But having sat down on the trunk in the process, he found getting up harder than he had expected, and he rested there to catch his breath.
"It's getting darker," Karoly said.
"I'm trying! This is a woods where we could use a dog, never mind trying to track that fool hound!"
"I mean it's getting darker faster than it ought to."
Nikolai looked toward what he took for the west, and glanced over his shoulder to what then must be the east, and he could see no difference. It had gotten to that time of evening when all light was gray and equal in the woods, when the trees and the canopy turned to their own woodland monotones—and there was no knowing what sort of predators might go on the hunt for boys and dogs once night had fallen.
That thought lent him strength to get up. He freed Gracja's rein from the branch that had caught it and backed her out of her predicament—poor pony, she was as blind-tired as they were; and she made a powerful effort to get up the slope again. He patted her sweaty neck when they had gotten to the top of the rise, and swore to her that he would get her out of this woods.
"Get down," he said to Karoly. "Get down, she can't carry you anymore."
"We've got to keep going."
"Do it on your own legs. We may need her before mis is done. Dammit, old man, just do what I say."
"Can't tell where you'll come out," Karoly muttered, trying to get down, entangled in his cloak, which was snagged on a branch, "Can't tell where he is, Ysabel can't get to us, we've just got to go on as we're going, as straight a line as we can hew, however long it takes."
"End up in some bear's belly," Nikolai said under his breath, and tugged the pony into motion so Karoly could get himself past the tree. "Some bear's late supper. Midnight snack. Probably already eaten the dog. Where in hell is the troll when you could use him?"
"Keep walking," Karoly said. Which was the only choice he saw.
It was a strange nightfall, a shadow that hung motionless in the east and then, slowly, in the dying of the sun, spread like a starry blight across the valley and the hills. The goblins built a great blazing bonfire, extravagant defiance against the night, and posted their sentries around about, whether against human armies from out of the valley or against others of their kind.
But their own light blinded them to all but each other.
"Join us at the fire," Azdra'ik said toTamas. "I swear to you, I swear to you it's rabbit and venison, nothing else. Nor has ever been. Come."
There were scruples, and there was hunger, but truth to tell, they had little left in the way of provisions, besides that these goblins seemed fairer and more amiable than their smaller cousins, and one could slide toward believing their reassurances, even against experience. Tamas found himself looking toward the fire, beyond the goblin lord's retreating back, and telling himself he was a fool to have come thus far off his guard with the creatures, or to attribute any common decency to them.
But Ela got up, dusted off her skirts, and walked in that direction, which left him solitary and supperless, except a last little heel of stale bread. What they were cooking this time looked like rabbit and smelled like rabbit, for what he could tell. They had torn back the grass to afford safe room for the fire, a blaze thicketed with sticks and spits—each goblin being responsible, as before, for his own supper, which they collectively proposed to share with their prisoners, their—guests, their fellow fugitives from the night and the queen's displeasure: he had no clear idea what they were in the goblin camp, and that in itself made him equally uneasy with the invitation and with their own refusal. If there were overtures toward them and he refused, that could be foolish, too. Even if the goblins only offered a shred or two of understanding of what they faced or where they were going ... it could make a difference in their living or dying tomorrow.
And if there was treachery and if the goblins intended betrayal, he would be more apt to discover it yonder in their company than sitting here alone.
So he got up and joined Ela in the firelight, easing his way in as goblins edged over to give him room. Goblins laughed with each other, albeit grimly, goblins spoke in low voices, and did their cooking, like any group of hunters. He watched the light as if it were the center of a black and unreasoning universe, until the voice within him said,
(Azdra'ik claims he's my servant. What do you think?)
He shrugged it off, watched as a goblin carved a small carcass in pieces, onto a square of leather, judging that that was the provision made for them, and sure enough, the goblin brought the packet to Ela and set it in her hands.
"Young madam," the goblin called her, bowing, and him: "Young sir."
Courtesy. Manners. There was too much puzzling about Azdra'ik and the company about him, too much of contradictions past unexplained. The ghost flared up all bones and shreds of grave-clothes, and a shiver went through him, a fear of believing anything.
But it was not bad rabbit. There was enough to eat, and warmth from the fire. For a moment or two on end he could shut his eyes and imagine he was back in his own woods, in Maggiar. But the conversation around him was not conversation he understood, and the creak of leather and the jangling of rings and ornaments was martial and strange.
He and Ela did not speak. There seemed nothing to say, that they would say with strangers around them. She seemed to drift very much as he did, remembering, perhaps, or thinking.
But her hand rested over the mirror beneath her gown, and her gaze turned toward the east.
He reached toward her arm. "Don't," he said. "Don't touch it tonight. Wait." It seemed desperate to him that she believe him, and he did not know why he should think so, but what she was doing terrified him.
She let her hand to her lap, and laced her fingers together and bowed her head.
(Inept, said the ghost. And thinking she knows. Damn you, boy . . . listen to me. Listen before it's too late.)
He blinked, he looked distractedly at the fire. He reached for Ela's hands and clenched them in his own, heedless of goblin stares and nudges of elbows, thinking, God, how can we survive till morning, how can we last the night, how if there's not a dawn?
A goblin arrived out of the dark and whispered something to one goblin, came to Azdra'ik's side and said something into his ear. Azdra'ik made a gesture and sent off ten or so of his company, who gathered up their weapons and followed the messenger.
He was holding Ela's hands too tightly. He let go. But she laced her right hand in his left and held on, only held on for dear life.
"Nothing," Azdra'ik said with an airy motion of his fingers. "A maneuver. A movement. Possibly even some of ours."
"Are there others?" Tamas asked in E!a's silence.
"You saw them."
"Shadows in the smoke."
Azdra'ik said something to his company, and some few of them rose and left, gathering up their weapons from beside them. "Troublesome shadows. The queen's shadows. There will be a guard tonight, I assure you. Sleep with at least that confidence."
"In you," Ela challenged him.
"In us," Azdra'ik said. "In us who have not consented to the queen. No, now—" Azdra'ik forestalled her interruption. "Listen to me. For one night, only this night, will you listen to me, young witch, and let me tell you a story. Was a time we ruled this land, was a time we had the respect of men ..."
"When," asked Ela, "when ever did you have our respect?"
"Oh, long ago. Long and long, when the old stones were young. Before the stone roads and the fences. Then sometimes men guested with us and we with them. But there was a falling out. Some say it was about the fences. Some say another thing. But however it was, a man died, a goblin was to blame, and bound as we were by a promise, and such as we are, and such as the promise was that bound us and men— we had no choice. We lost all the world. It was that absolute. It was that much trust we had placed in our virtue. We assumed too much, we believed in ourselves too implicitly. And we failed. So we left the world—and, young witch, let me tell you, to lose the sun and the moon was a dreadful thing. We would have promised anything for a foothold on this earth. Can you understand that?"