"Oh yes," said Graykin with great bitterness. "He thinks it means that he owns me. I thought that if I served him well, perhaps someday he would acknowledge me as his son. Yes, yes, I was stupid. Just wait until you want something that badly, though, and see how wise you are."
Jame tensed. "Do you hear something?"
They listened. It was so dark that the world might have ended at the edge of the firelight. Beyond that, the river's roar and its echo off the cliff face hemmed them in with walls of sound. They had been exchanging confidences almost at a shout. Now Graykin dropped his voice so that Jame could barely hear it.
"I think something has been going on downstream for some time now. Down here, it's hard to tell, though. There!" He sprang to his feet. "Voices . . . upstream. I'll check. You had better dress."
Jame was pulling on her boots when he came back.
"It's Caineron, searching the shore," he said, kicking apart the fire and stomping on the embers. "He must have remembered the boat cable—a mere five hours after the event. You'd better run for it."
"Where?"
"Up the cliff—there's a path of sorts—and across the road. I left a horse on the far side, tied up behind some bushes."
"Such foresight."
"A sneak's virtue. Here's the sword."
She had to grope for it.
"Here's the path."
She paused in the pitch blackness and caught the hand with which he had been guiding her. "Graykin, I'm going to trust you again. Go to the room where I was staying in Hurlen on the southernmost island. Under a loose board in the corner, you'll find a knapsack. Hang onto it for me. If I manage to get myself killed, let my brother take his turn being responsible for the nasty thing. Promise?"
"Yes . . . my lady."
He spoke with a sort of wonder, as if the title had been surprised out of him. As for Jame, for a moment she couldn't tell where her hand ended and his began. Then torches appeared upstream. She had scrambled nearly to the top of the gorge when the thought struck her:
Sweet Trinity, I think I've just bound that man to me.
Up on the road, the light was better, but just barely. Jame paused, her ears still ringing from the echo chamber of the gorge. What a difference it made to be out of it. To the south she heard shouting, a continuous, distant roar. Graykin had been right: something was going on downstream. And behind? No sound came out of that well of noise except the water's roar, but lights were winding back and forth up the cliff face. Damn. Caineron had found the path.
Jame quickly crossed the road and scrambled down among the bushes on the far side. There was a horse, a white, battle-scarred trooper, straining at his tether. Jame untied him and mounted awkwardly. Whatever else she had learned in Perimal Darkling, apparently no one had taught her horsemanship. The lowest step of the Lower Hurdles stretched out before her like a white chalk wall. She rode westward along it.
Downfield, the shouting got louder. Now horns were blowing, Jame reined in. Thunder came from the north, a continuous, rumbling roll of it. She rose in the stirrups, trying to see over the step, but the tall fringe of meadow grass on top of it blocked her view. The stone of the step face vibrated under her hand. The rumbling grew louder. Her mount snorted and turned to face southward. She could feel him collect himself. Now what on earth . . .
Lightning split open the sky. In that brief, lurid glare, the middle and lower meadows leaped into sight, black with figures running toward her. The rumble grew, thunder crashed, and Caineron's riders came over the lowest step, over her head, in a screaming wave.
Jame nearly fell off as her mount bolted. He hit his stride just as the other war horses recovered from their plunge. She found herself galloping between two riders, one apparently raving mad, the other little more than a boy. The latter stared at her with his mouth open. Jame clung to her horse and to the sword, sure that at any moment she would lose one or both of them. Her feet had already slipped out of the stirrups. The Kencyr line crashed into and through the first wave of Wasters, then the second and third, riding them down. Jame's horse stumbled on bodies, recovered, then put his foot in a rabbit hole and somersaulted. Jame found herself in midair, still clutching the sword. She had just time and wits enough to wrap herself around it before she crashed into the ground. For a moment, the night went very dark indeed.
Some light returned to her stunned senses and sound: a shrill yelling, very close. The boy was standing over her, facing a huge Waster, shouting defiance in a cracked voice. The Waster laughed. His teeth were filed and very white. He scooped the boy up and broke him over his knee like a dry stick. Then he lowered his head to bite.
Jame lurched to her feet with the rathorn war cry of her house. She swung the sword. The blade sheered through its wrappings, through the Waster's boiled leather armor, halfway through his body. He dropped the boy with a grunt of amazement, took a step, and pitched forward on top of her. Jame dragged herself clear. Her right hand, wearing the ring, gripping the sword, tingled as if it had been asleep. So at least one of the stories about Kin-Slayer was true. She drove the blade into the earth and knelt beside her would-be rescuer. With horror, she saw that the boy was still alive.
He stared up at her with blank amazement. "Why, it doesn't hurt at all. I can't feel a thing. Did I do well, Highlord?"
"But I'm n. . . ." She swallowed. "Yes. You did very well."
"Good," he said, and died.
"Tori!" The shout, almost a bay, rose from somewhere close by out of the battle's uproar. "Tori, I heard your war cry. Where are you?" A shaggy figure burst out of the seething darkness and stopped short, red eyes glowing. Its pointed ears flattened and it crouched. "You aren't Tori. Changer!"
