Where is my son?" Amira tried to sit up, but shadows flooded her vision and she almost passed out again. She lay back down. "I remember. I woke. The big one said that-Lendri, was it? — had gone for my son. Where is he?" "Try not to move," said the elf. "My craft has done much to heal your wounds, but you are still very weak." Amira thrust a hand out from the blankets and grabbed the elf's cloak. It was thick, heavy, made from some animal hide. Her arm felt hollow, her grip feeble, but the elf did not pull away. "Where-?" her throat caught. So dry. She tried again. "My… son?" "A moment." The elf stood and walked away. He returned a moment later with a wooden bowl cradled in both hands. "Drink this. I will tell you what I know." He lifted her head with one hand and brought the bowl to her lips with the other. The water was oddly warm and brackish. She winced but swallowed. "The waters of the Lake of Mists are warm," said the elf.
"Many of the streams that feed it come down from the Firepeaks, and there are hot springs everywhere. I have never known the lake to freeze, even in the harshest winter." "Where is my son?" The elf placed the bowl beside her and settled himself down. "I am the belkagen. What your folk might call a priest, a shaman." Amira lay back down and fixed him with the glare that had sent many pages and servants running from her as a child. "I don't care. Where is my son?"
"Gyaidun and Lendri were the ones who came to your aid last night.
After the slaver fled, they brought you here, to my island. You would have surely died had they not. Lendri went back out to find your son."
Amira studied the belkagen. Shaman or no, these three could easily be slavers themselves. What had the big one told Walloch last night?
"Slavers… the caravan trails are thick with them this time of year." Amira had been embroiled in the courtly intrigue of Cormyr before she could count. She hated it, but she could play with the best of them, and she read no deception or malice in the shaman's face.
"Lendri-" the belkagen motioned to the elf who still lay sleeping behind him. "He found your son, but on the way back something attacked them. Gyaidun went to their aid, but by the time he arrived, your son was gone and Lendri nearly dead." "Attacked? By who?" "Gyaidun first thought it was Walloch, come back. The woods where Gyaidun found Lendri were coated in frost. But Lendri said it was… he said he thought some of them were Frost Folk, but there was… something else.
Something foul and cold." Dread, kept at bay these many days, filled Amira's stomach. Oh, no, she prayed. Not again. We were so close! The belkagen was watching her, his eyes piercing. Under his gaze, Amira felt like a rabbit under the scrutiny of a hungry wolf. "Where is this … Gyaidun?" she asked. "The big one?" The corner of the belkagen's mouth lifted in a smile, but his eyes remained sharp. "Yes, Gyaidun the big one. I'm afraid my friend has gone and done something foolish." "He's gone for Jalan?" Hope flickered in Amira-she'd seen the man fight last night; he could've given a Purple Dragon Knight a challenge and then some-but her sense knew it was a feeble hope. No matter how formidable the big man was, the fool had no idea what he was up against. "No," said the belkagen. "He and Lendri are rathla, what the Tuigan call anda. Blood brothers. When he found Lendri near dead, a steel rage filled him. I've only seen him like that a few times. After bringing Lendri to me, he went after Walloch." "But you said it was Frost Folk and… something else." "So Lendri said. But Gyaidun suspected that the slaver was after you two for a reason, and that reason came looking for you and almost killed Lendri." The belkagen shook his head. "I could almost pity Walloch when Gyaidun finds him."
After leaving Lendri with the belkagen, Gyaidun gave serious consideration to picking up the trail of whoever had attacked Lendri and taken the boy. But he knew he'd be outnumbered at least five to one, and they had nearly killed Lendri. Furious as he was, Gyaidun was no fool. But his blood was up, and he could not just sit by the campfire and wait. He'd picked up the slaver's trail easily enough.
That many men and dogs had torn up the woods chasing the woman and her boy. Gyaidun kept a steady pace but didn't hurry. Lendri's people had a saying: Besthunit nenle. "Hurry slowly"-go fast, but not so fast that you miss your prey. The slaver had a loud bark, but he had the bite to back it up, and Gyaidun didn't want to rush into an ambush.
