Nightrunners 03 - Traitor's Moon (16 page)

"It's about time!" Beka called, seeing them. "Klia's looking for you. You'd better grab something to eat with us while you can."

"No one woke us," Seregil muttered, wondering if the slight had been intentional.

Begging fry bread and sausage at the nearest brazier, he and Alec ate as they wandered among the riders, picking up details.

Two of Mercalle's six remaining riders, Ari and Marten, were remaining behind with Corporal Zir to serve as dispatch couriers, carrying messages that would come by ship from Skala. The others would do the same from Sarikali.

Braknil was short a few riders as well; Orandin and Adis had been too badly burned at sea to continue and had remained aboard the
Zyria
for the return voyage.

The remaining members of Urgazhi Turma seemed out of sorts.

"Did you hear?" Tare grumbled to Alec. "We have to ride
blindfolded parts
of the way, for hell's sake!"

"It's always been that way for foreigners, even before the Edict," Seregil told him. "Only the Aurenfaie and Dravnian tribesmen who live in the mountains can pass over freely."

"How are we supposed to get over a mountain pass blind?" Nikides muttered.

"I'll just move my patch over to my good eye," Steb offered with a grin.

"He won't let you come to any harm, Corporal," Seregil assured Nikides, pointing to the Akhendi clansman sitting his horse nearby. "It would blemish his honor."

Nikides glowered at his escort. "I'll be sure to beg his pardon when I'm falling to my death."

"He's worried about falling," Alec explained to the Akhendi.

"He can ride double with me," the man offered, patting his horse's rump.

Nikides scowled, needing no interpreter. "I'll manage."

The man shrugged, "He can suit himself, but at least get him to accept this." Pulling a piece of wild gingerroot from a belt pouch, he tossed it to Nikides, who examined it distrustfully. "And tell him my name is Vanos."

"Some get queasy riding blind," Seregil explained. "Chew this if you do. And you might thank Vanos here for the consideration."

"The word is 'chypta'," Alec added helpfully.

Nikides turned rather sheepishly to his escort and held up the root. "Chypta."

"You welkin," Vanos replied with a friendly grin.

"Looks like they'll have lots to talk about," Alec chuckled. "Hope you brought some of that root for me."

Seregil took a piece from a wallet at his belt and presented it to him. "A disgrace to one talimenios is a disgrace to both. It would reflect poorly on me if you showed up covered in puke. And don't worry, most of the time you'll ride with your eyes open."

Riding to the head of the column, they fell in behind Klia and her hosts.

"My friends, we now begin the last leg of your long journey," Riagil announced. "It's a well-traveled route, but there are dangers. First among these are the young dragons, those larger than a lizard but smaller than an ox. Should you meet with one, be still and avert your eyes. Under no circumstances must you hunt or attack them."

"And if they attack first?" Alec whispered, recalling what Seregil had told them aboard the
Zyria.

Seregil motioned him to silence.

"The youngest ones, fingerlings we call them, are fragile creatures," Riagil continued. "If you kill one by accident, you must undergo several days purification. To willfully kill one invokes the curse of its brethen, and brings that curse on your clan unless your people see to it that you are punished.

"Any animal that speaks is sacred and must not be harmed or

hunted. These are the
khtir'bai,
inhabited by the khi of great wizards and rhui'auros."

"If we're not supposed to harm anything, why are you all armed?" Alec asked one of their escort, who carried bows and longswords.

"There are other dangers," he told him. "Rock lions, wolves, sometimes even
teth'brimash."

"Teth' what?"

"People cut off from their clan for some dishonor," Seregil explained. "Some of them turn outlaw."

"I'm honored to guide you," Riagil concluded. "You are the first Tir to visit Sarikali in centuries. Aura grant that this be the first of many journeys shared by our people."

The road into the mountains started out broad and level, but as it left the foothills and twisted along the edge of a jagged precipice, Alec began to share Nikides's doubts about riding blind. Looking up, he could see the gleam of snow still clinging to the sides of peaks.

Seregil had other concerns.

"I'd say a bond was forming there, wouldn't you?" he asked under his breath, his expression neutral as he nodded slightly toward Beka and the interpreter.

"He's a handsome man, and a friendly one." Alec rather liked the garrulous Ra'basi, in spite of Seregil's reservations. For Beka's sake, he hoped that his friend's celebrated intuition was off its mark this time. "How old would you say he is?"

Seregil shrugged. "Eighty or so."

"Not so old for her, then," Alec observed.

"By the Light, don't go marrying them off yet!"

"Who said anything about marriage?" Alec teased.

Beka waved and rode over to them. "I've been bragging up your archer's skills all morning, Alec."

"Is this the famous Black Radly?" Nyal asked.

Alec passed the bow to him, and Nyal ran a hand over its long limbs of polished black yew.

"I've never seen a finer one, or such wood. Where does it comes from?"

"A town called Wolde, up in the northlands beyond Mycena." Alec showed him the maker's mark scrimshawed on the ivory arrow plate: a yew tree with the letter
R
woven into its upper branches.

"Beka tells me you destroyed a dyrmagnos with it. I've heard legends of these monstrous beings! What did it look like?"

"A dried corpse with living eyes," Alec replied, suppressing a shudder of revulsion at the memory. "I only struck the first blow, though. It took more than that to destroy her."

"To harm such a creature at all is a wizard's task," Nyal said, handing the bow back. "Perhaps someday you will tell me of it, but I believe I owe you a tale today. A long ride is a good time for a story, no?"

"A very good time," Alec replied.

"Beka tells me you did not know your mother or her people, so I'll begin at the beginning. Long ago, before the Tir came to the northern lands, a woman named Hazadriel claimed to have been given a vision journey by Aura, the god you call Illior in the north."

