Song Magick (15 page)

She touched their consciousness very briefly
last night, and again this morning.

She is a heartspeaker, then.
Aric’s
eyes flickered to the bard.
She should have stayed in Rothvori.
It’s too dangerous for her to be here now.

I’m escorting her to Cerisild under the
shield of the Tauron. It appears that our cowardly friend was
correct that others were looking for Telyn. She is The Dragon’s
quarry, and he found us in Rothvori.

Aric’s eyes widened as he looked to Telyn,
who was watching this wordless exchange with fascination. Mithrais
gave Aric a rapid summary of Telyn’s exile, the price on her head,
and his offer of sanctuary.

Mithrais relaxed his grip on Aric’s hand,
allowing the contact to dissolve, and his friend made a harsh noise
of triumph.

“So he has no warrant this time—not that it
matters.” The smile on Aric’s face was dangerous, eager for
retribution, and he paced excitedly toward the hill that Mithrais
and Telyn had just descended. “Rodril and Cormac aren’t far away,
and it will be just after dark before Halith can be close enough to
assist. I have a plan to take him—”

“Wait, Aric,” Mithrais told him, holding up a
hand. “We must do something else first to ensure that Telyn and I
stay ahead of The Dragon. The Lord of Rothvori assisted us by
staging a diversion last night, which gained us what small lead we
now have. It’s possible that he knows exactly where I’m taking
Telyn, and the rain will have made it easier to track us this
far.”

Mithrais glanced at the bard, who stood a few
paces away and was listening intently. “I want at least another
full night’s lead. While Telyn’s courage seems limitless, I know
her strength is not. It’s my intent to stop at the springs tonight
to allow her to rest, and we’ll begin to approach Cerisild from the
south tomorrow. You must see that the bounty hunter follows a false
trail.”

Aric nodded. “Rodril can lay a trail for The
Dragon to follow north, and I’ll come up behind him. If the
diversion fails, the bounty hunter would have to get past me.
Cormac should come south to meet you at the springs, and stand
watch.”

“Keep Cormac with you—you will need every
available warden should The Dragon see through it,” Mithrais
warned. “Halith is our most skilled tracker. When she arrives, you
may hunt him in earnest, but until then I’m asking you to be
cautious.”

“No, you’re asking me to refrain from killing
him on sight!” Aric’s tone carried more than a little defiance.
“Mithrais, the law is clear on this—he became subject to Tauron
judgment the moment he set foot inside the Wood! What if he escapes
again?”

“You will lead him away.” Mithrais let his
own voice issue an order, one that he knew his friend would not
ignore, for he could not allow Aric’s desire for immediate action
to further endanger Telyn. “You know what he is capable of, and
what he will do if he overtakes us.”

His friend stared at him a moment, clearly
unhappy that Mithrais had chosen to exercise his right to command,
but the flicker of horror on Aric’s face confirmed that he
remembered well the details of the grisly scene. The flame-haired
warden released his breath in a rush of acquiescence as he
nodded.

“I will do as you ask,” he said in a low
voice.

“Thank you, Aric.” Telyn spoke quietly, her
voice diffusing the tension between them. “I’ve heard many things
about the Tauron’s skill and bravery, but never thought I would
ever find myself under their protection. I’m certain that I am in
good hands.”

“You are welcome, my lady. I will do all that
I can to assure you reach Cerisild safely.” Aric glanced at
Mithrais, reluctantly submitting to the Westwarden’s authority in
this matter. “Rodril and I have arranged a meeting place. I will go
there immediately, and begin laying the decoy trail. If it is
successful, I still think Cormac should come to you. He’s too young
and inexperienced to be involved in the hunt.”

“All the more reason for him to be involved.
He would learn from the best.”

Aric shrugged, and Mithrais did not choose to
fight this particular battle. It was enough that Aric would lead
The Dragon away.

The warden drew up the cloak of his hood over
his bright hair. Mithrais offered his wrist, and Aric gripped it
with almost bruising force.

“Good luck,” Aric said with a nod to them
both.

“Good hunting,” Mithrais replied. “Be
careful, Aric.”

