You need to continue your search, Deckard.
His mother’s voice was so clear and strong within his own head that he looked around in the dim firelight, as if he might see her standing there. Of course he did not, yet he had the feeling that Aderes Cain was somewhere just beyond his senses, her passion for the Horadric cause keeping her bound to the mortal realm forever. Whatever its source, he knew that the voice in his head was right: they were no longer welcome in Caldeum, and to run from his destiny would only serve to prolong the inevitable. He had to keep going, tracking down the slim lead on the possible mage group in Kurast, searching for the answers to the questions raised by the books he had found at the Vizjerei ruins.
The tomb of Al Cut.
Who was Al Cut? The mystery nagged at him like an aching tooth. He wanted to find people with the right information, and shake them until it all came out. Hell was coming to Sanctuary. It was simply a matter of when.
Cain looked down at Leah. The mage group in Kurast might be able to help her control whatever strange power she had building within her, and for that reason too he must continue. He sighed, feeling that the burden of all he carried might be too heavy to bear.
Help me make the right choices for her, and for all of us.
James’s cloak had fallen away from Leah in her sleep. He pulled it back up over her shoulders, and she stirred briefly, and was still.
Something moved outside the ring of trees. The sound of panting came faintly from somewhere in the direction of the river, as though from a large dog or wolf, then a scratching, like nails on wood. Cain returned to the glowing embers, stirring them with a stick until flames sprang up, and piling on more wood until the fire began crackling and the camp grew bright enough for him to see more clearly. He went to his rucksack, looking for some kind of protective artifact or scroll, but he could think of nothing suitable. If whatever creature was out there wanted them, he was helpless to stop it.
Somewhere in the distance, an unearthly howl rose up, melancholy and haunting, before drifting away to silence. Nothing else happened. After standing quietly for some time, listening, Cain took his seat. Lulled by the warmth of the fire, he was eventually taken over by sleep once more, and thankfully he did not dream again.
12
The Walled Town
The next morning dawned bright and cold. A thin layer of frost covered the ground outside the trees. Leah’s skin was pale, and she had dark circles under her eyes. Cain gave her the last of the fish for breakfast, keeping only a few small bites of skin for himself.
They did not speak of what had happened the night before as they gathered their few belongings and left the camp. But a greater shock awaited them just outside. A tualang tree at least a hundred feet high had fallen directly across the bridge. Its branches lay splayed in all directions like some kind of monstrous squid, and the wooden planks had cracked at the bridge’s center and collapsed into the river. The water boiled and rushed all around it, partially flooding the banks.
It had been too dark to see last night. But Cain had heard the thundering sound of the tree falling. He had felt the pulse of energy from her. If this was her doing, what sort of immense power does she wield?
“Just some bad luck,” he said aloud. “The tree is old, the trunk rotted. You can see the damage there, by the root.” He stepped around broken branches that littered the ground, feeling the muck under his sandals, studying the problem more carefully. The river was too deep and too strong to swim, and there was no sign of any other bridges or shallow areas within shouting distance. They might be able to walk the trunk to the other side, if they could avoid the branches and keep their balance.
He warned Leah to stay away from the sap, which was irritating to the skin, and used his staff to keep his feet steady as he climbed up onto the tree and began to navigate through, pushing branches aside and squeezing through others, one step at a time. He was reminded of the narrow, rocky passage in the Vizjerei ruins, and that made him think of poor Akarat, and his terrible fate; for a moment he almost imagined the paladin just ahead of him, urging him forward. But of course nothing was really there, and when he glanced back, he saw Leah close behind, her small face somber and determined.
The bridge groaned ominously, pieces of its structure tumbling into the raging rapids. Finally Cain reached the end, where the shattered trunk sent thick splinters of wood like spikes in all directions, and as he climbed over the trunk, a large splinter caught at his tunic, scratching deeply into the skin of his side. A burning pain raced through him before he pulled himself free and limped to the ground. Cain touched the spot and found traces of blood.
Leah jumped down lightly a moment later. All at once, with a shriek and a great, earth-shaking crash, the entire structure collapsed into the river. Plumes of water shot thirty feet into the air, the surface churning and boiling as the two travelers were instantly soaked through by the spray. Cain stumbled backward, his heart in his throat. A few moments earlier and they would have been killed.
One thing was certain: there was no turning back now.
They kept to a steady pace as the sun rose in the sky and banished the last of the night’s chill. Cain used his staff to bear as much of his weight as he could, but his feet were growing worse, and his knees and back were threatening to give out. And now he had a new wound, which had begun to throb dully. He felt unbearably old.
As the morning stretched into afternoon, the road began to climb slowly into the hills. It had not taken a direct route to Kurast, instead going east to the river before taking a turn to run south. Rising above them in the distance, the mountains ran down the length of the land as though across the back of some giant sea monster.
Cain found the going even tougher here as the heat swelled, the ground rockier and more rutted than before. It was well past noon now; they had finished the last of the water from the small pouch, but there was nothing on the horizon to indicate a place where they might stop for more. They hadn’t seen a single soul since they had left Caldeum.
Three hours later, they passed a well-worn footpath that branched out to the right and disappeared into the hillside. Just beyond it they came to a steeper pass cut into the hills that had been overrun with boulders. The two cliff faces on either side were nearly sheer, and the rockslide was almost thirty feet high between them.
The two travelers stood at the foot of the rock-strewn track. The road was completely blocked.
He consulted a map from his rucksack. The path they had just seen should lead them around this pass. They could rejoin the road a few miles farther on, as it looped back. “We’ll take the long way around,” he said. “Come on.”
Leah didn’t move. She stared at the slide, her little face screwed up in concentration. “There’s someone here,” she said.
Cain leaned on his staff and studied her. “Why would you say that?”
She shrugged and looked around at the hills that seemed to loom over them in the sunshine. “It’s scary out here. I feel like there’s someone watching us.”
Cain stopped to catch his breath and look around. He had had the nagging feeling for some time now that they were being watched as well. He scanned back down in the direction they had come, and gazed at the hills above them, looking for some kind of hiding place where a man might take cover. At first he found nothing—no movement, no sense of a presence lurking anywhere. But then he thought he heard a very slight sound, like the scraping of something against rock.
A stream of pebbles trickled down the embankment.
The people there will take what they can from you and leave you to die on the road, Kulloom had said. And there are other things . . . Things that are not so kind.