Hearts in Cups (25 page)

She had reattired
herself in her traveling clothes and neatly rebound her hair. As she heard
Daffyd approach she turned quickly, raising her hand to shield her eyes from
the sun. He held aloft the two fish he had caught and she stood to return to
the shore. Her movements were easy and sure as she leaped from rock to rock
back to the bank where Daffyd waited.

"It's not the time
of day that fish are looking to be caught," he said, rinsing the fish in
the water and wrapping them in leaves. "And it is later than I hoped to be
back, but we can still travel a couple of miles before we make camp. I also
took advantage of the stream." He pointed to his still damp hair that
curled waywardly about his head.

Together they
shouldered their packs and resumed their march. Working with the ring while
Daffyd was fishing, Hollin had sensed that they must head north and slowly to
the west. An image had come into her mind of a great wall of loose rocks at the
end of a small alpine valley. It was an image that she had experienced before
in her initial work in Pentarin. She was aware of the fatigue that was the
result of working with the ring, but she ignored it and marched on. That
evening she ate her first cooked meal in over three days. Daffyd cheerfully
informed her that he would lay snares while they camped and could forage for edible
plants as they walked. She nodded wearily, hardly conscious of him. She did not
know the next morning how she had gotten into her bed. Awakening, she found her
boots removed and herself snugly tucked into her bedroll with a cushion of
leaves beneath her.

Daffyd was awake and
had a pot of hot water to make tea and some tubers that he had discovered and
cooked in the coals that morning. Feeling somewhat groggy, she inquired as to
how long he had been up, and was chagrined to be told that he had risen well over
two hours ago. He further told her that she had fallen into an unrousable sleep
immediately after eating the previous night.

"So you put me
into my bedroll?" she inquired, covering a large yawn.

"That seemed the
only solution," he replied amiably.

"It must be from
using the ring..." She stifled another yawn.

"I remember both
Lord Colin and Lady Dinea complaining that arcane work left them tired and
disoriented," Daffyd volunteered.

"Well, at least I
now have a fairly clear idea of where to go from here. In future I will be
chary of using it except when in real need." Hollin stretched her hands
high above her head and wriggled out of her bedroll. With a healthy appetite
she ate the cooked tubers and three rounds of the tough but filling journey-cake
that Daffyd had purchased in the village.

"Arcane work also
engenders a great deal of hunger, so I see." Daffyd laughed. "Yes, it
would be best to limit your use of the ring until I have restocked our
larder!"

Hollin gave him a look
of comic dismay and joined him in laughter. What they shared was not only the
relief of being finally free of the fear of pursuit, but also the sense of
having cut themselves off from the past. The horror of the massacre two days
ago was still there just beneath the surface of emotions, but their immediate
setting and shared purpose kept the feelings of pain and rage from overwhelming
them. From that moment their relationship as friends began, to be molded and
held in check by the codes of leige-lord and paxman, but strong and enduring
nonetheless.

The following weeks
were spent arduously climbing; wending their way through the towering
mountains. As early summer came, though the nights were uniformly cool, the
days grew mild and pleasant. Occasional thunder-showers in the late afternoon
would force them to seek shelter for brief spells, under their tarp or the
trees, but their forward progress was steady. As the fear of pursuit left them
they stopped looking over their shoulders and looked only ahead.  Daffyd
was at home in the mountains and his knowledge of plants and animals, the
finding or construction of simple shelters, and how to forge or follow a trail,
made him an invaluable companion. He also showed an unfailing good humour when
things went slightly awry and an innate sensitivity to the duchess' need for
speech or silence.

Once Hollin became
acclimated to the mountains and the rigors involved in climbing them, she
became quite proficient. She had spent many long days as a child riding and
walking in the mountains of Langstraad. Not allowing herself to become overly
soft and castle-bound when she assumed the sovereignship of Langstraad paid off
now. Only the dirt and grime of travel had been difficult for her to adjust to,
though they passed creeks and streams often enough for her to maintain a degree
of cleanliness. Still, often at the end of a long march she would find herself
wistfully remembering the amenities of her own castle.

They met no one for
many weeks as they journeyed north. The mountains to the west of the great trade
route were little habited and presented few opportunities to those who might
wish to settle there. Only the arcane knowledge supplied by the duchess' ring
led them through the rough corrugations of the terrain. They began to speculate
on how far they had come and how much further they must travel after several
weeks stretched well beyond a month. When queried as to why she had originally
planned to travel on the trade route when they were heading more west and north
rather than east and north, Hollin pointed to the steeply pitched slope that
they were slowly traversing and asked him to imagine one hundred and fifty
mounted men, plus servants, tramping down this hill. He snorted in
understanding.

"Lord Colin and I
had a general idea of the direction of the city in which Prince Brian is
believed to reside. It's known that when the prince quit the Pentarchy he left
by way of the northern trade road. We decided that since the company we were
taking was so large, it would be best to use the largest, most populated road,
at least for as long as we could. Remember, no one knows exactly where this
city lies. Messengers have been sent before to find the city and the prince, to
no avail."

"Are there any
people living along the trade route who have heard of the city?"

"Oh yes, it is
known that such a city exists, but not its exact whereabouts. Not even those
who dwell in the far northern lands know how to find the city. Those peaks
ahead in the distance are the Pillars of the Sky. Images of them have been
coming to me while I have worked with the ring. It's towards them that we must
now steer our course." She fell silent as somber thoughts of the ill-fated
embassy returned to her. Though for the most part she had put it from her mind,
occasionally she would recall that dark afternoon, remembering Celia's cries of
pain and terror as she was struck down. Sighing with the effort, she forced
herself back to the present moment. With a fleeting pang of insignificance she
saw that the sunlit mountains that surrounded them were oblivious to their
transient existence.

