Sentinelspire (26 page)

Early afternoon though it was, the sun had long since sunk behind the jagged cone of Sentinelspire when Sauk led them into the woods—a steep, narrow valley choked with larch trees and smaller scrub brush. Lewan had neither seen nor heard the tiger since they’d left the tunnel. A stream rushed down the valley, tumbling over rocks and roots, but here and there it widened into little pools, none more than a few feet deep.

“This suits your needs?” Sauk asked him.

Before Lewan could answer, a low rumble rose in the earth beneath them, then grew to a roar, and the entire mountain shook beneath their boots. Sauk stumbled but managed to keep his feet. Lewan was not so lucky. He sat down hard on an exposed tree root and decided to stay there. Under him, he could feel the wood of the tree humming like a plucked harp string. Rocks tumbled down the mountain.

A final, long groan like dying thunder, and the trembling stopped. Small stones continued rattling down the mountainside, and in the distance Lewan thought he heard boulders crashing to canyon floors. Lewan saw the half-orc looking up the mountain and followed his gaze. There, between boughs full of their new spring clusters of light green needles, Lewan could see the jagged cone of Sentinelspire. White steam, looking almost like a wisp of cloud, was rising into the wind, which quickly blew it away.

Sauk turned to Lewan, seemed to consider something, then walked over to where he sat on the root. The half-orc towered over him, deep in thought.

Finally Sauk pulled the long bundle he’d been carrying over one shoulder and handed it to Lewan. “Take this,” he said.

Lewan did. “What is it?”

“See for yourself.”

Something hard was wrapped inside the canvas. Lewan untied the knot and unwound the leather cord. He pulled back the cloth, and one glance inside told him what it was.

“My master’s bow.”

“It seems a fine weapon,” said Sauk. “I considered keeping it myself. Even if I weren’t smart enough to recognize those runes as words of power in whatever language you leaf-lovers use in your rites, I could still feel the power in that bow. But it isn’t for me.”

“It is sacred to the Oak Father,” said Lewan. “Only those sworn to him may waken its power.”

“You know how to”—Sauk’s lip twisted in a sneer, but Lewan caught a spark of curiosity in his eyes—“
waken
its power?”

Lewan shrugged.

Sauk looked down on him, and when Lewan said nothing more, the half-orc snorted and said, “Keep your secrets, then.” His countenance grew suddenly grave, and he said, “Take the bow and go.”

“What?” Lewan blinked, not sure he had heard Sauk correctly.

“I have no arrows for you,” said Sauk. “That would have roused suspicion.”

“You’re … you’re letting me
go?
”

Sauk took a medallion out of his shirt and pulled off the necklace from which it hung. He held it out to Lewan. “Go fast. Wear this until you’re at least five leagues from the mountain, then bury the damned thing and keep running. If your god favors you, maybe you can make it far enough before …”

Lewan looked at the medallion. It seemed rather plain, almost crude, the edges uneven. Engraved in the middle of it was the image of a broken ram’s horn. “What is it?” he asked.

“It will keep the mountain’s guardians away from you,” said Sauk. “And it will keep the Old Man from seeing you until it’s too late for him to do anything about it.”

“What about Talieth?”

“Leave her to me.”

Lewan could tell by the flatness of the half-orc’s eyes that confronting Talieth was not something he looked forward to.

Lewan did not take the medallion. He looked at the half-orc and asked, “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you helping me escape?” asked Lewan, because he wasn’t sure the half-orc was. That talk that Sauk and Talieth had together before they left the Fortress—what had that been about? Was this some sort of test? If Lewan took the medallion and started walking, would Sauk cut him down? Or would he watch him go, that sly smile on his face, then summon the tiger? Lewan remembered all too well the corpses in the garden, and at least one of them had been mauled and torn apart by a tiger.

Sauk lowered the hand holding the medallion and shrugged. “Why? That’s not hard. Talieth’s plan has failed. Our one hope
was finding Kh—er, your master, and that druid’s relic he carried. But your master’s dead.”

“She hopes that I will be able to use
Erael’len’
s powers,” said Lewan.

Sauk snorted. “I mean you no insult, Lewan, but you are just a boy. It was a fool’s hope to think that even your master could help us. Given years of study and training … who knows? I think I see a hunter’s heart in you.” He looked at the mountain top. “But we don’t have years.”

“That’s it?” said Lewan. “You mean to send me on my way while you go back to die? That’s your plan? That’s what passes for honor with you? Some sort of noble death?”

Sauk looked down on him, an amused look on his face. “Nothing noble about death, boy. Death means you lost. If I die, I’ll die fighting, and the Beastlord will greet me with my enemy’s blood on my teeth.”

They looked at each other in silence for a moment, then Sauk held out the medallion again.

“Here,” he said. “Put leagues behind you before dark.”

Lewan looked at the medallion, then up at Sauk. “I can’t,” he said.

“Why?”

“It’s … complicated.” Lewan stared at the nearby stream, at the sparkling of sunlight on the water.

Sauk’s words had stung him.
You are just a boy. A fool’s hope
. Was he right? Was Lewan a fool to think he had any hope in learning
Erael’len
’s secret? Still … 
I think I see a hunter’s heart in you
. Lewan thought that was as close to high praise as the half-orc ever came. Would he ever be anything more than a scared boy if he ran now? Even if it was a fool’s hope, he had something else calling him back to the fortress.

“Women are complicated,” said Sauk.

