The old woman had to lean on her staff and took her time climbing the slick rocks. The scent grew stronger as she climbed, and her scowl deepened. That was no bird.
Standing under the great tree, the old woman felt dwarfed. She and the tree were the only upright things on the island, and she seemed small and insignificant next to it. She’d never liked the cursed thing.
She held her staff in a firm hand and raised it, ready to strike. Perhaps she was wrong. Maybe there was a bird up there, and that smell was coming from something else. Should it be a bird, she wanted to be ready. One little rap with her staff. Not hard. Not enough to stop its little heart. Just enough to stun it so she could grab it.
Slow, nice and slow, she crept around the tree, her gaze casting upward. The last sliver of sun sank in the west, and its last flicker of flame caught on the thing waving from a low branch.
The old woman gasped.
It wasn’t a bird at all.
It had glowed red as an ember in the dying light when her eye first caught it, then as the first bit of true night fell on the island, all warmth and light left the little thing. It was no larger than the old woman’s thumbnail, but there was no mistaking it.
The ancient tree of the Raumathari kings had produced a bud.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Endless Wastes
Not in all her years serving the crown of Cormyr, all her demanding apprenticeship and training as a war wizard, not even during the longest days of the war, had Amira ever been so tired.
They left Arzhan Island that morning as soon as it was light enough to see. It took all morning and a good deal of the afternoon to get through the woods north of the Lake of Mists. That had been exhausting enough, but once Gyaidun had led them onto the open steppe, he started running, not waiting for Amira but obviously expecting her to keep up. She had, which seemed to annoy Gyaidun, though it didn’t entirely please Amira. She knew she’d never have managed it without the belkagen’s help.
Before they’d left camp that morning, Gyaidun still avoiding the belkagen and refusing to speak to him, the belkagen had pressed several special roots—he’d called them kanishta roots—into her hand and told her to keep quiet about them, but he knew she’d need them after midday when they came to open grassland. She hadn’t understood till her legs began to cramp and her lungs refused to fill with enough air. She’d stuck one of the roots in her mouth, chewed, and new vigor and strength had filled her almost at once.
Whether the kanishta roots had some herbal property or had been fused with the belkagen’s magic—probably both, Amira guessed—they certainly worked. They tasted just shy of foul, but with one tucked between her teeth and cheek, she’d been able to keep up with Gyaidun the whole way, and when they stopped for brief periods to drink, he seemed even more winded than she. His scowl told her he suspected she’d had help doing so, but he didn’t say a word.
After midday, after running across the open steppe with only brief periods of jogging for rest, Amira began to hate Gyaidun. Her legs burned and the inside of her chest ached, even with the help of the kanishta roots. They kept her going, but she couldn’t help feeling as if her endurance were like a bow being pulled farther and farther back, gaining strength but in so doing coming ever closer to snapping. As the sun slid toward the horizon and the ache deepened to pain, then agony, she even considered murdering the man for the unflagging pace he set. Probably the only thing that kept him alive was her knowledge that he was her best hope in finding Jalan. He knew these lands and was able to follow their quarry’s trail even through the short grass.
When the western sky began to burn orange with the coming of evening and a violet curtain spread across the east, even her hate for the big man and his long, miles-eating legs faded. Now that they had finally stopped, with the barest sliver of sun peeking over some low hills to her left, Amira just wanted to fall down and die.
“Tired?” asked Gyaidun. A thin sheen of sweat covered his brow, but even carrying most of their supplies he was not breathing heavy. The hate in Amira flared again.
“No.” Amira blushed when the word came out a gasp. She swallowed and her trembling fingers fumbled to untie the waterskin dangling from her pack.
“Let me help you,” said Gyaidun, crouching next to her.
“I can do it!” She slapped his hand away.
Gyaidun stood. “What do you think?”
“About what?”
“Light will be gone soon. We should find a place to camp.”
“Fine.”
“No caves for miles. No copses. Maybe I can find a gully. It’ll keep the worst of the wind off us and hide the fire.”
“Talking isn’t going to find it.”
He gave her a hard look then said, “Sure you don’t want help with that?”
She let go of the waterskin and let it dangle from her pack. She’d only managed to tighten the knot even worse. “I’m not that thirsty after all.”
Gyaidun took his own waterskin, took a long drink, then tied it shut and looked at her. “You sure?”
“You—”
A harsh caw and a rustle of black feathers cut her off. Gyaidun held up his arm and Durja the raven settled on it. The bird flapped his wings and called again.
“Hush,” said Gyaidun. “Dilit, Durja!”
The raven cawed once more, then settled down.
“What’s the matter with him?” asked Amira.
“He’s found something.”
Under a cloudless sky quickly fading to black, Durja led them less than a quarter of a mile to a dry creek bed no more than five or six paces across and two deep. Amira dropped her pack to the ground next to Gyaidun’s and sat on the edge of the gully while the big man climbed down.
“What is it?” she asked.
“They camped here last night,” said Gyaidun. He was bent low, his gaze fixed on the ground, and he took the utmost care with each step. Durja perched on a nearby rock and looked to his master. “They lit no fire, but they bedded down here.”
