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Twice that day we left the road to hide from approaching soldiers, coming down from the north. The second band had nearly two hundred riders. We were close enough to hear talking but not what they said.
"Baron Resler's in for a rough go," Lesh said as we mounted up again after the second group of riders were out of sight. "A lot of new soldiers heading his way."
"My uncle won't have the rough time," A
For our second bivouac in Fairy, we found a place near the stream the horses were willing to drink from. A horizontal tree with heavy foliage was between us and the road. There were enough other trees around to shelter us from the eyes of anyone riding by or flying overhead. Sleep was harder to come by that night. Memories of our visitor of the previous night intruded. We kept the same rotation on our watches. A
When my danger sense flared, I didn't leap straight up. There was nothing so compelling propelling me this time. The extra sense was more discriminating than a burglar alarm. I woke, listened for a moment, then got up on one knee. "Lesh? Harkane? A
"A
"Who was on watch?" I asked.
"She was, I guess," Lesh said. "She never woke me."
"I didn't hear anything," Harkane added.
I was sure that more than a few minutes had passed since I fell asleep. I had been dreaming, though I didn't recall the substance of my dreams, simply that they had been there, plural, apparently extending over some time. I felt rested, as if it were time to get up for the day.
"A
"Her horse is here," Harkane said.
"We can't look for her in the dark," Lesh grumbled. "Pardon my stubbor
I got out my flashlight and used it within the little nook where we had set up our bedrolls. A
"Maybe she heard something and went to investigate," I whispered-without any great conviction. "If anything had dragged her from camp, we would have heard the commotion." And, I would have known if anything like that had happened so close… at least, I thought I would have.
Lesh grunted. We waited in silence, for perhaps an hour, before we heard anything. My danger sense picked up a bit, but I had my sword in my hand, so there was nothing to do but wait-until A
"Where the hell have you been?" I asked when I was sure it was her. My flashlight showed blood on her tunic, but there was no hole in the fabric.
"There's a patrol camped nearby," she whispered. "I became aware of it after you fell asleep." She bared her teeth. "They never heard me. I killed two of them and got away without waking the rest."
"The rest? How many others?" I asked.
"Three. I'd have done them too, but one was stirring." She cackled softly. "I wanted to kill all but one, let him wake to find himself the lone survivor. That would have boiled his brains down to molasses."
"We'll have the elflord down on us for sure now," Lesh said. He didn't have to add another "I told you so" for my benefit.
The elflord or somebody. "You pull another stunt like this while you're with me and I'll throttle you myself," I told A
"They left a fire burning. You only need to go fifty paces north to see it." But she turned and started walking that way.
I snagged up my bow and quiver, and we all followed her. I shoved the flashlight in a pocket and concentrated on staying right behind A
"They're all human, after a fashion," A
It was easy to see which were already dead. The bloodstains looked black in the dim predawn light and fire glow.
"Lesh, Harkane, work as close as you can to the nearest man. I'll take the farthest and A
The job was necessary but not pleasant. I had never aimed a weapon at a human before. The bow wavered in my hands for a moment. It wasn't until A
12 – The Swamp
My rage had a life of its own. For a time, the fury was so consuming that a part of my mind could only stand back and watch in astonishment. For the rest, I had to fight to hold back my temper-a rage far beyond anything I had ever experienced before. We got back to our camp without trouble and hurried to get packed and to saddle our horses. By the time the sky was light enough for us to guide our horses to the road safely, I had been stewing for a half hour. Standing on the road, ready to mount, I finally felt-almost-confident that I could speak my mind without losing control completely.
"I want you to know," I told A
"I won't do anything like that again without your approval." There was nothing meek or repentant about her promise. I couldn't even be sure that I could trust it. I could only hope that my danger sense would warn me before she did anything else rash. But as the morning wore on, I noticed that A
It was a little different for me. No, make that a lot different. No matter what else happened-ever-I would never be the same. I had killed another human being, intentionally, "with malice aforethought." I had stood there in the dark and killed. Simple as that. And blaming A
You can't turn back from that.
There was fog that morning. It started patchy, not far north of our camp. At times, our heads were above it, making it look as if our horses were swimming through the clouds. As we moved on, the fog got thicker, totally enclosing us finally, until we could scarcely see fifty feet. For a couple of hours, the road-trail-was particularly rough and hilly as it skirted the line of hills that defined the isthmus. On the high ground, we sometimes rose above the fog. Then the road would drop almost to sea level again, plunging us back into the damp fog. The map at Castle Basil had been woefully shy of detail for the parts of the isthmus it showed. The swamp came as a complete surprise. We reined to a halt as a road dwindled to an uncertain track through the first bogs.