Robert Redick - The River of Shadows

“Pitfire,” he said, “I’ve got it, I understand. Neeps, what’s wrong with us?” He spurred the horse faster, catching up with Thasha and Hercol. “The idiot,” he said. “Arunis’ tol-chenni, the one he took from the lab. He’s going to use the idiot to control the Stone.”

They all looked at him, startled. “Why do you say so?” asked Myett, who was riding on Hercol’s shoulder.

“The birdwatchers-the physicians in the asylum-they were upset when he took that particular tol-chenni. They said he was special-”

“By the Night Gods!” Hercol exploded. “I am the fool in question! I should wear motley in a circus tent! The technicians said he was blind to danger. That he would swallow nails, walk off a cliff or into a fireplace.”

Thasha raised a hand to her cheek. “Aya Rin. He’s fearless. Unnaturally fearless.”

“And the Nilstone kills through fear,” said Pazel, “but it won’t kill that tol-chenni, will it? Arunis doesn’t have to control the Nilstone anymore. He’s found a puppet to do it for him. That’s what he was trying to do all along, with those men he drove to suicide. Once he gets control of the idiot’s mind-”

“He’s won,” said Ensyl.

Hercol’s face darkened. “He will have won only when all those who oppose him lie dead and cold.”

And Pazel thought: Arunis would agree with you there.

On they went into the darkness-slowly, with no lamps lit. Then the moon began to shine over the eastern hills, and by its light they quickened their pace. They moved through smaller woods, crossed other streams, passed the wreckage of country homes looted and abandoned. The night remained warm and hazy at first, but some three hours beyond the Ragwood they climbed the first foothill onto a plateau of leathery grass and small wizened conifers, and here a chill wind was blowing. They broke out heavier coats. Off to their left the Mai rumbled softly in its gorge.

“There’s shelter ahead, Stanapeth,” said Alyash, drawing up beside Hercol. He was pointing to a spot a few miles above them: a bluff where three buildings shone in the moonlight. Two were ruined, but the third, a barn maybe, appeared intact.

Hercol nodded. “If they are empty, we might sleep there,” he said. “Let us go and find out.”

Up they climbed, the horses stumbling over the ruts and stones. The buildings were all that was left of yet another farm: the buildings, and many acres of hacked-off stumps the remains of an orchard or a woodlot. The soldiers fanned cautiously through the farmyard, stalked through the ruined home and storehouse with halberds leveled. They met with no worse than bats and a pair of foxes, but they posted watches at the perimeter all the same.

The floor of the barn was dry, and its doors were still on their hinges. It was an ample structure, and the beams were solid enough to serve as hitching-posts for the animals. The horses applied themselves to their feed-bags, but the sicunas were turned out into the night and slinked away noiselessly, looking more like giant cats than ever.

“It’s cold already,” said Big Skip. “Let’s sweep a spot clear in the barn and have a fire. In that old shell the smoke won’t bother us. And some hot food would see us quicker up that mountain tomorrow.”

Hercol looked uneasy. “A small fire, then,” he said at last, “but well inside, away from the doors and windows.”

There was plenty to burn scattered about the farmyard, and soon a cheerful blaze was crackling on the earthen floor. They cooked yams and onions and salted beef, a hasty stew. The dlomu wanted to add dried pori fish to the pot but Vadu forbade it. “You men know as well as I that the smell of pori, fresh or dried, can carry twenty miles,” he said sternly. “And hrathmogs have sharp noses, and sharper teeth.”

Pazel found himself caught between hunger and exhaustion. Hunger prevailed, barely, but he was nodding over his bowl before he could empty it. Thasha put a finger under his chin and lifted.

“When we find Fulbreech,” she said, “don’t attack him. Don’t do anything.”

“I can’t promise that,” mumbled Pazel.

“You mean you won’t,” she said. “For Rin’s sake, he was Ott’s man, and Ott doesn’t use anyone who isn’t trained. Fulbreech could cut you wide open, and you’d never see the knife. He let you hit him on the quarterdeck because he thought a black eye would make me take his side against you.” She put her hand on his ankle. “Promise me you won’t be a fool.”

When Pazel shrugged, her hand squeezed like a tourniquet. “I’m not joking,” she said.

“What about you?” he said, pretending his foot wasn’t going numb. “What will you do when you see him?”

Thasha looked at him steadily. “I don’t care about Fulbreech anymore. But when we find Arunis, I’m going to be the one.”

“The one?”

“To kill him. Don’t try to stop me.”

“I’m blary fortunate,” he said, “that you’re around to keep me from being a fool.”

Thasha’s eyes were wild in the firelight, and her face grew hard and angry. Pazel met her gaze, hoping his own face looked merely bemused. Then all at once Thasha laughed and relaxed her grip. “You’re insufferable,” she said.

But they both knew he’d won again. Not the argument, but the struggle to keep her from vanishing into that transformed state, that furious intensity where her visions came and he ceased to know her. Late in the night he woke to find her snuggled against him, feet icy, lips warm, the blanket that had felt too small for him alone somehow stretched to encompass them both.

It felt like mere minutes later when someone began prodding his stomach. “Get up, get up now, we’re leaving.”

Pazel started; Thasha was still in his arms. “Leaving?” he said. “It’s pitch dark.”

Thasha groaned and clung to him. Then an oil lamp sputtered to life, and he snapped fully awake.

“Sorry, turtle doves,” said Neda, turning her back.

Pazel and Thasha sat up, blinking. From across the barn Pazel caught Jalantri staring at them with a strange look of outrage. Then he and Neda moved out of the barn.

Pazel and Thasha followed, and found the others already outside. At the edge of the yard some commotion was under way. Pazel heard a soft clink-clink. Moving closer, he saw that everyone was looking at one of the sicunas, twenty feet away beside a mound of dry brush, eating something. When Neda took a step in the creature’s direction, it growled.

Then Vadu took the lamp and approached the sicuna, whispering to it softly. When the light reached it Pazel’s stomach lurched. The sicuna was devouring a man-like creature. It was fur-covered and enormously muscled; its face was broad and flat like a bulldog’s, and a shield still hung from one limp arm. The sicuna had clearly caught it by the neck, which was torn wide open. The sound Pazel had heard was the creature’s shirt of mail, lifting as the sicuna ate.

“Hrathmog,” said Vadu. “That fire was a mistake, and we must leave at once. Sicunas kill in silence, but the creature will be missed by the rest of its band, and then they will come in force.”

“Even without this danger I should have been obliged to wake you,” said Hercol. “Ildraquin has just spoken to me: Fulbreech is moving. Indeed he is rushing away, more quickly than we can climb the mountain, at least until dawn.”

They packed swiftly, fumbling with bags and bridles. No one talked, everyone was cold, dawn was still far off. All the while Pazel’s ears strained for the first sound of attackers swarming out of the night.

The next hours were miserable. Summer might be at her peak in the city they had left behind but here frost slicked the trail, and the cold wind gnawed at them. The horses were skittish but could move no faster than a walk. The sicunas fared better, gliding on their broad, soft feet, growling low as their great cat eyes probed the darkness. Jackals, or wild dogs perhaps, bayed in the north, and from somewhere on the black ridges Pazel caught the echo of drums.