Illengond Read online

  “How long do we have?” Armas asked. Though he didn’t know him well, Jhaban liked the muscular duke. He had suffered the same thing as the officers in the dungeon, shown the same loyalty to the prince, and seemed to always be in a jovial mood.

  “We had traveled half a day before the scouts caught up with us,” Rhaan answered. “Unless other soldiers are already following, they have the same distance to return, and then they have to cover the ground yet a third time. That gives us a day. More if it takes time for them to gather troops. But it could be less also. Our pursuers will be able to travel faster thanks to all our work breaking a trail through the snow.”

  Siyen looked up at the sky. Heavier clouds had moved in late in the day. “Maybe it will snow and cover our tracks,” she said.

  Jhaban shook his head. He didn’t want to destroy her hope, but he knew it was unrealistic. “Not even a foot of fresh snow would hide our trail,” he said. “The most inexperienced scout in Citadel could follow it with one eye closed. It would take a serious blizzard with a lot of snow and some powerful winds to wipe it clean.”

  “Somebody should tell the prince,” Banthros said. His voice sounded weary, but before anybody could reply he rose to his feet and started back down the trail.

  “Maybe it’s Terrid following us,” Siyen suggested wishfully.

  “It might be,” Jhaban replied, but the heavy weight on his heart told him otherwise. Terrid would have been following their trail from two days earlier. He would have known it was them, and would not have needed to send scouts to search it.

  “Do we have to depart now?” Jhonna asked in a shaky voice.

  Jhaban looked around. In the short time since arriving back to join the others, the sky had grown black. He couldn’t see more than thirty yards into the woods away from the glow of the fire. The thought of traveling through the night after a long day of riding was a somber one. But the thought of being attacked or captured by El-Phern in the middle of the night was even less appealing.

  “No,” came a firm reply. To Jhaban’s surprise, the voice came from Thimeon, the one person in the company he might have thought most desperate to start moving again. “It will gain us little. Our horses need rest. So do we. We will travel faster and farther if we rest.”

  Yes, Jhaban thought. But however fast they travel, their pursuers would travel faster.

  “We must eat as well,” Thimeon went on, after a further moment of thought. “Let us finish roasting the venison that Kachtin got for us, and then sleep as we can. I will confer with the prince. If he agrees, then when the moon is overhead, we will depart. If there is a moon at all tonight.”

  “Some of us should stay behind to ambush El-Phern,” Kachtin said. “Give the others more time.”

  Jhaban looked around. Even if the whole company stayed behind, it wouldn’t be a third of the numbers they’d need for an effective ambush. Hadn’t Terrid tried that already with a bigger company? Whether any others agreed or not, nobody replied.

  “Whatever we do,” Kachtin said a minute later, “we should put out the fire. It will lead them right here.”

  Once again Thimeon responded firmly. “No. The fire is irrelevant. Our tracks are enough to lead them here with or without the fire. Let us enjoy the warmth while we can and finish cooking the meat. We will depart soon enough—sooner than any of us wish—and hope to stay ahead of them. Perhaps we will reach the Mountain in time, and find Elynna and fulfill our quest. Or we can hope for a blizzard to waylay our pursuers. But splitting the company or turning to fight are last resorts only.”

  The others nodded soberly. They sat in silence. Dhan returned in the place of Banthros. He spoke quietly with Thimeon, but Jhaban heard only a word or two now and then. He didn’t have the energy to listen more closely. He realized now that his hard—and as it turned out vain—ride back down the trail with Rhaan had taken a toll on him. Sitting by the fire, he quietly ate the portion of venison offered him, barely even tasting it, and then went to sleep.

  22

  TOWARD ILLENGOND

  For the second day in a row, Jhaban was woken by someone shaking his shoulder. He opened his eyes and looked into Rhaan’s face. Rhaan stopped shaking him and walked off, leaving Jhaban staring up into the moon straight overhead. He sat up and looked around. The moon, still in its pale phase late in the month, cast a beautiful glow on the snowy hillside. He was glad for the light until he remembered what it meant. The clouds he had gone to sleep with had disappeared. There would be no blizzard to hide their trail.

