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Then in the distance a saddled horse turned up, grazing beside the road, no one in evidence. It looked up as they came, still chewing its mouthful of grass.
“One of ours,” Idrys said. “Pela
Of the rider, one of their Guelen scouts, there was no sign.
“Dead or taken,” Uwen said quietly. The horse, its master fallen, had run for its pastures, but ru
Past the next ridge, the wind picked up out of the west, into the horses’ faces. The woods came into view, lying across that small series of hills that he so well remembered. That was the woods where he had met Auld Syes. The woods of the fountain. And the Shadow was there, plain to his eyes.
“That,” Tristen said with a chill. “That place. That’s where.”
“A place fit for ambush,” Idrys said. “I’d thought of it. If w overland, we’re bound to go through it. That’s what they plan. land is a maze, forest and hills. I rode through it.”
There was discussion back and forth. Umanon and Cevulir their horses closer. No one wanted to venture that green shadow sending scouts. Some argued to go overland, toward Emwy, said no, it was too rugged and made for ambush by lesser forces.
“Of which they may have several,” Cefwyn said. “Earl As~yr well served by the S~endel.”
“Bandits,” Umanon said. “Bandits and thieves.”
“Well-armed ones,” Idrys said.
But, Tristen thought, fighting Dys’ attempt to move forwa, there was no sense in debate. There was no question, none, that hostile. It was fatal, if they sent a man into that. It was a risk to that gray place, but look he did, and it was eerie to know it vacant, very vacant. They had now to go forward. The lords debated other but they had no choice but fight or go back to Althalen, where the~ far safer for a camp under attack.
And something masked itself in that gray vacancy—as it m something else in that distant woods. Something in the gray plac~ both shadow—and gray like mist, moving about where it would. M had not stopped it. Emuin had not. It was insubstance. It manifest, the wind.
That which waited in the woods—was substance, and thick beneaththe leaves.
“Tristen?” he heard Cefwyn ask. But it was not a voice in the greyplace, it was here, and Cefwyn’s voice held concern. “Tristen, do youhear me?”
Something shadowy leapt at him in his distraction. Not a small something. Something that wanted to hold him, seize him, weaponless, carry him off to Ynefel. He jumped back from it, heart pounding against his ribs, and in the world of substance, Dys kicked and pulled to be free.
All trespass into illusion had peril now. The Shadow had advanced toclose, and that said to him that they would find their enemies in the world closer, too: Aséyneddin was there.
“It’s another of his fits,” said Uwen.
“No,” Tristen said, trying to shut out what was still trying to take him, holding to this place, the solid mass of horse under him. He kept his eyes open, burning the light of the world’s sky and the shadow-shapes of hills and woods into his vision. Cefwyn and Uwen and Idrys were close at hand. They willed no harm to him.
The other thing would unmake him—if it could not use him against those he least wanted to harm. Against all Mauryl’s work in the world. It wanted that undone, the barriers to its will all removed.
“Tristen.”
“No, my lord, forgive me.” It was hard to speak against the weight that crushed him, and he must hold Dys, for the horse felt the tension trembling in his legs and in his hands, and was fighting him continuously to move.
Do not leave us, Cefwyn had begged him. Do not leave us. And he tried not to. He did try to keep his wits about him in this world.
“Aséyneddin is there, m’lord King. In the woods. I have no doubt.”
A shiver came over him then. He slipped into that risky place, and felt thunder in the air, like storm.
He twitched as he escaped there to here in a shock that rang through the world, but the two lords by him had never felt it: they talked on of strategy and ambush while he felt ambush in the very roots of the hills.
He felt the Shadows all stir beneath the leaves of Marna Wood, but the lords talked of whether his warning meant mortal enemies, and whether they could draw attack out to them and not risk the woods.
“If they stay in that woods,” Idrys said, “they risk having it fired around them. Your grandfather would not have stuck at it.”
“These are my lady’s people,” Cefwyn said, rejecting that. “Not all of them may even be here by choice. We carry her ba
“They are rebels,” Idrys said.
“No fire, master crow. I’ll not make war after that fashion.”
“Against wizardry, m’lord? What will our enemy stick at? We’ll not venture in there. We’ll have them out, if they are there.” “They are there,” Cefwyn said.
“Tristen is here,” Idrys said. “That indeed is our certainty, m’lord King. And I do believe his warnings. It’s the advice I doubt. This haste to go blind into that.”
“He is not blind,” Cefwyn said.
Came a rush of air just above their heads. A shadow swooped over them. The horses snorted and threw their heads in startlement. But Tristen knew it with a leap of his heart.
“Owl!” he called to the wide sky. “Owl, where are you.”
“Gods!” Uwen gasped, and men about them swore.
“Devils,” some said.
But Tristen lifted his hand to the sky and Owl settled on his fist, bated his great blunt wings a moment and flew again, a Shadow indeed, by broad daylight.
“Gods save us,” Cefwyn said, and Idrys muttered in his hearing.
“Gods save us indeed, my lord King, but—this is our ally.”
“Well he were our ally,” Cefwyn said. “It harmed you none at all. Did it? Did it, master crow? Did it, any of us?”
“Follow Owl!” Tristen said, for Owl’s path was clear to him, as Owl’s warning was clear as a blaze across the sky: as, discovered in its ambush, a darkness of men and horses began to stream out of that line of woods ahead of them. It spread out, moving first to fill the road, and then to spread out wings beyond it, like some vast creature taking to flight.
“As6yneddin has sprung his trap!” Umanon shouted out. “Attend the flanks, Your Majesty! He’ll want the hills!”
Likewise they needed room to spread wide—needed the flat and the hills on either side in front of that stretch of woods, and they did not yet, by reason of the trees, know how many that army was.
Kanwy struggled to be loosed. Dys pulled at the bit. All about, there was a shifting in their own ranks as a wind out of the west ripped at the standards. The standard-bearers, Cefwyn’s, his, Ninévrisé’s, all three in the center, and Umanon and Cevulirn on either hand, were advancing; but the hills had taken on an u
“My lord!” Tristen said, reining Dys back with difficulty. “They are already in the hills, my lord—they’re there, left and right of us, where we must pass!”
Cefwyn did not question. “Cevulirn!” he said, and waved the lord of the Ivanim and his light horse toward the hills on their left. “Umanon!”
Him he sent to the right flank; and dispatched a messenger to the Amefin lords at their backs. “Follow my ba
“Sweep them east, away from the woods! We shall break their center! Do not let them close behind us!”
Dys was pulling at the rein, breathing noisily and chafing at the bit, and given rein—but of a sudden Elwynim light horse were pouring off the hills toward them and sweeping in to try to envelop them, downhill against Umanon and Cevulirn on either hand. The heavy center, still coming out of the woods, lay beyond those two rapid-moving wings that attempted to fold in on them.