But only for the moment. Even if the demons themselves wouldn't or couldn't leave the house without new orders, they would certainly have already sent word via their parasite spirits, and Melentha would soon be galloping back to start the hunt.
"You must have been skulking around here for quite awhile, then," she commented as they reached the far edge of the lar's protection.
"Not that long, really," he shrugged. "I spent most of the time I had studying the defenses. Get ready: carash-melanasta—sa-preenhala minnistulri."
The lar flicked out and a new one appeared to take its place. "I'm glad you found your way out before I had to find my way in," he added.
"I don't blame you," she sighed as they started off again. "You know, I wondered if it might be you when I realized that someone out here was testing the post line for spirits. But I figured it was more likely bandits or something. Can I assume it was more of your finagling that was behind Melentha's sudden departure, too?"
"Oddly enough, it was, though totally accidentally. My horse is tethered over behind the trees there—
are your legs doing any better?"
"I should be able to walk in a minute or two." Danae clenched her teeth and threw him a sideways glance. "I never thought I'd live to say this... but I'm sure as hell glad to see you."
A slight smile creased Hart's face. "I'm glad I was here when you needed me, Ms. mal ce Taeger," he said.
Chapter 26
"I'll tell you one thing—Andresson damn well better be in trouble," Nordis growled. "If he's just off sight-seeing somewhere I'll skin him alive."
"Shut up and keep your eyes open," Melentha snapped. "If you'd handled this right in the first place, the trail wouldn't have had time to get this cold."
Nordis subsided, and in the darkness Ravagin grimaced. Nordis was an old hand, with nearly ten years of service to the Corps on his file. Professional pride was probably behind his time-consuming efforts to locate Andresson by himself instead of immediately sending a message to the way house—
pride, and maybe more than a little conceit. Still, there was no call for Melentha to jump all over him about it.
But then, Nordis had no idea of how his unexpected appearance had fouled up Melentha's plans.
They were in sight of Besak's lar now—or, rather, in sight of the place where the lar should have been visible. Ravagin felt his hands clench around the reins at the sheer power the lar's destruction implied. Could Melentha have done all that herself? If so, then any plan he could possibly come up with to escape with Danae was so much wasted effort.
Perhaps there was a way to find out. "Tell me, Melentha," he called across to her, "if someone wanted to take out a lar of this size, how would he or she go about doing so?"
"Hold it a second," she said shortly as a pair of sprites shot across the landscape and came to a hovering halt in front of her. She held a brief and inaudible conversation with them, and a minute later they flitted off again. "No sign of anyone on the Besak-Findral road," she reported. "What was the question again?"
"I was asking how you'd go about destroying Besak's lar."
"Afraid you'd have to ask someone with a little more spirit knowledge," she replied calmly.
"Gartanis, for instance."
"Same thing I told Andresson when he asked that question," Nordis commented. "I've never seen a client nag your leg off with questions like that."
"You told him about Gartanis?" Ravagin frowned. "Maybe that's where he went, then."
"Give me a little credit, will you, Ravagin?" the other said. "That was the first place I checked."
Unless Gartanis had lied about Andresson's presence there... but why would he bother? "What exactly was Andresson's field of study?" he asked instead. "If he wandered off on his own, it might give us a clue as to where he might be."
"He didn't have one," Nordis snorted. "He was a tourist, here to see the sights. If you can believe that."
"What in the world does Besak have in the way of sights?" Ravagin frowned.
"Damned if I know," Nordis said frankly. "Or Torralane Village, either, for that matter. That's where we started this trip—we only came down yesterday."
"You were here yesterday?" Melentha put in. "Why the hell didn't you check in then?"
"He didn't want to," Nordis told her. "Said he wanted to live native-style, not in some transplanted part of the Twenty Worlds."
"You're not supposed to let clients dictate safety rules to you," Melentha snapped.
"Listen, Melentha, when we find him, you can try arguing with him," Nordis shot back. "This guy gets what he wants, and you get bowled over if you get in his way."
"He sounds like one of those rich fools who've inherited all their money and can't find enough useful ways to spend it," Ravagin suggested.
"Probably is," Nordis agreed. "Then again, maybe he just thought he was being polite. We found out in town that you and your client were already staying at the way house, and he was pretty adamant about not wanting to intrude."
"Did you bother to explain to him how big the house is?" Melentha growled.
Nordis said something in reply... but Ravagin didn't hear it. A rich man playing tourist... who didn't seem afraid to stray from his host even in the dead of a Karyx night...
And who didn't want to run into Ravagin and Danae.
Hart.
And in the space of a few seconds the whole mess had abruptly been turned on its head. The bodyguard hired by Cowan mal ce Taeger of Arcadia to protect his daughter would hardly have gotten lost or even kidnapped. Somehow, for some reason, he'd deliberately deserted his Courier.
Of course. Hart knew about Gartanis... and Gartanis knew about Danae.
Beyond Nordis, three more sprites had converged on Melentha. Biting at his lip, Ravagin eased his horse into a slightly diverging path from that of the others. There was no time for any further questioning of Nordis; no time to consider the chances that his hunch was correct, or to consider what might happen if he was wrong. If there was even a chance that Hart was at the way house trying to get Danae out, it was absolutely vital that someone keep Melentha's attention occupied out here where she'd be out of the fight. And that someone had to be him.
A flicker of glow-fire appeared beside him. "You are the human named Ravagin?" the sprite asked.
"Yes," Ravagin nodded, frowning. He'd assumed that Melentha would make sure all the searching sprites would report directly to her—
"I bring a message: Danae tells you she has left."
Ravagin's heart skipped a beat. "What do you mean, left?" He threw a glance over at Melentha—
Just in time to see the green of a demon's parasite spirit vanish into her.
And the balloon had just gone up for good. Without a second's hesitation, Ravagin twisted his horse's head hard to the side—
And jerked in his saddle as an unearthly shriek split the air.
"Man-sy-hae orolontis!" he snapped—and an instant later a dozen green parasite spirits burst from nowhere to break like a tidal wave over him.
Beneath him, the horse whinnied and reared. Ravagin tugged hard on the reins, struggling to get the animal under control and to get the hell away from there. The spirit-protection spell he'd set up wouldn't last a minute under the kind of furious assault it was getting; less time even than that if Melentha was willing to reveal her possession to Nordis by sending her demon to take a direct hand in the fray.