  A draft of colder air tumbled down the slope across his face and he shivered. For the first time since escaping Citadel, he wished he was somewhere else. He looked around. The fire near his feet had burned down to a few orange coals clinging to the side of a half-burned log, surrounded by ash. Something caught his eye. Sitting on the edge of the ashes where Gaelim had tossed it the previous evening sat the half-finished stone sculpture. It looked like a wax deer whose body had melted in a blob of rock, leaving only a magnificent antlered head that could no longer run anywhere because it had no legs.

  As he looked at it with a strange sense of sadness, he realized that Jhonna was looking at it too from the opposite side of what had been the fire. As he watched, she reached down as if to pick it up. Then she stopped, withdrew her hand, and walked away. Jhaban rose, donned his sword, and followed her toward the horses.

  When they were ready to depart, Prince Dhan spoke to the company as they all sat astride their horses in a cluster around him. “All our horses are tired. They have rested little and it will be a long day of hard work. Jhaban and Rhaan did extra riding yesterday. They should follow farther back in the pack. Kachtin and Banthros will take turns breaking the trail with our guide Thimeon, at least until daybreak. Travel will be slow. If you can walk at all for a time without falling behind, and give your horses a rest, do so. I leave it to you.” He looked over at Thimeon, and then added, “And may the All-Maker keep us safe.”

  Kachtin then spun his horse around, gave it a little kick and shake of the reins, and stepped into the untrodden snow. Banthros was right behind him. Thimeon came next. Jhaban was looking at the other officers to follow, but Jhonna turned her horse right on to Thimeon’s. Her sister whose skilled sword arm Jhaban admired almost as much as her beauty, followed her. Jhaban followed Corandra.

  As they came around the first bend of the hillside, a view of moonlit Illengond Mountain opened up in front of them. Jhaban hadn’t seen the peak all the previous afternoon because they were so close to it that the steep ridgelines ahead blocked their view. Now he had to tip his head up to see the three-peaked bowl at the top, glowing in a halo of moonlight against the starry backdrop.

  He heard Jhonna in front of him ask, in a voice full of awe, “Is that where we’re going?”

  Thimeon turned his head slightly. His voice carried in the quiet of the crisp night air. “We need to get to the mountain’s west slope. I am hoping—“ he started, but then cut himself short. Whatever he was going to say, he left unsaid.

  “To find your friends,” Jhonna said after a moment. “To bring them the sword. I understand. But how will we ever find them in all this wild land?”

  Thimeon didn’t answer. Maybe he didn’t have an answer, Jhaban thought. But Jhaban had no answers of his own, either. He would keep following Thimeon and the prince, whether that ended somewhere on the mountain ahead of them, or took them west into the Undeani highlands. At least they had a course to follow. Thimeon had drawn it on a map in the snow. They were not far east of where one of the branches of the Illengond River poured down out of the mountains. If they turned west too soon, their path would lead them to a stretch of the river with neither bridge nor ford. So they were traveling north most of the day—right up to the face of the Mountain—before turning to the west.

  They covered several miles before sunrise. Though the snow was too deep for those in the lead to
wade, Jhaban got off his horse and walked some distance both to warm his legs and to rest his horse. When the sun rose, they paused for a rest and shared some of the venison left over from the previous night.

  Once again nearby ridges blocked the view of Illengond’s summit, but Jhaban stood looking back to the south where their trail was visible for miles. “Didn’t think I’d ever be wanting a blizzard,” he said, to nobody in particular, “but right now I sure wouldn’t mind if one blew our way.”

  “A blizzard on Mount Illengond could be a greater danger than any soldiers pursuing us,” Thimeon replied.

  “Maybe,” Jhaban replied, “But unless we get some miracle, there is no hope we’ll lose our pursuers. It’s just a matter of time.”

  “Snow won’t hide us from the Daegmon,” Thimeon answered. He was looking at Cathwain and Gaelim as he spoke. “In any case, the Daegmon is our real enemy. We need avoid capture only long enough to get this sword to those with the gift to use it.”

