“Dear me, how extremely difficult. Not that it’s at all surprising, since—”
“Traitor!” Carachel’s voice was a howl of rage. An explosion knocked Jermain to the ground, surrounding him with flames. He rolled again, shielding his eyes with his left arm. He smelled singed cloth and felt heat on all sides. Then something seared the center of his chest, and he heard Carachel scream. There was a sound like metal shrieking against stone, the flames died, and there was silence.
Jermain twisted, rolled, and came to his feet, dagger ready. Several paces in front of him Carachel lay unconscious, his breath coming in harsh gasps. Ranlyn lay a little to one side, and Jermain saw with relief that he was beginning to stir. Slowly, Jermain returned his knife to its sheath, then checked to see the extent of his own injuries.
He found none, and almost did not believe it; the memory of the pain was too vivid. The only sign of the brief battle with Carachel was the medallion, which was now a black and shapeless lump of metal instead of a silver disc. Jermain stared at it, wondering numbly how the medallion could be melted when the chain from which it hung was untouched. And this was the simple messenger’s medallion he had been so glad to see instead of a magic amulet that might draw him into sorcery! He frowned suddenly. Had Amberglas actually told him the medallion was not magical, or had he simply assumed it?
“Jerayan.” Ranlyn was on his feet; he looked pale, but otherwise unharmed. Jermain started forward, but the nomad raised a hand and he stopped in midstride.
Ranlyn’s lips curved in a faint smile. “Again, it seems, I owe you a life.” He studied Jermain briefly, then turned and knelt beside Carachel in a swirl of robes. A moment later, he rose again and came forward. “I owe you a life,” he repeated, and reached out. Automatically, Jermain extended his own hand. Ranlyn’s fingers opened, and the serpent ring dropped into Jermain’s palm.
“My debt is paid,” Ranlyn said.
“I don’t—” A shout cut Jermain off in midsentence. His head snapped around, and he saw three of Carachel’s councillors coming through the trees, accompanied by half a dozen men-at-arms.
“Ranlyn!” Jermain jammed the ring into his belt pouch as he jerked his head toward the soldiers. The two men ran for the rear of Jermain’s tent. A second shout told them they had been seen, but Jermain did not stop to find out whether the soldiers were coming after them. Even if the councillors did not order a pursuit, Carachel was certain to do so when he recovered.
Jermain rounded the end of the tent and jerked Blackflame’s tether free. Thank Arlayne he had not had time to unsaddle the horse! Ranlyn went past and vanished among the trees as Jermain flung himself into the saddle. Blackflame tossed his head, then plunged after Ranlyn.
There was a confusion of small branches snapping, and a shout of dismay as Jermain passed the startled sentries. He saw no sign of Ranlyn, and he slowed Blackflame’s headlong gallop. Behind him, he heard the sounds of the camp belatedly stirring to action. Then he caught a glimpse of a big-boned chestnut horse breaking out of a screen of small trees just ahead, and he urged his horse forward once more. A moment later, Jermain and Ranlyn were riding side by side.
“Which way?” Jermain shouted.
“South.” Ranlyn’s voice was almost lost beneath the sound of the horses’ hooves. Behind them, the noise of the camp faded as they drew away from it.
Jermain nodded and dropped back to let his friend lead. The Hoven-Thalar was by far the better horseman and, in addition, Jermain had not been able to replace Blackflame’s bridle. Though the horse was well trained and responsive, it required concentration to guide him using only knees and voice.
As soon as they were well away from the camp, Ranlyn turned west. Jermain’s surprise at this choice of direction faded quickly. Their pursuers would expect the fugitives to head south, or southeast, to join the rest of the Hoven-Thalar; with luck, they might be confused long enough to give Jermain and Ranlyn a good start, perhaps even long enough for the fugitives to cross the border into Sevairn. Not that Sevairn was much safer for Jermain than the vicinity of Carachel’s army, but at least the Border Guards along this part of the Sevairn border were unlikely to be actively looking for him.
