She woke within a small tent, so disoriented that for a moment she imagined everything had been a dream.
Light filtered through the canvas above, and she smelled cooked meat. She was ravenous, she realized, and pushed the blanket covering aside.
She found her borrowed khalat beside her. She felt her face redden as she imagined Kyrkenall removing it from her, then pushed that thought from her mind and paused for brief morning prayers. There was no room inside the tent to stand, so she dragged the robe outside with her and almost tripped over her weapons belt in front of the opening, next to her boots. She dressed awkwardly, trying not to think of his small, graceful hands unclasping the very hooks she now fastened.
A normal yellow sun hung beyond a distant stand of pine trees. Rocks striated with rust and brown littered the earth, and a small clear pool of water lay a few feet to her right, where Kyrkenall filled his waterskin. A snow-topped mountain ridge with blue-and-white craggy summits loomed on the horizon. Aron and Kyrkenall’s mount, Lyria, nibbled grass near a stand of trees, a chill wind whipping at their manes.
Kyrkenall grinned at her. “Ah. You’re up. How are you?”
In truth, her ribs were a little sore and her head ached. “Fine, I guess, sir. How long was I out?”
“A day or so. It’s evening now.”
She’d been sleeping that long? “And where are we?” This was a different landscape than last she remembered.
“Northern Erymyr.” He indicated the ridge with a nod of his head. “Our tower’s a few hours that way. Darassus is far to the south, across mountain passes.”
“How did we get here?”
“How do you think? I had to lay you across your horse.”
Stupid question. Why did he always leave her feeling so off-balance?
“What do you think we’ll find at the tower, sir?”
“It’s supposed to be empty. We did winter exercises there when I was a squire, and it was unstaffed the rest of the time. But I suppose if they’re keeping something important there they might have set a guard.”
“They couldn’t have too many posted, could they?” she asked. “People would know if there were a lot of soldiers stationed there. Their families would wonder where they were, wouldn’t they?”
“Depends upon who’s assigned. Do you want something to eat?”
She answered with an enthusiastic yes and soon was hunched over a battered metal plate piled with food. Kyrkenall had browned some griddle cakes and warmed up some dried meat from his stores, then drizzled a little honey over the whole mess. She was delighted, declaring it one of the finest ways she’d ever broken a fast.
He laughed. “You must really be hungry. Good honey’s a treat, though, isn’t it?”
She nodded.
He sat down across from her, his strange dark eyes somehow warm. “You did well out there. Very well. That storm was worse than I feared.”
She tried not to beam. “Thank you, Alten.”
He sighed. “Look, I’m all for honoring your elders and like that, but can you trim it back?”
She looked at him questioningly. “Sir?”
“That’s what I’m talking about, right there. It’s ‘sir’ this and ‘alten’ that nearly every time you speak to me. Just be a little less formal, all right?”
She froze, wondering how best to implement the order.
“Relax,” he insisted. “It’s not been an easy time for you, I guess. A lot of changes too quickly. I doubt you wanted to be involved in a conspiracy any more than I did.”
“A conspiracy?”
“Murders. Secrets. Lies. Sounds like a conspiracy to me.” His expression darkened.
“A conspiracy about what, though?” She bit back from adding “sir” just in time, and swallowed another bite.
“Well, I’ve been trying to put that together. So. Item one.” He lifted a pebble and sat it down on a rock in front of him for emphasis. “They’ve done something with the sword that they don’t want anyone to find out about. They’re worried enough about it that they’re willing to kill a hero of the realm.”
“What did they do with it?” Elenai asked.
“Seems like they put it away, far north in the Chasm Tower.” Kyrkenall sat another pebble down beside the first.
“Is that actually a new point?” she asked.
“What?”
“If you’re listing things our enemy did, isn’t that just part of the first issue, about them doing something with the sword?”
He frowned and muttered, “Kalandra always made this teaching stuff look easy.” Then he continued in a normal tone. “Anyway. They took the sword and put it in this tower for reasons unknown. They killed Asrahn.” He set down another pebble, reached for a fourth and placed it in the line. “They were ready to kill us.” He placed another. “It’s so important that they brought a hearthstone to stop me.”
“And do we entirely know who they are?”
“No. But we can be sure of the four dead ones, for starters. Probably the entire Mage Auxiliary. Probably Denaven. Probably the queen, since he’s her hound and they’re both in league with the Mage Auxiliary. The real question is, which Altenerai are involved? I’m wondering if all the new ones are part of it. You know them far better than me. What are they like?”
