Rylin grabbed his sword from beside Aradel’s body. No point in wiping it now. There’d be more blood on it shortly.
The blade shook in his hand until he tightened his grip. Between his earlier spell use and his fruitless efforts to save the governor he was mostly spent. A quick glance over the troops didn’t give him a great deal of confidence. They looked bereft, staring dumbly at Aradel’s body or out at the Naor riding on their position. Up slope, among the trees, he heard wailing from the civilians. If he had a few moments he might be able to organize them into a makeshift spear wall, for surely they had knives they could tie to tree limbs.
But he didn’t have enough moments. He ordered the dull defenders to range themselves and got a quick count of their arrows. They had eleven.
“Hold your fire ’til my command,” he said. “Each shot has to count!”
Either eager or foolhardy, one enemy rider pressed hard toward the hill, two horselengths ahead of his companions. He threw himself from the saddle and started up the slope without a backward glance.
Rylin snapped a command. “You, woman, aim for his throat. The rest of you continue to hold.”
She might still have been sniffling, but the young woman dropped the lead warrior halfway up. Six more came after, but nine arrows brought them down. A dark-eyed youth nocked his final shaft in readiness for the next wave of shouting, painted enemies.
Rylin spied his own quiver lying just beyond the rise. Lucky, except that four Naor were halfway up the hill toward it already.
“Hold your line,” he called, and vaulted a sheltering boulder to advance across the field of Naor bodies.
He met the first two attackers as they reached his former landing area, knocking one tentative swipe aside before driving his blade through a bearded face. He backstepped a mad thrust from a snarling redhead, kicked his knee from the side, then hacked deep through his abdomen. As that one dropped, screaming, Rylin reached for the quiver’s strap with his left hand and nearly got himself impaled on a well-cast spear. He snatched it up from where it stood vibrating in the earth, reversed it, and pitched it at the Naor who’d thrown it.
The warrior’s hands wrapped the haft as it tore through his leather cuirass, and his eyes met Rylin’s in surprise before he collapsed, blood dribbling from his mouth.
Rylin grabbed the strap and took in the field. Lelanc had swooped in again to scatter some of the horsemen, but they were regrouping. As best as Rylin could judge, they had only a short while before a wave of ten hit, and then a further fifteen or so weren’t far behind. Still, they wouldn’t reach the hill at the same time, which made matters a little less impossible.
The defenders eyed him with respect as he rejoined them. That was something—they no longer looked as though they were on the verge of crumbling.
The young woman had seemed a fine archer, so he handed her his arrows. He had a paltry dozen. A man with a bandaged arm passed Rylin a watersac and he took it, but he addressed the woman. “Take the leaders down as soon as they hit the hill. You.” He pointed to a muscular man beside the one with the wound. “Gather the closest spears while bandage-arm here watches.”
The man nodded once and leapt over, keeping low as he searched among the dead and dying enemies. His friend kept a tense running commentary on the approaching Naor.
Rylin nodded to the remaining defenders, then took a quick swig. Stale water was rarely so refreshing as when downed during combat.
Soon the respite was over. The spear-gatherer nearly got skewered when one of the foremost riders hurled his weapon. It clattered off a boulder an arm’s length from where he was bent. Poles in hand, the warrior quickly clambered to join his friends, snagging even the late-coming weapon on his way.
“These Naor look different,” the woman soldier remarked. Her voice had lost its former tremble.
She was right. The incoming lot had white feathers in their helms, and their armored shirts were a mix of leather and bronze plate. Rylin wasn’t as seasoned as the previous generation of Altenerai, who knew each Naor tribe by sight, but grasping at an old memory of something Asrahn had said, he thought it likely these warriors were from Almaza, one of the most hospitable and populated of Naor realms, and the second Mazakan had “unified.” They were supposed to be a cut above the regular soldiers. Damn.
“It’s only three to one,” Rylin told his people, “and we have a hill, and a crack archer.”
“And an alten,” the young woman returned, then asked, impulsively: “What’s your name?”
He half smiled. Everyone recognized the old guard by sight, even if they’d never seen one in person, but he was still unknown, no matter three years with the ring. She must have been distracted when Aradel had greeted him. “What’s yours?”
The question seemed to surprise her. “Denalia.” She nocked her arrow, and let fly as the first three started up the hill.
