“Stinking stuff,” said another cook. “We won’t have that in here—”
“You will,” said Aris firmly. “I can’t heal everyone; we’ll need poultices and draughts. I’ll send in one of my prentices with the kettles.” He smiled at them until they withdrew, grumbling, to their hearths and ovens. A moment later, a messenger bearing Luap’s armband came in with the same orders, but found the cooks at work. “C-commendations, then,” he said, looking around with obvious surprise. “The prince thought you might have been upset.”
The head cook glanced at Aris and away. “What, then—does he think we’ve no common sense, to know what’s needed?”
Aris walked swiftly to his own quarters. Jirith, his steadier apprentice, was laying out an assortment of healing herbs. “Good lass,” Aris said. “I might have known you’d be at work.”
“I wasn’t sure where to do the steeping,” she said. He could tell by the tension in her jaw that she was alarmed, but her voice stayed steady. “The lower kitchen is closer to the main entrance, but the upper one to the infirmary.”
“The lower,” Aris said. “We’ll clear a storeroom for use down there, if we have many wounded. Gods grant we don’t.” His mind tossed up the things he remembered from Gird’s war, when he had not yet known he could heal. As if it were yesterday, he saw those wounds, heard the groans and screams, smelled the rotting bodies before they could be decently buried. This time, he thought, I know what to do. This time it won’t be the same.
The Rosemage swung into the saddle of her gray horse, hardly aware of the turmoil her passage through the stronghold had generated. She felt at once vindicated and elated; she had warned Luap that all was not well; she had felt something, and he had insisted it meant nothing, and now—now she would prove she was right. Behind her, other hooves clattered on the stone, other riders mounted . . . she did not look back; she gave them the trust that they would be ready when she gave the command.
Outside, sunlight had just reached the bottom of the cleft into which the lower entrance opened. She could smell the resinous pines, the damp earth, the living air that always seemed fresher than the air inside. She sniffed, but caught no hint of any smoke but that of the lower kitchen ovens, fragrant with baking bread.
Two hands of men . . . that was all she had. It would have taken much longer to muster a larger number, so had the settlement spread from its early years. Had they counted on that, whoever they were? Were the smoke columns warnings, lit by their own people, or triumphal, defiant acts of a victorious enemy? Two hands of men—enough for casual brigands, but—she nudged her horse, and rode forward, out into the sunlight—not for anything serious. And her instincts told her this was very serious indeed.
Outside, turning downstream to the main canyon, she did glance back. Two hands, mostly full mageborn, with the lances they used against mountain cats and brigands, with swords and bows as well. She unhooked her signal horn from her saddle, and put it to her lips. The sound rang off the stone, echoed crazily from the main canyon wall across from the mouth of their smaller one.
She wondered if that had been wise, though they had used horn signals for years. Whoever caused the smoke would know someone had noticed, that someone was coming. But they might have known anyway—it might hearten defenders, help drive off attackers. She didn’t believe that, but she hoped it.
At the main canyon, she held up her hand and the others gathered around her. “We cannot surprise them,” she said. “Speed is our chance to do some good. But if things go badly, someone must get back to warn the others.” She looked around, gauging their reactions. None of these were old enough to have fought in Gird’s war. Some had helped drive the brigands out of their holes above the Khartazh caravan route; others had traveled with the caravans east, and fought horse nomads. She hoped that would be enough. She settled on the youngest. “You, Tamin: you stay well behind, and if I fall, ride back as fast as you can to the stronghold.”
His young face looked even younger with the effort to be solemn, to live up to this. The others too looked serious enough.
“We will ride first to the head of the canyon; that’s the shorter way, but we’ll leave Tamin at the caravan trailhead. That way he can’t be cut off. We have no idea who this might be, or what, so stay alert.” They nodded; she turned her horse, crossed the stream on the terrace dam, and made her way up the shadowed south side of the canyon. Coming down they might have to trample crops; going up she was careful to use the trailway.
If it had not been for the smoke columns—the one at the canyon head visible even from here—she would have enjoyed that ride. The trail, two horses wide and well-packed after years of use, required no great skill; her big gray muscled its way up the steeper sections with ease. A light wind sang in the pines, and swayed the grain as they rode past it. They passed the narrow openings of the other two side canyons running north, all three separated by ribs or fins of rock that seemed slender in comparison with the great block which lay over the stronghold. Yet each was broader than the length of Esea’s Hall in Fin Panir. She peered up at the canyon entrances, a little higher than the trail in the main canyon. All looked normal there. Should she stop to look? No, they must find out what the smoke meant, first.
The trail lifted over a hump of rock, and the caravan trail snaked back, up the first switchback. Ahead, the trail to the head of the canyon wound around house-sized blocks of stone at the outfall of the upper valley before angling left to clear the base of the mountain that formed the valley’s eastern wall. She could not see from here what caused the smoke; it had changed color as they rode, and now the thick column thinned to a faint stream of ash-gray. And from here, close under the steep slope, she could not see the smoke that must have come from the upper valley itself.
“Tam, you’ll stay here. No—wait—go across the stream, where you can see anyone coming down the caravan trail. Give us a warning, if you do, then go back to the stronghold and warn the others.”
He nodded, and reined his horse away from the others. The Rosemage watched as the horse picked its way carefully across the stream, here fast-running over a rocky bed. She remembered when all the canyon had been that way, only small deep pools interrupting the stream’s noisy rush. Tam turned, on the other side, turned, looked far above them, where she could not see, and waved. She was proud of him; he remembered to make that wave a signal, to indicate that he’d looked and found nothing amiss. She waved back, and legged her horse on.
She felt the skin of her back prickle; more than sunlight made her neck itch, her skin feel tight all over. When she had first come into this empty land, so vast and strange, she had felt this way often. They were so few; the land could swallow them and not even notice. But years had dulled that feeling; she had become used to the solitude, the wide sky, the great canyons empty of everyone but themselves. Now she felt again as she had that first year, when every rock seemed to shelter an unknown menace.
As they moved from the shadow of the cliffs to the broken rock beyond, sweat began to trickle down her sides, under the mail. She could never see very far ahead, and worried more and more that they might be ambushed. But nothing stirred, and no strange sounds alarmed her. The trail was narrower; although it had been built wide enough for two horses abreast, it had not been maintained as well. The horses plodded on, steadily and quietly.
Beyond the broken rock, the foot of the valley wall narrowed the canyon again. The stream here gurgled pleasantly, narrow enough to step across in most places, edged with mint and a plant with starry golden flowers. The trail wound back and forth across the stream, hardly more than a footpath. The Rosemage stopped and turned in the saddle.