Shocked that Sauk seemed to have guessed his thoughts, Lewan looked up at the half-orc. Sauk grinned and shrugged. “There are many secrets in the Fortress of the Old Man, but
who is sharing whose bed is seldom one of them. You think you love her, but you don’t. That feeling you’re feeling isn’t love. It’s just the excitement of the first legs you’ve ever parted.”

Anger rose in Lewan, and he stood. He’d intended to face Sauk, but even as he came to his full height, he found himself looking up at the half-orc’s chin, and fear joined his anger. He swallowed, took a deep breath, and said, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No?” Sauk smirked.

“No.”

Sauk looked down at the medallion in his and sighed. “Your death is on your own head, then. I tried. One thing, though.”

“What?”

“Best not to tell Talieth of this conversation. I did you a kindness with the offer. Now do me one and forget my offer. Agreed?”

Lewan felt a pang of pride that he managed to hold the half-orc’s gaze. “You’re afraid of her,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

“Damned right I am,” said Sauk. “You should be too.”

W
hat was the little fool doing? Sauk wondered.

He’d found a good spot—a ways uphill from the boy, well-shaded by a large larch, but still with a good view of where Lewan sat next to the pool. Taaki was off to Sauk’s left, settled and comfortable in a patch of soft sand beneath an overhang of the mountainside that offered her a wide view of the entire stretch of wood. Sauk couldn’t see her, but through the bond he shared with her as a
zuwar
, he knew right where she was. He could’ve pointed to her like a man with his eyes closed could point to the noonday sun.

Afternoon was turning to evening, and the air up on the mountain had turned cool. Still, the boy hadn’t moved in a long while. After Sauk had left him and settled in to watch, Lewan had stripped off his boots and clothes and bathed in the pool. The way the boy moved in the pool and ladled water over his torso with his cupped palms had more the look of ceremony than a true washing. This struck Sauk as nothing unusual. Most faiths had rites of ceremonial cleansing—his included, though the Beastlord’s worshipers slathered themselves in blood more often than water.

Sauk knew that earlier that morning, Talieth had ordered servants into the gardens with a list of things to gather—acorns, mistletoe and holly leaves, a sprig of oak leaves. So early in the season, the acorns had been the most difficult, but
they had found them at last in the tangled maze of greenery that grew round the base of the Tower of the Sun. Since the old druid had taken up residence there, all sorts of odd things grew in and out of season.

Sauk watched as Lewan sat, still naked, at the water’s edge and used a stone from the stream to crush the acorns and some of the leaves. He then dipped three fingers of his right hand into the greenish-brown concoction and painted a series of symbols on his forehead, the backs of his eyelids, across both lips, round his heart, and the patch of skin between his navel and groin. Sauk scowled and muttered, “Damned leaf-lovers.”

Lewan then piled a small cushion of young larch needles at the base of the nearest tree, sat on it with his legs crossed and his hands on his knees, leaned his head back against the bole of the tree, closed his eyes—and didn’t move for a long while. Sauk sometimes thought he could see the boy’s lips moving, but he was too far away to be sure.

And there Lewan sat as the shadows in the wood turned a deeper shade of blue and the cool of evening began to whisper down the mountain. Although he couldn’t see them through the trees, Sauk knew that the first stars were skirting the eastern horizon.

A jolt, almost like a muscle spasm, struck Sauk. But this was in his mind, in his heart of hearts, that deep part of his soul entwined with the tiger. Someone was approaching. And not from a distance. Someone was already well into the wood, within an easy stone’s throw of the boy. How someone had gotten so close without Sauk—or especially Taaki—being aware of them, Sauk had no idea. It put his hackles up. Sauk sensed Taaki rising from her hiding place and stalking down the slope, keeping to the shadows under the trees.

No
, Sauk told her.
Easy. Let’s see
.

Sauk drew his knife and waited. The boy still hadn’t moved. If he heard the figure approaching, he’d shown no sign of it.

Sauk saw movement before he could make out any features. Just a different shadow moving through a wood that was quickly dimming to the uniform shade of evening. The figure made no attempt at stealth and moved without haste. Lewan still hadn’t moved, though he’d have heard the figure by now—unless he’d fallen asleep.

The figure made its way round the last of the trees. A man. Sauk could tell by the way the figure walked. But his features were completely hidden within the folds of a loose robe and a deep hood. In the gloom of the oncoming evening, the robe looked black.

The man stopped a few feet away from Lewan. The boy opened his eyes and started at the sight of the robed man standing near him. The man reached up with both hands and pulled down his hood. Sauk got his first good look at the man, and he felt all the blood drain from his face.

Lewan had been aware of someone approaching for some time. Believing it to be Sauk, he paid it no mind, though he did note that he heard him coming quite clearly. Days ago, on the trek through the Shalhoond, Lewan had been surprised at how someone as large as Sauk could move with such grace through the woods. Perhaps Sauk was purposefully making noise to announce his return.

When the sound of footsteps stopped nearby, Lewan opened his eyes. He gasped and barely caught the scream in his throat, for it wasn’t the half-orc after all, but someone wearing a dark robe and hood. Lewan could just make out a man’s chin within the deep shadow under the hood.

“Forgive me,” said the hooded man. His voice was deep and rich, but Lewan could hear the rasp of old age in its timbre. “I did not mean to startle you.”

The stranger lowered his hood, and Lewan faced an old man. His thinning hair, mostly gray but with streaks of black,
just dusted his shoulders. His skin was not as dark as Lewan’s, but it had the darker tone of someone from southern regions, and though he was wrinkled as worn leather, his eyes were bright and sharp.