“It is your turn,” Halthak said.
“Not just yet, healer,” Amric replied. “We are exposed on this hillside, and must take cover at the base of the crag before I would risk being too fatigued to move.”
Passing the reins back to Halthak, he knelt and slid his arms beneath Valkarr, and rose to his feet with a grunt of effort. The Sil’ath people were dense with muscle and always heavier than they appeared, and the loss of blood had sapped Amric’s strength. He climbed the hill with legs that burned and quivered, and he was intensely grateful to reach a large cleft in the side of the crag before they gave out beneath him.
The fissure was open to the sky far above, with a tumble of boulders at the back, and it was spacious enough to screen men and horses alike from the forest edge below. Amric laid his unconscious friend down at the back of the cleft, wiping clammy sweat from his brow as he looked around. There was still no sign of Bellimar, but this location was as well hidden and defensible as they were likely to find. They would remain here until morning. He sat with his back to a leaning boulder as Halthak came into sight with the horses in tow. The Half-Ork saw to the horses as Amric had taught him, and the warrior remained seated, resting in silent gratitude.
Halthak brought him a water skin and some salted beef.
“You should eat. Valkarr will be famished when he wakes.”
Amric accepted the rations and chewed slowly. His eyelids were growing heavy, and he shook his head to clear the fog. It would be a long night without Valkarr to split the watch duties. They ate in silence for a time before Halthak’s gentle voice floated to him.
“Amric, it is time to heal you as well.”
“And if you encounter the same resistance as before?” Amric queried.
“Then I will persist until I succeed, as before.”
Amric hesitated, and then sighed. “Very well, but I must remain awake to keep watch, so do not reduce me to slumber as you did Valkarr. Perhaps only enough tonight to seal the wounds and staunch the bleeding, and the rest can heal on its own.”
“I will do only as much as I think you require,” Halthak promised.
“Thank you, healer.”
Halthak nodded, little more than a soft silhouette against the starlight as he hovered over him. The healer sat at his side, and Amric felt a warm hand against the corded muscle of his arm. A long moment passed, wherein only the insects, bold in their numbers, spoke into the night.
“I feel nothing, healer,” Amric said. “Are you blocked and straining again?”
“No,” Halthak responded. “This time I am proceeding very slowly and not trying to force it. This may take some time; will you answer me something as I work?”
“Ask it.”
“I would know more about your Sil’ath friends, the members of the party we seek. Tell me of them, their names, their natures, their temperaments. Make them real to someone who has yet to meet them.”
There was another long pause, and Amric smiled.
“Halthak, you are without a doubt the most human among us all.”
And so Amric told him of the five. Innikar, whipcord-tough and instigator of countless pranks. Beautiful Sariel, who lived for the joy of battle and was graceful as a dancer in its midst. Prakseth, jovial and powerfully built. Sharp-eyed Varek, the most gifted marksman Amric had ever known. And Garlien, sister to Varek and a shrewd strategist, with the potential to be warmaster herself someday.
He spoke of their loves and families, of their mischiefs and maturing. He spoke of them as the friends they had been to him since childhood, and he described their many accomplishments with a swell of pride. With a catch in his throat, he recounted their unwavering support of him as their warmaster, he who was born an outsider and yet proved foremost among them. He spoke at length, and felt something ease deep in his chest, a tightness he had not realized he was carrying. They might have perished out here somewhere in this deadly forest, and he would not stop until he knew their fates for certain. Here and now, however, it felt so good to revel in their lives and triumphs that he rambled on much longer than he intended, grasping at memory after memory.
Somewhere in that time, though he was unaware of the transition, his wounds were healed, his words trailed off, and his memories became dreams.
CHAPTER 8
Halthak sat wrapped in his cloak in the pre-dawn hour, knees drawn up before him and whiskered chin resting upon folded arms. He gazed out from the deep, narrow recess of the cleft and onto a lightening sky, like watching through a door ajar as the darkness yielded in grudging steps to the coming day.
He had dozed several times, he knew, for the night had flown by in passages, and he was not nearly as fatigued as he should have been after concluding the events of yesterday by standing watch all night. The fates had been kind for a turn, and nothing had stumbled across their place of concealment. The only moment of concern had come late in the evening, when he heard noises from down the hill where their battle with the bloodbeasts had taken place. He had listened, striving not to draw breath, as a ponderous tread grew louder, accompanied by snuffling noises that sounded like a great bellows at work. There followed a muffled crunching of bones for a time, and then the lumbering creature departed. Halthak, who had been debating on waking the exhausted warriors, sat back at last with a sigh of relief to resume his watch.
He studied Amric and Valkarr, watched their chests rise and fall in the deep, regular rhythm of slumber. Healing Valkarr had been tiring, given the extent of his wounds, but predictable. With Amric, he had proceeded at a very gradual pace to indicate peaceful intent, just as he would if trying to approach a dangerous wild animal. This tactic had proven successful, for he did not this time encounter the strange, impenetrable barrier that had stopped him short before. Even as he sent his healing magic into the warrior with utmost patience, however, he had the peculiar sensation of being closely monitored, of that same foreign presence hovering all about his efforts and yet remaining just beyond contact. It was perplexing, and while he was relieved to have found a method by which he could heal the swordsman, he was also concerned that the next time might call for more urgency, and he might face that mysterious resistance again.
He pushed it from his mind, as he had already a dozen times over the night. There was nothing for it but to try, when the time came.
He looked skyward, wishing the cleft opened to the east so that he could witness the dawn’s full glory as it arrived, when something nagged at the edge of his vision. His eyes fell to the side, and he froze. Standing less than a dozen feet away, so still as to seem a natural part of the crevice’s many shadows, was a tall, slender figure folded in a cloak. Halthak clawed for the staff beside him and sprang to his feet as a strangled yelp lodged in his throat.
A throaty chuckle came from the figure, followed by a smooth, familiar voice. “Do you mean to crease my skull for disappearing last night, healer?”
“Bellimar?” Halthak gasped. “By the heavens, man, I think you just shaved years from my life!”
“My apologies for startling you so.” Bellimar glided forward, and Halthak glared at him, finding the contrition in the old man’s tone did not at all match the twinkle of amusement in his eyes.
“Where have you been all night?” the Half-Ork asked.
“An excellent question,” said a low, dangerous voice. Halthak wheeled to see Amric and Valkarr having risen into crouches, silent as ghosts. They had not yet drawn their blades.
Amric spoke again. “I look forward to your answer, Bellimar.”
Bellimar met their angry stares with his enigmatic half-smile, and in a slow, deliberate motion, he sat on a nearby rock. The warriors tracked his every movement, but did not ease their postures. Halthak looked between them and winced at the crackling tension.