Springwar (9 page)

“Watch?”

“The … preparation. He treated him well—fed him, bathed him, kept him warm, and gave him fine clothes—but denied him sleep.”

“For no reason?”

“Maybe for a reason. Kraxxi was there by choice, that much was clear. He was seeking you. The only thing he would say, when put to any question, was, ‘I will speak only to my father.’”

Barrax snorted with laughter. “And of course Lynnz sent messengers immediately to the court at Ixtianos, where he presumes I am.”

Zrill dared a chuckle of his own, having had some version of this conversation before. “Where he indeed presumes you are. Where a well-paid actor lives in luxury before he—”

“Not dies,” Barrax finished for him. “Is put to sea and told to sail south and not return.”

“Have any?”

“None of which one might speak.” Barrax laughed again, but something about his expression told Zrill he was treading on dangerous ground. There were limits, he supposed, even to one of the few outside Barrax’s circle to know that the royal court officially functioning in Ixti was a sham, and that Barrax had ordered his most trusted guard and staff, and all his southern levies, to meet him here, in this secret place in the Pit, while he took stock of the lord of his northern levies, Lord Lynnz. And waited.

“Is there more you would tell?” Barrax asked, filling another goblet for Zrill.

Zrill took it gratefully. “Aye, lord king, there is.”

And with that he told all he had seen and witnessed about Prince Kraxxi and the woman whose name neither the prince nor the woman herself would reveal.

When he was finished, Barrax rose. “You have stayed as long as you dare,” he said. “Would that I could reward you with rest as well as gold, but alas, that may not be—though you may certainly take that goblet as token of this meeting. For the rest … I go to ponder what this news might be that my son thinks will buy his life.”

R
rath awakened to cold feet, the scent of salt-dried fish stewing to palatability, and Eddyn sitting in the wide-open doorway studying the map. In spite of his bedroll, a layer of furs, and a pile of ratty blankets they’d found at this latest fish camp, he shivered. And would have feigned sleep longer, had Eddyn’s sharp gaze not caught him with his eyes open.

“You have to get up sometime,” Eddyn said mildly—disarmingly. Almost like a friend. “I let you sleep because you needed to. You’ve been pushing hard, for someone your size.”

“I’m fine,” Rrath snapped, finding no energy for politeness this early, even if both things were true. Eddyn
was
bigger—and stronger—yet they’d covered the same distance; it stood to reason he’d had to work harder to achieve the same results. At least they hadn’t lacked for food the last few days, all of which they’d concluded at fish camps, which were generally well provisioned—if one didn’t mind fish soup, fish stew, and fish chowder.

At least Eddyn was a competent cook.

Rrath wished, however, that he’d witnessed the preparation.

Sighing, he dragged himself out of the covers, found his next layer of clothing—leather leggings, knee boots, and
snug undertunic—and began tugging them on. Eddyn put down the map and ambled over to the fireplace to scoop up a cupful of stew and pour it into a bowl for him.

“You having one, too?” Rrath inquired, as he found his top tunic and flipped up the hood, the better to shield his ears from the infernal wind that was also blowing smoke into his face.

Eddyn grinned, white teeth gleaming like the snow beyond the door. “Still don’t trust me? If it’ll make you happy, I’ll have that and you can have another.”

Rrath shrugged, but Eddyn helped himself to the first bowl and let Rrath fill a second. That was the trouble with all this: not trusting Eddyn. Of course Eddyn didn’t trust him, either—with cause. But it really was unfortunate to be at heart a good person, as Rrath certainly considered himself, and yet be driven to do things that violated every ethic he’d ever learned in exchange for access to a dubious, unseen power that seemed increasingly unlikely to be forthcoming.

That
wouldn’t
be forthcoming if word of how his first assignment had been botched reached the relevant authorities. As it surely had by now.

Of course, he knew certain things, too, but most of those he literally couldn’t talk about. And even if he could, it was as much as his life was worth to reveal them.

All because he’d liked observing animals. Which had attracted the notice of a certain Life Priest named Nyllol, who’d put him in touch with
them
.

Who liked observing
everything
.

As much, apparently, as Eddyn liked observing the map, which he’d picked up again.

“I doubt anything has moved since the last time you looked at that,” Rrath drawled, punctuating his remark with a swallow of peppery stew.

“I’m considering an alternate route.”

“Are
there any?”

Eddyn laid the map between them. “If we’re lucky, we should reach Grinding-Hold tonight, which is right at the edge of the Wild, where the river drops down in cataracts that power the grinding wheels. Beyond are the plains. We
could stay on the river and have easy going, terrain-wise, after we pass the hold—just continue skiing the river. But there’s not much food or shelter through there, and we
are
in a hurry. So look: The river curves around right here; if we go overland, we could cut off a day or more.”

Rrath studied him carefully. “I assume you have reason to think that might be unwise?”

Eddyn nodded. “First—and this is
not
a problem—if we stay with the river, we’re guaranteed a modicum of shelter—from the camps, at night, and from the terrain in general—because the river usually flows between banks, which will keep the worst of the wind away.”

Rrath nodded back, uncertainly.

“The problem’s the weather. We’ve been incredibly lucky so far, but I’m not sure how much longer we can count on the weather to cooperate. If we got caught out on the plain with the wind and the cold—we’re coming into the season of the long blows now—we could burrow in and maybe survive awhile. But it could easily blow for more days than we’ve got endurance or supplies. And the landscape’s also more rugged.”

Rrath cleared his throat. “You’re right about the weather. But …” He paused and shook his head. “Never mind.”