“They?”
“Your boy and his captors.”
“Jalan?” Even through her bone weariness, proof that they were going the right way gave her a brief surge of excitement.
“Yes. Jalan. And at least four others. Maybe more. They rested here. I’d say they left at sunset yesterday.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Gyaidun stood straight. “I need to look around. You can start a fire?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then do it.” He climbed out of the gully and stood over her. “Down there. And keep it low. We don’t want to signal everyone for miles around.”
“Where are you going?”
“I won’t be long.”
“Curse you, where—”
But he was already moving off. In moments, he had disappeared over the small rise.
“I hate the Wastes,” Amira said. She stood, dragged their packs down into the gully, then set about looking for something to burn.
There was precious little, and all of it hard to find in the gloom. The gully obviously served as a stream in the wetter, warmer seasons, for the bank was lined with small bushes of hard, twisted wood with tiny leaves. Amira pulled at one and a small pain shot through her finger. The cursed things had thorns. Not large, but they were sharp. She considered lying down by her pack and letting the big oaf build his own fire. But now that the sun was gone and she’d stopped running, the chill in the wind had bite. She’d only spent a few days around the Lake of Mists, and she’d grown used to the heat it gave off. Out here on the open steppe, autumn was cold.
Taking more care, she grabbed the thing at the base and pulled it up by the roots. The soil was dry and the plant came up easily. She gathered five, threw four into a pile and one near the base of the gully wall. Her fingers twirled, she spoke an incantation, and flame funneled out of her fingers into the little bush. The dry leaves caught at once, flared a brilliant
orange, and the flames caught in the wood.
It gave her enough light to gather stones to make a little firepit, and she used a larger rock to break up the other bushes without having to risk touching the thorns. She’d just thrown more wood on the fire when Gyaidun returned.
“Here, use these.” He tossed several gray chips, each the size of a dinner plate, near the fire.
“What are they?”
“Dung.”
Amira put a hand over her nose and scooted to the other side of the fire.
“It’s dry,” said Gyaidun. “It will burn slow and hot with little light.”
“I don’t suppose you found any water?”
“No water.” Gyaidun crouched next to the fire. He looked grim. “I found something else. Not good.”
“What?”
“More tracks besides Jalan’s and his captors.”
“More Frost Folk?”
“You know viliniketu? The Tuigan call them tirikul.”
Amira shook her head. “I don’t know the word, but tiri means ‘ice,’ does it not?”
“The viliniketu are like wolves, but larger and much more cunning. They live—”
Amira’s heart skipped a bit. “You mean winter wolves?”
“As you say. A whole pack of them came here yesterday around sunset. No human tracks left.”
“What does that mean?” asked Amira. She could not hide the tremor in her voice. “The winter wolves attacked them?” She’d encountered them once before, back during the war. They were dangerous, but she knew they’d be no match for that dark thing that had her son.
“It means that your son’s captors are riding the viliniketu, and there’s damned little chance of our catching them now, even if we ran all night and all day tomorrow.”
“This morning when we left the lake, you said we might find Tuigan and obtain horses.”
“Might. But even if we found horses tomorrow and ran them till they died, there’s no horse that could catch the viliniketu.”
“You’re giving up?” Amira said. Rage and despair filled her.
“No!” said Gyaidun, anger rising in his voice. “We’ll run or ride as long as there’s a trail to follow. But unless you can grow wings to fly us there, they’ll be wherever they’re going long before us.”
“What if—?” Amira stopped herself.
Gyaidun speared her with his gaze, and she looked away.
“What if what?” he asked.
Amira said nothing but cursed inwardly. She knew Gyaidun’s only interest in helping Jalan was in hopes of finding his own son or, barring that, wreaking vengeance on those who took him. She dared not trust him with too much.
“What if what?” Gyaidun grabbed her wrist. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Amira slapped his hand away. “Unhand me!”
Gyaidun lowered his hands but leaned in close until he towered over and looked straight down into her eyes. She straightened her back and returned his gaze. One spell, just one, and she could have this brute howling for mercy.
“You think this is a game?” said Gyaidun. His eyes narrowed, and he spoke scarcely above a whisper. “Your son is out there. My rathla, my sworn brother, almost died protecting him. I’m risking my life trying to get him back.”
“Why?”
Gyaidun flinched, obviously shocked at the straightforward question, but said nothing.
“I watched you, you know.”
“What?” Gyaidun’s brow wrinkled in confusion.
Amira had to fight to keep the smile off her lips. She’d never liked the machinations and manipulations of courtly life, hated it in fact, but that didn’t mean she didn’t know how to play the game when it suited her. Hit your opponent where he least expected. That held true in both court and war—and ten times more so with men.
“When I woke in the belkagen’s camp. You treated him with respect. Almost awe at times. Until he told us what he knew of Winterkeep and the … Frost Folk, he named them. You tensed up like a drawn bow. I thought you were going to crack a tooth grinding your jaw. Then, when he mentioned other children being taken—”
“Enough!”
