Red stained her cheeks suddenly, she looked a little away and no longer met my gaze squarely. “I know not about the number six, Kerovan, but the two becoming three—”
“Guret!” I exclaimed. “Guret is with us, now.”
“So I am,” said the young man, approaching the window where we stood. “While you two looked upon the morning, I have prepared our breakfast.”
After I had washed and shaved, and we had eaten, we discussed plans for the day. Guret, who had more experience as a fisherman than I, proposed to try his luck in the river running the length of the valley. Joisan wished to search the woods and fields for edible roots and growing things, while I would take Guret’s bow and seek game.
When we met later in the afternoon, each of us had done well—Guret swung several fat fish from a line, I had two rabbits, as well as an unwary hedge-grouse, while Joisan’s shawl bulged with intriguing lumps and bumps. As she saw us coming, she waved, beckoning us to look upon what evidently excited her. “Look!” she exclaimed, showing us several gnarled kernels. “Wild grain! I shall be able to make “bread, of a sort. The soil is rich. We must trade with the Kioga for seeds of all kinds—flax, grain, vegetables”—she began sorting through her booty—“wild onions, carrots, and turnips… this valley must have been under cultivation, long ago.”
“Aye, Cera,” Guret agreed.
“We will need a plow,” I said, “and a harness. I wonder how Nekia will take to drawing the earth-breaking blade.”
“Have you ever farmed, m’lord?” Guret looked faintly scandalized, as though he found the thought of a warrior behind a plow disturbing.
“I have turned my hand to many things since we have been in Arvon,” I said, amused. “Including plowing. I can even do a fair job at smithing. Replacing horseshoes is a constant worry in the army.”
“Perhaps that is one of the things you can use in trade, m’lord,” Guret said. “Our smith, Jibbon, is growing old. Jerwin, the boy who died in the mountain passes last winter, was learning his trade, but—”
“Jerwin?” Joisan asked.
Quickly the boy told the story of the menace the Kioga had fled. Joisan glanced around her at the sunlit fastness of the valley, then at the mountain peaks rising above it. “Where in the mountains does this pass lie?”
Guret stood for long moment studying the position of the sun, glancing from peak to peak, in silent thought.
Finally he turned to us. “I cannot be sure,” he said reluctantly, “but it must be in this very region.”
Joisan looked distinctly uneasy, though I had the impression she was not much surprised, either. For me, I surveyed the peace of the valley, then the beauty of Kar Garudwyn, to learn that I could not imagine this as anything but a refuge of welcoming safety. “We were not menaced last night,” I reminded them. “Naught can enter this valley that I shall not sense.”
Even as I spoke, as though my words were an enlarging-glass to focus the many rays of the sun into one burning pinprick, I swung to face the southern end of the valley, whence we had come yesterday. It was as though someone had brushed a roughness across my flesh, abradingly, causing discomfort, but as yet no real hurt.
“What is it, Kerovan?” Joisan asked.
“I feel a troubling… southward. Something is trying to breach the Guardians of the pasts.”
“That runner of ridges?” Guret looked frightened.
“No. That menace is one that gains strength when the sun is fled. I don’t know what this is… but we must find out, and speedily.”
Whistling for our mounts, we saddled and rode up the’t alley at a brisk canter, toward that narrow throat of rock marking its entrance. As I rode, I could feel that other presence, like a filthy cloak muffled about my spirit. Some-tiling was pushing against the valley safeguards, growing more and more angered when their protection held firm. While on my wrist—though I showed that not to my companions—my talisman took on its warning warmth and light.
As we moved toward the englobed symbols, I indeed sighted a figure without, dark, sitting silent atop a black stallion. The stranger was hooded and shrouded in a sable cloak, but as we neared, the sunlight picked out a narrow ridge of nose, and I heard Joisan’s soft exclamation. “Nidu!”
Sensing my lady’s strong dislike mingled with fear, even though we were not directly mindsharing, I glanced at her reassuringly. “Such a one cannot pass the protection devices, Joisan, unless we open the way to her.”
Her answer was chill. “Do not underestimate her Power, Kerovan. Even before we left the Kioga camp she was dabbling along paths better not trodden by any who value their spirits. Do you not feel that she has taken further strides along the Left-Hand Path?”
I could feel it. Nekia trembled beneath me, rolling her eyes and sweating as we took those last few strides to halt, facing the Shaman, just on the other side of those protecting globes. The smell of the mare’s fear sweat was rank in my nostrils, and, glancing over at Guret’s and Joisan’s mounts, I saw they fared no better. Even the stallion, Vengi, who should have reacted to the presence of another male of his kind with open challenge, hung back, eyes rolling, not in anger, but fear.
Nidu’s black mount stood quietly, wearing neither bit nor saddle, every shining line of it reflecting the afternoon sun in ebony glimmers. There was something deeply unsettling about the stallion’s perfection of form, for true perfection is a thing outside of nature. As the sun caught the creature’s eyes, they flashed red, deep within their depths.
“Fair meeting. Lord Kerovan—Lady Joisan.” Nidu’s voice held some of the low, silken hum of the spirit drum hanging by her side. “My thanks for bringing my Drummer of Shadows. You have saved me the trouble of breaching your gate and reclaiming him.”
I kept my voice very level. “Guret refused your service, Nidu. I am surprised Jonka did not tell you of this.”
Her dark eyes pricked at me like an ancient, keen-pointed dagger. “Jonka does not rule the Kioga, save by my will. Guret was rightfully Chosen, therefore he will serve. ”
“Rightfully!” My temper, usually well leashed, flared at her straight-eyed untruths. “I watched you alter the selection! Whyever you did so remains your own reason, but you called upon the Power—and a Dark one at that—to aid your will in the ceremony. Guret is thus twice free—by his own will, and by your unclean cheat during the selection!”
She regarded me narrow-eyed, as though only now seeing me as a man, not just an object to be moved aside by her will. “Do not think you can cower here behind your ancient barriers and safeguards for long, Kerovan. Give me the boy—then your safety, and the safety of your whey-blooded wife is assured. Otherwise—”
“Otherwise, nothing!” Joisan spoke for the first time. “Get you hence, Nidu, and take your insults with you. Guret goes where he chooses. He is free to stay with us until he wishes to move on, and naught you can say or threaten will alter that.”
“Have you forgotten the mandrake charm?” The Shaman smiled suddenly, and for a second it seemed that her mouth bore too many teeth for one of humankind. “Best guard yourself, Lady Joisan. Something saved you that first time, but the next you may not be so lucky—
I interrupted her threat with an expletive better confined to the company of one’s barracks-mates, then, in cold silence, signaled the unwilling Nekia with my knees, so the mare moved to front the Shaman directly. “Get you gone, Nidu, or you will be sorry.” Quickly, with my right hand, I drew the symbol of the winged globe in the air, saw it flame violet. As the symbol formed I spoke two words, ones that came into my head unbidden, words that shaped and honed Power as a smith may strike the edge to a blade.