"At the earliest chance," Ista told Illvin, "you must bring Goram to me."
"Whatever you desire, Royina." Illvin looked over the ground they traversed, turning in his saddle.
"Shall we attempt to circle back to Porifors?" asked Foix, following his gaze back over the treetops to the distant stone pile. A curl of dirty smoke still rose from somewhere in it. "I think I might be able to get us in, under cover of darkness."
"No. If we clear the gully, I am going to try to win through to the march of Oby."
"I do not know if the royina can ride that far," said Foix, clearly picturing not just Ista but the pair of them falling from their saddles at any moment. "Or do you think to meet him on the road?"
"He won't be on the road. If he's where I suspect, we've less than ten miles to cover. And if he's not there yet, his scouts will be along soon."
They dropped into the gully, where they found Illvin's predicted Jokonan patrol almost immediately. Between the unexpected direction of their passage, Foix's officer's garb and wit-fogging sorcery, their horses' Jokonan gear, and Illvin's crisp, arrogant court Roknari, they soon left the pickets bowing and scraping in their wake. Illvin returned the hapless soldiers the fourfold Quadrene sign, touching his thumb to his tongue in secret apology to the fifth god as soon as they turned again out of sight. They pressed their horses to a faster pace.
Illvin led them onward, finding what cover the country afforded in low places, little watercourses, spinneys, and groves, angling ever north and east. They had gone some four or five miles before they even stopped to water themselves and the horses. Though multiple columns of smoke still smudged the clear blue air behind them, Porifors had disappeared from sight beyond some low, rolling ridges.
"Can you still feel your bear?" Ista asked Foix, when he'd finished dipping his head in the stream.
He sat back on his haunches and frowned. "Not quite as I did before. Joen did something to us. I hope it was not vile."
"It is my impression," said Ista carefully, "that you two have been pressed together by all these events more quickly than you would have grown on your own. Without either of you becoming ascendant or enslaved, you have merged. Because, I think, your demon did not steal your soul, nor did you plunder its power. You both shared freely."
Foix looked embarrassed. "Always did enjoy feeding the animals ..."
"Drawing you apart is beyond my present skills—or your present need. You have achieved a curious theological state, but not, I suspect, a unique one. I have occasionally wondered where Temple sorcerers came from. Now I know. I expect it was one of the saint of Rauma's tasks to judge who might carry this power without succumbing to it. You will need to take training from the Bastard's Order, probably. I am sure your own order will spare you, if I request it."
Foix's face screwed up. "Me, a Bastard's acolyte? Don't think my father will be best pleased. Or my mother. I can just see her, explaining it to her lady friends. Ouch." He grinned despite himself. "Can't wait to see the look on Ferda's face, though ..." He glanced shrewdly at her. "And will you take training, too, Royina?"
She smiled. "Tutors, Foix. A woman of my rank can demand tutors, to wait on me at my convenience. I think my convenience will be very soon, and possibly not too convenient to them."
The reminder of Ferda and the hope of finding news of his brother overcame Foix's initial urge to coddle Ista, and it was he who marshaled the horses and boosted his companions back aboard.
"Roll up that tabard and stuff it in a saddlebag," Illvin advised, settling into his saddle. "Bastard willing, the next scouts we encounter may well be dy Oby's. Baby Temple sorcerer or no, a mistaken crossbow bolt would not be good for your health."
"Ah. Yes," said Foix, and hastened to do so.
Illvin eyed his red stallion, carrying Ista with such exquisite care that she might hold a cup of water without spilling it, and shook his head in wonder, as if of all the marvels he had lately witnessed this was the most inexplicable. "Can you endure?" he asked her. "It's not much farther now."
"After walking that mile, riding a few more is nothing," she assured him. "I feared the god had abandoned me, but it seems He'd only hid Himself within." And left me to carry Him. It was one of the Bastard's little jokes, she decided, that He had appeared to her before then as such an enormous man. Had He known? Even she, who had now met three face-to-face, could not guess the limits of the gods' foreknowledge.
"All dark, you were," Foix said. "Makes sense. The Jokonan sorcerers would hardly have towed you into Joen's presence looking like some holy fire ship. They weren't that stupid. But when you lit up..." He fell silent. Foix was not, Ista thought, an inarticulate man; but she began to see why Lord dy Cazaril said only poetry could come to grips with the gods. Foix finally managed, "I have never seen anything like it. I'm glad that I did. But if I never see anything like it again, that will be all right."
"I could not see it," said Illvin, in a tone of deep regret. "But I could see when things begin to happen, well enough."
"I am glad you were there," said Ista.
"I did little enough," he sighed.
"You bore witness. That means the world to me. And there was that kiss. It did not seem such a small thing."
He blushed. "My apologies, Royina. I was distraught. I thought to draw you back from death, as you once seemed to do for me."
"Illvin?"
"Yes, Royina?"
"You did draw me back."
"Oh." He rode along very quietly for a time. But a strange smile crept across his face, and would not go away again.
At length he looked up and rose in his stirrups, summoning some unimaginable reserve of energy. "Hah," he whispered. Ista followed his glance. It took her a moment to discern the faint clear smokes of careful fires, marking a camp concealed in the watercourse that opened below them. The fires were not few. They followed the ridge around a slight bend, and yet more of the camp came into view. Hundreds of men and horses, more than hundreds—she could not count their numbers, half-hidden as they were.
"Oby," said Illvin in satisfaction. "He made excellent time. Though I thank the gods he was no faster."
"Good," breathed Ista in relief. "I'm done."
"Indeed, and we do thank you for your work, without which we would all be dead in some hideous and uncanny fashion by now. I, on the other hand, still have fifteen hundred ordinary Jokonans to remove from around Porifors. I don't know if Oby meant to wait for dawn, but if we struck more quickly ..." His eyes glazed over in a familiar fashion, alternating shrewd glances summing the men below with staring off at nothing; Ista forbore to interrupt.
A patrol galloped up to them. "Ser dy Arbanos!" cried its astonished officer, waving wildly at Illvin. "Five gods, you're alive!" The riders formed around them in excited escort and swept them into the part of the camp, marked by tents in the shade, where their commanders had no doubt set up their headquarters.
A voice rang from the trees, and a familiar form shot from the green shadows. "Foix! Foix! The Daughter be thanked!" Ferda ran toward them; Foix swung from his saddle to embrace his eager brother.
"What are these men?" Illvin inquired of dy Oby's officer, nodding toward an unfamiliar company of horsemen in black and green. The riders opened out to reveal a crowd of people approaching on foot, some running, some lumbering, some proceeding more slowly and decorously, all calling out to Ista.