"You are not to blame," he said instantly. "Where has he gone?"
''Towards the camp of the Gedri,'' I replied. ''He is in a fury, Akhor. What must I do?"
"Keep you in the Chamber of Souls, Eldest, lest against all reason Marik should return. Reason seems to have little sway this night. I will await Rishkaan and Marik in the camp of the Gedri.''
And he was gone.
"Kédra, please, I must be with Akor. All is changed now, I beg you, take me to him!"
"Lady, ask me anything but this," he replied, deeply troubled. "I have already lost my charge Rishkaan, I dare not so disobey my King as to do this for you. Lord Akhor would not thank me for taking you into such danger."
"I don't care!" I shrieked. I was dancing with frustration and the need to be gone. "Damn it, Kédra, I can't leave him alone in this. I tell you I heard the Lost cry out before Akor spoke word, I am called, I cannot stay here!"
He stared at me in silence for a long moment, then leaned swiftly down. ''Come then, lady, the Winds and Lord Akhor forgive me."
"Bless you, true friend," I cried as I scrambled onto his neck.
"If you think I'm staying here without either of you, you're both crazy," said Rella's voice from behind me, and there she stood, arms on her hips. "Kédra, of your kindness, either take us both or give me directions so I can walk."
"Get on, then. Quickly!"
She scrambled up nimbly enough behind me. Kédra was not as strong as Akor, and had twice the burden. "I do not dare fly thus," he said, "but I can run. Hold tight."
He sped off in the direction of the camp. I called in true-speech, "Kédra, may I bespeak you?"
"Of course."
"I'm sorry I have had to ask this of you, my friend, but I must be with him. How should I bear it if—'' I could not say it aloud, but there rose in my mind the image of the wounds Akor had from the demon. No, no, I would not think of it....
''Lady, fear not. Rishkaan is with him, and though he bears you no love he is loyal to the King. There is no demon spawned that could stand against the two of them.''
"I'm not very good at hiding underthought yet, am I?" I said ruefully. "I vowed I'd stay well clear of this, but I can't. I can't. Damn. Damnation. Hell, blast and damnation.'' And I can't tell you why, but that opened the floodgates. Poor Kédra. I started cursing, aloud and in truespeech, beginning with the wide-ranging matter I had learned from the seamen on the voyage out, through the many choice oaths of the stablehands at Hadronsstead, and ending with a good long string of simple old-fashioned swear words. I must say, it helped, and I heard Rella behind me laughing quietly.
When I had done, Kédra bespoke me. Even in the Language of Truth, they hissed their laughter. ''Lady, I am impressed. I thought I knew your language, but through all of that I caught little sense. Extraordinary. I could feel the shape of the words in my mind, but I had no sense of their meaning.''
"They don't have much, really," I said, deeply pleased that he hadn't understood. "I was swearing. I don't know if the Kindred do it, but for humans it's a necessity. "
"I shall remember.''
Rella tapped me on the shoulder. I half-turned to hear her.
"You talk to them, don't you? Without words. Farspeech."
"Yes," I said. It seemed so trivial now.
''Dear Lady Shia, is there no end to what I am to learn on this voyage?'' She laughed. ''I must remember that little skill of yours."
In the darkness I had no idea of how fast we were moving, but now as false dawn began to lighten the sky, I could see the trees flashing past. It was frightening, a little, but at that point it was mostly satisfying. And there before us was the Boundary.
I had flown first to the southern shore, where the last of the Gedri were taking their goods onto the ship that lay out in the harbour. The soulgems of the Lost were nowhere near, so I flew north along the trail that we kept clear.
Even as I approached the settlement I could smell the Raksha-stink. The camp reeked of it, growing ranker as I passed through the cleared spaces. There was the blackened site of my fight with the Raksha, smouldering yet—there the second of the wooden dwellings that had been here for centuries, there at the north end the doused ashes of the great campfire that had burned night and day. I landed in the clearing where the tents had been—it was the largest—and faced north and east. As I stood, I heard again faintly the soulgems' wail.
The sky to the east began to lighten, an end at last to this endless night. I listened and waited, and wondered what I would do when the creature arrived.
I did not have long to wait. I smelled them long before I saw them, Raksha-stink and Gedrismell, two of the creatures hurrying towards the clearing.
When they saw me they stopped abruptly.
Kédra leant down and let us off at the Boundary. Lanen took off at speed as though she knew exactly where she was going, but I'd not had even the little sleep she had and I was tired. I also did not wish to be any too close to whatever was going to happen. I dragged myself along, drifting some ways east along the Boundary.
Sudden as lightning a Dragon landed a good ways ahead of me (ignoring me entirely, thank the Lady) and started sniffing along the ground. I could hear him from where I stood (some distance downwind of him), so I decided to stop and watch. Didn't take him long to find what he sought; he turned his head and shot a blazing stream of fire at the ground. Content with that, it seems, he ran straight on—and those things can run, let me tell you. He seemed to move even faster than Kédra, low to the ground and fast as a snake. He was out of sight in a heartbeat.
My way lay in the same direction, so after a few minutes I followed him, and came upon the empty campsite just as true dawn was beginning to break. I moved forward cautiously, past trampled grass and ashes of dead fires—
And there before me sat a young battle ready to begin. On one side stood the silver dragon, Akor it was, who had saved Lanen's life; I had lost track of the copper-coloured beast I had just seen. On the other was Caderan, looking fresh and strong, and Marik looking like a man at the end of his tether and ready for desperate measures. At the north end of the clearing, Kédra and Lanen had found one another again. He crouched like a great cat about to spring, but Lanen held desperately to the trunk of an old ash tree, as though that was the only thing keeping her from leaping into the fight. I staved well back and well hidden.
I stood in the trees to the northeast, silent and hidden, waiting behind the two Gedri that had just arrived, waiting for Akhor to destroy them. To my disgust he did not, but spoke to them instead.
"Give them back, Merchant. Put down your burden and give them back to us, and we will let you live."
"And so again you break the treaty, with not even the show of ceremony this time," drawled the shorter one, the one who reeked of the Rakshasa. ''I had heard it said that the Kantri were creatures of Order. I must have been mistaken."
"Chaos breaks order, rakshadakh, when it oversteps its lawful bounds," hissed Akhor in deep anger. "Do not speak to me of treaties, you who have brought the Rakshasa to this place. Be glad I do not slay you where you stand, holding my kinsmen against their will."