Chapter 24

The Lost Road, Tiderun Coast

The wind had teeth and a chill that hadn't been there a few days before. It was autumn, the change of the seasons a week past. The raiding season would end soon. In a little over a month, the women, children and elders of the Uigan tribes would begin their annual migration southward, taking the herds and flocks with them. The White Sky would return to Undermouth, there to graze for the fallow months while the snows blanketed the Tamire. The women, children, and elders would remain there until the thaws came, then they would ride north for the summer. It was the way of things, the way it had always been.

It would not be the same ever again. Hult knew this in his bones. Once the horde crossed the Tiderun, their world would change. How could it not? From then on, every time the moons aligned the tribes would unite and drive south, bound for the Run and the rich lands beyond. The bull-men's time in Taladas would wane. Chovuk had seen it happen in his dreams. He had seen it even before he became Boyla: a vision that never left him, through all they had faced.

Hult asked Chovuk, the second night of their ride back south, if Krogan's death truly had been a mischance. He'd known the answer even as he spoke the question.

"Of course not," the Boyla said, taking a pull from a flask of elfwine—sweet, thin stuff compared with kumiss. "Do you really think the Kazar just happened to be there?"

"You told them where he would be?"

Chovuk nodded. "An anonymous message sent in the night. I worried they might not believe it, that I'd need to try something else—but the Kazar are stupid and easily beguiled." He laughed. "Though even then, they couldn't get it right and didn't kill them all."

So he had shot the Boyla there in the canyon, before Hult's eyes. A cold-blooded murder. The Teacher's magic had taken care of the rest until that night among the elves, when Hult's sword brought the fey folk to his side.

Hult shuddered at the memory, turning away from Eldako. He could not look at the elf, his expressionless face beneath the war paint he wore. He had not spoken a word since they left the Green, to either him or Chovuk—only listened, watched, and rode in silence. He often traveled ahead, to scout and hunt the evening's meal. What the Boyla had said about his skill with a bow seemed true: he brought down game from over a hundred paces away, always with a single shot and never losing or breaking an arrow.

Even uncannier, though, was the fact that he never seemed to sleep. When Hult lay down at night beneath his blankets, the elf was always awake, sitting just outside the light of their campfire, gazing out across the wind-blown grasses of the Tamire. When he woke again in the cold light before dawn, Eldako was still there and still looking north, back toward his home. Hult had asked him, once, if he worried he might not see the Green again. Eldako had looked at him for a long time, unblinking. Then he had turned away.

The wind grew colder every day.

On the ninth morning, they smelled the sea. Chovuk reined in, and Hult came to a halt beside him. Eldako, halfway up the hill before them, stopped his own gray, long-legged horse and turned to look back, his piercing eyes like two chips of ice. He stood still and silent in the shadow of a tall cliff, atop which leathery-winged skyfishers nested among a ring of ancient, toothlike pillars. Hult reached for his shuk, but the Boyla waved him off.

"Not yet," he said.

Hult raised his eyebrows. Would there be fighting soon? What did the Boyla know? He had spoken again last night, in the dark, and a deep voice had answered from the shadows: the cloaked figure he had seen at the pool the night the merkitsa captured them. The Teacher. What had the voice said?

Eldako rode back, a tall, proud figure in a headdress of golden feathers. They looked to have come from a griffin—a beast he had hunted and slain himself, from what little Hult knew of elven tradition. He had his bow—a white, gently curving arc of ghostwood—in hand, and a delicately carved arrow already fitted on the string.

"Trouble?" Eldako asked. The first word he'd said in weeks.

"No," Chovuk said. "Not yet, anyway. But you must not ride any further with me."

Hult looked at Chovuk in surprise, but Eldako only nodded, a thin smile on his lips. He and the Boyla shared a silent moment, staring hard at each other.

"What you want?" the elf asked.

Chovuk nodded up the bluff, at the ruins. Atop one of the columns, a big, batlike creature spread its wings and took flight with a squeal. "Will you come with me?"

Eldako glanced at the columns, baring his teeth. Hult shivered at the sight of that grin: the elf’s teeth had been filed down to points, and there was something predatory in the way he smiled, the way he turned and rode away toward the ruins.

"Stay here, tenach," said Chovuk, wheeling to follow.

Hult blinked. He had just gathered his reins, ready to follow. "Master?"

"Remain here, for now," Chovuk explained. "We will be safe in the ruins without you. If I have need of you, my horn will call."

