Before they could say more, Cresenne heard voices behind her and then the hoofbeats of what sounded like a herd of horses. A frown crossed F'Solya's features.
"Now where are they off to?"
Turning to look as well, Cresenne saw several dozen riders heading northward away from the sept. Two men rode ahead of them, and all of them bore weapons.
"Who were they?" she asked.
F'Solya was still staring after them. "Warriors. My I'Joled was with them. The two at the head of the column are called Q'Daer and L'Norr. They're both Weavers."
She remembered Q'Daer from the first day they reached the sept, though she hadn't recognized him.
"Maybe they're hunting?" she offered.
A tight smile crossed her lips. "They're hunting all right, but not as you mean it. That was a war party."
Cresenne stared after the men, her stomach tightening again. She'd had too much of war in the last year. "Does that mean there are Eandi warriors nearby?"
"More likely the J'Balanar or maybe the Talm'Orast. Don't worry," she added, seeing the look on Cresenne's face. "That was a small partyE'Menua has hundreds of warriors in his sept. If we were in danger, he would have sent out a larger force."
She nodded, knowing that she should have been grateful for the woman's reassurances. But looking to the north again, watching as the riders vanished in a haze of brown dust, she couldn't help but wonder what new peril was about to enter her life.
Chapter 19
They were cutting southwestward, because that was really their only choice. Torgan would have given a good deal of gold to get to
Stelpana and the safety of Eandi land. But the Fal'Borna and the Y'Qatt had settlements all along the Silverwater, and he would have had to venture dangerously close to them in order to find a bridge across the wash. He also sensed that the Qirsi were watching the riverbank, knowing that the Eandi lands beyond its banks offered Torgan his best chance of escape. He knew enough of Qirsi magic and the power of Weavers to understand that their communication could be as instantaneous as thought. Torgan's only hope at this point lay to the west, and a small hope it was. He had the rivers to cross: the Thraedes and the K'Sand. And even if he managed to get across those, he'd still have to face the J'Balanar. There had been bad blood between the two Qirsi clans for centuries, but always, when faced with a common Eandi enemy, they had put aside their disputes and fought as allies. If the Fal'Borna were hunting him, and had alerted the other clans to what they believed him to have done, he was a dead man.
Jasha was with him still, his cart rattling alongside Torgan's own. The two men said little to one another, which was just how Torgan wanted it. In fact, he would have preferred that the young merchant simply leave him, abandon him to his fate, no matter what it might be. But Jasha remained convinced that they had to find the Mettai woman who had sold those cursed baskets to Y'Farl in C'Bijor's Neck, and though Torgan had tried to convince him of the futility of this search, the lad refused to be dissuaded. That was the other reason they were still in Fal'Borna land. Jasha wouldn't let them leave, and perhaps in some small way his arguments were beginning to sway Torgan. It was foolishness, he knew. And yet, how could he allow her to do to another village what she had done to the Neck, what he had helped her do to S'Plaed's sept?
Finding her wasn't worth his life, which was why they continued to head south and west, away from where they were most likely to find her. But given the chance to hand the woman over to the Fal'Borna he would have done so gladly, and not merely because it might well keep the Qirsi from killing him.
When they happened upon a sept, the two merchants kept their distance, at least long enough to find someplace where Torgan could wait, out of view, while Jasha returned to the settlement to trade his wares and, more to the point, to search for the Mettai woman. So far they had been fortunate-they had spotted the septs before they themselves had been seen. Their luck couldn't hold forever.
Torgan wondered at how quickly his life had been transformed. Only days ago, it seemed, he had been crossing the northern plains, smug in his certainty that no other merchant in the Southlands could be as comfortable as he. He could walk away from any sale; he didn't have to hurry from settlement to settlement as others did. He was known throughout the land for the quality of his goods. His was a life of ease. He would have laughed out loud had the irony not tasted so bitter. Ease? He could hardly sleep at night. Every sound in the darkness set his heart racing like a Naqbae stallion. A hundred times each day he thought he saw Fal'Borna riders in the shimmering heat, or heard war cries in the plaintive calls of a circling hawk. Yes, he was known and recognized. How many merchants of his size and race were missing their left eye? The Fal'Borna would know him-all the Qirsi would. It would make killing him that much easier. Never before had he known such fear, even in the days leading up to the loss of his eye, when he knew he was being hunted by the coinmonger's cutthroats.
"I see smoke ahead."
Torgan reined his horse to a halt, scanning the horizon. There, due south. He wouldn't have spotted the thin ribbons of smoke had he not been searching for them. The lad had keen eyes.
Jasha halted as well, stood up in the seat atop his cart, and looked around, no doubt searching for somewhere Torgan could hide while he investigated the sept. After a moment he frowned.
"There isn't much here," he said.
"Then we'll skirt the sept and continue on our way."
The young merchant's frown deepened. "What if she's there?"
"She's not, Jasha! She's probably forty leagues from here!"
Jasha continued to survey the plain, as if he might will a hollow or copse to form in that moment.
"Look," Torgan said, "she's an old woman. She can't have come this far as quickly as we have. If you're determined to find her, you should head north again. I can't, obviously. I need to get out of Fal'Borna land. But you're right to want to stop her."
Jasha regarded him coolly. "You've been trying to rid yourself of my company for days now, Torgan. What makes you think I'm going to leave you now if I haven't already?"
"Why do you stay?" Torgan demanded, flinging his arms wide. "If you think this woman is responsible-"
Comprehension struck him dumb, and for several moments he just stared at the young merchant. "You don't think it was her, do you?" he finally said, his voice low. "You probably don't even believe that she exists. You've thought it was me all along. You're not trying to find that woman; you're just unwilling to let me out of your sight."
Jasha pressed his lips thin and said nothing.
"What is it you really do when you go into these villages?" "Just what I tell you I do," the lad said. "I look for the woman."
"On the off chance that I was telling the truth?" he asked, acid in his voice.
"Put yourself in my place for a moment, Torgan. Would you have believed the story you told me? Or would you have come to the same conclusion I did, the same one the Fal'Borna have come to?"
Torgan glared at him a moment longer, then looked away and rubbed a hand over his face. Jasha was right. Of course he was telling the truth about the Mettai woman, but the tale sounded far-fetched even to him. Why should anyone else believe it?
"She's real," he said weakly. "I don't care that you don't believe me. She's real, and she's the one who did this, not me."
"In the time we've been together," Jasha said, choosing his words carefully, "I've seen nothing to suggest that you wanted to harm the Fal'Borna, or even that you have the ability to."
"But you also haven't seen anything to convince you that the woman exists."
The young merchant shrugged, conceding the point.
"So you intend to keep following me?"
"I'd think that you'd want me to," Jasha said, the hint of a smile on his youthful face. "If for no other reason than because I usually spot the septs well before you do."