The Betrayed Read online

  Elynna nodded. But she wasn’t thinking about the drink. She was thinking about the possibility that Marti might never return. Or that he might return and find his village destroyed.

  Their burly good-natured innkeeper interrupted her thoughts. He had followed them down to the water, and as the company prepared to embark, he promised that the peoples of Tana and Eana would hide any remaining boats and delay the soldiers as long as possible. Several of Beth’s and Marti’s clan leaders echoed the promise.

  Elynna began to feel at ease, but it didn’t last long. A moment later Nahoon added, “And yet when we leave the boats at the northern end of the lake, we will be traveling on foot. Our enemy is coming on horseback, and they are closer than we thought by a day or more. Until we leave the Plains and head into the rugged mountains, we will be at a great disadvantage.”

  “All the more reason to depart soon,” Marti said, bringing their attention back to the boats. He proceeded to describe to Elynna and the others nearby what he had arranged for them. The largest of the boats already had a small load of grain in it bound for the northern end of the lake, but it could hold at least a dozen passengers. An older women named Leah piloted the boat. Though from the Eana clan, she was somehow related to Beth through the marriage of their cousins. The vessel had four oars and locks. Leah’s sons sat at two of the oarlocks, eager to start the voyage. The other two oars were to be manned in shifts by the passengers or by Leah herself, who looked quite strong.

  Marti stood silent, as though waiting for Elynna to make a decision. But she didn’t know what he wanted until he took it upon himself to start herding some of the waiting companions into the boat. By the time he was done, more than half the company, including all the Northlanders, had climbed into Leah’s boat. One seat remained beside Cane. Eager for a chance to be near him for a time, Elynna started to step down, but she was too slow. Beth hopped into the boat and grabbed the final seat. Her heart sank, but she had no opportunity to try to rearrange the plan. Marti took her arm and guided her farther down the dock to where the next boat waited.

  The second boat was a shorter fishing vessel. Elynna looked it over, and her thoughts drifted back for a moment to her home and the vessels her own people used. The boat had a deep hull and a long-handled rudder. Too short to be a shultees the Westwashers used for river travel in the Lienwash or its shallower tributary rivers near Lienford. It was more like the coastal boats manned along the Westwash seashore. Still, it made her feel a little at home and gave her a pang of homesickness for the sea. She did not complain when Marti ushered her into the boat along with Anchara, Falien, and Pietr. It was only about twenty feet long, covered with rigging and full of nets of various shapes and sizes. With five on board, it felt crowded. However, it was the only one of the three boats with a sail, and when Elynna realized she would not be required to row, she was content. Sailing the boat was a Southlander named Ayjen, who had settled on the Plains many years earlier. He promised them good winds for the day.

  The third boat was still on the sand. It was a wide sleek wooden vessel resembling the river lalls of the Westwash. It had shallow draw and was wide enough to be stable as well as fast.

  As Elynna watched, Marti led the last four companions back along the beach to where the boat rested. There he and two youths slid the boat down the sand into the water. Elynna discovered from Falien that the boat belonged to Marti’s family and was piloted by Marti’s younger brother Keet, an adventurous boy of fourteen years. Their father had crafted it himself, one of a few boats in the village built for passengers. At various times they accepted fares to transport hunters to the small western islands known for good waterfowl.

  Falien lowered his voice. “Keet used to travel regularly with his father. He knows the lake as well as anybody his age. But their father died in battle against the Daegmon. After his death, Keet and Marti volunteered to take their people’s embassy to Citadel. They would have gone together, but their mother forbid Keet from going. Marti went alone. The two are very close.”

  Elynna nodded. She did not ask how Falien had learned this, but he was from a fishing family also. Over the weeks of their travel together, he and Marti had plenty of time to exchange stories. Elynna would have had time also. But after a while, she had stopped listening. Stopped asking. There was too much pain in the stories. And guilt. Too much to remind her of her own loss. Too much risk of more loss, and more guilt if Marti did not return to Keet and his mother. Or what if Keet did not return? Why had her mother allowed him to go even on this voyage? Had Marti made promises that his brother would be safe? Had Keet begged and pleaded like her own little brother Lyn used to in order to get Mother to allow him to go out on the ocean with Father?