They crashed onward, more interested in speed than silence. As the trees grew denser, the ride became a nightmarish echo of his flight from the Border Guards almost a month before. This time the immediate enemy was not their pursuers but the gradually deepening twilight. Travel at night would be almost impossible in this forest, yet they could not afford to be too close to Carachel’s army when daylight came. There were other similarities, though. Chief among them was the fact that once again Jermain had been betrayed by a man he trusted, one he had thought honorable and worthy of respect. By a friend. He closed his mind to the cold knot of bitterness, and concentrated on riding.
As the daylight grew dimmer, Ranlyn and Jermain slowed their mounts, until finally they were moving no faster than a walk. Ranlyn still led the way, and from the twists and turns he was making, Jermain guessed that the nomad had some goal in mind. He was, therefore, not surprised when, just before it became too dark to travel safely, they reached a small stream.
The two men dismounted. They stood in silence while the horses drank, then Ranlyn said quietly into the darkness, “A burden shared is less than half as heavy. Will you speak of what troubles you?”
Jermain frowned. Was he so easy to read? “What ‘troubles’ me is what might have happened. It’s as well that you came when you did.”
“Ah.” Ranlyn paused, then said softly, “I fear I have brought grief upon you, friend of my blood. For that, I sorrow.”
“It is my fault, not yours! How could I have been so blind? Carachel . . .”
“Do not blame yourself for having been deceived. A man who can so greatly deceive himself must indeed be skilled in lies.”
“Carachel knows exactly what he is doing! Don’t try to excuse me that way. Even his wife would condemn him if she could; she tried to make me listen and I refused.”
“Perhaps he does know. Yet I have seen more of him than you realize, and I think he has for so long thought himself a man of virtue much misunderstood that he does not recognize what he has now become. And I think he longs for companionship; I saw grief in his face when he knew your rejection.”
“You defend him? He would have destroyed the Hoven-Thalar completely!”
“Have I not made use of him in preserving my people, even as he would have used me in preserving his?” Ranlyn replied. “Yet I do not seek to justify him; I say only that he may once have been a man of goodness, and still thinks himself so.”
“I do not believe it,” Jermain said in a flat voice.
Ranlyn’s head turned to study Jermain through the gloom, and Jermain’s lips tightened. This subject was not of his choosing; he had no desire to speak of Carachel now, not to anyone, and to Ranlyn least of all.
But Ranlyn did not continue the conversation, as Jermain had expected. Instead, he inclined his head and held it briefly bowed, then turned and began unsaddling his horse. A little irritated, and unable to say why, Jermain did likewise.
They spent a cold, uncomfortable night beside the stream. As soon as it began to grow light, they saddled their horses and went on, riding in the stream itself to hide their trail from their pursuers. Blackflame wore a spare bridle from Ranlyn’s pack; it made the ride considerably simpler for Jermain.
They rode at a steady pace, rather than trying to gallop through the water, and again Jermain was reminded of a recent journey. This time, the memory was of his trip north with Carachel and the fellowship they had shared during their morning rides, before Carachel had donned the serpent ring and cast his traveling spell. . . . Jermain thrust the memory of friendship out of his mind and nudged Blackflame to a faster walk. In a moment, he was beside Ranlyn.
“We have a problem,” Jermain said without preamble, and in a few terse sentences described the way Carachel had compressed their journey. “And there’s no way we can outride that,” he finished.
“Nor is there need to,” Ranlyn replied. “Be at ease; I have dealt with such as he in times past, and the wearers of the Ring of Two Serpents hold no power without their talismans. He shall cast no spells until he finds us and reclaims his ring; that is the chief limit of the power of the Servants of the Red Plague.”
Uneasily, Jermain looked down at his belt pouch, and another thought struck him. “Then Carachel won’t stop looking for us after a day or two. He’ll keep after us until he gets it back.”
“Yes.”
“Well, at least he’ll have a hard time catching us if he can’t use magic. No one in that camp has a mount as good as these. And unless he has better trackers than I think he does, he’ll have to be lucky even to find us in this forest.”
“I would not say so much. We carry the ring, and it calls to him. He will come for it if he can, but it leaves no easy trail for him to follow, only a pulling at the strings of the heart. We can avoid him for many days.”
“Wonderful,” Jermain said sarcastically. “I already have one king trying to kill me; I didn’t need another. Especially not one who’s a wizard as well. It’s a strange debt clearing you’ve given me that brings danger at our heels, and not one I’d have chosen willingly.”
