The Dreamtrails (22 page)

When we headed off again, the moon had set and the forest darkened, making it harder to see our way. It was growing cold, too. This, as much as a desire to reach the road and find out what had been happening, kept us moving. As always when I was in physical discomfort, I found myself longing for absurd luxuries instead of simple necessities: a freshly made bed or a long soak in one of the hot springs in a
mountain valley. I imagined eating a fresh-baked roll with butter melting into it as I sat in the battered chair that stood on my little turret-room balcony, Maruman lying on my lap.

Thinking of Maruman frightened me, because Gahltha had said the old cat intended to seek me out, but he had not done so. Hours had passed between the time the others had been taken from Noviny’s place and when the armsmen had returned for me—easily time enough for Maruman to have found his way to me. I feared less that he had been injured than that what happened had sent him into one of his fey wandering states.

I wondered if the blue-black night sky would ever lighten. It was impossible to believe that it had only been the previous evening when I had sat in the wagon on Noviny’s property, listening to the rain and brewing soup.

“How long until the sun rises?” I asked.

“Three hours maybe,” Kevrik panted, squinting up at the sky. The next time we stopped, I borrowed Malik’s knife and nearly cut my throat trying to pick the demon band’s lock so we could summon aid. Kevrik tried, too, but after only a minute he shook his head and said he had not the nerve for it. I must be patient and he would get a key for the band.

Malik muttered something in a slurred voice, and Kevrik and I exchanged an alarmed look. He was definitely waking. The highlander fetched a stone and gave the chieftain a solid knock on the head. By the time we went on again, the sky was lightening to a deep indigo. To pass the time and to take my mind off the horses, I asked Kevrik what happened after he had awoken outside the cell in Vos’s homestead.

The guard had awakened him, he said. The man remembered being hit by Kevrik, who had pretended to recall nothing and “noticed” that neither was now wearing a demon
band. Kevrik remembered all that had happened between us, of course, but he also had a “memory” in which I told him how he had been knocked out and how I had decided to use this accident to make sure Vos did not regard him with suspicion. Kevrik then told the cell guard that the alarm bells they could hear must signal the capture of the Misfit who had tampered with their minds. Ironically, that had been the simple truth, and Kevrik had arrived just in time to do as I had asked: suggest to Vos that I be taken at once to Malik’s camp.

“You took a great risk, yet still I do not understand what you meant to achieve.”

“How else could I have made sure that I would be in the camp when the horses stampeded? I knew that we needed to overcome Malik and his men and take them prisoner as swiftly as possible so that someone could be sent to Sutrium to warn the Council of Chieftains about the invasion. Of course, I did not bargain on Malik grabbing me, but I daresay he did not bargain on you. How many of your men will stand with us if they know the truth about Malik’s plan?”

“A good many of them,” Kevrik answered. “Once they are convinced it is not a trick. I would suggest letting Noviny speak to them. He is known as an honorable man.”

We walked very slowly now, for we were both weary, and my bandage sandals were wearing thin once more. Kevrik began to talk again, perhaps to distract himself from fatigue. He said that he had tried to saddle Gahltha to ride to Malik’s camp, thinking the black horse would want to go along. But Gahltha had backed away so determinedly that the armsman realized he had some other instruction.

“He was to release the other horses from the corral and deal with the armsmen who would try to stop them,” I said.

He nodded. “I realized as much when th’ black horse an’
th’ rest came past the tree where I was hidin’. I could tell they kenned I was there an’ on their side because your black horse came an’ butted his head against me.” He laughed softly at the memory. “Then th’ other horses came gallopin’ along the road an’ stampeded through the camp. Your black horse leapt out and the rest followed. No wonder Malik an’ his men stood there like dolts through it.”

We both fell silent, lacking the breath for anything but dragging. Then, at long last, just as the rising sun stained the sky with a pink and lemon glow, we saw the road.

Not until we had almost reached it did I notice the dead armsman lying in the middle of the road. From the queer horrible angle of his neck, he looked as if he had broken it when thrown from his horse. Sickened, I wondered how many men had died as a result of my commands.