  Even now, before the last four could board, a woman with dark skin and long curly black hair rushed out knee-deep into the water and pulled Marti and Keet into a hug. She gave final instructions to Marti. “Keep your brother safe. Send him back with Aern first thing in the morning.” But Keet and the young man next to him beamed with excitement.

  Elynna thought of her own brother who was not so little anymore. And who’d had no mother to prevent him from traveling with Elynna to Citadel on her own people’s mission to seek aid from the king after the destruction of Lienford. And had no father to mediate between them when Lyn grew increasingly more bitter, blaming Elynna for the destruction of the village and for not using her gift to warn her people. Her father, she thought, would have defended her. He would have told Lyn that his accusations were not fair. But she had no defense for herself. She feared he was right.

  8

  JOURNEY BY WATER

  The boat lurched as they pushed off the dock. Elynna almost fell backward. She grasped the side of the boat to regain her balance. A moment later the three boats rowed away from the docks while a score of villagers stood on shore with their hands lifted in signs of blessing and parting. One woman turned and buried her head in her scarf.

  To Elynna’s disappointment—for she hoped to remain close to Cane—the three boats did not remain together for long. Marti’s and Keet ‘s boats were the swiftest. Under their strong effortless oar work, they cut a path straight across the lake well out in front of the others. Ayjen followed in their wake. The southerly wind blew mild but steady, and though his deep-hulled fishing boat was not made for speed, he still made fair time under the sail. While Marti and Ayjen followed a course east of due north, Leah, once out of the bay, set her rudder to bring them north-northwest, apparently to cut a more direct route through a narrow straight between islands where sailing was difficult. Her boat was the slowest, but if all went well she would still arrive in Arnog that evening, not too long behind the others. And in the morning, unless there was some other sign or scent of their enemy, they would depart northward on foot.

  The other two boats were soon out of sight, and Elynna was left with nothing to watch but the waves, the horizon, and the specks of distant islands and faraway mountains. She chatted casually with fellow Westwashers Falien and Pietr, while the mysterious Anchara, who was separated from the other Undeani for the first time since she had joined the company, looked silently on. Falien and Pietr spoke for a time about fishing and queried Ayjen about what sort of fish lived in the lake and how and where they were caught. Ayjen was professionally secretive and vague about his techniques despite Falien’s assurance that he had no intention of taking up a fishing business on the lake. Eventually Falien gave up and put his head down. Before long he and Pietr were both asleep. Elynna was left to her own thoughts. Fortunately the weather was beautiful and the sky bright blue. Behind her Ayjen was whistling. To the west, three gulls circled above the water, letting out an occasional cry. Anchara closed her eyes too. The slow tilting of the boat against the swell on the lake was rhythmic and soothing. Nestled comfortably among a stack of nets, Elynna drifted off to sleep.

  And then she felt, distant and far off, the touch of the Daegmon. It was not the te
rrifying anticipation of attack she had felt so many times before. This was more subtle, like an acrid scent on the wind. Yet Elynna knew it was the Daegmon. More than its mere presence, she was reading its thoughts. It was searching for her presence, and for the new power that had appeared against it. And in doing so, it was revealing itself to her. She could almost see it now, many miles to the north, fleeing toward the mountains. It was afraid.

  Afraid? Of her little company? Was Cane right, then? Elynna had wanted to believe him. She had wanted to be as bold and fearless as he, but it was almost too much to hope for. That they now had the power to defeat their enemy.

  A moment later the sense disappeared, withdrawn into the wilderness. Her thoughts reached out and got lost in blackness. Then her mind returned to the fishing vessel sailing across Umgog. She took a deep breath and looked around. Her companions still slept. For the first time in many days, she was eager to move. They may have been fleeing the soldiers of Citadel, but they were again pursuing their real enemy. “How much longer across the lake?” she asked Ayjen.

  “We will journey all morning and into the afternoon. Arnog lies diagonally across the lake to the north-northeast.”

