Wintertide (23 page)

And she’d lost him, too.

Ciro was her teacher. She accepted that her purpose in his life was only that of an obedient student. Still, she was fond of the mad Wizard. She had hoped he’d accompany her on her journey; for companionship, if nothing more. But that, too, was denied her.

Of all the most unlikely hurts she carried within her was that of Egan, the Kemmon-Ro Hill Raider. He was, in all reality, her enemy to be hated and feared. Or at least, she at one time believed that was true. Just as she believed it was true that all Hill Raiders were wanton murderers.

Now, she knew the destruction she’d seen were the acts of the few: the Fav’lhir, under the command of Melande the Witch. The northern Kemmons protected their own territories, but never invaded the cove towns.

She also now knew Egan as a man who loved his daughter and his people and was capable of loving her. But she had nothing to offer in return. When the Tinker left Noviiya, he took Khamsin’s heart with him.

All she had now was her purpose, the reason Bronya the Healer sheltered her for so long. And that was the only thing that kept her moving, trudging through the heavy snows, ignoring the icy sting of the winds on her face as she made her way through the mountains of the peninsula towards Traakhal-Armin.

She pushed herself to the point of exhaustion, gathering only a few hours rest, aware that in the four days since they had turned south, they had made as much progress as she and Egan had in four hours across the marsh. Cinnabar’s sides were thinning out. The horse existed on the dry, flaky patches of moss that were the only life in the bleak mountains, other than the half-dead spiders and occasional pitifully meager gray mice Nixa found in the cracks and crannies of the cliffs. Khamsin had the last of the bread and shared half of her dried apple with Cinnabar when she was sure they were still a few days from the castle’s outer walls, as the trail hadn’t yet started to descend. At the rate they traveled, it could take them another week to cross that distance. It was only the thought of her animals starving that made her break her self-imposed mystical silence and conjure a few small items of food: a meat-pie for Nixa, a small bag of rich grain for Cinnabar, and some carrots and figs for herself. As she drew the objects out of the mage circle, the first one she etched since leaving Noviiya, she tensed and waited for the inevitable to appear.

But nothing did. She flattened herself against the depression in the cliff’s surface and watched the light dusting of snow drift down from the slender ledge above, coating their rations with glistening crystals.

The trail showed no signs of descending towards Khal after two more days travel. With a sinking heart Khamsin accepted that perhaps they were lost. They must have gotten off the main trail during one of the small snow squalls that temporarily blinded them and they now traveled in circles, up and down the mountain but getting no closer to their destination. She looked in vain for something familiar in her surroundings but all the stark landscape looked the same. She gained no guidance from the stars at night, either, as they weren’t visible through the thick overcast of clouds around her. So she urged Cinnabar onwards, judging Wintertide now less than a week away.

The trail ended so suddenly, that, snow-blinded, they almost stumbled over the edge of the cliff. Cinnabar skittered backwards, nickering as Khamsin plunged, her boots finding nothing solid beneath them. She clung to the reins in her hands for dear life as the horse dragged her backwards, ignoring Nixa’s claws in his neck.

She lay panting in the snow, her heart pounding. Then she kneeled on the edge of the cliff and peered over through the snow swirling around them. It was a sheer drop of hundreds of feet into a white-crested valley. In the distance, the lights from signal fires glinted, beckoning, and she could just make out the outlines of a great fortress. And the darkness of a lake beyond. Traakhal-Armin lay before her.

A turn-off or a fork. They must have missed the turn-off, a trail leading rapidly downwards. They retraced their steps, finally coming upon a narrow gap in the mountainside. It was a slow descent, narrow and awkward. She wondered how the Hill-Raider’s slim-hooved horses ever made it down the trail. There must be other trails, she surmised, that would be uncovered after First Thaw. This one was no doubt used only in emergencies, as it was also undoubtedly the most treacherous.

Then there was forest around them again and the smell of the pines assailed her like the aroma of bread baking; warm and reassuring. There were sounds, too; sounds that had been absent in the mountains, of winds rustling branches and the occasional calling of a winter bird. Nixa’s ears perked at this last sound, her stomach interpreting what it meant. She bounded ahead, ignoring Khamsin’s remonstrations and only returned after she feasted on her kill. It wasn’t polite, she knew, to eat in front of others when she had nothing to share with them.