Aric grinned and started running lightly in
the direction from which they had come. He soon disappeared into
the trees.

“He’s going to be in danger, isn’t he?” Telyn
asked soberly. “They all are.”

Mithrais, who had been following Aric’s
departure, turned to regard Telyn. “It’s the risk we take when we
become servants of the Wood.”

“But I wish it wasn’t on my account.”

“We’d do the same for anyone who needed our
protection, but you seem to be of particular interest to those we
serve. They want us to protect you.”

Telyn looked startled. “What do you
mean?”

“I believe I know why you’re feeling the
resonance so intensely here in the wild, for not only are there
more Gwaith’orn, they’re focusing on you. Aric showed me that they
have been following your passage ever since you touched their
consciousness so briefly last night. We have never known them to
follow anyone unless they were a threat of some kind.”

“Why are the Gwaith’orn watching me?” Telyn
queried Mithrais worriedly, and looked toward the forest giant down
the valley, a flicker of dread in her eyes. “I wonder what they see
in me that concerns them.”

Mithrais shook his head and put a reassuring
hand on her shoulder. “Aric said ‘interest’, and that’s a very
different perception for the Gwaith’orn. If they were troubled by
you, they would not be trying to seek your attention. You have
nothing to fear from them, Telyn.” Mithrais smiled at her, letting
his hand slide down her arm to clasp her fingers in his, and they
began to move across the valley toward the looming hillside. “When
we reach our destination, we will see what we can learn from them.
At the rift, we turn south and will reach the springs before
nightfall.”

“As long as I don’t have to swim across
them.” Telyn narrowed her eyes at him in mock reproach.

“You may wish to, this time. The springs are
hot.”

Telyn groaned wistfully. “That sounds
wonderful. If I weren’t being hunted like a deer, I’d insist on
bathing in one. There isn’t an inch of me that doesn’t ache.”

“If Aric’s diversion is successful, you may
yet have the opportunity.”

* * * *

The deceptively mild rise of the hill ended
abruptly. Telyn found herself facing the edge of a precipice; on
the opposite side, a nearly vertical granite cliff glared
silver-grey in the sunlight.

The bard stood at the top, staring in awe at
the rocky slash that cut through the heart of the Wood like the
narrow scar of some giant axe. Gentle green trees banked the
canyon, which continued north and south as far as the undulating
terrain would allow her eyes to see.

Mithrais led her along the top of the ridge
for a few hundred yards until they reached a notch in the rock
face. “We can descend into the rift here. It will lead us directly
to the springs, which lie at the southern end.”

As Mithrais removed his cloak, rolling it
tightly, Telyn looked over the edge. The rocks looked treacherously
smooth to her, the floor of the canyon one hundred feet below them.
Her heart was pounding as she stepped back in haste, swallowing
audibly, her head already swimming from the buzzing resonance.

“Please tell me I don’t have to scale down
that cliff,” Telyn said, her voice rising in apprehension.

“It’s not as difficult as it looks. This
point is easily navigated.” He slung the cloak over his shoulder
and secured it beneath the leather straps that held his weapons so
that it would not interfere with the climb.

“I think I just found the limit of my
courage, Mithrais.” Telyn felt slightly nauseated with anxiety. “I
can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can.” Mithrais put his hands on her
shoulders, his expression changed as he felt her body trembling
beneath his hands. Telyn was shaking with fear, and near panic at
the thought of climbing down the cliff face. He led her to a seat
on a large, flat stone, holding her hands, which were cold and damp
with sweat.

“This is the only way into the rift that we
can scale without ropes.” Mithrais glanced in both directions,
thinking, and sighed aloud. “Going around will add unnecessary
hours to our journey, because there is another arm of the rift we
must skirt in order to continue south. We’d risk losing any lead we
might otherwise put between ourselves and The Dragon. Please try,
Telyn. If you find that you can’t do it, we will go the other
way.”

Telyn was silent for a moment, and finally
nodded tersely. “I’ll try.”

“I will guide you. You need not look down at
all—just focus on the rocks in front of you. It will be all
right.”