  And what happens to us then? Jhaban wondered. He kept his question to himself. Five minutes later he pulled himself up into his saddle and the company resumed their journey.

  As the sun rose in the sky to the east, clouds appeared again to the north. They clung to the sides of the slopes above them, and spread outward as the morning progressed. At mid-morning the company came to the top of a high ridge. As Jhaban crested the slope, the splendor of Mount Illengond once more opened up before him. Ahead, a slight descent led to a wide alpine meadow, and on the other side the ground rose more steeply. The mountain towered over the landscape now, leaning down over Jhaban with tremendous weight. He had to remind himself that the peak was still many miles away. Its size overwhelmed his sense of direction with closeness. He wanted to get onto a ship and get out as quickly as possible into the flat open expanse of the seas.

  He turned around. The ridge offered a superb view in every direction. They had gained at least two thousand feet in elevation over the course of the morning, added on to the climbing of the previous day. Back to the south, their trail was as visible in the snow as if it were a line on a map marking a road or a river. It reminded Jhaban of what he already knew. It was not a question of whether or not they were pursued, but only of how close the pursuit was. He was relieved to see no sign of anyone following through the trees or open meadows on the slopes below. He looked to the west. The land was wild and even more thickly forested there, it seemed. He thought he could make out the gap of a valley many miles distant. He wondered if the River Gondisle flowed southward off the slopes of Illengond there. Little else marked the territory. Both north and west lay a vast wilderness.

  The realization struck him with some irony. They were faced with what seemed like two opposite and impossible tasks: finding somebody in the midst of that wilderness, and escaping somebody who wanted to find them. They could journey for days and not stumble across the tracks of whomever Thimeon was looking for. And what if these others did not even come? And yet it seemed impossible to escape those who were pursuing them.

  Jhaban was staring at the back of Thimeon’s head pondering all these doubts when Thimeon spun his horse around from where it stood further along the ridge, and started back toward Jhaban through the deeper snow to the right of the trail they had just broken. He called out in an urgent voice as he rode. “Cathwain!”

  Jhaban looked behind him. They young Ceadani woman was just a short distance back. She rode forward toward Thimeon, and they met beside Jhaban. “We must try again to reach them,” Thimeon said, speaking to Cathwain across the neck of Jhaban’s horse.

  Cathwain’s face fell. “You mean Elynna?” she asked. “I have tried. I’m sorry. I tried again last night, and this morning. I don’t know what—”

  “Wait,” Thimeon said, putting up his hand. “I know you have tried. It’s not your fault. But I have a new idea. I should have thought of it earlier. Maybe Elynna can’t hear you, but what if you try speaking with somebody else in the company. Somebody you remember. Try Tienna instead. She is the Plainswoman—”

  “I remember her,” Cathwain replied before Thimeon could finish. “I have an image of her in my mind. That is enough. I will try.”

  Jhaban watched Cathwain as she closed her eyes in concentration. Half a minute passed, and then she looked up with an expression of surprise. “She heard! I could feel her mind listening.”

  “Are you sure?” Thimeon asked.

  “I am sure,” Cathwain answered. “She did not speak to me, but our minds touched. I could hear her thoughts. They were confused and uncertain. She was surprised to hear my voice, and she did not know how to reply. But her thoughts came to me. She was thinking of mist, feeling it fall on her face. And I saw a boat in water, and many strange faces of men in white skins. I could hear her listening to me. I don’t understand it all, but I know she heard me. I know.”

  Thimeon breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you. You have done well. We can only hope now that they come to us, wherever they are.”

  “But what did the pictures mean?” Cathwain asked. “The boat and the water?”

  Jhaban wondered the same thing. Thimeon only frowned. “I don’t understand either. Is it possible they have gone all the way to the Westwash? Or that they are still on the Plains on the shores of Umgog?” He shook his head, then asked, “What else did you tell her?”

  “The same thing you told me to tell Elynna. I told her to meet us on the slopes of Illengond. I told her I would speak with her again and guide her to us.”

