‘How soon?’ Arkady asked.
‘And from where?’ Jeral growled.
Orjin raised his hands for silence. ‘Quiet!’ He looked round. ‘Our friend here might not be the only spy in our camp.’
They sat once more, Jeral grudgingly. She extended a finger to the newcomer but spoke to Orjin. ‘I don’t like it. This one may be an infiltrator from Renquill sent to lure us to the coast with some cock and bull story of ships. At the coast we could be cornered and slaughtered.’
‘Yune?’ Orjin asked, a questioning brow raised.
‘Our friend is telling the truth when he says he speaks for a distant party.’
‘Who?’ Terath demanded.
The old shaman almost winced as he confessed, ‘The ruler of Malaz and the Napan Isles.’
Orjin’s hope soured; he’d heard the rumours regarding the powers there. Some sort of sorcerer who could summon demons, and his right hand a murderer who everyone believed had slain King Chulalorn the Third.
In the silence following Yune’s admission, the giant Orhan murmured, ‘Perhaps we cannot be so choosy.’
Orjin nodded. Orhan was right. If there was any chance at all to save his people he had to take it. ‘How soon can the ships get here?’ he asked the lad.
‘Three to four days.’
He rubbed his stubbled cheeks, thinking. So they just had to last another four days or so, and make it to the coast. He looked at Arkady, who was being his usual silent self. ‘Speak to our hill-folk guides, yes?’
The Wickan padded off.
Orjin regarded the agent. ‘Looks as though we have a deal. But if the ships don’t arrive – you die with us.’
The fellow nodded. ‘I will send word.’ Bowing, he departed.
A short while later Arkady returned with two of their guides in tow. Orjin couldn’t quite read their impassive and set faces as they joined the group round the fire, but to him they appeared troubled.
Arkady blew out a breath. ‘The west is where they’re thickest. The most forts. The most patrols. And the mountains peter out. We lose our cover.’
Terath was frowning. ‘But the ravine choking the coastal road where this whole campaign started …’
Orjin looked to their guides. ‘Uh-huh. What of that?’
The two eyed one another, clearly reluctant. Finally, one cleared his throat, murmuring, ‘Yes. Hidden River.’
‘And?’
‘They say there is a way,’ Arkady put in. ‘But there’s a problem.’
Orjin gestured, inviting them to speak. ‘Please. What is it?’
Clearly uncomfortable, one shifted, uneasy, then began, ‘It is a series of caves, and a river that goes underground. It comes out at a cove between cliffs on the shore. Our elders speak of it, but our people have not travelled its full route in generations.’
‘Why not?’
The young fellow made a sign against evil. ‘It is … guarded.’
Jeral made to rise, as if this was all a waste of time, but Orjin bade her sit. ‘Guarded? By what?’
‘Generations ago the earth shook. It was the goddess’s anger. After that the river’s route changed, and something barred the way.’
‘Something? You don’t know what it is?’
Once more the two exchanged uneasy glances. The one speaking finally confessed, reluctantly, ‘A dragon.’
Jeral openly rolled her eyes; Orjin did feel his brows rise in scepticism, but he nodded, accepting the information. ‘I see. Well … will you guide us there regardless? You need not go all the way. Just point us there.’
They grasped at leather pouches strung round their necks; amulets, or charms perhaps. ‘We are not cowards,’ the speaker said. ‘We will show you the way. That is land we once walked. You lowlanders may think it is yours, but it is still ours.’
‘And perhaps this, ah, dragon, has left,’ Terath suggested.
The two eyed her, dubious, and the spokesman nodded solemnly, clearly not believing it for a moment. ‘Perhaps this is so.’
* * *
Ullara had to leave her loyal companion Bright behind when the way became too steep. She stuffed her few remaining sacks and skins of supplies into a pack that went on to her back, threw two thick horse blankets, rolled and tied, over her shoulder, took up a tall sturdy staff cut from a branch, and felt her way onward.
It was slow going. Her guides were leaving her alone for longer and longer periods. A fall now would be deadly – any serious enough injury would be deadly. Sometimes she had to feel her way with her hands, or tapping the stick, or sliding her feet about.
At least thirst was no problem, as she was high enough now to find snow clinging in shadows and cracks; she would gather up a handful and melt it in her mouth. As for food, she’d actually been eating far better than she had in Heng – meat almost every day. So hunger wasn’t a problem either, as yet.
And the bare rocky slopes of the Fenn Range were remarkably uninhabited. She hadn’t met another human being since taking leave of her Seti guides. Rugged wild sheep and mountain goats were her companions now.
But she wasn’t completely safe. Once she was startled by what sounded like a sudden fight nearby: hissing and squalling and the crashing of huge flapping wings. She was then given an intimate glimpse of a bloodied dead mountain cat, clutched in Prince’s talons as he proceeded to eat it.
She was not too shaken; she knew that she’d have been dead a hundred times over were he not watching over her.
No, her greatest worry was that she was forced to follow what could only be described as a thin trail, deeper into the range. A trail meant her kind – the kind she least wished to meet. She hoped it was a hunting trail, or supply route, the sort of path travelled only once or twice a year.
So she was not entirely surprised when she followed a curve in the steep path – it zigzagged upwards day after day – and the vision taken from a nearby soaring raven revealed an upright human figure where the way levelled ahead, awaiting her. She paused to collect herself, then continued onwards.
She closed within hailing distance then paused again, mostly because her vision had slipped away with the haphazard twists and turns of the raven. From what she had glimpsed, it was a man wrapped in a dark cloak that snapped around him in the fierce winds. Gathering her resolve, she brought to mind the story she’d decided upon, straightened her back, and called out bravely, ‘Greetings! I am merely passing through as a pilgrim. I ask for no charity – I only ask to be left alone.’
‘Greetings!’ the man answered over the winds, his accent sounding as if he were from the south, the Itko Kanese coast, perhaps. ‘You are fortunate to have found us. We are, I believe, the only people between here and the empty ice wastes of the north.’
‘And may I ask who you are?’
A rather long silence followed this request. Then the man called back, his voice revealing amusement, ‘I thought you knew. But perhaps that’s vanity on my part.’ She heard him advancing. ‘I thought the red cloak would be known – but no matter. We are of the Crimson Guard. Welcome to our last redoubt and refuge, the Red Fort.’
Ullara was quite stunned. She’d heard the minstrel tales and songs of the famed Guard, of course; their champions and their battles. And of the hidden Red Fort, though most thought it didn’t actually exist.
Closer, she heard his breath catch as he made out the holes where her eyes once had been. ‘By the Seven!’ he exclaimed. ‘How did you manage this?’
‘I am not without help,’ she answered.
‘You are not alone, then?’
‘I have talents.’
Silence, then a spoken, ‘Ah! I see – that is … I mean …’
She waved a rag-wrapped hand. ‘No matter. I did not come this way to seek you out. I travel north and do not mean to intrude.’
‘Intrude?’ the fellow echoed, shocked. ‘I insist you join us! We can’t have you wandering around these wastes.’
Ullara frowned at that; she did not like the way it sounded. ‘I am not wandering,’ she answered, a touch testily.