Eddyn regarded him sharply.
“What?”
But then realization awoke in his eyes, and Rrath knew he’d said too much. “You’ve trained as a weather-witch. You could find out what the weather’s going to be for the next few days.”

“Training to be a weather-witch and being one are two different things!” Rrath flared. “Do you think I’d have let us run afoul of that storm if I’d known it was coming? I know a little, but not enough.”

Eddyn grinned in a way Rrath didn’t like—a way that said he knew Rrath was holding back. “You knew enough to use the basic technique to locate Avall,” he replied, all pretense of amiability vanished. “You were claiming to
be
one back in the boathouse,” he went on. “Beyond that,
I
know that weather-witches can only work in private. I know you and one of the ghost priests disappeared every night after we’d made camp. If privacy’s all you need, you can have it.”

“One needs a lot more than privacy,” Rrath retorted. “One needs a high place, a certain
kind
of high place. Beyond that, I can’t say.”

“Water from the appropriate Well?”

“So
you
said.”

Eddyn’s face went hard as stone. “If you can witch, I’d thank you to do it.”

“I’ll do what I can,” Rrath conceded at last, with a sick feeling in his stomach.

“Think of it as minimizing our time together,” Eddyn noted slyly. “The quicker we get to Tir-Eron, the quicker we’re rid of each other.”

“What about Avall?”

“What about him?”

“If he went into the river, and we
leave
the river—”

“I’ve considered that,” Eddyn replied cryptically. “Never doubt that I’ve got a plan. The point is, the more options we have, the better our chance of success.”

“I can’t guarantee a lot.”

“Try.” Eddyn’s tone brooked no argument. “How much time do you need?”

“It’s only possible four times a day,” Rrath informed him. “Dusk, dawn, noon, and midnight. And that assumes I can find an appropriate place, which is
not
a given.”

“Try,” Eddyn repeated. “If you’re not back by two hands past noon, I’m going on without you—and I’ll have your gear with me. If you take longer than that, you’d better like fish, and you’d better like cold.”

Rrath didn’t say what he was thinking: that he already liked both better than Eddyn syn Argen-yr.

Rrath hadn’t lied in any meaningful way about weather-witching, but that didn’t mean he’d told all the truth, either. Some things about that art were common knowledge; some were not. The time of day, the use of a high place in which to conduct the rite, the need for privacy—if not widely known, neither were those facts suppressed. Nor was the use of water from Weather’s Well. But there were other, more subtle
aspects to witching out the weather that were unknown beyond the craft.

Trouble was, even the most blatant of them applied only to witching at its most fundamental: determining major weather patterns before they manifested. As to
changing
the weather—few indeed could manage that, and even then in only the most limited manner—else why would Eron suffer the tyranny of Deep Winter that forced half the population to hole up in the gorges, and the other half to hide in the fastnesses of the winter holds?

Rrath had no illusions about changing anything. He had few about his facility at the simpler form, for that matter—but had to try. Eddyn, when sober, was good at spotting lies. What Eddyn didn’t know was that Rrath might have to risk his life to realize even the most basic information.

And
that
depended on whether he could locate a certain something—and if he could utilize it properly if he did.

He was trying, however: trudging on the truest path he could muster due north of the fish camp, across what might, in warm weather, be a pasture or meadow, aiming toward a forested ridge that blocked most of the northern horizon.

East would’ve been better—or west. But the river lay both ways, and there were no high places on either bank that were out of Eddyn’s sightlines.

So he tromped along, trying to ignore everything that wasn’t part of the world itself—afoot, because to witch one had to be in touch with the earth as much as possible, and due north, because that increased the chance of finding what he sought.

The world was laced with lines of power born of the land itself—of the forces that moved in it, and those that moved it about as it tumbled along in space. That power ran everywhere, but certain types of geography focused it into stronger currents that webbed the whole landscape, as far as anyone knew. Certain things followed those currents without anyone knowing they were so doing—mostly because Priest-Clan alone knew they existed. They crossed each other, too, and Rrath had seen a map of all Eron with those crossings marked, and had noted how they corresponded
almost exactly with the locations of major winter holds, and the strongest, not coincidentally, with his own clan’s fastnesses.

To witch the weather, one had to locate one of those currents. None of the major ones lay near here, but there might be a minor one up on that ridge ahead—because it appeared to run due east and west, and the rocks hereabout were of a particular kind and configuration.

Which supposed he’d be able to recognize one of those lines if he crossed it. He might, and he might not. He’d practiced—all his clan had. And he’d shown some aptitude. But that was when he’d been able to compare directly: on the line and off it, and that sample line had been a strong one.

Still, he trudged onward, steadily uphill, hoping to reach his goal by noon—and that noon would prove that goal to be worthwhile. For no clear reason, he found himself imagining a scenario wherein he explained the process to Eddyn.

“Remember the theater at Acting-Hold? Remember how, when you stand at the center-front of the stage and walk to the back, speaking all the while, you reach a point where the sound comes back to you more loudly, though you don’t speak louder yourself? A sound you can feel in your chest and your bones? It’s like that, except that you’re breathing a certain way, and walking at a certain pace that exactly balances it, and if you can maintain proper concentration, and if there’s a line to be found, that’s the way you can locate it—if you’re sensitive to such things.”

A hand before noon, he found it—beyond hope, or in spite of it. He’d started the breathing halfway up the hill and the walk shortly thereafter, and one step he’d trod on ordinary, snow-covered earth, and the next, something came thrumming up through his bones into the fluids around his brain, and he
knew
.