She took down two, but more followed in their wake. Screaming enthusiastically in the front was a warrior with a scarred bronze face and large round shield held high. Denalia scored a hit against his shoulder, but it stuck in the armor and bobbed like a strange flag as he kept on.
Rylin told her to continue shooting at the more distant ones to slow the advance, and commanded the others to reserve one spear but loose the rest as they wished.
Then he leapt into the fight.
The Naor leader thrust a barbed spear at his chest. Rylin sidestepped and knocked the polearm out of line with a sword blow. The attacker swung his shield into Rylin’s off arm. Ignoring the stinging pain, Rylin threw himself forward and drove his blade through the gap under the warrior’s left arm.
The leader cried out, then shouted again as bandage-arm thrust a spear deep into the Naor’s back. Rylin backstepped as blood spattered in his direction and the enemy warrior tumbled.
Then the rest of the Naor ran up, and his whole life was reduced to instincts developed over the course of years of practice bouts. In the heat of battle there was no time to debate which sort of parry to use or when to strike, there was only action honed by experience, as one bearded, deadly adversary after another lunged at him. Here one was jabbing with a spear, there another coming in from the side with a sword. He felled both with deft footwork and lightning strikes, then maneuvered another to trip over one of the corpses. This lot was tougher, and fought on even with gory wounds. Twice they got past Rylin, only to be stopped by a trio of defenders with spears, and once Denalia shot one flanking him at point-blank range.
Finally, though, he stood panting, aching from where his khalat had fended off several blows that would leave him bruised. He thought to see ten or more Naor on the heels of these when he looked out.
Only then did he observe that his weary band had reinforcement, of a sort.
Another alten had arrived at the base of their hill, astride a coal-black horse. A heavy cloak trailed behind the rider, obscuring parts of a khalat, and a helm concealed the person’s features. Rylin could just make out a sapphire glittering on the sword-wielding hand that deftly eviscerated one of three remaining Almaza riders. The rest of their looming enemies hadn’t vanished, exactly. One lay in the grasses separate from his head; another, dead or mortally wounded, was being dragged away by his horse. Several more had been cast off from frightened horses and lay twitching among the grasses, with no mark upon them. There was no mistaking the signs. This alten was a weaver.
In the haze of battle, it took longer than Rylin would like to guess the alten’s identity. Given that the newcomer employed magic, unless this was Kalandra returned from beyond, it could only be one of three people: Denaven, who almost surely wouldn’t ride alone to their assistance; Belahn, who would be broader through the shoulders; or Cerai, that famously independent alten who’d gone her own way ever since Denaven’s appointment as commander. Rylin had met her on only a couple of occasions, and hadn’t seen her since he’d been awarded his ring.
She-who-was-probably-Cerai downed her final opponent with an exact and deadly swipe.
In moments, the sapphire-bearing rider had reached the summit, her horse somehow, incredibly, picking its way up the slope through the scree and corpses. Rylin marveled over the animal, a creature of midnight and nightmares. It stood eerily still, like a gameboard piece, as the alten swung down from the saddle and took off her helmet, cloak unfurling behind her.
He hadn’t remembered Cerai was so striking.
There was no one single feature of the woman that captivated him, though he liked the high arch of her eyebrows, the fine straight nose with an upturned tip, the long-lashed, azure eyes, the mane of lusterous black hair. Though fifteen or more years his senior, the lines about her eyes and cheeks were less detraction than refinement to her allure. Rylin’s lust was tempered with the appreciation one might feel at sight of a natural wonder, like a perfect sunset over wave-kissed cliffs.
She paused in front of him and raised her hand. He shifted his sword to his left and saluted her in return, still panting from his exertions
“Hail, Alten.” Her voice was warm and a little husky. “Rylin, isn’t it?”
That was exactly what Aradel had said. “Alten Cerai. Yes, I’m Rylin.”
“Any others with you?”
He assumed she meant Altenerai. “Varama is on her way. Aradel was commanding when I got here, but…”
Cerai’s lips tightened; she asked where Aradel was, then pushed brusquely through to the body before kneeling next to it, hand to the fallen woman’s chest. Rylin glanced at the faces of the rest of the soldiers, and found renewed grief. He didn’t need to open his eyes to the inner world to guess Cerai was examining her old comrade for any lingering signs of life. And he wondered: skilled as Cerai was, might she be able to pull Aradel back from the final realm? Might there still be a faint spark to set blazing once more?
