The Betrayal (24 page)

“So we would have cast out the alben even if they had chosen some lesser creature to abuse? Horses, perhaps?”

Eliani's brow wrinkled, then she laughed. “I do not know. It is too philosophical a question for me.” She glanced at the sun, which was edging toward the western peaks. “And it is time we pressed on. With luck we will reach the summit before nightfall.”

She stood, tore the last bit of bread in half, and offered him a piece. Luruthin took it, thanking her with a nod, sorry their conversation had ended. He was no longer hungry, but he ate the bread as he watched Eliani walk away, not wanting to waste any gift from
her, even the humblest. He took a last swallow of wine to clear his throat, and another to dull the ache in his heart, before rising to return to his horse.

Eliani glanced back at the straggling column, restraining her impatience to press ahead. They were near the summit, but it had taken longer than she had expected to reach. She had hoped not to camp in these heights.

She knew of a sheltered place on the western side of the pass, perhaps a league below the summit. Were she alone, she would reach it easily by nightfall, but not all of the horses were as hardy as her mountain-bred gelding. Eliani halted her horse, patted its neck, and waited for the scout to close up.

A sharp wind blew constantly from the west, swirling around the peaks and filling the air with gusts of stinging ice. The wind scoured snow away from the heights and piled it into deep drifts elsewhere.

Eliani noticed a conce protruding from the snow beside the trail. She did not know whose it was; some Southfælder. Lonely to die up here, even in clement weather, and the conce meant the death had not been peaceful.

Vaniron reached her, his horse's sides heaving, breath icing in the bright sunshine. The Greenglen's fair cheeks were wind-reddened, and his hair whipped in his face.

“You seem to know your way. Have you crossed this pass before?”

She shook her head. “Not in two de cades. I recall a ledge some way below the summit on the western side. We might camp there to night.”

“I know the place. There was a fall of rock over the summer that blocked the trail above it, but if kobalen came through, they must have cleared it.”

“Or climbed over it.”

Eliani frowned. A blocked trail would pose a problem. They might have to clear it themselves to get to shelter. She glanced back toward the scout, then looked at Vanorin.

“I will ride ahead and see if the way is clear. Wait here until the others have come up, then bring them on.”

Vaniron acknowledged this, pulling his hood up to protect his face from the wind. Eliani braced herself and turned into it, urging her horse forward through knee-deep snow.

The trail leveled as she reached the summit, curving along the shoulder of a craggy peak. Two others loomed overhead, bright against the blue sky. One bore on its side the headwaters of the Silverwash, here an icy trickle against dark stone, its first cascade frozen in its fall. Eliani remembered how the stream danced in summer, tried to warm herself with thoughts of better weather.

When the icefall was out of sight and the trail began to descend, she tightened her reins, holding her mount to a slow walk. She considered dismounting but found that as the slope steepened, the snow all but vanished except where the wind had driven it into crannies in the rocky western face of the mountains.

Not far ahead the trail rounded a ridge, and from there she should be able to see whether the way was clear below. She dismounted after all, listening to an inner prompting whose source she could not identify, something in the wind, perhaps. She remembered Heléri's advice to trust such feelings. Whether they were spirits' guidance or merely instinct, she could not tell.

Reins in hand, she reached the turn and paused, listening. No sound came to her save the wind's harsh breath. She laid the reins on the saddle, stepped forward, and looked down the westward trail.

The sun, still high above the flat horizon, glinted
harshly on the western cliffs, sharpening their edges. The trail below was clear of rock, but as her gaze followed it toward the camping place and beyond, she saw movement on the plain below, like the flickering of a firespear forest.

Eliani gasped and leapt backward, nearly tripping in her haste to get behind the ridge. She flattened her back against the rock and stood panting, her breath icing before her, each wisp caught away by the wind.

No forest, that. No greenleaf trees grew on the wind-scoured plains west of the Ebon Mountains. She had seen the glimmer of an army encampment.

She held still and sought to control her breathing, wishing there were some living thing in these heights through which she might expand her sense of what lay below. Air and rock were all she had. She scented the wind for a trace of kobalen nearby but detected none.

Laying a hand on the rock face of the ridge, she closed her eyes, feeling for a tremor of movement on the trail. Either there was none or her senses had been deadened by cold and wind. No khi, bright or dark, disturbed the thin air save that of her scout to the east and of their mounts. She drew a breath, left her horse, and dropped to her belly before edging around the turn.

The sight of the encampment was less a shock this time, but no less frightening. A smear of darkness sprawled out onto the plain, seeming to writhe with movement: the glimmer of spear points, their glass edges catching the late sun. That was what she first had seen.

