man.'
Sternbow looked around. Fost wondered where his faithful shadow was. Sternbow's words told him.
'Fairspeaker became separated from the party as we made our way to wait for you,' he mumbled. 'He should hear this.'
'No!' Snowbuck's voice rang loud and clear above the volcano's growl. 'He should not hear! Or are you no longer capable of listening for yourself, Father?'
Sternbow raised his hand to strike his son. Snowbuck held his ground. The tall forester chieftain let his hand fall to his side and seemed to shrink an inch.
'It may be that I cannot.' His words were barely audible. 'But it is high time I learned once more. Speak.'
'Father, the . . .' he began but was interrupted by a cry from behind.
'Snowbuck!'
At the sound of Fairspeaker's voice, Snowbuck spun, hand dropping to sword hilt. He was half around when an arrow struck him in the left temple. Snowbuck jerked, then dropped to one knee.
'F-father,' he said. His eyes rolled up into his head and he fell, lifeless.
Sternbow uttered a warning cry of rage and grief and desolation. For a moment, the mountain fell silent as if to mark the enormity of his loss. He raised his eyes to Fairspeaker on a hill fifty feet away, a bow held loosely in his hand.
'I came just in time, great Sternbow.' The young man sounded out of breath. 'Another instant and the faithless young pup would've . . .'
Sternbow tore forth his broadsword and flung it at Fairspeaker.
Paralyzed with disbelief, Fairspeaker stood and watched as the blade spun toward him. The whine of split air was loud in the awful silence.
At the last possible instant, Fairspeaker flung himself to the side. He was too late to save himself completely. The sword tip raked his cheek, opening it to the bone. He screamed shrilly and fell from view. As he did, a line of flame crackled from Moriana's fingertips. A bush burst into orange flame where he had stood.
Across the black nightland Nevrymin faced one another across drawn swords and levelled spears. A few Watchers stood with hands high, dazed by the course of events. One by one each turned until all faced Sternbow.
The tall man knelt on the unyielding stone, cradling his son's head in his lap. A thin trickle of blood, black in the moonlight, ran from the wound and stained his breeches. Slowly, he raised his head. He had aged ten years in one tragic minute.
'After him!' he cried. 'Hunt down the traitor Fairspeaker!'
With a roar, the Nevrymin turned from confronting one another and race
d off into the night. That was an order most of them had longed to hear for some time.
Sternbow rose to face Fost and Moriana.
'Apologies will not suffice for what I've done, so I will not offer them,' he said. He composed himself visibly. 'You are free to go. I wish I could call you friends, but I will not presume. O Snowbuck, you saw far more clearly than I!' His head slumped to his chest and tears flowed down his bearded cheeks, bright silver rivulets in the moonlight.
'What of you?' asked Moriana, reaching out to touch the man's quaking shoulder.
He raised his head with effort.
'Fairspeaker was - is - not alone in feeling that our interests and those of the Hissers lie along the same path. But I think the men of my band will be with me. We'll organize the surviving Watchers, wage hit-and-run war against the mines. It's a kind of war my men understand. The Watchers should learn quickly enough.'
He looked down at his son's body. Snowbuck lay partially on his side with one arm crossed over his breast and the fingers of his right hand still grasping the hilt of his half-drawn sword.
'Now I will hunt the murderer of my only son. Or one of them - the real guilt rests on these shoulders!'
There was nothing more to say. Fost and Moriana started away. They hadn't picked a dozen cautious steps across the razorback when Sternbow's voice halted them. He walked to them, moving effortlessly over the uneven ground.
'I have something to give you, and something to ask.'
'Very well,' said Moriana.
'First, I beg you travel to the Tree and tell the King in Nevrym what has befallen Snowbuck. The Forest Maiden alone knows what schemes the People and their sympathizers have set in motion against Grimpeace, for he is known as a foe of the Dark Ones. That was why he agreed to ally with you, Princess, because you offered the best chance of thwarting your sister's aim to return the Realm to the Night Lords. Friendship with the People was not the way of Grimpeace, though I allowed Fairspeaker to convince me otherwise, to my eternal grief.'
'It shall be done, Lord Sternbow,' Moriana promised. 'But I fear we will be a long time reaching the Tree afoot.'
Sternbow almost smiled.
'Perhaps not. Don't forget the famed Longstrider accompanies you.' His eyes turned somber once more. 'But what I have to give you may solve that difficulty.' He reached to the broad leather belt circling his waist and removed a heavy bag of sewn doe hide. 'Uncut gems. My share of the pay from the Hissers. They should buy you adequate mounts.'
Moriana's eyes widened. By the pouch's heft, the stone would buy adequate mounts for a squadron of cavalry.
'But we can't take it all!'
'You must.' He slashed his hand through air in a peremptory gesture. 'I couldn't touch those stones again, no matter how precious they are. Accept them or I shall drop them into Omizantrim's mouth.'
'You are gracious, milord.'
He bowed tautly.
'Farewell, milady, Longstrider. We shall not meet again.'
A few days north of the frozen flows sprouting like tentacles from the ancient mountain, they came upon a breeding kennel. The land here in the Marchant Highlands ran to slow rises and wide dales like a gentle ocean swell made solid. The land was green and gravid and exploding with summer. They passed bawling herds of horncattle, lowing sheep and goats and flocks of tame striped antelope that fled at the strangers' approach. The country folk were close-mouthed and grim. The shadow of Omizantrim lay long across their land. And many was the morning in which the beauty of a clear blue sky was marred by silent black flights of rafts, flying south in formations like migratory birds. At first, Fost and Moriana took cover whenever Zr'gsz skyrafts appeared overhead. They soon gave it up as unnecessary. None they had seen showed the slightest interest in what went on below. They did keep alert for any sign of rafts from Omizantrim, or any that searched rather than simply travelled from one place to another.