Dawn's first light was burning in the east. Gyaidun had left the forest proper behind and was now walking through the beginnings of open steppe, though there were still frequent copses and islands of brush. He knew he was getting close. He could smell horses, dogs, goats, and all the things that came out of them. The smell of cooked food hit his nostrils, though it was old. Apparently none of the slavers were early risers. The stench of the midden pit struck him so hard that he knew they hadn't taken the time to dig it deep enough or bury what was in it. But something else tickled his senses, more taste than smell. Moisture. That was nothing unusual around the Lake of Mists, where half the lake seemed to escape as a cloud every day. But this had a flavor, sharp and hard. He knew it, but it took him a moment to place it, for it was far too early in the year: snow.
Gyaidun stopped long enough to string his bow and nock an arrow. He crept in nice and slow, going low to the ground from cover to cover.
There was no need. He crested the small rise above a jagged hollow that a stream had cut through the hills. Gyaidun looked down into the remains of the slaver's camp, every bit covered in a thick blanket of snow. Not even the soft, wet snow that could sometimes fall in the autumn. This was a fine, hard snow. It sent up little clouds as he walked and muffled all sound. Nothing in the camp moved, and he knew that the dozens of snowy mounds scattered throughout the camp were bodies.
"Where are my clothes?" After eating some dried venison and drinking a great deal of water, Amira finally managed to sit up without fainting. She hunched near the fire, the blankets wrapped round her shoulders. The belkagen was tending to Lendri, who was still sleeping. He didn't look up as he answered, "You were covered with blood when you came in. Most of it yours. I had to cut the shirt off, frozen as it was. Everything else I washed." He motioned to the far side of the fire. There, spread out over a branch, were Amira's pants, smallclothes, and what was left of her cloak. "I will find you something to replace your shirt later." "Find it now." Amira stood.
The world wobbled for a moment, but it did not spin, and a deep breath set all to rights. "I'm going after my son." Amira knew the day was wearing on, though she had yet to see the sun. After the night wind had stopped, the fog off the lake rose thick, and she could not see more than a few dozen paces in any direction. The belkagen finished replacing the poultice on Lendri's wound, then looked up. "And how do you plan to do that?" "Leaving here is a good start." "You won't walk a mile before you fall over." "Watch me." "My craft mended the worst of your hurts, but you are not yet healed. Your body must do the rest.
You need food and sleep." Amira started toward her clothes-small, shuffling steps. A slight tremble began in her knees on the second step, and by the fourth she had to stop before her legs gave out beneath her. She stopped to gather her strength before she dared reach down for the clothes. The belkagen's eyebrows raised, and she glared at him. "You find this amusing?" "No, Lady." "What then?" "It is a cruel thing you are doing," said the belkagen. He walked over and held her breeches out for her. She gripped the blankets round her with one hand and reached for her clothes with the other. She snatched the breeches and clenched them in a tight fist, hoping it would hide her hand's trembling. "They're still wet." "The mists." The belkagen shrugged. "Put them back on the branch, and I will stoke the fire."
Amira stood her ground. "What did you mean, a cruel thing?" "You are so eager to rush off so that your son can watch you die." If Amira had possessed the strength to slap him, she would have. "I suppose it is a mercy of sorts that you'll never make it to him. If you did, in your condition, with no supplies, not even your spellbook, you'd accomplish little more than giving your son the chance to watch his captors kill you." Amira's knees trembled again, and this time she had to sit. "How … did you know I'm a…?" "W
izard?" The belkagen crouched and threw more wood on the fire. "Yes." "I am surprised you don't recognize one of your own." The belkagen smiled, but there was no humor in it. A shudder passed down Amira's spine. "I recognized you," he said. "But you said you were a shaman, a priest." "I am the belkagen. There is no word in your tongue. I am a shaman, a priest, and perhaps what some of the western peoples might call a druid. But I have also studied the arcane arts." "So you are a wizard?" "I am the belkagen." Amira looked off into the mists. "I hate the Wastes."