Alec smiled as he listened. Nyal sounded just like Seregil, launching into one of his long tales.

"In this vision a sacred dragon showed to her a distant land and told her she would make a new clan there. For many years Hazadriel traveled Aurenen, telling of her vision and calling for followers. Many dismissed her as mad, or chased her off as a troublemaker. But others welcomed her until eventually she and a great army of people sailed from Bry'kha; they were never heard from again and given up as lost until many generations later when Tir traders brought tales of 'faie living in a land of ice far north of their own. It was only then that we learned they had taken the name of their leader, Hazadriel, as their own. Until then, they were simply referred to as the
Kalosi,
the Lost Ones. You, Alec, are the first to ever come to Aurenen claiming kinship with them."

"Then I can't trace my family to any one Aurenen clan?" Alec said, disappointed.

"What a pity not to have known your own people."

Alec shook his head. "I'm not so sure. According to Seregil, they didn't take much of Aurenfaie hospitality with them."

"It's true," Seregil told him. "The Hazadrielfaie have a reputation for enforcing their own isolation. I had a brush with them once, and almost didn't live to tell about it."

"You never told me that!" Beka exclaimed indignantly.

Nor me,
Alec thought in surprise, but held his tongue.

"Well, it was a very brief brush," he admitted, "and not a pleasant one. The first time I traveled to the northlands, before I met Beka's father, I heard an old bard telling tales of what he called the Elder Folk. Alec here grew up hearing those same stories, never suspecting it was his own people they were talking about.

"I hounded the poor fellow for all he knew, along with every other storyteller I met for the next year or so. I suppose that was the beginning of my education as a bard. At any rate, I finally got enough out of the tales to trace them to a place in the Ironheart Mountains called Ravensfell Pass. Hungry for the sight of another 'faie face, I struck off in search of them."

"That's understandable," Nyal threw in, then gave Beka an embarrassed look. "I mean no insult."

Beka gave him a wry look. "None taken."

"I'd been in Skala for over ten years and was terribly homesick," Seregil continued. "To find other 'faie, no matter who they were, became an obsession. Everyone I talked to warned that the Hazadriel-faie killed strangers, but I figured that only applied to Tirfaie.

"It was a long, cold journey and I'd decided to go alone. I started through the pass in late spring, and a week or so later finally came out in a huge valley and saw what looked like a settled fai'thast in the distance. Certain of a warm welcome, I headed for the closest village. Before I'd gotten a mile down the valley, though, I ran into a group of armed horsemen. All I saw at first was that they were wearing sen'gai. I greeted them in Aurenfaie, but they attacked and took me prisoner."

"What happened then?" Beka demanded as soon as he paused.

"They held me in a cellar for two days before I managed to escape."

"That must have been a bitter disappointment," Nyal remarked kindly.

Seregil looked away and sighed. "It was a long time ago."

The column had slowed steadily as they talked, and now came to a complete halt.

"This is the first hidden stretch," Nyal explained. "Captain, will you trust me as your guide?"

Beka agreed just a tad too readily, Alec noted with amusement.

Skalan riders paired off with Aurenfaie, handing over their reins and tying white cloth blindfolds over their eyes.

A pair of Gedre riders approached Alec and Seregil.

"What's this?" asked Seregil as one of the men sidled his horse up next to Seregil's and held out a blindfold.

"All Skalans must ride blind," the man replied.

Alec choked down a hard knot of resentment, almost grateful when his own blindfold hid the scene. How many more little ways would the 'faie find to underline the fact that Seregil was returning as an outsider?

"Ready, Alec i Amasa?" his own guide asked, clasping his shoulder.

"Ready." Alec gripped the saddlebow, feeling off balance already. Renewed grumbling among the Skalans came from all sides, then a brief chorus of surprise as a peculiar sensation came over them, a tingle on the skin. Unable to resist, Alec lifted a corner of the blindfold just enough to peek out from under it, then pulled it hastily back into place as his eye was assaulted by a stinging burst of swirling color that sent a bolt of pain through his head.

"I wouldn't do that, my friend," his guide chuckled. "The magic will hurt your eyes, without the covering."

To make amends to their guests, or perhaps to drown out the complaining, someone began to sing and others quickly joined in, voices echoing among the rocks.

Once I loved a girl so fair, with ten charms woven in her hair. Slim as the tip of the newborn moon, Eyes the color of a mountain sky. For a year I wooed her with my eyes And a year with all my heart. A year with tears unshed, A year with wandering feet, A year with silent songs unsung, A year with sighs replete.

A year until she was the wife of another and my safety was complete.

The play of sun and shadow across Alec's skin told him that the trail twisted sharply and it wasn't long before he dug in his pouch for the root Seregil had given him. It smelled of moist earth, and the pungent juice made his eyes water, but it did settle his stomach.

"I didn't think I'd be sick," he said, spitting out the stringy pith. "It feels like we're riding around in circles."

"That's the magic," said Seregil. "Whole miles of the pass are like this."

"How are you doing?" Alec asked softly, thinking of Seregil's frequent difficulties with magic.

Warm, ginger-scented breath bathed his cheek as Seregil leaned close and confessed, "I'm managing."

The blind ride went on for what seemed like a dark, lurching eternity. They traveled beside rushing water for a time, and at others Alec sensed walls closing in around them. Riagil finally called a halt, and the blindfolds were removed. Alec

rubbed his eyes, blinking in the afternoon brightness. They were in a small meadow bounded on all sides by steep cliffs. Looking back, he saw nothing but the usual terrain.

Seregil was bathing his face at a spring that bubbled up among the rocks a few yards away. Joining him, Alec drank as he studied the stunted bushes and clumps of tiny flowers and grasses clinging in clefts of rock. A few wild mountain sheep clattered among the rocks overhead.