‘You’re doing fine. Let’s go.’ Gilmour waded in, gave a quick wave to the others and dived beneath the surface.
Steven stripped off his own tunic and jeans. Standing in his boxers, he turned to Garec and said, ‘I don’t know how long this will take.’
‘We’re not going anywhere. Take your time. Give a shout if you need anything.’
‘I will. Watch out for bone-collectors. There were one or two we didn’t kill back there, and this spell might alert them.’
Kellin’s face was grim. Steven wished she would smile again; it had been good to hear her laughing with Garec.
‘We’ll be back,’ he said, his voice deep and accented. Even though he knew they wouldn’t get the joke, he smiled.
‘Good luck,’ Kellin, Garec and Brand called.
Steven let the spell burgeon and as it enveloped him, stronger now, almost malleable, he cast it out. It found Gilmour paddling in the shallows and wrapped the old man in its embrace. One down. Get it started and it will go on for ever, like the Twinmoons, the fountains at Sandcliff. One down.
He dived into the steely-grey, forbidding water, ignoring the chunks of ice from somewhere upstream. The river was as warm as a summer pond. Beneath the surface, it was clear and clean, untainted by industrial pollution, soil erosion or acid rain. Like the forests high in the Blackstone Mountains, this river was perfect to American eyes. Steven and Mark would have had to trek deep into the national forest above Estes Park to find anything similarly unspoiled; Clear Creek, the crystal stream dancing its roundabout way through Idaho Springs, was oily and foul by comparison.
Steven held his breath while he called up the magic; it was ready now, waiting at his fingertips. He reached out for Gilmour, whose toothy grin assured him it was working fine. At first the air that filled his lungs was cold, a painful shock after the torrid folds of their mystical blanket. A quick adjustment, and the air filling and refilling his chest was positively balmy.
That’s better, he thought, then gestured, let’s swim.
Gilmour grabbed his forearm. Wait a moment.
Steven raised his shoulders dramatically, asking why, then his vision, blurry despite the flawless clarity of the mountain water, sharpened itself little by little until he could see as clearly as if he were wearing a scuba mask.
Holy shit, he thought, that’s an impressive bit of sorcery. He grinned and gave Gilmour the thumbs-up. An inquisitive look from Gilmour meant he had no idea what that meant, so he patted him enthusiastically on the back instead and swam towards the centre of the river, careful not to touch the muddy bed.
It wasn’t long before he spotted it, in the distance. He had been right; halfway between the fiery maples and the granite cliff face above the opposite bank was the rocky moraine. The pagan altar seemed larger than it had on Steven’s last visit, and he wondered if somehow Nerak’s spell included a bit of fine print, a clause ensuring increased fortification of the spell table’s fortress over time.
Hoyt wept. Outside, dawn was unfurling a grey flag over Pellia. It would be another day without sunshine, another icy day spent ducking the Palace Guard, and quietly mourning Churn. His breathing was laboured but soft, his sobs muffled by his woollen blanket.
Hoyt didn’t want Hannah to see him like this. For five days he had managed not to fall apart, weeping and raging that his best friend had been left, dead, outside Prince Malagon’s haunted keep, but this morning, Hoyt broke down. Every night he had been tormented by dreams of Churn playing that absurd rock-paper-scissors game with Hannah, then slipping off the buttress. Last night had been the worst yet. Churn had tried to tell him something, and in his nightmare, he couldn’t understand. Just before he fell, the Pragan giant had looked over Hannah’s shoulder – had he really done that? – and mouthed something to Hoyt, standing safe on the snowy balcony. And try as he might, Hoyt couldn’t make out what Churn was trying to say.
Now the reality of Churn being fired upon, all those arrows piercing his back, falling, the big man falling to the greensward below and being left for those Malakasian monsters to rip apart – rutting whores, those things probably ate him – was more than Hoyt could bear. And he wept for his friend.
Hannah Sorenson, oblivious to Hoyt’s suffering, stripped to her underwear and washed using the basin of tepid water in the corner of the room. While Hoyt still slept she planned to dress and find breakfast for both of them. Alen and Milla were in a smaller room across the hall, the little girl sleeping on the mattress while Alen curled up in a nest of blankets on the wooden floor. All through their flight from Welstar Palace, their journey using the small boat they ‘borrowed’ and subsequent passage north on a civilian barge they encountered, Alen had not left Milla’s side. There was no sound from their chamber now, and Hannah assumed they were both still asleep.
She would find breakfast: tecan, warm bread, cheese, fruit, maybe even some meat. Hoyt needed nourishment. He hadn’t been well since they had arrived in the capital city and Hannah was worried. The young thief was as taut as a piece of piano wire, tightening a bit each day. He looked drawn and haggard, worn to the nub, stretched near to breaking-point, Hannah thought. She hoped sleep and a good breakfast might help him find some peace.
Hoyt watched Hannah in the half-light, stifling his tears. She didn’t know he was awake, hadn’t heard him crying. For the past two Twinmoons they had spent many nights together, elbowing one another playfully out of the way as they shared rooms, blankets, wine and food and firelight. They had been on a mission, working their way north: Hoyt working for the Resistance, Hannah seeking a way home. For all he liked the foreign girl, Hoyt hadn’t really noticed her before now. She certainly hadn’t noticed him.
Hannah was striking, standing in her underclothes, those little pants she refused to discard for the bigger, more comfortable Eldarni underclothes. Her firm, rounded breasts were rosy, even in the dim light. The hard buttons of her nipples were like twin copper Mareks. The skin of her back, disappearing beneath that thin band of clinging material, was smooth, perfect. Her stomach was flat, too flat, for she was so thin now after long days walking, riding and eating whatever they could forage along the trail…
Hoyt had seen her strip to those little shorts countless times before, but it hadn’t meant anything – they’d lived, travelled and worked together for two Twinmoons, and trapped in one another’s company, it was unavoidable.
This morning, it was different. Hoyt wanted her. This morning he needed her.
He felt his stomach knot itself up and he came out in a cold sweat. He feared he might be sick right there in the bed as the candlelight shone on the firmly delineated muscles of Hannah’s legs that shifted when she bent to wash her feet. Gods take me, Hoyt thought, just take me now. He coughed, and stifled it, and closed his eyes. Then, sliding one hand below the waist of his own underclothes, Hoyt let grief take him, and as he gave in to his need, he wept as he stroked himself, slowly at first, and then quicker. He watched Hannah wash herself, an intimate act he would have turned away from a Moon ago. She thinks you’re asleep, you rutting horsecock, he thought. Turn your back; this isn’t your private show.
But he didn’t; he couldn’t. Like a voyeur, he was unable to tear his gaze away from the supple perfection of her candlelit body.
Now Hannah heard something and whirled around, grabbing up her tunic and clutching it close about her body. She strained to see him through the gloom. ‘Hoyt? Are you all right?’ she asked, trying to decipher the strange noises.
He didn’t answer as he sobbed in despair, embarrassment and lust. He couldn’t stop watching her and wishing that she might somehow forgive him; he couldn’t stop weeping for Churn, for leaving his friend there at the mercy of those diseased creatures, and he couldn’t stop himself as he brought himself to fever pitch, pulling faster and faster beneath the blankets.