by C. Greenwood
Orrick rubbed his forehead. Sometimes he imagined he could feel the tracing mark burrowing away inside his skull like some living, gnawing thing.
“Who knows why a ghost does what she does?” he asked. “I have told her the scepter will not be hers, and that is the end of it. I don’t expect she will trouble us again.”
It seemed best not to mention that he had once agreed to trade the scepter for the removal of the tracing mark. He doubted Eydis would approve of the planned exchange, given her determination to carry out the oracle’s will in all things. For a similar reason, he hadn’t told her about the existence of the mark itself. She would surely seek to justify the oracle’s devious action in forcing the mark on him.
Eydis glanced again toward the ruined shell of the house. But if she doubted that he had told her the full truth of the encounter, if she had heard anything more of his conversation with the White Lady, she did not say so. She appeared preoccupied with other concerns.
“I dreamed again,” she said gravely. “That is another reason why I came looking for you. After the things I witnessed in the dream, it is now more important than ever that we resume our journey quickly. There is no time to waste.”
Orrick scowled, realizing that by “dream” she meant “vision.” He had always been uncomfortable with these visions and other magical abilities of hers. Although he was growing used to them, he could never quite forget his old rule. Never trust magic or the scheming folk who wielded it.
Even more concerning, he recognized her comments as a return to the matter they had been arguing about ever since leaving Castidon.
“I will take you part of the way to your destination,” he said. “But I will not approach Silverwood Grove.”
Her brow furrowed. “Why do you continue this foolish distrust of the oracle? Only she can tell us how to defeat Rathnakar and his army. She is our only guide.”
“She is your only guide,” he corrected. “I take no orders from her.”
“People are dying,” Eydis persisted. “In my dream last night, I saw a village burned to the ground and all the inhabitants who could not be pressed into the enemy’s army destroyed. More lives will be lost if we don’t learn from the oracle how to counter this darkness.”
Orrick was unmoved. “These are Lythnian lives you speak of. But I am from Kroad. The protection of your countrymen does not concern me. Do you forget these are the same people who have put a price on my head and who hunt me even now?”
She might have answered truthfully that he was considered just as much a traitor in his own homeland as hers.
But instead, she said, “It is not merely the Lythnian kingdom in danger. Rathnakar threatens all Earth Realm. It is my duty to save it.”
He shrugged. “Then you have no time to lose. We will resupply in the next town we pass through. Afterward, I will take you as far as the settlement of Arneroche. From there, we must part ways. I have my own business to attend, and you still owe me directions to Arik the One-Eyed, the only one who might be able to clear me of the charge of treason. Or have you forgotten our deal?”
She looked angry and hurt by his determination to go his own way. But she said, “I will keep my promise.”
He had come to know her well enough to believe she would.
They returned to camp only to find Ilarion had vanished. Eydis searched for the ghost horse and raged that he must have been stolen. But Orrick thought of how the White Lady had withdrawn her support. He knew they would not be seeing the ghost stallion again.
CHAPTER THREE
Eydis
Eydis pressed her face to the crack in the cupboard door and surveyed the room outside. Her eyes had grown accustomed to the dark ever since climbing into the musty-smelling cupboard crammed into the corner.
Unlike previous inns where they had stayed, in the Green Griffin of Hedgecote, she had not been forced to share a single room with a handful of strangers. She had been able to obtain private quarters—a narrow room crammed beneath the eaves with just space enough to hold a rickety bed and a tall empty cupboard.
Moonlight filtered through the room’s one grubby window, illuminating the cracked plaster walls and the stark form of the sagging bed frame. A lumpy form lay in the bed, buried under a heap of old blankets despite the warmth of the night. Although the form was nothing but a pillow and Eydis’s rolled-up cloak shaped to look like a sleeping figure, the deception was convincing. Eydis could only hope she wouldn’t be alone in thinking so.
She looked to the window again and reassured herself it had been left invitingly open. With any luck, the opening would tempt in more than the night breeze. She tightened her grip on the long-bladed knife she had purchased on the street upon entering town mere hours ago.
She and Orrick had arrived in Hedgecote shortly after the encounter with the White Lady. Their progress would have been faster had they not been forced to travel on foot since losing Ilarion. The plan was to spend one short night in this place, resupply, and continue on their way to the settlement of Arneroche.
But almost from the very moment of reaching this small town, Eydis had known something was wrong. She quickly developed a sense of being watched and had repeatedly looked backward in time to catch sight of a hidden observer’s cloak disappearing around a corner. Then, just for an instant, she had glimpsed him. She would know the owner of that short wiry form anywhere, more from his stealthy movements than from the face partially hidden beneath the hood he wore pulled forward.
The nameless assassin.
After escaping the wizard in the granite tower, she had believed she was done with him and with the assassin he had set on her tail before the battle of Asincourt. And yet here he was, stalking her again. How had he located her? Had the devious wizard glimpsed her through his crystal gazing ball? All she could be sure of was that she must destroy the assassin before he could destroy her.
