Ghaul frowned, jaw muscles bulging, but said nothing. Khirro glanced from one to the other, wondering who would come out on top should it come to a fight. He’d seen how savage Ghaul could be, but Shyn was taller, bigger and must have great skill to have followed them so far, so closely, without notice. He hoped they wouldn’t find out.
“But why?” Khirro asked.
“An unregistered magician wouldn’t perform magic in public without just cause. No soldiers of Erechania would be associated with a sorcerer not of royal decree. I can see no explanation for the woman and the little one. You’re either up to great evil or great good.”
“The difference is likely a matter of perception, Shyn,” Athryn said. “But either way, you are correct.”
“Never mind that,” Ghaul snapped. “We can’t trust him. We should kill him.”
The vial at Khirro’s breast blazed suddenly, startling him.
“No,” he exclaimed before he knew what he was saying. “There’s much bloodshed to come. Let’s not kill for the sake of killing.”
“If we let him go, he’ll reveal us,” Ghaul argued. “Speak some sense to the farmer, Athryn.”
There’s that word again.
Khirro ground his teeth. What would it take to show Ghaul he wasn’t the farmer he met two weeks ago? It wasn’t his fault the vial came free when he fell, it might have happened to any of them.
“We can bring him with us, see if he can be trusted,” Khirro said looking to Athryn. The magician glanced from Khirro to Shyn, then to Ghaul, but didn’t speak. “If he proves trustworthy, we can use his sword. If not, we can let him go when we’re too far from here for it to matter.”
“We’re at war, Khirro. No one can be trusted.”
“Khirro speaks sense, Ghaul,” Athryn said finally, then turned to Shyn; Khirro wondered what the border guard thought of this masked man. “You will accompany us. I will keep your weapons and you will be bound, but you will be alive. We will decide your final fate when we are safely away from the border.”
“This is a mistake,” Ghaul grated.
“No.” Khirro’s tone betrayed more of his anger than he intended. “This man had me at his mercy, now he deserves ours.”
He looked at the border guard but his face revealed neither relief nor fear, he simply nodded his thanks.
No lush forest or serene lake surrounded him in the dream this time, no slivered moon, no rocky shore. Khirro lay face down in dry grass, silence and darkness weighing on him, pinning him. Somewhere, somebody was searching for him; he knew this though he saw nothing but the grass before his eyes and heard naught but the wind bending its long blades. He wanted to stand and search out his pursuer, but knew it could mean his life. He lay there alone, afraid, staring at the ground.
“You chose your path well.”
The voice didn’t surprise Khirro. He craned his neck to see the tyger stretched out beside him, belly pressed to the ground in the same manner as his own. Its black and white striped body dwarfed his, its hot breath warmed his face and stirred the short whiskers grown on his cheeks in the past weeks.
“But I don’t know what path I’ve chosen.”
“It matters not if you recognize the path, or that a choice must be made. Trust.” The tyger’s head moved forward, its wet nose brushing Khirro’s. “Follow our heart.”
“Our heart?”
But the tyger was gone.
Khirro stood, thinking about the creature’s words and forgetting his earlier fear. Before him stood a one-eyed man, his face marked by uncountable fights. Khirro moved to his left to escape, but the man moved with him. He went right and the man matched him. Every move Khirro made, the man did the same, the two of them moving as though dissimilar reflections in a looking glass. Khirro reached for the hilt of his sword, but didn’t draw it as the other man did the same. Not knowing what else to do, Khirro closed his eyes, squeezed them tight and wished to awaken from the dream.
When he opened them, still asleep and dreaming, the man had disappeared. The field around him blazed, the tinder-dry grass consumed by flame sending gray smoke billowing up to cloud the moonless sky. Khirro spun and ran from the blaze with the heavy, awkward legs of dreams, heat pressing at his back. He cried out-in anguish, in fear, for help, for anything-and the tyger appeared, loping easily along beside him.
“Beware the man with one eye,” it said in his head as they ran. “Fear not the fire.”
Somewhere above, a bird of prey cried out, its shriek drowning the snap and crackle of the conflagration.
Khirro woke with cold sweat streaming from his forehead and his hand clutched to his chest. He pushed himself to his elbows, breathed deeply to keep shivers from rattling his spine. Nearby, Shyn sat with his back against the trunk of a fir tree, hands bound behind him. Their eyes met, but neither spoke. Khirro lowered himself, rolled onto his side and closed his eyes again. When sleep reclaimed him, he dreamed of a giant gray falcon rescuing him from the fire, soaring above the flames, through the smoke, to safety and freedom.
A much better dream.
Chapter Nineteen
Shyn leaned his head back against the rough tree bark and cast his eyes skyward. Khirro had seen him do this a number of times during their hushed conversations of the last three days, each time a wistfulness seemed to cloud the border guard’s eyes.
“I’d seen but thirteen summers when I left my home,” he said looking at Khirro again.
“Why did you leave?”
“I no longer wanted to be there. And they no longer wanted me there. I spent a year wandering, fending for myself, before joining the King’s army.”
“At fourteen.”
“Big for my age.”
Shyn shifted, the rope holding his hands creaked with the movement. Khirro wished he could loosen the knots but knew Ghaul wouldn’t hear of it. He’d grown to like the big border guard, learning much about him in hushed discussions they shared as Khirro sat watch with Shyn lashed to a tree.
“The army was good to me at first. I felt things I hadn’t felt at home: accepted, needed. But it was short-lived. Eventually, people turn on you when you’re different. When they did, I was sent to the border like a broken tool discarded at the back of the barn.”
“Different? Because of your size?”
Shyn shook his head and looked toward the blue sky again. Khirro shared some of his own upbringing, even telling Shyn about his father’s accident and a much-edited version of what happened with Emeline and how he came to be a soldier, then felt guilty he hadn’t shared completely. The similarity in their circumstances made Khirro feel a kinship toward this man.
“One day, I’ll get back to Emeline. When all this is done. When the fighting is finished. And then I’ll-”
“Enough. It’s time.”
Ghaul’s words startled Khirro. While talking with Shyn, he hadn’t noticed him cross the glade toward them. Khirro stood.
“Time for what?”
“We agreed to bring him far enough from the border he’d be no threat to us, then let him go. I only agreed because you have no stomach for killing, farmer. Gods help us.”
“I trust him. We’ve spoken and I think he can aid us.”
Ghaul barked a derisive laugh. “What’s wrong with your head? It’s a spy’s job to earn your trust.”
Khirro glanced at Shyn and felt a twinge that the man should be party to this conversation, so he led Ghaul to where Elyea sat with Maes and Athryn, far enough away the border guard wouldn’t hear. Elyea rose from her seat and laid a hand on Ghaul’s arm to calm him, but he shook it off. Athryn watched in silence, his expressionless mask hiding his thoughts.
Why does he wear it when it’s just us? It’s only a scar. What else is he hiding?
“Why do you think he should join us?” Elyea asked.
Khirro looked at her, his heart palpitating as it always did when his eyes met hers. “I’m not sure.” His latest dream of the tyger came to mind, but a dream of a beast advising him to trust his heart wouldn’t convince the others. More likely the opposite. “He protected me when he could have turned us in. We treat him like a prisoner yet he holds us no ill. Having another sword arm wouldn’t be a bad thing.”