He found the cheese and dried meat he’d hunted for and let the saddle flap fall. Brandark had already unslung the big skin of beer they’d liberated from their enemies, and the two of them hunkered down to eat while they watched their animals browse on the muddy, winter-killed grass.
It had been an eerie sensation, those first three days, to see Wencit and Zarantha riding alongside them. Knowing they weren’t really there at all had made Bahzell uneasy at first, but his initial discomfort had faded into fascination with the sheer perfection of the illusion. The false warriors Wencit had conjured up for the attack on the wizards’ camp had been exquisitely detailed, but he hadn’t had time to pay those details much heed. This time he did, and his instinctive hatred for wizardry had turned into something very like awe as he studied them.
Wencit, he’d decided, was as much artist as wizard. The false Zarantha and Wencit never spoke to either hradani, but they carried on conversations of their own, and every nuance of tone and gesture was perfect. The immaterial images had left illusory hoofprints in the snow until it melted, and cast shadows at precisely the right angle as the sun moved. They cared for their equally unreal horses at each halt, ate from nonexistent plates beside the campfire, even developed fresh travel stains as they splashed across the muddy plains. Wencit had explained that Bahzell’s and Brandark’s perceptions were part of the spell, feeding back into the illusion to maintain its integrity and update its details, yet even so it had been difficult at times to remember that Zarantha and the wizard weren’t really with them.
Until yesterday morning, that was, when the spell abruptly died.
Bahzell had been looking straight at “Wencit” when it happened, and the wizard’s sudden disappearance had hit him like a fist. He’d known it was coming, but the illusion had been so real, so solid. It was as if the real Wencit had been snuffed from existence, and the Horse Stealer had felt an icy chill. It had been almost like an omen, a premonition of disaster poised to strike their distant companions, and the thought had been hard to throw off. He’d managed it finally by remembering the real Zarantha’s tearful farewell and her fierce demand that he and Brandark promise to visit her in Jashân before returning home. He’d used that memory like a talisman, proof that the phantom Zarantha who’d vanished with Wencit hadn’t been the real one, yet he still caught himself worrying about her at odd moments.
Like now. He snorted at himself and shook the worry away. There was nothing he could do if she was in trouble, and anyone with Wencit of Rūm to look after her had more help than most mortals could imagine asking for. Besides, he and Brandark had their own worries.
He cocked an eye at the sun while he chewed iron-hard jerky. They should make the trees with an hour of daylight to spare, he thought, and he’d be glad to get under their cover. He felt naked out here, more exposed than he’d ever felt on the Wind Plain, for the Sothōii didn’t use wizards to hunt for hradani raiders. Still, if Brandark’s plan had worked, any ill-intentioned wizards were probably bending their efforts on finding Wencit and Zarantha by now, which meant the two hradani had only their own enemies to deal with.
And it was just possible that they’d reduced those enemies’ numbers a bit. Not likely, but possible. They’d left their prisoners the more exhausted of the captured horses-more out of kindness to the beasts than to their riders, Bahzell admitted-and supplies for two or three weeks, and he’d taken time to issue a blunt warning to the senior of the four surviving dog brothers.
“I’m not after being a patient man,” he’d said in a flat, cold voice, “and by rights I should be cutting your throat, for we’re both knowing what would happen if the boot was on the other foot.” He’d seen the fear flickering behind the assassin’s eyes and snorted. “Don’t be brooding on it, for I’ll not do it. Instead, I’ve a message for your precious guild.”
He’d paused, frowning at the assassin until the man could endure the silence no longer and swallowed hard. “A message?” he’d asked, and Bahzell had nodded.
“Aye, a message. By my count, you’ve spent nigh on sixty men in trying to take my ears, and not a bit of luck have you had. Well, I’m minded to call it even if you are, but call off your hounds while you can, dog brother. You’ll find your gold hard earned before you bring me down-and I’ll not be so reasonable if it should happen I see another of your kind on my heels.” He’d smiled coldly. “So far I’ve done naught but defend myself, but if it should happen you’re minded to keep up the hunt, then I’ll be having a little hunt of my own-aye, and a mortal lot of other Horse Stealers with me. I’m thinking your guild won’t be so very happy at all, at all, if that happens.”
He’d given the suddenly pale assassin one more glare, then stalked away, and now he grinned with wry humor at the memory. His warning might not do a bit of good, he admitted, biting off another rocky lump of jerky, but it had certainly made him feel better.
They made even better time than Bahzell had estimated. He and Brandark still had three good hours of daylight when they reached the Shipwood and plunged into it, and they were just as glad they did. The shade of the forest’s towering trees had choked out the underbrush that could make second-growth woodland a trackless tangle, but it was dark and empty, cold and unwelcoming in its winter bareness.
After so long in open grassland, they felt hemmed in and confined as they picked their way through it. Bahzell led the way, wading ankle deep through wet drifts of fallen leaves, and the trees seemed to brood down on him from all sides. He was an invader here, and they disapproved of his presence.
He tried to brush the thought aside by reminding himself how he’d looked forward to getting under cover, yet he was unhappily aware of his own sudden, contrary longing for the long, clear sight lines of the plains. He might have felt naked and exposed out there, but he’d also felt comfortably certain no one could creep up on them unseen. Now he felt the nape of his neck crawl, as if something were waiting to pounce, and he cursed his nerves.
He looked up uneasily. It was dark under the trees, even in leafless winter, but the sky beyond the web of overhead limbs was still clear and blue. Yet the prickle on the back of his neck only intensified, and he stopped dead, turning in place to scan the wet, silent woods.
“What?” Brandark’s soft question felt shockingly loud in the quiet, and Bahzell twitched his ears.
“I’m none too sure,” he replied quietly, “but something-”
He broke off, ears going flat to his skull, as wind roared suddenly in the branches above him. The day had been still, without so much as a breeze, and he heard Brandark curse behind him as a fist of air smote the forest. One moment all was still; the next a sucking gale snatched at the trees like angry hands. Limbs creaked and groaned, crying out against the sudden violence, and the afternoon light was abruptly quenched. It didn’t fade. It wasn’t cut off by moving clouds. It simply died, plunging the forest into inky blackness, and a long, savage roll of thunder smashed through the roar of the unnatural wind.
Bahzell staggered as the tumult crashed about him. Small, broken branches pelted them, and Brandark’s horse screamed in panic. The pack animals and remounts caught its fear, lunging against their leads and squealing in terror, and Bahzell leapt in among them to calm them. Brandark fought his horse back under control, then dismounted, clinging to its reins with one hand while he lent Bahzell as much aid as he could with the others, but the shriek of the wind battered at them all. Two of the horses broke free and thundered madly away, then a third, and the wind howl went on and on and on and on .