When they stopped for a drink from the water skin, Morgan glanced at the girl to see how she was holding up. There was a sheen of sweat on her smooth face, but she was breathing easily. She caught him looking, and he turned quickly away.
Somewhere deep in the split Matty Roh took them into a cluster of massive boulders that appeared to be part of an old slide. Behind the concealing rocks they found a passageway that tunneled into the cliff wall. They entered and began to climb a spiraling corridor that opened out again onto a ledge about halfway up. Morgan peered down cautiously. It was a straight drop. A narrow trail angled upward from where they stood, the cut invisible from below, and they followed the pathway to the summit of the cliff and along the rim to another split, this one barely more than a crack in the rocks, so narrow that only one person at a time could pass through.
Matty Roh stopped at the opening. “They’ll come for us in a moment,” she announced, slipping the water skin from her shoulder and passing it to him so that he could drink.
He declined the offering. If she didn’t need a drink, neither did he. “How will they know we’re here?” he asked.
That flicker of a smile came and went. “They’ve been watching us for the past hour. Didn’t you see them?”
He hadn’t, of course, and she knew it, so he just shrugged his indifference and let the matter drop.
Shortly afterward a pair of figures emerged from the shadows of the split, bearded, hard-faced men with longbows and knives. They greeted Matty Roh and Morgan perfunctorily, then beckoned for them to follow. Single file, they entered the split and passed along a trail that wound upward into a jumble of rocks that shut away any view of what lay ahead. Morgan climbed dutifully, unable to avoid noticing that Matty Roh continued to look as if she were out for a midday stroll.
Finally they reached a plateau that stretched away north, south, and west and offered the most breathtaking views of the Dragon’s Teeth and the lands beyond that Morgan had ever seen. Sunset was approaching, and the skies were turning a brilliant crimson through the screen of mist that clung to the mountain peaks. Hence the name Firerim Reach, thought Morgan. East, the plateau backed up against a ridge grown thick with spruce and cedar. It was here that the outlaws were encamped, their roofed shelters crowded into the trees, their cooking fires smoldering in stone-lined pits. There were no walled fortifications as there had been at the Jut, for the plateau dropped away into a mass of jagged fissures and deep canyons, its sheer walls unscalable by one man let alone any sort of sizable force. At least, that was the way it appeared from where Morgan stood, and he assumed it was the same on all sides of the quarter-mile or so stretch of plain. The only way in appeared to be the way they had come. Still, the Highlander knew Padishar Creel well enough to bet there was at least one other.
He turned as a familiar burly figure lumbered up to meet them, black-bearded and ferocious-looking with his missing eye and ear and his scarred face. Chandos embraced Matty Roh warmly, nearly swallowing her up in his embrace, and then reached out for Morgan.
“Highlander,” he greeted, taking Morgan’s hand in his own and crushing it. “It’s good to have you back with us.”
“It’s good to be back.” Morgan extracted his hand painfully. “How are you, Chandos?”
The big man shook his head. “Well enough, given everything that’s happened.” There was an angry, frustrated look in his dark eyes. His jaw tightened. “Come with me where we can talk.”
He took Morgan and Matty Roh from the rim of the cliffs across the bluff. The guards who had brought them in disappeared back the way they had come. Chandos moved deliberately away from the encampment and the other outlaws. Morgan glanced questioningly at Matty Roh, but the girl’s face was unreadable.
When they were safely out of earshot, she said immediately to Chandos, “They have him, don’t they?”
“Padishar?” Chandos nodded. “They took him two nights earlier at Tyrsis.” He turned and faced Morgan. “The Valeman was with him, the smaller one, the one Padishar liked so well—Par Ohmsford. Apparently the two of them went into the Federation prisons to rescue Damson Rhee. They got her out, but Padishar was captured in the attempt. Damson’s here now. She arrived yesterday with the news.”
“What happened to Par?” Morgan asked, wondering at the same time why there had been no mention of Coll.
“Damson said he went off in search of his brother—something about the Shadowen.” Chandos brushed the question aside. “What matters at the moment is Padishar.” His scarred face furrowed. “I haven’t told the others yet.” He shook his head. “I don’t know if I should or not. We’re supposed to meet with Axhind and his Trolls at the Jannisson at the end of the week. Five days. If we don’t have Padishar with us, I don’t think they’ll join up. I think they’ll just turn around and go right back the way they came. Five thousand strong!” His face flushed, and he took a steadying breath. “We need them if we’re to have any kind of chance against the Federation. Especially after losing the Jut.”
He looked at them hopefully. “I was never much at making plans. So if you’ve any ideas at all...”
Matty Roh shook her head. “If the Federation has Padishar, he won’t stay alive very long.”
Chandos scowled. “Maybe longer than he’d like, if the Seekers get their hands on him.”
Morgan recalled the Pit and its inhabitants momentarily and quickly forced the thought away. Something about all this didn’t make sense. Padishar had gone looking for Par and Coll weeks ago. Why had it taken him so long to find them? Why had the Ohmsford brothers remained in Tyrsis all that time? And when Par and Padishar had gone into the prisons to rescue Damson Rhee, where was Coll? Did the Shadowen have Coll as well?
It seemed to Morgan that there was an awful lot unaccounted for.
“I want to speak with Damson Rhee,” he announced abruptly. He had wondered about her at the beginning, and suddenly he was beginning to wonder about her all over again.
Chandos shrugged. “She’s sleeping. Walked all night to get here.”
Images of Teel danced in Morgan’s head, whispering insidiously. “Then let’s wake her.”
Chandos gave him a hard stare. “All right, Highlander. If you think it’s important. But it will be your doing, not mine.”
They crossed to the encampment and passed through the cooking fires and the free-born at work about them. The sun had dropped further in the west, and it was nearing dinnertime. There was food in the cooking kettles, and the smells wafted on the summer air. Morgan scarcely noticed, his mind at work on other matters. Shadows crept out of the trees, lengthening as dusk approached. Morgan was thinking about Par and Coll, still in Tyrsis after all this time. They had escaped the Pit weeks ago. Why had they stayed there? he kept wondering. Why for so long?
As the questions pressed in about him, he kept seeing Teel’s face—and the Shadowen that had hidden beneath.
They reached a small hut set well back in the trees, and Chandos stopped. “She’s in there. You wake her if you want. Come have dinner with me when you’re finished, the both of you.”
Morgan nodded. He turned to Matty Roh. “Do you want to come with me?”
She gave him an appraising look. “No. I think you should do this on your own.”
It seemed for a moment as if she might say more, but then she turned and walked off into the trees after Chandos. She knew something she wasn’t telling, Morgan decided. He watched her go, thinking once again that Matty Roh was a good deal more complex than what she revealed.
He looked back at the hut, momentarily undecided as to how he should go about bracing Damson Rhee. Suspicions and fears shouldn’t be allowed to get in the way of common sense. But he couldn’t shake the image of Teel as a Shadowen. It could easily be the same with this girl. The trick was in finding out.