He had been generous as well, as they quickly discovered once they examined the packs strapped to the horses. The supplies of food they had carried before had not only been restored but replenished, and there were other items as well which had not been there before: knives with the sharpest of edges for the men; a store of herbal medicines in neatly labeled packets, phials, and pots for Sindérian; lightweight but tightly woven cloaks for them all, against the cold weather ahead. And at the bottom of one of her saddlebags Sindérian found something that surprised, moved, and disturbed her all at once.
It was a silver bracelet, incised with scrollwork and set with amber like drops of honey. A cold shiver passed from the back of her head down her spine. “Amber for a princess.” It was a delicate compliment but—if she remembered Prince Tyr’s words aright—it was also a grave gift.
What has King Yri foreseen? How much has he guessed? She was beginning to understand why he had taken more interest in her than anyone else, why he had been at such pains to draw her out. She slipped the bracelet back into the saddlebag without showing it to any of the others. There would be a time to wear King Yri’s gift, but that time had not yet come.
They mounted up and rode for many hours. By nightfall, they found themselves in the foothills, following a road of sorts through what was otherwise a tangled wilderness.
“Once we descend from the foothills we will be in Lünerion, which was a principality of Alluinn. After a few days more we will come into what was once the heart of the Empire.” Sindérian relayed this information to the others as it came from Faolein. “No men have lived in these lands since the world was Changed. Ahead of us there are forests, marshes, lakelands, and the remains of great cities lying in ruins—but not a single town, village, or farm. There will, possibly, be abundant game for hunting, but otherwise we will have to make our food supplies last.”
“No men live in Alluinn,” said Prince Ruan with a grim look, “but the Ni-Féa do, in the southeastern part.
I was born there and I know something of the country between. Besides the game you mention, there will be bears, mountain lions, lynxes, and wolves that hunt in great packs. Worse than wolves, one may occasionally meet creatures that have wandered in from the wastelands to the east: Tirhénian basilisks, manticores, griffons, snakes that are almost the size of dragons—”
“We may meet any or all of those things,” Sindérian interrupted him, “but not all of them at once.”
“No,” the Prince admitted, “not all of them at once. We may even travel for days without meeting anything.”
Luck was with them during the next few days, for they reached the lowlands without seeing anything more daunting than a bear loping along on all fours in the rain, and a lynx that snarled at them and retreated into the bushes. It was only after they left the hills behind that a monstrous snake crawled into their camp one evening. It would have killed one of the horses had not Aell, who was keeping the first watch, whipped out his sword and sliced the serpent in half just as it was rearing its head to strike.
But that wolves inhabited that region in great numbers there could be no doubt. They filled the nights with their wailing cries, first from one direction and then another. And when the travellers came upon a road heading more directly south, Sindérian began to notice, with increasing frequency, tracks of wolves printed in the road after the latest rain shower: dozens and dozens of paw prints, great and small, as if the road were not a road at all, but a trail the wolves had made for themselves. Such numbers of them travelling in the same direction, like a great migration, struck her as ominous and improbable. After crossing the wild parts of Mistlewald without meeting any of the werewolves which she knew infested those lands, she fervently hoped they would not encounter them now.
The road eventually turned east, but by then they had come into a region of wide meadows and occasional woodlands and were able to set out cross-country. The mountains caught the worst of the weather; yet even though they were heading almost due south, winter would overtake them in the end—and all the sooner if they did not make haste. Once, Sindérian caught a glimpse of the river Glasillient shining in the distance. Sometimes they passed heaps of weed-covered masonry on either side of the road, all that remained of towns and villages crushed by the tidal wave of power that had swept across Alluinn, levelling the entire kingdom in less than a day. Tens of thousands had died in that disaster, and their bones would still be there under the rubble.
Then one clear morning Faolein returned from a nighttime scouting expedition and Sindérian could tell immediately that something had occurred to disturb the even tenor of his mind.
There is something southwest of here I think you should see.
He led them in the direction of the river. Before they had gone far, the horses began to balk, throwing up their heads and snorting. Urging them forward, they soon found evidence of a recent campsite: the sodden, ashy remains of a campfire, some trampled grass, and that which put the horses into a sidling, eye-rolling sweat—the bodies of three unnaturally long-legged wolves, as well as the body of something midway between man and beast. The air was rank with the foul, musky odor of the skinchangers. That men with steel had killed them was immediately evident, for one head had been lopped off as if by a sword or an axe, and Sindérian could see by a wound in the belly of the man-beast that he had been impaled by the blade of a sword.
“Not many days past,” said Prince Ruan, curbing his roan gelding with a firm hand, “else even in this cool weather the bodies would be more decomposed.”
But Sindérian had already noticed an ominous cairn of stones not far from the campsite. When she pointed it out to the men, the Skyrran princes both turned a ghastly shade of pale. “You don’t think…?”
said Skerry.
“No, I don’t.” Nevertheless, there was a cold, heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach, because Winloki had so narrowly missed total annihilation of soul and spirit in the catacombs, and she had never guessed it. “But let us shift those stones anyway, to put our minds at rest.”
The horses would not stand still within sight or scent of the dead skinchangers, so it was necessary to lead them a short distance away. That task fell to her and Aell, while the other men set to work on the pile of heavy stones. When they reached the riverbank Aell left her alone to mind the still-restive horses and returned to assist the others at the cairn.
Their grisly task uncovered the corpses of two black-robed acolytes, but nothing worse. A gesture from Prince Ruan reassured Sindérian that Winloki was not there.
“How many of them?” she asked, when the stones had been replaced and the others had joined her beside the river.
“Two men,” replied Kivik. “But no telling how many of the Pharaxions might have been injured.”
Prince Ruan swung back into the saddle. “There were injuries on both sides, men and wolves alike.
Besides the stink of skinchangers the site reeked of blood. But you’ll already have guessed as much.”
Indeed, the residue of anguish and desperation had still been strong enough to sense. And as they resumed the journey south, Sindérian had much to think about. She felt as though she had been wandering a long time through a maze of possibilities, most of them fearful—but now there was the dawning of a tentative hope.
“Something is on your mind.” Skerry interrupted her reverie a while later, bringing his horse up beside hers.
“Until we reached the mountains,” she said, “the Furiádhin seemed to have everything their own way—any mischances were ours. But ever since they entered the tombs, they’ve had their share of misfortunes. King Yri said they lost men in the catacombs, and now there is this. And I’ve been feeling changes in the world around us for many weeks now: an energy along the ley lines, a shifting of probabilities…” She shook her head. “I wish I knew what was happening in the west, in the south.”