Beyond the Prophecy (20 page)

As Vatar had predicted, they reached the Gna River late in
the afternoon of the next day. Vatar reined his horse to a stop at a little
distance from the river. Thankfully, the river ran in a deep channel here. The
water itself wasn’t visible—yet.

He scanned the area on the other side. Nothing was moving
over there. Maybe the driving rain had forced even the wild herds to lay low.
Or maybe it was something else. Was that a plume of smoke rising from that
copse of trees away in the distance? Or only a low-hanging cloud? Impossible to
tell from here. “Better to stay out of sight from the far side, for now, don’t
you think?”

Quetza looked across, apparently noting the same thing he
saw, and nodded. “You’re right.” She glanced upstream and down. “The ford’s
downstream from here. There’s good cover on this side. We’ll camp there and
cross in the morning. Early.”

Vatar forced himself to nod. Her plan was sound. It was just
the idea of the ford—where the river would be within sight and hearing—that
disturbed him. The same river where Torkaz had been swept away by a flash
flood. He’d avoided coming anywhere near this river for the last seven years.

All this rain would surely swell the river. Rationally, he
knew another flash flood was unlikely. Which didn’t mean he was likely to sleep
well with the sound of the river running through all his dreams. Nightmares,
more likely.

He clucked to his horse, urging it forward to take up his
position at the end of their small line of horses, bracketing the newcomers
between the two more experienced riders. To distract himself from the nearness
of the river, Vatar assessed his companions again. The next part of their
journey—while they were in the Land between the Rivers—would be the most
dangerous. Once across the Maat River, they’d be in lands securely held by
Tysoe. The Land between the Rivers was still contested territory. And,
arguably, the enemy—at least the Themyri—knew the ground better than Orleus’s
forces. After all, the Themyri had lived there for generations, the Tysoeans
for only a couple of years.

Balan’s riding ability had improved rapidly over the last
few days. He was still a long way from riding like a Dardani, of course, but
Vatar didn’t worry about his ability to stay in the saddle. Zoridan . . . well,
Zoridan was at least as good as Thekila had been at the same stage. There was
some encouragement in that thought. Zoria still clung to her saddle with one
hand. If anything ever happened to startle her horse, she’d end up on the
ground, wondering how she got there. Not one of them was ready to try to fight
from horseback. For that matter, he wasn’t exactly sure how ready any of them
were to fight at all. Well, with luck, they wouldn’t have to.

As Quetza led them westward, the ground sloped gradually
downward—and closer to the level of the river. Vatar looked straight ahead. He
hummed to himself, trying to ignore the sound of the water flowing over and
around rocks in the riverbed.
That
sound he remembered too well. Some
people might describe it as chuckling. Nothing about it would ever be funny to
him.

Vatar looked up as the ground levelled out. They were now at
the same level as the river which, freed from the high banks that hemmed it in
upstream, spread out more than twice its previous width. The ford. It had to
be. The water still seemed to be flowing fast over the rocky riverbed. Tomorrow
he’d have to force himself to ride
into
the water there. He turned his
head to look in the opposite direction. A stony beach swept up from the ford,
probably marking the farthest reach of the river. Just back from that, a stand
of trees obstructed any view of the plains. That must be the cover Quetza had
mentioned. Within that copse, they’d be hidden from view. Unfortunately, while
it might also block the sight of the river, it wouldn’t do much to shut out the
sound. They dismounted and led their horses back into the cover of the trees.

Quetza stopped Zoria as she started to gather fallen wood.
“No fire tonight.”

“But we’ve been riding through the rain all day. We’re all
wet and it’s starting to get cold,” Zoria protested.

Quetza shrugged. “We may be uncomfortable, but we’ll survive
it. On a day like this, smoke could mean only one thing. And we don’t need to
draw any unwanted attention. The idea is to get to Tysoe without a fight, if we
can.”

Vatar pulled the saddle off his horse. “Rain’s letting up
anyway. Only another hour or so, I think.”