We propped Malik against a sturdy tree, and Kevrik dragged the armsman’s body off the road, for it seemed disrespectful to leave it lying there. I was shocked to see him riffle through the man’s pockets, but then he held up a small gray key with a shout of triumph, and a moment later the demon band was unlocked.

I resisted the urge to hurl the loathsome thing into the trees and instead set it on the ground, knowing that sooner or later, someone was going to have to clean up the tainted material around Saithwold. Then I gave over thinking in the sheer joy of being able to send my mind spinning out. Having briefly experienced normality, I thought it such a wretched limited state that I wondered how Malik could value it so.

First I sought out Gahltha. He was still at Malik’s camp, and his welcome and relief were no less than mine at finding him safe. To my amazement, he said the horses were in control of Malik’s camp. The uninjured armsmen were penned
up against the cliff edge, guarded by horses. Gahltha had sent Dovyn and a few horses back to Vos’s property, for the gray horse had a plan to ensure the humans there did not leave. They were too far away for him to beastspeak, Gahltha explained, but he was confident that Dovyn would manage, despite the fact that the men had weapons and a house to take refuge in. Indeed, he seemed surprised at how worried I had been. It occurred to me with some shame that, in imagining they would need a human captain, I had underestimated the horses almost as much as Malik had.

Predictably, Gahltha wanted to come and get me at once, but I insisted that I was safe and bade him stay to keep a close watch over his human prisoners. “We can’t risk any of them signaling the Herders; they might call off the invasion.”

“Is that not what you want?”

“It was, but now it seems we ought to let them land so we can take their ships, as Zarak suggested.”

During the laborious walk through the trees, I had done some thinking about Zarak’s idea of permitting the invasion so we could commandeer the ships. It would be a brilliant coup, allowing us not only a swift and unexpected way to reach the west coast, but also the means of bringing Dragon to the Red Land. To simply turn back the invaders would be a lesser victory, and the Faction warriors would be stronger when they invaded next. My only fear now, other than someone signaling the Herders, was that Malik might have planned to give some final signal to let the Faction know it was safe to land. The only way of learning would be to probe Malik. This would also allow us to learn the exact timing of the invasion. The thought of delving into Malik’s mind filled me with revulsion even as Kevrik removed the unconscious man’s demon band.

Withdrawing from Gahltha, I tried to farseek Zarak, but I realized he and the others must have set up camp close to the cloister’s tainted walls, for the probe would not locate. I sent my mind back to Gahltha, asking him to send a horse to let Zarak and the others know what had happened and to suggest they bring the wagon in the direction of Noviny’s property, where they would find Kevrik and me waiting by the roadside.

I farsought Dovyn, who sent that many of the thrown riders had walked back to the homestead by the time he and the other horses had returned. Dovyn said the humans believed that the horses had been forced to throw their riders. Instead of regarding them as enemies, they had begun herding them into the corral. Dovyn had expected this, and he had urged his equine warriors to allow themselves to be corralled, for Gahltha had shown them how to unlatch the gate and escape whenever they wished.

Nothing had happened for some time, and then several funaga-li came to saddle horses and ride off. The horses had thrown them as soon as they were out of sight of the homestead and returned at once, to the evident dismay of the humans, again allowing themselves to be caught. As Dovyn had surmised, the funaga-li were incapable of understanding that the horses acted under their own volition, and all of them had retreated into the house, clearly believing they were under siege by a human army. Soon the doors and windows of the homestead were bristling with armsmen who shot arrows out into the darkness all night long, though no one had approached. I could guess that Vos imagined an army of vicious Misfits surrounding his property and killing every rider he sent out.

Stifling laughter, I asked what had happened to the
thrown humans, and Dovyn explained that dogs had been enlisted to keep watch over them. The two species did not normally cooperate in this way, but neither did they normally make war on funaga. The gray horse added that dogs were perfect guards, because their acute sense of smell allowed them to scent the intention of a captive funaga-li to attack or attempt escape. I guessed their human prisoners were far more unnerved at being attacked and guarded by a pack of dogs and horses than they would have been by a group of humans.