He was asking as he would an equal. She felt her face flush with pride and answered after swallowing another bite. “There are only three other new ones. Gyldara’s been Asrahn’s right hand for the last few years, and she’s fiercely loyal to both him and the corps. I really can’t imagine she’d be involved with anyone who’d want him dead. And if she were, she’d probably go for their throats the moment she learned they killed him. Oh.”
“What is it?”
“M’lahna was her sister. She’s the one who was carrying the hearthstone.”
“Right. So you think that means Gyldara’s in league with them?”
“No. I think it means she’s going to be after both of us once they find her sister’s body.” Gyldara was efficient and capable and straightforward, and Elenai had always admired her. It saddened her to think the woman might now be after them. Moreover, she’d be a fearsome antagonist. That she was a deadly warrior was to be expected—all Altenerai were formidable. But she was also the most driven of the younger ring-sworn. “I don’t think it will be good to have her as an enemy.”
Kyrkenall snorted dismissively. “I’m sure I’ve had worse. What about the other two?”
“Lasren’s kind of…” She hesitated, then from Kyrkenall’s look decided to be bluntly honest. “He’s in it for the prestige. Rylin’s kind of the same, but there’s a core of decency to him. I don’t think either are the type for conspiracies. Both are more about going their own way and having fun.”
“How sure are you about that?”
“Fairly sure. Lasren and K’narr were friends, which is the only thing that gives me doubt. But K’narr was usually following Denaven around, and Lasren is usually palling around with Rylin.”
Kyrkenall looked unconvinced. “So there’s a possibility they recruited Lasren, and maybe Rylin. And Gyldara is going to hate us regardless.”
“Yes,” she agreed reluctantly. “What about the older Altenerai?”
“I think we can rule out Aradel. She wouldn’t have anything to do with Denaven or the queen.”
The story behind Aradel’s resignation was well known through the ranks, although Elenai now realized she’d heard a skewed version of it. An ingenious tactician, second only to N’lahr himself, Aradel had been expected to assume his place after the famous general’s untimely death, but had been passed over in favor of Denaven at the insistence of the queen. The slight—or, Elenai realized, perhaps the peace treaty that followed—had so enraged Aradel that she’d publically excoriated both her new commander and the queen before storming off to The Fragments, where she was soon elected governor. The Fragments, like the other Allied Realms, went its own way most of the time, owing little but military allegiance in times of external threat, and it was even less deferential to the wishes of the crown under Aradel’s leadership. It was impossible to imagine her linked to any scheme that required allying with Denaven.
Kyrkenall continued. “Belahn’s been semiretired for about five years, focused mainly on protecting his home village, which lies not far from Naor lands, so I don’t see how he’d be involved. And Cerai’s always been kind of a lone wolf; I think she may actually despise Denaven more than I do.” He shrugged. “So they’re out. Enada almost never leaves Kanesh, and is too busy fighting kobalin and Naor there. Besides, she’s about as subtle as I am. So she’s out.”
“That leaves Decrin, Varama, and Tretton. The ones in Darassus.”
“And that’s bad enough. Tretton can follow quarry across trackless stone desert. He’s got skills I don’t even pretend to understand. And you know all those stories you hear about how formidable Decrin is?”
There were an awful lot of them, usually about him carving his way through a mass of enemies.
“Every one of them’s true. He’s unstoppable. Even when he’s covered in blood he just keeps coming. But he’s too honest to be a conspirator.”
Elenai agreed; she had a difficult time imagining the bluff, friendly war hero would be party to intrigue. She spoke before stuffing in the last bite of food. “How about Tretton? Would he league with the traitors?” She was fairly sure the answer would be no.
Kyrkenall made a sour face. “He’s even more of a stickler than Asrahn. I could see him going along with something slightly rotten, if he was ordered to do so.”
“But he and Asrahn are—were—friends. I’ve seen them off duty together.”
“That doesn’t mean much. He’s the kind of soldier who doesn’t question, who obeys authority because, to his way of thinking, rules and tradition keep us from falling into chaos.” The archer sighed. “You’ve got to realize how sneaky Denaven is. He might convince Tretton and Decrin both. I love Decrin, but he’s not that bright. And, it pains me to admit, Denaven’s dangerous himself. He’s wily and he fights dirty and he’ll never, ever forget or give up until he has what he wants, even if he pretends to.”
