With a free drink in his hand, ’Gren would rather swap tales of mayhem and booty than see if he could punch Darni’s teeth out through the back of his neck, so I relaxed on that score. Darni began explaining his own circuits of the endless circles of Lescar’s civil wars so I caught Sorgrad’s eye and jerked my head minutely toward the door. We needed to talk and since Usara had pointedly shifted his stool around to exclude me from his conversation with Gilmarten, this looked like the ideal time.
I drained my ale and stood up. “Time for the necessary.” Once outside I sat on a bench in the sunshine and closed my eyes. A shadow fell across me and I squinted up to see Sorgrad silhouetted against the bright sky. “So are you serious about going east or did you just want to knock Sandy onto the back foot?”
“Now that we know Sheltya really do have the knowledge we want, I’d say we try Gidesta.” He sat beside me.
“That woman throwing her weight about in Hachalfess won’t bother sending word that far.” Sorgrad looked grim.
“You really think she’ll be doing that this side of the Gap?” I was still not convinced.
“Oh, most certainly,” Sorgrad assured me. “That’s why we had no choice but to come back down to the lowlands. We’d have got no more help, not even shelter, once the word had gone around that we were to be shunned.” He smiled. “You didn’t think I was just doing it on Sandy’s say-so, did you?”
“Hah!” I vented my irritation loudly. “He’s been playing a double game all along. Do you suppose a wizard ever deals honestly? I was hoping he’d be able to make use of this for me.” I held out a little knife, the kind for paring nails or cutting string. Its scabbard was worn and tattered, the loop of leather at its top stretched and torn. You would have to look closely to even see that it had been cut through.
“That’s what you got off the Sheltya woman?” Sorgrad took it and studied it. “It’s been a while since you and ’Gren worked jostle and cut but you haven’t lost your touch, have you?”
“What was it he said to her anyway?”
Sorgrad chuckled. “He asked if she had any sisters. Said a woman with her kind of spirit gives a man more horn than a billy goat in rut.” He handed me back the knife. “So what did you think Sandy would do with it?”
“Listen in on her conversations, track her to some other Sheltya, I don’t know.” I shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Mages and magic are nothing but trouble,” Sorgrad reminded me. “Let’s roll for a new start in Gidesta. We can hand over what we find to this Messire of yours and he can have the pleasure of haggling with Planir.”
I sighed. “Do you think we will find anything back east? I feel I’ve wasted half a year chasing Eldritch-men in the shadows and got nothing to show for it.”
“It’s long odds but those pay off best.” But Sorgrad’s face betrayed his own doubts now that it was just the two of us alone. “If we can track down anyone who knows anything of Sheltya or their lore, I’ll do anything short of selling my arse to pin them down. I owe them a bad turn. I’ve lived with being driven from my home as a boy but Maewelin can drown me before I let them forbid me the whole of the mountains like that.”
I looked around at his grim tone but he startled me with a smile. “More importantly, I’d forgotten how tedious the Soluran borders can be.” He gestured at the sleepy little town, drowsing in the midday heat as it nestled beneath the overbearing walls of the castle. “Once he’s spent a few days reminiscing with that Darni, ’Gren’s going to be all fired up to get back to Lescar and some real action. We can’t do that without your Messire settling accounts with Draximal for us, can we?”
“No, that’s true enough.” The reminder that more people than me needed a decent pay-off from this game stiffened my wavering resolve. I groaned loudly with frustration all the same. “I would say this feels like slipping back two paces for every one you take, but given how far we’ve walked it’s more like a hundred leagues against ten!”
Sorgrad put an encouraging arm around my shoulders. “It’s only good-looking princelings in ballads who trot off down the nearest track and find gold waiting in a heap at the end of it. There’d be no fun if the game was all that easy.”
“I could stand a little less fun just at the moment,” I said dryly.
“If you want boredom, then you’re in the right place,” he replied critically. “Solura’s known for it, like its wool.”
“And its horses.” I sat up straighter. “If we’re taking the high road back, we’ll wear out some iron shoes rather than anymore boot leather. Usara should still have plenty of Planir’s coin and I’ll bet Darni isn’t traveling on copper and good will. The Archmage can buy us some horses, don’t you agree?”
“I’d say it’s the least he can do,” agreed Sorgrad. “How about we go and talk to this Guard commander and find out who does Lord Pastiss’ horse-trading? I don’t see any need to worry Sandy with anything more than the bill.”
Which would also needle Darni, who fancied himself a judge of horseflesh. I got to my feet and turned my face determinedly to the next stage of this seemingly endless chase.
The Great West Road,
2nd of Aft-Summer
Eresken moved cautiously through the sun-dappled woodlands. The spicy fragrance of spruce and fir in the heights gave way down here to a damper, earthy aroma, rich in the warm, motionless air beneath trees thickly cloaked in summer greenery. Distaste distracted him. The evergreens hadn’t been so bad; similar trees grew in the more sheltered valleys of home, even if to scarcely a fifth the height. The lowland forests had looked truly beautiful from a distance, clothed in their delicate swathes of fragile green. Close to the trees were positively ugly, each one grown randomly in all directions, marked by vine and damaged by weather, new growth warped by the scarring. Eresken lowered himself slowly to kneel behind the thick bole of a misshapen tree, the nubby bark moist with moss.
Teiriol joined him, taking pains not to stir the leaf litter of countless autumns beneath his heavy boots. “What do you see?” The younger man’s face was set with anticipation.
Eresken pointed, the pale skin of his hand now tanned and scratched. “This is where we will hit them, my friend.”
Teiriol frowned. “On the open highway?”
Eresken laid a hand on Teiriol’s mailed shoulder, part reassurance, part mute warning. “I will make sure there are no witnesses. If anyone comes upon us, I will use Sheltya skills to simply wipe the recollection from their minds.”
“When do you think they will be here?” Teiriol looked up in vain for the sun, hidden by the dense canopy of leaves. There was an unhappy note in his voice.
“Very soon,” promised Eresken. “And it is imperative that these all die, you do understand that?”
Teiriol nodded but gnawed at his lip. “Some of the men have been worrying about violating travelers, the truce is sacred—”
“Sacred to us, yes, but since when have lowlanders and wizards observed such honor?” Eresken’s smile was warm though his hand rested more heavily on Teiriol’s shoulder. “And now we know that the villains of Hadrumal are not only using their false magic to plant their power within the Forest, they are allying themselves with the mages of Solura. Remember what the bones of the sokes told Sheltya at Solstice?”
“The Solurans have always shown us good faith.” The doubts in Teiriol’s voice were strengthening. “They trust us to keep eastern passes closed to Mandarkin. What if they close the lower valleys to us, cut off our trade?”
Eresken gripped Teiriol’s shoulder until the pressure made him turn his head. “I don’t understand these wizards’ plots but we all heard how they are using sorcery to beguile the Suratimm, didn’t we? We must deal with this threat first, to keep the Forest dwellers out of our fight with the lowlanders in the Gap. Didn’t Jeirran explain?” Eresken’s green eyes stared unblinking into innocent blue.