Then both her head and Marc's snapped up. Somewhere in the woods, somebody had uttered a loud yelp of surprise and pain. A babble of voices followed, quickly hushed.
"Maybe someone else put his foot in it," suggested Marc in an undertone, without much humor.
Clearly, the Black Band had crossed over the step-back stones. The hunt was on again. Marc gave Jame a hand up, and they went on, as quickly and quietly as they could.
The day stretched on and on in green twilight. They heard little of their pursuers and less of any wildlife except for the gray birds, which continued to swoop low over them, coming much closer than wild birds normally do. They were probably only curious, Jame thought. Humans must be a rarity here. One landed on a nearby branch and flexed its wings so that the feathered eyes seemed to blink at the intruders. Jame noted that these were the only eyes the bird had. Somewhere in the distance, a rathorn coughed and then was silent. They still couldn't tell if it was hunting them, the brigands, or neither.
Most of the time, Jorin trotted at Jame's side, ears pricked, sniffing, but only a few of his impressions reached her now. Either her still tentative link with him had begun to fade again, or this place was starting to come between them. Then he chose a tree and began happily to dig among its roots. It let all its leaves fall on him at once. The cat erupted from the leaf mound with an affronted squawk and raced back to Jame's side where he plumped himself down and began to wash as if nothing had happened.
"Now what?" said Jame, eyeing the suddenly denuded tree warily.
Marc chuckled. "Oh, that's only a dorith. They're fairly common down the length of the Silver." He stepped up to another tree covered with what looked like a myriad of small cocoons. "Here's something rarer, though. It's called a 'host.' Watch."
He rapped its trunk lightly.
All the cocoons burst open. A flurry of pale green new leaves leaped into the air and vanished, golden veins flashing, into the upper mist.
"But when will they fall?" asked Jame, staring after them.
"Not until they reach their winter host tree far to the south. They'll come back in the spring . . ."
It was beginning to get dark. Mist and shadows grew under the trees, taking on the hint of ghostly shapes, dissolving again as a breath of wind rustled the leaves above. Below, the ferns whispered together.
"We'll have to stop soon," said Marc. "This is no place for anything human after dark. We'd better not risk a fire, though. For one thing, Bortis's men might see it; for another, I have a feeling that we should do as little damage as possible here."
Jame caught his arm. "Look."
Ahead, a light glowed between the trees. They approached warily, thinking they might have circled around on the brigands' camp by accident. Instead, in the middle of a glade they found a fragmentary ring of standing stones. Actually, only one still stood. The others tilted drunkenly or lay in the long grass, and most had left behind nothing but empty, overgrown sockets in the earth. All the stones that remained were composed of some cloudy crystalline substance. All glowed softly in the gathering dusk.
"Diamantine," said Marc. "I've seen small chunks of it before, but never a complete lithon. We could make our fortune with one of these, lass—if we could get it out of here. This stuff is almost as hard as diamond and it retains sunlight."
His voice set off a faint echo in the glade that seemed to come from the stones themselves. Jame put her gloved hand tentatively on one. It was vibrating slightly. Regarded more closely, its internal cloudiness seemed to suggest some definite but rudimentary shape that she couldn't quite make out. Her fingers brushed against gouges scarring the stone's side.
"I thought you said no one brought edged tools into the Anarchies."
"Let's see. Ah. Rathorns did that. They must spend about a quarter of their lives hacking at stones like these or at anything hard they can find. Apparently a rathorn's ivory goes on growing throughout its life. It can't do much about the chest and belly plates or the greaves, but unless that big horn is constantly honed down, it eventually curves around so far that it comes through the back of the rathorn's skull. Some scrollsmen even claim that the beast would be immortal if its own armor didn't eventually kill it."
"Marc, let's stay here for the night."
"Well now, there's a fresh spoor in the grass. We may have unwelcome company before dawn."
"At least we can see them coming."
The big Kendar glanced at the shadows gathering around them. Very soon, it would be very dark out there indeed. "I take your point."
They ate a frugal supper, then lay down beside the standing stone. Jorin stretched out between them, yawned, and almost immediately fell asleep. So did Marc, although he had intended to keep the first watch.
Jame lay awake watching darkness gather beyond the diamantine's glow. It seemed to her that the woods were full of shadowy forms, drifting, standing, watching. She could almost hear them whisper in voices like the rustle of dried leaves. They wanted to tell her something, to warn her, but the gentle snores of her comrades drowned them out. Now the stones around her began to echo the sound until she seemed to be surrounded by sleepers, human, feline, and lithic. The somnolent hum pulled at her, drew her bit by bit down into sleep.
Chapter 6
The High Council
Gothregor: 8th-10th of Winter
GOTHREGOR was nearly as far from Tentir as the randon college was from Tagmeth. Of those seventy-odd miles, the first twenty-five were by far the worst, with the trailing edge of the storm pouring down rain occasionally mixed with hail and the River Road nearly washed out. The nine riders were soaked and all of their mounts spent except Torisen's black and Burr's gray when some three hours later they reached Wilden and Shadow Rock Keeps, facing each other across the Silver. Lords Randir and Danior had both already left with their troops, stripping both keeps' stables but luckily not their riverside posting station.