There had been no arrows fired since dawn, Dovyn sent, for the funaga-li had been able to see that there were no enemies creeping closer. Vos must be sadly puzzled about what was going on. He would have discovered by now that his prisoners had vanished, and he could have no idea how that had happened.

Dovyn also told me that the men at the blockade had fled at the sight of riderless horses galloping back from Malik’s camp.

I felt a touch on my arm and bade Dovyn farewell. When I opened my eyes, Kevrik nodded at Malik.

He looked unconscious, but if he was awake, I wanted to know it. I shaped a probe and had barely entered the black tumult of his mind when I was engulfed by a ghastly vision of torture, where I was the victim and Malik stood over me with bloodied hands. His eyes flew open.

“Get out of my mind,” Malik hissed through gritted teeth.

I withdrew, shaken to discover that he was mind-sensitive. It explained much, though not all. I wondered what he would say if I told him of Garth’s belief that this sensitivity was itself a minor Talent, which made him a Misfit, too.

“Check his ropes,” I told Kevrik calmly, holding Malik’s
burning gaze. Then I said coldly and purposefully, “I have no wish to enter the cesspit of cruelty and violence that you call a mind, Malik, but I will do so if you speak another word that angers or offends me, or if you try to escape. I will enter it and wipe it clean. Do not doubt that I can do it.”

Malik seemed to teeter on the point of exploding; then abruptly all the tension melted out of him and his face grew calm. Watching this transformation, unease snaked through me, and I remembered his avowal that he had no need to plan an escape. To find out if he was referring to something other than the invasion, I would have to probe him. I decided it could wait until I reached Vos’s homestead.

“You and your kind—” Malik began.

“Are here to stay,” I concluded savagely. “Now keep your mouth shut, for I meant my threat.” I turned my back on him. I was trembling slightly, but not out of fear. Malik’s relentless hatred had disturbed the black killing power deep inside me. I felt it stir, like someone sleeping, almost waking, and then settling back. It frightened me. The last time I had fully awakened that power, it had proven to have a dark will of its own, and I had a ghastly vision of myself coercing Malik to cut his throat or set himself on fire.

To distract myself, I tried farseeking Zarak again, and this time my probe located immediately. “Where are you?” I asked.

“We are coming to get ye just as Gahltha told me ye wanted. We have just turned onto th’ main road,” Zarak sent. “I suppose ye could nowt reach us before, because we were camped inside the cloister walls. It was empty as ye thought, though it looks as if something had been planned there, fer there is a great pile of earth an’ rock just inside the walls, an’ all manner of tools. To tell ye th’ truth, I regretted settin’ up inside, fer the cloister is a strange creepy place full of ghostly
bumps and echoes. We were in the midst of breakin’ camp to move outside th’ walls fer tonight when Gahltha’s messenger galloped up. Is it true ye were Malik’s captive?”

I winced. “I will explain everything later,” I sent briskly. “Right now, Malik is my prisoner, and Malik’s men and Vos and his men are sieged by the horses. They have done brilliantly, but they need some human hands to deal with their prisoners. Ask Noviny to start thinking about who we can ask for help.”

“I’d like to know how the horses managed to get away from Vos and his men,” Zarak said, and then laughed. “I know! Ye’ll explain everything later. There is one other thing, Guildmistress,” Zarak said, and the tone of his voice was suddenly subdued. “You should know that Darius is worse.”

A chill ran through me. Yet how should we have achieved so much without any casualties? Did not life always demand its sacrifice? I sent to Zarak to ask Wenda about the most experienced healer in the region, determined to send for that person as soon as possible, but then I felt Kevrik’s hand on my arm again. I opened my eyes to see him looking with consternation toward Saithwold town. I followed his gaze and almost groaned aloud to see men on horses galloping toward us. They could only be armsmen who had been stationed at the main barricade or who were searching for me, and I cursed myself for lacking the wit to stay off the road and out of sight. Too late now to untie Malik and hide with him, for if we could see the riders, they could certainly see us.

“There is no need for you to be caught,” I told Kevrik. “Go into the trees and hide. Wait for my friends in the wagon.”