“Hours ago,” he gasped. “After you left.” He didn’t climb out of the pool, or come even an inch closer. “Lukien, it was chaos here. We were cleaning up the hall, burying the dead. We were trying to keep the monster out, not keep people inside!”
His words made no sense to me. Nothing did. Cricket was gone! My knees turned to water. I leaned on my sword, trying to think what to do. Suddenly the monster meant nothing to me.
“Get me a horse,” I barked at the men. “Now!”
All five of them scrambled. Fallon waded cautiously out of the water.
“Lukien, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry! Tell me what I can do.”
Suddenly I wished Marilius was around. I needed help. A friend. Anyone.
“There’s nothing you can do, Fallon,” I said. “Just tell me the quickest way to Sky Falls.”
24
Fallon gave me the speediest horse in his stable, a hot-blooded Ganjeese barb with a shining black coat and a clipped, silver mane. It was the kind of horse Zuran princes raced, he told me, worth ten times my faithful Zephyr. I tacked the horse with a saddle and blanket, stripped off my own bruised armor, and took just enough food and water for a lean, fast journey. I needed to move quickly, and that meant traveling alone, and at night. Though there were no shortages of volunteers to help me find Sky Falls, I took only a hastily drawn map with me and a warning from Fallon to be careful.
The clouds had blacked out the moon entirely. The streets of Isowon and the horizon beyond slept in utter darkness. There was no way another man could have kept up with me. But my horse didn’t hesitate, trusting my sure hand and the magical vision Malator provided my one good eye. Luckily the rain had stopped, and as I thundered through the streets a plume of water jetted up behind me, soaking the back of my shirt. My hunger, my weariness-both had fled, replaced by the most ghastly thoughts. Cricket was almost a full day’s ride ahead of me, heading north toward Akyre, where girls were scarcer than diamonds. And Wrestler was out there, too. By now he’d be long gone from the canyon, I suspected, and probably asleep somewhere. The odds of his finding Cricket were powerfully slim. I hoped.
So I rode fast and hard, taking only the breaks my horse really needed and following the scribbled map past all the hastily jotted landmarks. Sky Falls, it turned out, was near Akyre’s border with Kasse, which made sense since Cricket had seen the Falls before. But it was a no man’s land, an oasis in a blighted hellhole. I tried not to think of Cricket being captured by bandits or slavers. I did my best to bury the guilt. I’d broken my promise to take her to the Falls. I should have seen how fragile she was, but I never supposed she’d ride off alone.
Guts. That’s the word that made me smile. She was as brave as any man, braver than any of Fallon’s mercs. She deserved better from life.
I rode and rode, pushing my horse miles too far, letting him rest only minutes at a time. He wouldn’t make it back alive, I knew; you couldn’t ride a horse that hard without killing it. I patted the beast’s neck and whispered in its ear, encouraging it, challenging it to go faster. Its stout heart answered, and by dawn we were more than halfway to Sky Falls. That’s when I saw the camp.
The flatlands of the Bitter Kingdoms had one good aspect-I could see for miles ahead of me, even in the dark. As dawn approached I caught a glimpse of fires smoldering in the distance. With no one on the road to discover me, I turned my horse toward the camp and saw the green flags of Akyre waving in the blackness. A company of soldiers had bedded for the night. I counted up the tents and horses as best I could. Maybe two hundred soldiers, making ready for their southward march. I couldn’t tell if they were legionnaires or just unlucky conscripts, but I knew Diriel was keeping his promise. Our seven days were running out.
I continued north, taking the long way around the camp, getting as much distance as I could from it before sun-up, and when the sun finally rose, the sky was clear again. My desperate horse brayed for water. I emptied my water skin into his mouth, then tossed the skin aside.
“Make it,” I pleaded, rubbing his muzzle. “Not for me. For Cricket.”
My own thirst hardly mattered. Soon we’d reach the river. I’d let the horse rest there, I promised him. But first we had to get there.
* * *
The river drawn on my map was part of the same waterway that led south to Isowon. It was also the same water that bisected Akyre and Kasse, and had sparked the genocidal feud between them. The river started way up in the mountains south of Norvor, an impenetrable range of peaks that never lost their snowy caps, not even in summer. The mountains were called the Quarrels, and had been inked on my map as a big black line, a clear indication that there was no going further. The Quarrels had kept the wars of the Bitter Kingdoms isolated from the rest of the continent, so that Norvor and Liiria and Reec could have their own wars.
By the time we made it to the nameless river my horse was near collapse. I could barely feel my tongue. I plunged my head into the water, drinking all my stomach could hold, letting the barb slake its thirst next to me. He was breathing hard, his black coat lathered. His brown eye watched me as we drank beside each other. I knelt down near him on the muddy shore and pulled the map from my pocket.
“Here,” I showed him. I traced the river with my finger. “That’s where we are.” Then I moved upward to where the Falls were drawn. “And that’s where we’re going. Sky Falls. Just a little farther. You can do it. You can.”
I’d spent my life around horses. In Liiria, as a Royal Charger, I’d seen all manner of horses, but this one was special. I’d ridden him hard through the blackest of nights, then all morning through scrub land. I’d starved him of food and rest and jabbed my heels in his flanks just to get more speed, and still he was upright. His eye blinked at me but didn’t look away.
“You’re a marvel,” I told him. “If there’s a heaven for horses, that’s where you’ll go.”
I started to think he might not die at all. I reached out and scratched the side of his neck. But I didn’t want to love him.
“Don’t be my friend,” I warned. I glanced down at my sword. “I’m only allowed one, it seems.”
Malator had been almost completely quiet the entire journey. I didn’t know if he was afraid for Cricket or just staying out of my way. His mood was difficult to read. Why was he so distant? Instead of summoning him I studied the map. The man who’d drawn it-a Marnan named Pellin-said Sky Falls was part of a fork in the river, one of many I’d encountered so far. I was to look for a group of black rock hills surrounded by a forest, but that didn’t help much either. From the way he’d drawn the map I couldn’t really tell how close I was, or where the border with Kasse began. For all I knew I had already crossed it.
I folded the map and looked up river. To me, all the hills looked black. A patchwork of trees sprouted from the landscape. I was about to mount up when a flash of movement caught my eye. I stiffened, listened, and watched as an animal emerged from behind a ten-foot rock. A small horse, without a rider. Just a pony, really.
I should have recognized it instantly but for some reason just stared. That’s how it is when you see something out of place. When the truth finally hit me, I froze.
The pony knew me at once. The empty saddle where Cricket once rode hung lopsided on its back. Slowly it trotted toward me.
“Cricket!” I called, running past her horse, hoping she was just beyond the rock. But when I rounded it all I saw was the river. “Cricket!” I shouted, again and again, walking in circles and looking for clues. I went to the pony and asked in a panic, “Where is she?”
It just looked at me stupidly.
“Malator! Where’s Cricket?”
Malator kept his distance. I knew he wanted to answer me, but in my mind he shook his head. Ride, Lukien, he said.