Spellbreakers (10 page)

“It feels very real all of a sudden, doesn’t it?” said
Daria awkwardly.

They tidied the floor, burnt the hair in a brazier,
and then Daria pulled two long linen bands from the trunk that served her as a
wardrobe. She wrapped one round and round Leal’s breast, until she was as flat-chested
as a boy. It was strange not to feel the weight and bounce of her breasts any
longer, but also liberating.

“I think we can skip padding the breeches for tonight.
I doubt anybody will notice in the dark, under long jerkins. But tomorrow you’d
better make good use of some spare socks, princess.
Better
safe than sorry.”

Leal giggled and then blushed. She watched Daria
binding her own breasts quickly and realized that she must have done this
before. No time for questions right then, however. They dressed in their new
travelling gear, added a few personal effects to their packs, and waited for
Dee.

When he arrived he gave a look at their shorn heads
and new clothes and gasped in astonishment.

“Well, I’ll say! If Guillem could see you now, he’d be
happy to have gotten a son or two at last. Well done! Let’s go. It’s almost
dark, finally. And remember, at the stables, no names, no unnecessary chatter.
As far as they know you are two valets on a confidential mission to Hassia,
picked for your discretion and light weight in the saddle, and carrying
important secret papers.”

He led them not out to the corridor, but at the back
of their own room, where an ancient small door stood. It was not really a
secret passage, but one that had never been used in Leal’s memory. There were
many such doors in the castle, little bigger than a window, with a high step
and a low lintel, so that only a small person bent low could pass. This one had
long been painted red to match the room’s furniture, at Leal’s request. The
paint was renewed every once in a while, and the door was glued shut with it.
It took some pulling and much muttered swearing, and some chivvying with the
tip of a knife to get it open, but opened it was in the end. Behind was a
narrow staircase built in the thickness of the walls. It was hard to walk down
with their packs held out in front and their heads low, but by that way they
left the castle without ever crossing a used room or corridor.

They came out in the cool evening air in the small
courtyard with the washing fountain. They brushed dust and cobwebs from their
hair and clothes, hoisted their packs on their shoulders and made their way
down through the steep paths of the cliff to Dee’s stables.

Dee’s grizzled old groom, Ramon, was waiting for them.
Dee’s grey palfrey, the same he had ridden to the fern gorge, was standing
there, saddled. With it were two tall hunters, a liver bay gelding, a good
seventeen hands, and a chestnut mare, slightly lower, but stockier.

“The gelding is a bit headstrong of a morning,” said
Ramon without any ceremony, “but he’ll behave once he has had the frisk out of
him. The mare wants a steady hand, her mouth being touchy, but else she’s as
biddable as a lamb and afraid of nothing much. You
’ll need
not tie her if he is tied, unless she’s in heat.”

Daria checked the horses’ feet, which were tight and
hard, well-worn and shod, and had them walked around.

She took a look at the other horses in the stable and
agreed that these were the best of the lot. They were not the high bred horses
they had always ridden, but they looked healthy and stout. Honest, sensible,
hard-working beasts, with capacious barrels and good wide quarters. They could
certainly carry a light rider’s weight all day long, bags and all.

“Good, we will have these two.”

The groom nodded and fetched saddles and tack. Daria
and he had the horses ready in a matter of minutes. They divided their light
baggage in the capacious saddlebags. A stable boy brought a hamper of
provisions, bread, salted meats, dried fruits, hard cheese, and they packed
these, too. They picked two lengths of stout line, hobbles, a couple of
nosebags, some oats.

“I wish we could have taken a good hawk at least,”
said Daria with a sigh. “I bet we’ll soon be bored of cold ham and dry
sausage.”

Dee smiled. “You’d have to skin your catch and do your
own cooking.
A lengthy and messy job.
No, there are
inns on the road. You may have more hot meals than you expect. But be careful.”

They tied a couple of heavy blankets behind their
saddles, and then there was little else to do, really.

“I’ll ride out with you,” said Dee, and they departed
leading their horses.

The horses were frisky, but not unduly so. The night
was clear. Outside the stable gates they mounted.

Leal felt better when she was in the saddle. She had
been restless all evening, like a horse ready to run and buck and yet held
back. This was it, finally.

It was strange riding down the familiar road, where
she had ridden out to hunt and hawk a thousand times, and to think that this
was different, it was the beginning of a journey, and she might never see this
place again, or her horses, hounds, and hawks, not to mention her family and
home. In the bright moonlight she said farewell to a hundred small known
things, an orchard, a great plane tree, a walled garden with a vine spilling
over the edge of the road. On the old stone bridge she turned in the saddle to
look at Castel Argell one last time. It was bone white in the moonshine,
perched at the summit of its cliff like a cat on a sunny roof. Behind it, the
town of Argell was spread like a long pale ribbon along the whaleback of the
hill.

She felt a knot in her throat, and yet it felt also good.
Things were simpler and cleared from the saddle of a horse.

Onward and on
, she thought.
This
is it. All is decided, and the quest has begun. The road is plain to follow.
All I need to do is get there, and back again.

She took a good deep breath, and sat deeper in the
saddle.

All was decided. Home was behind. They were on the
road, at last.

Chapter Six

The morning after Leal woke up at the first light of
dawn. Even before opening her eyes two things struck her.
The
bird-song and the smell of the air.
It was mountain air, straight from
the snows of the Canigou, clear and chilly, washed by the night’s dew.
A crystalline air of extreme purity, as if it had just been created
in the dawn of the world and had never been breathed before by any living
creature.
Leal inhaled it deeply and then opened her eyes without
raising her head from the folded saddle rug that served her as pillow. In front
of her, level with her eyes, a thousand blades of grass sparkled with shining
dew drops, which glistened from the deepest red, through
all
the
color spectrum to bright white and back to red again. The whorled
leaves of a young horsetail shoot were hung about with drops of rainbow in a
perfect quivering spiral. It was more magical than any light show she had ever
witnessed.