And so she gave no sign of noticing she was being followed, hiding it even from Orrick. She had waited until her barbarian companion procured these quarters. Then, when he went out to purchase supplies, she laid her trap. She waited now, trying not to imagine all that could go wrong with her plan. Maybe the assassin wouldn’t take the bait. Maybe Orrick would return earlier than expected and scare him away.
A sudden scratching sound at the windowsill drove these concerns away. A man’s gloved hands reached over the ledge, and then his upper body came into view as he pulled himself up the steep slant of the inn’s roof. Cloaked and hooded, the dark form scrambled nimbly into the room.
The stillness was undisturbed by this new presence, his movements so soft as he crossed the floor that Eydis could hardly have believed him there if her eyes had not confirmed it.
The assassin drew from inside his sleeve a bone-handled dagger with a sharp, wicked-looking blade. His way of holding it was so practiced it was as if the weapon had become part of his hand. Silver moonlight from the window glinted off the steel.
Not until now did Eydis realize the boldness of her plan. She was preparing to confront, alone, an enemy who made his living by skillful murder. But it was too late for doubts. She gathered courage by summoning thoughts of the time she, Orrick, and Geveral had fended off giant cave crawlers. Or the day she and Orrick together had defended the walls of Asincourt against an undead army. Or even older memories of her time before Shroudstone, when her childhood was spent on the Castidon streets, fighting other beggars and street children for scraps of food to bring home to her family.
By the time the assassin crept up on the false form lying in her bed, she was almost ready to burst out of the cupboard and attack him.
That was when the bottom panel of the cupboard creaked beneath her feet.
In the space of a breath, the assassin whirled toward the sound, leaped across the room, and threw open the cupboard doors.
Finding herself trapped and without room to maneuver inside the wooden box, Eydis rushed to be the first to attack. Lunging forward, she stabbed her long-bladed knif
e toward the assassin’s heart. But he turned at the last instant, his shoulder catching the blow. Eydis had the satisfaction of feeling her blade meet flesh. But the shallow injury gave her assailant no pause, and she was not quick enough to dodge his incoming dagger.
Instinctively shutting her eyes, she expected to feel the blade pierce through her. Instead, she felt a blunt pain as her enemy clubbed her in the side of the head with the hilt of his dagger.
A sharp yelp escaped Eydis. The room seemed to spin as she stumbled and fell to the floor with a noisy crash. In the seconds that followed, her senses were strangely magnified. The floorboards felt cold beneath her cheek, and her heartbeat drummed loudly in her ears. Or maybe that was the thunder of hurrying feet on the stairs outside.
Through a haze, she saw the boots of the assassin as he came to stand over her. She waited, wondering with detached curiosity why he had not already killed her with his first blow.
Then the door to the room burst open.
* * *
Clearly startled by the intrusion, the assassin darted across the room and leaped out the open window.
Orrick ran after him, sword in hand, and Eydis was left alone.
Her dizziness gradually receded, but her skull throbbed painfully and she could already feel the beginnings of a lump forming on her head. By the time she dragged herself to her feet, Orrick was returning, clambering back through the window.
“He’s gone,” the barbarian said. “He ran like a cat across the rooftops and disappeared before I could get close.”
Eydis looked past him, out into the dark night. “Not to worry. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing him again soon enough. He failed to accomplish his object.”
“To kill you?”
She thought about it. “I doubt that was his intention. If he wanted me dead, he had his chance and chose not to make use of it. I think he wanted something else. The same thing everyone else seems determined to obtain.”
“The scepter,” he agreed. “But how would he know anything of it?”
“The same master who hired him to intervene in my fate before Asincourt is fully capable of sending him to snatch the scepter from me,” Eydis said. “He probably meant to keep me alive long enough to find out what I had done with it.”
She tried not to show her dismay, but her heart sank at the knowledge that the wizard in the granite tower was not done with her after all. She thought she had finally escaped his interference. It was unsettling to realize he was still observing her movements through his gazing ball. The only comfort was that he had not known she no longer possessed the scepter. That meant his spying was limited. He couldn’t see everything.
Even so, watching Orrick draw the window closed and latch it tight, Eydis knew she had not seen the last of the nameless assassin.
CHAPTER FOUR
Geveral
The first thing Geveral felt on waking was pain. His upper back was bruised as if he had been struck hard across the shoulders. There was a strange numbness in his right leg running from hip to toes. And his chest ached like the air had been knocked from his lungs.
He drew a shaky breath, wincing at the pain the simple action sent rippling through his torso.
What had happened to him?
Bright sunlight poured into his eyes as soon as he opened them. He squinted against the glare. Directly above stretched an endless field of blue, only a few pale clouds scuttling across the clear sky. A dark bird wheeled high overhead.
He was sprawled on his back in a meadow, tall grasses waving around him in the warm breeze. His last memory was of flying, gliding low over the meadowlands on the back of the dragon, Kalandhia. Then something had happened. He must have fallen asleep or fainted, falling from his perch atop the dragon and being knocked unconscious by the landing. But then, where was Kalandhia?
Urgently, he tried to pull himself upright to look for the dragon. But the world around him spun crazily until he quickly gave up the effort to rise. Lying still, he gathered his thoughts, waiting for the dizziness to fade.
