Skull Gate (16 page)

“She was a witch, too?” Tras Sur'tian interrupted.

“A sorceress,” Frost corrected. “The most potent in a land where only women study the arcane arts."

“Then, you fled."

The first tears began to slide down her cheeks. “No, there was one more,” she answered. “My weapons master. He had trained me in secret, flaunting the law because he loved me and because I wanted to learn. But he was my father's friend, too. He blamed himself.” She sank to her knees. Tears flowed freely now, unchecked. Her body shook with the force of her sobs. “I didn't want to fight him! I tried not to! But he came after me, and something just possessed me!"

She collapsed into his arms, buried her face against his chest. He held her tight, stroked her hair, and rocked her while tears stained his tunic. “The will to live,” he told her. “We all want to live."

“It was just a game, my training, like sport, something to pass the dull hours!” she wailed. “I never expected to kill!"

He said nothing, just held her close.

After a while, her crying ended. She sat up, wiped her face. There was a hollow place inside her where the nightmares once had nestled. She felt drained. “I'm sorry,” she muttered softly.

“We all cry,” Tras Sur'tian said. “Tears are as much a part of us as blood."

“Even old soldiers?” she asked, forcing a weak smile.

“Especially old soldiers."

She hugged him around the neck and laid her head on his shoulder, the way she used to embrace her father. “I guess the armor is off,” she whispered.

“I guess it is,” he agreed. “Now, you'd better sit up. If Kimon is the jealous type, he may get the wrong impression."

She got up. Her gaze followed where Tras Sur'tian pointed. Kimon rode toward them, a bag bouncing on his horse's shoulder. His tunic was opened to the waist and a breeze rumpled his dark hair. A sudden warmth rushed through her, chasing away the last chill of her confession. She was pleased to see him.

“Food!” he shouted brightly, riding up, passing the bag to her. “Cheese, sausages, bread, and wine."

“You found a village?” Tras Sur'tian said.

“A farmhouse,” he answered. “The farmer's purse is fatter by twice what all this is worth, but I was hungry and had spare coins. No dried fruit, I'm afraid."

“What a shame,” Frost said sarcastically. Opening the bag, she extracted a large cheese. “Hobble your horse, but leave him saddled. After we eat we'll start out."

Kimon swung to the ground as she spread the bag's contents on Tras Sur'tian's cloak. When his mount was hobbled he came close, bent over her, and frowned. “You've been crying."

She looked at Tras, then at Kimon. “Nothing to talk about now,” she assured him. “Someday soon, I'll tell you everything.” His frown remained, but he straightened. His gaze flickered over each of them. “I promise,” she added, giving his hand a squeeze. “Now sit down. You can cut the cheese. Tras, you carve the sausages."

Food had never tasted so good. They ate with relish, licking crumbs from fingers, leaving only a bit of cheese and some bread. A jug of wine shared among them washed it all down. Not a droplet remained. Tras rolled back, rubbed his stomach. “Your farmer was well paid,” he informed them. “The best cooks in Mirashai would be envious."

Kimon grinned. “Then, at your leisure, you may reimburse me for your share of the meal."

The Korkyran flipped him an imaginary coin. Kimon pretended to catch and pocket it. “My thanks,” he said, and Tras nodded. “And you, lady,” Kimon added, turning. “What of your payment?"

She winked. “What would you ask?"

He scratched his chin. “Let's walk down by the river and discuss it."

She laughed and got to her feet. “We'll just have to defer your payment to another day. It's time we were moving out."

“But it's not yet dusk!” Kimon protested.

“No matter,” she answered, patting his cheek teasingly. “We can be nearly across Endymia by full nightfall. We know we're going into Kephalenia; we don't need a star to guide us to the border."

“But—"

She wagged a finger. “No buts ... or no payment later."

Tras Sur'tian got up, lifted his saddle from his pile of belongings, slung it over a shoulder. “Give up, friend,” he advised. “No one wins an argument with her.” His horse was some distance away, hobbled, grazing. He started for it.

She didn't need to look around for Ashur, just cupped her hands and called. The unicorn's weird cry echoed in her ears. She turned. Ashur raced over the earth, an ebon streak, streamers of flame trailing from his face, mingling with the thick mane that lashed the air.