Elenai noticed he’d still left out one alten. “What about Varama?”
Kyrkenall didn’t hesitate or equivocate. “If Varama’s after us, we don’t stand a chance.”
His cold certainty surprised her, because she’d never heard that the blue-skinned alten was particularly well-known as either a blade or spell caster. But she didn’t ask him to elaborate. “You think Denaven could trick her, too?”
He laughed. “No. She’s usually thinking about five steps ahead of everybody else. I just can’t be sure if she’s paying attention, because she’s usually thinking about something else even when she’s looking at you. She did seem troubled when I asked if she’d seen Asrahn, but that might not mean anything.”
Kyrkenall swept the pebbles off the rock, where they bounced out of sight into the tough grasses. “We’re just going around in circles. Who might be with us, who might be against. What any of this is really about. We’re not getting any further until we breach the tower and get to the sword.”
Elenai took the opportunity to voice a nagging doubt. “The sword’s not really going to have answers.”
“Obviously. But someone guarding it will.”
Hopefully. “What do we do if one of the Altenerai is guarding it? One of those who usually aren’t in Darassus, like Enada, or Belahn, or Cerai? Their absences might just be a blind.”
“We’ll deal with whatever we find there.” Kyrkenall’s handsome features darkened with menace. “If they’re involved with Asrahn’s death…” He left the threat unspoken.
Elenai set aside her plate, along with her worries about direct confrontation with the most powerful warriors in the known world. “When you asked M’lahna what she was really doing, she said it was all about restoring the realms. She mentioned a goddess returning. What goddess, and how?”
“Damned if I know. Sounded a little crazy. Like she’d spent too long playing with hearthstones.”
“What are the hearthstones, really?”
“Commander Renik thought they were arcane tools the Gods used to shape the world. Kalandra thought they might be naturally occurring reservoirs of energy swept out of the Shifting Lands. Nobody knows.” He paused for a minute. “Well, maybe the queen and the mages have figured it out, because they’ve been collecting every one they can find. But they’re not talking. All I know is that they’re trouble.”
“Where do they collect them from?”
“All the distant places. Apparently there was one kept in Darassus from early on, but it was inactive. And then about a generation ago an alten found a new one in The Fragments after a storm.”
Elenai had never been there but knew The Fragments was one of the most fragile of realms because, rather than being completely solid like the other four great land masses, it was actually a series of closely linked splinters and islands through which tiny rivulets of the Shifting Lands were threaded, ranging in width from a handful of miles to only a few hundred feet. People and even animals freely roamed the gaps, which resembled the surrounding terrain except during the fiercest storms. Owing to those gaps, strange things, both terrible and wondrous, could spring up even deep in the middle of the realm.
“Queen Leonara was just the appointed heir then, in charge of whatever minor issues the old queen didn’t care about. I’m told she’d always been curious about the hearthstone in the palace, and now another one had turned up. So she told the Altenerai to keep an eye out for them, and pretty soon they started noticing them scattered everywhere. They turned up in our realms. They turned up in the lonely realms where the Naor live, and the weird little fragments and splinters out in the shifts where the kobalin lair, and even drifting in the true deeps, where there are only the tiniest occasional pockets of reality.”
“I could see why she’d be interested in them.”
“They weren’t active, though,” Kyrkenall said. “A mage could sense the latent power, but no one even knew to open them until Rialla got ahold of one. She was just a squire. Kalandra’s squire,” he added.
In a flash she remembered seeing Rialla’s service record upon Altenerai plaques in the Hall of Remembrance because she’d been struck by its brevity. “She was the one who was alten for only a day, wasn’t she?”
“Yes,” he said, his voice brittle. “She was brilliant. And she deserved a whole lot better.…” His voice trailed off, and she had to spur him to continue.
“What happened once Kalandra and Rialla got the hearthstones working?”
“Leonara was queen by then, and her interest had become obsession. She cared less about the Naor war than she did the damned stones. N’lahr was out there winning against impossible odds but she kept sending our best and brightest after the stupid hearthstones. That’s what happened to Commander Renik.” Kyrkenall’s voice grew knife sharp. “She kept sending him to more and more remote places. Sometimes he’d be gone for months, and he’d come back bruised and bloody, but he’d always come back. Until one day, he didn’t. The queen has a lot to answer for, starting with how she wasted his life. And how she wasted Kalandra’s the same way.”