It was the first morning on the road, and it was
perfect.

****

They were less than twenty miles from Castel Argell,
but that was already more than halfway to the border in a small narrow country
like Escarra. Dee had led them by small country roads out of the Val d’Eran,
until a high ridge in the hills from which they could see the Col del Llop,
where the main road to Hassia crossed the mountains. Then he had awkwardly said
goodbye. Unusually, he was at a loss for words. It had been a quiet parting, sealed
only by an iron-tight embrace. Then the old magician had turned his horse
around and ridden slowly back down the path, while they went on and down the
other side.

That day, possibly even before midday, they would pass
the border.

“Come on, sleepyhead, we must get going,” said Daria,
shaking Leal’s shoulder. There were some muffled protests from the rolled
blanket, and then finally Leal emerged, her short hair ruffled and her eyes
sleepy. They had rested for less than three hours.

“Mmf, argh.
Pah! I
think something crawled in my mouth. I was awake long ago, for your
information. But I waited for you to stir and fell asleep again. Ow. I think
something made a hole in my back.”

For all answer Daria ripped the saddle pad from under
her cheek and started saddling the mare. Tomorrow the sweet princess could
start tending to her mount herself, but for one morning she could have it easy
and find her horse saddled. She had gone to sleep under the open sky without
complaints. She was holding up well so far, despite the morning crankiness.

“We can reach the pass well before midday if we get a
move on, and then we can take it a bit easier for the rest of the afternoon.
Tonight we’ll sleep abroad, princess.”

Leal got up, her short hair hideously tousled and
wild, and collected her things. In a few more minutes they had saddled both
horses, stowed away the hobbles and were under way again.

They reached the narrow valley climbing up to the Col
del Llop before midday. They rode for a few miles on the main road, anxiously,
like wanted outlaws, and then turned right, up a narrow smuggler path that
climbed high up the sides of the valley, well above the main road. According to
Dee this would bring them to the other side without meeting a soul, even by
day.

It was an ancient route. Far up above the tree line,
almost in sight of the mountain’s summit, stood the ruined walls of an ancient
fortress, now reclaimed by the
garrigue
, a sparse brush of rosemary,
thyme, brooms, and even prickly pears with small, wizened, crimson fruit. Only
bearded vultures watched the castle. When they descended the path on the other
side whole new mountain ranges appeared in front of them.

They were in Hassia. Further down the path, the forest
was just the same as before, yet all felt different. Their adventure had really
begun.

****

After the pass, the steep mountain road went on for
about thirty miles before crossing a gaunt old bridge on the river Nekkar. The
road went on north and east to Yllmenau and the Konigsee, where Black Admund
ruled in splendor over millions of slaves.

They turned west after the bridge, following the
towpath along the river.

They were on the Langwasser.

The Nekkar was a swift river up here. Locks had been
built—with gods knew how much labor—wherever a calm spot could be carved out of
the strong currents, but none of them was working any more. The waterways had
never been much used this far up in the mountains, and although the towpaths
were still fairly clear, there was little other infrastructure. The few
cottages they passed were deserted. It was a good thing that they had a good
amount of provisions with them, because this was a wild country, remote and
forsaken.

They had traveled two and a half days along the river
when they reached a high, forbidding gorge where the Nekkar roared in a narrow
stony bed far down under the porter road. An enormous natural monolith stood
guard at the entrance of the gorge, looming over the road at a sickening angle.
La Roca Entravessada was its Escarran name, the Rock Askew. In Hassian it had
far more ominous names.
Leal felt a weight of darkness
falling on her heart as they rode in the shadow of the stone.

 
“This is where
Dee’s order made the last and greatest battle spell,” she said in a low awed
murmur.

“Mh-m,” said Daria looking up at the menacing sides of
the sinister valley.

Two high bare stone cliffs rose straight up, hard by
the path. The stone of the cliff might have been of the same ochre color as in
the rest of the mountains all ‘round originally, but it had been scoured by
flames so hot that it had burnt to a dirty oily black. After more than three
centuries it was still bare, and still shining smooth where it had run and
melted. Leal tried not to think of the fate of the Hassian army that had tried
for a year to storm this pass just to be finally lured into the gorge by a
sudden route of the Escarran archers who had held it so long.

The Nekkar roared into the narrow gorge like a
thousand caged lions. No boat could float on the river here. There was a
landing a mile back, and a porter way which exited the gorge at the side of the
waterfall and went down to the narrow, broiling lake beneath. Even the road
could be swallowed by the floods in spring time. Leal and Daria spurred the
horses out of the dreadful gorge and into the slanting afternoon sun on the
other side. The porter road was hewn out of the black molten rock, a zigzag red
scar in the black mountain side, roughly following the foaming waterfall.
Red, black, and white.
Leal wandered if it was just chance
or ghastly grim irony that these were to these days the colors of the war
banners of Escarra. The mountain sides were barren, utterly desolate in the
chilling mist rising from the waterfalls.

“What a hideous place. What a hideous, hideous place,”
said Daria, shaken. It was one thing to read of war strategies in a book,
comfortable in your bed, nibbling lemon cakes on a sunny morning, and a wholly
different thing to be on the same dreary spot where thousands of men had died
in a tight, endless minute of absolute horror.
Leal felt the
misery still hanging around the place.
She felt physically sick. Even
the horses were skittish and difficult. It was hard to keep them from bolting
breakneck down the road.