“Do not think to deny it,” she said. “I have seen a horse-demon before. And even those farmers recognized that Monso is not a normal creature. Hawrel was right—you were cheating, to race him against ordinary horses. I am surprised that the people of Rylon Corners were the first ones to realize that and object.”
“I won the other races in a far less… spectacular… fashion,” Dakar told her, dryly. “But today, Monso was so excited after the thieves tried to steal him that he would not be held back.”
“The word will be out, now.” Eydryth ran searching fingers anxiously over her harp, finding it—Fortune be praised!—undamaged. Then, sore muscles protesting, she climbed to her feet. The wind on the hillside tugged at her cropped curls as she turned her head, trying to discern her surroundings. She could see little, except short-turfed hillside occasionally studded with darker clumps that must be bushes. “You and your Keplian had both best find another method of earning your way here in Estcarp,” she muttered absently. “Next time you are so beset, I will not be there to aid you.”
Dakar also rose, standing close beside her. He peered at her face as though he could see her, though she knew he must be as night-blind as she. “Why did you aid me this time?” he asked, quietly. “If you had left before it began, they would doubtless have let you go.”
“Because it was obvious that you could not aid yourself,” Eydryth replied. “Did no one ever teach you to fight?”
“No,” he answered, a rueful note in his voice. “Before this night I never had need to defend myself physically.”
And yet, from his speech and manners, he was raised in a noble household, the songsmith thought with a frown. Which should have included lessoning from an arms-master. Truly this Dakar is a cipher! It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him why he had never been taught swordplay, but Eydryth repressed the urge. She had no wish to know why, she told herself, because she could ill afford to become caught up in another’s problems… she had a quest of her own that was challenge enough.
“I must walk Monso,” her companion said, stripping saddle and saddlebags from the Keplian’s back.
“I suppose we should camp here,” Eydryth said, reluctantly. “It is too dark to find our way back to the road tonight.”
She saw the pale oval of his face as he nodded. “There seem to be several trees and large boulders over there,” he said, pointing. “They would break the wind. The night is chilly already, and will be colder yet before dawn.”
“Dare we kindle a fire?” she wondered aloud.
“I doubt that Hawrel and his supporters will risk further injury by following us,” he said. “And there is no one else with any reason to seek me out.” There was an ironic note in his voice. “If you can say the same, Lady, then by all means let us have a fire.”
Eydryth thought of the witches as she shouldered her pack and Dakar’s saddlebags; then she shook her head. She and Avris had been nearly a full moon on the road; surely any search the witches had ordered had been given up long ago. Cautiously, she began picking her way across the hilltop.
Her night-sight was complete, now, and she could dimly make out the grove of trees Dakar had mentioned. The hilltop was large and fairly level. The grass is so short, it must be used for grazing… probably sheep or goats, she decided. We must be careful to be away by dawn, lest we encounter an angry shepherd.
The lights of Rylon Corners sparkled in the distance, seeming almost farther away than the stars overhead.
Eydryth set up camp in the grove, kindling a pocket of fire behind a huge boulder that would conceal the small blaze from anyone in the town. Wrapping her cloak around her shoulders, she sat down on a log, rubbing her hands before the flames, grateful for their warmth.
A short while later, Dakar returned to feed, water and rub down Monso. Only when his mount was comfortable and settled for the night did the young man rest. He nodded silent thanks for the hunks of journeybread and venison jerky that Eydryth passed him from her pack. Silent with weariness, the two travelers ate, sharing a flask of rather sour wine Dakar produced.
Monso finished his oats, then ambled away to graze.
“You can leave him loose?” Eydryth asked, in surprise.
“Always he has stayed with me,” Dakar said. “We are… companions, more than mount and master.”
The songsmith tugged her cloak closer around her shoulders. “Before today, I would have sworn that no one could capture—much less tame—a Keplian. How did you do it?”
“Monso is not a full-blooded Keplian,” her companion explained. “His sire was a Torgian stallion that was my first horse, his dam a Keplian mare. We found her, newly foaled, the morning after a battle in Escore. A Grey One had killed her mother. The filly was so young that she had not yet been corrupted by the Dark Adepts who breed the demon-horses.”
“And you were able to mate her with your Torgian?” Eydryth had seen animals of the much-valued Torgian breed, steeds bred near the Fens of Tormarsh to possess both swiftness and great stamina. “But none of the horses in the race today would even approach Monso.”
“There are many who live in Escore who use magic as naturally as breathing,” Dakar said. “One such Adept was able to use his Power to accomplish the breeding.”
“I see,” Eydryth said. “Did you know him well, this Adept, this sorcerer?”
Dakar was silent for a long moment, head bowed. The songsmith studied his face, the angles of brow, cheekbones and jaw touched with firelight, the rest a mask sculpted by shadows. Finally he nodded. “Hilarion was the closest I ever came to having a father. He and his lady, the sorceress Kaththea, opened their ancient citadel to me when I naught but a boy, wandering a war-riven land with no companion but my Torgian. In a very real sense, theirs was the first true home I had ever known.”
“Kaththea?” Eydryth’s eyes widened. “I have heard that name. Is she not the daughter of Lord Simon Tregarth and the former witch, the Lady Jaelithe?”
“The very same.”
“They say all three of their children were born at one birth—and that each has the Power.”
“That is true,” Dakar said. “When there is need, the three of them unite and become One in shared power. However, each also possesses his or her own abilities. Lord Kyllan with animals, Lord Kemoc with ancient lore and Words of Power, and the Lady Kaththea with sorcery. She has always been the most powerful of the three.”
“So you grew to manhood in a household surrounded by these magic-wielders?”
“Each of the Tregarths now has his or her own household in Escore,” Alon replied. “But they stay very close—they can speak without words when there is need.”
Eydryth, having seen similar closeness among her own family members, could well believe such. She nodded, memories crowding her mind. “I know what it is like to live among those with Power,” she admitted.
“You lived in such a household also?” Dakar’s eyes were intent on her face. “In Escore?”
“No, in another place. A land called Arvon, across the sea from Estcarp.”
“Arvon…” he whispered. “I have heard of it. Hilarion told me that when he first lived in Escore, before the Old Race crossed the mountains bordering Estcarp on the east, that there was a legend telling of two lands that had once been one land. Escore… and Arvon.”
Eydryth blinked in surprise. “This Hilarion must be old,” she said, startled into bluntness. “Time-out-of-mind old. There are ancient runes and scrolls in the Citadel of Kar Garudwyn, even some maps, and they show naught but wasteland lying to the far west of my land, wasteland that becomes a death-haunted desert.”