Errol woke to darkness so black and unrelieved he thought ice had seeped into his chest, stilling his heart. The flare of red behind his eyes had receded to a pinpoint, leaving him lucid. He lay entombed in lightlessness, afraid to move lest the convulsions returned. His back ached as if someone had snuck up behind him and beaten him with punja sticks.
He was warm.
That last surprised him. He had come to associate any clarity of thought with a cold so deep it defied sun or fire. Was he dead? Months in Erinon had left him ignorant still of the simplest theology. What happened when a man died? He longed to speak, to have his loneliness relieved, but if he still lived and lay alone somewhere without help, the convulsions would kill him.
He didn’t want to die. A thought occurred to him. If he still lived, the church’s compulsion still lay on him. Errol turned his attention inward, seeking. Yes, there it lay, like a knot deep in his mind. He lived, warm and clear at the same time.
Why was he alone?
Or was he? He held his breath in an attempt to hear breathing other than his own, but the labored beating of his heart prevented him. With a deep breath, he tried again, with no better results. Caution, he told himself. He hadn’t used any in the village, and a poisoned dagger to his side had been the price. As much as he wanted to know whether or not he lay alone, the answer wasn’t critical.
And he was tired. His feeble efforts exhausted him. For the first time in an eternity of pain, he fell asleep without the use of drugs.
Errol opened his eyes an instant or days later. He didn’t know which. A thread of sunshine shone through a thin gap in the curtains of his room. Adora sat in a chair at the foot of his bed. Dark circles of exhaustion rimmed her eyes, giving her a frantic look, as if she’d witnessed dire portents of the future. The light failed to catch the gold in her hair, and she slumped under burdens Errol couldn’t see.
She blinked at him, her gaze going through him, and he shivered, remembering the eyes of the woman in the village. “Your Highness.” His throat ached as though the entire conclave had used polishing cloth on it.
Adora’s eyes came into focus, and she rose. Like a child, she tottered as she walked first to the door to lock it and then to the side of his bed. She knelt, her head with its glory of golden hair scant inches from his face. The patter of tears on the marble floor of his bedchamber came to him like the sound of rain on the rocks of the Sprata.
“Errol, will you forgive me? I should never have sent you away. You are the best and noblest man I have ever met.”
He tried to clear his throat to speak. “Water?”
She rose, head still bowed, and filled a cup from a pitcher that sat on an ornately carved table across the room. She held the cup for him and he drank, tasting salt. His throat would take time to heal.
He closed his lips after a few gulps, ignoring what flowed down his cheeks. “You didn’t send me to the village. That was my foolish idea.”
“An idea you wouldn’t have had except for my stupid pride,” Adora said.
“Don’t take burdens that don’t belong to you, Your Highness. When I’m better I’ll tell you just how many mistakes I made that night.” Errol thought back. “It’s a long list.” He flexed the muscles in his legs, surprised at their obedience. “Can you help me up? I’d like to see Rale.”
“I’ll bring him to you,” Adora said, moving toward the door.
He shook his head. “I want out of this room, even if it’s to a chair just outside the door.”
The princess smiled, her lips tight. “I’ll get someone to assist you.”
“You don’t want to help me?”
The smile grew. “Earl Stone, in order to keep you cool, it was necessary to remove your clothes.” She paused. “All of your clothes. You are quite naked beneath that sheet.” The princess arched her eyebrows at him. “Do you still want my help?”
For a moment he considered teasing her in turn, but he considered the implications of his current state. Who had undressed him? He didn’t want to know. “Uh, no thank you, Your Highness. Could you send someone else to assist me?” She turned to the door, and he remembered Rokha was the closest thing to a healer the caravan had. “Someone male, please,” he called after her.
Conger came in a few minutes later. “Good to see you’re still on this side of eternity, milord.”
Errol shook his head. The room spun with the motion. “Call me Errol. How long since I was poisoned?”
