He regarded the oo’lu sadly. It was a fine instrument. He’d woven many healings with it, many births, as well as other, less kind magic when necessary. He’d had this one almost ten years, and waited for the time its patterns foretold.
No witch made his own oo’lu. No, you searched for a hollow branch or sapling large enough to play well, preferably one hollowed by ants. Then you took it to the oldest witch you could find, for him to make it and sing it into being. It was the old one who had the visions and painted them into the rings of the oo’lu, and he who sang the fire song and tossed the new horn across the campfire for you to catch and mark the part of your destiny that would happen next. When the destiny of that oo’lu had been fulfilled, the instrument cracked. Then it was time for a new oo’lu, a new path. On this oo’lu, the old witch Rao, long dead now, had painted one ring that had never been painted before in Turmay’s lifetime, perhaps never before ever. This was one of the ones his handprint had spanned, together with Wanderer, Uniter, and Father of Many. Not even Rao had known what this other ring was called, or why the Mother had put it into his dreams.
“You will know when you know,” the old witch had said with a shrug.
So far only Father of Many had come to pass; not only his own, but the babies he played into men’s loins and women’s bellies at the moon festivals. He had not wandered nor united anyone in a way that had cracked this oo’lu, but ever since he’d dreamed the white child, he didn’t expect to carry it much longer. But the Mother had not yet shown him how to accomplish her purpose—to destroy the white child.
Seneth arrived home to find the captain of the Ebrados riders waiting for her in the hall. Rieser í Stellen, who was also a carpenter when the Ebrados were not needed, rose from his seat by the hearth and bowed respectfully. Tall Rieser he was called, for the fact that this lean stork of a man stood half a head taller than anyone else in the clan, and favored dark clothing, which made him look even taller. He was also known as Rieser the Grim, for reasons just as obvious; he was not a joyful man. All the same, his keen grey eyes betrayed his anticipation as she handed her coat to a servant and sat down by the fire to pull off her boots.
“What news, Khirnari?” he asked.
“It’s time to gather your riders, my friend. I know where you must go.”
“We can be off at dawn.”
Seneth leaned forward to warm the chill from her hands. “Sit with me, and I will tell you the route. And you’ll have a guide, one whom I think will prove most useful. Do you know a Retha’noi named Turmay?”
“I do. He’s an honorable man—and a powerful witch, by all accounts. But how will he guide us?”
“He and Belan have worked out where the tayan’gil is. It is in Aurënen, in a town on the northern coast.”
“Really?” He looked at once surprised and uncharacteristically pleased. “It will be good to see that land. I still have my grandmother’s green sen’gai.” He absently touched the blue-and-white sen’gai all Hâzadriëlfaie wore: blue for the sky, under which Hâzadriël and her people had wandered for so long, banded with white for the White Road they’d traveled, and which ran in their veins. It was time to follow that road again.
He paused, then said, “Could it be her child who’s behind this?”
“Or the White Road blood has appeared again in Aurënen, but I think it more likely that you are right.”
Rieser shook his head with a grim smile. “If I am, what should I do with the ya’shel?”
“Bring him back if possible. If not, then kill him.”
Rieser rose and bowed with a hand to his heart. “I’m honored to ride again, Khirnari.”
Seneth smiled up at him. “You have never failed me, Rieser í Stellen. I wish you a safe journey and a successful hunt.”
For as long as the followers of Hâzadriël had lived in this valley, there had been Ebrados—the Hunters of the White Road—and for the past fifty-eight years Rieser í Stellen had been one of them. The Ebrados weren’t called upon often anymore; the generation that had settled this valley was long dead, and most of the people now didn’t look past the mountains that guarded them for anything they wanted. Occasionally a few adventurous youngsters tried to sneak out through the pass. If the guards didn’t see them, the Ebrados went to bring them back. There had been only a few serious cases in the last hundred years, and all but one successfully hunted down.
Ireya ä Shaar had been the exception; her name was a bitter taste on the tongue of the clan. She had lain with a Tírfaie, a fact revealed at the child’s birth; no ’faie child had yellow hair and eyes the color of dusk on a winter’s night. No one knew how she’d met the man, or why she had betrayed her own people to bear a forbidden half-breed son, only that she had given him to his father to save. Her own brothers had killed her, and the Tír man had killed them. He and the child had never been found.
Syall í Konthus had been captain then, and they’d spent the whole summer trying to track down the mysterious Tír and the baby, but to no avail. Month after month, Syall rode out, even after the khirnari called off the hunt and none of the other Ebrados would go with him, until one spring day when his horse found her way back to the clan stables riderless. The dried blood crusted on her withers and the saddle were evidence enough to guess that he might have found his quarry, after all, or some other misadventure in the outer world. Whatever the case, he never came back. Scouts went out periodically, but none had found a trace of him, or the half-breed child, who must be nearly man-grown by now, in the way of mixed bloods.
Rane and Thiren, Syall’s eldest sons, had been elected to the Ebrados for this trip, and they were the only ones among all his riders about whom Rieser had any concerns, suspecting that theirs was a duty born of vengeance. Emotion had no place in this work.
The rest—Nowen, Sona, Taegil, Morai, Relian, Sorengil, Kalien, Allia, and Hâzadriën—had ridden with him for years. They were among the best riders, swordsmen, and archers of the clan, chosen for their prowess and bravery. Hâzadriën was the exception, but this old friend had other skills. There wasn’t a man or woman among them about whom Rieser had the least doubt.
The trail they were to follow this time was two decades cold, and retraced that journey five centuries ago. Rieser liked a good challenge.
He gathered with the others in the main courtyard of the clan house the following morning. The khirnari and Turmay were already there waiting for them. The Retha’noi was dressed in thick sheepskin garments, his coat decorated with animal teeth sewn on in patterns like beads. Turmay’s horse had a ’faie saddle and one small bundle hanging from it, and he carried his oo’lu strapped across his back. Rieser had never seen any witch man without one.
Rieser nodded to him. “It’s good to see you again, friend. So you’re to be our guide?”
“Yes. Together we will ride your white road, and find the white child.”
Rieser blinked in surprise. The white road was never spoken of to outsiders. Then again, Turmay was a witch—a hard person to keep secrets from, it seemed.
Seneth gave them her blessing, and Rieser led his riders out of the courtyard and down the river road at a gallop. Turmay rode beside him, as at ease as any of them in the saddle.
Sledges had packed the road smooth, making for an easy ride down the long slope of the valley to the mouth of the pass. There they all dismounted to drink and bathe their hands and faces at the sacred spring, and touch the stony head of the dragon above it for luck. It had died long before they’d come here and turned to stone, as the old dragons did. Most of the body had crumbled away, but the huge head was perfect, down to the sharp spines on its muzzle. Even in winter it was still warm to the touch, as was the water. Hâzadriël had taken this as a sign that the valley was to be theirs—they who had the blood of the Great Dragon in their veins, their gift and their curse. That heritage was proven through the tayan’gil, made from some evil distillation of Hâzad blood, who had dragon’s wings and great powers of healing, as the dragons of their homeland were said to.