He shook his head. “That’s about all I know. You can see why the Altenerai don’t carry hearthstones into battle. Other mages can use them as easily as the person holding one. So the queen gathers them up, and the auxiliary studies them.” His manner brightened as he changed subjects. “Do you feel like you’re getting used to the one we have?”
“It’s wonderful,” she admitted. “I’ve never weaved with such clarity.”
“It’ll be a lot harder for them to find us if the thing is off. Do you think you can deactivate it?”
“I thought you didn’t think I could.”
“That was before you showed me how clever you were.”
That was nice. “Do you have any idea how it’s done?”
“Kalandra told me about it. There’s apparently a spot, a sort of weak point, or spigot, and there’s a way of shifting energies around that opens or closes it.”
Kalandra again. Well, she seemed to be Kyrkenall’s greatest source of magical knowledge, and so far what he’d passed on from her had proven useful. “Let me try.”
She wasn’t worried about anything but failure. Despite all of Kyrkenall’s warnings she’d felt no danger yesterday while using the hearthstone. And she certainly had never sensed that the hearthstone was alive and looking back at her. Maybe the alten was overcautious about things he couldn’t understand.
Kyrkenall cleaned up the campsite as she sat down with the stone.
When she stared at its shining surface she was drawn to the inner world without any real struggle or need for concentration, and she was so awed by its beauty and power that she turned it over and over in her hands for a long while.
She found no weak areas in the flow of energy. Indeed, the entire thing was so solid, so … real, she couldn’t perceive any threads to pluck apart for further investigation. In comparison to the hearthstone, even the workings of a real, living creature seemed elementary, like a windup toy.
She was interrupted in her contemplation by a hand on her shoulder, and dimly she perceived Kyrkenall’s presence.
“You’ve been at it for more than an hour,” she heard, though it took a moment for her to process the sounds into actual information. “Are you close?”
“No,” she admitted.
“We need to travel.”
Reluctantly she pulled free. The pine forest seemed pale and uninteresting in comparison to the glories of the hearthstone, even with the sun brilliantly dipping into it. Kyrkenall gently took the hearthstone from her and wrapped it back in the cloth.
She felt suddenly ashamed. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It took the best mages years to figure out how to open and close one.”
Kyrkenall climbed into his saddle and looked back at her. “Come on. I want to get close to the tower before dark so I can look things over.”
He sighed, as if to clear his thoughts, then led them forward, riding below the hill ridges so they wouldn’t be spotted.
It was a rolling country. Spring might be fully bloomed near Darassus, but here in the highlands winter had but recently, reluctantly, loosened its hold. You could still feel its breath in the wind, and pockets of frost and snow lay in the shadows of the barren trees.
As they rounded the corner of the second hill, they spotted a square obelisk standing upright at the edge of a thick woodland. Kyrkenall called a halt a few horselengths out from it and stared, silent and still for a long while. When he advanced at last it was with arrow nocked.
Elenai wondered why he was so wary. The object didn’t look especially threatening, just incongruous here in the wilderness. It stood as tall as she did in the saddle, and was fashioned of gray stone, completely featureless save for a swirling creamy pattern upon the onyx pyramidal capper.
“Do you know what it is?” Elenai asked.
“I’ve never seen it before. Take a look with your inner sight. Don’t,” he added quickly, “fix on it too hard.” He didn’t relax his aim, but Elenai wasn’t sure what he expected to shoot.
“You think it’s sorcery?”
“Yes.”
She saw he was right as soon as she examined it. The problem was that she couldn’t fathom the design choices its builder had made. There was power hidden in the pyramid on top, but it was latent, like a warm charcoal left at a campsite.
“There’s magic,” she said, “but it’s inactive.”
Kyrkenall tipped his head to the right. “Look over there.”
It took Elenai a long while to spot what Kyrkenall meant, for there were a variety of land features beyond that vague gesture, including a hill line, a clump of trees, a rivulet, and a rocky outcrop.
But there was also another onyx-topped obelisk, probably a half mile to their east, planted at the base of a hill.
“What are they?” Elenai asked.
“Offhand,” Kyrkenall said, “I’m guessing they’re fence posts.”
Elenai’s eyebrows rose. “A magical fence? But it’s not working.”
“We haven’t tried to cross it.”
“You think it will come on if we do?”
Kyrkenall frowned, lowered his weapon, and looked off toward the middle distance at a copse of trees.
Another thought struck her. “If it flared on any time something crossed it, wouldn’t there be a line of dead creatures on either side?”
