The forest skills his MightyTree uncles had taught him were coming back. Bro spotted the faint trail in a few dislodged pebbles and fallen leaves, followed it, and was rewarded when he heard the voices again, clear enough to make out the words.
"There are two main groups, both shadowing the Cha'Tel'Quessir camp. They use magic to conceal themselves. It's not working well, but the camp doesn't suspect they're out there, so it hasn't been a problem for them. The one group thinks it's the only group; the other shadows them and the camp. And there's a third, a solitaire, I think, maybe a companion of some sort. Very hard to track, but I think she went east with Rizcarn. I sent two foresters after her."
A man's voice, speaking the Cha'Tel'Quessir dialect with its proper accent. Not someone from the camp. Bro crept closer, listening for a second voice.
"She? What exactly makes you think the solitaire is a woman? And do you mean with Rizcarn, or pursuing him?"
Bro's heart beat in his throat: the second voice belonged to the woman who'd taken care of him, slept beside him, and assured him she could prove she'd had nothing to do with the arrow. He drew his knife and waited for more, but the voices were silent. A moment passed, ten, then a hundred. Bro hunched closer, aware of the sound dead leaves made beneath his feet no matter how careful he was, and of his pulse pounding in his ears, which was surely the loudest sound in the forest.
From the corner of his right eye, Bro caught a shadow moving in the tree above him. He looked up, saw nothing; heard a sound and before he could ask himself what he'd heard, there was another man's arm locked around his jaw, brutally twisting his neck, and an edge of sharp steel laid against his exposed throat.
"Let it go."
The voice was the voice he'd heard first. Bro let the Simbul's knife fall from his hands. He gasped as he was kneed in the kidneys. The knife at his neck slid as he fell forward. Bro was sure his throat had been slit. He tried to get a look at his captor before he died.
"Face down, youngster," the man said, planting his foot on Bro's neck.
At least he wasn't bleeding to death, though Bro thought his neck would break when the man bent down to retrieve the Simbul's knife.
"Where'd you get this?"
There was no time to think of a clever lie. "The Simbul gave it to me."
"Did she now?" A firm hand replaced the foot on his neck, then the hand was pressing his wrist into the small of his back. "On your feet." He wrenched the wrist he held and hauled Bro upright.
They started forward with Bro stumbling and certain his arm would snap with every awkward step.
"He says the Simbul gave him a knife," his captor shouted.
They cleared a pine tree and were face to face with Chayan, who scowled when she saw him.
"Oh, Ebroin. I should have guessed you'd follow me. Let him go, Halaern."
Bro was crushed, but smart enough not to argue when Halaern released him. He'd heard the name Halaern before: Trovar Halaern, the Simbul's forester. Turning around to face his captor, he saw the green metal circlet on the man's brow. Bro didn't want to believe that Trovar Halaern, elder of Yuirwood as well as the Simbul's forester, was in league with Red Wizards, but he couldn't think of another explanation.
And he couldn't look at Chayan.
"Ebroin," she said gently. "Ebroin, meet my cousin, Trovar Halaern. Halaern, meet Ebroin of MightyTree."
"The Ebroin of MightyTree-Rizcarn's son?"
Bro nodded glumly, still not looking at either of them.
"Shali's son?" the forester persisted. Bro nodded again. "Urell's daughter? And Laseli's? Sister of Mirran and Cresil?"
"Yes. Daughter and sister." It wasn't mockery. When Cha'Tel'Quessir met, they exchanged personal names, but when the meeting was important-when a man met an elder for the first time-Cha'Tel'Quessir exchanged lineages until they found a common ancestor. Bro wracked his memory for the proper lineages. So much time had passed since he'd recited them and he wanted so badly not to embarrass himself-again-that the names slipped through his mind's fingers. All but one:
"Eshtrelan's son?" Bro raised his eyes and held his breath.
The forester grinned. "Grandson. Her brother, Strael, went to MightyTree with Dassa."
Dassa had died long before Bro was born. He counted the generations and degrees on his knuckles, the way he'd been taught. "My twice-great-uncle's sister's daughter." He held out his hand.
Halaern seized it. "Well met, cousin. Don't go sneaking up on people when they're having a private conversation."
"He wasn't sneaking, Halaern. Bears make less noise."
Bro could have done without the backhand defense. "I'll leave now."
"No, stay. You're here now," Chayan insisted. "This concerns you."
He stayed and learned that the Thayan wizards had been following him and Rizcarn since the morning they'd picked up Lanig. He learned, too, that the forester and his cousin suspected that Rizcarn was the Cha'Tel'Quessir who'd turned traitor with Thay.
"He's strange," Bro protested. "He's not truly my father, but he'd never work with the Red Wizards. Never."
"It wouldn't be something he chose to do," Chayan explained. "The Red Wizards have a score of spells that can transform a good man into an evil one."
Bro felt sick and dizzy. "We-I've got to find him." He couldn't catch his breath; the trees were turning gray. "Got to stop him."
Halaern caught Bro's arm before he collapsed. "No one's saying that Rizcarn's been turned by the Red Wizards, I only think there's a chance that he's been. We found a corpse a few days ago, a Red Wizard corpse." The forester glanced at Chayan.
"Go ahead. Ebroin has nothing to hide. He told me everything yesterday. He won't be surprised that the Simbul was looking for him."
He was, but tried to hide the reaction-unsuccessfully, to judge from the looks both Chayan and Halaern gave him.
"We found it not all that far from where she said she left you, Ebroin of MightyTree, not all that far from where you met Rizcarn."
"Why me?" Bro asked. "I can almost understand Sulalk, because of Zandilar's Dancer. Dancer's important and never was mine, I understand that now. And the Simbul left Dancer with me. But I gave Dancer to Zandilar days ago. Why the arrow, too? I don't have anything left to give."
Halaern clapped Bro on the back, avoiding his scars. "I wondered about that, Ebroin. It's one of many questions I have for the Simbul, when next I see her."
"She won't answer them if she sees you've still got the knife she gave to Ebroin," Chayan said with a smile.
The forester flipped the knife, testing its balance, examining its steel, before handing it back to Bro. "Did she tell you it's Thayan-made?"
Bro gulped and hesitated before slipping the blade into its sheath. "Should I keep it?"
Halaern nodded. "But be careful who you show it to. With wizards about, it could be easily misunderstood-at least until we get rid of the wizards. It could be done-the getting rid of them, that is-with the Simbul's permission, of course. They're hardly wise in the ways of the Yuirwood, especially where magic's involved, and I don't think they know any more than we do-probably less. None of them speak the Cha'Tel'Quessir dialect. They're spying, but they aren't learning anything. They're following Rizcarn, like everyone else."
The forester was staring at his cousin again. Bro began to understand that Halaern had sent Chayan into the camp to be his eyes and ears since Halaern, himself, would have been recognized.
"I met her once," Chayan said. "I don't think I'd do anything without her permission, cousin. If she wants to give those Red Wizards more rope, it's not your decision to hang them early."
"Of course not. I won't do anything without her word. But I don't like it, not one bit. Thayan wizards don't belong here."