III
Beyond Highfast, the road that Orisian and the others followed soon sank into decrepitude. It snaked across a saddle between two rocky peaks, then down a steep valley. As it went, it crumbled. Its surface grew ever more pitted and broken. Water and frosts and rock falls had eaten its fabric away over the years, reducing what must once have been a great highway to an uneven, unreliable track. Once, in the time of the Kingship, there would have been many traders and travellers following this route through the Karkyre Peaks and on towards Drandar. Now the hamlets and inns that lined the way were ruins; the road stumbled pointlessly in its decay towards a wilderness of hills, forests and Kyrinin lands.
Orisian rode at the head of the column with Rothe and Torcaill. The band of warriors that followed was somewhat reduced. Orisian had ordered four of them sent north by way of Hent to find Taim Narran at Kolglas and tell him what was happening; Torcaill had picked out another half-dozen and sent them ahead as outriders. Though an undisputed part of Lheanor oc Kilkry-Haig’s domain, these were wild lands. Orisian did not ask whether it was Kyrinin or human bandits that Torcaill feared, but it hardly mattered. They saw no living thing save birds and occasional wild goats silhouetted on the ridges high above the road.
They made good time on the first day. Only once were they delayed: a cascade of water plunging down from the heights had cut away a swathe of the road, turning it for some little distance into the bed of a churning mountain stream. The horses crossed easily, if hesitantly, enough. Yvane, still obstinately refusing to ride, grumbled and moaned about her wet feet.
By the time dusk was coming on, they had almost escaped the Peaks. The valley that carried the roadway down had opened out. Trees and shrubs now lined the gentled river. Grass and rushes sprouted amongst the rocks, even in the midst of the road. Ahead, dark in the faltering light, woodlands could be seen scattered across lower ground.
They camped on the valley floor, far enough from the river’s course that no sudden flood would catch them unawares but close enough that spindly alders could give them some shelter from the wind that had followed them from the Peaks. While Torcaill’s men set up their few simple tents — not enough to shelter everyone — and lit fires, Orisian went to find Ess’yr and Varryn. They were filling waterskins from the river. As Orisian drew near, Ess’yr threw back her head and poured a stream of water into her mouth. It splashed across her chin and ran down the smooth sweep of her neck. She wiped her lips and held the skin out to Orisian. He shook his head.
“No, thank you.”
The two Kyrinin had their spears with them, and Varryn his bow.
“You don’t plan to rest tonight,” Orisian said, disappointed. He had hoped to speak with Ess’yr, share food with her perhaps as he had done before, when they crossed the Car Criagar. Catch fish, he thought, as they had once done at a tiny stream in those distant forests.
“We need less rest than Huanin,” Varryn said, standing up. He tied the fat waterskin to his belt. “And the enemy may be near.”
“I don’t think so,” murmured Orisian, still watching Ess’yr. There was a life, an energy, in her now that he had not seen for some time. That part of her that had been so oppressed by confinement in Kolkyre and Highfast was stirring again, remembering itself. She moved quickly, precisely, as she sank the mouth of her waterskin below the surface, then raised and stoppered it.
“But you cannot know,” Varryn said. “We will know, because we will see with our own eyes.”
Orisian smiled, despite himself. “Of course. I’d sooner trust your eyes than those of Torcaill’s scouts, in any case.”
Ess’yr stood up, pushing the hair back from her face with both hands.
“You’ll be back before morning?” Orisian asked. “We plan to move on as soon as there’s any light.”
Ess’yr nodded. “Long before.”
“Good.” Orisian gestured at the river. “I’ll see if I can trick some fish out of there, the way you showed me.”
Ess’yr glanced at the water slipping by. She gave Orisian a smile — a momentary, faint thing — and bent to pick up her spear. “It is good to break a fast on fish,” she said.
After the two Kyrinin had drifted off into the deepening darkness, Orisian did make a brief attempt to feel out some fish lurking under the soft bank of the river. The icy-cold water was discouraging, and he very soon began to feel foolish. Here he was, a supposed Thane, scrambling about on a river-bank trying, and failing, to catch fish to please a woman who probably thought of him as nothing more than a chance companion. He sat on a hummock of wiry grass and silently berated himself.
“Feeling a bit solitary?” Yvane said behind him, making him jump.
“I’m fine.” He stood up and brushed dirt and fragments of grass from his legs. “How are your feet?”
“Warm. I toasted them by one of the fires. You might want to come and join us. Eshenna and your man Torcaill are liable to be calling each other names soon. Not good for the harmony of the camp.”
“Harmony doesn’t seem to be anyone’s first concern these days,” Orisian muttered as he followed her back to the tents.
In the midst of the encampment, around the largest of the fires, twenty or more men were sitting cross-legged. They were quietly consuming their meagre rations while Torcaill and Eshenna argued across the flames. Rothe, standing at the very edge of the pool of yellow firelight, looked almost amused.
“Enough,” Orisian said without waiting to hear what the subject of the disagreement was.
Torcaill clamped his mouth shut. Eshenna looked more inclined to continue the dispute but satisfied herself with taking a mouthful of hard biscuit.
“What are you arguing about?” Orisian asked Torcaill.
“She says we are moving too slowly,” the warrior replied. “I say it’s not safe to move faster. Not during the day and certainly not at night.”
Orisian glanced at Eshenna. The na’kyrim returned his gaze but said nothing.
“Will you walk with me?” he asked her, and led her away from the fire. Yvane followed, as did Rothe a little way back.
“It’s not easy for some of these men, you know,” Orisian said once they were out at the furthest limit of the fire’s light. “They have never known a na’kyrim, never had to trust anyone not of their own kind. Most of them would rather be heading north, to fight for their homes and families.”
“You are their lord, are you not?” Eshenna asked. “It should not matter to them what is easy and what is not.”
Orisian shook his head. “They know me little better than they do you, and they’ve not much more reason to trust me. No one ever thought I would be Thane, Eshenna. Not them, not me.”
The na’kyrim shrugged and folded her arms across her chest. “I only wanted them to understand,” she said. It was no apology, but her tone was subdued.
“Understand what?”
“That there is urgency here. K’rina is not far. I can hear the sound of her mind, close. But if there are White Owls hunting her too, they will not stop in the night. They will not rest. If they reach her first, and take her back to Aeglyss, all this effort will have been wasted.”
“I know.” Orisian sighed. “For these men, these are difficult things to understand. They know nothing of the Shared, had never heard of Aeglyss until they left Highfast. It’s not the world they live in.”
“It is now,” muttered Yvane behind him. “They just don’t know it yet.”
Orisian glanced at her over his shoulder. “That might be true but, if so, they’ll have to learn it for themselves. I can’t make them believe it just by telling them it’s so.”
“The Shared is in chaos,” Eshenna whispered. “It shudders at the movement of the Anain. And Aeglyss himself is there, not just the stain of his corruption, but his mind itself: reaching out. K’rina is at the centre of this. I know it.”