The White Road (27 page)

“Is that an Orëska mark?” he asked.

“No. It’s something to do with those hill folk,” Thero told him. “Nysander said that they lived down here, before we Skalans came.”

“And took their lands,” Seregil added.

“Unfortunately, yes. These marks lead to the head of the trail.”

The handprint carvings, few and far between, led to the bank of a small, rushing river, and then upstream into the
mountains. The snow was old here, icy and dirty. Spring was not far off.

“This is the start of it,” Thero told them. “Just follow the stream to the trail. It goes between some cliffs for a while, so there’s no missing it.”

“Then I guess it’s time we say our farewells,” Seregil said.

“All right, then. But let me cast another wizard eye for you, to look for trouble ahead.” Closing his eyes, Thero murmured the spell and sat very still for a moment. “There are people up in the hills, but they live there and they’re well back from the trail. When Magyana and I passed through, we never saw any.”

“Thank you.” Seregil clasped hands with him. “For all you’ve done for us.”

“Don’t make it sound so final! Just be sure to bring that book to me. I’ll keep it safe and secret.”

“A Guardian,” said Alec.

“I suppose so. Good luck to you all. Luck in the shadows.”

“And in the Light, my friend,” Seregil returned.

Alec missed Thero immediately, but there was an added sense of urgency with his departure that he couldn’t quite explain, as if the parting marked the passing of some boundary.

The way grew narrower as they went on, threading between steep rock faces that barely left enough room along the ice-edged riverbank to pass. In places they were forced to ford through uncertain waters, and all the while the sun was sinking behind the trees. There was fresh snow here, but it was not deep. It leveled out to a windswept span of rock and dead grass. There were a few conies nibbling there and Alec took two with his bow, shooting from the saddle.

Stars were showing overhead when they reached a little pocket valley between steep, snow-clad peaks.

“I’ve had enough, and so have the horses,” said Micum, stroking his mount’s neck. “This is as good a place as any.”

There was no sign of habitation, so they made camp in a copse of young firs. Dead grass and weeds stuck up through the snow, and they left the horses to forage while they scraped out a fire pit. There was plenty of wood to roast the
rabbits, and they’d sleep warm that night, bundled close together around the fire.

Alec was just about to settle down for the night when Sebrahn suddenly jumped to his feet and ran across the clearing, pointing up at something. Micum and Seregil had already drawn their swords, but Alec saw what Sebrahn was excited about and waved them off.

A large white owl sat blinking down at them from a bough.

Sebrahn held his arms up to it and rasped out, “Drak-kon!”

“Now, why would he think that?” said Micum.

“Owls are as much Aura’s creatures as dragons are,” Seregil explained. “And since there aren’t any dragons around here, maybe he’s making do with what he has.”

“You’re not suggesting that owls are really dragons, too, are you?” Micum asked, skeptical.

“No, just that they both belong to Aura.”

Suddenly Sebrahn began to sing, as he had with the great dragon, but this song was softer. The bird swiveled its round head to look down at the rhekaro, then shook its wings, sending a few tufts of fluff drifting down onto Sebrahn’s upturned face. When Sebrahn kept singing, it gave a loud hoot and fluttered down to perch on his shoulder. The bird was too big and ended up clinging to his arm, digging its talons in hard enough to draw white blood. Tiny dark blue flowers formed where drops fell like jewels against the snow.

Sebrahn stroked its snow-white breast. The owl hooted again, and a third time before taking wing into the darkness.

“Drak-kon!” Sebrahn called after it.

“Look, Alec,” Seregil said quietly, pointing up at the trees. Four other white owls perched there, their gold coin eyes fixed on Sebrahn.

“They’re solitary hunters,” Micum murmured. “Did he call them here?”

“Maybe,” said Seregil. “I didn’t notice them before.”

Alec knelt by Sebrahn and pointed up at the birds. “Owls. Not dragons. Owls.”

“Drak-kon.”

“No. Owls.”

