Michael Williams - Before the Mask

She turned again on the hot darkwind, watching and waiting.

Verminaard could not believc, as the three of them retrieved tbe horses and rode west in the lifting fog, that he and Aglaca had rescued the right girl.

He looked back at this Judyth twice. She was seated behind Aglaca on the mare. Dark hair, dark skin, the fiery blue-lavender eyes Aglaca had promised.

And the black tattoo, the dragon's head, he had seen on her right leg that day at the bridge.

And yet she was not at all the girl he had expected. Again he asked himself, Where is the blonde hair, the pale eyes, the temperament mild and grateful? She should have been near death-defenseless.

But Judyth was lovely and tall and pleasant, with a sharp mind and an assurance that had guided the three of them through even the thickest fog. She had steered them by scattered memories, recalling blasted trees and clusters of rocks she had seen but once or twice, and from those paltry landmarks, she directed them generally toward the Nerakan Forest and the Jelek Path.

Verminaard had doubted her at first, but then, when the mist subsided, he looked back. Dwindling into the distance was the village of Neraka, the afternoon sun blazing clearly on the right side of Takhisis's dark tower.

A hundred small fires burned on the battlements and walls, spreading rapidly through the outlying encampments.

"There's a fire spreading through the town!" he called to his companions, and Aglaca wheeled the mare about. Standing in the stirrups, Judyth gazed over Aglalca's head into the distance, her gemstone eyes bright and sharp.

"Ogres," she declared, her voice calm and strangely musical. "It's as I reckoned. Our incantation freed them as well. Best keep at the path we've chosen. That should be the Nerakan forest, far ahead and to our right."

Verminaard followed her gesture and saw a gray-green mass on the far horizon. The girl was right after all. They were northward bound indeed.

He glanced once again at her leg. Yes, it was the same leg, all right.

For the last mile or so, even before the fog had cleared entirely, Judyth and Aglaca had engaged in quiet conversation. Verminaard had caught bits of it from his seat atop Orlog. Judyth prattled contentedly about things remote and Solamnic, and Aglaca joined in with a flurry of questions, his voice rising dangerously above a whisper, cracking with excitement in the thin, crisp air.

"Around the Great Library of Palanthas," Judyth explained as Aglaca guided the mare through a heap of fallen rock, "there are over a hundred kinds of roses planted. Some never cease to bloom."

"Are there blue daisies? The medicinal ones?" Aglaca asked eagerly. "How about nard and black iris?"

Verminaard muttered something hot, indecipherable.

Judyth turned and looked at the hulking figure on the black stallion. Her face set in a cold frown, she clutched the front of her robe tightly against the cool mountain winds. This Verminaard is handsome, she thought. Those blue eyes, and those shoulders, and arms like drasil trees. Though he's cut badly on the right arm-probably in the tunnel. I'll see to it later if he'll let me. There's something about him that's so stormy and melancholy, though. It makes you…

Verminaard rumbled through his clenched teeth. "Perhaps if the two of you could cease this talk of libraries and roses long enough to spot high ground," he said, "you could make yourselves useful on the long road home."

Judyth looked away. Amazing blue eyes, yes, but a voice sharp and critical.

"That's easy enough, Verminaard," Aglaca answered cheerily. "And with a hard ride behind us and the good mare double-burdened, you're wise to be looking for rest this early in the evening."

They rode on in a stunted silence for an hour or so, with only the lofty cry of raptors as accompaniment, and then, as the sun started to set and the sky to darken, the muffled, distant hoot of an owl sounded in the bordering trees of the Nerakan Forest. And a new rumbling, deep and even more distant, arose on the plains behind them. In the last of the gloaming, they reached a rise and looked back to the south, where a dozen torches spread over the wide plains, moving steadily and tirelessly north.

"Cavalry," Verminaard observed.

Judyth shook her head. "Ogres. Your idea of high ground looks better and better. Traveling over the rocks will cover our tracks better than traveling through grassland."

"D'you think-" Aglaca began.

"No. They're probably not after us," Judyth explained. "Or if they were, they've been distracted by other sounds and smells by now. Ogres are notoriously stupid, and I saw enough of them in Neraka to know their reputation's earned. It's a hunt, surely, but a random and disorganized one. We're safe if we're out of their way. Besides," she concluded, drawing a pouch from her belt, "your arm needs mending, Verminaard."

The riders took to a high, rocky path veering toward the stark, obsidian cliffs that lined the western border of the Nerakan plains. They rode a mile more in the diminishing light, until Aglaca reined the mare to a halt at the mouth of a little box canyon, an inlet in the rocks not thirty feet across, bordered by scrub plants and rubble and a solitary high trail that meandered up the cliffside.

"Look ahead of us!" Aglaca exclaimed, pointing toward a spot in the shadow of the rock face. "That's out of the way, I'd reckon. It's a campsite ready made-an abandoned bed of rushes and a smothered fire not two days old."

He leaned forward and peered at the ground. "And some sort of stone arrangement. I'm not sure what it's here for, but it's as fresh as the fire by the markings around it."

Judyth studied it as well, her gaze following Aglaca's pointing finger. "Stones? Oh. 'Tis a pair of warding signs-no more. Logr and Yr. Water and yew bow, journey and protection. Quite common around here. Travelers and bandits set 'em alike, though I cannot remember seeing the two of these ever placed together."

"I saw two placed side by side at the edge of the garden at Nidus," Aglaca observed. "Kaun and Kaun. Sore and sore. Made Lord Daeghrefn break out in hives when he passed between 'em. I took it as the old gardener's work."

"But these runes mark a serious business," Judyth said.

Aglaca nodded, his eyes on the lush greenery around the warding. Roses and comfrey, rosemary and marrow- the red symbol of love amid herbs of healing, memory, and the banishment of melancholy. "Tis a blessed place indeed," he whispered.

Unconcerned with the vegetation, Verminaard craned toward the stones, marveling at the rune signs.

"What was a good campsite so recently is probably still a good place to stay the night," Judyth observed cautiously, scanning the horizon for any sign of bandits, of pursuit.

"That's not always the case, girl," Verminaard said testily. "Why do you think the site was abandoned?"

"No dramatic reason," Judyth declared, regarding the big lad calmly. "Someone moved on. D'you plan to stay here two nights? Or are we bound elsewhere on the morrow?"

Aglaca hid a smile and slipped from the mare. Approaching the campsite, he crouched before the extinguished fire and whistled appreciatively.

"Somebody knows the full particulars of camping," he observed, looking up wide-eyed at his two companions. "No more than a handful of wood, and this fire burned through the night!"

"How do you know?" Verminaard asked sullenly, dismounting from the weary stallion.

"Didn't go to get more wood," Aglaca replied solemnly, pointing at the tracks around the fire. "So it's my guess that this was enough."

"We can't have a fire, you know," said Judyth. "The ogres will see it."

"Trust me," Aglaca said. "I can kindle a fire that an eagle couldn't spot."