David Farland - The Lair of Bones

“Is it that simple?” Myrrima asked.

Borenson laughed at her naïveté, wondering just how much she knew about Inkarra. He peered hard at her in the darkness. “I meant it as a joke.”

They saddled their horses. Borenson took the mare from her stall gingerly, to see if indeed she was healed. To his delight, she was more than just well. She seemed positively sassy.

So Myrrima and Borenson rode into the night, toward the hills south of town. For a bit, the land dropped, and they rode through a thick fog. Myrrima’s horse drew close to Borenson’s then, as if fearing more wights. Borenson looked to his wife, to see if she too was afraid, but Myrrima rode her horse with her head back, her chin raised, as if savoring the moment. The fog misted her skin, so that dew formed on her brow and droplets sparkled in her hair, and she gulped the foggy air greedily.

Borenson grunted in surprise. His wife seemed to be a changed woman after last night. He could smell the water in her breath, like the wind off a lake, and her hair smelled like a still pool. But it wasn’t just her scent that had changed. It was her movements, too—the easy way she seemed to flow when she walked, the calmness and sense of peace that pervaded her.

Wizardborn. She had learned that she was wizardborn, a servant to water. The water’s touch had healed her, transformed her. But she had rejected the opportunity to serve it, and elected to stay with him.

Yes...something was different about her.

The land rose steadily for several miles, so that they soon could see the foggy moors behind. Bands of forest and field alternated along the road, but the woods were quiet and dry, and the land seemed healthier than the bogs to the north had been.

Still, he warily watched the margins of the road for sign of the hooded man. He and Myrrima seldom spoke, and then only in whispers. Whenever they reached a patch of woods, they’d hurry the horses through at a gallop, and each time they topped a hill, he would stop and search the starlit stretches of the road behind for long moments.

Thus they made their way into the highlands of Cragenwold, a region of dense, rocky forests. The road was so seldom used that it seemed only a ruin. Partial walls stood among the bracken where stone had been stacked upon gray stone a thousand years past. Broken statues of ancient lords lined the road, the wind and water having worn away the hollows of their eyes. Their gaping mouths bore mute testimony that Old Ferecia had once been the proudest of realms.

But that had been long ago. Now black pines crowded about the ruins of graveyards. Owls hooted in the lonesome groves, letting their voices echo among the hollows.

The road wound up and down for an hour, yet each time the path went down, it seemed to rise higher again. The morning sun rose, ponderously large on the horizon.

Borenson could feel the dead in these woods, pressing against the shadows, as if restrained somewhere off in the mossy trees. Yet the spirits here did not feel evil. They had once been men much like him, and he did not fear such wights. Besides, the sun beat on his back each time he exited the trees, and so long as it did, the dead were powerless to manifest themselves.

With the coming of the sun, Borenson began to watch the road for sign of tracks, but saw nothing for miles until they passed over soggy ground by a brook: and there it was, a scuff mark where there should have been a clean track.

Borenson’s glance flickered over the scuff. “Our assassin. Do you think it’s fresh?” he asked. He reached behind his back and drew his warhammer from its sheath.

Myrrima hopped down from her horse. She had taken endowments of scent from a dog, and now she sniffed near the track, then tested the air. “Not fresh,” she said. “A day old maybe. A man, by the smell of him, an odd one.”

“Odd?” Borenson whispered.

“His smell reminds me of open lands and lonely hills. Maybe he’s only been out in the weather for a few days, but I think its much longer. It’s like...he’d rather sleep in the rain than in a cozy inn.”

“Hunh,” Borenson said. He glanced about. “More likely, Raj Ahten has had him watching this road for a month. We’ll water the horses, take our breakfast here.”

He got off his mount, and led it uphill, away from the brook. Here, hazelnut trees crowded at the edge of a glen, huddled together like gossiping old women. Down below, the road wound like a ribbon over hills toward Fenraven, and Borenson could glimpse bits of it through the trees farther up the highway.

He lit a small fire and watched the road ahead while the twigs burned away, letting the flame consume the bark from some larger sticks, until he had enough coals so that he could roast the sausages he’d brought from the inn. There was little movement on the road ahead. He saw a huge red stag warily walking along, antlers arching so that they rested on its back, legs stiff, nose high in the air. It was scenting for a doe. But there was no sign of the mysterious rider ahead, nor of anyone else.

Still, Borenson felt uneasy. He couldn’t quite name the cause of his fear. It might just have been the trip to Inkarra. That in itself was dangerous enough.

But there was something more. His main worry was for Myrrima. Over the past weeks, he had been loath to let himself fall in love with her. As a guard to the crown prince, his first duty had always been to Gaborn. He’d never felt that there would be room for a wife in his life—or at least not a woman that he would love. He’d always imagined that if he took a wife, it would be some poor woman, a starveling who would make his meals and satisfy his other physical urges in return for a warm roof. He had not imagined that he would marry a beautiful woman, a strong woman who loved him fiercely, a woman with wit and charm.

Now he was more than smitten by Myrrima. Now he felt struck dumb, like a boy whose heart was churning for the first time with unimagined passions.

Last night with Myrrima, as they had consummated their love, had been perfect.

Yet he felt that something was wrong. He feared that she would leave him—or, more exactly, that something was trying to pull her away from him.

His thoughts kept returning to the hooded man. There was something sinister about him.

Myrrima remained down by the brook, hidden in the thick of the trees. Borenson imagined that she was bathing herself, or merely resting, or perhaps gathering more firewood. But when he’d put the thick sausages on some forked sticks and begun to simmer them over the coals, he realized that he had not seen Myrrima for far too long.

Not wanting to call out with the threat of highwaymen about, he hurried back down to the brook. Myrrima wasn’t by the road, but he could see her modest footprints in the soft earth beside the stream.

She’d headed downhill, following the brook. Trailing her was easy. Moss and fallen leaves covered the muddy ground, making it firm enough for a man to walk on. The low music of water burbling over rounded stones covered his footfalls, and the scent of the stream filled the air.

Borenson lightly crept along, watching her trail. No other footprints followed her, and only in one spot did he notice anything suspicious—the tracks of an enormous wolf crossed her path. The sight reminded him that they were in the wilds.

A steep slope dropped away just ahead, and the brook suddenly pitched over it, spilling into a narrow pool. Just beyond it, a wider pool opened where the water was as still and as clear as glass.

Myrrima knelt on the green grass beside the pool among a field of posies. Cattails thrust up among some stones by the water, and beneath its surface one could see down into the depths. Silver minnows flashed among the black roots of a large pine.