When he had finished, full darkness had fallen, and the stars glittered brightly out of a cloudless sky. Paks began to wonder if she could make it back to her place; she did not feel like moving again. Someone else began to talk with Ardhiel—she was too sleepy to notice who it was. Then she was asleep, hardly rousing when someone draped a blanket over her.
She roused again before dawn. One cheek was stiff with a cold wind that flowed down the canyon; the sky was pale green, like a bruise. She could see both rock walls clear against the sky, but down in the canyon shadows hid all detail. She rolled her face inside the blanket, and warmed the cold side of it with her breath. She felt stiff and sore, but much stronger than the day before. A horse whinnied; the sound echoed from the walls. Another one answered, louder. Now several of them called. Paks thought she could pick out Socks’s whinny from the rest. She pushed herself up. Cold air swirled under the blanket and she knew she’d have to get up to get warm. A dark shape crouched over the fire, muttering. This morning she recognized one of the men-at-arms.
When she came to the fire, he handed her a mug of sib, grinning.
“’Tis cold, these early mornings,” he said. “It must be the mountains; I’ve always heard it’s cold all year round in mountains.”
“That’s true of the Dwarfmounts,” agreed Paks. She shivered, and spread her hands to the flames. She had on a linen shirt over her trousers; the wind seemed to go through it as if it weren’t there. Where were her clothes? Which pack?
As if he had heard her thought, Amberion dumped a pack beside the fire. “Your pack,” he said, and reached for a mug of sib. “Glad you’re up. We’ll be riding today.”
Paks found a wool shirt to cover the linen one, then paused. “Should I wear mail?”
“Yes—better not take a chance. Oh. That’s right—yours is gone. We’ll have to find you some.” He finished his sib and stood up. Paks donned the wool shirt, and unrolled her cloak. She was still cold. She moved around near the fire, trying to warm up. Gradually the stiffness eased, though she still felt a deep aching pain along her bones. It was much lighter. Someone had started a pot of porridge for breakfast; when she looked for the horses, she saw several men at work, tacking them up. Socks was still bare, tied to a scrubby tree. Paks walked toward him.
“Will you be riding him today?” asked one of the men.
“I suppose so.” She had no idea what sort of trail they would take, but if they had to fight, she wanted Socks. He stretched his neck when she neared him, and bumped her with his massive nose. She rubbed his head and neck absently, scratching automatically those itchy spots he favored. The man reappeared with her saddle and gear. Paks thanked him, and took her brush from the saddlebags. When she tried to lift the saddle to the horse’s back, she was surprised to find she could barely get it in place. Every muscle in her back protested. She took a deep breath, and fastened the rigging. Foregirth, breastband, crupper, rear girth. Saddlebags. She was panting when she finished. Socks nosed at her. She fitted the bridle on his head, and untied him.
By the time they had ridden out of the canyon, onto a shoulder of the heights to one side, Paks felt she had been riding all day. Socks and the other horses toiled upward. Paks tried to take an interest in the country once more rising into view—the great cliffs of raw red stone, the fringe of forest on the plateaus above. Far to the north an angular gray mountain, dark against all the red, caught Balkon’s attention.
“There! See that dark one? Not the same rock at all—that one comes from hot rocks, rocks flowing like a river, all fire-bright. It will be sharp to the feet if we come there.”
“We shouldn’t,” said Amberion. “The map gives us a cross-canyon next, deeper than the last, and Luap’s stronghold is somewhere nearby.”
“Nearby, eh,” grumbled the dwarf. “Nearby in this country can be out of reach.” They were riding now through a little meadow of sand, carpeted with tall lupines in shades of cream and gold. Ahead the trail led up toward a curious spire of rock that looked, to Paks, as if it were made of candle-drippings that had been tilted one way and another while still soft.
“Is that some of your rock that flowed like a river?”
“No.” Balkon grinned at her. “Rock that flows doesn’t look like it afterwards—this is all sand-rock. Like that below, in the canyon.”
All this time, the distant cliffs that Amberion and Fallis were sure lay beyond the cross canyon drew closer. Paks could not believe that much of a canyon lay between them and the cliffs—until they reached the spire, and the rock fell away beneath their feet. A thin thread of trail angled back and forth down the rocks.
“Gird’s breath, Fallis—we can’t get the horses down there.” Amberion took a few steps down the trail, stumbling on loose ledges of rock. “It’s as steep as a stair. Mules, mayhap, but the warhorses—”
“We can’t leave them here.” Fallis looked around, frowning. “Those kuaknom, or iynisin, or whatever could come back—and you know the scroll mentioned dragons, as well.”
“Yes, but—” Amberion slipped again, and the dislodged rock rattled down the trail several lengths before stopping.
“I’ll scout ahead,” said Thelon, pushing his way forward. “This may not be the best way down—”
“By the map it’s the only way down.”
“Still—”
“You’re right. Take someone with you—” He glanced at Paks, and she thought herself she should go—but her legs felt soft as custard. Amberion’s gaze slid past her to one of the men-at-arms. “Seliam—you’re hill-bred, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir.” The man slipped by Paks and together he and Thelon disappeared down the trail, quickly out of sight. Meanwhile everyone dismounted, and moved the sure-footed mules to the front of the line.
“Though I’m not sure that’s best,” said Connaught. “This way the horses can fall on the mules. Of course, they’re as like to fall completely off the trail as down it.”
In the end it took the rest of that day to get everyone down to the bottom. They had only the one trail; Ardhiel and Thelon might have been able to take another way, but no one else. They took everything that could be carried down by hand, climbing back up for load after load, and then led the mules down one at a time. The horses were last and worse; Paks was ready to curse their huge feet and thick heads by the time she had Socks down beside the stream that flowed swiftly and noisily in the canyon.
Here at least they had good water and plenty of wood. That night’s camp, on an almost level bank some feet above the water, brought no surprises—Amberion and Ardhiel both thought the iynisin had been left behind. Paks said little. She could not understand why she was so tired, when Amberion and the High Marshals had done their best to heal her. She had found the strength to work with the others, but it had taken all her will to do it—nothing was easy, not even pulling the saddle off Socks.
The next day dawned clear again, and the two High Marshals began looking for the clues in Luap’s notes. Paks forced herself to rise when they did, managed to smile in greeting, and almost convinced herself that nothing was wrong. Others were groaning good-humoredly about their stiff joints; she had nothing worse than that. She brought deadwood for the fires, and thought of washing her hair and bathing. Thelon reported a bath-size pool, only a few minutes’ walk downstream, already sunlit.
But when she stripped and stepped into the pool, the cold water on her scars seemed to strike to the bone. She shuddered, seeing the scars darken almost to blue against her pale skin; she felt suddenly weak. The current shoved her against the downstream rocks; they rasped her nerves as if she had no skin at all. She crawled out, gasping and furious. What would the others think, if she couldn’t take a cleansing dip like anyone else. Her vision blurred, and she fought her way into her clothes. Let them think what they liked—she shook her head. No one had said anything. Maybe they wouldn’t. She felt an obscure threat in her anger, in everything. By the time she climbed back to the camp, she could hardly breathe; her chest hurt.