Sebrahn looked confused. “Aaaaals?”

“Yes. Ow-els.”

“Aaaaaals.”

Seregil chuckled. “Close enough.”

“Drak-kon!” Sebrahn pointed up to the birds again.

“It’s not a dragon. It’s an owl,” Alec explained again.

Sebrahn sounded almost sulky as he whispered, “Aaaaaal.”

They traveled like that for the next two days through stony divides, winding stretches of open, ice-slick rock, and small valleys where herds of elk wintered. Eagles and sharp-winged hawks soared against the clear blue sky and dazzling peaks by day; at night owls hooted as they hunted on the night air and came to visit Sebrahn in answer to his song.

Alec was carefully turning a spitted rabbit over the fire that night when he heard a high-pitched, familiar call. A tiny saw-whet owl sat on a branch almost over his head. It was a lucky sign; of all their kind, these little buff-and-white birds, no longer than his hand, were considered the Lightbearer’s most sacred emissary, and seeing one always brought good luck.

Sebrahn held up his hand. Even without a song to draw it down, the bird fluttered down to perch on his hand, preening. “Drak-kon aaaaaaaal.”

Seregil put down the armload of firewood he’d gathered and gave the bird a respectful nod. “Whatever he wants to call it, we’ll need all the luck we can get before we come back this way.”

“You think we’re being followed again?” asked Micum, looking up from the rabbit he was gutting.

“I just have a—”

“Wait.” Alec’s hand stilled on the spit as he caught sight of movement from the corner of his eye. Something or someone was there between the trees, just beyond the reach of the firelight. “To the left,” he whispered.

“And behind you,” Micum whispered back, reaching for his sword. Seregil tossed Alec his bow and quiver and pulled Sebrahn to his feet. Together, they all backed slowly out of the circle of light that made them an easy target. Keeping the rhekaro shielded among them, they waited.

As Alec’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw more movement. Whatever it was, it didn’t make any noise. It felt like a hundred eyes were staring at him from all directions.

“What do you think?” Micum murmured.

“They could have surprised us if they’d wanted to attack,” Seregil pointed out.

“Maybe,” said Micum. “I don’t see anything now. You, Alec?”

“No.”

They stood like that for some time, but nothing happened.

“I think they’re gone,” Micum said at last.

With Seregil in the lead and Alec holding Sebrahn by one hand and his bow in the other, they made a circuit of the copse and beyond, finding half a dozen odd trails in the snow.

“Looks like they used a brush tail,” Micum said, inspecting one of the marks. Their visitors had brought boughs with them, dragging them behind themselves to cover their footprints. There was no telling how many of them there were, if they’d walked in lines.

“How could we not have heard them?” Alec whispered, wondering how far their visitors had retreated, and if they could still see him and the others.

“Do you think it was our friends in the masks?” Micum whispered.

Seregil stared down at the brush marks. “If it was, then why didn’t they attack? It’s a lonely place, and they got close enough to shoot at us before we even knew they were there.”

“Sebrahn didn’t react, either,” Alec pointed out.

“It was someone who knows how to move around up here, and how to cover their tracks. They were on foot, too.” Seregil rubbed absently at his chin. “Which means that they’re probably from around here somewhere.”

“There hasn’t been so much as a woodcutter’s shack since we started up here. Where would they have come from?”

Seregil exchanged a look with Micum. “Hill folk?”

“Damn!” Micum looked sharply around. “If so, then this might be exactly what they wanted us to do. I’ll go back to see if we still have horses.”

Seregil and Alec circled the copse again, trying to discover where the tracks came together and which way they led, but each one snaked away into the darkness in a different direction. They cast out farther, but there was no sign of convergence.

They gave up at last and returned to find their campsite untouched and the horses still tethered.

“I think someone was just having a look at us,” said Seregil.

“You’re probably right. They didn’t leave any sign in camp,” said Micum.

Alec knelt down in front of Sebrahn. “You don’t feel anything like those riders who hurt me?”

