Sean Russell - The Shadow Roads

But there was no dray, and the men blocked the road, othersquickly surrounding the cart and its surprised occupants. In the flickeringtorchlight Kai could see the dull gleam of steel.

They had adjourned to a room without a hearth. A room seldomused but for summer, for it had little to recommend it-not even a charmingview. But it seemed a very safe room in which to speak, in light of what had happenedthat night.

“Then this man Kai is everything Lord Carral claimed?” LadyBeatrice looked over at Toren.

Dease had gone off to his rooms to find a bath and sleep,but Toren had too much to tell and had quickly bathed and changed. He ate whilethey talked-which would have been unspeakably rude under any othercircumstances. Lady Beatrice, however, was prepared to forgive him anythingthat night. She thought he looked the worse for his journey, thinner, almostgaunt, and deeply fatigued. She could see that in his eyes. But once she hadheard his story, the look in his eye took on different meaning.

She was still in a state of disbelief. Carral’s ravingsabout Kai seemed positively sane after the things she heard from Toren.

“Yes,” Toren said, sipping his wine, “all that and more.”

Lady Beatrice shook her head. “I received a note from LadyLlyn not half an hour ago. She implored me to do everything in my power to keepKai safe. I have no idea why, or even how she knew he was here.”

Toren stopped eating. “I have always found Llyn’s opinionsto be worth listening to.”

“I agree. Unfortunately, I let Kai go back to the Faelencampment before I heard from Llyn. At least I had the foresight to sendguards with him.”

Toren relaxed visibly. “A company of guards should keep himfrom harm.”

Lady Beatrice pressed her eyes closed. “I sent only two menin a cart.”

Toren turned to Fondor. “Can you send out a small company ofmen-at-arms to accompany Kai?”

“Too late,” Lady Beatrice said. “They left sometime ago.”

She reached out and squeezed Toren’s wrist as though to reassureherself he was really there. Tears welled up in her eyes, but she managed notto weep.

“This close to Westbrook,” she said, “certainly he will besafe.”

Toren nodded and turned back to his meal.

“And where is Elise Wills, now?” Lady Beatrice asked.

“I don’t know. We were, most of us, separated in the cave.She could be anywhere.”

“She could truly be dead, this time.”

“It is possible.”

“Then what shall I tell Lord Carral? His daughter did notdie in the Westbrook, as we thought. But she might now have truly drowned inanother place. A distant place that can only be reached if one has a magicalmap.”

“He must be told the truth,” Toren said, “no matter howdifficult it is to accept.”

“I suppose.” It was clear to Lady Beatrice that she would bethe bearer of that truth. Although Toren had shouldered the responsibilitiesof his inheritance, there were certain duties he shunned. Lord Carral would beleft to her, which was, perhaps, as it should be. But either Toren or Deasewould have to speak with Lord Carral eventually. He would want to hear thisnews at first hand. He would, she realized, want to know why his daughter hadlet him think she was dead-had let him go through the torture. What pain thiswould cause him!

“But Hafydd, or whoever he is now, was not seen to survivethis place … What did you call it?”

“The Stillwater.” Toren moved in his chair, stretching alittle as though he were in pain. He wore a deep red jacket with silveroak leafclasps, the white of his linen shirt at his wrists and neck hardly paler thanhis face. He applied himself to his wine, then refilled the glass himself, forthey had sent all the servants out. “But Hafydd will have survived.”

“We should have lopped off his head upon the field atHarrow-down, when we had the chance,” Fondor said.

Lady Beatrice did not hide her reaction to this statement,and Fondor looked suitably contrite.

Lady Beatrice took up her own glass, which appeared to beemptying at an alarming rate. Her poor mind could not grasp all that was beingsaid. It was enough that Hafydd still lived and that he had made a bargain witha sorcerer long dead, but all that Toren now told her! Servants of Deathappearing and dragging Beldor off into the night, Elise Wills alive and inthrall to some sorcerer who should have been dead a thousand years ago. And nowToren claimed that this legless man, Kai, really had been a servant of a son ofWyrr. A man without possessions, who went about in a barrow!

“I will want to speak with Kel, as soon as possible.” Torenpaused, his fork suspended halfway to his mouth. “I still don’t believe thePrince of Innes would start this war without his precious counselor present.”

“And a lucky thing for us that he did,” Fondor said. “I’vehad reports from Kel. It was a close-run battle. If Vast had not arrived whenhe did …”

“Vast shall be suitably rewarded,” Toren said, and the forkcontinued its journey.

“Yes,” Lady Beatrice said. “He shall.”

A knock at the door was followed by a guard. “News, Lady Beatrice,”the man said. “Yes, what is it?”

“Highwaymen have fallen on your guest of earlier this evening.”Lady Beatrice felt herself sway. “What do you say?”

“The two guards were found dead in the road just beyond thefirst bridge. The cart was taken. No sign of the crippled man they accompanied.”

Fondor and Toren looked at each other an instant, then wereboth on their feet and running out the door.

Lord Kel Renne rode along the crest of a low hill, gazingout over the Isle of Battle, the shimmering curve of the canal in the distanceand smoke from the pyre where they had burned the fallen still hazing the view.

Tuwar Estenford sat upon his horse near at hand, and he toostared out over the canal and to the lands beyond. “There is an army there, mylord,” he said firmly. The old man shifted in his saddle, trying to relieve thepain in a leg that had been gone now many decades. Ghost pain , he calledit, in his ghost limb.

Kel saw the old warrior wince.

“Yes, but what will Innes do with that army? That is what Iwonder?”

“It is what he is wondering as well,” Estenford said. “He isnot a smart man. He would not have considered the possibility of losing theIsle. Contingency plans would not have been in place. Now he would like to findsomething that will allow him to save face. Some small thing, for he has not alarge enough force to cross the Wynnd-not yet. But if he could manage somesmall deed here-kill a few of our men on patrol, or cross the canal in oneplace and take a few hostages. That is what we must be on guard for.”

“Lord Kel?” One of his lieutenants motioned to the grassy,southern hillside. A rider was galloping up the slope, his horse in a lather.

“A messenger from the Duke of Vast.”

“So I see,” Kel turned away from the view out over thecanal, taking one last look, as though he might catch a glimpse of an armyhiding in the wood.

The rider, hardly more than a boy, was himself out of breathwhen he arrived on the hilltop. His mount heaved beneath him like a bellows.The boy, blue-eyed and lightly bearded, banged a hand to his chest in salute. “Icome from the Duke of Vast with a message for Lord Kel Renne,” he said, ratherneedlessly, Kel thought.

“Yes, yes. Let me see it.”

Estenford intercepted the letter, keeping himself and hishorse between Kel and the messenger. Kel could see by the tenseness in the oldman’s carriage that he was ready to kill this young messenger in an instant ifneed be. The assassination of Kel Renne would do quite nicely as a face-savingact for the Prince of Innes, and Tuwar would give his life before he would letthat happen.