Brotherhood of the Wolf Part 23

But nothing prepared her for the dazzling light that blazed from these stones now. Beams of crimson and emerald and deepest sapphire and glorious white played across the room more fiercely than any fire. Staring at them was like staring into the sun, and Iome turned away, fearing that she'd go blind.

Behind her, Myrrima stood back, afraid. She gasped and looked all about the room in wonder as the quavering lights s.h.i.+fted and bounced, as if reflected from water.

Binnesman stared at the fiery opals. Some glowed more fiercely than others. did. After long moments they began to dim, like coals going cold. He moved the fire opals off to the left with one finger, for though they shone, their ruddy light quickly faded.

He picked up the pendant that held the green opal with one hand. Though the other stones were darkening, this one still blazed so brightly that the heat of it became intense its verdure a weapon that smote Iome.

To Iome, Binnesman had always seemed a kindly old man--until now, when the light that flared around him filled her with terror. He stuffed the pendant into a pocket of his robe, and the light still glowed like a fire through the cloth.

"My thanks to you, Your Highness," Binnesman said. "This is as fine a stone as I could hope to find. I have no use for the others. You will find that they are somewhat dull now, but put them in the sunlight for a few days, and their fire will return more fiercely than ever."

He carefully laid a single earring on the floor before the closed door of the sickroom, then handed the rest of the opals back to Myrrima.

Iome stood in the gloom, bedazzled. "Will it work?" she asked. "Can you kill it with that stone?"

"Kill a Darkling Glory?" Binnesman asked. "The thought hadn't occurred to me. I only hope to capture it."

CHAPTER 16.

PATCHES OF FOG.

The ride down from the Brace Mountains into Carris seemed too easy to Roland. It felt wrong all the way. He, Baron Poll, Averan, and the green woman made good time on the mountain road that morning, for the most part because the roads were empty.

That in itself seemed wrong. King Orden's chief counselor and strategist, Paladane the Huntsman, was said to be at Carris. One would have expected to see his troops racing on the highway, getting into position for the coming battle.

As they rode down from the mountains through bands of pine and aspen, Roland took a few moments to sit on an outcropping to watch the rocky plains below for sign of troops. Morning fog lay thick in patches down among some streams, fog so thick an army could have hidden beneath it. Beyond; the region was rife with other places where an army might be secreted--forested hills rose above the plain at a number of points, and a deep valley lay between two arms of a mountain off to the west. Cities and towns were everywhere.

The Barren's Wall to the north was eight miles wide and stretched between two tall hills. In ages past, Muttaya and Mystarria had fought over this realm numerous times. The fact that Mystarria had not always won was profoundly evident in the varying architecture: domed manors with enclosed porches and reflecting ponds were everywhere in the towns. The streets were much broader than in the Courts of Tide where Roland had been raised.

The names of the villages also reflected the fact that this land had much been battled over. Villages like Ambush, Gillen's Fall, and Retreat squatted wide towns with names like Aswander, Pastek, and Kishku.

All in all, Roland studied the landscape below and thought it a fine site for a strategist like Paladane the Huntsman to choose for his battles. Several fortresses could serve as rallying points. He imagined how bowmen might be secreted behind stone fences, or cavalry might hide within the gates of a larger keep.

Yet he saw no sign of troops on the plains anywhere below--no glint of morning sunlight on armor, no smoke rising from campfires, no lords' pavilions pitched in any, distant valley.

Indeed, from the hills above Carris, the landscape looked dead. Roland, Baron Poll, Averan, and the green woman stood on a knoll for fifteen minutes, squinting into the valley below. Roland could see farmhouses by the hundreds, and hayc.o.c.ks by the scores. Fields of crops checkered the land--vineyards striping one field while hops darkened the next. Rock walls circled the farmsteads. From up here, one could see that there was an abundance of stone in Carris, enough to build homes and fences, and still so much surplus that the farmers had, in some places, just piled them into mounds. Atop many of the hills were ancient Muttayin sun domes--circular crematoriums built of stone so that they looked like the setting sun. These marked ancient battle sites.

Carris was an old land. It was said that the fortress here was older than memory even when Erden Geboren rode with his hundred thousand knights to defend it. Many of those sun domes below served as incinerators where conquering armies had tossed the losers. Wights would haunt such places.

But if there were wights about, they did not seem to bother the locals. Carris itself was hard to make out from this distance, still twenty miles away. The ancient fortress was built on a peninsula in a deep lake on the horizon. Fog lay thick on the lake, but the fortress pierced the fog, its granite walls and high watchtowers s.h.i.+ning like gold in the dawn. Morning cooking fires left a trail of smoke hanging above the castle.

A graak flew up out of the castle; bearing a skyrider. Averan sighed, as if she yearned to be on the beast.

Yet close by, no smoke drifted up from any chimney in any home. No wind blew. No animals walked the fields.