“A fine horse,” Kimon commented admiringly. “I've never seen his like."

You certainly haven't
, she thought with an inward smile. She took his hand in hers. He was special, too; she'd never met his like. “Look at Ashur closely,” she said, “and tell me what you see."

He squinted, shrugged. “A magnificent piece of horseflesh,” he answered. “Strong, fast, well trained..."

She sighed. Ashur thundered to a stop before her, kicking dust. The mane was a tangle, and she tried to smooth it. She stroked him along the withers, down the broad forehead, passed her hand between those bizarre and beautiful eyes. The flames shimmered near her skin, but she was not burned, for they gave off no heat.

If only Kimon could see him and know how rare a creature he truly was! A horse? That was like comparing the stars to coals in a half-dead firepit. She sighed again and lifted her saddle.

 

 

 

 

Chapter Eight

 

Midnight brought them to the edge of a vast forest. The moon glinted on the beaten road, on the tops of swaying trees. Leaves shivered and rattled. The rasping of crickets echoed from the shadowed depths. Their own shadows stretched far behind them, as if reluctant to enter the wood.

A sharp wind had risen early in the evening. Frost's hair whipped her face. She hugged her cloak tight around her shoulders and glanced upward. The green star seemed to have changed position, though she had not seen it move.

“But the road goes that way,” Kimon protested when she mentioned the shift. They brought their mounts to a stop. The wind whistled shrilly around them.

“Then that's the way we're going,” she decided finally. “I'm not plunging into that unknown in this dark. Gods know what we might find."

“Or what might find us,” Tras Sur'tian added.

“Maybe we should wait for morning, then,” Kimon suggested.

She nudged Ashur into motion again. “No,” she said. “If I remember my maps, this forest separates Endymia and Kephalenia."

Tras nodded. “A kind of no-man's-land, claimed by neither province according to an old treaty. It grows larger and deeper every year."

“While the provinces shrink,” Kimon observed. “That can only lead to war one day."

Tras Sur'tian answered with stiff formality. “There are no internal conflicts in Korkyra."

Kimon snorted. “What do you call it when cousin murders cousin for a throne?"

Frost interrupted before an argument could brew. Tras's mood had improved immeasurably since their talk in the afternoon. Yet Kimon's sharp tongue might still provoke her old friend into his customary sourness. She needed no more gripes or complaints. “This place has a name,” she said, “but I can't recall it."

Tras Sur'tian's retort to Kimon was cut short. He looked thoughtful. “Kellwood, I think."

The wind wailed a higher note and set their cloaks flapping. The trees bent, leaves rippled like waves on a stormy sea. Low in the west the bloating moon sent the forest's shadows yawning toward them as they entered Kellwood. Young saplings and scrub rose like gnarled hands clawing up through the earth. Huge, ancient trees, moss-dripping, swept the skies with twisted limbs.

Kimon's horse whinnied pitifully, fought the reins.

“Damn!"

Frost jerked on her own reins, turned in the saddle, sword half-free of her sheath. “What is it?” she whispered tensely.

Tras Sur'tian answered normal-voiced. “Nothing. Cloak caught on a bramble is all. Thought something had me!” She heard material rip as he gave a pull.

They pushed on, following the narrow road. The chirping of insects was frequently drowned as violent gusts savaged through the branches overhead. Frost scrambled for something scratchy that blew down her neck, a dead leaf. The luminous eyes of an owl peered down at them, but the bird kept silent. A few spears of moonlight penetrated the forest canopy, some on the road, more in the dense foliage to either side. Frost glimpsed a patch of flowers, a scampering nocturnal rodent, a serpent crossing the road, all in shades of black and gray.

The green star was the only hint of color. Somehow, it seemed always to hover in a gap between the trees, never out of sight for long, as if insisting they return to the course it prescribed for them.

But she would not plunge through the underbrush in darkness. She stuck stubbornly to the path, convinced she was right to choose the safer way. The leaves grew thicker, obscured the sky and the star. When the road took a sudden turn and the branches parted, it floated bright, twinkling, unobstructed, calling them down the trail.

“I'd feel a hell of a lot better if I knew what that thing was,” Kimon said.

