With a last angry glare at the rising smudge of bonfire smoke marking the elves’ camp, Shobbat trotted off among the monoliths.
Chapter 16
In the chill, small hours before dawn, three elves came to the Speaker’s tent, chosen by Gilthas for a critical mission.
Under Sa’ida’s ministrations, his condition had improved. Although he continued to be marble pale and weak, his fever had broken. Able to take in a little nourishment, he was stronger and had left his bed for the first time in days. The three he’d summoned—Kerian, Taranath, and Hytanthas—found him seated in the camp chair that served as his throne.
One other had wished very much to be included in the group. Meeting with the Speaker privately the evening before, Vixona the scribe had argued for the usefulness of her mapmaking skills. Gilthas appreciated her enthusiasm and listened to her passionately delivered argument quite seriously, but her true motivation was not hard for him to deduce. She’d hardly left Hytanthas’s side since their return from the tunnels, bringing him food and drink, tending his minor hurts. The young captain, occupied with his duties and the care of his griffon, paid her little attention, but Vixona’s attachment to him was obvious to Gilthas. Nevertheless, the mission did not require a cartographer.
Gilthas’s voice was still quite hoarse. Kerian, Hytanthas, and Taranath strained to hear every word over the bustle in other parts of the large tent.
“We know the sorcerer Faeterus is in Inath-Wakenti. He must be found and nullified.”
It wasn’t like the Speaker to mince words. Kerian, certain Faeterus had hurled the lightning bolt that had blinded Eagle Eye, said bluntly, “You mean kill him.”
“I mean he must be nullified. If he can be rendered harmless in any other way, that is sufficient.” Gilthas coughed to clear his throat. “Do what you must to protect our people.”
Each of them understood his instruction in his or her own way. Kerian privately resolved to have the sorcerer’s head. Hytanthas, who had fought Faeterus’s monsters in Khuri-Khan, assumed the Speaker wanted him brought in to face royal justice. Taranath, with no personal experience of Faeterus, would follow the Lioness’s lead. He did ask what was to be done with the human Hamaramis had found in the tunnels.
Kerian had recognized Jeralund as one of the Nerakan soldiers captured by Porthios and taken to Bianost as part of a ruse to free the city from bandits. Comforted by her identification, Jeralund dropped his pose as a “simple hunter” but refused to say why he was in the valley. He had helped free Kerian from the bandits in Bianost who planned to execute her, but his silence about his purpose in Inath-Wakenti was worrisome.
She advised keeping him under guard. “He’s a straight fellow, for a human, but we don’t know his purpose and can’t risk having him escape.”
Gilthas concurred. “It’s likely he’s a spy or a scout for an enemy, no matter how you look at it. There’s probably a thousand like him combing every nook and cranny between Kortal and Sanction looking for us.”
Taranath and Hytanthas bade farewell to their Speaker, picked up their gear, and departed. Kerian lingered to say her own good-bye in private.
“I thought the holy lady would have you cured by now,” she said, frowning as he fought back another cough.
“The infection is entrenched. But don’t worry, my heart. I shall be here when you return.” He touched two fingertips to her still-flat belly. “Both of you.”
She placed her hand over his. “Does it please you?”
“It’s the best news we’ve had since coming to Inath-Wakenti. Does it please you?”
He knew how profoundly stunned she’d been by the priestess’s revelation, how hard it was for her to imagine having a child. Her expression reflected her continuing uncertainty, and he sought to reassure her.
“Don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid!” she insisted. “Well, not much.”
She bent and kissed his forehead. As soon as she moved away from him, Truthanar hurried across the tent, ready to offer his arm if support was required. With the brief audience at an end, Gilthas was confined to bed for a few hours of rest.
Kerian caught up to the others as they headed out of camp. They were traveling on foot. Neither Kerian nor Hytanthas wanted to risk making their griffons targets for another thunderbolt, and every horse was needed by the cavalry. Tracking the elusive Faeterus would be more practical on foot anyway. Stealth was more important than speed. Their best hope of overcoming the sorcerer was to take him by surprise.
The trio headed toward the dawn sky. The Lioness had a general idea of where they should start looking, based on the origin of the lightning hurled at her, and she set a steady pace, one they could maintain all day. They put some distance between themselves and the sprawling camp, the exercise chasing away the morning chill. They shed their light cloaks.
As she tucked her cloak into her small pack, Kerian gave Hytanthas a considering look. “You have an admirer,” she said. He answered with a blank look. “The scribe, Vixona.”
“She’s not my type,” he said brusquely.
She snorted. “What is your type?”
Rather than responding with a jest, the young captain took a deep breath and blurted, “You saved my life in the tunnels, Commander.”
The seeming non sequitur confused her. She hadn’t been present when he’d told the Speaker the full story of his adventures in the tunnels. She knew only the bare outline. Hytanthas explained the sound of her voice had brought him back from certain death, waking him when so many others had never opened their eyes again.
She shrugged. “The Speaker has said my battlefield voice can cut down small trees. But no one’s ever likened me to a holy chorus.”
He insisted he hadn’t imagined it, that he would be lying dead in that tunnel if not for hearing her voice. She started to make another joke, but something in his expression stopped her. It wasn’t simple obstinacy she saw there. When his eyes slid away from her questioning look and a blush reddened his face, the quick-witted Lioness knew all she needed.
“Vixona is an intelligent girl. Don’t squander that. Be grateful for the gifts of chance.”
“Spoken like a general,” Hytanthas said sourly.
“Spoken as one who has more love than she ever deserved.”
Taranath, who’d been ranging ahead, doubled back and joined them. Hytanthas’s face was still flushed, and Taranath asked if something was wrong.
“It seems I have an admirer.”
With that cryptic declaration, Hytanthas shifted the conversation to his griffon’s well-being. Kerian watched him surreptitiously while he and Taranath talked, finally nodding to herself. It wasn’t the first time she’d had to deal with an infatuated junior officer, and she knew that in time Hytanthas would be fine.
The disk of the sun was lifting above the mountains ahead. The Lioness quickened their pace toward the shadowed peaks.
Favaronas once more was kicked awake. He’d been deep in a heavy, dreamless slumber, but arose without protest. It amazed how quickly one became accustomed to such battering, how pathetically grateful one could be to have the use of legs, eyes, and mouth.
“Get up the mountainside,” Faeterus told him. “Don’t come down until I say you can.”
Faeterus had created a fence of parchment, chest high and mounted on tree branches, that arced behind the central pedestal at the far end of the ledge. He had painted the parchment with the clear liquid he’d made from silver compounded with other ingredients. Favaronas’s assistance was not required. Faeterus had to do the work himself, and every inch of the scroll must be saturated. Now Favaronas must leave the dying fire and remove himself from the Stair. The slightest stray shadow might ruin the sorcerer’s efforts.