They had a way to ride today, south toward the last point on Ithk’s map of caches. By now, he knew Lea's bands had emptied all the others and sealed the entrances. By now Brand would know it, for these were his ways out, and no one could live underground forever without coming up for food. He would find one way sealed, and he would perhaps find another. He would soon learn the rest when he sent men to see for themselves. He would know he dared not range the northern part of his territory now. He would know-he was no fool-he must go south.
Kethrenan grinned, as wolves do. He would know himself hunted, and he would not know who hunted him, which of his enemies, the hob or the elven prince.
For a moment, the thought gave him pause. It always did when he wondered how Elansa would fare if Brand guessed the face of his hunter.
"They will keep her for hostage, my prince."
Kethrenan looked up. Not only had Demlin become a good hunter, he'd become an uncanny diviner of his master's thoughts. Long face pale, never scrubbed to color by the wind, maimed Demlin nodded.
"She's his shield, my prince. He won't throw her away."
And why, after all, should it be strange that Demlin could know his thought? Maimed Demlin, Demlin the sudden hunter… he and his master shared the same will. Why not the same thoughts?
Beyond the fire, Ithk gnawed on the cold leg of a lean hare. Hunched against the cold, his bear-headed fur over his shoulders, his eyes darted from one to the other, master and servant. He said nothing though. He sat very still. Perhaps he was thinking, but Kethrenan doubted that. Goblins were not known for thinking.
Brand's outlaws made a dark wandering now, for reports had come back to Brand that the three caches that ran in a line-like the base of a triangle-were plundered, the ways in and out from them stopped with stone.
"It might be goblin-work," Dell said. "Someone knows where they are, Brand. You know Gnash was ready to steal the hoard when we got it. Might be him."
A little, for a moment, Elansa’s heart stirred, warming to hope. Perhaps this was the work of the hob, perhaps the work of someone else. Perhaps a prince was taking back what was stolen. Swiftly, she killed the hope and begged gods to protect her from ever showing it again. She feared that if Brand suspected Kethrenan was responsible for this, he'd kill her.
What would they do? Dell asked it. "Tianna did. Others wondered, and the tide of their voices was an anxious one.
"We go south," Brand said as he got to his feet. He commanded the camp struck, then called Char and Leyerlain to him. They conferred for a space, the elf arguing some point Brand wasn't granting, the dwarf silent. Rolling the sleeping furs, which now she carried, her unwanted bed on her back, Elansa heard them. The goal was to find a place to hunt and to go on from there.
"We go south," Brand said when others asked. "Before anything, we find food."
It was the right thing to say, for if they were not hungry, they were weary of jerky. She might have learned more, once in the time before she became Brand's bed companion. She might have learned from Char what Brand's idea was for going south. He used to tell her things, but he never looked at her now but over the lip of his bottle, never with anything but great contempt.
She had not looked to him for that. The dwarf had treated her with a rough and grudging kindness sometimes. In the absence of it, she realized, she had wrongly thought of him as a potential ally.
"Ah, he's finally pickled his wits," Dell said, seeing what Elansa did. "Don’t worry about him. One night he'll make enough noise sleeping that someone'll slip a blade between his ribs to shut him up."
She did not say so to jest.
Elansa was becoming used to the stillness of lying in the darkness, Brand's body between her and the others, listening to the sounds of others sleeping-the small whimpers, the sighs, the groaning. One wept in his nightmares, not always, but sometimes, and he was the dwarf Char. Usually a quiet sleeper, now he was like a disturbed ghost, moaning. Most of the outlaws granted him the grace of acting as though they didn't know or hear or see his night-hauntings. It was a courtesy among those who must sleep back to back and walk side by side.
One did not grant the grace, and he was Arawn. He watched the dwarf, a cold, reasoning look on him.
"Up!" cried Brand, his voice almost cheerful. "Up! Let’s go! We'll be hunting supper soon."
Though he'd spoken more from hope than certainty, he was not wrong. That day, Char, always the guide in the darkness, found a way out the outlaws had never mapped-an easy way, a smooth slope and uncomplicated by twists or turns.
The hour was early, night only lately faded from the sky. Still, this much light was more than she'd seen in a long while, and it dazzled. A breeze touched her skin, and Elansa watched as three archers left the mountain, running downslope and bounding like spring goats let out from the dark confines of winter's byre. Among them was Brand, and they were not long away, for this was a good time for hunters. It was Brand himself who brought back the two small lambs, neat-footed offspring of wild mountain sheep. He carried them back up the hill, one slung over each shoulder, to the cheers and laughter of his men.
Seeing him, Elansa shuddered, for he reminded her of the ogres. They went past her, hunters with long strides and bellies soon to be filled with good food. She stood a moment, looking out, her hand upon stone. She was startled by the wild wide stretch of the world without. How far the borders of that outer region, where the horizon bound the stony waste to the sky never-ending?
In the brightening sky, something moved, something wide-winged and dark. It sailed in circles, drifting low, soaring and circling again. The freedom of it took her breath, the simple ability to change direction, to form a will and carry it out. In her, tears rose. She refused them and refused to feel the tightening of her throat. These things she never allowed herself. These things she did not risk, for to allow one feeling was to allow another, and another, and soon there would be others she could not permit. Instead, she treasured her numbness, almost calling it holy.
She lifted her arms as though they were wings, unknowing, unaware of what she did.
A hard hand took her wrist and turned her. Brand pulled her close, and she saw his eyes were alight with the triumph of the hunt. He smelled like the wind, like the wider spaces he had run in. He took her chin in his hand, but not in rough grip. A little his fingers moved against her neck, a caress. She did not turn, and she tried not to see him, though she looked right at him.
"Come inside," he said, and his mood was good. The command sounded more like a request.
It was, of course, no such thing. He took her to his stony bed while others went out to find wood for fires and cleaned and cooked the kill. He did not command her to undress. He did that for her himself, slipping her torn blouse over her head and taking off her ragged trousers. When he moved to take off her broken boots, she stopped him and did it herself. They had been of finest make, good riding gear once… she would not think of that or feel his hands on her. Still, she noticed he was not so peremptory this time. It was not a matter of satisfying himself or underscoring his authority with his men.
He touched her gently, and once, his lips against her neck, his beard on her breast, he said, "I saw you try to fly."
He sounded amused but not angry.
She dared not respond to that, the care he took to be easy with her or his amusement. She lay beneath him as she always did. She let him do what he willed, as she always did. Once she wished she could kill him, but even that she did not allow for long. She must not feel, not even that.
When he was finished, he turned away from her. He didn't sleep. He lay staring at her. She closed her eyes, but neither did she sleep. She listened to the outlaws, the mingled voices of women and men. She smelled the blood of lambs, the sudden sharp bite of Char’s dwarf spirits, and smoke and leather and unwashed bodies. When she opened her eyes at last, she saw Brand had a pouch in his hand, the one that hung always from his belt. He jogged it a little, and something rang within.