It sprang. Jame lunged for the sword, but was knocked away from it. The wolf was on top of her, snapping at her throat. She jammed her left forearm, protected by the d'hen's reinforced sleeve, between its jaws and tried to reach the Ivory Knife in its boot sheath. Her fingers brushed, then grasped it. She was poised to strike when the wolf gave a sudden yelp of astonishment and sprang back, regaining his human aspect in midair.
"You aren't a man!"
"I'm not a changer either," she snapped. "Where's the Highlord?"
"I don't know!" the other wailed. "I leave him on his own just for a minute, and this happens!" He spread his arms to include the entire battlefield with perhaps two hundred thousand warriors locked in bloody combat on it. "Anyway, who in seven hells are you?"
Before Jame could answer, a sizable number of riders bearing torches swept down on them, reining in only at the last minute. Jame found herself among the war horses. Their massive bodies surged around her, white-rimmed eyes rolling in her direction, iron-shod hooves dancing. She whacked one on the nose when it bared its yellow teeth at her.
"Behave, you!"
The beast reared back, snorting, astonished either at the blow or at a voice speaking Kens almost under its hooves. "What in Perimal's name . . ." said its rider, but Jame had already ducked away through the press.
"Grimly!" a voice cried nearby. "Have you seen either Tori or Ardeth?"
"No! Weren't they with you?"
"Well, yes, until we tried to cut through the woods to rejoin the Host. Then, somehow, w-we lost them both."
"What?"
Jame was close enough now to see the speakers. One was the shaggy man who had attacked her, and the other, a young distraught-looking Highborn who apparently led these riders.
"Grimly, it was so strange," the latter was saying. "One minute they were riding ahead of us, then the mist came up and they were gone, except that we could still hear them for a while. Then their voices faded, too. I didn't think we'd ever find our own way out."
Jame retrieved the sword, practically from under the Highborn's horse. "Which direction is this forest?" she demanded.
"Why, that way," Danior pointed. "But who . . ."
She was already gone.
* * *
"THIS IS RIDICULOUS," said Torisen. "Somewhere in the
immediate vicinity, the greatest battle of the millennia is raging, and I can't find it. Adric, do you have any idea which way we should go?"
"None, my boy. I'm completely turned around. Really, this is a most peculiar place."
That, thought Torisen, was putting it mildly. The woods were even more a world of their own now than they had been the previous afternoon. Mist lay even thicker on the ground than before, glowing faintly. No sound of battle penetrated here. Lightning occasionally flashed overhead, throwing green leaves into relief, but only a whisper of thunder reached here below. The entire forest seemed to be holding its breath. It was almost as if through mist and misdirection it was trying to keep them from the battle.
No, thought Torisen, irritated with himself. That was pure imagination. He was simply worried about the fight, about Harn's ability to control it, about Ardeth's health.
"How do you feel?" he asked the old man.
"Oh, well enough, considering."
Considering that he was still very close to a heart attack. Damn Pereden anyway. Nothing about this business, desperate as it was, would have upset Ardeth half so much if his wretched son hadn't been mixed up in it.
"Highlord! Torisen!"
A voice in the woods, calling his name.
Ardeth put a hand quickly on his arm. "Don't answer."
"But surely that's Holly."
Brithany was listening, ears pricked. The distant voice called again, joined by another.
"No, that's not Lord Danior," said Ardeth in an odd tone. "I don't know who it is, or what, but as for that other voice . . ."
"It's not Pereden," Torisen said sharply. "I told you about the changers. Never mind who it sounds like. Damn." He swung down hastily from Storm and helped Ardeth to dismount. "Sit down, Adric. Steady, steady . . . there. All right?"
"Yes, yes . . . just let me rest for a minute."
Torisen settled him back against a tree. He always forgot how old Ardeth was, how close to that abrupt slide into senility and death that marked the end of so many Highborn. Adric would probably prefer to die of sudden heart failure or even by his own hand than finish as Jedrak had; but it hadn't quite come to that yet, not if he could spare the old man any further shocks for a while.
Ardeth gave him a rather shaken smile. "Thank you, my boy. You know, it's odd to think that when we first met, you were half the age you are now and I was already old." He shook his head. "Fifteen years ago. I think, on the whole, that we've done rather well by each other."
"On the whole. That sounds like running water. Rest here a minute, and I'll get you some."
He took his helmet from Storm's saddle bow and went to look. Mist drifted between the trees. Forest depths appeared and disappeared silently, gray trunks shining silver in the mist-glow, leaves a pale, luminous green. The liquid chuckle was almost underfoot now, although all Torisen could see was a feathery carpet of ferns. He parted them. The sound stopped instantly. Under the fronds ran a stream made up entirely of bluebells.
Lured.
He tried to find his way back to Ardeth, without success. This was really ridiculous. First he had misplaced a battle and now an old man and two horses who surely couldn't be more than fifty feet away. He called and thought he heard Brithany neigh softly in response, but which way was she? When he tried again, only the voices answered him, calling his name—six, seven, eight of them at least, eldritch and mocking. The one that mimicked Pereden was still recognizable, but the others made no attempt now to sound like anyone he knew.