“Seven days, mi—Errol.” Conger helped him to a sitting position, then fetched a set of unfamiliar garments from a wardrobe in the corner and began to dress him as if he were a young child. “We had to cut your clothes off. It was the only way to get you into the ice without moving you too much.”
Errol nodded. The motion came easier this time. “Where are we?”
Conger’s eyes lit. “We are in Basquon, just over the border from Talia, but there is much more . . . Ooh, there’s a story there, boy, but it’s not mine to tell.” He rubbed his hands with relish. “All in good time. First, the healer will want to see you. The princess has gone to fetch him.”
As if the mention of him had the power to call him forth, the door opened and a young man, his head covered by a short, conical hat, moved to his bed. Dark-haired with a short beard, he looked hardly older than Errol.
He lifted Errol’s shirt, removed the dressing on his side, and laid his hand on the wound, his fingers light and deft. With a nod, he replaced the bandage and the shirt. “You’ll live.” He said this as if he’d been uncertain of Errol’s fate up to that point.
Errol smiled. “I’m glad to hear it. I had my doubts over the past seven days.”
Conger snorted, but the healer only nodded, either missing the jest or ignoring it. “Styrich poisoning,” he said. “You’re lucky to be alive.”
Caution, Errol told himself. “What can I do or not do?”
The healer waved a hand. “The poison has washed out of your system. You can do anything you have the strength to do. You haven’t eaten anything for a week, so you’ll be weak for a few days. Other than that, you’re fine.”
Errol tried to clear the scratch out of his throat again, but when he spoke, it still sounded deep and raspy. “When will my voice heal?”
The doctor’s head tilted to one side. “It may not. They tell me you screamed the entire way here. A gargle of hot salt water may help the worst of it.”
He didn’t like the sounds coming from his mouth. The rasp sounded harsh, angry, like Cruk. With a push that made his arms tremble, he shoved himself off the bed. His knees buckled as his feet hit the floor, but his legs calmed to a minor quiver after a moment. His stomach emitted a low rumble that lasted for a dozen heartbeats. “Conger, can you find me something to eat?”
The ex-priest nodded and followed the doctor out of the room. Errol traveled toward the door, one hand on the wall as a support. He stepped into a broad, marbled hallway decorated with white statues. An archway in the distance opened to a large fountain topped by an ornate carving of rearing horses. Water cascaded over the figures with sounds Errol associated with the Sprata.
Outside of Rodran’s palace, he’d never seen such opulence. He made for a bench across the hall with engraved horses on the supports, their manes flowing in some imaginary wind. The lines of the wood beckoned to his fingers, and he traced carved muscles, the heavy finish smooth beneath his hands. An urge to cast came over him, but he had no question that required lots.
“Here you go, lad,” Conger said. He proffered a bowl of soup, thick with vegetables and lightly seasoned. “Thought you might want to start with something mild, and the soup might help your voice.”
“Where are we?”
Boots echoed down the hallway in the opposite direction from which Conger had come. “You’re guests in my house, Earl Stone.” The man who sketched a fluid bow to accompany his words could have been Naaman Ru’s older brother. Gray streaked his hair, but the mustache still glistened ebony beneath eyes the
color of darkest onyx.
Errol tried to stand to return the courtesy, but shock and fatigue kept him on the bench.
“Do not trouble yourself, my friend,” the man said. “You are fortunate to be alive.” His voice, smooth as his bow, made common words sound as if he were reciting poetry. “I am Count Rula. Please allow me to be your host while you recuperate. I understand that you are an honorary captain of the watch, yes?”
Errol nodded, bemused.
“Excellent. Please let my staff know of anything you require.”
The man’s effusive speech and flawless manners left Errol flat-footed. “Count, why are we here?”
The count’s dark brows lifted as if he didn’t quite understand the question. “Why, so you may heal, Earl Stone.”
Errol shook his head, frustrated at his inability to communicate. “No . . . I mean, yes, I understand. But how did we get here? We’re in Talia, and I was told that we detoured into Basquon.”