"Wastes?" The belkagen chuckled. "There is more life in one league of 'the Wastes' than in one of your stone castles." Amira smirked, then said, "Could you hand me my smallclothes, please?" "I thought western women did not like men touching their smallclothes." "Just hand them to me." He did. "You're still going, then?" "Jalan is my son. I'll find him or die trying." "It will be the dying, I think, unless you heed me." "You mentioned something about a shirt." The belkagen frowned. "Are all western women so discourteous?" Amira took a deep breath. She'd dealt with worse growing up amid the courtly intrigue of Cormyr, but she had no time for this. "I thank you for your help, Belkagen. If I can ever repay your hospitality, I will. On my honor and the honor of House Hiloar. Now, if you could find me a shirt and give me some food to set me on my way, I will be doubly in your debt.
But I am going after my son." "Of course you are. But if you will finish healing, you might have some small chance-" Through the mist came the sound of splashing. Someone was coming through the lake and moving fast. The belkagen went stone-still, listened, then relaxed. "I thought you said we were on an island," said Amira. "Arzhan Island," said the belkagen. "I often winter here, but we're only a few dozen paces from the north shore, and the water is no more than waist deep."
The splashing stopped, Amira heard footsteps approaching, and moments later a large figure materialized out of the mist. It was the man who had come to her rescue last night. Gyaidun, was it? She got her first good look at him. He stood tall, and his leather-and-hide clothes obviously covered thick muscle. Tattoos twined down his bare arms, much like those on the one called Lendri, but strangest of all were the scars on his face. He had three long slashes down each cheek, and one slash bisecting them. No battle wounds, certainly. They were too precise. His unstrung bow rode on his back, but Amira's heart leaped when she saw what he carried in one hand: her staff and spellbook. The man spared Amira a glance, gave the sleeping elf a longer look, concern creasing his brow, then looked to the belkagen. "Dead," he said. "They were all dead. Every last one of them. Captives, horses, dogs. Even that slaving whoreson Walloch. Frozen solid."
CHAPTER FIVE
The Endless Wastes
Out on the open steppe, the wind never stopped. Tucked as he was in the bottom of a dry gully, Jalan could not feel it, but he could hear it whispering over the grasses, and every now and then dirt and late autumn seeds rained down on him. He sat hugging his knees with his back to the dry earth wall. After the five pale northerners and their leader had taken him from Lendri, they ran north all night, leaving the Lake of Mists and surrounding woods far behind. When Jalan's legs finally gave out, one of the northerners grabbed his bound wrists and dragged him, but that slowed their pace, so the northerners took turns carrying him. So exhausted was he that he actually slept while they ran. When dawn began to paint the eastern horizon, the northerners split up. The sky was just changing from a weak gray to the first yellow of true dawn when they sought shelter in the gully. Their cloaked leader had found the deepest, most shadowed part of the gully and huddled inside his cloak. The northerners ripped dry bushes, their leaves long since gone, out of the ground and covered their leader with them, placed their own cloaks over the makeshift canopy, then covered it all with a thick layer of dirt. One of them untied Jalan's wrists, gave him a few meager bites of food and two long swallows of water, then shoved him to the ground and said,
"Sleep. Now." Jalan lay on the ground but kept his eyes open. He'd never been so cold. An aura seemed to emanate from the cloaked figure, an almost elemental presence that drained all warmth from the area. It reached beyond the air to seep into Jalan's mind. The northerners built no fire, so Jalan huddled in his cloak, shivering. He'd been concentrating all his energy into clamping his jaw shut to stop his teeth from chattering when sleep finally claimed him. When he awoke, the first thing he saw was the crack of sky overhead. Clouds, high and thin, had blown in while he slept, and they were painted the fiery orange and royal purple of evening. Four of the northerners were sleeping in the gully. The pile of brush and dirt that was the makeshift bed of their leader was the same as it had been since morning. Jalan could not see the fifth northerner but assumed he was standing watch somewhere. Jalan sat up and listened. Nothing but the sound of the wind. The nights had gone cold enough that all but the hardiest of the flies had laid their eggs and died. There wasn't even any birdsong, just the whispering of the wind over miles and miles of grass. Jalan stretched his legs out and winced. They were stiff. He listened again. Still nothing, and the four sleepers had not stirred.