Apparently not, for after a long while Cerai looked stonily down, her own hand pressed across her heart. She stood slowly, continuing to regard her fallen comrade.
From somewhere behind came the whoosh of enormous wings. Rylin turned to see Lelanc descending close to their hill, her clawed back feet angled lower so that they would first strike the earth. She touched lightly to the clear ground at the bottom of the rise and carried on at an ungainly run that brought her bounding up, over, or around debris, with surprising speed.
He felt heartsick as the ko’aye folded her wings and searched the gathered humans with her huge luminous eyes, heedless that her left rear leg pressed a Naor corpse more deeply into the soil. “Aradel?” she asked directly of Rylin, ignoring the weeping soldiers around him.
Rylin answered softly. “I’m sorry, Lelanc. She’s dead.”
A short outraged cry slipped from the ko’aye’s beaked mouth, and her head thrust forward, followed closely by the rest of her feathered body, which scattered the startled mourners.
As Lelanc peered down upon the still form of her longtime companion, Rylin turned to Cerai quietly. “Can you get the defenders organized? There’s some refugees higher up slope.”
“I’ll get them moving,” Cerai asserted, picking up on his hint; after a last look down at Aradel, she stepped away. The snap in her voice brooked no opposition as she addressed the soldiers. “Time to go! The Naor aren’t that far behind. Hop to it.”
Only Denalia lingered, wiping tears from her eyes. “We need to transport the body,” she said.
“Of course. Lelanc needs a moment, though.”
Denalia nodded absently before stepping away.
Rylin waited beside Lelanc, watching the creature. He saw the feathered neck rising and perceived a mournful trill growing slowly into a resonant growl before exploding into a startling, ear-rending shriek of pain, as though a sword had been driven into a sheet of metal and then dragged through it blade first. All the humans turned to them in alarm while Rylin resisted the insane urge to draw his weapon. The ko’aye fixed him with a fierce expression that made him feel like a rodent under the gaze of a stooping hawk.
“I will slay many Naor for this,” the creature vowed.
He wasn’t sure what to say but figured he should calm her before she flew off and got herself killed. “Some of Aradel’s last words were of you,” he said carefully. “She wanted to thank you.”
“Thank me?”
“She said to thank you. I think she meant for your friendship.”
Lelanc clicked her beak.
“I want to avenge her, too,” Rylin said.
“Then come with me.”
For a moment, his spirit rose to have earned the trust of so fierce and magnificent a beast. But then, seeing the dozens of men, women, and children clambering down from the higher forested slope behind them, watching them drag cautious horses after them by their lead lines as the soldiers called them to hurry, he knew where his true duty lay. They had to be escorted to safety. He turned back to Lelanc. “I have to guard these people first. Come with us. There are too many Naor to fight alone.”
“You would have me wait? To delay?”
How to reason with her? “First we care for the living. If we don’t they may die. Then we will see to the honored dead.”
“The dead are meat,” Lelanc objected. “They do not need to be seen.”
“You’re right,” he agreed, much as he disliked the way the ko’aye expressed her sentiment. “Only the living cry for vengeance. But don’t risk your life alone. Fight at our side. We’ll slay many more that way.”
Lelanc’s head cocked. “I hear wisdom in your words. But my heart cries! It needs the blood of enemies!”
“Give us time.”
Lelanc’s head bobbed and her nostrils flared. She spoke very slowly, as if vocalizing each word was a silent struggle. “My sister shared words with you, which is not smoke. You share the ring, so you are something like blood. And Varama said you would be my friend, and she has never lied.” Lelanc seemed to be reasoning aloud. She raised her head above his own. “I will hear the call of your wisdom and not the red beat of my heart. What would you have me do?”
“Help watch for us. See how close the Naor are. And if you would, bear word to Varama.”
“I will do these things. But if the enemies come close to your people, you will fly with me?”
“I’d like that very much.” He bowed his head to her.
Lelanc looked a final time at her fallen friend, then backed away and turned to pick her way awkwardly down the slope, using her half-opened wings for balance, before leaping and beating her way into the air. Rylin noted that Cerai’s strange horse didn’t shy no matter that Lelanc’s left wing came within a handspan of its head.
