“Aye, tough as they come. That leg …”
“You would never know that at this time yesterday she could hardly take a drink on her own.”
“When we’re falling down with exhaustion, she’ll be leaving us behind. Shaming us.”
“She’s leaving us already,” Sellis pointed out. “We should catch up. This loose slope could be treacherous, and if she should lose her balance …”
“Bad leg or no, she looks steady. If we fall trying to keep up with her, I’ll laugh.”
“Laugh through the pain, you mean.”
“Aye, for certain. It’s a long way to the bottom.”
Long way or not, they made it without incident. Hiking across the valley floor was indeed easier, and after the long, steep descent, she was ready for easy. The ground was firm and even, the rocks big enough to be seen and avoided but not so large that they required major detours to skirt. Between the rocks and scrubby brush, cactus, and occasional patches of tall, brownish grass, they could see about halfway across the valley.
They made steady progress. Here they wished again for kanks, as those huge insects could cover this sort of territory at a rapid pace. The sun pounded down upon them as it moved through the sky. On the hillside, cooling breezes had blown over them, but here in the valley no such relief presented itself. As they walked, even the shade seemed to dry up; at the valley’s fringes, runoff from the hills, during whatever infrequent rains came, nourished the plant life, but toward the valley’s center that tapered off until the plain became nothing but a hard, flaked crust of earth with rocks sitting on top.
A little more than three quarters of the way across, Sellis drew up short and pointed to what appeared to be a jumble of boulders off to the south. “I don’t like that,” he said.
“They’re just rocks, no?” Myrana asked.
“I’m not so certain.”
Koyt eyed the boulders, shielding his brow against the slanting sun. “There’s a fire pit in front,” he said. “Not burning now, but it’s there.”
Myrana narrowed her eyes and peered at it. Koyt was right. Beyond the pit, a slanted boulder leaned on two others, and a dark hole might have been an opening into a cleverly disguised home. “Do you think someone lives there?”
“A hermit, perhaps,” Sellis said. “I would expect any living in this valley to be closer to that spring, but it’s less than an hour away, perhaps well less.”
“Should we hail him?” Myrana asked. Any member of a trading caravan had some experience with hermits, or good or for ill. Some of them sought out interaction with travelers passing through, while others guarded their solitude with fierce determination.
“If he’s there—or she, I’ve encountered more than one female hermit—then he knows we’re here.”
“Many I’ve seen are mad,” Myrana said. “And men are more likely than women to go mad, aren’t they?”
“I don’t know about that,” Koyt said.
“Maybe it has to do with how that madness is exhibited,” Sellis offered. “I’ve certainly run across some madwomen, too, but they seem to favor city life. It takes a special kind of insanity to make someone want to live alone like this, so far from everything.”
“I don’t like it,” Myrana said. “Let’s keep going.”
They moved on, uneasy now. The nape of Myrana’s neck tickled. Is someone watching us? she wondered. She, Sellis and Koyt marched forward, not talking, each lost in thoughts or worries.
“Kalipher warned you!” a voice screeched. The speaker stood atop a boulder just ahead of them and to the east, perhaps forty paces from the travelers. They stopped. Sellis whisked his swords from their scabbards and Koyt snatched his bow from his shoulder and an arrow from its quiver in one smooth motion.
“Warned us of what, old man?” Sellis demanded. “And who’s Kalipher? We’ve never seen you before, nor heard that name.”
“Kalipher stands before you, and Kalipher warned you to keep out of his valley!” The hermit wore a long, gray robe—although, Myrana noted, it might not always have been gray, as it appeared to have been patched from time to time but never washed—and a cap of the same color that fit snugly across his brow but hung down past his shoulder, its end resting on his chest. His thin arms were spread wide, as were his bare feet. He had a long beard that had, if anything, received even less care over the past decade than the robe. The distance was too great to see all the detail, but Myrana thought there were twigs snarled in its tangled mess, and perhaps insects and small rodents as well.
“You warned us of nothing,” she replied. “And we had no idea this was your valley. Why would you need all this land?”
“Never you mind that, girl. Mayhap t’were not you, after all. Kalipher would have remembered a cripple. But you are intruders, the lot of you, and Kalipher don’t like intruders. Not one bit.”
“We’re only passing through,” Koyt assured the hermit. “We’ll be gone in no time.”
“After you have made liberal use of his spring, Kalipher has no doubt!”
“We had thought to drink from it, but surely the three of us can’t deplete such a rich spring.”
“Lies gush from your mouth as blood from a split skull! You’ve no idea how rich it is, unless you have been here before!”
“We could see the band of greenery around it,” Sellis said. “From yon hills. To me that indicates a healthy flow.”
“We seek no trouble, Kalipher,” Myrana said. The hermit appeared every bit as mad as she had feared. “We want only to cross the valley in peace, perhaps taste of the spring’s fresh water, and leave you alone.”
“Mayhap you seek no trouble, cripple, but trouble you’ve found!” He clapped his hands together, performed a gesture, shouted some words Myrana didn’t understand. When he showed his palms again, a blast of intense heat blew toward the travelers.
A patch of sparse grass near Myrana’s feet burst into flames. So did the edge of her sarami. She slapped out the fire, but Kalipher was already sending another blast their way.
Koyt loosed his arrow at the hermit. Before it had covered half the distance, the hermit flicked his fingers at it and the arrow caught fire. It sailed on for another instant as a burning arrow, then charred into ash, lost its momentum, and drifted harmlessly to the ground.
“Take cover!” Sellis said.
Her pains and weariness forgotten, Myrana darted for the shelter of the nearest large rock. Kalipher shot another bolt of heat her way. It missed, and there wasn’t much around to burn, but a stray twig caught fire. Then she was behind the rock, breathing hard, wondering how to battle an opponent who couldn’t be touched.
Koyt ducked behind a different rock, and Sellis sought shelter behind a fallen length of tree that had been there so long it had petrified. Koyt drew three arrows from his quiver, nocked the first, and fired it. In less than a heartbeat, he fired the second and then the third, the bowstring twanging so quickly that one sound still lingered on the air when the next drowned it out.
None of the three found their mark; Kalipher crisped them all mid-flight.
“Stones!” Myrana cried. “He can’t burn stones!” She selected a good-sized one and hurled it at the hermit. It sailed true, but fell short. Sellis picked up a larger, flat stone and side-armed it as one might a discus. Kalipher tried to deter it with his fiery blast, but it hurtled through, striking him in the ribs. He lost his balance and toppled from the boulder.
While he was on the ground, Koyt fired another arrow. This one got closer before burning up.
“Save your shafts!” Sellis called. “We’ll doubtless need more before we’re home again!”