The distance between the cliffs and the castle seemed short as she gazed down from the trail’s end, but it was a trick her eyes played on her due to the height of the cliffs. So it wasn’t until late in the following day, with the cover of dusk to aid her, that an exhausted and half-frozen form was carried up to the castle’s outer walls on the back of an equally weary and decrepit nag, the colors of the Kemmon-Ro clearly visible in the torch light.

The Khalar guard assessed the situation quickly and, calling for aid, allowed the great gates of the walls to be opened, admitting the unconscious young boy within.

Khamsin groaned weakly as she was pulled from the saddle.

“Easy, lad,” a man’s voice said.

She tried to stand and had to lean against him for support.

“Tedmond, Lord Tedmond,” she rasped. “I must speak to him. I bring a message of urgency, from Master Egan, the Kemmon Rey.”

The guard nodded as he held her meager weight. She let her head drop forward, covering her face with her hood.

Go!
she told Nixa. She stumbled against the guard, drawing his attention. The gray cat, secreted in her unlatched saddle bag, jumped to the ground, scurrying towards the stables. She would find her mistress later. But at the moment, her existence might elicit unwanted questions.

“Bring him to the hearth room,” someone called out. She let herself be dragged into the castle and up a flight of long stairs.

She was guided into a well-padded chair before a small table, a blazing fire at her back. Only then did she allow herself to raise her eyes and examine her surroundings. The hearth room was just as its name bespoke: a large room with a hearth at one end that filled almost the entire wall. Over the hearth hung two swords, crossed and encrusted with jewels. An adjoining wall made of gray granite had windows draped with heavy curtains and richly woven tapestries. The table beneath her hands was of a polished wood of a deep color.

A silver goblet was placed before her, full of wine. She was instructed to drink. She gulped at it thirstily, aware of its heavy bouquet and well-aged taste. What was offered to her might not have been found in even the best of taverns in Noviiya.

She thought wistfully of Ciro.

Kindly hands made as if to remove her cloak, but she shivered and said “not yet” and they complied.

The door at the far end of the room swung open. A thin man, not much taller than Khamsin, strode through the entryway, his slight form draped in robes of deep burgundy trimmed in black. His hair was white and pulled severely back from his angular face. His mustache tapered in two long tendrils down the side of his mouth. Small, intensely dark eyes regarded her critically.

“Lord Tedmond, this lad brings news from the Kemmon-Ro. At the risk of his life, as you can see.”

The Lord Chamberlain nodded. “Thank you, Witton. You may go. Tell Fenella to prepare the guest room in the south wing for our friend. I don’t think, from the looks of him, or the storm, he’ll be going anywhere for quite some time.”

“Thank you, m’Lord,” Khamsin gasped weakly, lowering the pitch of her voice.

“Now, lad, first, your name. Then, whatever needs you may have, wounds to be tended to, before we require your story.”

“My name’s Camron, m’Lord, Camron of Tynder’s Hill for that’s where I was born. But I am Kemmon-Ro now and I follow Master Egan. The news I bear comes from him and Druke.”

Tedmond nodded. Khamsin knew the sound of the familiar names gave her story the needed credence. She continued. “And I have no wounds that require tending any longer, Sirrah, other than I haven’t eaten in days and am half-frozen. But those things I’ll survive. Those in my tale have not, for they’ve succumbed to a creature the likes of which has not walked through the Darklings before. It attacked Master Egan, and as I speak I don’t know if he still breathes. It also attacked a Drin Nest and no one there lives to tell the tale. It was Druke, Sirrah, who sent me on my way, along with Skeely and Wade, Egan’s nephews. We became separated in a storm. I’m grieved to learn from your guard that they haven’t reached Traakhal before me.”

“What manner of thing did you see, Camron?”

And Khamsin described the Mogra, adding to her story and embellishing it as she felt was necessary. She wove a dire tale of battle in the foothills, drawing on names and attributes of other Kemmon-Ro gleaned in the fireside conversations in the swamp. It was a convincing tale and as she finished, Lord Tedmond knotted his hands together.