Many kobalen were massed together below—hundreds, more than ten times the largest band she had ever heard of—far more than she had ever imagined seeing at once. As she watched, they rushed all at once to the south in a scattered, disorganized charge.

Eliani cupped her hands about her eyes, squinting to make out the leaders of the charge. There seemed to
be none. The kobalen stopped and began to wander back to their starting place.

She shifted her gaze, taking in a vast scatter of rough camps and fire pits interspersed with the rubbish heaps that marked any place the kobalen dwelt. Judging from the size of these, the kobalen had not been there long. In fact, to the northwest across the wastes she saw what seemed to be a band of new arrivals approaching, some fifty or sixty strong.

She wasted no time trying to guess why the kobalen had chosen this remote and barren place for a winter camp. This was not their ordinary behavior. There was some game in the wastes but not enough to feed such a horde, at least not for long.

She crawled behind the ridge, then mounted her horse and returned through the pass. She saw Vanorin and Luruthin approaching at the head of the scout and signaled to them to halt, then rode forward to meet them.

“There are kobalen encamped on the wastes below. A large army.”

She led the two of them to see for themselves. They all crouched on the trail overlooking the kobalen camp.

Luruthin frowned as he gazed at the masses of kobalen. “They could attack at any time. We must go back at once and inform Lord Felisan.”

Vanorin nodded. “Southfæld must be warned as well.”

“Yes.”

With a shock, Eliani realized she had the means, perhaps, to warn Southfæld instantly. A slow dread poured through her veins.

She did not wish to use mindspeech to contact Turisan. She had not decided yet whether to commit to the use of their gift, and the mere thought of speaking
to him now, of letting him into her thoughts, set her trembling. It would end any choice she had about her future, she knew. The next time they spoke, she would fall from the precipice, and be lost.

If she held off—if she sent Vanorin's folk galloping for Glenhallow instead—would she be placing her freedom above the safety of all Southfæld? She did not even know if she could speak to Turisan at this distance. The only way to know was to try.

She looked at Vanorin. “How long will it take you to get word to Glenhallow?”

“A message can be relayed along the guard posts in two days, three at most.”

Two days, and another day to get down from the pass. If they traveled all night, they might reach the outpost by morning.

Eliani swallowed. “Let us go, then.”

Chagrin smote her even as she got to her feet. She strode hard for the horses, fighting a silent battle within herself, every moment weighing on her conscience.

Surely the kobalen would not move in three days, not if they were still arriving, as the black column implied. She glanced skyward, seeing the fair weather now as a curse rather than a blessing. If only a storm would close the pass …

The ælven creed called for serving one's people. If her judgment proved wrong in this matter, lives could be lost—many lives, perhaps.

It would be so simple to pass the news to Turisan. No need to hasten the scout down the mountain again.

How much would three days' warning gain them, though? Time to raise a defense or even part of one? Would it matter at all?

It mattered. To her, if to no one else. She reached her
horse and swung into the saddle, calling out orders to the scout to return eastward.

She could not bring herself to speak to Turisan. Despising herself, she urged her fellow guardians down the mountain, hoping she was not risking their very lives.

 Nightsand 

The sky over Nightsand was hazy, a hint of rain in the damp air, the night Shalár brought her catch home. She rode the weary catamount, and Yaras walked beside it.

He had been her chosen at Hunt's Eve, but now they were returned to Nightsand. Dareth would be first with her here, always. Shalár felt a sharp impatience to see him, to give him the fresh, strong blood of a newly caught kobalen, to enjoy the strength it would give him.

She looked up toward the Cliff Hollows and saw him standing in the gallery with the draperies open behind him. He must see her and Yaras walking beside her. He was neither blind nor a fool, and he would know she had favored Yaras.

Well, he knew of all her couplings. She never hid them. She had too high a regard for Dareth to deceive him.

In silence, Shalár rode through the city and up the long, steep trail to the Cliff Hollows, then on it toward the pens. She reached the entrance to the pens and paused to dismount. The catamount had no fight in it; she left it lying beside the entrance, needing only a feather touch of khi to control it. Let the kobalen believe, if they would, that the cat would stand guard over them, ready to devour any that tried to escape.

None would escape the pens. None ever had.

Shalár turned the catch over to Nihlan, selecting a strong kobalen to take with her to the Cliff Hollows. When they had left the pens behind, the creature attempted to break free and would have flung itself from the cliff had she not instead forced it to its knees. She made it crawl the rocky path until she became impatient to be at home. When at last she let it rise again, the scent of its blood filled the air.

The guards at the entrance to the Cliff Hollows bowed in greeting, their khi flaring with sudden hunger. She swept past them and into the audience chamber, where she had seen Dareth standing.

He was there, tall, clad in gray, gazing out at Night-sand below. The city blazed with light, welcoming the return of the hunters.