If he couldn't find Ardeth, he must at least try to lead these pursuers away from the old man to someplace where he could confront them. After all, it was the Highlord whom they wanted. This was his fight.
He raised his helmet to put it on, then hesitated, staring at it. Its polished back seemed to be glowing. No, it was reflecting some light, just as were the inserts of fine chain mesh on the backs of his leather gauntlets. But what possible source. . . .On the helmet, he saw the distorted reflection of his own face with something bright beneath it. The Kenthiar. He was wearing the silver collar with its single gem for the first time since Wyrden, and the gem had begun to glow. Had that ever happened before? He didn't think so, but then in all its long history, no Highlord had probably ever brought the collar to a place like this. Should he take it off before it decided to do something else? No. Better not to meddle. Besides, the damned thing might object to being removed. He put on the helmet, unslung his buckler, and drew his sword. There. Now, which way to go? The voices called again, closer this time, but he still couldn't tell which direction they came from. He set out at random.
The dreamlike quality of the woods grew. The mist itself drifted between glimmering tree trunks, silently, continually changing shape. Torisen was haunted by a sense of constant movement just out of his line of sight. His armor felt almost as if it were deliberately hindering him. Its outer layer consisted principally of rhi-sar leather, boiled, beaten, and finally shaped to his body before it hardened. Although excellent against sword and arrow, it had hardly been designed for sneaking about in a midnight forest. His right boot kept squeaking. All he heard beyond that were the voices, especially the one that sounded so much like Pereden.
"Torisen, where are you?" That voice was calling now in a jeering croon. "Don't run away. Brave, sweet Blackie, wait for me."
Blackie?
Ahead, the trees ended. Was he entering a glade? The mist made it impossible to tell, but he sensed the presence of something solid on either side. Beyond, the feeling of open space returned. The Kenthiar's glow grew. Ferns brushed his knees. Mist swirled, momentarily clearing overhead, rolling back. The walls of the bluff curved around him. At their heights, the stones seemed to shine faintly through the dirt and plant growth accumulated over centuries if not millennia. He was in the hollow at the heart of the wood.
Movement behind him. He turned as figures emerged from the mist—six, seven, eight of them wearing the patchwork skins and ivory ornaments of Waster elders, a ninth in rhi-sar armor stained blue. They surrounded him. So. He saluted the ninth and waited in silence, poised.
* * *
AFTERWARD, Jame remembered little of her hasty trip across the battlefield. Visibility changed practically from step to step. Sometimes whole vistas opened up before her, sometimes she couldn't see beyond her own outstretched hand. The battle seemed to be raging in scattered pockets all over the field as the Wasters who had broken into the middle ground grappled with Caineron's forces above them and the rest of the Host below. She stumbled onto scenes of heroism, carnage, and horror beyond anything she had ever imagined. Here a ten-command under a randon cadet charged a force three times its size to rescue a fallen comrade. There a solitary Waster sat munching someone's arm while the battle surged about him. Her hand was beginning to blister from gripping Kin-Slayer, especially around the ring. This was clearly not a weapon to be wielded without cost. She had no idea how many Wasters she had killed and only a vague impression of the wave of startled half-recognition that followed her.
Here at last was the edge of the woods. Under the leaves, in the glowing mist, she stopped, amazed. It was so like the Anarchies, only somehow less deeply rooted and more awake. The Anarchies had been a sleeping land, thick with ancient power, difficult to rouse in any but a superficial sense. Beneath its surface calm, this place felt as twitchy as a horse's hide in fly season. Before she had gone more than a hundred feet she realized that she was already lost. Damn. She could wander around in here all night, unless . . .
She groped in a pocket and drew out the imu medallion. Waster blood still ran down the sword. She let it drip on the imu's lips.
"All right," she said fiercely to it. "Do something."
It just lay there. As she turned, however, it suddenly tugged at her hand. She went where it pulled her, walking quickly at first, then running. Trees, mist, and then suddenly a stone cliff soaring up overhead. When the imu pulled her left along the base of the cliff, she guessed she was moving southw
ard. Distant voices were calling her brother's name. Jame saved her breath for running. She had gone about a mile when the cliff abruptly fell away to the right. Jame hesitated. Her keyed-up senses told her that she was on the edge of an area thick with ancient power. Like the Anarchies, this was no place for humans, and especially not for anyone with the Darkling taint.
From inside came a sudden shout, ringingly echoed, and the crash of steel. Jame ran toward the sounds.
A fight was going on very close at hand. One voice was shouting almost continually, shrill with rage and hate, against the rasp and clash of swords. Echoes rang from all sides. Sword in one hand, imu in the other, Jame crept cautiously closer. If the mist was this thick throughout this place, she could suddenly find herself too close to the combatants for comfort.
Ah-ha. Ahead it thinned and dropped to knee-level, leaving an arena of sorts a good fifty feet across. Two armed figures confronted each other in the open. One, clad in black and silver, had a glowing jewel at his throat. The other wore dusty blue. Jame dropped to her stomach and wriggled closer under cover of the mist and ferns.
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