Kyrkenall grinned. “I knew there was a reason I kept you around. Just for laughs, toss a rock past, will you?”
Elenai slid out of her saddle but found no rocks. She clawed up a clump of cold, dry dirt and pitched it underhand just past the obelisk.
It landed without incident a few feet beyond, under a pine bough.
Kyrkenall didn’t move.
“Well?” Elenai asked.
“I’m thinking. Go ahead and look at it with your sight again. I’m going to try something.”
Elenai did as he bade. If nothing else, this trip was giving her a lot of practice in sorcery.
The obelisk continually radiated a faint golden glimmer from the black stone at its height. Beyond it, the living trees presented a tight pattern of golden structures in the shape of boles and branches. “Ready,” she said.
Kyrkenall nudged his mare forward and reached out to the obelisk with his bow. He touched it, deliberately, and held it there.
Elenai didn’t see any change of energy within the black pyramid. “Nothing.”
“I didn’t feel anything, either.” Kyrkenall replaced his bow. “All right. I’m going to ride past. Wait until I’m through. Actually, wait until I’m through and try to ride back again. If I get blasted to ashes, head to The Fragments and find Aradel.”
“Right,” Elenai said. She wasn’t sure how to get to The Fragments from here, but she didn’t want to admit that.
Kyrkenall, back turned, spoke in a falsetto voice. “Oh, don’t worry, Alten, I’m sure you’ll be fine. But your sacrifice is so noble, I’ll cherish it always.”
Elenai couldn’t believe what she’d heard. “I don’t sound like that!”
He chuckled at her and urged his horse forward, stopping just beyond the obelisk. He then backed his horse past, then forward again. She watched tensely.
“Looks like we won’t die here,” Kyrkenall said. “Come on, then.”
Elenai half expected a magical beam to lance out, or to feel some intense emotion generated by the sorcery she knew smoldered there.
Soon, though, the strange contrivance lay behind them. The dark-haired archer kept to the right of the treeline, riding slowly, eyes constantly upon the horizon and bow at the ready. Another ridge lay to their north.
A hawk soared overhead and called out, and Elenai spied a doe watching from the woods.
“Are we close to the tower?” she asked. It looked like a tendril of smoke joined the thin clouds hovering above a distant rise of trees, but she couldn’t be sure.
“It’s on the—” Kyrkenall fell silent in midsentence. A gray-and-white furred thing loping on four legs mounted the rim of the nearest hill, at least two bow-shots ahead and to the left.
The distance confused Elenai’s perception of its size until the creature moved past a spindly elm. She had never seen nor heard of any furred Erymyran beast as large as her horse. Kanesh boasted huge animals, like the mighty grass-eaters known as eshlack and the axbeaks that preyed on them, but not Erymyr. This creature was generally catlike in its movements, but the jaw was shovel-heavy, the ears huge and winglike. She saw no eyes of any kind. It had to have been brought here from some distant realm, or maybe even the Shifting Lands. “What is that?”
Kyrkenall lifted an arrow to his bow and was already sighting. “No idea, but I’m pretty sure it’s not going to be friendly.”
Just then the peculiarity turned to snuffle at them with its long black snout. It let out something between a whine and a roar, and charged in their direction.
Kyrkenall fired. The shaft struck the beast’s head, but the arrow seemed to slide through the furry ruff.
“You missed,” Elenai blurted in surprise.
“No,” Kyrkenall objected, “its head is narrower than I thought.” He now had three arrows in hand as he nocked one.
The beast’s roar this time was like a thunderclap. Kyrkenall’s arrow launched, but Elenai knew even as it did that he’d missed again, for the thing leapt left, then right through rough terrain as it bounded toward them. “Gods, it’s bigger than a bear!”
“Less talking, more killing!” Kyrkenall launched the next two arrows one after the other and then grabbed three more. The quiver, which had looked inexhaustible, was now half empty. One arrow took the beast somewhere in the right temple, the other in the center chest. Neither slowed it a jot. Elenai heard it let out one annoyed huff, and it gained speed as it charged.
“Ready your sword!” Kyrkenall barked, even as he fired once more. Elenai muttered under her breath because she’d already drawn her weapon. She’d thought he’d come to expect competency from her.
Aron didn’t like the smell of the thing and shifted beneath her, snorting in relief as she got him under way. He wanted to run.
The next three shots struck again in the head, deep in the shoulder, and through the thick foreleg, but the monster didn’t slow. It let out another roar and Elenai wondered dully if it really could be stopped. As she circled for its right side, pulling against Aron, she supposed she might be charging to her death.
