"Sorry."
"He couldn't have survived this even if he hadn't been hurt."
"What's it like, being a king?"
"Like a sour practical joke. The fates are splitting their sides. King of the biggest country in this end of the world, and I can't even control what I see. All I can do is run."
"Well, your majesty, what say let's see if there's water down there." Bragi levered himself up, collected a short, broad knife from the gear packed on one of the camels. The camels were bearing up still. Haroun drew his belt knife. They went down to the thread of sand. "I hope you know what you're looking for," Bragi said. "All I know is secondhand from your warriors back at el Aswad."
"I'll find water if it's there." While Megelin Radetic had been teaching him geometry, astronomy, botany, and languages, darker pedants out of the Jebal had instructed him in the skills of a shaghûn, a soldier-wizard. "Be quiet."
Haroun covered his eyes to negate the glare off the desert, let the weak form of the trance take him. He sent his shaghûn's senses roving. Down the bed of sand, down, bone-dry. Up, up, ten yards, fifty... There! Under that pocket of shadow seldom dispersed by the sun, where the watercourse looped under the overhang... Moisture.
Haroun shuddered, momentarily chilled. "Come on."
Ragnarson looked at him oddly but said nothing. He had seen Haroun do stranger things.
They loosened the sand with their knives, scooped it with their hands, and, lo! two feet down they found moisture. They scooped another foot of wet sand before encountering rock, then sat back, watched a pool form. Haroun dipped a finger, tasted. Bragi followed suit. "Pretty thick."
Haroun nodded. "Don't drink much. Let the horses have it. Bring them down one at a time."
It was slow business. They did not mind. It was an excuse to stay in one place, in shade, instead of enduring the blazing lens of the sun.
Horses watered, Bragi brought the camels. He said, "Those kids aren't bouncing back. They're burned out."
"Yeah. If we can get them to the mountains... "
"Who are they?"
Haroun shrugged. "Their fathers were in Aboud's court."
"Ain't that a bite? Busting our butts to save people we don't even know who they are."
"Part of being human, Megelin would have said."
A cry came from the clustered youngsters. The oldest waved, pointed. Far away, a streamer of dust slithered across a reddish hillside. "The Scourge of God," Haroun said. "Let's get moving."
Ragnarson collected the boys, got the animals organized. Haroun filled the hole he had dug, wishing he could leave it poisoned.
As they set off, Bragi chirruped, "Let's see if we can't pull those old mountains in today."
Haroun scowled. The mercenary was moody, likely to become cheerful at the most unreasonable moments.
The mountains were as bad as the desert. There were no trails except those stamped out by game. One by one, they lost animals. Occasionally, because they were trying to keep the beasts with them, and because they were so exhausted, they made but four miles in a day. Lost, without roadmarks, scavenging to stay alive, their days piled into weeks.
"How much longer?" Bragi asked. It had been a month since Al Rhemish, three weeks since they had seen any sign of pursuit.
Haroun shook his head. "I don't know. Sorry. I just know Tamerice and Kavelin are on the other side." They seldom spoke now. There were moments when Haroun hated his companions. He was responsible for them. He could not give up while they persevered.
Exhaustion. Muscles knotting with cramps. Dysentery from strange water and bad food. Every step a major undertaking. Every mile an odyssey. Constant hunger. Countless bruises and abrasions from stumbling in his weakness. Time had no end and no beginning, no yesterday or tomorrow, just an eternal now in which one more step had to be taken. He was losing track of why he was doing this. The boys had forgotten long since. Their existence consisted of staying with him.
Bragi was taking it best. He had evaded the agony and ignominy of dysentery. He had grown up on the wild edge of the mountains of Trolledyngja. He had developed more stamina, if not more will. As Haroun weakened, leadership gradually shifted. The mercenary assumed ever more of the physical labor.
"Should have stopped to rest," Haroun muttered to himself. "Should have laid up somewhere to get our strength back." But Nassef was back there, coming on like a force of nature, as tortured as his quarry, yet implacable in his hunt. Wasn't he? Why did Nassef hate him so?
A horse whinnied. Bragi shouted. Haroun turned.
The animal had lost its footing. It kicked the oldest boy. Both plunged down a slope only slightly less steep than a cliff. The boy gave only one weak cry, hardly protesting this release from torment.
Haroun could find no grief in his heart. In fact, he suffered a disgusting flutter of satisfaction. One less load to carry.
Bragi said, "The animals will kill us all if we keep dragging them along. One way or another."
Haroun stared down the long slope. Should he see about the boy? What the hell was his name? He couldn't remember. He shrugged. "Leave them." He resumed walking.
Days dragged past. Nights piled upon each other. They pushed ever deeper into the Kapenrungs. Haroun did not know when they crossed the summit, for that land all looked identical. He no longer believed it ended. The maps lied. The mountains went on to the edge of the world.
One morning he wakened in misery and said, "I'm not moving today." His will had cracked.
Bragi raised an eyebrow, jerked a thumb in the direction of the desert.
"They've given up. They must have. They would have caught us by now." He looked around. Strange, strange country. Jebal al Alf Dhulquarneni were nothing like this. Those mountains were dry and almost lifeless, with rounded backs. These were far taller, all jagged, covered with trees bigger than anything he'd ever imagined. The air was chill. Snow, which he had seen only at the most distant remove before, lurked in every shadow. The air stank of conifer. It was alien territory. He was homesick.
Bragi, though, had taken on life. He seemed comfortable for the first time since Haroun had met him. "This something like the country you came from?"
"A little."
"You don't say much about your people. How come?"
"Not much to tell." Bragi scanned their surroundings intently. "If we're not going to travel we ought to get someplace where we can watch without getting caught on the trail."
"Scout around. I'll clean up."
"Right." The northerner was gone fifteen minutes. "Found it. Dead tree down up yonder. Ferns and moss behind it. We can lay in the shade and see anything coming." He pointed. "Go past those rocks, then climb up behind. Try not to leave tracks. I'll come last."
Haroun guided his charges up and settled down. Bragi joined them moments later, picking his resting place with care. "Wish I had a bow. Command the trail from here. Think they gave up, eh? Why, when they were willing to kill themselves in the desert?"
"Maybe they did."
"Think so?"
"No. Not Nassef. Good things don't happen to me. And that would be the best... " Tears sprang into his eyes. He brushed them away. So his family were dead. So Megelin had died. He would not yield to grief. "Tell me about your people."
"I already did."
"Tell me."
Bragi saw his need. "My father ran a stead called Draukenbring. Our family and a few others used to get together to go raiding during the summers." Haroun got little sense from the youth's story, but his talking was enough. "... old king died my father and the Thane ended up on opposite sides... Haaken found what he wanted when we joined the Guild."
"You didn't? You already had your own squad."
"No. I don't know what I want, but it isn't that. Maybe just to go home."