"I'd like… I'd like to speak with you and the Forelander alone." Q'Daer looked at Besh and Sirj.
"Yes, all right," Besh said, his voice flat. "We'll make our own fire. I'm tired anyway. Too much riding."
Grinsa caught Besh's eye. "Where I can see you," he said.
The old man nodded, casting a wary eye toward the Fal'Borna warriors. "Yes, I understand."
He and Sirj walked off a short distance, taking with them the wood they had gathered. Grinsa and Q'Daer quickly built their own fire, and soon were sitting beside it, eating a bit of dried rilda meat and cheese, while B'Vril sat across from them, also eating rilda.
"You had questions?" Q'Daer asked after some time.
"Are you sure you can trust them?" B'Vril asked immediately, as if he'd been aching to say the words the whole time. "The Mettai, I mean."
Q'Daer smiled thinly. "I knew who you meant." He looked at Grinsa briefly. "For a long time I wasn't sure. And then I got their plague and I was certain that they had cursed me. But they saved me. The Forelander, too. That spell Besh offered to use on you… Let him. It'll protect you."
B'Vril nodded once, but he still looked uncertain. "So, these Mettai can be trusted. But the rest…"
"The rest have made themselves enemies of the Fal'Borna," Q'Daer said.
"That's right," B'Vril said. "And that's why I wanted to speak with you. We know so little about their magic. At first I thought that finding you was nothing more than chance, but I realize now that it's a gift from the gods." He leaned forward. "You've seen them conjure," he went on in a lower voice. "Now, tonight, I've seen it, too. But there's so much more I need to know."
"Yes, of course."
"Q'Daer," Grinsa said, frowning.
The young Weaver looked at him, as if daring Grinsa to say more.
And really, what could Grinsa say? A group of Mettai had joined the Eandi army that was marching toward Fal'Borna land. The Qirsi had every right to defend themselves and to speak of what they knew about blood magic.
Grinsa shook his head and stared into the fire. "Never mind," he said quietly.
"From what I've seen, there are three elements to Mettai conjurings," Q'Daer began. "Blood, which they get by cutting themselves on the back of their hands, as you saw the old man do; earth, which they can simply pick up; and the spell itself, which you heard the man speak to himself."
"Do they have to say it out loud?" B'Vril asked.
Q'Daer said nothing. Grinsa realized that both men were watching him, waiting for him to answer.
"I'm new to this land," he said, not bothering to look at them. "I don't know any more about their magic than you do."
"You talk with them," Q'Daer said. "I've seen you. I think you know a great deal about how they conjure."
Grinsa didn't answer.
"They're marching against us," the young Weaver went on, sounding angry. "And if you think that the Eandi army and their allies will spare you or your woman or your child because you're from the Forelands rather than the plain, you're a fool and worse. Your hair is white; your eyes are yellow. To them, you're the enemy regardless of where you were born."
Grinsa knew Q'Daer was right, though it made his chest ache just to admit as much to himself.
"Yes, they have to say it aloud," he finally told them. He felt as though he was betraying Besh and Sirj, and he wanted to rail at Q'Daer and B'Vril for drawing him into their war with the Eandi.
Instead he raised his eyes, meeting Q'Daer's gaze. "What else do you want to know?"
Chapter 5
What do you think they're talking about?" Sirj asked, peering through the darkness at the other fire and the three Qirsi seated around it. Besh kept his gaze fixed on the fire and took another bite of hard cheese. "I don't know. It doesn't matter."
"They must be talking about us. That's why the Fal'Borna didn't want us there."
He was sure Sirj was right, but he said nothing. There was no sense in troubling him further.
For Besh, the Qirsi's conversation was the least of his concerns. His entire body hurt from riding that damned horse today. He'd told Grinsa that the Mettai were not horsemen, and he'd known that he was far too old to try to become one now. His back and legs were stiff, and he'd strained muscles he didn't even know he had.
Yet he could hardly argue with the Qirsi's decision to abandon the cart and make them ride. Q'Daer's people were under attack; had Besh been in his position, he would have been desperate to return to his sept. And having been away from his own family for far too long, the old man could imagine how keen Grinsa must have been to rejoin his wife and child.
For Besh and Sirj, however, this race southward couldn't have been more perilous. In the best of times, the old man would have felt vulnerable traveling across the plain. The Fal'Borna had a reputation as a hard and dangerous people. The necklace F'Ghara had given them seemed like scant protection. But now, with war coming, and with Mettai marching alongside the men of Stelpana, Besh feared that he and Sirj were riding to their doom.
Worse, he knew now that they had no choice. He'd been ready to leave Grinsa and Q'Daer, to ride back to Mettai lands and put the clans and their Eandi enemies behind them. He knew that Sirj wanted to. But Grinsa had argued that the danger to them was too great, and this evening's encounter with the Fal'Borna war party had convinced Besh that he was right. He'd had little experience with Qirsi magic, but he knew enough to understand that only Grinsa's and Q'Daer's intervention had kept B'Vril and his men from killing them. If Sirj and he had come upon the warriors on their own, they'd be dead already.
They were helpless. There was nothing they could do but follow Grinsa and Q'Daer back to the sept and hope that the Forelander would manage to keep them alive.
"I feel like a child."
"What?" Sirj said.
Besh looked at him, surprised by the question. It took him a moment to realize that he had spoken aloud. "Nothing."
"What if this new Fal'Borna is trying to turn them against us?" Sirj asked, still watching the Qirsi.
"Grinsa trusts us more than he does the Fal'Borna. Even if that's the Fal'Borna's intent, he won't betray us."
"But the other one-"
"Stop it, Sirj! We have enough to worry about without you imagining things!"
Sirj stared at him for a moment, then looked away. Besh shook his head, cursing his temper. He and Sirj had come a long way since leaving their home village of Kirayde. Eight years before, Sirj had married Besh's daughter, Elica. At the time, and in the years since, Besh had assumed that Sirj wasn't worthy of being her husband. He mistook Sirj's reticence for simplemindedness, and he would have preferred that Elica choose a more prosperous man; a wheelwright, perhaps, or a farrier, rather than a trapper. But since being forced to journey with him, Besh had come to realize that Sirj's reserved nature masked a keen mind and a courageous heart. The man didn't deserve to be spoken to in that way.
"I'm sorry, Sirj," he said after a long silence. "I really don't think that Grinsa or Q'Daer will break faith with us. I can't think that way, because I'm convinced that they're our only hope of surviving this war."
Sirj nodded, his gaze still lowered. "I know. That's why I want to know what they're saying."
Of course. Sirj wasn't being foolish. He was already a step ahead of Besh. "We can talk to Grinsa and Q'Daer later, after the other Fal'Borna are gone." As Besh said this, he glanced toward the Fal'Borna warriors, who had made their own fire. None of them had so much as looked toward the Mettai since he and Sirj had moved away from Grinsa and the others, but Besh continued to keep an eye on them. Grinsa had seemed concerned that the men might try to hurt them. Besh thought it possible, too.
"Do you think that this Weaver will let you use the spell on him?" Sirj asked.
"He'd be an idiot not to."
Sirj grinned. "I don't think that answers my question."