But the Frowth excelled in only one thing—making war.
Gaborn and Borenson came to a small croft on a hill beneath some trees, beside the river. The cottage's windows were dark. No smoke roiled from its chimney. A dead farmer lay half in the doorway, hand outstretched. His head lay as if he'd died trying to reach for it as it rolled away. The coppery scent of blood hung heavy in the air.
Borenson swore, rode forward. The mist ahead grew thicker. Heavier.
In the green grass, they found steaming human footprints. The grass beneath the footprints was blackened, dead. Gaborn had never seen the like.
“Flameweavers,” Borenson said. “Powerful ones—powerful enough to transmute to flame. Five of them.”
There were flameweavers in Mystarria, of course, sorcerers who could warm a room or cause a log to burst into flame, but none so powerful that they blackened the ground they trod upon. Not like this.
These were creatures of legend, wizards of such power that they could pry secrets from men's souls, or summon beings of terror from the netherworld.
Gaborn's heart pounded; he looked at Borenson, who was suddenly wary. There were no flameweavers like this in the northern kingdoms, nor so many Frowth giants. They could only have come from the south. Gaborn tasted the air again. That fog, that strange fog, a thinly disguised smoke? Raised by the flameweavers? How big an army did it hide?
So our spies were wrong, Gaborn realized. Raj Ahten's invasion won't wait for spring.
The flameweavers' footsteps led north, along the banks of the River Dwindell. Raj Ahten's troops must be marching through the woods, to hide their numbers. But they would not go far into the wood, for this was the Dunnwood. Wild, old, and powerful. Few men dared enter its heart. Even Raj Ahten would not do so.
If Gaborn took the road north, he could reach Sylvarresta in half a day.
But of course that was why the assassins watched the road, looking to waylay anyone who sought to warn King Sylvarresta. Gaborn reasoned that given the nature of his horse, a good solid hunter, he might be safer riding through the woods. He knew the dangers. He'd been in the Dunnwood before, hunting the great black boars.
The giant boars in the wood often grew almost as tall as Gaborn's stallion, and over the centuries they had learned to attack riders. But there were more dangerous things in these woods, it was said—ancient duskin ruins still guarded by magic, and the spirits of those who'd died here. Gaborn had once seen such a spirit.
Raj Ahten's men would be on warhorses, heavy creatures bred for battle in the desert, not for speed in the woods.
But even riding fast through the woods, it would take Gaborn a day to reach Lord Sylvarresta. Such a journey would be hard on his stallion.
Meanwhile, Gaborn's own father was not far south. King Orden was coming north for the autumn hunt, as was his custom, and this time he had a company of over two thousand soldiers. Gaborn was to have formally proposed betrothal to Iome Sylvarresta in a week, and King Orden had brought an impressive retinue for his son.
Now those troops might well be needed in battle.
Gaborn raised his hand, manipulated his fingers quickly in battle sign. Retreat. Warn King Orden.
Borenson looked wary, signed, Where are you going?
To warn Sylvarresta.
No! Dangerous! Borenson signed. Let me go!
Gaborn shook his head, pointed south.
Borenson glared, signed, I'll go north. Too dangerous for you!
But Gaborn could not let him. He'd intended to take a dangerous road to power, to try to become the kind of lord who would win men's hearts. How better to win the hearts of the people of Heredon, than to come to their aid now? I must go, Gaborn signed forcefully.
Borenson began to argue again. Gaborn whipped out his own saber, aiming just so, slashing Borenson's cheek. The cut was so shallow, the soldier could have got it shaving.
Gaborn fought down his rage. Almost immediately he regretted this impetuous act. Yet Borenson knew better than to argue with his prince in a dangerous situation. Arguments were poison. A man who believes he is doomed to fail tends to fail. Gaborn would listen to no poison arguments.
Gaborn pointed south with his sword, looked at both the Days and Borenson meaningfully. With his free hand, he signed, Check on Myrrima. If Raj Ahten's troops slaughtered peasants just to make certain their force wasn't discovered, Myrrima would be in danger.
It seemed a long moment as Borenson considered. Gaborn was no commoner. With his endowments of wit and brawn, he acted more like a man than he did a child, and in the past year, Borenson had begun treating him as an equal, rather than as a charge.
Perhaps more to the point, Borenson himself had to be torn. Both King Orden and King Sylvarresta needed to be warned as soon as possible. He couldn't ride two directions at once.
There are assassins on the road, Gaborn reminded him. The woods are safer. I will be safe.
To Gaborn's surprise, the Days turned his mule, headed back. Gaborn had seldom been free of the historian's scrutiny. But the Days' mule couldn't keep up with a force stallion. If he tried to follow, the historian would only get killed.
Borenson reached behind his saddle, pulled his bow and quiver, backed his horse, and handed the weapons to Gaborn. He whispered, “May the Glories guide you safely.”
Gaborn would need the bow. He nodded, grateful.
When the men had disappeared through the mist, Gaborn licked his lips, his mouth dry with fear. Preparedness is the father of courage, he reminded himself. A teaching from the Room of the Heart. Yet suddenly all that he'd learned in the House of Understanding seemed...inadequate.
He prepared to fight. First he dismounted, removed his fancy feathered hat, tossed it to the ground. It wouldn't do to ride ahead looking like a wealthy merchant. He needed to seem a humble peasant, without benefit of endowments.
He reached into his saddlebags, drew out a stained cloak of gray, threw it over his shoulders. He strung the bow. He had no battle-axe to cut through armor—only his dueling saber, and the dirk strapped at his knee.
Gaborn stretched his arms and shoulders, limbering them. He slid his saber from its sheath, as familiar with its balance as if it were part of his own body, then slid it back carefully.
He couldn't disguise his horse. The beast stood too proudly, like a being of stone or iron come to life. Its eyes glowed with fierce intelligence.
Gaborn whispered in his horse's ear. “We must hurry, my friend, but travel quietly.”
The horse nodded. Gaborn couldn't be certain how much it understood. It couldn't follow a conversation. But with endowments of wit from other horses in its herd, it followed several simple verbal commands—which was more than could be said of some men.
Gaborn dared not ride the beast at first. Instead, he led it. There would be outriders, he knew, both behind and before Raj Ahten's army. Gaborn didn't want to be a silhouette in the fog for some archer to practice on.
He began running lightly at a pace he could keep up for days. In the unnatural fog, the fields were strangely quiet.
Field mice scurried from his approach; a lone crow cawed from an oak. Sparrows flew up in a cloud. Somewhere, in the forest, he could hear a cow lowing, wanting to be milked.
For a long time as he ran, there was only the dry rattle of bending grass, the muted thump of his horse's hooves.
As he sprinted north through the close-cropped fields, he made a personal inventory. As far as Runelords were concerned, he was not powerful. He'd never wanted to be so. He could not bear the guilt he'd have borne to become powerful, the cost in human suffering.