  “What distance will we travel?”

  “As a goose flies, map makers reckon the distance at seventeen miles from Tanengog to Arnog.”

  “Seventeen miles,” Elynna repeated. “But we could walk that in a long morning. And on horseback, it wouldn’t take more than—” She didn’t complete her sentence. Not long ago the Daegmon had passed overhead. And somewhere to the east, Golach came in pursuit. “Is the route along the shore any longer?”

  “Aye, it is,” Ayjen replied. “A fair bit longer. If we sailed along the eastern shore—as I have had to do on rare days with a strong easterly gale—we would need to traverse nearly twice as much distance. While along the western shore it might be three times farther. The lake is longest from the southwest to the northeast.”

  “But what about our pursuers? How long will it take them to follow us by land?”

  “From Tanengog? You have nothing to fear. Traveling on land, whether by foot or by horse, would bring a man many long miles out of the way. There is a great marshland on the northeast side of the lake, nearly a third the size of the lake itself. It is beautiful place filled with birds beyond count and description—ducks and geese and long-legged long-necked waders. Also diving birds and marsh birds. But it is also a wetland impossible to cross by foot or by horse and almost as difficult to navigate by boat. I once tried to hunt ducks there and was lost for a day and a night. Fifty or sixty miles or more, I imagine, a man would have to travel to get around no matter which way he went.”

  Elynna felt a little relief. She was familiar with distances and speeds from her own upbringing around boats and water. After a quick calculation, she said, “Still, we should be able to cross more quickly by boat and not spend an entire day in travel.”

  “With a fair wind as we have today, we can make good headway. It may be a shorter trip than usual. Indeed, if this wind lasted all morning, we might be there at lunch. But by the time the sun climbs halfway up the sky to the east, the wind will shift more to the northwest. Then our going will slow. We may have to tack somewhat, or at least adjust our sails to catch less wind.”

  Elynna nodded. She tried to stay awake in case her sense of the Daegmon’s location returned, but she failed. When she awoke to a spray of water on her face, it was late morning. The movement of the boat told her they were still on the water. She opened her eyes. The dazzling glare of the sun hurt, and she had to squint, but she forced herself to look around. The wind had picked up, but it had shifted toward the west as Ayjen had predicted. The swell still rolled in from the south, and they plowed almost directly with it. The slow rise and fall left her slightly nauseous. But the chop now came from the west and sent an occasional spray of water onto the passengers. Other than water, she could not see much. None of the other boats were visible. To the north and south, the shores appeared as dark lines in the distance. To the east and west, the lake seemed to go on forever.

  Ayjen was still whistling. His sails were filled with wind. Thinking about both Golach riding hard toward Tanengog and the Daegmon fleeing into the mountains, Elynna wished for more speed. Yet she had enough experience to know that if Ayjen pulled the sails any tighter, the boat was likely to dump one of the passengers. It was a fishing boat, not meant for racing.

  She turned toward Anchara, who was seated, awake, and staring eastward. Across the seat, Falien and Pietr talked softly and ate a midday meal. Seeing Elynna’s eyes open, they tossed her a half loaf of bread. When the meal ended, the three Westwashers again fell into casual conversation about all they had seen in the past few days.

  After a while Ayjen joined the banter and told about the village of Arnog and the Arnei tribe who dwelt there. “It’s a permanent village, for sure, but they’re still prone to wander. Wouldn’t be surprised if I went there one day and found the place deserted.” He went on to give some more history of the land, gleaned from his perspective as a foreigner. The Arnei who dwelt in the north were a smaller tribe than either the Tana or Eana but were nonetheless powerful. At times in their history they had subdued both of their southern neighbors as well as other peoples of the Plains. However, for the past several generations—longer than anybody alive could remember—there had been peace across the Plains with none of the tribes seeking domination over the others. He told how he himself had come there from the Southland. “I’ll go to my death here,” he said. “For all the naiveté and—well, plain-ness of these folk, if you’ll pardon my pun—there is something appealing about life here. It’s simpler. Things became too busy around Citadel. Too much importance. Self-importance. Now, the Plainsfolk—you’re none of you Plainsfolk yourselves, are you?” he asked but didn’t wait for an answer. “The Plainsfolk know how to live. No excess. Nothing fancy. Even their weapons are simple. Never seen more than a bow or hunting knife here. Or maybe a wooden spear. Never any fancy swords or battle-axes as you sometimes see the king’s folk wearing. Nonetheless, they’re keen hunters.”