To the left of where the ko’aye gained the sky, Denalia was organizing refugees into a column. Cerai stood nearby and worked the air with one hand, the way some weavers did as they manipulated tendrils of will. He was too tired to watch in the inner world, and her intentions were clear in any case, for the dozen or so riderless Naor mounts that had been ambling uncertainly came trotting up in a line.
Gathering all of them at once was an impressive feat, something he himself couldn’t have managed. And yet Cerai didn’t seem remotely tired.
Rylin whistled for bandage-arm and his friend, and when he got their attention he helped them ready Aradel’s body for transport on one of the carts. While they finished wrapping her in some worn camp blankets, Denalia filled him in on how they’d gotten here. Her soft brown eyes were red-rimmed, but her voice was even.
Before dawn, she told him, Aradel had flown out with a small cavalry troop to learn why one of her signal towers had stopped reporting. They’d found an exhausted group of fleeing villagers, and while Aradel conferred with them she’d sent Lelanc aloft to reconnoiter. The Naor had discovered them soon after Lelanc was out of sight. Aradel hadn’t encountered any of Varama’s squires.
“You know the rest,” Denalia said, then added, “it was an honor to fight beside you, Alten.”
“Likewise.”
“You were incredible.” Though weary, she spoke with youthful sincerity. How young was she, exactly? Nineteen? Sixteen?
He appreciated the compliment, but he was already revisiting his actions and wondering what he might have done differently if he’d had Cerai’s level of power. “I’m glad I could help.”
“Help? You stopped an entire regiment of Naor. Single-handedly. You dropped straight out of the sky to our rescue!”
Well, sort of. “It wasn’t a whole regiment.”
“As though that makes it unworthy!” She shook her head. “We’d all be dead if you hadn’t come. I’m sorry if I sounded critical when you were working on the governor. I just—I really wanted you to save her. She’s my aunt,” she blurted.
There was a world of difference between Denalia’s peaches-and-cream complexion, just visible beneath the layer of grime, and Aradel’s nut brown, but there had been frequent intermingling between denizens of the realms for generations. Rylin was less puzzled by the declaration of familial connection than he was further saddened. “I’m sorry. I wish I could have done more. I served with her, briefly, when I was a squire, and I always respected her.”
“She was brilliant,” Denalia agreed.
“Are you an officer?”
Denalia blushed. “Sort of. I mean, yes.” She lowered her voice. “The Naor killed Officer Etrin, so that left me next in line. I’ve a lot to live up to.”
“You’re a fine shot.”
He saw a pretty smile bloom under her dirt. She might clean up nicely.
Denalia seemed inclined to talk further until he reminded her they needed to get moving. She grew solemn as her companions secured their dead to a sturdy cart. Rylin was turning away when a trio of ladies stopped to thank him. They looked bone-tired and their clothes were flecked with mud, but they’d maintained their complicated head scarves. Like most women of The Fragments, the garments hid all but a single lock of hair that lay neatly against their foreheads.
He exchanged a few hurried pleasantries as boys and girls, some staring his direction, clambered into wagons with the old ones.
Cerai finished distributing the captured horses among the allies, seeing to it that those not in wagons were mounted, then joined Rylin. “We should be able to get these people to safety, assuming we don’t run into another column.”
“I sent Lelanc aloft to check,” he said. “And to send word to Varama.”
“How close is she? Does she have many troops with her?”
“She’s alone. We’ve got almost sixty squires of varied ranks, but they’re probably halfway to Alantris by now. Assuming they didn’t run into a Naor patrol. I don’t suppose you’ve seen Kyrkenall?”
“Is he here too?”
He smiled wryly. “It doesn’t seem like it. What are you doing here?”
“I’ve been keeping an eye on the Naor,” she said. “Although I see now I should have been doing a better job.” Before he could ask for further details, she asked another question of her own. “Are you wounded? Is any of that blood yours?”
He looked down at his splattered khalat, raised a hand, touched something wet on his cheek. “I’m fine. Just winded,” he admitted. “I used a little too much magic.”
“Then take some of mine.”