Sebrahn cocked his head slightly. “Aaaaal drak-kon.”

“Another owl dragon.” Seregil ran a hand back through his hair as he looked up at the little saw-whet on a branch over his head. “Well, if that’s the only thing he’s concerned about, maybe we’re safe, after all.”

The owl stayed with them, but no one slept again that night.

Tense and bleary, they set off again at dawn in a light snowfall. Everyone kept an eye out for pursuers, but there was no sign of them, just a few game tracks and the broom-straw marks of sparrows and crows.

Even after Rieser’s people were fit to ride again, it took several more days to pick up the trail. Once they had it, however, it wasn’t hard to follow: One of the men rode a horse with a crooked nail in its right front shoe.

Turmay played that morning, and took longer at it than usual. When he was done, he looked puzzled.

“Can you see them?” Rieser asked.

“They want to go farther east, across the sea to the other great island on your map.”

Rieser’s eyes widened. “Plenimar?” He pulled out the map and Turmay looked at it.

“Yes, he said, pointing to Plenimar. “That is where they are going.”

Every Hâzad knew that Plenimar was where the dark witches of old came from—the ones who’d enslaved Hâzadriël and others to make the first tayan’gils. The name was like a curse on their people. The ya’shel had already been used once, perhaps there; were his companions forcing him back there to be used again?

Hâzadriën, too, seemed to sense something, as he had when they’d caught up with them in that disastrous ambush. When Turmay hesitated, or Rieser lost the track, the tayan’gil silently reined his horse in a certain direction and Rieser trusted him. He soon led them through wooded hills to the mouth of a track partially hidden in a small pass. Without Hâzadriën in the lead, they’d probably never have found it.

As they followed it, Turmay suddenly reined in his horse and ran to the nearest tree. “What is it?” asked Sona, who was closest to the witch.

“Look!” he said, pressing his hand to the trunk.

Rieser dismounted and walked back to see what had excited the witch. Turmay took his hand away from the tree trunk, showing them a carved, partially overgrown shape: a handprint. Rieser had seen such marks dozens of times, up in the peaks where the Retha’noi lived. “I don’t understand. What is this doing here?”

Turmay pressed his hand to the design again. “Your people aren’t the only ones who had to leave their rightful homeland.”

“Retha’noi lived here?”

“Maybe. It’s a very old mark.” Turmay touched it again, looking thoughtful. “Perhaps my own ancestors traveled this way when the lowlanders drove them out.”

“I thought your people had always lived in our valley.”

“My people have lived many places,” Turmay said as he went back to his horse. “We’ve been driven out of many
places. Maybe someday your people will drive us out of our villages, too.”

“There’s always been peace between us. That will never happen,” said Rieser, puzzled by this revelation.

Turmay only shrugged.

The Bait

T
HE FICKLE WEATHER
had turned mild in Virésse. The moist air eased Ulan í Sathil’s lungs a little, but the disease was slowly taking its toll. It was time to take action.

He was in the garden with Ilar when he broached the subject.

Sitting beside him on the arbor bench, Ilar tilted his face up to the afternoon sun and closed his eyes, enjoying the warmth of it.

“I have a favor to ask you,” said Ulan, taking Ilar’s hand to get his attention. Ilar was much better than he had been, but Ulan doubted he would ever fully recover. He was still thin, and shy of other people. He suffered from nightmares, and his mind wandered easily when he was awake. Still, he knew enough to be useful.

“Listen to me, dear boy,” he coaxed, and waited until he was sure he had Ilar’s full attention. “You’re happy here, aren’t you?”

“You’ve been so kind to me. I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”

“Indeed. Now I need you to do something very important for me.”

“Anything!” Ilar exclaimed. “I will do anything for you, Khirnari.”

“I hope you truly mean that, Khenir.” He was always careful to call Ilar by his false name, especially when they were in a place where they might be overheard. Several gardeners had come into the courtyard. Ilar regarded them uneasily.