For the first time, Ranlyn looked disturbed. “Are you not under the protection of the Lady of the Tower? It was her amulet that guarded you against the wizard; I am sure of it!”
“The Lady of the . . .” Suddenly the pieces fell together in Jermain’s mind, and he stared at Ranlyn in consternation.
“Amberglas?”
Ranlyn nodded. “Indeed yes. She has long been a friend to me and my clan.”
“Then Amberglas is the one who promised you safe passage through Fenegrik Swamp?” Jermain found it difficult to reconcile the power such a promise implied with his memory of Amberglas.
“Have I not said it? She owed no debt to us, yet she pledged us her help against the Red Plague. The Hoven-Thalar debt to her is great.”
“I see.” Jermain did not feel capable of a more complete response. He remembered his conversation with Amberglas about his travels among the nomads, and wondered if she, too, had tried to use him. But she had asked nothing of him, and if she had told him less than she might have, it was only prudent to keep such plans secret from a chance-met stranger. He smiled slightly to think of Amberglas as prudent.
Abruptly, Jermain frowned. He knew that Amberglas was not the scatter wit she seemed, but it was all too easy to think more of her apparent vagueness than of the abilities she displayed less frequently. He would have to be careful not to underestimate her, even if it was unlikely that they would meet again. His frown deepened. His judgment seemed rather poorer than usual lately. He had been mistaken first about Amberglas, then Carachel. And about Eltiron before that.
Jermain shook his head angrily, trying to dismiss the unwelcome thoughts of Carachel and Eltiron. Ranlyn looked at him inquiringly, but he shook his head again and slowed Blackflame briefly, so that they returned to their position behind Ranlyn. Conversation was not what he wanted at the moment.
They left the stream at midmorning, riding up a flat shelf of stone that formed the northern bank. Jermain nodded his approval; there would be no hoofprints in the riverbank to mark the place for Carachel’s men. “That was a stroke of fortune,” he said as they rode away from the stream.
“The gods of fortune look with greatest kindness on those who do not ask for their favors,” Ranlyn replied.
“You knew that rock was there?”
“I knew,” Ranlyn said. “I have had much occasion to travel in these lands of recent years.”
“Do you know how close we are to the border?”
“Another day’s ride by common measure; less for such mounts as ours. And we may easily shorten the time if we speed our going.”
“Not so fast, my friend. The last time I tried to get into Sevairn, the Border Guards nearly killed me; I’m not anxious to repeat the experience.”
“The swordbearer Vandaris seeks you. Would she not arrange safe passage?”
“She might try, but I’m not willing to bet either of our lives on her succeeding. Marreth is the one who’s king, and only the King commands the Border Guard.” Jermain saw puzzlement in Ranlyn’s face, so he explained his encounter with the Border Guard in greater detail. “They had orders to kill me,” he finished. “And I doubt that the orders have changed.”
“If we must choose between the sandstorm and the nest of snakes, I would prefer the snakes,” Ranlyn said. Jermain looked at him, startled. “A careful man may keep from waking snakes, and a quick man may slay them. The sandstorm is a surer death,” Ranlyn explained smoothly.
Jermain laughed. “And the Border Guard are the snakes? Well then, we had best plan how to keep from waking them. If I recall correctly, there’s a major guardpost just south of here.”
They discussed the matter as they rode, and decided to turn their route slightly northward, to avoid the guardpost. Jermain was a little surprised at the ease with which Ranlyn agreed to the change. After all, the new path would take him farther away from the Hoven-Thalar clans, which were presumably heading southeast.
Once the question of direction was settled, they urged their horses to greater speed. Though they had seen no sign of Carachel or any of his aides, Jermain did not doubt that the wizard would follow them. Even if he did not, Jermain wanted as much distance between themselves and Carachel as possible, and Ranlyn seemed to agree. For the rest of the day, they alternated their horses’ pace between a steady trot and a brisk walk.
A little after nightfall, they reached the general area of the border between Sevairn and Barinash. The precise boundaries of the kingdoms were not well defined, particularly in such well-forested regions, and the two men spent a nerve-racking two hours picking their way through the dark forest, hoping that neither the Barinash nor the Sevairn guards had chosen this night for a long patrol.