Star of the Morning (18 page)

But why had no one else been able to?

“See?” Paien said, putting a hand briefly on her shoulder. “There he is.”

“He was in that corner but a heartbeat ago,” Morgan muttered under her breath.

Paien looked at her with a frown, then led the company from the inn, shepherding Miach out the door as he did so. Morgan walked along behind the group, daring Miach to meet her eyes and admit the truth. Unfortunately, Adhémar seemed determined to monopolize him.

“You're still here?” Adhémar said, sounding less than pleased by those tidings. “I told you to return home.”

“You're returning home as well,” Miach said calmly. “I'll go with you.”

Adhémar glared, but Miach seemed unimpressed. Morgan could understand that, for she was not terribly impressed by any of Adhémar's fierce looks, but that didn't answer why they were having this argument in the first place.

“I don't see a horse,” Miach continued. “Did you lose yours?”

“I had to sell it to eat,” Adhémar grumbled. “I suppose we'll have to find something else. I see you have acquired a pack. How, I wonder, did you do that?”

Miach shrugged. “I picked it up somewhere.”

“Speaking of somewhere,” Paien said, taking up a position and motioning for them to gather around, “we need to decide upon a destination.” He looked at Morgan. “Well?”

Morgan refused to shift uncomfortably. She could not reveal her real destination to the gaggle of loose-lipped idiots surrounding her, her earlier deliberations aside. Perhaps when the time came, she would merely slip off and be about her business, leaving behind a note and a location where they might rejoin forces at a later time.

“Morgan?” Paien prompted.

“North,” Morgan said, wrenching her gaze back to him.

“North and east?” Camid said, looking as if he might have a destination or two in mind already. “More east than north? North and a wee bit west? Which is it?”

Perhaps this wouldn't be as easy as she thought. She frowned. “Just north,” she said.

“And how will we get there?” Paien asked.

“We'll walk,” she said confidently.

He frowned. “On foot?”

“Aye, on foot,” she said pointedly. “You know, with your feet. You've done it quite often in the past.”

“On foot,” Paien repeated doubtfully. “Well, if you say so.”

“I do,” she said. “You go first.”

Paien shouldered his pack and turned himself around. “North it is, then, lads. Off we go.”

Morgan followed, bringing up the rear only because she preferred to. It gave her a better vantage point for when trouble arose. She also didn't care to be followed, for who knew what someone behind her might be plotting?

She paused in mid-step. When had she become so suspicious?

Likely on the first day she'd entered Gobhann when one of Weger's finest students hadn't even given her a chance to set her gear down before he'd bellowed a war cry a hand's breadth from her ear. It had not been a good start to that day, but it had been a lesson learned.

She followed. It was more efficient that way.

The day wore on. Morgan was still not at her best, but the walking helped. It also helped to distract herself by watching the men in front of her as they marched easily on.

Paien and Camid walked together, chatting amicably; no doubt they discussed activities they might engage in on their way north. Morgan suspected Camid already had a list of things to accomplish and she was quite certain many items would involve the odd but very visible job that might burnish his already sterling reputation. Paien would no doubt be happy to get to wherever he thought they were going, do the job, and return to Melksham. He had a family, but most were already wed and off on their own. His wife was used to his long absences, but Morgan knew she missed him. Paien returned home gladly each chance he had. There were times Morgan thought she might envy him.

Glines walked with Fletcher. The boy was watching him with wide eyes, so Morgan wondered what the poor lad's head was being filled with. As long as it had something to do with the need to be obedient and quiet, she was all for it.

She looked at the final pair of men and frowned thoughtfully. They were much alike in looks, similar in build, but it was obvious to her even now that they were completely different in temperament. Adhémar was handsome in a showy sort of way, like a demanding horse that needed to be brushed often and exercised twice a day. Morgan imagined him with all manner of bells and frippery on his gear, prancing and displaying for anyone who would watch.

She paused. Well, perhaps Adhémar would draw the line at bells.

She turned a jaundiced eye on Miach. He was quieter than his brother, not nearly so mesmerizing, and likely did not require so much attention. She had the feeling, however, that there was more to him than he let on.

Miach reminded her of Nicholas.

The realization came to her quite suddenly and with a settling somewhere in the vicinity of her heart. Perhaps she would never see Nicholas again, but perhaps she might find parts of him in the souls around her. That was reason enough to have not unkind feelings toward Adhémar's younger brother.

Miach looked back over his shoulder at her with one eyebrow lifted. She glared at him. He smiled briefly and turned back to listening to his brother complain in a language that Morgan didn't understand but found unsettlingly familiar.

She spared an unkind thought for Nicholas. Her life had been so simple before she'd touched that magical blade that hummed in her pack. Now, look at where she was.

On an endless road where the surrounding countryside never changed and magic hounded her.

She sighed, put her head down, and kept walking.

 

 

Two days later, she realized things were not going to improve in the near future. They had left a landscape of rolling hills and beautiful forests and come face-to-face with an endless plain.

Endless.

Her companions were standing in a line next to her, staring out across that flat land with varying degrees of surprise. Well, actually only she and Fletcher were surprised. The others looked as if they were viewing nothing out of the ordinary. Paien sighed lightly and began to study the sky. The others, save Miach, avoided looking at her. Miach simply stared at her as if he waited for her to come to some sort of conclusion.

She sighed. The conclusion was reached far sooner than she would have liked.

She cleared her throat and went to stand in front of them. This was a decision that had been quite difficult to arrive at, but she could see no other choice. She had looked at a map at the university, but somehow the continent had not seemed so, well, vast. She had little liking for it, but she knew she would have to find some other means to reach Neroche besides her feet. She looked at her comrades.

“This is a great distance to cross on foot,” she said finally.