'What's your pleasure?' The kennel master was a long, lean sort with a face consisting mostly of wrinkles. Faded carroty hair had been trimmed to an alarming scalplock cresting his sunburned pate. A small white clay pipe hung from one lip as if glued there, emitting occasional wisps of blue smoke.
He didn't seem overly suspicious of the trailworn and heavily armoured strangers who had trudged up the side road from the highway. But to read any expression on the face was beyond Fost's ability.
'We seek mounts,' said Moriana.
The man stiffened. Her travels outside the City, often as a hunted fugitive, had rendered her broadminded in her dealings with both commoners and groundlings; the man she loved was both. But sometimes she slipped into the royal hauteur to which she had been raised. Fost saw it had an adverse effect this time. The face remained unreadable, but the man's posture spoke eloquently.
'Freeman, we grow tired of faring afoot. We asked directions of a yeoman driving a wagon down on the highroad. He told us you raised strong steeds.' Foist hoped the fat, squint-eyed peasant had been telling the truth. He knew about all there was to know about sled dogs but had little knowledge of riding dogs.
The breeder relaxed.
'This way,' he said. He paused to scoop a small pouch from the nail where it hung by a red porch post, then stepped down onto the turf and led them around back of the house.
A wild clamor greeted them. Dogs of all descriptions and colors, stocky war mounts and whippet-lean racers, black and white and roan and brindle and spotted all penned in wooden kennels, flung themselves against the fence and barked madly. The breeder whistled. A tow-headed urchin of indeterminate sex appeared from a shack at the end of the long aisle between the cages, wiping his hands on a dun smock.
'Master?'
Fost pretended to study the caged beasts. His eyes left the animals and scanned the surrounding countryside. The fields, like the road, were well tended and dotted with the bulks of grazing horncows ambling over flower-decked pasture. He saw no sign of humans other than the kennel master and the urchin. That was strange; it took a goodly number of workers to keep a dog farm operational. The best maintained their own herds of cattle to feed the dogs, both to keep down prices and to control precisely the type and quality of feed the animals received. That took hands - and there were only two in view.
'It's hard times since the mountain upchucked this spring,' the kennel master drawled. 'Then them lizards came through here bound down for Wirix, or so 'twas said. 'Taint natural, those lizards. Didn't do nary a bit of lootin' and rapin'. Not a bit of it.' He dug a handful of green herb from the pouch and stuffed it into the bowl of his pipe. 'Then them fly in' thingies started floatin' overhead all the time. The hands got spooked. I don't mind admittin' I did, too.'
He smoothed his scalplock with a gnarly hand. The urchin stood by, tugging at the hem of its smock. Her smock, Fost judged, by the small peaks in the front of the dilapidated garment.
The breeder looked around at the cages of yammering dogs. Shiny beads of moisture appeared at the outer corners of his eyes.
'You folks come by at the right time. I'm sellin' out.' He made a gesture encompassing the whole establishment, dogs, dwellings, fields, cattle and urchin. 'Choose what you want and name a price. I'm movin' cross the river into the Empire. Cain't take more'n some good bitches and dogs for breedin' stock. Dogs is damn trickish to move overland.'
Fost stared in open amazement. The generosity of Realm dog breeders was legendary, along with that of Tolvirot bankers, Meduri-min tax collectors and clerics from Kolnith. If a successful kennel master - and there was little doubt this wrinkled man was successful, judging by the size of his spread and the way it was kept - was selling out at a loss, then the threat of the Zr'gsz was already making itself felt.
They'd made their journey to this point as idyllic as possible, a long holiday of riding through beautiful summer lands by day and making love all night with passion and skill, as if each time was the last. Both knew that the inevitable last time might arrive soon, too soon. Though they scarcely slept, each morning they rose ref
reshed and filled with energy. To Fost this was little short of miraculous. In emergencies he could go from sound sleep to alertness in a single heartbeat. But without danger to goad him, he generally took long minutes to come even half awake. The fact made it curious he had chosen the life of a courier, which called for agonizingly early rising. Every morning of his life on the road, Fost complained bitterly of the necessity of arising before noon to his companions or dogs, depending on who would listen.
They picked their way down from the Central Massif and curved northeast around the Mystic Mountains. No longer did they see Zr'gsz skyrafts. All traffic flowed south from Thendrun. With the skyrafts went their last barrier to enjoyment.
Or almost the last. With the leisure of hours on the road and lazy hours in camp after dinner and before lovemaking, the two spirits resumed their feuding. Only threats to tie them to long ropes and drag them behind the riding dogs ever shut them up, and that only for a while.
The kennel master hadn't lied about the prices he asked for his stock. For forty klenor he provided them with two mounts of their choice and complete tack. He even skirted the subject of selling the urchin, too, but Fost evinced complete disinterest, to what seemed the girl's disappointment. By a miracle, Erimenes said not one lewd word. In fact, both genies sensed the uneasiness of the breeder and the girl and kept silent to avoid panicking them.
Fost and Moriana didn't actually benefit from the bargain. The smallest stone Sternbow had given them was worth easily ten times the price the breeder quoted. The two had between them only a few rusty sipans in the bottom of Erimenes's satchel. Finally, Moriana chose a rock at random and tossed it to the kennel master as payment. The man's amazement was so great his pipe dropped from his lips and threatened to kindle the sawdust between the rows of cages. The pair had mounted and quickly departed before he could press the urchin on them.
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