The glowing light suddenly began to move again, floating slowly away from her through the trees, then hovering steadily a dozen feet away as though waiting. When she had shown no sign of moving after a moment, it looped back to her, bobbing up and down impatiently in front of her nose before floating off again into the forest and stopping in the same place. There was something familiar about the pattern of its movement: it reminded Aelwen of a hound she’d once owned, which used to race off in the same way and then wait for her, crouched low, tail wagging, inviting her to follow.
It wanted her to follow? Oh, surely not. But once again, as she hesitated, it started to move, repeating exactly the same sequence: return, retreat and wait. It was magic, for sure, but not of a kind that she had ever come across. She had met Wizards of Tyrineld, come to Eliorand to trade in less suspicious times, and this did not have the feel of Wizards’ magic. Besides, the magelight they produced was not red but a silvery blue.
The light bounced up and down in the air before her, as if growing impatient, and the sight of it made Aelwen smile. She stopped dithering, deciding to trust her instincts and follow.
‘Very well,’ she told it. ‘I’m coming.’ Leading her horse, she set off through the trees. As soon as she began to move, the shining orb moved too, keeping a short distance ahead of her, and leading her on through the dark forest. At least the movement helped keep her warmer, though her legs were aching and her head buzzed with weariness. After a time, she noticed that the first dim glimmers of daylight were stealing between the crowding trees.
Maybe now she could ride again, and give her aching legs a rest. The Horsemistress swung into the saddle - and found a pair of blue eyes staring into her own. Clinging to a branch, right at her new eye level as she sat on the tall stallion’s back, lay the most extraordinary feline that Aelwen had ever seen. She had heard of the blue-eyed cats that the Wizards bred in Tyrineld, but the strange reality, with long, luxuriant fur that seemed to be created out of light and shadow and the stunning eyes in the sable mask, went far beyond the tales.
At its best, it would be magnificent. For the moment, however, the poor creature was clearly suffering. Its fur was soaked into spikes and it looked small, bedraggled and pathetic as it crouched flat to the branch, its eyes dull and glazed. Aelwen knew perfectly well that she was in no position to be taking care of sick animals, and should simply ride away and not look back - yet the sad little figure tugged at her heart. How could she leave it? She doubted very much that it would survive for very long all alone in the forest.
After a brief inner struggle, and smiling wryly at her own folly, she disengaged its claws from their stranglehold on the branch and carefully lifted it down. At least it would be company. Though she had been ready for it to erupt into a fury of clawing and biting, it lay limp and unresponsive in her arms. Aelwen ran expert hands over its body, and it did not seem to be physically hurt in any way. She suspected that it was simply in shock. Something had terrified it, probably the storm itself, and it had fled until terror and exhaustion had overcome it completely.
But this was no wild creature, and there was no way it could have come right into the darkest heart of the forest by itself. So who had brought it here? Where were its owners, and what had happened to them?
She had almost forgotten the mysterious light. When she had stopped it had paused with her, hovering in place about three feet away. Now it came closer, zooming and swerving wildly through the air, right in front of her nose. With a muttered curse, she drew her cloak over the cat so that it wouldn’t be frightened, and set off after the impatiently bobbing globe. She began to wonder if, perhaps, this strange light belonged to the owners of the feline. She knew little of Wizards’ magic - could they produce something like this?
As she rode, she couldn’t help speculating about what was happening in Eliorand following her escape. Tiolani already knew they had fled, taking three of Hellorin’s precious bloodstock with them . . . The Horsemistress shivered. The furious ruler would stop at nothing in her attempts to hunt them down. So where was the Hunt? And where was Kelon? Again she called in mindspeech, hoping against hope that he would answer this time, but there was no reply.
‘What’s that?’ Aelwen pulled up her horse. The breeze had picked up a little, blowing into her face. It carried a wonderful smell of woodsmoke and fried bacon. As if on cue, the red sphere in front of her vanished. Through the trees she heard the sound of voices.
32
THE CLEAR LIGHT OF DAY
Since Corisand had succumbed so quickly and completely to exhaustion, they had left her to rest until morning. When the first of the birds started singing to usher in the new day, and Taine emerged from Esmon’s tent and went to seek Iriana, who was crowded very tightly into the same tent with Avithan. She was sleeping, curled up in a way that could not be comfortable, lying across the feet of her wounded companion. Taine took one look at her pale, strained face, and decided to let her get what little repose she could.
The morning was cool, damp and grey, and he very much wanted some taillin, and something hot to eat, but all the wood was soaked through from the rains of the night before, and he found it impossible to get the fire started. Eventually he was forced to awaken Iriana after all because he needed her rather specialised powers.
Grumbling under her breath, obviously not awake enough yet to hold a conversation, she emerged bleary-eyed from the tent and stumbled across to the fireplace. With a careless gesture, she launched a sizzling little ball of yellow fire into the midst of the pile of kindling, which immediately burst into spluttering, rather smoky flames. He would never have believed it, had he not seen it with his own eyes. A Wizard with the powers of all the elements - as far as he knew, such a thing had never happened before. He wondered uneasily if this was some kind of omen - a sign that the catastrophe foreseen by Cyran was not far away . . .
In the meantime, however, life went on. Iriana, still using Esmon’s black horse as her eyes, tended the animals while Taine fried bacon, then Corisand joined them, with the warhorse standing nearby.
While they ate, Taine watched with bemusement as Iriana and Corisand - the grey horse that apparently was not a horse - exchanged histories and information. The Wizard had had a hard time convincing him that this creature - for no matter how magnificent it was, it still looked like a simple horse to him - was one of the legendary Xandim, and that all of Hellorin’s precious steeds were descendants of the same long-lost race, enslaved aeons ago by the Forest Lord’s magic. He wondered whether Aelwen had ever guessed.
However, there was no denying Corisand’s tidings from Eliorand. Her tale, as relayed by Iriana, filled him with increasing alarm; he heard with dismay of Tiolani’s deteriorating mental state. For a moment his thoughts drifted away from Iriana’s words as he imagined bringing this bad news to Cyran, who would already be devastated by Avithan’s fate. The Archwizard had trusted Taine to guard and help his son. What would he say in the face of such abject, terrible failure?