“I told you so,” Paien said, looking at her from under bushy eyebrows.

“You did not!”

“You said ‘north.' I asked ‘on foot?'” he said. “That was an expression of grave doubt and a suggestion that you look for other means of travel.”

She scowled at him.

Adhémar folded his arms over his chest. “You didn't truly think to cross all of Neroche on foot, did you?”

“What makes you think I want to cross it all?” she demanded. “I only said ‘north.'”

“Have you ever
looked
at a map?” he asked.

“Map reading is not my strong suit,” she said unwillingly. She shot Paien a look of disgust. “I shouldn't have assumed someone would help me in that.”

“I didn't dare,” Paien said, holding up his hands. “Besides, you didn't say how far north. You could have been going north and a bit east and heading for Angesand.”

“Why would you want to go to Tor Neroche?” Miach asked.

“I never said I did,” she said. And she hadn't said as much. Never mind what she'd been thinking.

“You would need a horse, no matter how far north you intended to go,” Miach advised. “And someone to call you foolish if you did not obtain one.”

She pursed her lips. “Are you that man?”

“I might be.”

Morgan watched out of the corner of her eye as everyone backed away. Even Adhémar deserted his brother without hesitation. Morgan took a step back and drew her sword.

“My honor is at stake.”

“And your map-reading skills,” Miach said solemnly.

She had the feeling he was laughing at her and that irritated her enough to make her feel justified in having already drawn her blade. It was enough that he had bamboozled her in the inn two days earlier by disappearing from his corner; now he was poking fun at her and enjoying it.

She looked at him pointedly. He patted himself for a moment or two, then drew forth from beneath his cloak a completely inadequate dagger.

Paien burst out in hearty laughter.

“You insult me,” she said, feeling not a little foolish and quite a bit like she had started something she could not back away from without losing a great deal of her pride.

“He would bore you,” Adhémar said. “He never goes to the lists.”

“How would he know what they are?” she asked, turning to Adhémar. “Or you, for that matter? Do you venture in your lord's secretly when his garrison is away?”

Adhémar drew his sword with a growl. Morgan shot Miach a look of promise, which he accepted by promptly resheathing his dagger and going to look for somewhere to sit. Fortunately for her pride, Morgan found Adhémar to be almost worthy of that very bright sword he carried. Of course, he was no match for her, even after the weakness of that unsettlingly long convalescence, but there were few men who were—and that wasn't pride that spoke but experience.

She dragged the affair out much longer than was needful, more for the exercise than anything else. She finally caught the hilt of Adhémar's blade with the crossbar of hers and sent it flying.

Miach reached up without looking and caught the sword by the hilt. He stabbed it into the ground and went back to drawing in the dirt.

“Luck,” Adhémar said, his chest heaving.

Morgan didn't dignify that with a comment. She resheathed her sword, then walked over to see what Adhémar's brother was doing. He had drawn a rather decent map with his very pitiful dagger.

“Here we are,” he said, pointing to the southwest corner of a continent. “Here is Angesand,” he said, drawing a line north and east. “Farther east is Ainneamh where the elves dwell, north for the dwarves, and farther north for the wild men of Gairn, but you must pass through Wychweald to reach them. That is quite a ways east, though, and perhaps not your destination. If you want north,” he said, drawing a line that bent north and west toward Tor Neroche, “you must have a horse. Unless you've months to spend walking the distance.”

“Nay,” she said, finally, “I do not have months. I am in a fair bit of haste.”

“But you will not say to where you are in haste?” Miach asked.

“I cannot,” she said. “Not until I must.” She looked at Paien. “What do you think?”

“I do not care overmuch for horses,” Paien said slowly, “but I cannot deny young Master Miach has a point. The question now becomes, where we will go to procure them?”

“Angesand,” Miach answered promptly.

Adhémar snorted. “You jest! Hearn of Angesand would not sell one of his prized mounts to a king for less than a king's ransom. He will not sell any at all to an unknown company such as this—for any money.”

“How would you know that, lad?” Paien asked in a friendly fashion.

“Rumor,” Adhémar said. “Have you not heard the same in your travels?”

“Aye,” Paien said, “but I have traveled much.”

“As have I,” Adhémar returned. He looked at Morgan. “Search in another place.”

She looked at Paien, who nodded his agreement.

“Hearn of Angesand is notoriously choosey about his buyers,” he agreed. “You would have to offer him more gold than you'd see in a lifetime, and then some. In return you might get one of his nags.”

Morgan looked out over the plain that spread before them like a brown cloth. She saw nothing of settlements, but that did not mean there were none. What she did see was an enormous distance that she couldn't hope to cross in a pair of fortnights, even if she ran.

“We'll see what we can come by,” she said, turning back to look at her company. “And hope for the best.” She looked down at Miach's map, then looked at him briefly before she smudged it with her boot. It was one thing to look at a map hung on Nicholas's wall; it was another thing entirely to be faced with the reality of what it represented. “I will remember that.”

“My pleasure.”

“You should find a sword.”

“I might cut myself.”

Camid laughed and reached out to pull Miach to his feet by the back of his tunic. “Don't torment her. It puts her in a foul humor and she can be quite unpleasant when she's in a foul humor. Now, you aren't serious about not having a sword, are you?”

They walked off together, deep in discussion about things Morgan imagined would include remedying Miach's lack of weaponry.

Adhémar resheathed his blade and looked at her. “You are a passable swordsman,” he conceded.

“Thank you,” she said simply. She would have said quite a bit more, but Glines was seemingly on the verge of choking to death and friendship demanded that she at least whack him firmly on the back a time or two. Adhémar and Fletcher fell in behind Miach and Paien, so she didn't have the opportunity for any more instruction or enlightenment.