Kyrkenall let out a war whoop as he guided his mare to swing left.
Elenai had never grown especially proficient with off-hand blade work and cursed at herself for riding right. So much for competence. There was no good way to challenge the beast with her sword unless she got behind it.
There was magic, though.
As the shaggy hulk pivoted for Kyrkenall, she let Aron take the lead and undid the top hook of her robe so she could touch her necklace talismans. She wasn’t sure she could get an angry monster to fear much of anything, so she found the twisted smile of confusion under her thumb and sent that emotion at the animal through a thread of her design. The spell struck the creature but was swept away by a surge of energy rising from the wide black neck strap decorating the thing’s heavy throat.
Whoever had placed the strap on the beast had expected sorcerous attacks.
Kyrkenall and his mare swung wide away from the creature, which sprang sideways and clawed, just missing Lyria. He swiveled in his saddle and fired over his shoulder. An arrow went straight into what should have been the creature’s brain case, but that, too, had no appreciable result. The beast snarled as it leapt.
Kyrkenall flung himself to roll across the ground to the creature’s left, his horse bolting to the right. He reached his feet, bow in one hand, sword in the other, then leapt to a waist-high boulder farther on.
Elenai nudged Aron forward. “Go!”
Aron whinnied gamely and galloped for the beast’s flank. She leaned down and slashed deeply into its left rear leg.
The creature spun with a growl, faster than she thought possible, and launched at her. Aron shuddered as the entire bulk slammed into him, and Elenai heard the sickening tearing of flesh and the scream of agony as Aron took a terrible wound. She threw herself from the saddle, landed on one foot, off-balance, rolled, and came up still holding her weapon.
A rain of blood and gore spattered from Aron’s shoulder as the beast tore at the screaming horse, ripping open his chest like it was a paper package. Aron managed a frantic kick or two, then Kyrkenall suddenly appeared and plunged his sword deep through the monster’s neck. He drew clear with a triumphant whoop, and the red-mouthed beast followed him, one clawed foot scoring the black earth where Kyrkenall had stood the second before.
Either that wound or the accumulated damage finally finished it. The shaggy horror collapsed, lying with its head buried in the grass, rear legs kicking. Yellowish life-blood from its wounds stained the thick fur and dribbled into the hillside. A half-dozen black-feathered shafts stuck out like random quills.
Elenai looked again at Aron, lying on his side as his breathing shuddered to a stop, and felt her eyes fill with tears. Her breath came raggedly. “Damn.” She’d trained with that beautiful horse for the better part of two years and hadn’t considered she’d be losing him in the midst of everything else.
Kyrkenall came up beside her. He was breathing heavily and his sweaty dark hair clung to his neck. “I take it you tried magic?”
“Yes.” Elenai bit her lower lip. “The neck strap has some kind of protective shielding. I couldn’t affect it.”
“I bet the collar’s keyed to the fence posts. To keep it in.” He didn’t seem angry or even disappointed in her. But she was sure she could have done better. She should have been able to keep Aron from harm.
The beast growled. Its right front leg twitched spasmodically and a plume of dust billowed from beneath the huge paw. It slumped finally into the stillness of death, beside Aron’s steaming remains.
Kyrkenall watched a moment more, then scanned the horizon. He went stock-still, and Elenai saw his ring light. “So much for a quiet look up close,” he said.
She discovered a tingling around her finger meant the ring on her own hand blazed, and she understood suddenly what he’d meant.
The exact properties and abilities of an Altenerai ring had never been fully explained to her—she wasn’t Altenerai—but she knew it provided a modicum of protection against magical assaults, and it heightened awareness, although you could also set it to remain inactive. She hadn’t had much of a chance to explore how to operate hers, and Kyrkenall hadn’t told her a thing about it. Somehow, though, she knew six figures crept into position around them even if she couldn’t see them. Fear drove away regret faster than a fox scatters hens.
Kyrkenall grinned and addressed the air. “Show yourselves.”
A man in ring mail and a black cloak appeared from behind a hillock eight paces out, and then, seconds later, five others came into view from each direction, all armored similarly. Erymyran soldiers. In place of a standard metal helm they wore thick, woolen hats. Every single one had a scabbard at their hip, although only two of them held swords. The others, including one fellow only a few feet from the nose of the dead monster, had arrows nocked to short bows aimed at Kyrkenall and Elenai.