The count’s cultured manner remained, but his friendly manner cooled despite the smile he still wore. “You needed cold, Earl Stone. My estate is surrounded by the ice of the Apalian Mountains.” He shrugged. “Let us say that Deas’s providence has brought you here, shall we? Good day.” He bowed and moved past Errol and Conger, his long strides taking him out of earshot in seconds.
“Why are we here, Conger?” Errol asked. “It doesn’t take a reader to know something strange is going on.”
The former cleric scratched his stomach as he answered. “I believe you have the compulsion the archbenefice placed on Master Ru to thank for that.”
“What?”
“After you got poisoned, Naaman Ru became strange, gave orders to take the caravan over the border to Basquon. He and Captain Elar nearly came to blows before the captain figured out what was going on. It turns out Ru knew there would be help here, though he sweated and fumed and cursed like a sailor in a storm the whole way.”
Errol nodded in understanding. “If I died he’d be free of his compulsion.”
Conger shook his head. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, lad, but there’s more to it than that. Once we came onto Count Rula’s estate, Master Ru ordered his daughter into the wagon with himself and refused to come out. He’s still hiding there, so far as I know.”
“Why?”
“Count Rula is his uncle and wants him dead.”
Errol took another bite of soup, savoring the flavor and feel of warm liquid against his raw throat but suddenly feeling exhausted. “I’ve felt that way myself—many a time—but we need Ru to guide us into Merakh. He can’t do that if his uncle has his head decorating a wall.” He took a deep breath and looked at Conger out of the corner of his eye. “Why does his uncle want him dead?”
Conger’s eyes fired with curiosity. “No one who knows is saying. Rula says we’re welcome to stay as long as we like, but when we leave, Ru won’t be going with us.”
Errol rubbed a sudden ache behind his eyes, and he could think of little save returning to bed. He set down the soup bowl and leaned back against the wall. Why did everything have to be so difficult? “Does he have the men to stop us?”
Conger nodded.
“Please help me back to my room. I need to sleep. And then we’d better counsel with Rale”—he sighed—“and Naaman Ru.”
24
The Shadow Lands
MARTIN AND HIS FELLOW TRAVELERS halted in the pass, the scene spread before them like a storyteller’s depiction. The mountains of the Sprata reared their crowns to the sky, cold and uncaring across an expansive sea of grass. The river, broad and sluggish a hundred leagues south of Callowford, created a border between the mountains and the plain.
“By the three,” Luis said, his voiced muted. “It’s more a land for giants than men.”
Nothing to do with mankind stirred on that plain. In the distance a herd of wild horses ran, the thunder of their hooves silenced by the intervening space. They might as well have been phantoms.
“No men are there for a reason,” Cruk said. After the cast, the captain had stifled his protests and led them south without complaint, but his voice carried a sharper edge. “That’s where we’re headed.”
Martin followed his point to a spur of lower mountains, their peaks blunted by time and weather. The river turned to flow through a gap in the range. “How long will it take us to get there?” Martin asked.
“A day,” Cruk answered, “perhaps two.”
They descended the pass, and Martin’s sense of self shrank as the press of the forest receded. Their mounts seemed comfortable in that open expanse. The wind moved over the grass like a wave, and Martin imagined he rode not on a horse but a ship.
They stopped past midday to eat and let the horses graze. Cruk scanned the horizon, his face hard. Lines of tension carved his face and forehead. “We’ll want to make camp near one of the trees. We may have to alter our route a little bit.”
“Why?” Karele asked. One hand made a circling motion. “There’s nothing here save us and a few wild horses.”
The muscles in Cruk’s jaw jumped. Martin could almost hear the captain grinding his teeth. “You may be right, solis, but I’m not going to bet our lives on it. If it comes to a fight, I’ll want to use that tree to protect my back.” His shoulders bunched. “And if it comes to that, we may need to climb our way to safety.”
Cruk seemed more cautious than usual. “What worries you?” Martin asked.
The captain pointed at the horses. “Meat usually means meat eaters.”