He had driven himself hard recently, not stopping to eat or rest in his impatience to get back to the mountains. Ever since Keir had sacrificed himself to stop the shadow monster, Geveral’s one thought had been to return to where he had last seen Eydis.
Only Keir and his mysterious mission had kept Geveral moving forward after the avalanche that claimed the lives of the adherents and dwarf children in his charge. He had failed the adherents and children, and he had failed Keir. He would not do the same to Eydis. If she was still alive, stranded somewhere in the icy wilderness of the Arxus Mountains, he must return for her.
A high-pierced cry that was neither scream nor roar drew Geveral’s eyes back to the sky. The dark shape wheeling far above was not a bird, he realized now, but a dragon. Kalandhia was watching over him.
Reassured by the knowledge, he gave in to the dizziness tugging at him and let exhaustion overtake him.
* * *
When next Geveral woke, it was to strange rattling sounds and a lurching sensation of movement. The world around him had grown dim. The blue sky above was replaced by a low roof directly overhead. The tall meadow grasses were gone and in their place were four close walls, boxing him in.
He lay beneath a thinly frayed blanket among cushions scattered atop a narrow bed frame. A single round window in the wall offered a glimpse of the green countryside rolling past. He was traveling in some sort of enclosed wagon, he realized, taking in the cluttered space around him.
A collection of pans and ladles hung from nails on the opposite wall, swinging and clattering with each bump of the wagon. There were other utensils and clusters of dried herbs hanging from the walls alongside shelves stuffed with old books, straw baskets, and colorful rags. There were storage chests in the floor, and out of their open mouths trailed tangled articles of clothing and other odds and ends. In a nearby corner stood a ridiculously small stove, filling the crowded space with the smell of woodsmoke and a degree of heat that was slightly uncomfortable on an already-warm day.
Before the stove was a three-legged stool. Whoever normally sat in that place before the fire was absent now. Geveral was completely alone but for the sparse furnishings and the untidy mixture of personal possessions. It was hard to imagine anyone could live in these cramped quarters. And yet the surrounding space gave every appearance of being exactly that. Someone’s home.
But whose? And more importantly, why had they taken him as their prisoner?
Geveral threw aside the light coverlet and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Instantly, pain shot up his right leg, making him cry out. The length from his hip to the ends of his toes was no longer numb but throbbed sharply at every small motion. The rest of his bruises were less troubling, but he must have injured his leg badly during the fall from Kalandhia’s back.
At his shout of pain, the wagon lurched suddenly to a halt. In the short seconds that followed, Geveral pushed down the pain and looked wildly around for anything that might serve as a weapon. Until he knew whether he had been taken up by friend or foe, he must be prepared to defend himself.
A poker protruded from the wood bucket beside the stove, but he dismissed the object as being made of iron. Even in his injured and confused state, he retained enough of his dryad upbringing to feel contempt for weapons of iron or steel. Instead, he snatched up a stick of wood from the bucket.
Footsteps sounded outside, and then there was a rattling of the small door at the end of the wagon, the only means of entrance or escape.
Gritting his teeth against the pain of movement, Geveral hobbled on his one good leg, lurching toward the door even as it swung inward. He caught a brief look at the figure in the doorway. Then the strength of his good leg gave out and he collapsed to the floor.
Before he could right himself, the stranger had clambered into the wagon and was at his side.
“You’ve taken a serious injury, young fellow. It’s no wonder you’re not fit to walk yet.”
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br /> There was something vaguely familiar in the voice and in the lined face of the old man looking down on him. Even more familiar were the eyes, one of them blind, judging by its milky-white appearance.
The newcomer, whoever he was, looked harmless enough.
Geveral relaxed and accepted the wrinkled hand offered to assist him up. With the stranger’s help, he hobbled back to his bed and sank down onto the cushions.
“I don’t know who you are, but I see I owe you thanks for your care,” he said.
The old man inclined his bald head. “Think nothing of it,” he said, claiming a place on the stool before the stove. He glanced at the loose stick of firewood at his feet where it had rolled across the floor after slipping from Geveral’s hand during his fall.
Geveral had the impression that, for all his years, not much missed the sharp gaze of the stranger’s one good eye.
But his companion made no comment on the near attack against him, merely picking up the stick and returning it to the wood bucket. As he did so, he said, “I came upon you earlier today, lying in the grass near the road. You were dazed but conscious enough to limp, with some help, into my wagon. Do you not remember?”
“I don’t,” said Geveral. “But that might account for this strange feeling of mine that I have seen your face before.”
“It might,” the old man agreed easily and changed the subject. “You have slept for many hours. I thought it best to let you rest while you could.”
Many hours? Geveral’s mind flew to Kalandhia and the sudden realization that they had been separated. Where was the dragon now?
The old one seemed to read his thoughts. “You need have no worry for your fierce companion,” he said. “The great beast has been following my wagon ever since I took you up. At first, I thought it meant to devour me, but the monster has kept its distance.”
Geveral followed his gesture toward the window and, looking out, glimpsed the shadow of the dragon circling in the sky high above.