Two of the soldiers were women, and the taller of these, holding a sword, was only a couple of feet from Elenai’s back. “What do we do, sir?” she asked.
“We’re to kill all interlopers.” The man who’d first appeared tipped his sword at them.
“They’re Altenerai,” said the woman, understandably mistaking Elenai’s rank from the khalat and ring she wore.
“Kyrkenall saved my cousin in Kanesh,” said a short fellow on Elenai’s left.
Elenai looked to Kyrkenall for some kind of sign. What should they do?
The archer smiled broadly and addressed their captors. “Let’s not do anything drastic,” he said easily. He sounded eminently reasonable. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding. We’re on a mission vital for the state.”
“If it’s official,” their leader asked, “where’s your sigil?”
“Ah!” Kyrkenall raised the hand holding his sword and all the bowstrings went taut in the hands around them. He chuckled as if he found the whole encounter quite droll.
Their leader seemed unamused. “Drop the sword.”
“Perhaps I should say the same to you,” Kyrkenall returned lightly. “I rank you, soldier.”
“Yes, sir. But no one’s allowed here, on pain of death, unless they have the sigil.”
Ever so slowly, Kyrkenall slid the tip of his sword down and planted it upright in the earth. “Better?” He bowed slightly. “Now I’m just going to open my robe and show you my authorization. So don’t be alarmed.”
Elenai knew very well that there was no sigil under Kyrkenall’s robe, though she briefly wondered if there was something he hadn’t told her. Probably not. Which meant things were going to get very interesting very fast. She glanced at the nearest of the watchers in her line of sight. Most of their attention was directed to Kyrkenall, but they weren’t completely ignoring her, either. And there were two behind her that she couldn’t see.
“It’s a funny thing.” Kyrkenall reached delicately to undo the second hook of his khalat. He shifted his left arm a little, bringing Arzhun to hand as if to steady it. “About the sigil, I mean.”
“Why didn’t you activate it before the beast attacked?” the woman behind them asked.
Kyrkenall chuckled conspiratorially, as though he’d heard a tremendously amusing joke that was somehow offensive or inappropriate and he couldn’t keep back from it. “That’s a story. You see”—he reached into his robe and turned half sideways to face her—“I don’t actually have a sigil.”
At the same moment he uttered the final word he flicked the nearby archer in the face with Arzhun’s black horn tip then spun as the man cried out. Kyrkenall took an arrow to the back, but it failed to pierce his armor and dropped away. Turning right, he dropped to a crouch and two more arrows sped over his shoulder and head. At the same time he launched an arrow stolen from the staggered bowman and snapped a shot that took the archer behind Elenai through the throat.
Kyrkenall snatched Lothrun out of the ground as he leapt to engage the swordswoman at Elenai’s left, blocking her strike with Arzhun’s end before negligently ruining her lovely throat with his sword tip. Before she’d even begun to drop, Kyrkenall cut an arrow from the air, his legendary blade spraying the swordwoman’s blood. He laughed madly and sprinted to confront the leader.
Elenai finally woke to action, shocked. In a heartbeat Kyrkenall had killed two soldiers and injured a third.
She slashed at the nearest archer as the woman drew a bead on Kyrkenall.
The sword bit deep into the bow and she dropped it.
For an instant that was an eternity, Elenai saw the woman’s amber-flecked brown eyes, saw the muscles around the lids tighten in anticipation of the coming blow.
And then Elenai thrust her sword past an arm lifted too late and drove it into the hollow of the woman’s neck.
There was so much blood. Elenai stepped away in a crouch, all too conscious another archer remained, the one Kyrkenall had struck with Arzhun. The man might even now be aiming at the back of her head.
She needn’t have worried. Kyrkenall dealt with him even as Elenai turned, driving his sword past the fellow’s bow, raised in a pitiful parry. He plunged Lothrun through the archer’s chest armor.
Elenai didn’t quite manage to turn away before she saw the result.
No one was left alive. In the time she’d handled one warrior Kyrkenall had killed five.
The leader lay facedown, his dark cloak soaking up blood from a widening puddle. His posture concealed his injury, but there was no missing the gruesome wound on the man whose neck was half lopped, for his head sagged to one side, as if upon a ghastly hinge.
Kyrkenall’s laugh was startling as a nearby lightning strike. At its sound she whirled to find him raising his bloody sword high in salute. He turned, taking in the scene, his peals of laughter giving way to shaking gasps of mad energy.