Before he could object she pressed a hand to his throat. Her skin was cool but her presence was like a thunderbolt, and he tried not to stare.
Energy coursed back into him; limbs that had felt like lead returned to something approximating normal, and his breath eased. She lowered her hand and smiled at him, seemingly none the worse for wear.
“Better?”
“I am, thank you.” Life just wasn’t fair. Some weavers were born with greater gifts than others. He’d long heard that Cerai had more energy at call than the average weaver, and now he’d experienced it. She’d used sorcery to fell multiple opponents, control scattered horses, then had magics left to rejuvenate him.
She smiled again and stepped back. “I think we’ve much to discuss, but we’d best get things going. I’ll take the van, you take the rear, right?”
“Right.” That felt more like a suggestion from a colleague than an order from a senior alten. And it made sense, so there was no reason to debate.
Cerai continued: “We’re near the Hawklan pass. From there it’s a fairly easy ride to Alantris.”
“That sounds fine.”
In only a few moments, Cerai was once more in the saddle of her peculiar mount, leading the way, and a train of horse-pulled carts and mounted riders followed. It seemed a pitifully small number of dejected people huddled in the backs of the carts, and Rylin wondered how many of their friends and families had been left behind. How many were even now laboring for the Naor, or lay dead on their pyres?
Try as he might, those concerns were never terribly far from his mind, because he had to keep looking back, vigilant for new pursuers. He watched, too, for Lelanc, bearing word about Varama or the enemy, yet saw nobody above or between the towering pines on either hand. He followed the transport wagon for the dead, which bore Aradel, nearly a dozen soldiers, and two villagers.
The survivors were indeed fortunate he’d come along when he did, and he was fortunate Cerai had popped up out of nowhere. Much as he was grateful for her timely arrival, she was a disquieting mystery. After the war she’d been posted to the outer realms, riding her own way much as Kyrkenall had done. Varama didn’t count her among their enemies, but they’d found her name all over the ledgers in the Hall of Exalts. She was the only alten still seeking hearthstones.
If that weren’t enough to arouse some suspicion on his part, there was her bizarre horse. The thing had continued to stand impossibly still until Cerai had climbed into the saddle to depart. The creature’s discipline surpassed any he’d ever seen. Even the finest animals would be expected to shake their head every now and then, or twitch an ear, or even surreptitiously bend to snatch a little grass. All Cerai’s did was stand and breathe.
What manner of horse was it, and where had Cerai found it?
He watched uneasily for several hours, sometimes trailing at quite a distance, but he never sighted any Naor. Finally they arrived at a pretty hillside village, and one of the elders there was happy to relay that all five groups of Altenerai squires had passed through earlier in the day. Thank the Gods. Rylin was about to join Cerai in a more and more agitated conversation about the villagers’ need to evacuate, but a check overhead showed him Lelanc had at last returned.
The ko’aye descended upon a meadow just beyond a wheat field, beating wings to slow her speed. Rylin rode forth to meet her. He was halfway through the field when he heard hooves pounding behind him, and he turned to discover Cerai cantering after on her strange black horse. As she reined in beside him, he noted again that her mount loomed two hands higher than his black.
They halted as Lelanc struck the ground with surprising delicacy and then raised her head to stare at them. She waited a hundred yards out, her wings only partly folded and fluttering a little as if in nervous agitation.
At the snort of Rylin’s horse, he understood the reason for Lelanc’s hesitance. She must know that horses were, at the least, uncomfortable around her. He climbed out of his saddle and started toward the ko’aye, Cerai walking at his side.
Once they’d drawn within ten feet, Lelanc dipped her head to them. “I greet you, ring family of my ground sister.”
Rylin bowed in response. “We greet you, rider of winds.” Strange, how easily formality came to him when speaking to the great feathered serpent.
Lelanc wasted no time. “Varama comes. She is not far behind. On this trail.”
Excellent. “What about the Naor?”
“Those who sent the ones we killed have halted. They scurry back and forth, uncertain.” With all of their mounted scouts eliminated, the contingent must be regrouping. “But a larger amount is in the valley east. Maybe two days away when walking. Maybe less. They march toward Alantris.”
Good news and bad. Probably the Naor they’d encountered had been an advance column—one sent off from the host to secure the inhabited southern valleys and win plunder for its kinglet.
