"Let her go, Vieran."
Gaven saw tears form in Vieran's eyes, but finally the elf's shoulders slumped and he stepped to one side. The priest clapped Vieran's shoulder and walked past him toward the door. Gaven wanted to ask the man if he had been a relative of Senya's, what she meant to him, but Vieran wouldn't look at him as he walked by, and his knuckles were white from clutching the hilt of his scimitar.
With Aunn close on his heels, Gaven followed the priest past Vieran and out the door. Gaven felt every eye on him, but he kept his own gaze fixed on the priest's back until they were out in the entryway and the priest closed the sanctuary doors behind them.
"I can't believe she's gone," Gaven said to Aunn.
"I can't believe you found her in the first place," the changeling replied. "What brought you here?"
"That was the first question on my mind as well," the priest said, turning away from the door. "Why were you in Senya's room this morning?"
"I came here last night," Gaven said, "hoping to consult with the priests."
"The Khoravar do not often turn to the Undying Court for counsel," the priest said.
"I visited the City of the Dead with Senya a few months ago, and her ancestor-I suppose you'd say she foretold that I would return and find what I sought. So I came in hope of finding that."
"So you didn't know that Senya was here?" the priest asked.
"I had no idea. But she took me in, brought me into the sanctuary there, and… I don't know, she let the ancestor take over her body, just like this morning."
"There he is!" a voice cried from the temple entrance.
Gaven whirled and saw a young elf in the entry, breathless from running, his hand extended to point at Gaven. Behind him appeared first one and then a second soldier in the green tabards of the city watch.
"Well, I think you've answered all my questions," the priest said. "You're free to go."
CHAPTER 35
The tumult of the battlefield faded into the distance, as the ragtag band of survivors around Rienne grew steadily larger. Cressa's periodic shouts seemed to give the stragglers courage and perhaps even a shred of hope, though Rienne couldn't imagine what they thought they could hope for. She didn't know what was emerging through the sundered seal of the Gatekeepers, but between it and the barbarians, she felt sure the Eldeen Reaches was beyond all hope.
She saw no sign, yet, that the Blasphemer's forces had managed to regroup after the sundering of the seal threw the battlefield into chaos. Rienne and her band saw one small gang of barbarians crouching on a ridge, looking like they were waiting to prey on stragglers fleeing the battle, but they were daunted by the size of Rienne's group and fled into the woods. Was it possible that the sundering of the seal had wreaked as much havoc on the Blasphemer's horde as it had on the Reachers? Rienne didn't dare to hope as much.
When the noise had faded and the earth no longer shook beneath their feet, Cressa fell into step beside Rienne once more.
"What's your plan, Lady?" Cressa asked.
"Plan?" Rienne shook her head. She had been thinking only about getting the survivors out of immediate danger.
Cressa's face fell, and Rienne hurried to create the impression that she knew what she was doing. "Here's what I want you to do," she told the girl. "I need to know how many of us there are in this group, and whether there are any officers or elders, or any priests, druids, or shamans among us. Find someone to help. Can you do that for me?"
"I can," Cressa said, beaming.
"Let me take the standard."
Cressa carefully transferred the ragged battle standard back to Rienne's hands, and bounded off to the nearest clump of people to begin her survey. Rienne watched her with a smile, amused by the girl's boundless energy and enthusiasm.
"Now to come up with a plan," she muttered to herself.
She had started walking vaguely eastward, ahead of the general direction of the barbarians' movement and toward the river that marked the Aundairian border. She tried to picture in her mind the maps that she and Jordhan had studied on their airship journeys, squelching the grief that surged in her chest at the thought of Jordhan. The barbarians had cut a swath through the Towering Wood, running more or less directly east from the Shadowcrags. They had reached the edge of the Towering Wood, and would soon emerge into the fields of the agricultural east. If they continued due east across a few hundred miles of farmland, a stretch of forest called the Riverwood stood between them and the Wyr River. If they turned to either side, they'd enter smaller woods-the Mosswood to the northeast, the Wolfwood to the southeast. Or they could follow the fields and farms, turn south around the Riverwood, and reach the river near Varna.
How much did the barbarians know? She doubted they had maps to plan their assault, but Kyaphar-also likely dead on Jordhan's ship, she realized with a fresh pang-had said that their path had taken them from one Gatekeeper seal to another, breaking each one in turn. What magic guided them to the seals, and where would they go next? She couldn't possibly guess, but if there were druids or elders in the group, she reasoned, they might know more.
Of course, it was pointless to think about the path of the Blasphemer's hordes unless it meant that her little band of farmers and foresters could join a larger force of real soldiers. Aundair had ostensibly sent troops into the Reaches to stop the barbarian advance, but they started by sacking Varna, and Sovereigns knew where they had gone from there. They could have followed the road westward toward Cree, perhaps, on a path of conquest to the druidic capital of Greenheart. Was it too much to hope, she wondered, that they struck out to the northwest, along the same path of cleared ground that might lead the barbarians around the Riverwood?
The more she thought about it, the more Rienne desperately wanted to reach the river. It was a far more defensible position than anything she could think of in the Reaches, and it would mean that she could take another stand against the Blasphemer with Aundair's armies at her back and the prophetic weight of her dream behind her. But even by the most direct route, the river was some two hundred miles away, easily two weeks' journey on foot. Probably more, with such a large group.
"I'm back!" Cressa announced, still beaming with evident pleasure at being chosen for such an important task.
"And what news do you bring?"
"I've brought a count of the troops at your command." Cressa gave a clumsy salute.
"My command?" Rienne scoffed. "I'm not an officer."
"No one here is, and they all agree that they'd rather follow Lady Dragonslayer than anyone else."
"No officers at all? What about druids or elders?"
"Well, I'm not sure, but that eagle seems to be following us." She pointed into the sky, and Rienne squinted against the afternoon sun.
A large bird of prey circled high overhead. It wasn't big enough to be an Aundairian dragonhawk, unless it was much farther away than it appeared. It might have been a druid-she didn't dare to hope that it was Kyaphar-but she supposed it didn't matter until the druid decided to reveal himself.
"That's all?" Rienne asked.
"Twelve soldiers from the Reaches' standing army march with us. The rest are militia-a few veterans, mostly new recruits."
"And how many are we?"
"All told, we number seventy-six."
Cressa said it with pride, as though it were a huge number, but Rienne almost gasped at how few had escaped the battle. She closed her eyes in a silent prayer that other survivors had made it to safety, but it didn't give her much comfort. Twelve regular soldiers, fifty-three militia, a druid or perhaps a hungry eagle, and Rienne herself-arrayed against the Blasphemer's tens of thousands.