Quetza nodded and gestured for them all to gather around.
“Tomorrow will be the most dangerous day of our journey. Until now, we’ve been
in Dardani territory. The only thing we needed to fear were predators—and Vatar
and I know how to deal with them. Tomorrow, we’ll cross into the Land between
the Rivers. She pointed south and a little east. The fighting is mostly
concentrated around the outposts, that way. But we could still be seen by a
Themyri scouting or hunting party. The last thing we want is some kind of
running battle.

“Once we reach the shores of Lake Narycea, late tomorrow,
we’ll be in more settled—and patrolled—country. Until then, we need to be alert
and prepared.”

“What do we do if we are spotted?” Balan asked.

“Right question,” Quetza said with a nod to the young man.
She pursed her lips. “None of the three of you are ready for a fight.”

Balan opened his mouth to argue. “I—”

Vatar interrupted him. “Certainly not to try and fight and
control your horses at the same time. Even if it’s not a running battle, horses
tend to spook when strange people run at them, yelling at the top of their
lungs and waving things like spears. Leave that to Quetza and me.”

Balan shut his mouth, looking thoughtful.

“What do we do, then?” Zoridan asked.

“Well,” Quetza said. “We talked about the value of showing
your magic. If the enemy is Themyri, that might send them running.” Her eyes
twinkled. “But dismount first. I can tell you from experience that horses don’t
tend to respond well to wyverns.”

“What about me?” Zoria asked.

Quetza shrugged. “There’s more than one way to demonstrate
magic. Send the rocks swirling around.”

Zoria made a face and glanced guiltily toward Vatar.

“You don’t have to hit anyone with them,” Quetza said.

“Or you could just hold the horses,” Vatar added.

Quetza looked around at three tense faces. “With luck, we
won’t need any of this. For tonight, you should get some sleep. Either way, it’s
going to be a long ride tomorrow.”

Vatar nodded. He glanced back toward the river, now hidden
from view but not from hearing by the trees. He wasn’t nearly ready to sleep,
knowing the river was so close. “I’ll take first watch.”

Quetza nodded. “Wake me about midnight.”

Vatar chose a spot at the edge of the trees where he could
see across the ford. He’d get up and make a circuit of the grove every hour or
so, but the greatest threat was from the other side of the river. Like it or
not, that was where he needed to look most of the time.

Are you always going to let a little water scare you?
Taleus’s
voice spoke in Vatar’s mind, accompanied by the thin whistling they’d agreed on
so Vatar would know it was Taleus speaking.

Vatar huffed. He’d been thinking much the same thing
himself, but he didn’t quite like the way Taleus phrased it. He thought back,
I
don’t know. Are you always going to cringe at the sight of Quetza’s avatar?

Well . . . I was killed by a dragon.

And my best friend was killed by this river. Or didn’t
you remember that?
Against his will, the image of Torkaz’s battered body
rose in his mind’s eye.

I wasn’t with you, then.
Taleus’s voice sounded
slightly chastened.

Vatar looked straight ahead at the ford.
This could
be—almost has to be—the place where they found his body. It’s the first place
where the river slows down enough for his body to . . . come ashore.

Vatar let out his breath and for the first time willingly
called up the memory he’d been trying so hard to suppress and showed it to
Taleus. Four boys, about Theklan’s age, but Dardani tall and fair—all but him,
anyway—playing in the river. Chasing fish, turning over rocks to see what was
underneath, splashing each other. Himself, too absorbed to even notice the
prickly feeling between his shoulder blades until it was almost too late. Then
trying to persuade his friends out of the water. Torkaz, who always had to be
the leader or prove that he was tougher—or just more stubborn—than everyone
else, refusing to move.

The sound came first, a tremendous roaring. And then the
wave crashing around a bend in the river. Three of them making it back to the
bank and relative safety. Himself fighting to hold onto Torkaz as the wave
tried to carry his friend away, while Ariad and Daron held onto Vatar’s legs.
Holding on until his joints felt pulled apart, even when Torkaz went limp.
Until the tree branch struck Vatar, breaking his arm and his ribs, and
loosening his grip. Torkaz swept away, rolling in the wave with the rest of the
debris.