By now, it was about midmorning. The thunderheads rolled on before them, leaving the brilliant but cool sunlight of an autumn day. Wet leaves lay in drifts of crimson and gold across the road. On bare branches above, raindrops hung like sparkling buds.
Harn twisted to look back up the road. "Odd. I thought Caineron would be snapping at our heels by now. We didn't exactly slip out of Tentir unnoticed."
"No well-bred Highborn rides in all weathers like a leather-shirt trooper if he can help it." Torisen quoted. "Now that I've slipped out of his grasp, I suppose Caineron will wait for his troops and descend on Gothregor sometime tomorrow with all their weight behind him."
"Besiege it, d'you mean?"
"Trinity, no, not with all the other lords there, too. The man's not that big an idiot. He will simply want to impress the rest of the Council. A Knorth defeat there will serve him much better than a quiet assassination here on the road. He must be very sure of himself. Knowing Caldane, he's probably convinced himself by now that you carted me off a raving maniac, tied to Storm hand and foot."
"That could still be arranged. You must have gotten that crawler before it could really get you; but just the same, let me know if you decide to fall off."
"I'm resisting the temptation."
Harn looked at him askance, clearly unsure how serious he was. Torisen grinned.
"Now, Harn. I've kept you guessing for the better part of fifteen years. Is this any time to stop?"
The burly randon only growled.
They took the next two stages at an easier pace, changing mounts again at Falkirr, and came within sight of Gothregor in the late afternoon. The fortress was set on the plateau of a mountain spur that jutted out into the Riverland some one hundred and fifty feet above the valley floor. The outer ward and the fields beyond seethed with troops. As the riders approached, they saw the wolf standard of Hollens, Lord Danior, flying from the branch of an apple tree in the orchard just outside the northern barbican. Danior's people, some one thousand of them, were camped under the trees among the windfalls. Torisen reined in.
&nbs
p; "Lord Danior . . . Cousin Holly!"
A young man in hunting leathers seated by a campfire turned his head sharply. He rose and came toward them, smiling. "Torisen! You made good time. We weren't expecting you until tomorrow."
"I had some help. Announce me, will you?"
"With pleasure!" He went off shouting for his horse.
"Is this really necessary?" demanded Harn.
"After last night? Yes."
Holly came back riding a skittish bay mare. He galloped up to the barbican and gave a loud blast on his hunting horn. The mare nearly threw him.
"A Knorth entering!" he shouted up at the guard.
"The gate's already open, you fool!" shouted back the Kendar, who apparently had neither understood what Holly had said nor recognized a Highborn in such rustic clothing.
"A Knorth!" bellowed Lord Danior.
"Sweet Trinity," said Torisen in an undertone. "D'you think it's too late to sneak in quietly after all?"
Just then, the guard saw him.
"M-my lord! Gothregor!" he turned and shouted across the inner ward. "Gothregor!"
Danior rode through the outwork with Torisen behind him. The others ranged themselves in the Highlord's wake. The broad inner ward seemed to sway up and toward them as the Kendar came to their feet. There was the leaping flame standard of Brandan and the stooping hawk of Edirr, Jaran's stricken tree, and the Coman's double-edged sword flying over a token force: the rest would be waiting down river at Kraggen Keep, as would be Ardeth's at Omiroth and the Edirr twins' at Kestrie. Even so, counting Torisen's people, there were nearly ten thousand Kencyr here.
"Knorth!" one shouted, and the rest took up the chant:
"K-north! K-north! K-north . . .!"
"Who's trying to impress whom?" muttered Harn under cover of the roar.
"Trying, sir?" said Burr.
The randon nodded to the west, across the river. "There's one lot who aren't buying."
Over the ruins of Chantrie, Gothregor's sister keep, flew the standard of Kenan, Lord Randir: a gauntleted fist grasping the sun. Kenan had brought nearly eight thousand five hundred troops to the gathering of the Host, and of those, watching from the overgrown wards and crumbling battlements, not one raised a cheer for the Highlord's homecoming.
Torisen rode through the roaring crowd to the causeway that led up to the gatehouse. The section passing through the middle ward was so steep that steps had been cut out of the underlying rock. Ahead, the rounded twin fronts of the gatehouse loomed dizzyingly up against the sky. Torisen's own Kendar leaned over the battlements, shouting. Inside was the inner ward, broad, green, surrounded by barracks, armories, and domestic offices, all stacked three stories high and built into the outer wall's thickness.
Torisen swung down, wincing. The leg that the wyrm had bitten had stiffened during the long ride. He hung onto Storm for a moment, feeling lightheaded, cursing softly, then let go as Rowan, his steward, limped across the grass to meet him. She too had been at Urakarn and bore the name-rune of the Karnid god burned into her forehead.
"My lord! We weren't expecting you so soon."