Jalan looked up. Still no sign of the guard. Jalan scooted over to the waterskin. If the guard appeared and questioned him, he could claim he was only going for a drink. Still nothing. Jalan took a small sip, tied the skin shut tight, then stood up. The northerners did not stir, but Jalan felt a sudden awareness from the mound where the leader was sleeping. Although it was only an irregular mound with bits of branch protruding from the dirt, Jalan was sure that something inside it was watching him. He still had not seen the leader's face. The man shunned the light and kept his hood up even in darkest night. Jalan pictured him pale as bone with bloodshot eyes, and he felt like those eyes were watching him now. Jalan looked. The orange in the clouds was deepening to the color of dying embers. The sun would be setting soon. He looked around for some food. The northerner who had fed him earlier had taken the strip of dried flesh from a leather satchel, which the man was now using for a pillow. Nothing to be done for it. Jalan's eyes were drawn back to the mound of brush and dirt. No change, but he could still feel something inside watching him, could almost picture a pale face and the bloodshNo. The eyes wouldn't be bloodshot, Jalan knew, for blood meant life and warmth. Whatever was inside that mound, wrapped in its ash-colored robes, there was no warmth in it. The eyes watching him were ice. Before his mind could seize up, before sense outdid his courage, Jalan ran. He headed down the gully until he saw a suitable place to climb out, then bounded up the incline, sending dirt and rocks and grass sliding down behind him. His hands found dry grass, his fingers dug in, he pulled himself up, his feet found the ground, and he was off. Jalan raced over the steppe, at first not caring which direction, caring only to put distance between himself and his captors. But when his fear cleared enough to allow his mind to notice he was heading north-the direction his captors had been taking him-a small cry of frustration shook him and he turned left. His back itched. He feared that at any moment one of the northmen's barbed spears would impale him, that he'd be harpooned like a fish. He tripped over another tussock of grass, scrambled to his feet, and was off again. Besides the pounding of his feet and his own breathing he heard nothing. No sounds of pursuit. The last sliver of the sun's crown sank into the earth in front of him, and he dared a look back, not stopping but looking over his shoulder as he ran. One of the northerners-the guard most likely-was standing at the rim of the gully, not moving, not coming after him, just watching. A shadow scuttled insectlike out of the gully then stopped and stood tall beside the guard. Jalan ran into the dying light, the eastern sky darkening behind him. He knew that the dark thing was no shadow at all, but covered in robes and cloak the color of ash. An unreasoning fear seized Jalan and he ran all the harder, terror giving his legs strength. The breeze that had whispered through the grasses all day suddenly grew to a full wind, pushing at Jalan from the right and sending stinging dirt and grit into his eyes. He wiped at the muddy tears but did not slow down. Better to run blind than stop. Jalan closed
his mouth and breathed through his nose to keep the dirt from his mouth. The land began to rise a bit, and his legs started to burn.
He'd eaten nothing since morning-and barely anything then. His heart seemed to be beating all the way into the top of his skull, and he could not bring enough air into his body. His face twisted into a rictus of pain, but he forced himself onward. He topped the rise and began his descent. The pain in his legs eased as he went down the slope, but soon he was going too fast. A bloody dusk still lingered in front of him, but the light only glowed in the sky. It blinded him from seeing the ground at his feet as anything but a featureless shadow. His foot hit a thick tussock. He almost fell but righted himself and kept going. He made it another seven steps before his foot hit the lip of a hole-the front door of some animal's home probably-and he went down. The dry grass cushioned the worst of his fall, but the impact drove what little air he had from his lungs. A sudden gust hit him, almost as if the wind itself were laughing at him. Jalan pushed himself to his feet, and the beginnings of panic set in as he noticed the trembling in his legs. He knew he couldn't keep this pace up much longer. Jalan looked up. All he saw was featureless steppe in every direction. There might well be other dry gullies, running like cracks throughout the plain, but he'd never see them until he was on top of them. He forced himself onward but slackened his pace a bit. He'd been lucky. Another foot into a hole and he might well break an ankle. As a boy, he'd seen it happen to horses, and if a healer wasn't around, there was nothing to be done but a quick jab to the thick vein along the beast's throat. A fountain of blood, an ear-splitting cry that would sometimes go on far too long… then it was over. Jalan risked a quick glance over his shoulder. Nothing crested the rise behind him, but when he turned back around he saw pale things flitting over the plain to the north. Gray, in the dusklight they almost blended in to the steppe. Only their movement gave them away-and they were headed right for him. A sob shook Jalan.
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