“Are the Naor likely to come upon Varama?” he asked.
“Not unless she slows or the enemies move faster.”
Rylin turned to the woman beside him. “I’ll go out to meet her.” He was about to ask if Cerai would mind taking his horse to the village so he could fly with Lelanc.
“I’ll go with you,” Cerai said. “I think there’s a lot we need to discuss.”
There was, at that. A little disappointed he wouldn’t be taking to the air, he nonetheless nodded acknowledgment, then spoke to Lelanc. “Cerai and I are going to double back and rendezvous with Varama. Can you keep a watch on the Naor columns until we get her safe?”
Lelanc took a moment to digest this question. “I will do this for you. But later we will kill Naor, yes?”
“Depend upon it.”
“I will. Clear a way for me, Rylin. Your horses will not like when I run forward.”
He and Cerai retreated. The hill villagers were hurriedly yoking horses to wagons they loaded with belongings. Cerai galloped back to speak with them while Rylin watched Lelanc take flight.
He stared until she vanished into the distance. Cerai joined him a short time later. “All the outlying villages will have to retreat to Alantris,” she said.
“That’s as Aradel wished. Can the city hold them all?”
She arched an eyebrow at him, and he felt as though he must have said something stupid, though he couldn’t imagine what it had been.
“There’s been plenty of room in Alantris,” she said. “Ever since the war.”
He nodded. Of course.
“Let’s get moving,” Cerai said, as if eager to break the awkward silence, and they started back down the trail. She addressed him casually. “I’ve heard some of the veterans scoffing about you newly ringed, but I should have known better, as Asrahn remained in charge of training. It seems you acquitted yourself well today.”
“That’s kind of you. The tales I’ve heard don’t do you justice.” He decided against mentioning that her beauty had been undersold as well. “Where did you get your horse?”
“The Shifting Lands.”
That surprised him. “I didn’t know there were horses in the Shifting Lands.”
Her smile was self-satisfied. “Oh, there are some horselike things there, but I shaped him.”
“You shaped your horse?” He made no effort to conceal his amazement.
“Trial and error. And practice. Something I’m sure an alten is intimately familiar with.”
He nodded. While it was true he’d played with land features a time or two, out in the shifts, he’d never dared try to mold a life-form. So far as he knew, no one but stage villains ever succeeded with that kind of experimentation. That level of capability both impressed and alarmed him.
She downplayed her obvious self-satisfaction. “He’s not a complete success. He has no will. I forged a living tool, no more. He’s like a puppet. I have to command him to do nearly everything but the most rudimentary of tasks. Yet,” she added, “he’s more powerful than any other horse I’ve ever ridden. He rarely tires. He has no fear. He feels no pain. And, because he’s formed from stuff of the Shifting Lands, he’s easy to mend.”
How many thousands of infinitesimal adjustments must she have made to succeed? Over what period of time? “Could you change a living horse?”
“I’ve been experimenting with that,” she admitted. “It’s a lot more challenging. But you know that. That’s why our weaving is usually about changing energy states rather than altering physical conditions.”
“Of course.” Guiding a gust of wind was far more difficult when there were no air currents. Changing the consistency of matter was one of the most challenging, painstaking, and draining of magics. It was why the best healers were highly specialized and usually aged. It required decades to gain the knowledge and experience to work with severe injuries.
The wind picked up and shook tree limbs to either side of the track.
Interesting as all this talk was, it was time to get some answers. “I’m still unclear about what you were doing in The Fragments. You said you were monitoring the Naor?”
“Yes, since our pointless commander hasn’t been heeding my warnings. They’ve been a little quiet, which is usually a sign they’re up to something, so I went over to take a look myself.” She glanced sidelong at him. “Well, as I said, I should have looked into things a little sooner. By the time I swung through I found they’d left for an entirely new war. If we had more watchers on the borders, like we did in the old days, our defenders would greet them instead of our villagers.”
He wished he didn’t have to be so cautious around a wearer of the sacred ring. Once, perhaps, he would have been able to trust and depend upon her without question. He frowned that it was no longer so. “Aradel told me the Naor are marching on Arappa at the same time. And Mazakan’s leading them.”
“Fabulous. Did she say anything else?”
“She didn’t have time to say much. She bade me to get help from the queen and Denaven—”
At this Cerai snorted.