"So I gather. Is everything ready for the Council tomorrow?"
"Yes, lord. Everyone is here except Lord Caineron."
Torisen reclaimed his saddlebag, and grooms led the horses away. Gothregor's subterranean stables were four times the size of Tentir's, but, until winter, the garrison's mounts were stabled in converted ground-level barracks. The Kendar certainly didn't need them all. Torisen and his two thousand retainers rattled around in this huge fortress like dried peas in a helmet even when all of them were home. Now as usual, about five hundred were off serving with the Southern Host and elsewhere, a duty that they all took by rotation to earn Gothregor the money it needed to keep going. He could easily have fielded four times as many yondri-gon and filled Chantrie with men and women willing to rebuild it with their bare hands for half a promise of eventual acceptance among his regular troops. Caineron and his sons had built up their own huge army that way. Ardeth kept urging him to accept yondri; but how could he make promises he might not be able to keep? Even at two thousand, he felt the strain. It was as if every time he bound a Kendar to him, he gave that man or woman a piece of himself. There was simply no more to spare.
"Lord Jaran has been asking for you, my lord," said Rowan as they approached the keep. "Or rather he keeps asking for Ganth Gray Lord."
"He's gone soft?"
"As a rotten peach."
Damnation. At one hundred and sixty, Jaran had been overripe for years, but he had picked an awkward time to go off altogether, as he must well know. If he couldn't hold himself together through tomorrow to support the Highlord, his great-great-grandson would take over, and the boy was half a Randir.
"Poor old Jaran. Make him comfortable, but see that he's kept as far from Lord Ardeth as possible. Adric thinks that senility is contagious."
Rowan gave him a startled look. "Isn't it?"
"Who knows? Just be grateful that a full-blooded Kendar like you never catches it."
"Yes, lord—and by the way, have I begun to lurch more than usual or are you limping, too?"
"The latter. You wouldn't believe how big the vermin are at Tentir this fall. But speaking of Lord Ardeth, where is he?"
"In your quarters, lord, making himself at home as usual. He asked that you attend him as soon as you arrive—his words, you understand," she added sourly, "not mine."
"Indeed. Then I had better go see him at once, hadn't I?"
Rowan and Burr exchanged glances.
"My lord, won't you have some supper first?"
"Burr can bring it up to my quarters." He had already set off with a fast if uneven stride toward the keep, still carrying the saddlebag.
"Me and my big mouth," said Rowan ruefully.
The keep had the same general outline as the larger fortress —rectangular with a drum tower at each corner. Its first floor was windowless and dark. Here the lord of Knorth dispensed domestic justice under flaring torches and the stern death banners of his family. The second floor—brighter, more richly appointed—also was a hall of judgment, but for disputes between other houses. The third floor, as usual, took Torisen's breath away as he stepped out of the spiral stair in the corner. All four walls between their stone arches were stained glass. Here the High Council met, under the emblems of all nine major houses blazing with light, three by three by three. On the fourth wall facing east was a map of Rathillien in colored glass, all Kendar work, of course: the Highborn were about as artistically inept as an intelligent race could be.
Torisen stood gazing at the map for several moments as he got his breath back. Then he turned. On the western wall, catching the last of the day's light, was his own rathorn crest, flanked by Ardeth's full moon and Jaran's stricken tree. They were the two oldest supporters of his house, in more ways than one. If he was about to lose Jaran, it would be suicidal to quarrel with Ardeth, whatever the provocation.
He entered the stair and climbed more slowly, favoring his leg, to the room at the top of the northwest drum tower, which served as his study.
Adric, Lord Ardeth, sat by the fire in the room's only comfortable chair, reading a book. He looked up with a smile as Torisen entered.
"My dear boy, how delightful to see you again."
"And you, my lord."
It was a pleasure, despite everything, made all the more piquant by the old undercurrent of resentment. Then he saw that the book in the old lord's hand was his journal. Ardeth noted his change of expression.
"Memory is safer," he said placidly. "I never could understand the compulsion to write everything down."
Torisen put the saddlebag on the table and lifted the book out of Ardeth's hands. "Hardly everything."
"Oh come. Surely after all these years we two have no secrets from each other."
None, at least, that you haven't tried to sniff out, you old ferret, thought Torisen. "You shouldn't begrudge me some poor scraps of privacy,"
he said lightly.
"My dear boy, when have I ever begrudged you anything?"
Torisen was startled into a laugh. "I've just realized where Caineron gets those . . . er . . . remarkable manners of his," he said in answer to Ardeth's look of inquiry. "He's trying to imitate you."
An expression of extreme distaste crossed the old lord's face. "Oh really! Caineron. . . ." He became thoughtful. "That man is apt to cause trouble."
"You agree, then, that the Host must march?"
"Of course. You forget that I also served with the Southern Host, back when Krothen's great-grandfather paid its hire, and that my son Pereden commands it now. We have seen the Horde. A pity that Caineron hasn't, and that you gave him that idiotic promise. I said at the time that it was a mistake."
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