Shallan and Relli were nearly the last to arrive; Relli took one look at Lerryn’s grim expression, and shut her mouth on the last of her laments. Without another word, the trio accepted their ration sacks from the quartermaster, tied their packs behind their saddles, and mounted up.
Lerryn waited until the last straggler joined them, before mounting his own beast—a rawboned roan a full hand taller than anyone else’s beast—that was renowned for being able to lose any rider but Lerryn within ten heartbeats of mounting.
“We’re in trouble, people,” he said without preamble. “The Karsites have the main road blocked, the back way is full of foot troops, and the other four tracks in have watchers on them. We stayed till last to give the foot a head start and let our own scouts get in. Now it looks like we’re stuck. Suggestions?”
“East, for Karse,” Gies said. “They won’t be expecting that. And we found a game trail over the top of the cliff at the northeast end of the valley. We never bothered using it, ‘cause it’s a bitch to get up.”
“We’ll take it,” Lerryn said instantly. “Gies.”
The scout took the lead, the rest fell in behind him in a loose formation, as the last of the Wolflings vanished over the game trails. Kero wished luck on their departing backs.
They were all going to need it.
There had been watchers on that game trail; not as many as on the other ways out, but enough. Gies thought he had all of them tagged, and Lerryn sent Skybolts out to take care of them—but either Gies had missed one, or someone slipped up. One of the watchers had gotten away from their counter-ambush.
No one knew until they’d gotten out of the valley and were headed toward one of the roads that would bring them back to safety. That was when they discovered that the Karsites had mounted skirmishers, too. With more bows, and faster horses, and—most telling of all—more men.
The escape had turned into a rout; fighting, then running, then fighting again. Somehow they all managed to stay together; desperation gave them speed and cunning they didn’t know they had. They managed to leave their attackers behind in confusion, giving them just enough lead to get reorganized.
They headed north at top speed, taking advantage of a stream to break their trail, at least temporarily. At sunset, Lerryn had split the force, taking half of them with him, leaving half with his second in command. Shallan and Relli had gone off with the Captain; Kero had stayed with Icolan Ar Perdin, the second, a dour little man who had survived more routs than Kero cared to think about. The half with Lerryn had ridden south; Icolan took his group northward again, and a little east.
They hoped to confuse their pursuers enough to give both halves time to get to safety. But bad luck followed Icolan’s troops, for the Karsites made up their minds quickly on discovering the split trail, and chose their half as the ones to follow.
Bad luck, or a curse, Kero thought, as she guided
Hellsbane afoot through the darkness, stumbling now and again over a root or a rock. Some of the others were already muttering things to that effect, for it seemed uncanny, the way the Karsites had been able to find them after the split. No matter what they did, how carefully they covered their trail, if they stopped to rest even for a moment, a scout sent along the backtrail would return with the unwelcome news that they were still being followed.
She held her mare’s rein loosely; Hellsbane’s ears and nose were infinitely superior to hers, and Hellsbane had twice been able to detect followers before Kero had.
Unless I unshielded, and looked for them with my thoughts. No—I’m afraid to. What if they’ve got someone stronger than me with them?
Warrl had warned her about the dangers of meeting someone unfriendly, with a far more powerful Gift. Such a one could take Kero over, hearing with her ears, seeing with her eyes.
For everyone’s sakes, I can’t take the chance, she decided. As long as I don’t crack my shields, I’m safe. If I do—I could be risking more than myself. I could betray the entire group.
That was something she would not chance, however tempting it was to use that ability of hers to check on their pursuers.
Hellsbane’s natural sensitivities of ear and nose were why they were tailmost, ready to call an alert in case the Karsites found them yet again.
It might have been a curse following them; it might also have been the workings of Sunlord Vkandis, the Karsite god. Kero was pretty certain that she had seen priestly sorts among those “bandits” but hadn’t had any hard evidence although she’d reported her suspicion. Lerryn had just shrugged; he’d never had any dealings with a deity or demi-deity, friendly or otherwise, and so was inclined to doubt the power of clerics. But Kero had a feeling that it had been the priests of the Sunlord that had gotten word back to Karse of the siege, and not by physical messengers, either. As Kero had every reason to know, there were other means of communication besides physical messengers.
They were practically on the Karsite Border, and Kero had heard from Tarma the kind of proprietary interest a deity could have for Her people—and the ways in which She could, if She chose, intervene—down on the Dhorisha Plains. If the Sunlord chose to enlighten His priests as to the location of their avowed enemies—well, it certainly wouldn’t be unheard of.
Or there was another, more arcane, explanation. The religion of the Sunlord forbade the use of magic. But the ability to work magic was both an inborn Gift as well as the result of study. So where did all the mages born in Karse go?
Kero had her suspicions, and had ever since she found out about the prohibition. The mages born with the Gift went into the priesthood, of course; the priests of the Sunlord could easily say their magics were god-granted miracles, and no one would be any the wiser.
That could be the other reason for being pursued; they could have a mage on their trail—and since the hedge-wizard Tarres had gone with Lerryn’s half of the Skybolts, it didn’t take much guessing to figure which half would be followed. The half without the mage attached would be much easier for another mage to track, especially since Tarres was undoubtedly working his earth-magics to hide the mercs from mage-sight. Kero had tried to communicate with her sword to get the damned thing to cover their trail magically, but it had been as unresponsive as an ordinary piece of steel.
The trail ahead opened up into a clearing; suddenly there were stars overhead instead of interlacing tree branches. Kero picked out the sounds of many horses and a few whispers, and deduced that Icolan had decided to halt them.
“What’s up?” she whispered, as soon as she came within range of the closest shadow-shape.
“Conference,” the shape whispered back, one hand on its horse’s nose to keep it silent. Not a halt for rest, then. That was a disappointment, but hardly a surprise. Kero turned Hellsbane around and pointed her head along the backtrail, making use of the mare’s superior senses to keep watch for the rest of the party. “Guard,” she said into the gray’s ear, and slipped the rein over her arm, leaving Hellsbane relatively free. While the mare guarded the trail with ears and nose, Kero slipped her water bottle off the front of the saddle and took a long-wished-for drink. Her stomach was too knotted with fear and tension to even think about eating, but some of the others had taken advantage of the brief rest to snatch a mouthful or feed a handful of grain to a horse.