“Terisa” – in the dark, he sounded like Artagel, eager for battle – “we’re going to beat that bastard.”
She hoped he was right. But she seemed to have lost the ability to laugh. For that reason, she wasn’t sure.
The next morning, she and Geraden, with Master Barsonage and the other two Imagers, worked like mill-slaves to return Orison’s equipment and virtually everything the Alend soldiers had carried to the ballroom. Then, guarded by a detachment of fifty horsemen, they had to drive the Congery’s wagons furiously to catch up with the armies.
In some ways, that drive was harder than the translation. So much translation was a mind-numbing exertion: it sapped her strength until she felt too weak to stand; it ground her spirit down to the nub. But it wasn’t dangerous. All she had to do was maintain the Image-shift, and be sure that none of Orison’s inhabitants wandered into the ballroom at a bad time, and keep the glass open while guards pitched bedrolls and food sacks and cooking utensils through it.
On the other hand, the drive to rejoin the armies was distinctly dangerous.
The obvious danger was to the wagons themselves, to the mirrors they carried. From Broadwine Ford, the armies left the relatively smooth Marshalt road to turn west-southwest toward Esmerel, and the way to Esmerel wasn’t particularly well maintained because it wasn’t particularly well used. As soon as the wagons passed the small, clustered village around the inn which served the Ford (from a sensible distance, to avoid the danger of floods), the roadbed became much rougher.
In addition, the terrain rapidly grew more challenging. According to Geraden, what was in effect the only flatland in the Care of Tor lay along the road toward Marshalt. The rest of the Tor’s Care was at best hilly; more often rugged than not; in places nearly mountainous. Despite the best efforts of the drivers, the wagons had to lumber over knobs of exposed rock, along gullies cobbled to jar bones apart, up hillsides barely packed hard enough for the horses’ hooves to find purchase. And each jolt against an obstacle, each tilt over a boulder, each thud into a hole threatened the Congery’s precious glass.
When the drive first began, Terisa thought that she would rest – and avoid the stiff-jointed gait of her nag – by riding on one of the wagons for a while. She soon found, however, that its ride made her nag’s saddle look like a sedan chair by comparison.
If anything, the weather was getting colder. In the ravines and gullies, the wind swirled from all sides, chilling skin and bones like invisible ice; on the rises and crests, it swept straight down off the southern mountains, remorseless and keen. As tired as she was, as empty-hearted as she felt, there didn’t seem to be anything Terisa could do to make herself warm.
“What do you suppose,” she asked Geraden in an effort to keep her mind occupied, “those twenty thousand Cadwals are doing all this time?”
“Resting,” Geraden snapped with uncharacteristic bitterness. “Building fortifications. Getting traps ready. Learning how to coordinate their movements with whatever Eremis and Gilbur and Vagel plan to do. Resting.”
“Looks like we have all the advantages,” she murmured. “By the time we get there, we’ll be exhausted.”
He nodded; then he added, “Which reminds me. We’ve had so many other things to think about, I forgot to mention it. I’ve got the strongest feeling this isn’t what we’re supposed to be doing.”
She found that idea so upsetting that she stared at him in spite of her fatigue and the raw cold.
“Say that again.”
“I’ve got the strongest feeling—”
Their road was little more than a dirt track trodden hard by several thousand men. It lurched over a ridge and angled down into an erosion gully. “Do you mean,” she interrupted, “we shouldn’t be going to Esmerel like this? We shouldn’t be sticking our necks in the noose like this? It’s all wrong?”
Why didn’t you say so before we got started?
“No,” he replied at once. “I’m sorry. I’m not being clear. I don’t mean the Tor, or the army, or the Congery – or even Prince Kragen. I mean you and me. Personally. There’s something else we should be doing.”
The advantage of an erosion gully was that the rocks were padded with sand. The disadvantage was that the wheels tended to cut in, making the wagons harder to pull. The teams began to snort and struggle in the traces.
Hardly able to contain herself, Terisa demanded, “Like what?”
Geraden grimaced sheepishly. “I don’t have the vaguest notion. That’s why we aren’t doing it. You know me. I always take these feelings seriously, even when they don’t make sense. If I understood it this time, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.”
The bed of the gully was wide enough for the wagons and riders. The walls quickly grew sheer, however; the gully became a ravine twisting among heavy hills. With an effort, she resisted a vehement urge to argue with him. Sourly, she muttered, “You and your ‘strongest feelings.’ ”
He spread his hands. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up. I just thought you ought to know.”
She should have reassured him that he had done no harm – that he was right to tell her what he was feeling. In addition, she should have kicked him for apologizing so often. Unfortunately, she was too frightened.
Like the voice of her fear, a shout rose from one of the guards at the front of the group.
The cry was so consistent with her mood that it didn’t seem to need any other explanation. For a moment, she didn’t even raise her head to see what was happening.
Then there were more shouts. The walls of the ravine caught the cries and flung them into chaos along the wind. Ahead of the wagons, horsemen snatched out their swords, brandished their pikes. Guards surged past the wagons on both sides, yelling at Terisa and Geraden and the Congery to stay back.
Ribuld spurred after them furiously.
For no reason except instinct, Terisa jammed her heels into the sides of her nag.
“No!” Geraden caught at her reins.
Recovering her balance, she heard a throaty snarl among the shouts as if the ravine itself were growling for blood.
Through the press of riders, she saw a guard plunge off his mount, unseated by a wolf strong enough to leap as high as his chest, big enough to topple him.
At the same time, more wolves came off the edge of the ravine: dozens of them; leaping onto the men and horses below as if they were in no danger of breaking their own legs and backs, or didn’t care; wolves with spines jutting down their back’s and double rows of fangs in their jaws, and malign eyes.
Those that were close enough launched themselves at the wagons. At Terisa and the Masters.
At Geraden.
The same kind of wolves which had attacked Houseldon. Predators with his spoor in their nostrils and no fear left at all.
Screaming, one horse in the traces pitched to the ground with its shoulder torn open. Its weight pulled its fellow over on top of it, nearly upset the wagon.
A wolf crashed like a hammer into the wagon, hit it so hard that the wagonbed recoiled as if its axles were springs. Despite the tumult of shouts and pain and wolves, Terisa distinctly heard glass shatter.
The wagoner jumped from the bench, scuttled under the wagon for shelter.
Ignoring a Master who yelled at it frantically, flapped his arms at it as if it were nothing more than an tomcat, the wolf lunged off the wagon toward Geraden.
Apparently, Geraden had forgotten his sword. Instead of trying to fight, he wrenched his mount out of the way, drove his horse bucking against Terisa’s nag so that both horses stumbled to the wall of the ravine away from the attack.
A guard buried the head of his pike in the wolfs skull – then couldn’t work the blade free in time to defend himself from another beast which seemed to sail entirely over the wagons at him. He fell with his fists knotted in the wolf’s ruff, straining to keep the fangs from his face.