“You’ll be given a place to rest and heal, boy, and I’ll send some of our best out into the mountains to search for your companions, as soon as the storms abates. Don’t give up hope. They may be safe in some cave, yet, tired and cold, but alive.

“As for the creature you describe, it’s a Mogra, under the command of Lady Melande. We hadn’t thought she’d be so brazen as to come this far north. But it looks as if we underestimated her. What I fear now is those tales that haven’t yet reached our ears. Where else she has struck and to what devastation.”

“But, Sirrah, couldn’t Master Ro tell you?”

Lord Tedmond hesitated. “He could if he were in residence, lad, but he isn’t. The Master’s been absent from Traakhal for some time now, dealing with the very problems you’ve encountered. He has much to tend to these days, as Tarkir’s youngest are keeping him busy. I’ve no doubt he already knows of these demons. And will return shortly with the news that they’re no longer a threat.”

Tedmond smiled tiredly at Khamsin and she was aware of the weight of the responsibilities he carried on his slight frame.

She also knew something else: the Sorcerer wasn’t here. That meant the Sorcerer’s room would be empty. And if Tedmond were right, if the Sorcerer really were aware of the existence of the Mogra in the Darklings, perhaps he was too busy dealing with Melande’s pets to pay attention to the security of his home. For who would ever suspect one small, fourteen-year old farm boy of being capable of invading the castle Traakhal-Armin at Wintertide?

Khamsin lay on the soft bed with the warm, woolen coverlet pulled up over her ears and listened to the footsteps approach her door. Someone knocked softly and receiving no answer, entered, along with the aroma of hot stew. Footsteps became tiptoes and there was the sound of a tray placed on a table. Then the door closed again. Khamsin counted to thirty before throwing back the coverlet and springing out of the bed. She’d removed her cloak and heavy over-tunic and couldn’t risk being seen in just her thin shirt, which impugned her identity as a boy.

She ate what she could of the bread and the vegetables. The wine she avoided, settling for water, needing a clear head about her tonight. When she finished she lay the bowl of stew on the floor. Nixa’s small head popped out her satchel. The cat willingly finished what her mistress kindly left to share with her. She scampered under the bed as Khamsin pulled the coverlet up around her neck again. Within minutes, the door opened and the same tiptoeing footsteps that brought her meal, retrieved it.

Now she had to wait. She let the darkness creep through the comfortably furnished room without stirring. She and Nixa took turns dozing, the other keeping a watch on the position of the moons, knowing that in the waning hours of the night, most of the castle should be asleep.

It was only then that she again slipped from the bed and strapped her sword about her waist. With Nixa in tow, she stepped cautiously for the door.

She listened for sounds before opening it and, hearing nothing, pulled it only as far as was necessary to slip through. She closed it quickly and lay her hand against the lock, sealing it with a small spell.

Her back to the wall, she crept silently forward. She was at the end of a long hallway in the south wing, the sole lighted torch just outside her door. Quickly, she moved into the shadows, sending Nixa ahead of her as sentry. Her footsteps were noiseless on the hard stone floor.

The castle had three wings: North, South and East, radiating out from the large square of the main hall. She glimpsed as much from the end of the mountain trail. It was with this image in mind that she traveled swiftly down the stairs, knowing she had to pass through the back of the Great Room to gain access to the East Wing. She moved with a stealth learned in the woods around Cirrus Cove, where she and Nixa had set up ambushes for each other on its winding trails.

She reached the last step and found not one Great Room but several large gathering halls, capable of housing an entire Kemmon in each. There was a noise. She darted behind a thick drapery. Nixa described to her the sleepy-eyed guard that strode by.

It took her several minutes to find the East stairs; they weren’t adjacent to any of the common rooms, but then, she hadn’t expected they would be. The East Wing was the private sanctuary of the Sorcerer. Few had had reason to seek this section without specific invitation.

She found the great staircase with its carved railing through a small room that led to a library and then another room. There was a peaked archway at this point with no light beyond. It was through this Nixa led her. Taking a deep breath, she followed the cat up the stairs.