Mithrais helped her secure her cloak in
similar fashion to his own, and waited as Telyn took a few deep
breaths, trying to center herself and displace her fear as she had
been taught. With the resonance humming in her mind like a
distracting hive of bees, it took Telyn a moment to reduce her fear
to a less dominating presence. Her heart stopped pounding, but a
cold sweat beaded her forehead and the metallic taste of terror was
still in her mouth.

When she was ready, Mithrais led her to the
lip of the canyon, where he reversed himself and slid over the
side, his hands and feet immediately finding purchase.

“Come down feet first, facing the rocks,” he
told Telyn, and the bard complied, moving as quickly as she dared
without thinking too much about what she was doing. She kept her
eyes focused on the rocks inches from her nose, and on her
white-knuckled hands that kept a death grip on each projection.

Mithrais directed her movements, issuing calm
instructions for the placement of her hands and feet. The rocks
were quite sheer on either side, but the fissure they traversed was
angled in such a manner that they took a diagonal path down the
wall of the canyon. Telyn looked neither up nor down. Her attention
centered on the cool, speckled, grey stone dotted with lichen, the
world narrowed to only that and the voice and hands directing her
next movement.

“We’re halfway down. You’re doing well,
Telyn. It isn’t much farther,” Mithrais reassured her. “Your next
foothold is on the right, down and just to the inside.”

Telyn felt for the indentation with the toe
of her right boot. She had just found the small crevice, when her
left foot slipped from its resting place, and both feet were
dislodged in the sudden movement. Telyn looked down instinctively
as her hands clutched for purchase on the rocks. She gasped in
terror, the canyon reeling below her, feeling rough lichen crumble
and slide beneath her fingertips before Mithrais stopped her
downward momentum.

She had slipped only a short distance, but
Telyn was frozen, holding her body flat against the stones and
breathing raggedly, her eyes squeezed shut in panic.

“You are all right, Telyn,” Mithrais told
her, his voice steady.

“I can’t go any farther!” she cried, her
voice muffled against the rock.

“You can,” Mithrais said firmly. “Move your
left foot up and to the outside. There is a good foothold—here.”
His hand on her ankle directed her boot to the small niche. “I will
not let you fall. We are nearly at the bottom.”

It was a lengthy moment before Mithrais could
coax her to move on her own again. Telyn obeyed his patient
directions automatically, her teeth set so tightly together that
her jaws ached. After what seemed like hours of painfully slow
movements down the crevice, Mithrais dropped from the wall and
placed his hands on her waist to lift her down beside him.

“You made it, Telyn. We are on the floor of
the rift.”

Telyn’s knees were weak from fear, almost
unable to support her weight as she slid off the wall to stand on
the loose stones below, and Mithrais held her against him. Telyn
breathed a shaking sigh of release, her arms wrapped tightly about
him, and Mithrais told her, “Frightened or not, you are still the
most courageous soul I have ever met, Telyn.”

“I don’t ever want to do this again,” Telyn
said fervently against his shoulder. “We don’t have to climb back
up, do we?”

Mithrais promised they did not. She tested
her legs and found them steady, and they began to move through the
rocky gorge.

“Do you still feel the resonance here at the
bottom of the rift?” Mithrais asked her. Telyn was still a moment,
and then shook her head.

“I can’t feel it.”

“The stones will help screen you for a time.
When we reach the south end, it will return.”

“The incentive of soaking in a hot spring is
sounding better and better,” Telyn declared. “I think I deserve it,
now.”

“If it is in my power, you shall have it,”
Mithrais vowed.

Chapter
Eleven

Near the end of their journey through the
granite fissure, the sun passed behind the hills to the west and
cooler shadows were overtaking the canyon. The rift gradually
lowered with the descent of the land, and now rose to a mere twenty
feet on either side, giving way to deep forest at the crests. The
resonance returned with the absence of the sheltering cliffs, but
Telyn was no longer troubled by bouts of dizziness, having had time
to regain her equilibrium under the shelter of the rocks.

Mithrais lifted his head, scenting the sharp
tang of minerals carried in the steaming water that bubbled from
the earth, and Telyn’s nose prickled at the slight smell of sulfur
that pervaded the air.