THE PREVIOUS EVENING, as they sheltered from the rain on the edge of a small woodland and tried to prepare a meal, A’Meer revealed what Kosar had already guessed: she wanted them to go to New Shanti. She stated her case as plainly and honestly as she could. It was her cause and aim to protect new magic should it arise; it was her duty to return to New Shanti to report its recurrence; and the safest place for all of them would be Hess. It was as far south as they could go without venturing into Kang Kang. They would be protected by Shantasi warriors, and Rafe’s magic would have a chance to mature and reveal itself more in its own time. If the Mages returned to Noreela with an army, Hess was the best place for them all.
Hope objected vehemently. Want it for yourself! and Can’t trust a Shantasi, and Where do we go from there? It did not descend into an argument-not quite-mainly because A’Meer was still so tired from her injuries. Hope’s distrust simmered, but eventually the others discussed the matter and talked her around. Even Hope finally admitted that it was the only place to go. North to the Duke was madness, not only because it would send them against the pursuing Monks, but because the Duke no longer held power. He may well have the dregs of an army, but none of Rafe’s protectors had any faith in a failed leader. Directly east was Ventgoria and eventually the Poison Forests; west took them closer to the Monk’s Monastery, a place they did not need to be. And any way they went, the Mages could well be on their trail. We can fight them, Hope whispered, trying not to let Rafe hear. Sitting on his own at the edge of the forest, he was as distant as he had been all day. We have magic!
Fighting is exactly what they want, A’Meer said, and that silenced them all. None of them had seen the Cataclysmic War, but they all knew the stories. They had no wish to see its like in their time. And yet, the storms were gathering. Kosar felt more and more controlled, edged along a preordained path that none of them would have chosen. A descent toward pain and conflict seemed inevitable. Kosar was angry at Fate for entangling him in this, because at last he had begun to feel settled. Trengborne was a nothing village with nothing going for it, but it had started to feel like home.
Now here he was again, wandering the land, heading toward places he had not visited for decades, if at all. And though he was not wise or particularly learned, this journey felt more ill-fated than any he had ever undertaken.
That night, huddled beneath a blanket with A’Meer and enjoying their sharing of warmth, he had told her of his thoughts. She had not answered.
They slept without eating. Trey and Kosar gathered roots, fruits and some edible bark from within the woods, but upon returning to their makeshift camp and starting to prepare the produce, they found it to be rotten. Maggots crawled through the tuskfruit, themselves stinking of decay. The steady shifting of the trees, the soft low groaning of timbers grinding together in the breeze, took on new connotations. In Rafe, new magic slept, but old magic had turned the land sour.
“WE’LL BE ATthe River San soon,” Kosar said. He and A’Meer rode on ahead, sharing a horse now so that Hope could ride next to Rafe. Trey followed on behind, leading the horse with comatose Alishia tied into its saddle. Her mount kept staggering, blood dripping from its nostrils, and yet it plodded on. Kosar had some vague intention to steal another horse when they came to San, but something held him back from planning that far ahead. It was the next hour that mattered the most; if they made it past that, they could plan ahead another hour, and then another. At the end of their journey New Shanti may well be waiting, but they had to move one small step at a time.
“Have you ever been to San?” A’Meer asked.
Kosar nodded. “A long time ago. It was a river-fishing port then. Not much more than a village, but it’ll have food we can buy, maybe a horse.”
“We need to go around it, not through. Any trace of us in San will give the Red Monks a trail to follow.”
Kosar thought about it, knew that she was right.
“And there’s the river itself,” A’Meer said. “It’s wide and slow. We’ll need to cross it somewhere. We use a bridge, we’ll be seen. We use a ferry, we have to pay our way and the ferryman will see us.”
“We could swim it,” Kosar suggested.
A’Meer glanced behind them, looked across at Kosar and raised an eyebrow. “I could, even though I’m still weak. You could, even though you’re an old man.” He protested, and she smiled. “Hope I suspect is stronger than she looks, and Rafe I’m sure could make his way. Trey? Alishia? The horses?”
“We could go upstream. The river’s narrower there in the foothills, easier to cross.”
“And lose a day. Have you forgotten where this river leads?”
He frowned for a moment, and then shivered as if someone was staring at his back. He turned in his saddle and met Hope’s eyes, offered her a smile and faced front again before being disappointed. “Lake Denyah,” he said.
“The Monks’ Monastery is there.” A’Meer rode in silence for a couple of minutes, and Kosar could see her thinking. She frowned and her little nose creased at the bridge. He had kissed her there sometimes, when her face relaxed after sex. He surprised himself at his depth of mourning for older, gentler times.
“We have to assume that word has reached the Monastery,” she said. “If they’d known at the Monastery much before now there would have been hundreds of Monks against us in Pavisse, not just a few. But at least one would have ridden south as the others tried to keep on our trail. There’s a chance we’ve thrown them for now, but they saw me and they know where I’m from. They’ll know for sure where I’ll want to take Rafe.”
“The Monastery must be two hundred miles from Pavisse,” Kosar said. “There’s no way one of them could have made that journey yet.”
“They’re not people, Kosar. They’re obsessed. They’re powerful. And do you think we’d be traveling this slowly if we didn’t have to?”
Kosar glanced back again. Trey and Alishia had fallen behind, their horse struggling under the unconscious woman’s weight, snorting, blood misting the air around its nose.
“What are you two plotting?” Hope said, spurring her horse to catch up to them. Kosar wanted to believe that there was a hint of humor in her voice, but her face said otherwise. Her tattoos were sharp and defined, displaying her intense concentration.
“We’re plotting how to tumble you from your horse and bury you up to your neck in quicksand,” A’Meer said.
Hope stared at the Shantasi, raising her eyebrows. “You and which army?”
Kosar could not help uttering a bark of a laugh. The fact that Hope did not berate him could have been a sign that she was relaxing. .. or perhaps she disregarded him totally. “We’re debating how to cross the river,” he said. “There are several bridges and a ferry, but we’d rather not be seen.”
“Steal a boat.”
“It would need to be a big boat for all of us,” A’Meer said.
“Steal a ferry.”
“And the ferryman?”
Hope shrugged. Kosar did not like the look in her eyes.
“We’re no killers,” he said quietly. A’Meer and Hope both looked at him, perhaps both doubting their own thoughts. There was an uncomfortable pause, during which Kosar was silently pleading, Agree with me!
“That’s right,” A’Meer said. She did not sound convincing, nor convinced.
“You think the Monks will be coming upriver?”
“Almost certainly.”
They rode in silence for a while, the only sound the clump clump of horses’ hooves on the stony surface. They had been walking across dead ground for an hour now, a place where life had been sucked from the soil. There were no birds, no animals, nothing to eat or be eaten. Here and there, weathered white bones protruded from the hard soil, leathery skin draped across them in defeat. Kosar craved greenery, and he breathed a sigh of relief when they crested a small hill and saw a long, sweeping panorama of grassland and trees heading down to the distant River San.