As the sun set, they camped under a stunted oak tree, its leaves blunted by a yellowish cast when they should have been a glossy green. Scorch marks flared up the trunk as if someone had tried to topple it with fire. Despite the bare ground beneath the tree, Cruk dictated a cold camp. A gibbous moon provided enough light to distinguish shapes but failed to provide comfort.
“Sorry, Pater,” Cruk said. He rubbed a few stalks of grass between his fingers. The grass gave dry whispering noises as it disintegrated. “One stray ember and the whole plain will go up.” A rumble in the distance punctuated Cruk’s warning. The captain pointed toward a dark cloud shaped like an anvil on the western horizon. “That may be our biggest threat. I’ll take the watch.”
Martin rolled his cloak into a pillow and tried not to think about the canopy of yellowed leaves above him that filtered the moonlight. Nothing could keep Rodran alive indefinitely. His last thought before sleep took him was a tired curse for Rodran’s father, Rodrick, and the pride that had doomed the royal line.
Hands shook him. He woke to the smell of smoke.
“It’s a grassfire. Time to ride,” Cruk said.
Moonlight still filtered down through the leaves of the stricken tree. Perhaps an hour had passed, maybe two. Dawn still lay hours away.
“We can’t run the horses in the dark,” Karele said.
Cruk nodded. “We agree on that, anyway, and we won’t until we have to. Let’s move. That fire is leagues away. With luck we’ll still be ahead of it when dawn breaks.”
Behind them, made small by the distance, a wall of orange flared. Unseen tendrils of smoke reached through the darkness to sting Martin’s eyes. If they failed to escape, the heat would boil the skin from their bones long before the flames engulfed them, burning them black as they raced to the river. With luck, the wind would shift and they would die from the smoke before the fire’s heat took them.
After what seemed like hours of riding at a walk, Martin turned to see the wall of flame straining skyward for a hundred feet roaring in the distance—much closer now, close enough to hear. The blaze roared in hunger, the crackle of burning grass and scrub mixed with the rush of air.
Ahead the river glistened like a promise of rescue in the distance, too far for them to reach at their cautious pace. Yet Cruk held them to a walk. The horses strained at their bits, lathered and eyes rolling. Surely they had to make a run for it. Cruk kept to the same brisk walk, glancing back every few strides to gauge th
e distance between them and that swirling orange vortex.
Martin loosened the reins. His mount surged forward. The tendons in his arms protested as he sawed the bit to keep his horse from dashing away. “We can’t stay at this pace much longer.”
Cruk checked the progress of the wildfire behind them again before he gave a curt nod. “I know, Pater, but there are other dangers besides the fire.”
Martin shook his head. Nothing stirred in that ocean of dry tinder except the fire and themselves. “What?”
Cruk pointed off to the right, toward the southern end of the plain. “That.”
Martin squinted against the darkness, shielding his eyes against the light of the fire. Only shadows cast by the moon and flames were visible, but gradually the phantoms resolved into the shapes of horses streaming away from the threat. He shook his head. He saw nothing else—nothing to fear.
“Look at the grass behind the horses, Pater.”
Martin peered into the darkness again. There. Behind the horses a wave of motion trailed the herd across the flat landscape. Something tracked them, something that hid below the waist-high grass. The stallion in front charged for the closest bend of the river, leading the predators to them.
The wave crept closer to the herd, the distance shrinking in agonizing slowness. Martin watched in horror as a colt, straggling behind, stumbled and disappeared. The deflection in the grass paused for a moment before resuming its track behind the herd.
Military training was as much a mystery to Martin as theology would be to most men, but even he could tell the herd and its predators would reach the river before them. What was Cruk thinking?
“We have to beat them to the river,” he yelled ahead. “If they arrive before us, we’ll never make it across.” Fear wove strident threads into his voice.
Cruk shook his head. The man must be mad. Then the captain pointed toward the river, a bit to the north. Martin repeated his efforts to see in the dim light provided by the moon.
The Hero's Lot Page 24