Hult bobbed his head, then watched as the Boyla and Eldako made their way up to the shattered shell on the cliff—a castle, maybe, or a church of old, too worn and overgrown to tell exactly. A younger ruin than most on the plains, of minotaur make: some earlier colony, destroyed by raiders centuries before the coming of the Tiger-horde. Hult shivered as the cold wind blew beneath his vest. The Boyla and Eldako vanished among the tumbled stones, and he sat alone, watching the skyfishers—unpleasant, carrion-loving birds that sometimes hunted Uigan flocks wheel in weaving circles above.

Finally, after a quarter of an hour, Chovuk came back down again. He was alone now. Shading his eyes, Hult gazed at the ruins, trying to see where the elf had gone, then turned a questioning eye on Chovuk. The Boyla said nothing, only shook his head slightly.

"Tenach, you and I must go on alone. Our companion will join us, later."

"Yes, master."

The ruins stood on a prominence atop a tall ridge, whose crest was scoured clean by wind to reveal jags of red rock that stuck up like a dragon's spines. It was the last such rise north of the Run. Beyond, gulls wheeled against the clouds like white shadows, less ominous than the 'fishers. The tang of salt hung strong in the air. The Run was very close now. Chovuk and Hult rode up together, side by side.

When they crested the rise, Hult had to shake his head in wonder at what lay beyond. The grassy hills ran down, more than a league, to the sea. Only white fog and steel-gray water were visible past that. The other shore, so tantalizingly close, lay hidden from view. Upon the Run's near side, the ground was dark with yurts, horses, campfires, and men, sharpening swords and gambling with dice made from goat bones. The horde had returned from Rudil with all its treasures.

Scouts saw them and ran to alert the Tegins. By the time Chovuk and Hult reached the bottom of the ridge, a party of twenty horsemen had broken away from the mass and was galloping to meet them. Hult picked out the standards of Sugai and Hoch and saw that a dozen of the riders had bows ready. He glanced at the Boyla, whose mouth was a grim line.

"Halt where you are, Chovuk!" cried Hoch when they were still fifty paces away. "Any closer, and we will loose!"

Hult caught his breath, hauling on his reins to stop his horse. Chovuk did the same, then walked his mount forward several steps. Twelve bows creaked and twelve arrows pulled back. The Boyla stopped.

"So it has happened," he said. "You have turned against me, Hoch Tegin, as I feared you would."

"I, turned against you?" asked the young lord. He threw back his head, laughing. "I am not the one who deserted our people to speak with elves, Chovuk. I rode with the Uigan, fought with them, and put sword and torch to the last of the bull-men! And did you even return with the allies you sought? No. From now on, you must call me Hoch Boyla, for I am the new king of our people."

"You are no Boyla, Hoch," shot back Chovuk. "You are dog-filth, the dirt on a snake's belly! But I expected this of you." He looked past the lord, to the older man beside him, and took off his helm. "You, though… this saddens me, Sugai. I had hoped you might have more faith."

Sugai Tegin bowed his head, but said nothing.

"Lord Sugai is wise, Chovuk Elf-lover," taunted Hoch. "He knows what hand holds the shuk now."

"Does he?" Chovuk asked.

Something dived out of the sky then, almost straight down. Hult saw it and recognized the fletching. An identical arrow had nearly killed him, back in the Dreaming Green—nearly, but not. That shot had been aimed to wound—not to kill. This one was well aimed, too: fired high, from cover in the ruins behind them, to come down sharply, unseen by Hoch and his men until it was too late. It struck the rebellious Tegin on the top of his helmet and punched through steel, skin, and skull to bury itself deep in his brain. Hoch went rigid and blinked once—the arrow sticking straight out of the crown of his head—then he toppled sideways in a lifeless heap.

Eldako, son of Tho-ket, was a very good shot.

The archers could have loosed, then—could have killed Chovuk and Hult with a twitch of their fingers. But they didn't. Frightened, they lowered their weapons and let their arrows drop. Sugai Tegin edged his horse forward.

"Forgive me, Boyla," the old man said, drawing up before Chovuk. "I was a fool."

Chovuk looked at Sugai fondly, shaking his head. "I'm sorry, my friend," he said.

Sugai saw the second arrow coming and had just enough time to sigh before it pierced his left eye. His head snapped back, and he crumpled to the ground as well.

"You are a fool no more, Sugai Tegin," Chovuk said. "Come, tenach."

Stunned, Hult stared at the old man's body. After a long moment, he came back to himself. Gritting his teeth, he dug in his spurs and hurried after the Boyla, galloping down toward the waiting horde.

They are out there, Forlo thought, staring across the Run. The far shore was just barely visible in the light of dawn, edging out of the morning haze. It was warm, not like the day before. It was summer's last gasp. The next day, the cold would return and stay till well into the next year. Fitting, in a way, that it would be the day he was leaving Coldhope.