Dead. The whole plain of Carris looked utterly dead, aside from a few flocks of geese that winged about. Even here on the mountainside, it was too quiet: no jays squawked, no squirrels scurried about.

"I don't like it," Roland said as he stared below. "It's too quiet."

"Aye," Baron Poll said. "I was born to this land. I used to run wild here when I was a boy. I've never seen anything like it"

He pointed to some green fields off to the left, just two miles below, where an orchard intersected a line of oaks. "At this time of year, always a flock of crows comes winging its way from the north. If you trace a path in the sky, following that line of oaks, you should get a good idea where they fly.

"But I see nothing here today. Not a single crow. Crows are smart birds. They see danger better than a man. They know there's a battle brewing, and so they'll follow the soldiers in hope of good pickings after.

"Look down there, where that patch of fog lies thick on the downs." He pointed now almost straight ahead, five miles north of the base of the mountain. "See the geese flying over it? There's good oats in those fields, and ponds to swim about in. Any goose worth a gander should be down there. But the geese aren't circling the fields to make sure it's safe before they land. They're flying from one patch of fog to the next, knowing it's not safe, never daring to land."

"Why?" Averan asked "They're scared. Too many men about, skulking in the fog"

Averan looked askance, as if she believed that Baron Poll was merely trying to frighten her. The girl seemed tired or ill to Roland. Her eyes were bleary, and she hid in a cloak, as if suffering from chills.

"I'm serious. See that patch of fog, off to our left across the hills over there? It must be two hundred feet higher up than any other patch of fog, and the color is a bit too. dark blue. It's traveling downhill when it should be rising, warmed by the morning sunlight. Raj Ahten's men, I'll wager, with a flameweaver hiding them. Our scouts say he used such a fog to hide in while marching through Heredon. If you were to walk into that patch of fog, you'd find war dogs and frowth giants and Invincibles by the score.

"And there, farther across the downs, is another patch of that oily blue fog.

"Then look up here to our left. A third column marching toward them."

Roland gaped, leaned back on his mount. Baron Poll seemed to be right. The three patches of fog were converging, and no currents of wind would ever have blown them together.

"Then, down there, across from Carris, by the river. Water wizards are at work, I'll wager. See the huge fog there?"

"By its color, I'd say that is just a natural fog," Roland said.

Baron Poll raised a brow. "Perhaps, but it's coming off the river there and nowhere else. Water wizard's work. The fog will be of a better quality, more natural-looking than a flameweaver's smoke. That fog hides the number of Paladane's reinforcements coming south from Cherlance, I'd say." The Baron hitched up his pants, the way a peasant will before going to work. "We must take care. The roads look empty ahead, but looks can be deceiving."

The green woman pointed at the fog on the downs, and asked, "Fog?"

"Aye, fog," Roland said, adding a word to her vocabulary.

She pointed to a cloud in the sky. "Fog?"

"Cloud," he said, wondering how he might make a better distinction. He squinted at the sun and pointed. "And up there is the sun. Sun."

"Sun, no," the green woman said, glancing fearfully at the bright orb. She pulled the bearskin robe right against her shoulders.

"I told you she's no creature of fire," Averan said. She went to the green woman and put the hood of the cloak up for her, so that she could hide beneath it. "She doesn't like the sunlight any better than she liked our campfire."

"I suspect you're right," Baron Poll said. "My apologies to the gut eating wench with the avocado complexion."

Roland laughed.

Averan merely glared at Baron Poll. "And I'll tell you something else--" she said, drawing her breath as if to make a great statement.

But Averan's face paled and she trembled and grew quiet. She pulled her own cloak tight about her as if she too hid from the sun.

She had a faraway look in her eyes. Roland realized that she trembled not because she feared that Sir Poll might disbelieve what she was about to say, but because she wanted to say something that frightened her.

"Well, tell me...." Baron Poll demanded.

"Baron Poll," she asked distantly, "what will we do with the green woman?"

"I don't know," the Baron said. "But if she would quit following us, I'd be a happier man."

"If she follows us to Carris, what will Duke Paladane do with her?"

Baron Poll glanced at the green. woman distractedly. "I don't know, child. I suspect he will want to imprison her. She's very strong, and dangerous, and we have no idea where she came from or what she wants."

"What if she fights him? What if she tries to protect herself?"

"If she harms one of His Majesty's subjects, he'll imprison her."

"What if she kills someone?"

"You know the punishment," Baron Poll said.

"He'll execute her, won't he?" Averan asked "I suspect so," Baron Poll said, trying to infuse the statement with a tone of pity that he obviously didn't quite feel.

"We can't let him kill her," Averan said. "We can't take her to Carris."

"We have a message to deliver," Baron Poll said. "By all rights, we should have pressed on through the storm last night, but I didn't fancy the notion of running into any of Raj Ahten's troops in the dark. Still, we have a message to deliver, and you, Skyrider Averan, are sworn to deliver it"

"What are you afraid of?" Roland asked, for the girl was obviously terrified out of her wits.