Torkaz’s bruised and broken body the last time Vatar had
seen it, just before the Raven Clan had raised it to the burial platform.

Vatar blinked and wiped the dampness from his eyes on his
sleeve.

I’m sorry.
Taleus offered quietly.
You did
everything you could.

Vatar shook his head.
I’d known as soon as we got to the
river that something wasn’t right. If I’d tried harder . . .

Do you really think that would have made a difference?
Taleus
disagreed.
That any of them would have listened to you? And what could you
have told them? That it was magic? They’d never have accepted that. Even you
wouldn’t have, then. You knew nothing of your magic. You couldn’t have known it
was a true Fore Seeing. And you wouldn’t have known where to look for the
danger if you had. As little as you know about rivers, how could you have
predicted a flash flood?

Vatar blew his breath out again and said to Taleus what he’d
never admitted to anyone else. Not even Thekila. Not even, really, himself.
No.
But, like the danger sense, some of my magic worked even before I knew about
it. I had Far Sight visions of Thekila long before I reached the Valley. If I’d
tried, maybe there was
something
I could have done.

No, there wasn’t. Some forces of nature are stronger than
any magic. Fully trained, nothing you could have done would have held back that
flash flood for an instant.

My shield—

Was not available to you until after you began to bond
with Thekila,
Taleus interrupted.
In any case, I don’t think even that
could have stood against that much water. Not without killing her—and you.

Maybe not.
Vatar stood up and made his first circuit
around their camp, staying just within the cover of the trees. At least it had
stopped raining. As he settled back to his chosen position, he was glad to see
a mist beginning to rise, hiding the river from his sight. Might be foggy by
morning. Would that be a good thing? Or bad?

~

Vatar turned over in his bedroll and opened his eyes
surrounded by a gray cloud. He flexed his right ankle experimentally and
winced. Yes, it was just as stiff as it usually got on foggy mornings in Caere.
Except there, getting out of bed was made easier by . . . well, by being in a
real bed. He levered himself up and took a few uneven steps, trying to loosen
up the joint.

“What’s wrong with your foot?” Balan asked.

Vatar shrugged. “An old injury. It stiffens up in weather
like this. I’ll be fine once I’m on horseback.”

Zoria’s face paled. “How old an injury?”

Vatar let out his breath and turned to face her. He hadn’t
meant to bring it up, but there was no point trying to sugarcoat the truth,
either. “The ankle was broken by a flying rock in the Pass leading to the
Valley, almost four years ago.”

Zoria gasped and turned away.

“Let’s eat and get packed up,” Quetza said. “I’d like to get
across the river before this fog lifts. It’s the best cover we’re likely to
have.”

Vatar hobbled a few more steps, unsure whether he agreed
with Quetza on that or not. The fog would hide them, right enough. It would
also hide almost everything else
from
them.

Balan, Zoridan, and Zoria tentatively guided their horses to
the river’s edge.

“The horses know what to do,” Vatar said. “Just trust them.”
He was glad to have something else to focus on—advising the inexperienced
riders—when the water began swirling around his own mount’s legs. It helped to
keep him from visualizing a foaming wall of water rushing down on them.

Bringing up the rear, Vatar reached the middle of the ford
before the prickly feeling between his shoulder blades alerted him to danger.
Only one kind of danger leapt to his mind. “Get out of the river! Now!”

He turned his heels into his horse’s side, urging it out of
the ford. Charging up the far slope, he collided with another horse—definitely
not Quetza’s tall grey. Who else would be out here? Orleus didn’t have the
manpower to patrol the river and the Themyri thought of horses as food, not
transport. The rider looked vaguely familiar. Before Vatar could place him,
though, the other rider cried out and fell off the far side of his horse, landing
in an ungainly heap.

Answering yells rose from the surrounding mist, sounding
much too close. Vatar recognized some of those shouts as a Themyri battle cry.
“’Ware! Themyri!” He turned toward the nearest shout. The mist swirled and
cleared just enough for him to recognize Loran, uncomfortably astride another
horse. That was a face he wasn’t likely to forget. In a flash, he knew that the
vaguely familiar rider behind him must be Platan. “Exiles!”