“You’re certainly thorough.” Elenai was astonished by how loud her voice sounded from her dry throat.
He seemed to see her for the first time. His shoulders heaved as he breathed in and out.
“Shouldn’t we have saved one to question?” she asked.
“Why didn’t you?”
“Um.” Elenai thought again of those frightened brown eyes. She doubted she’d ever stop thinking of them. Could she have captured that woman? “I was worried about the last archer.”
“I had him.” Kyrkenall bent to wipe his blade on the leader’s cloak, and chuckled again, an utterly mirthless sound. “Creep up to the hill’s crest and scout, Squire.” His voice was low and full of forced restraint. “Search with your ring and your sight.”
“What are you going to do?”
Kyrkenall stared down at his hand gripping the bow. It shook. “Try to find my arrows. And my balance.”
Elenai hesitated. More than anything she wanted reassurance. Was he okay? Had she acted rightly? Had she been useful? It didn’t really seem that Kyrkenall had needed her at all, which was astonishing and humbling both.
As she started up the hill she heard the alten chuckling once more, a mad, desperate noise. She felt a chill spread up her back and stiffen her arm hairs.
The stories about Kyrkenall were true, but somehow failed to capture the stunning degree of his prowess and his madness. Had he always been like this, or was it the result of years of warfare? What would she be like after staring into as many faces as he had, dealing death and remembering their eyes? Did he recall them as easily as she could call up that woman’s?
Was that why he was a little crazy?
She struggled to focus on the task at hand, as Asrahn would have told her, and reached the lip of the hill. There could be another one of those monsters just over the rise. Or maybe a reserve cadre of soldiers.
She looked down at the bloody sword in her hand. She hadn’t remembered she was carrying it. Maybe she was going a little crazy herself. And then she looked at her other hand, and the sapphire shining in her palm. It looked so incongruous there against her skin.
She had to pull herself together. Focus.
Kyrkenall had told her to “use the ring.” Very well. She wasn’t sure entirely what he meant, but she had felt the presence of the concealed attackers through it. Maybe she could do the same now, feeling her way into the distance without poking her head above the summit of the hill.
She sent her thoughts toward the ring and tried to peer through the inner world at the same time.
Working with the ring wasn’t quite like using her normal magical skills, and the sapphire certainly wasn’t as powerful as the hearthstone, but touching it with her conscious energy allowed her to sense the strength of nearby life forces. She felt Kyrkenall’s strong, swift heartbeat behind, and was momentarily worried about the other heavy heartbeat nearby until she realized that was his horse, Lyria. No life energy from the dead lingered, and she was glad for that. She’d rather not encounter battlefield remnants.
Lesser life forces, tiny flickering candles, bloomed across the landscape before her. None, though, was anywhere near the power of Kyrkenall or the horse, so she knew they were small animals and insects of the field.
Her senses through the ring didn’t extend very far. Kyrkenall and his mount seemed to be at extreme range. She had no way to know what lay within the tower, or beyond. The important thing was that nothing waited for them close by.
She relinquished her focus on the ring and discovered there was not the slightest fatigue after, as there was when tapping into her own inner sight, nor was there the untangling and utter exhaustion when she used the hearthstone.
An amazing tool. Had Kyrkenall been using his ring when they’d scouted the terrain earlier? Why hadn’t he said anything to her about it?
Because, she told herself, Kyrkenall had other things on his mind. He wasn’t especially focused on teaching her.
Elenai glanced over her shoulder at him, found him dragging the soldiers’ bodies together in a row. Why, she wasn’t sure, but she saw him rooting through their belongings. Probably he searched for the sigils they’d mentioned, or for some other information.
At least he’d stopped laughing.
Elenai dug fingers into a patch of loose soil and liberally smeared cold dirt over her cheeks so there would be no reflection from her skin, then slowly poked her head above the rise.
The ground sloped gently down into a plain. Highlands rose steeply and suddenly to left and right, but flat grassland rolled on for the next half mile, up to a stone fort that filled a level region between the rocky uplands. From her vantage point she saw a few thatched roofs surrounded by a wooden stockade a quarter mile west of the wall, near the tree line. Wispy gray smoke rose from one rectangular chimney.
The long low buildings within the stone fort, though, looked neglected and abandoned. Climbing above all was a round, narrow tower, pale and stark, flying a ragged red flag with a white diagonal slash.
The tower she’d stolen from Cargen’s memory. Irion had to be hidden somewhere inside.