Vangerdahast watched long enough to be certain none of his foes made it through the flame wall in one piece, then turned to the orc he had ordered to stand still. The swiner was standing in the same place, staring at his feet with wide, red-tinged eyes. The wizard rode up beside the trembling warrior, kicked the fellow’s spear out of his grasp, and scanned the heavens one last time. The sun had already crested the horizon, and now a brilliant golden light was spreading westward across the sky. The winds were, as Rowen had promised last night, remarkably still, and there was no stonemurk to obscure visibility in any direction.
Vangerdahast studied the heavens until he felt certain the ghazneth had not yet come, then dismounted and rubbed a small square of silk over his prisoner’s grimy armor. The orc snorted in its guttural language, begging his tormentor to stop toying with it and be done with it. The wizard only smiled and whispered a soft incantation. He stuffed the ruined silk into the creature’s mouth and mounted his horse again, then rode a short distance off and called, “Flee!”
The orc stumbled a single step forward and caught itself. After a brief glance in Vangerdahast’s direction, it turned and scuttled away without even taking the time to pick up its spear. The wizard turned south toward the Storm Horns and saw his companions waving to him from the crest of a small ridge nearly a mile distant. Behind them, the rocky barrens and scattered brush of Gnoll Flats gave way to a torturous labyrinth of dun-colored spires and twisting canyons that slowly rose toward the barren slopes of two high, slender peaks that could only be the Mule Ears.
Vangerdahast clasped his weathercloak and thrust his hand into his escape pocket. A black door hissed into existence before him, and he quickly urged Cadimus forward. He would not be able to use the pocket for the rest of the day, but he had plenty of other ways to leave an area quickly. Besides, Tanalasta had already used hers, and he had no intention of going anywhere without her-especially not with Rowen riding the same horse.
An instant later, Vangerdahast found himself sitting beside his companions, struggling to acclimate to his new location. No matter how many times he teleported, even over such a short distance, he still suffered from that first moment of bewilderment. Tanalasta’s hand grasped his shoulder and quickly undid his weathercloak’s throat clasp.
“Are you all right, Vangey?” she asked, still holding his arm. “You’re a royal pain in the arse, but I’d hate to lose you to an orc.”
“I’m fine.” Vangerdahast blinked the last of his confusion away. They were much closer to the labyrinth than he had realized, with the mouth of a large, baked-mud canyon just a few hundred paces ahead. “Let’s hurry. I slapped an orc with some decoy magic, but with this light, it won’t take the ghazneth long to discover its mistake.”
When Vangerdahast started forward, Rowen leaned over to grab his reins. “This is the way to the Mule Ears.” He pointed toward a much smaller canyon a half mile to the east. “Nothing lies that way but trouble and dead ends.”
“Then stop wasting our time telling me about it,” the wizard grumbled. “And why don’t you ride with me. Cadimus is…”
Vangerdahast did not bother to finish, for Tanalasta had already turned and started toward the distant canyon at a stiff canter. He spurred his stallion after her, idly wondering if there was not some way to convince them that Chauntea would frown on burdening a poor mare with two riders.
10
By the time they ducked into the small canyon, the sun had risen a full span above the horizon. The terrain in the gorge was even more barren than that of the stony plain, consisting of little more than eroded dirt walls and a lonely scrub bush every ten or twelve paces. They stopped about thirty paces in to let their weary mounts drink from a muddy spring, and Vangerdahast crept back to the canyon mouth to watch for the ghazneth. It was not long before he saw a dark pair of wings swoop in from the west, then circle through smoke rising from his wall of flame and fly off in the direction his decoy had fled.
Vangerdahast waited until he was certain the thing was gone, then rushed up the canyon at his best waddle. “Time to go. We have about five minutes before our dank friend discovers my trick.”
Rowen passed Cadimus’s reins to the wizard and turned back toward Tanalasta’s mount.
“Ahem-as much as I’m sure you enjoy sharing a saddle with the princess, young man, Cadimus is twice the mount she’s riding.” Vangerdahast mounted and offered the ranger his hand. “We’ll all be faster if you ride with me.”
“A good point.”
Rowen turned and reached for the wizard’s hand, but Tanalasta was already swinging out of her own saddle.
“It will be even faster if we switch horses.” The princess reached up and patted Vangerdahast’s ample belly. “Rowen and I together can’t be much more than you alone. You take my mane, and let poor Cadimus carry us.”
“A fine idea,” the wizard replied, “but you know how temperamental-“
“Cadimus is more of a coward, actually,” said Tanalasta. “I had no trouble controlling him back at the Stonebolt Trail-or have you forgotten who returned him to you?”
“Very well,” Vangerdahast grumbled. “I can’t have you arguing the matter until the ghazneth finds us.”
They switched horses and started up the canyon again. Vangerdahast tried at first to keep a careful watch on the northern sky, but quickly realized the futility of that as they twisted and turned through the labyrinth. He could not imagine how Rowen could know where they were going. The ranger kept turning down narrow side canyons, which would double back in the direction from which they had just come, then double back again and angle off in some new direction that was impossible to guess. For a while, Vangerdahast thought the ranger was following his own tracks or a system of cairns, but when he dared to take his eyes off the sky, he saw no sign of either.
After nearly two hours of riding, the canyon opened up into a broad, flat-bottomed basin ringed by more than a dozen cramped gorges. The trio paused without dismounting and allowed their horses to drink from another pool of muddy water. Vangerdahast found the sun in the sky and was finally able to determine his bearings, for all the good it would do him.
“Rowen, how do you know which way to go?” he asked. “I can’t even keep track of my directions.”
“You mean there’s one trick the Royal Magician doesn’t know?” Tanalasta joked. “I’m not so sure we should tell.”
“There are a lot of tricks I don’t know,” said Vangerdahast, “and you are teaching me more all the time.”
“This one is not so difficult.” Rowen passed Vangerdahast a small flat stick with notches carved at various angles along both edges and explained, “It’s a map stick. You keep track of your turns-“
“By the notches on each side,” Vangerdahast said, examining the stick. “And the angle confirms that you’re on count.”
“Very good,” laughed Tanalasta. “We’ll make a forest-keeper out of you yet.”
Vangerdahast eyed her sourly, then passed the stick back to Rowen. “When you have magic, you don’t need sticks.”
“Except when you can’t use magic,” Tanalasta replied.
The princess pointed toward the western side of the basin, where a tiny speck of darkness could be seen arcing above the rim. Vangerdahast glanced back along their trail, noting the deep round depressions where their mounts’ hooves had broken through the crust of dried mud.
“Tanalasta,” the royal magician said, “I know I promised not to bring this up again-“
“Then don’t,” the princess interrupted sternly. “I’m not returning to Arabel until I have spoken with Alusair.”