“So we are safe?”
“For the moment, yes.”
Avris laughed aloud exultantly as she scrambled out from beneath the root-shadowed “cave” to stretch her arms wide beneath the green-gold spring leaves. “Free!” She whirled around in sheer exuberance. “I was so worried about you… that I have only just realized—I am free! Free!”
Eydryth smiled at her. “The feeling of being free, with the open road before one, is indeed a heady emotion. But curb yourself, sister. The hunt for both of us is undoubtedly up, and we must not allow ourselves to be recaptured. They would go very hard with us, I think.”
The witch stopped, then nodded, some of the light fading from her eyes. “You are right. I am fortunate that you have some experience in these matters. How best should we do this?”
“I think it would be wisest for us to travel by night, until we are at least two days’ ride from Es City. And we will not head directly for Kastryn, for that is what they will be expecting us to do. Instead, we will circle around Es City, cross the river, and travel northwest for a day or two.”
“But how will we reach Kastryn?”
“Then we will circle to the northeast, and come on Kastryn from the north, instead of the south. It will add many days to our journey, to be sure, but it is the wisest course.”
“If only we had horses.”
Eydryth grimaced, thinking of her mare, Vyar. “If only we did. But horses would also make us more conspicuous, and without them, we can hide more easily. Have you money?”
“A few coins. We lived a monastic life in the Citadel, and seldom needed it.”
“Well, can you sing?”
Avris grinned. “I can try.” She raised her voice in a few measures of "The Riving of the Border.” She had a clear, if thin, soprano.
“You will do well enough.” Eydryth nodded. “We will practice before we must earn our supper.” The songsmith yawned suddenly, widely, until her jaws nearly cracked. “And now, while I can, I must sleep, since I dared not close my eyes last night. We will eat and rest by turns, standing watches, and set out after sunset. Are we agreed?”
“Agreed.”
It was afternoon before the witch touched Eydryth’s shoulder to rouse her. The songsmith awoke immediately, as her father had trained her, sitting upright in her cloak with a seasoned warrior’s alertness. “You let me sleep too long!” she exclaimed, seeing that the sun’s rays were already slanting from the west.
“I was not tired, and you needed your rest,” Avris said. “I slept last night, for I was too weary from my spelling to stay awake, even if the Guardian and all the other witches had been ranged around this grove.” She smiled. “Fortunately, they were not.”
“Well, sleep now,” Eydryth said, taking food from her pack and breaking off a chunk of journeybread. “I will guard.”
“No, I am not tired. Now that I am breathing free air, I feel as though I will never be weary again.” The two girls shared food in companionable silence, until Avris spoke again: "May I ask you something, Eydryth?”
“Ask away,” the songsmith said, after swallowing a bite of dried apple.
“Why do you hate the rowan so?”
Eydryth could feel her body stiffen; her face become a hard, expressionless mask. “That is a long story,” she said, finally.
“One that you would prefer not to tell? If so, I will understand,” Avris said, her gaze holding nothing but friendship, sympathy. “But we have an hour or more yet to wait, and I do not ask from idle curiosity, believe me, sister. I sense a great hurt within you… and sometimes, such hurts may be eased in the speaking of them to another, one who truly cares.”
Eydryth sat in silence for several minutes, forgetting the food in her hand, lost in memory. Finally, she stirred. “It happened years ago,” she whispered. “And it is something I have never spoken of, except to those who shared those days with me. And you may not want to call me ‘sister’ after you hear what I did.”
“I doubt that,” Avris said, steadily. “You could never do anything truly wrong, Eydryth. I know that.”
“Not so,” the songsmith said, her voice grown husky. She cleared her throat. “You must understand that I grew up in a far land… across the sea. You have probably never even heard of Arvon.”
“No, I never have,” the witch conceded. “Does it lie near that land of many Dales, the one the captured soldiers of Alizon spoke of?”
“It lies west of High Hallack,” Eydryth agreed, nodding. “Beyond the Waste. Arvon, like this Escore you speak of, is a very, very old land, unlike the others settled by humankind. It abounds with uncanny places, and strange beings. Creatures out of legend, many of them. Such as the demons called Keplians, shaped like beautiful horses… and the web-riders, those fell creatures with many-jointed legs, that weave webs, then cast them onto the wind and ride them, in search of prey…”
“I have heard of such in Escore,” Avris told her. “And do you also have the Flannan, the mosswives, the Scaled Ones, and the water-people, the Krogan?”
“No, I have not heard of them,” Eydryth said. “But there are the Winged Ones, who have the heads of birds and the bodies of men or women, whose blood means death if spilled on living flesh, and who will fight even when beheaded or dismembered…”
Avris shuddered. “Praise Gunnora, I have never heard of such in Escore! If I had, that land would prove no refuge at all!”
“Fortunately, their numbers are small, and appear to be dwindling,” the songsmith said. “But not so for the Thas. They are a constant danger.”
“Thas?”
“Dwellers below ground who tunnel as naturally as some creatures walk. They are ugly—” Eydryth shuddered at the memory. “Small, wiry bodies, with bloated stomachs, covered with scraggly, rootlike hair. But the worst thing is…” She trailed off, then swallowed hard. “… their faces… from their faces, you can tell that they… they used to be of humankind.”
“How dreadful!” Avris cried. “Yes, I have heard of such, now that I hear them described. Lately they have been seen— and smelled—lurking around the fringes of towns near the mountains. Logar reported in one of his letters that they were attacked by several of the things, as they slept. One man was pulled down into the earth, never to be seen again.”
The songsmith shook her head. “Your people had best ward their borders well,” she said. “The Thas are cowards, who prefer such tactics to open battle, but they are deadly.”
“Go on with your story,” the witch urged.
Eydryth grimaced at the reminder. “I was hoping you would forget.”
“If you do not wish to tell me—”
“No, it is just that it is difficult to speak of…” The minstrel shrugged. “So. I grew up in Arvon, in an ancient citadel called Kar Garudwyn. Time out of mind ago, an Adept lived there; its very walls are still steeped with sorcery. I was born of a strange union: my mother, Elys, was the daughter of a woman from overseas—Estcarp—and my father, Jervon, was a soldier, one accustomed to the command of men, not magic.”
“An odd mix,” Avris commented. “But they loved each other?”
“More than life itself,” Eydryth said, matter-of-factly. “They defended each other’s backs through many a battle, against human enemies, as well as those born of sorcery. They were comrades and friends long before they knew each other as man and woman.”
Eydryth took a final bite of the journeybread, then passed the cake over to Avris. “We shared Kar Garudwyn with my parents’ closest friends, the Lord Kerovan and the Lady Joisan. They were as father and mother to me also, and I loved them dearly. Also, there was Sylvya, who was our friend and teacher. She was from the Old Times, and had powers such as had not been seen since the very ancient days.”
“Sylvya,” Avris repeated, trying the alien sound of the name on her tongue. “Was she of the Old Race, too?”