  “And the stone? Did you tell her about the stone? And the sword?”

  Cathwain nodded. “I told her not to use it.”

  Thimeon looked toward the peak of Illengond, and then back to the south, and then again northward. “We must reach Elynna before the soldiers catch us,” he said. He spun his horse and urged it back toward the front of the company.

  Jhaban resisted the temptation to chase after him and ask questions. Even if your friends come, how will we find them in the wilderness? Maybe for people who could talk without words across the mountains of Gondisle, that wasn’t a problem after all.

  A minute later he was on the move again descending the gradual slope down the back side of the ridge. The pitch was moderate and the wind had swept much of the snow clear. They came soon to the bottom. But then the line of horses stopped ahead of Jhaban. Thimeon and Kachtin were conferring about something, pointing around to the left and right. The delay lasted only a minute. Then Kachtin started forward with Thimeon following.

  Twenty seconds later Jhaban heard the hooves of his horse click on ice, and understood the brief pause. It was not a meadow but a wide frozen mountain pond—a tarn, covered in a foot and a half of snow. Thimeon and Kachtin must have been discussing the risks of crossing compared with the delay of going around. He hoped they made the right choice.

  Across they went, cautiously at first but then picking up the pace. Ahead and behind Jhaban could hear the sounds of hooves on ice. He watched the leaders, ready to stop at any hint of breaking ice. He was a southlander, not used to the idea of walking on frozen water. Even an inch of snow was rare in Kreana. Though his horse lurched two or three times after a slight slip on the ice, the tarn proved solid and five minutes later his horse stepped up onto snow-covered ground on the other side. Jhaban could now see the slight dip in the ground level where the tarn continued on another hundred yards up into a bowl to his right. He was glad to be off it.

  As they paused waiting for the rest of the line to get off the ice, Rhaan pointed out a patch of ferns and alpine grasses on a windswept patch of ground at the end of the pond. Though they had recently rested, he suggested they let their horses find what food they could. While the horses gathered around and nibbled, Jhaban went with Rhaan to the far edge of the tarn where they saw a spring from some warmer underground source bubbling through the rocks and forming a wall of ice leading down to the pond. They filled their em
pty water skins and returned to the company.

  Scant and frozen though the grass was, it took them a minute to pull their horses heads away from the food. Thimeon, however, was now urging them on again. Jhaban and the others mounted. Another ten minutes and they approached the end of the meadow. Here, however, the wind blowing over the ridges ahead and to the right had dropped a lot more snow. It went quickly from less than knee deep to waist deep. Their paced suddenly slowed, and it slowed further when they reached the end of the meadow and began to climb once again.

  A long slope now lay ahead of them leading to a high ridge line that once more blocked their view of Illengond’s three-pointed crown. Those in front began rotating turns leading more frequently, swapping places every two or three minutes. The horses were exhausted now. They walked with heads down and tails drooping. Jhaban feared they would not survive much longer. He wanted to ride forward and help, but he knew that the prince was right: his excursion the previous day had taken an extra toll on his mount, and it was worse off than some of the others. He kept his place in line.

  It took them all the rest of the morning and into the early afternoon to reach the top of the slope where they found a small plateau a few hundred yards across. Thin clouds now blanketed the sky. A brighter smear overhead and to the west marked the sun. The air was noticeably colder now. The sun did nothing to warm them. But at least no wind blew. They had gained maybe fifteen hundred more feet from their mid-morning rest at the ridgeline south of the tarn and again they had a clear view of the surrounding land.

  “We turn here,” Thimeon announced. “We need climb no higher. We can follow the terrain around to the west slope.”.

  “Where are we meeting Elynna and the others?” Siyen asked. Jhaban remembered now that Siyen had traveled with Thimeon before as part of his previous company. They seemed to have some uncomfortable history between them. He wondered if Thimeon would give her the same answer he had given Jhonna earlier. Whatever message Cathwain had mysteriously communicated for Thimeon seemed to have given him new confidence. Jhaban wished he had the same confidence.