“—and to safeguard Alantris.”
“Nothing else?”
“She said there’s a third army on the way, probably intent on using The Fragments as a staging post before it hits Erymyr.”
Cerai frowned. “Did she know how far out it was?”
“She didn’t say. She did have some tactical tips. She said that there’s high ground near Alantris that the Naor should be lured toward.”
Cerai nodded as if she knew immediately what Aradel had meant. “Oligar Ridge. That will be tricky unless we get enough troops from Darassus to back us up.”
“I didn’t have a chance to get more details.”
She pensively regarded the road leading down the tree-lined hill. “It was strange, wasn’t it, that a woman from Kanesh could so fall in love with The Fragments? I asked her once if she missed the plains, and she said she did, sometimes. But she loved this land of little valleys even more. I suppose they’ll inter her here.”
Rylin thought back to the still form in the back of the cart and wished her spirit well.
“So are you and Varama scouting ahead for the Darassan army?” Cerai asked.
He’d hoped to steer clear of any discussion about their activities, leaving that for Varama, but he supposed that had been too much to wish for. “We’re looking for Kyrkenall.” He watched her for some sign of reaction, but she only looked puzzled.
“What happened to him?”
“Denaven thinks he killed Asrahn.”
Cerai’s voice registered her surprise. “Asrahn’s dead?”
“I’m afraid so. He drowned in the Idris, and Denaven blamed Kyrkenall for it.”
“He’s hated Kyrkenall for years,” Cerai said. “Does anyone else think Kyrkenall did it?”
“Some. They’re hunting him with Denaven.”
Cerai shook her head in dismay.
“Why does Denaven hate him?”
“Because he thinks Kyrkenall won the woman he wanted. The whole thing’s childish.”
“Who was the woman?”
“Rialla.”
“The one who was so good with hearthstones.” Everything seemed to come back to the hearthstones. “Are you still searching for them?”
Cerai favored him with a thin smile. “I didn’t realize that was common knowledge.”
“I’ve been getting more and more curious about hearthstones,” he said. “So I’ve been asking a lot more questions.”
“And not getting many answers, I’d bet.”
Rylin’s horse, Rurudan, perked up his ears, and Rylin scanned the trees they passed until he spotted a lynx watching from the undergrowth. It crept away.
“You’d win that bet. Anything you’d care to share with a promising young alten?” He flashed her his best smile.
She laughed lightly. “You’re pouring it on a little thick, aren’t you?”
“I’d like some resolution,” he admitted. “Recently it feels like I’m surrounded by people keeping secrets. I didn’t think the corps was going to be like that.”
“It didn’t used to be,” Cerai acknowledged.
The sky rumbled overhead and a wispy trail of clouds veiled the sun. Cerai hesitated before speaking. “So what do you know about them?”
“Not a lot, really. Except that the Mage Auxiliary is hoarding them, that the queen and the Altenerai were at odds about spending resources to look for them, and that they’re too dangerous to be used in battle. Why does the queen want them in the first place if they can’t be used to defend the realms?”
Cerai brushed back a curling lock of dark hair. “If you’d spent much time in the Shifting Lands you’d know. The shifts are growing more and more unstable. Realm borders are decaying and blowing away and the real is shrinking. The queen and the auxiliary believe the key to saving the realms lies in mastering the hearthstones. And I think they’re right.”
“What are they going to do with them?”
“You can use a hearthstone to build things in the Shifting Lands. Make them more real. Maybe even rebuild the borders, but you’d need a lot of power and a whole lot of mages. You getting the idea?”
He was, and it shocked him. “So they’re stockpiling the things and training sorcerers for a sort of land recovery project?”
“Yes, and they don’t want to frighten the general populace, or alert our enemies to everything that might be at stake.”
Something about that didn’t quite ring true, no matter Cerai’s sincerity. He wondered if she herself had been fooled. “Why didn’t the queen simply tell the Altenerai? We’re sworn to protect the realms.”
“I gather that the queen told Renik. I don’t know if she told N’lahr or not, but things were already pretty sour between her and the Altenerai by the time he took over. I suppose she may have told her pet, Denaven.”