Chapter 11

"Where do we go
from here?" Daffyd's voice aptly conveyed both his frustration and
discomfiture.

They stood at the far
end of a narrow valley, a rift in the mountains, surrounded by menacing pinnacles
of rock and snow. Before them towered a great wall of loose stones and debris.
No trees grew here, only short tufts of grass clinging to life between the
scattered rocks. From where they stood, the sky was but a band of blue
stretched upon on the vast heights of the mountains.

Almost ten weeks had
passed since they had left the confines of the Inner Ward and began their
perilous journey. For the most part, they had kept to the valleys between the mountains,
taking advantage of the easier paths rather than assaulting the high peaks. The
past few days, however, had led them higher and higher until they left even the
conifer forest behind. Here the world was colder and brighter, the air thinner
and the aspect grimmer. When they struck the semblance of an actual trail
yesterday, both had become excited. Hollin was convinced that they were nearing
the end of their journey. The trail, well-marked, seemed to meander eastwards,
back down the mountain from where they picked it up, but Hollin was certain
that their way led up, not down. Up they had gone and ended here at a wall of
dangerously loose rock that threatened to collapse and destroy them at any
moment.

Hollin surveyed the
unstable wall of rock and shuddered. "Maybe we have to climb it," she
suggested with misgiving.

Daffyd shook his head
vehemently. "There is no way that we can go over that, my lady!" His
voice rang with certainty as he pointed to the top of the cliff. "If we
attempt it, we'll more than likely come sliding back with a part of it on top
of us."

Hollin bit her lip in
frustration and stepped back. "There must be some way out of this
valley!"

"At present, the
way that we came in seems to be the way we must leave, unless you can conjure
wings to let us fly over this cliff."

Raising her eyebrows at
his uncharacteristic asperity, she turned around and around studying the
surrounding cliffs. When she concluded her scrutiny, she turned back to Daffyd
who had dropped his pack and saddlebags to the ground and was seated on them.
To her questioning look, he shrugged and said, "It's late in the
afternoon; let's find what shelter we may in this barren bit of wilderness and
try again in the morning. What eludes tired eyes at the end of the day may be revealed
with the morning."

She grudgingly admitted
that he was right and together they retreated back down the valley and away
from the threat of the unstable cliff.

Finding shelter in the
valley proved difficult even for the seasoned travelers they had become. The
valley was less than half a mile wide and about two miles long. With no trees,
they were forced to camp in a crude dell roughly surrounded by boulders. A
wind-screen was constructed with the tarp, and Daffyd built a fire-pit out of
smaller rocks. There was no burnable wood, so Daffyd emptied one of the packs
and left the valley to climb back down to the tree-line and gather a small
amount of wood for the evening’s fire. It took him over an hour and the valley
was deep in shadow when he returned.

Hollin had assembled
the articles of their camp and was waiting impatiently for him to return. He
was disconcerted to find his sword unsheathed and lying near at hand, but
forbore comment on it. As he unloaded the wood and set a fire blazing, she
busied herself with preparing dinner. Only after they began to partake of their
evening meal did she tell him of the strangely chilling scream that had caused
her to unsheathe the weapon.

"It was like no cry
that I have ever heard before. It may have been an animal but it sounded like a
demon." A faint shiver of recollection passed over her.

"It may have been
nothing more than the wind screaming on the heights, but if it will make you
feel better we can take turns on watch during the night." He had much
respect for the duchess' nerves and whatever had set her nerves on edge was not
to be dismissed too lightly.

The night was
exceptionally cold and they ran out of firewood after a few hours. Huddling
together for warmth, they took turns sitting awake and alert while the other
slept. They had done this several times on their journey, usually after they
had found indications that bears were in the vicinity. Nothing happened during
the night to alarm them, but when they rose the next morning, both felt the
want of sleep and the lack of adequate warmth. Hollin was eager to immediately
begin exploring the walls of the valley, while Daffyd advised collecting
firewood first. In the end they agreed to explore the valley in the morning and
procure wood in the afternoon.

With icy fingers and
frozen breath they began to walk the perimeter of the valley. The floor of the
valley abruptly ended at sheer cliffs which gave little hope of handholds, let
alone any sign of a trail. There were a few places that looked as if they might
possibly be scaled, but only at the risk of life and limb. Discouraged after
several fruitless hours, Daffyd persuaded Hollin to leave the valley with him
to hunt for firewood.

They left most of their
belongings behind in the valley, venturing out with empty packs and Daffyd's
sword strapped to his back. They had to travel far back down the mountain in
order to find burnable wood. All around them the mountains spread out in an
endless panorama that only mist and distance dissipated. There were many broken
branches once they reached edge of the forest and they spent the better part of
an hour collecting pieces of dry wood. Bowing forward under the weight, they
trudged back up the trail to the valley and deposited their gleanings beside
the firepit. By then the valley was again in the deep shadow of late afternoon.

Sitting and drinking
long draughts of water after their exertions, they were shaken out of their
lethargy as a shrill scream cut through the air, prickling the hair on the
napes of their necks. The demoniacal cry was repeated moments later as they
stood, back-to-back, raking the cliffs above them with their eyes in a attempt
to verify that the scream came from a corporeal form. Hollin first spotted the
large pale shape, which seemed to hover high above them on the cliff wall. She
directed Daffyd's attention to it and he whistled faintly in amazement. Though
he continued to crouch with his sword in hand, the knot of fear relaxed within
him. Mesmerized, they watched as the creature turned and leaped away, vanishing
into the shadows. They listened for several long minutes to see if it would
return but the valley had subsided into silence once more.