“No,” Ollie said. “You’ll sit down and eat. It won’t take but just a few minutes, and it’ll do you a world of good. It’s ready, just hang on there.”
“You heard her,” Buck said. “No use arguing. I’ve learned that one thing at least in the last twenty years. What can I do to help you?”
“I could use some supplies, food mainly. And I need a better saddle for Lilly.”
“We haven’t got much, but I can get you some fresh bread, if that’ll help.”
“That would be great,” Zollin said.
Ollie quickly brought him a bowl of porridge, with a few bits of meat stirred into it, along with a hunk of warm bread.
“I’m sorry, I’m low on butter at the moment,” Ollie said.
“This is more than fine,” Zollin said, his mouth full of food. “It’s delicious, thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Things took a turn for the better after you healed folks last time you were here. People began believing that some good was coming their way again. The army pulled out a week or so ago and we’ve been able to trade for the supplies we needed. There’s men driving up some sheep and pigs that will get us through the winter. We’ll be okay as long as the Skellmarians don’t come back.”
“I doubt they will,” Zollin said. “We ran into them on our way north. It turned out for the best. I think we convinced them not to raid anymore, at least for a while.”
“I don’t see how anyone can reason with those savages, but if you’re right we owe you another debt of gratitude.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” Zollin said.
“Well, that may be so,” Buck said, coming back in from outside as Zollin finished the last of his breakfast, “but I tied a small keg of ale to your horse anyway. Now, before you thank me, just keep in mind it’s the first batch I’ve brewed since we started rebuilding. It might be a bit sharp, but there’s no time to age it, and it’ll be better than water.”
“Thank you,” Zollin said as he stood up.
“You go find that girl of yours,” Ollie said.
“And tell your father to come see us, when you see him, that is,” Buck added.
“I will. Thank you both.”
Zollin hurried outside and found that Buck had saddled Lilly and tied a small keg of ale behind the saddle and a bag of small loaves of bread to the saddle horn. He swung up onto Lilly’s back and set off through the village.
People were peeking out at him from behind closed shutters, but none tried to stop him. Zollin was flooded with memories as he rode out of the village. It seemed like ages ago when he and Brianna had taken this same path, only then it had been through the snow. They had fought that day and Zollin regretted it. That had been before he had been willing to admit how Brianna made him feel, before they had fallen in love. He wished he had followed his heart sooner so that they could have had more time together, but he couldn’t change the past.
He saw that there were still some tents around Kelvich’s old cottage. Many of the trees that had once surrounded the small home had been cut down and milled using the big saw that Quinn had set up behind the cottage. Zollin had learned to control his magic in that cottage, and he felt his heart swell as he thought of Kelvich. He missed his old mentor and wished the old sorcerer was there to tell him everything was going to be okay. This was really the first time Zollin had been on his own in his whole life, and while he knew he could manage, he discovered that he didn’t care for solitude. He missed Brianna most of all, but also Kelvich and Quinn, even Mansel. He wondered how Quinn and Mansel were doing returning Prince Wilam to Yelsia. He wished for a minute that he had gone with them. He would like to see the southern kingdoms, but that would have to wait. Summer was almost over and soon it would be too cold to travel.
As he rode into the mountains on Telford Pass the sky was covered with clouds. He knew it would rain before too long, not by any supernatural sense, but because that was the way his luck had been running lately. He repacked his extra clothes so that they wouldn’t get wet and then kept riding.
It was late evening when the rain started. The rain was cold, and even though Zollin was exhausted, he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep. He dismounted and led Lilly through the pass in almost total darkness. The rain fell hard and soaked his clothes in a matter of minutes. Zollin shivered as he walked, occasionally kindling a flame with his magic. The fire would sputter and hiss in the rain, and then Zollin would let it go out. His body ached with cold and fatigue. Lilly walked with her nose almost touching the ground. The sun was just beginning to rise when the rain stopped falling, but it still ran down the sides of the mountain and turned sections of the trail into streams of water. They continued walking, hoping that the sun would appear to dry them and give a little warmth to their frigid bodies, but the sky was full of clouds that threatened to dump even more rain on them. By noon, Zollin couldn’t go any further. He ate a little bread, but it, too, was wet and tasted gummy in his mouth. He tapped the small keg that Buck had given him and sampled the ale. It was a little sour, but it warmed him up a bit, and soon he was asleep on the wet ground.
Lilly’s frantic neighing woke Zollin up. There wasn’t much light left, but he could see the big mountain lion that was slinking toward them. Zollin had tied Lilly’s reins to his own ankle so that she wouldn’t wander off while he slept. If she had, the lion might have killed and eaten Zollin before he woke up and realized the danger.
He got to his feet quickly and let his magic flow out. He could sense the mountain lion he had seen in the twilight gloom, but that beast was only a distraction from the real danger: there was another cat much closer, its body tense as it prepared to leap down on them from a short cliff. Zollin brought up his defenses just as the lion jumped. The weight of the lion was tremendous, but Zollin’s magic was churned into a frenzy by his fear. He flung the lion away as the other cat sprang toward them.
“Blast!” Zollin shouted, sending a wave of crackling, blue energy directly toward the lion. It hit the cat in the face and the animal’s body locked up, its muscles spasming from the shock. Then it collapsed dead on the trail.
Zollin turned his attention back to the other lion that was now charging back toward him. He sent out another wave of energy, but directed this one into the ground just in front of the lion, and it spun around and bounded away in fear. Then Zollin sagged against Lilly. The horse was still frightened, her large eyes looking around so wildly that the whites showed.
“There, there, girl. It’s okay,” he told her. “We’re all right. Those lions won’t bother us anymore.”
Zollin walked over to the dead mountain lion and looked at it. There were dark burns across its face, the huge fangs blackened and sooty. He pulled out his dagger and cut a large hunk out of the lion’s thick haunch.
“I wonder what roasted lion tastes like,” Zollin said to Lilly.
He led the skittish horse a couple miles down the trail and then stripped off his wet clothes. He laid them on the rocks and pulled on his dry clothes. They felt good on his cold, clammy skin. Then he picked up the raw lion meat and sent his magic into it, cooking the meat from the inside out. It took only moments, and then he was able to eat the lion meat. It was stringy and tough, a little like the elk meat he and Brianna had eaten in the northern range of mountains, only gamier. Still, it was hot and filling. Zollin felt bad because he had nothing to feed Lilly. There was almost no vegetation in the mountains, and the villagers at Brighton’s Gate couldn’t spare any oats for Lilly. He drank some more ale and dried a spot on the ground, then went back to sleep, keeping Lilly tied to his boot.
He woke up just before dawn and continued his journey. It took them two more days of hard travel to get through Telford Pass. Zollin was temped to stop and see Jute and the other dwarves of the Yel clan, but he had no reason to. He needed to find out where the dragon had gone after leaving the southern range of mountains. They stayed on the road that led them through Peddingar Forrest. Once again, Zollin saw lights and strange noises as night fell, but then the rain started again, and it was all Zollin could do to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Around midnight he crawled under the thick limbs of a massive fir tree. It wasn’t completely dry under the tree, but it wasn’t soaking wet either. And the soft fir needles were a nice change from the rocky ground in Telford Pass.