They set off again as soon as the horse had rested. The ground became rockier and their going slower. The trees closed in around them and the air became heavy and moist.
After a while, Lynan said: “How long did you pilot a barge?”
“Oh, many years. My youth was spent on the river.”
“But you did not set out to be a pilot?”
“No. I did not know how my journey from the Oceans of Grass would end. Destiny made my feet follow the path to the Barda.”
“Destiny and instruction,” Lynan said quietly.
“Now what can the little master mean by that?”
“As a pilot, you have reason to travel between the capitals of Hume and Chandra, you listen to gossip and tales from your passengers, you see what cargo is being carried, including the movement of armies, and you have an excuse to talk to travelers.”
Gudon smiled easily. “Destiny takes many shapes and forms. In my case, it was not a king but a princess, although she is a queen now. And it is my turn to ask you your question: what will you do about it?”
“What I am doing now,” Lynan replied without trying to hide the irony. “Helping you get to safety.”
The pilot saw the deserted barge and swore loudly. Kumul stood up to see what the problem was.
“Poor Gudon!” the pilot wailed. “He did not deserve such a fate!”
By now Ager and Jenrosa were standing as well. It did not take them long to see what the pilot was keening about.
“Is that… ?” Jenrosa started, but could not finish the question. She did not want to know the answer.
“Take us closer!” Kumul told the pilot.
“I do not dare! See the spear trees, and how some of their branches end below the water? They are holding jaizru nests! If we get too close, they may attack us as well!”
“Take us closer, damn you!” Kumul ordered, and went astern to make sure she obeyed his order.
The pilot started her wailing again but gently eased her vessel closer to the bank. Ager climbed the bow gunwale and peered into the abandoned barge. “It’s a fucking mess,” he said. “I see at least two dead horses.”
“Any bodies?” Jenrosa asked.
“It’s hard to tell. The deck is covered in blood and dead eels. Maybe one… no, two! Get us closer!”
The pilot shook, but under Kumul’s glowering stare pushed harder on the rudder. Ager asked Jenrosa to hold on to his coat as he leaned even farther over the water. “One is too tall to be Lynan. The other… I just can’t tell. There is not enough left of the face and too much blood to tell by the clothing.” Jenrosa pulled him back in and the two of them joined Kumul astern.
“We must get off,” Kumul said.
Just then the water boiled to the starboard and several shapes, black and red with teeth like shears, flew out of the river. The landed just inside the barge and flopped uselessly on the deck, all the while trying to bite whatever was in reach. The three companions jumped back. The pilot kicked the rudder and pulled on the sheets. The barge lurched and then slid into the middle of the river.
“I am not stopping here, even if you cut me with your sword,” she told Kumul, her eyes wide in fear.
“She is right,” Ager said, his voice taut. “The river is too shallow here for the barge to get close enough to the bank. We would have to wade through the water, and probably all be dead before our feet touched dry land.”
“But what of Lynan?” Kumul cried. “What if he is still alive? He could be on the bank somewhere, needing our help…”
“If Lynan survived the river, he is either dead from loss of blood or long gone from here, in which case we will have to find his trail and follow it.”
“Where is the closest point we can disembark?” Jenrosa asked the pilot.
“About three leagues from here if you want to take your horses with you.”
“But which side of the river?” Kumul asked.
“I do not think he would have survived if he tried to swim for the eastern bank,” Ager answered. “The eels would have had more than enough time to finish him off. If he is alive, he is somewhere to the west of the Barda.”
“Then that is where we go,” Kumul said.
The barge seemed to take hours to reach the disembarkation point, but the sun had still not reached midday when the pilot pulled over and dropped anchor. The planks were not quite long enough to reach land, and the horses had to be pulled and pushed up the slippery bank. They left one of the horses with the pilot as payment.
“I did not take you to Daavis as agreed,” the pilot said, and gave them two days’ worth of food to make up the difference. “Journey well. I hope you find your friend.”
Less than an hour later they reached the clump of spear trees and the deserted barge with its cargo, already starting to stink under the hot sun. They quickly found the prints of two humans and a horse.
“I think these are Lynan’s,” Ager said. “They are too small for Prado or one of his men.”
“These ones are long, but the stride is short and there is much blood,” Kumul said.
“It could be the pilot,” Jenrosa suggested.
“Or not,” Ager answered grimly.
Kumul followed the second set of prints to a thicket of thorn bushes. “The tracks meet here, then Lynan’s set off west…” He stopped and stooped to the ground “… and come back again… and then set off once more, but the impression is much deeper. He is carrying something heavy.”
“The other survivor,” Ager said, joining Kumul. “Then Jenrosa is probably right. It must be the pilot. He would not bother to carry Prado or one of his men.”
“But Prado had two men with him,” Jenrosa pointed out. “Where is the last of them?”
Ager shrugged. “Dead in the river, most likely; probably nothing more than a skeleton now.”
With hope rekindled in their hearts, they followed the tracks west for half a league on foot before rediscovering the horse’s trail.
“They are riding west,” Ager said, and pointed to the crest in the distance. “They are heading for the woods.”
“Smart boy, that Lynan,” Kumul said under his breath. “They can’t be more than four hours ahead of us.”
“They will pull ahead, even though their horse is carrying both of them,” Ager said. “We have to ride slowly to keep to their trail.”
It was mid-afternoon before Lynan reached the top of the crest. It had been hard work, climbing and leading the horse. Gudon had slipped into a kind of sleep, stirring only occasionally to pat the horse and smile at Lynan before nodding off again. Now that they were clear of most of the trees the sun woke him fully, and he tried to slip off the horse.
“What are you doing?” Lynan cried, and tried to stop him.
“No, no, young master! I need to stand. I haven’t been on a horse for many years, and my thighs and back feel like they have been stretched forever out of shape.” He balanced himself on his good leg and held onto the saddle, then slowly stretched his muscles.
A cool wind blew around them. From their vantage point Lynan could see that the crest fell more sharply on its western side—leveling out in a broad dry plain with no trees and no sign of life—but extended north until it joined the saddle of a much larger rise. Beyond that he could see the peaks of several mountains, some of them high enough to shine with snow. He looked behind him and saw more mountains, though none as high as those in the north.
“That is the Lesser Desert,” Gudon told him, pointing to the plain. “It follows the Ufero Mountains along almost its entire length. South of here is the source of the Gelt River, which flows into Kestrel Bay.”
Lynan dimly remembered that the Gelt River had been the original destination for him and his companions on leaving Kendra. How much easier their journey would have been if they had not been forced onto the rocks by that warship, he thought. They could have sailed halfway up the Gelt, then strolled the rest of its length to these mountains. No great bears or vampires or Jes Prados or jaizru.