For the last time.

Leaving to join his cohort at the end of the Lost Road. He'd already walked the halls of the keep, marking every room and drawing memories of the place to himself. Even if he did return, he sensed, he would no longer be the same man. What he'd learned abut his dream, what had happened in Ondelos's temple, gnawed at him. He alone had slain the last of the dead children and put steel in the mad bishop of Thenol. Even the sight of Ondelos's headless corpse hadn't calmed him or stilled his grief. Grath had found him huddled beside the bishop's body… had carried him away and arranged things so he would forget.

Now the minotaur was gone, west with the soldiers to prepare the defenses. They hadn't spoken again before he left. Forlo wondered if their friendship was over. He hadn't had a dream he could remember in the week since Shedara had lifted the spell. He'd slept through every night, and soundly. He'd needed the sleep, to be at his prime for the coming fight.

He turned away and walked back into the keep. He was clad in mail, ready to ride out with the last fighting men left in Coldhope. Its weight and the rattling sound it made soothed him. The sword that hung at his side felt like a part of his body. This was what he was born to be. Duke Rekhaz had seen it, but he'd ignored it and sought to become something he wasn't.

They were waiting for him in the great hall, sitting at the long table, the remains of a morning meal spread out between them—cold chicken, eggs, and the first good apples of the season. Essana and Shedara both looked up when he came in, but only the elf rose. His wife, who was showing her pregnancy more, chose not to stand. He went to Essana first, sitting down beside her and taking her hand. They'd parted before, many times, but this was different, for so many reasons.

"Starlight," he said, softly.

She looked up at him, her eyes shining with fear and love. Her mouth was red and her lips trembled.

Shedara edged back and out of the room.

When they were alone, he bent forward and kissed her, then lowered his head to place his lips against her swollen belly. I wish I could know you, he told the life within her, silently. I wish there were time.

He looked back up at her again. She was so beautiful, even torn apart by grief as she was. She drew a shuddering breath and squeezed his hand tighter.

"Fight well," she said. "I will be with you."

"Starlight "he began.

But she had turned away. "Go. I do not wish to watch you leave."

Putting a hand to his forehead, he turned and left, heading out into the entry hall. Voss, the chamberlain, stood there with his old, gray head bowed and tears on his face. He would not leave Coldhope either. He would remain as long as his lady did. Many of the other servants were gone, set loose to flee into the hills and woods. Voss's family had supervised Coldhope as long as Essana's had ruled it, though, and he would not abandon it, or her. Forlo gave him a nod as he passed, and the old man saluted in return, hand on fist.

Forlo walked out the tall wooden doors and down the steps to the dusty courtyard. His horse stood ready and waiting. The guardsmen—Iver, Ramal, and a dozen others—were gathering the last of their gear. Only two men would remain to watch over the keep, and even that seemed an extravagance. He needed every warm body he could find out at the Lost Road. The men watched him solemnly as he strode across the bailey.

Shedara stood by his horse, waiting, a hand on her hip. Her face might have been carved of stone. "What do you want of me?" she asked as he approached.

"A favor," he said. "Not a debt."

"Your lady-wife?"

"Yes." He opened his mouth to go on, then shut it again, ashamed.

"Perhaps," Shedara murmured. "Tell me."

He took a deep breath. "She won't leave, though I've begged her. She thinks there's still hope, that this fight can be won."

"A stubborn woman," the elf said. "I've known a few."

He caught her eyes and chuckled in spite of himself. She smiled in return. A moment later, though, the humor drained from his face again. "I will wait," he said, "until the battle's end is certain. Then I'll send a rider with a banner. If the banner is blue, we have lost. If it is red, it will mean victory. I do not think I will need to bring a red flag with me."

She nodded. "And when I see the blue flag…"

"You must forcibly take her away. Don't harm her, but get her out of this place and protect her as far as you can ride."

"She'll hate you for it," Shedara said.

"But she'll be alive, and the baby too. That is all I want to know. And when you go, take the Hooded One with you. This will get you to it."

He held out a key made of bronze and set with white stones that shone with inner light. She stared at it.

"If you unlock the door with it," he said, "its magic will make the lotus sleep. The statue is yours, as I promised. I don't know what you should do with it, now that the Voice is slain… but you'll think of something. I know you will."

Shedara bit her lip and took the key, her fingers wrapping around the glowing gems. Then she leaned forward and lay her right palm, gently, on his cheek. "Do good, Barreth Forlo."

"Just save her," he said, blinking back tears. "Save them."

He turned and walked up the steps, already tired, already defeated. She watched him go, the key held tight in her hand. A thought began to form in her head.