Rylin halted them upon a forested promontory overlooking the narrow valley through which they’d ridden earlier. The wind was rising and the sky darkening. First they scanned to the east, seeking signs of Naor and finding none, just as Lelanc had promised. They looked south, toward a gap between the hills that Varama would be crossing. Assuming that she would hold to her plan, and that nothing had happened to her.
He strove for delicacy as he broached his next question. “Don’t you think it would be wiser if she told all of us?”
“You can’t always agree with your commanders, Rylin. You should know that by now. But you still have to follow orders. The borders are weakening. The storms have trebled in the last ten years. Something will have to be done, and soon. The queen expected things to decay faster than they have, but it doesn’t mean she’s wrong about the basic concept.”
He leaned down to pat Rurudan’s neck. He was shifting nervously. Cerai’s giant, coal-black mount stood motionless and stiff. He was debating telling her just what her rational-sounding queen had done to their squires when Cerai suddenly stilled.
Following her gaze, Rylin saw a lone figure emerge from the trees a few miles south. He quickly recognized Varama, distinctive in her khalat and blue-tinted skin. The wind was really active now, the sky darkening.
As he looked across the ground Varama rode through, the grasses shimmered, as if he was observing her through heat haze.
He called up his view through the inner world and lit his ring even as the ground Varama rode shifted into a swathe of glowing red powder. Was that snow? He didn’t need his inner sight to see that she passed over one of the veins from the shifts that crisscrossed The Fragments to give them their name.
Just as he was turning to say something to Cerai, the older woman straightened in her saddle and raised both palms.
Out there in a suddenly bizarre landscape, reality fell away beneath Varama, ring blazing, leaving a pulsing purple void, except for the strip of crimson snow beneath her, a bridge of matter. Rylin looked again to Cerai, frozen in concentration, and knew it was her doing. Damn, but she was impressive. No matter how much he trained he could never approach that level of power.
He stared at her sitting statue still, confident, wind blowing across her perfectly sculpted features. With his magical sight he saw her entire body limned with glowing energies, greater than he’d seen in any other living being. She was terrifyingly beautiful both within and without. A bright magical nimbus glowed not only about her horse, but radiated from the pack on her saddle. He understood that Cerai carried not one but two hearthstones, and that she had tapped their power. He was still watching when she relinquished her hold upon them and relaxed in her saddle.
It was all he could do to tear his eyes away to see that his friend had made her way through the red snow field and onto safe land.
Cerai wiped her brow and then smiled knowingly at Rylin, as if to say that she was not only aware that she’d done well, but that she looked great doing it and appreciated him noticing.
Rylin relinquished his hold on the inner world. “That was astounding.”
“You could manage it if you’ve practiced with a hearthstone,” she assured him.
“I don’t have your stamina.”
“You might, if you use a hearthstone long enough.”
“Stamina can change?”
“Hearthstones alter your magical prowess. I thought you knew that. They can hone your gifts. So long as you’re careful about it.” She laughed lightly. “I see you haven’t been told that, either.”
“Mostly I’ve heard they’re dangerously seductive.”
“Aren’t all good things?” At his look, she smiled slyly, then guided her animal away from their lookout point and down toward Varama.
Damn, he thought. She’s flirting with me. He liked that, too.
Rylin urged his own horse after, even though the animal snorted unhappily about riding closer to the weird chaotic area. The vein of shifting land had altered now to a deep blue, and a great river flowed behind Varama, crackling with scarlet lightning.
“Hail, Altenerai,” Varama said to them, raising her sapphire. Her expression was strangely neutral.
“Hail,” he and Cerai answered as one.
“It’s been a long time, Varama,” Cerai said.
“Yes,” Varama agreed. “You’re far more beautiful than I remember.”
It wasn’t spoken as a compliment, but an observation. Cerai smiled. “Thank you.”
“What have you done to yourself?” Varama asked.
What did that mean? He looked back and forth between them.
“I’ve merely made some adjustments,” Cerai answered. For the first time Rylin detected a note of annoyance. “No word of thanks?”
“Thank you,” Varama said. “Your intervention was timely.”
“There it is.” Cerai sounded faintly amused. “You haven’t changed at all. Rylin’s caught me up on your adventures. It sounds as though we have a lot to discuss.”
“I gather that we do.”
“It looks as if we’ve arrived in The Fragments just in time for war.”