Sir Pirvan of Tirabot and all of his band were mounted on desert-bred horses. They also led pack mules, loaded with their tents, bedding, cooking gear, spare weapons, and, besides their personal waterskins, enough water for twice their number. Even Redthorn or Skytoucher would have looked with approval at how they arrayed themselves for the desert.
This did not, however, speed their progress. To begin with, the desert was broad, and those who bred horses for traveling it sought endurance and hardihood, not speed. When they succeeded, the results were not cheap (at least to those who had little money and even less bargaining skill). Pirvan’s purse was not bottomless.
Also, his orders did not tell him where to go. He was to use his best judgment as to where to find answers to the questions Sir Marod and the Grand Master were asking about the Istarian tax soldiers marching on Silvanesti.
His best judgment had so far led him south, skirting the worst of the desert to the east on the way to the borderlands between Istar and Silvanesti. This destination was the size of a none-too-small province; he had to reach it with horses and men still fit for hard work.
Finally, there was the problem of Pirvan’s two largest companions. He would not gladly have left Grimsoar One-Eye behind, when the man asked to go. Not even the best healing could make Grimsoar fit to breathe salt air again for months at a time, but the hot air of the desert or the dry air of the mountains could do no harm and might do some good. And when his breath came easily, Grimsoar was hardly less formidable in fight or frolic than he had been in the days when he and Pirvan were fellow thieves together in Istar the Mighty.
Pirvan had been commanded to take with him Sir Darin Waydolson, Knight of the Sword. He would have done so without command. Indeed, he would have more gladly walked from Istar to Dargaard Keep and back in his bare feet than left the young knight behind. He had sponsored Sir Darin after the death of the minotaur Waydol, Darin’s foster father; he knew the qualities of the man.
Pirvan also knew that his own teaching had little to do with those qualities, and Waydol’s teaching much.
Grimsoar was leaner than he had been during his years of striding a deck, but no shorter. Darin was the size of a full-grown minotaur, as if Waydol had, by some whim of the gods, been his father by blood as well as by nurture.
Desert-bred horses average about fourteen hands high. They had found one that topped fifteen, for Darin. They had tried to find a second, for Grimsoar. No such beast was to be found, nor any that could safely be worked on by magic to increase its strength.
“My spells have little power over beasts,” their Red Robe companion, Tarothin, had said. “Nor is this for want of learning or effort. Even if I did command the proper spells, they have a way of making the enspelled beasts drop dead suddenly, usually when you are three days’ walk from water, or worse, riding for your life.”
Regardless, it would be good to be past the desert portion of their journey before the high summer heat struck. It would be still better to be all the way to the borderlands before anyone in Istar learned of their intent.
“Never mind,” Darin said, at last. “If Grimsoar is fit to walk as much as one day in three, he and I can share the same mount.”
Serafina, Grimsoar’s young wife, threw Darin a look that would have gelded him if it had been steel. “He is fit for this journey at all only because he wishes it and I will not hold him back. As for walking all the way to Silvanesti-”
“Very well,” Darin said. “Then Grimsoar can have the big roan gelding. I will load all of my gear save my sword and dagger on a mule. Then I can go afoot.”
Pirvan had many years ago given over being astounded by anything Darin could do or say. His mouth hung wide only briefly before he shook his head.
“We need not go that far. Let us find two horses of common size, so that Grimsoar can ride each one on alternate days. Then you can take the roan, put your gear on a mule as you suggested, and still ride.”
“There seems little need for me to burden a horse,” Darin said. “It is not as if I am slow afoot.”
Given that much of Darin’s immense height was in his legs, this was probably true. Pirvan had seen the man keep pace with a cantering horse for miles. However, a time might come when the band needed to gallop, and then a man afoot would have to be left behind.
He said as much to Darin, who flushed like a boy and looked at Pirvan’s wife, Lady Haimya, as if in appeal. She shook her head.
“The will to sacrifice oneself is a two-edged weapon,” Haimya added. “It needs careful handling.”
“I submit to your judgment, Sir Pirvan, Lady Haimya,” Darin said.
Will he ever address us without our titles? Pirvan asked himself. Perhaps the day after we find him roistering in a house of amusement.
Darin did ride, but not every day. The strength he thus saved, he used to do more than his share of the camp chores. This sat well with Serafina, who was half her husband’s age and had been groom of her father’s large livery stable when she found herself wed to a lung-fevered sea captain. She had been less than pleased with his going on this quest at all, and was grateful to Darin for the time given her to nurse Grimsoar.
Darin’s labors were less pleasing to Pirvan and Haimya’s daughter, Eskaia, named after Jemar’s widow. She was seventeen, had been steward of Tirabot Manor in all but name for three years, and had expected to hold the same place on this, her long-awaited first quest in the company of her parents.
The sun was a swollen sphere of fire on the dust-hazed horizon when One-Ear turned to Hawkbrother.
“They are halting on the rim of Dead Ogre Canyon,” he said. “Perhaps you were right.”
“Perhaps I was, in part. But they may be desert-wise after all, as you say. There are places where the canyon wall lets one go down for water, leaving the mounts and camp up above. That is what I would do, were I they.”
One-Ear nodded. The Free Riders were not great archers, good bow wood being scarce over much of their lands, but every war band had a few. Even without a bow, a man on the rim of a canyon had the edge over a man on the bottom.
“If they stay on the rim, no large band can scout them out before darkness,” One-Ear said. He began undoing his belt, the first step toward stripping to his loincloth and knife.
Hawkbrother put a hand on the older warrior’s shoulder. “Be not so hasty, my friend. I need my most trusted man to remain within hearing distance of the canyon’s rim. That man, too, should have, within hearing distance, a band of men he trusts.
“I will carry my whistle,” the chief’s son added. “I hope age has not addled your memory so that you forget all our old calls?”
One-Ear grabbed one of Hawkbrother’s braids and pretended to bite off the opposite ear. “Insult those who really are too old to challenge you, worm! With the rest of us, waste no time or breath.”
Hawkbrother recognized in One-Ear’s tone reluctant agreement to his proposal. Now it was his turn to undo his belt.
The canyon stretched away for miles in either direction. The far ends of the vista were veiled in twilight and mist. Pirvan contemplated the hues of the rock in the canyon walls: ocher and red, saffron and an unnaturally dark blue that was almost black, and a dozen others.
To his right, wood scraped on rock. A sledge loaded with filled waterskins rose over the rim of the canyon. Serafina whispered something to her lead mule, and the four stopped hauling. Pirvan raised both hands, the signal to the watering party below that the sledge was safely up.
It had been simple enough to decide not to enter the canyon, where shade, shelter, and easy water beckoned people into what could easily become a deathtrap. It had been only a trifle less simple to devise safe ways of watering the party.