"No one in my family has ever received a Sending," Averan said.

"And you think you have" Roland asked.

The girl clutched her hands, wringing them while she held them against her stomach. She trembled in agitation. "I saw something just now. I saw the green woman dead, on the end of a pole, outside the castle walls."

Roland was not educated, but every child in Mystarria knew lore about Sendings. "If it was a true Sending, then it was only a warning, and you might be able to stop it from happening."

Baron Poll squinted, knelt down to be closer to the child. "You want to avoid Carris? We could skirt around it, I suppose, but at least one of us must go in." He considered the possibility only that long, then added more forcefully, "No, the roads won't be safe! We'll be better off if we stay together. I'm pretty sure I can get us through to Carris, but I won't promise anything more."

Roland knew that Baron Poll really believed his own warning: armies were hiding down on that plain, and Raj Ahten's men had been waylaying messengers all along the roads.

"Leave me somewhere while you carry the message," Averan begged "The green woman is following me, not you. She'll stay wherever you put me. Then you could. come back for me."

Baron Poll scratched his chin. Riding so close to Carris would be dangerous enough, but the child was asking him to risk his life going both directions.

Still, the girl was right to be worried for the fate of the green woman. Baron Poll's eyes flickered over Roland, as he considered what to do. "It's too dangerous. I won't allow it."

He spoke in a tone of authority, as if to end all discussion.

"First you say you won't take me north to Heredon, now you say you won't leave me here! Can't I have any say in the matter!" Averan asked.

"No," Baron Poll said reasonably. "I may be a fat old knight, but I am a lord and you're not. We're at war. I'm only doing what's best for you."

"You're only doing what's best for you," Averan cried. "I don't matter."

"I'm only thinking about what's best for people, not" he waved his hand at the green woman in dismissal "some green monster."

"I know what's best for me!" Averan said.

"Do you?" Baron Poll asked. "Last night you pouted because you wanted to go to Heredon. Now you're in a fit because you want to stay here. So what's best?"

"I can change my mind," Averan said too loudly.

"True," Baron Poll said, "but you won't change mine."

He grabbed Averan roughly by the arm and dragged her to his charger. Averan yelped, and Baron Poll slapped her across the backside.

"d.a.m.n you, girl, if you call Raj Ahten's troops with all of your noise, I swear I'll cut your throat before they get me, even if it's the last thing I do."

Baron Poll leapt up onto his charger, his great strength belying his size, and tried to pull Averan on with him.

"Wait!" Roland said. "Let her ride with me. And I'll not have you slapping the child, or threatening to slit her throat."

"What do you care?" Baron Poll asked. Both the Baron and the child stared at him in surprise. Roland was no knight, no warrior who could hope to best Baron Poll in a fight, yet he had spoken harshly.

"I care," Roland said, gazing at the child. "I was thinking last night, I could pet.i.tion Paladane to become her guardian, her...father."

There was a clumsy silence as the child recognized that he spoke not just a statement, but a question. Then she lurched toward him. "Yes!" she cried.

Roland mounted up, taking Averan in the saddle before him. In moments they were thundering down the mountainside, the green woman loping behind, and as they neared the plain, Baron Poll suddenly veered his charger sideways and raced it through the trees, cutting across a spur of the mountain on a game trail. The green woman ran at their back, struggling to keep up. Roland felt amazed that she could do so at all. No human could run with such grace and ease.

The Baron no longer seemed to trust the road, and perhaps his own fear finally touched the girl, for Averan fell silent. He raced the horses down the mountainside, and Roland leaned back in his saddle, gripping Averan before him, afraid that the girth strap on his saddle might slip or break so that he'd go rolling downhill. But Baron Poll never slowed.

After several heart-stopping minutes, they found an old woodcutter's road and raced along it for, a while, then they rode the horses hard across a creek and let them leap a farmer's fence and gallop across a pasture.

For several miles they rode this way, never trusting a road, often peering off to either side. The green woman ran just behind.

They reached a large village and raced through it, let the horses stop for rest just outside. A number of walnut trees lined the lane, the nuts just beginning to split open from their green pouches, and Averan, still huddled in her robes, looked up at them longingly. "Are we going to eat today?"

"When we reach the castle, you might get some dinner," Baron Poll said.

"You gave me nothing more than hope for dinner last night, and now I shan't even have that to chew on for breakfast. They've done with breakfast at the castle and won't eat again until tonight. I didn't get any food yesterday at all."

"Well," Baron Poll said, "all the better to help you maintain a dainty figure."

"You should try it yourself sometime," Averan groused. "Your horse would like you better if you did."

The Baron shot Averan a warning glare. The child had an endowment of brawn, but Baron Poll had more than one, and he knew he could beat her soundly.