  Elynna smiled, thinking about Tienna. She continued to listen to Ayjen’s ramblings while keeping her own eyes on the horizon, looking for land. Sometime later, after passing south and east of several small islands, they came in sight of the northern shore. By then, however, the wind had shifted more to the north. Ayjen had to tack several times, keeping to the deeper water near the eastern shore, before they approached the village. Eventually he had to lower the sails, slide a pair of oars into locks, and row the final half mile into a shallow bay.

  The sun had fallen more than halfway down in the western sky when they slid along a floating dock. Elynna stepped out of the boat and looked about her as she stretched her stiff legs. Arnog was a small settlement, about the size of many seasonal fishing villages on the coast of Westwash. About three dozen stone homes sat scattered across an area half a mile wide and a quarter-mile deep. The river mouth, where large rapids tumbled into the calm waters of the lake, bounded the village on the eastern side. Most of the homes appeared empty. Marti had already told her that many of the inhabitants would be gone on the hunt. However, smoke rolled out of a few chimneys, giving the place a welcoming feel.

  Marti and Keet sat on a dock waiting. They had arrived two hours earlier and had already found lodging for the company. Elynna learned that the third boat, carrying Cane, along with the largest number of her company, had not arrived and might not get in until sunset or later. The night was bright. Though the moon was still in its long pale phase, the sky was crystal clear. Would the last boat be able to sail at night? Elynna did not know. But her sense of urgency grew more intense. Did the others feel it also?

  Marti led them through village. Doors opened, and a few older folk came out of homes from which smoke was rising and waved to the strangers. The village had one small inn, and its few beds were already full of
fishermen there to chase the steely-headed kellen spawning up the Gogga River. Though the meat of this fish was as extraordinary as the beauty of their colors, and a single fish could fetch in trade something comparable to a day’s wages in market, Marti acknowledged that at this time of year the fishermen were there as much for sport as for their livelihood. They pursued the fish not with nets but with sharpened metal hooks on strands of fine line attached to long rods. These big fish came up from the deepest part of the lake only in the late fall and winter, and they were tremendous fighters. They were difficult to hook and even more difficult to pull into shore against the strong river current. The few late-autumn weeks that they swam up out of the lake into the mouth of the river was the only time of the year the inn in this out-of-the-way village filled.

  Fortunately, the resourceful Marti had already tracked down some of Tienna’s family. As soon as Elynna had bid farewell to Ayjen, Marti led them through the village to the north side. The village was similar to Tanengog but about a quarter of the size. They walked only a minute before Marti stopped at an oddly shaped stone house.

  A bronze-skinned, gray-bearded man welcomed them. He spoke the Arnei dialect, and Marti had to translate, apologizing for the few peculiar Arnei words he did not know. The man’s name was Tynigh, and he was a great-uncle of Tienna’s. His wife was long dead, and his house was nearly empty of furniture. He invited his guests to sit on the floor, then disappeared into a back room. He returned seconds later with a large tray of spicy meat, which he set down in the midst of them.

  Elynna, who was more accustomed to fish and had not quite grown to like what the uplanders called “red meat,” took a tentative bite while her companions attacked the fare eagerly. The meat was tender and juicy and almost melted in her mouth. She had barely swallowed the first bite before she grabbed another. After four or five bites the effect of hot spices hit her, and by that time Tynigh had returned with another heavy tray laden with various-shaped mugs overflowing with a foamy beverage. Trying to tame the spices, Elynna grabbed the nearest mug and took a large swig. The bitter fermented taste took her by surprise, and she almost spit it back. But she was thirsty enough to drink more. By the end of the first mug, she had already grown to like it, and it went well with the meat. She did not refuse a second mug.