“Or where it was leading us.” Tras hugged his cloak tighter.

Frost kept her silence. There was nothing to gain by conjecture. She had her suspicions about the creature who was guiding them, but Tras Sur'tian, like most Korkyrans, dreaded the supernatural. She didn't know Kimon well enough yet to judge his reactions.

But this she knew. The thing in the fireball was not human, nor wizard, witch, or sorcerer. Its power was far too great. She had dealt with gods before and learned that even gods had gods to worship and be manipulated by, hierarchy on hierarchy. Perhaps this being was a god. She couldn't be sure. But its motives were unguessable.

It claimed it could lead her to Aki. That was enough to make her follow, but not enough to make her trust. There would come a time later, she felt sure, when it would exact a price.

Her backside began to ache from too much riding. She leaned back on Ashur's rump, tried to stretch. “Tras, how far do you think we've come?"

His saddle creaked as he shifted his weight. “I don't know,” he admitted, “In this cursed dark the wood seems to go on and on without end. I thought surely we'd be through by now."

She caught her breath as something draped over her face, a spider's web suspended from a low-hanging branch. Frantically she wiped the sticky, clinging strands away, cursing and fuming, shivering, praying the thing wasn't occupied. Even after she was sure the silken threads were gone, she continued to rub at her face. Damn! but she could still feel it on her skin. She knew it was imagination, but that didn't quell the sensation, and every now and then she swatted her neck, half-certain she'd felt something crawling there.

“It's gone!"

Startled by Kimon's shout, she twisted around, missed seeing another low limb across the road. It smacked her in the face, evoking a string of profanities. “What's—"

Then she saw.

There was no sign of the green star. It had vanished from the sky. The other stars winked down at her, mysterious, icy cool in their velvet setting.

They stopped again. “What does it mean?” Kimon asked.

She bit her lip. “It promised to lead us to Aki,” she told him. She peered into the darkness on either side of the road. “I don't see her here. We ride on."

“Maybe it'll come back,” Tras Sur'tian suggested.

She moved down the trail. Desire to be clear of Kellwood was strong within her. The trees seemed to press in on her like the walls of a too small room. Her nostrils were full of a damp odor, her ears with the grating sounds of unseen creatures and rustling leaves. The hackles rose on her neck, and she wished for the clean light of day.

“Maybe we should wait,” Tras Sur'tian insisted, “to see if it returns."

“Wait if you want,” she said, “but the road's plainly marked. I'm riding on. I'll meet you at the end of it."

Both men came after her.

“Are you all right?” Kimon inquired, directing his mount abreast of hers.

She forced a smile, but it quickly vanished. “I've never been afraid of a forest before,” she answered. “Gods know we grow them bigger in Esgaria. But this place gives me gooseflesh."

He peered around and agreed. “I know what you mean."

But she did wonder about the green star's absence. They'd followed a crooked road; taken more time than they had anticipated. Had the star tried to lead them a shorter course and at last given up? Or had they arrived where it planned to lead them? Answers, she needed answers. All she had was wind and cricket songs.

At last, the forest began to thin. Old trees gave way to younger ones, and they gave way to saplings and brush. When they were free of Kellwood and it was no more than a vast shadow behind them, they halted. Frost breathed a deep sigh of relief.

“Better?” Kimon asked.

She could see his grin. “Much,” she answered honestly.

Tras Sur'tian climbed wearily out of the saddle. “The horses could use a walk,” he pronounced, wrapping his reins around a gloved hand. The others dismounted, too. Ashur, of course, needed no rest, but her legs were stiff and sore; stretching would do them good.

She peered ahead, squinting to penetrate the night's gloom. The plain extended far, broad and featureless. Only a few twinkling stars revealed where the horizon ended and the sky began.

“We could make camp now,” Tras Sur'tian suggested. “The moon is down; dawn's only a few hours away."

Kimon surveyed the heavens. “I wonder where it goes?"

Frost also wondered about the green star. It had promised to lead them to Aki, but it seemed they were on their own now. “I'm not as curious about
where
as
why,
” she said. “It's supposed to stay visible until sunrise.” She followed his gaze skyward, shrugged, and kept walking until the long, monotonous strides began to work a merciful magic, draining her mind of all thought or care.