When I was through, Ciarra frowned at me. She tapped her forehead twice. Not so stupid, Ward, said the gesture.
"No," I said. "Do you want to come with us?"
She grinned delightedly, and I decided not to tell her I was going to try to find a safe place to leave her until I actually found one; each battle to its own day. My sister taken care of, I turned to the woman beside her.
"Bastilla, I'm sorry that I wasn't able to grant you freedom here, but I'll see to it that you don't go back into slavery."
She didn't react to what I'd said, just studied me.
The rabbit rocks were less than a half mile from the keep because I had to carry Bastilla most of the way. She'd have preferred to walk, but she was too slow.
Penrod and Axiel waited with eight horses behind the pale boulder that stuck up over the tops of the aspen grove surrounding them. Six of the horses were saddled, and two more bore heavy packs. Six with saddles, but there were only five of us.
"Thought you might use an extra hand," Penrod said.
Penrod had fought in the Guard, and he still trained under Stala every day with the rest of the stable hands. My father wanted everyone to be capable of defending Hurog. Three fighting men and a wizard weren't a large force, but it was a good start.
Penrod continued, "My second will tell your uncle that you came to the stables with a strange woman in tow and took the best horses. When I protested, you ordered me to go along and care for them."
"That way they won't tear down the keep looking for Bastilla," observed Oreg approvingly. He held out a hand to Penrod. "I'm Oreg, a cousin of Ward's. He's been letting me hide here while I tried to decide what to do with myself. It seems I'm going to travel with you."
Admiring Oreg's storytelling skills, I introduced Penrod to him, and then Bastilla to Axiel and Penrod. The introductions were necessarily short.
"We need to hurry," said Axiel. "Stala thinks that she can buy us time, but we want to get going."
We turned our attention to getting mounted. For the first time I realized Pansy was among the saddled horses. He snorted at me and shoved his nose in my chest. He wasn't a safe mount yet, but I was pleased to see him, nonetheless. It was Feather's presence that surprised me.
"You brought a mare with the stallion, Penrod?" I asked. Feather twitched a lazy ear in my direction as Ciarra scrambled atop her wide back. Ciarra was the only one besides me who I allowed on Feather.
Penrod chuckled as he checked the cinch on his own muscled gelding. "He knows that saddle and bridle means work. He's traveled with mares before and knows his manners. Feather would have fretted if we left her behind. There's no one left here good enough to ride her. If we end up with a foal out of it, well enough."
It took some sorting to get horses and people together. Oreg, for instance, had never ridden before—something that Penrod hadn't counted upon when he'd picked what horses to take. Finally, we changed the saddle to one of the pack animals, high-bred still, but with a calm manner, and Oreg settled on its back securely enough. Bastilla could ride, thank the gods.
There was no hiding the trail of so many, so I didn't bother to try. We needed distance more than secrecy.
"Where are we going?" asked Penrod, riding by my side.
"South," I answered. "Tyrfannig first. If we ride at a good pace, we'll make it there by morning. I think I'll buy our passage on a freighter headed to a major port in Seaford, Newtonburn, maybe. Then we can continue to Oranstone and see what we meet up with."
As we rode onward, I felt the steady lessening of the magic that impregnated Hurog. It was a dreary, depressing feeling, and I knew it would get worse before it got better, it always did when I left Hurog. I don't think that leaving Hurog had affected my father the same way, perhaps because I was mageborn and he wasn't. But it made me feel like a drunkard deprived of his beer. After a while I'd get used to it again, but it was always unpleasant, especially now when, deep in my heart, I wasn't certain I'd ever come home again.
"Did I hear you say Oranstone?" asked Axiel, pushing forward to ride shoulder to shoulder with Penrod and me. "Why Oranstone?"
"There's a war brewing there," I said. "And I think it might be my best chance to regain Hurog. You don't have to join me."
To my surprise, Axiel, my father's man, who'd been in countless battles at my father's side, didn't say any of the things that Oreg had rightfully mentioned about the foolhardiness of my scheme. Instead, he grinned whitely in the darkness. "I would be honored to accompany you, my lord."
"If we're going to Oranstone," said Penrod, "shouldn't we get passage to someplace farther south than Newtonburn? The road from Newtonburn to Oranstone goes over several mountain passes, and it will be late fall by the time we get there. I've done it once, and I'll be honest, my lord, I'd not care to do that again."
I used the conversation to distract myself from the growing discomfort as we got farther from Hurog. "I hadn't actually planned on traveling by sea at all. We'll buy passage and let Garranon chase the ship while we travel by road through Tallven to the capital at Estian and from there, Oranstone is a straight shot south."
5—WARDWICK
I don't know that running was the right thing to do. People died who might not have if I'd stayed. People I loved. But it seemed the only option at the time.
What had appeared rational and adventurous in the dark of night seemed a lot stupider in the morning light. But no better plan presented itself.
As we came down out of the foothills, Tyrfannig lay ahead of us. The scattered buildings, touched by the pink light of dawn, were as familiar to me as Hurog's scarred walls.
I turned to Oreg, who was riding beside me, and murmured, "Can you tell what's going on at Hurog from here?"
"From anywhere," he said. His body relaxed, and his gaze grew faraway. "You've been discovered. Garranon is saddling horses in the stable."
"Thank you." Tyrfannig was four hours' ride at top speed. We'd taken nearer to five. I wanted us to be at least an hour out of Tyrfannig when Garranon arrived.
"Penrod," I called. When he approached, I said, "I'd like you and Axiel to buy what supplies we don't have. I'll get a room at an inn for Bastilla to rest in and leave Oreg and Ciarra there for protection while I go on a few errands of my own."
"Right," he said. "I'll tell Axiel."
When Penrod had ridden off, Oreg asked, "May I come with you?"
I wanted no company, but something in his voice made me ask, "What's wrong?" instead of refusing outright.
"I cannot be too far from you when I'm away from Hurog."
"What do you mean?"
"Unpleasantness for me," he said with a brief, apologetic smile. "Not much for you."
"How far is too far?" I asked. "My business is no more than a mile from the inn. Is that close enough?"
He stared at the tips of his horse's ears for a moment, then said with clear reluctance, "It should be all right."
Since Newtonburn was the next major port on the coast, I didn't have much trouble finding a ship going there. A ship that was leaving before the pursuit from Hurog would make it to Tyrfannig was more difficult. At last I found that the Cormorant was sailing with the tide, and I had to scurry to find her clerk before he left their official list of passengers at the Ship's Office.
I paid for our passage as he warned me that the captain wouldn't wait for late passengers. I assured him that there would be no trouble; if we missed it, we would catch the next one. The clerk thought me a rich fool, which bothered me not at all. Ward of Hurog's name and seven silver each for six passages went down upon the lambskin list, easy for Garranon to find.