Three days later, Penrys and Zandaril were following the rough trails in the Craggies, headed northwest. As Tak Tuzap had advised them to, they’d stolen a boat to cross the Seguchi above the series of stepped waterfalls and rapids that gave Gonglik both its name, The Steps, and its industry as a mover of goods.
Tak had warned them there would be no trading trails that far to the west on the north side of the river and Penrys had grown weary of the rough and trackless terrain. It wasn’t truly steep, and you could walk over most of it without aid—though she was grateful for the walking staff given her by the anonymous miller—but it would present a serious barrier to any army with wagons to move.
They traveled by day, using their mind-sense to look for anyone within range, but Zandaril distrusted relying on that entirely. “People can be seen from further away than we can sense, if the conditions are right,” he’d said, and she was forced to agree with him. They tried to keep to the interior of the hills, but water was easier to find on the outer, and lower slopes, and it was harder to walk invisibly in daylight there.
The sky was overcast, threatening more autumn rains. They trudged and stumbled along, trying to avoid ankle-turning rocks.
“How far to the Horn is it, d’ya think?” she asked Zandaril, just to hear the sound of another voice in this lonely place.
“Not sure. They say you can see it from all over the northwest corner of Wechinnat. Start looking tomorrow, I think. That way.”
He lifted his arm and pointed west and a little south.
Penrys stared off in that direction, but it was just a featureless blue haze. She knew the second highest range of mountains in the world were not too far beyond the horizon, but you couldn’t tell that from here.
They’d lost part of the morning taking shelter when they’d felt two Rasesni scouts somewhere on the ridges northeast of them. Penrys had taken the opportunity while waiting to pull out the second book in their language and read further, taking advantage of the connection with them that made it possible. It was frustrating, to have to steal moments like this. Fully half the book remained unread, and any Rasesni-literate contact she had might be her last. Still, at least it wasn’t raining today, the way it did two days ago, when she’d had to forgo another chance at it.
There was more of a chill in the air, even in these lower hills, than down by the river. The cloak was welcome now more for its warmth, than as a disguise.
Zandaril interrupted her thoughts. “We have food for maybe two weeks, if we’re careful. We’re almost that far from Chang, I think. If we don’t turn around soon…”
“I know, I know.” A hawk screamed overhead, and she looked up at it, almost tripping with her next step. “Just two more days, and I’ll call this theory unproven and head back.”
She smiled over at Zandaril. “At least the packs get lighter, the more we eat.”
A rain shower passed through on the next day, in the early afternoon, and washed the air of its accustomed haze. When Penrys shouldered her pack again and took her first steps, watching her feet to avoid stumbling, she almost ran into Zandaril who had stopped, suddenly.
“There,” he said. “There’s Nakshadzam, the Horn’s Tip.” And he moved aside, so she could see.
Back-lit by the sun, a dark ridge lay athwart their distant path. The higher end was to the south, jutting up above the plain of the upper Seguchi. South of that gap, she could just barely make out the tip of the Damsnag range framing the other side.
She’d thought the Horn would be a single peak, but it ran north and south for a few miles along a smooth ridgeline, only slightly lower at its northern end, high above the hills of the Craggies that piled up at its feet.
“Nagthari’s through the gap, there,” Zandaril said.
She looked for the fort, Linit Kungzet, somewhere near the river and the gap, but the base of the Horn was blocked from her view by the shoulders of the lower slope she stood on.
Penrys cast her mind out as far as she could, in all directions. The clarity in the air was deceptive, and the distances were more than they seemed. It seemed unnatural that no people stirred in this landscape, as far as her mind reached.
Zandaril had shared her cast and felt her disappointment.
“Eyes see further than the mind, sometimes, whatever books may tell us,” he said.
This would be the last day of the search, and Zandaril was relieved by the thought. Tomorrow morning they would set their faces east again, back to Chang and his soldiers.
The ridge of the Horn was close enough now in the late morning light to make out its ragged edges. It wasn’t the sheer barrier it had seemed from a distance, but something eroded, with rough trails. Whatever stone composed it was completely different from the ancient weathered Craggies, like an intrusion placed by giant hands.
He looked back at Penrys, and surprised a smile on her face which wakened one of his own. “One more day,” he said.
“Let’s go north and get out of the Craggies,” she said, “before turning east. We’ll make better time, and we’re less likely to hit Tlobsung’s scouts beyond the hills.”
“Why don’t we swing north now? We could start angling that way.”
She nodded, and he turned right, climbing upward on the broken scree, keeping the Horn on his left. It seemed immediately less oppressive to remove that wall from his path, and his heart lightened. The air was chilly but pleasant, drawing off the heat of his exertion.
He reached the top of his local ridge and stopped to let his breath recover. When Penrys joined him, she paused for her usual scan of the area.
“Hsst!”
Startled, he did his own scan and felt two people moving, north of them and not far away. His eyes flicked around their surroundings, seeking a place to hide, and found a rocky depression, a hole at the base of two trees, partially masked by bushes. There wasn’t room for both of them inside the hole, but they hugged the ground in and around it and covered themselves with their cloaks.
The two men passed east, out of range, and Zandaril began to pick himself off the ground when Penrys grabbed his arm. “More of them,” she whispered.
He sensed two more pairs of men, both north of them. We mustn’t mind-speak. He tapped his forehead and shook his head, and she nodded in understanding. She moved her mouth to his ear and whispered, “Rasesni. Not the same as the ones in town.”
They hadn’t thought it through well enough, he realized. They forgot they’d be putting themselves in the path of whatever followed the invaders.
He flattened himself, partially covering Penrys with his drab cloak, a better match for the ground than her brown. She muttered into his ear, “Think like a tree.”
It was impossible to still his mind. He tried to make himself part of the ground, but Penrys’s shoulder was warm beneath his chest, and lumpy, and his nose was smashed against the back of her head. He found it difficult to ignore the scent of her hair. Not now, this isn’t the time to think of that.
He closed his eyes, but that just made him focus on his body, so he opened them again and stared at the ground, a couple of inches away, and began counting, slowly.
Nothing happened, and he started to doze off.
*What have we here?*
A strange mind-voice rattled him awake, and he felt Penrys twitch beneath him. He cast his mind out and felt three pairs of men converging on them, and then he couldn’t feel anything with his mind. When he tried to get up, he found he couldn’t move.
