By morning’s light Damien could see their eventual destination, a solid black wall that stretched as far as the eye could see to the east and the west of them, cutting short not only routes of travel but the very winds themselves. Weather systems rarely crossed the Black Ridge, he knew that from Geography 101, and the currents likewise tended to flow around it instead of across it. Which was in the long run what made the valley habitable, since the fae beyond that barrier was hot enough and wild enough that even sorcerers feared it.
And that’s where we’re headed, he thought, gazing at the snow-clad peaks. Not a happy thought.
From where they made their camp, Damien could see the pass itself, a place where the great ridge had folded in its making, creating a deep cleft through which men might travel without braving its heights. His stomach tightened at the thought of what might be waiting for them there, but he knew in his heart that there was no alternate route. Unlike the varied ranges of the east, the Black Ridge was an all-or-nothing climb for most of its length. And while they could push their horses hard along open ground and hope to make good time, Damien knew that if they tried to ride up there, where heat and oxygen were both in short supply, they would soon find themselves walking.
Nevertheless ... “No other way?” he asked Tarrant as the man dismounted. Hoping that there was some route he didn’t know about, which they could turn to.
“I’m afraid not,” the Hunter told him. And that was that. Because if there was any man Damien trusted to know the layout of this land, and to assess its hidden potential, it was the Hunter.
He watched as Tarrant drained the last of his canteen’s contents, and waited for him to say something about his need for further nourishment. But the Hunter offered no information, and he didn’t want to ask him about it. If he needed something more than he carried with him, surely he would tell Damien. The Hunter had never been shy about his needs.
I’ll feed him if I have to, he thought. Wondering even as he did so how he could do battle with Calesta’s troops with less blood in his own veins than he needed, or weakened by an endless assault of nightmares. Then he thought about the pass and what would be waiting for them there. Can you make me more afraid than 1 already am?
“Get some sleep,” Tarrant urged him. “Tomorrow will be a hard day.”
Sleep. Could you sleep in the shadow of such a threat, pretending that it was just another day? When the wind grew quiet, he imagined he could hear men’s voices in the distance, as Calesta used the daylight hours to prepare for combat. How many local warriors had he gathered there, how had he prepared them for the battle to come? Did they think they were fighting demons, or some other faeborn threat? What manner of illusion served them in the place of courage, that would keep them fighting long after every human instinct cried, Enough!
Shivering, he laid his head down on his pack and tried to sleep. Wondering if somewhere in between the nightmares that awaited him he might not find five or ten minutes of genuine rest, so that he could be fresh and ready at sunset.
Twenty-three days left.
32
It took the Church’s faithful five days to reach Kale. They followed the path that regional planners had laid out centuries ago, when they first came to understand that in order to travel freely across the continent man would need protection from the night and its demons at regular intervals. The daes—small fortress-inns, solidly walled and carefully warded—punctuated the road at planned intervals, and their facilities, designed to accommodate massive trade caravans when necessary, were not hard pressed to provide room and board for the small band of warriors and their horses.
Eighty-seven men and women. Not all of those would be going into the Forest, of course; there were a handful who would be assigned liaison duties in Mordreth, and at least a dozen more who would man a supporting camp just outside the Forest’s borders, to guarantee their supply line should the conflict become an extended one. Several hundred more were already in place at the edge of that damned realm, stripping the land of all that could burn against the day when the Church’s final weapon would be wielded, and the Forbidden Forest would pass into history. It was a small force even in its total, a deliberate contrast to the vast armies which had assaulted that realm in ages past. Those armies had failed, the Patriarch was quick to remind them. Numbers alone could not guarantee safety in a war where the very battlefield was alive and hostile. So this time they would field not an army proper, but a finely honed strike force, who would pierce the Forest quickly, strike its blow, and then—hopefully—get out.
The Hunter’s realm, going up in flames. Andrys dreamed of it daily, savoring the vision as his mount carried him closer and closer to its fulfillment. The image sustained him when all else seemed about to fall apart, when the strength he feigned and the courage he pretended to possess seemed more of a lie than ever. The heat of that fire fed him with life, and with hope, and gave him the strength to go on.
His companions were strangers to him. He walked among them, he ate dinner in their company, but they might have been from another planet for all he understood them. It was the religious thing, of course. Like all the Tarrants, Andrys had been raised to serve the One God, in word and deed if not in spirit, and he had been to services often enough for weddings and the like to be able to mouth the common prayers along with his fellows. But it meant little to him. These people were different. They were marching north to fight, perhaps to die, all in the name of a God so divorced from human affairs that they never even dreamed He would help them. Why? Between their motives and his comprehension was a chasm so vast, so darkly infinite, that all the well-intended prayers in the world could not begin to bridge it.
Faith. It meant nothing to him. Faith was a fantasy, a delusion. Faith was like"wine: you poured it inside you and for a brief time it blossomed, it eased the pain of living, it banished the guilt that tended to clog up a man’s head. And then it was gone, like wine: digested, expelled, forgotten. What was the point?
Did anyone really believe the One God was out there? Did anyone believe that He cared the least bit whether this venture of theirs succeeded? Did they honestly believe that a caring God would let a creature like the Hunter exist in the first place, much less reward his lifestyle with virtual immortality?
Maybe the pagans have it right, he thought bitterly. Envying his polytheistic brethren for the comforting simplicity of their faith. Do good or evil, and the world responds in kind. Maybe not the way you would have liked, maybe not in a way you even understand, but at least the relationship is there. That, he could relate to. This ... this was a total mystery to him.
Perhaps if he could just be alone for a short while he could come to terms with it all. But there was little privacy in this new world of his. His days were spent riding with the troops, the Patriarch of the Eastern Autarchy on his right and the Company Commander, a woman named Tabra Zefila, on his left. Sandwiched in by authority like that, he felt self-conscious even sneezing; God alone knew what would happen if a muttered curse should escape his lips when his horse stumbled. At night he ate with the common troops, while the two leaders withdrew to converse in private. An alien in their midst, he rarely joined in their conversation. When it came time to retire, he joined his fellow men in a room prepared for merchant guards, six bunks to a room with a common bath. Never alone. Sometimes he felt so desperate for privacy that he wanted to scream. It wasn’t just because he needed a drink so badly, so often; after dinner there was enough ale and enough wine making the rounds that he could sate his thirst without being conspicuous. In the past he’d had to hide his drunkenness in front of Samiel and Betrise so often that the skill was now second nature to him; he could drink himself to the borders of oblivion and still walk steadily to his room, even climb up to his bunk as if nothing were wrong. No, that wasn’t the problem. And it had nothing to do with the drugs he had brought with him, a last desperate gambit in case the journey proved too much for him. He hadn’t needed them yet, and if he did, he could always swallow a pill quickly in the bathroom and get back to bed before it took effect. No, that wasn’t it either.