Gyaidun stood, and for a moment Amira feared she’d gone too far. The same fury that had clouded his features when he’d attacked the belkagen was back. Amira’s hand tightened around her staff, and she started going through the proper spell that could stop Gyaidun without seriously hurting him. But he stopped, and obviously with great effort composed himself.
Finally, his shoulders slumped and he spoke in barely more than a whisper. “My son was taken. Just like Jalan. My wife died, just like your knights. I never saw my son again.” A bit of the cold hardness returned to his eyes. “That what you want?”
Amira slapped him, then stepped back, shocked at herself.
Gyaidun glared at her, but he didn’t back down. “Hit me all you want,” he said. “But if you’re keeping secrets from me, you’re only damning Jalan. Right now, I’m the only friend you have.”
She held his gaze a moment longer, wrestling with her own doubt, then her shoulders sagged. She lowered her staff and sat down beside the fire.
“Sit down.”
Gyaidun hesitated, then turned and went to their packs. For a moment she thought he was offended, but he returned with their blankets. He tossed one to her, then sat across the fire from her. He held his blanket in his lap.
Amira wrapped hers around her shoulders, then began her tale.
“I … I lied.”
She watched him for a reaction. He blinked.
“I was not part of any official expedition from Cormyr. Search parties were sent. That much was true, but I was forbidden from going. It was no simple assignment that I was at High Horn. Over the past few years I have been somewhat … insubordinate. They sent me to High Horn in hopes of reining me in. The attack there occurred just as I told you and the others, but when search parties were organized, I was forbidden from going. My superiors”—she made no attempt to keep the sneer from her voice—“believed I was too close to the situation, too emotionally attached to serve the crown with proper objectivity. Besides, I am a Hiloar, and my House’s relationship with the crown and the war wizards is … strained. They assured me they would do all they could for Jalan, but told me in no uncertain terms that I was to remain at High Horn.”
Her voice was breaking. She was about to get up and go for her waterskin when Gyaidun handed his to her. She nodded her thanks and took a long drink.
“You’re a renegade then,” said Gyaidun. “You disobeyed and went anyway.”
She held herself erect, proud, ready to defend herself, but much to her surprise she saw approval in Gyaidun’s frank gaze.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” she said.
He smiled. “Go on.”
“I am not without resources, and I organized my own party. Swords for hire, a few good scouts I knew, and even two thieves I thought might prove useful. We ran into one of the ‘official’ expeditions in Nathoud. Had I run into Strirris or Jamilan’s party, they might have arrested me on the spot, but it was Mursen. He and I have a … history together, you might say.”
Amira watched Gyaidun for a reaction. There wasn’t one.
“His knights wanted him to arrest the lot of us, but I talked him out of it. I agreed to submit myself to his authority and face formal charges when we returned to Cormyr, but until then it made more sense to join forces. The knights balked and complained, but Mursen agreed. My family has contacts in Nathoud, and we obtained the finest horses in the area and set off into the Wastes.”
Her breath caught. She took another long drink and stared into the fire.
“How many?” asked Gyaidun.
“What?”
“Your parties joined together. How many were you?”
“A score and three. We set an unflagging pace. Lesser mounts would have died, but these were the finest Nathoud horses. We caught them. We caught the whoreson bastards who had Jalan. We saw them around midday
and chased them until nearly sunset.”
She needed a moment to compose herself. She tied the waterskin shut, tossed it back to Gyaidun, then put a bit more kindling on the fire. The flames burned low, down to little more than embers in ashes, and the fire would go out if no one tended it.
Gyaidun threw some of the dried dung on the fire and said, “What happened?”
“We fought. Those white-skinned barbarians fought like devils, but still we were beating them. Until the sun went down.”
“The sun?”
“That … thing. The one in the dark robes. He fled before us and hung back. At first we thought him no more than a decrepit old man. But when the sun went down, he … he …”
“What?”
“It was like … like watching a petal unfold. No, it was faster than that. Like throwing oil on a fire. Once darkness was upon us, he became terrible. Knights fell before him like wheat under a scythe. Mursen tried to stop him, and that … that monster blocked the spell and snapped Mursen’s neck.”
Amira closed her eyes, hoping to push back the tears, but it only brought the image back, stark and clear—seeing the slate-gray sky and under it Mursen’s head forced all the way around, hearing the final snap. She opened her eyes and wiped the tears away on her sleeve.
“Mursen was your … I don’t know your word. Lover?”
Amira tried to smile, but she could feel it twisting into something else. “Not in a long time, but … he …”
“I am sorry for your loss. He died well.”
“Died well?” The tears were flowing freely now, but she didn’t care. “That monster snapped his neck like a twig. Died well or died poorly. Died brave or died a coward. Does it matter?”
Gyaidun’s eyes were hard, but there was a gentleness in his voice that Amira had never heard before. “He died fighting. Fighting to save your son. Fighting beside comrades. Better that than a drooling old man whose heart stops in his sleep.”
Amira wanted to rail and curse him, pummel him with her fists and maybe sear that damned calm look off his face, but all she said was, “Fool.”
Gyaidun sat unfazed. “I did not know Mursen. I do not know your western ways. If I offended, I apologize. I am sorry your … friend died.”
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