“The Northlanders march against the Elves,” he advised, dispensing with any preliminaries. “They say that the Dwarves are destroyed.”
“But you are not certain,” Bremen offered quietly, seated acros’ from him with Mareth at his side.
Kinson shook his head. “They drove the Dwarves back beyond the Ravenshorn, beat them at every turn. They say they smashed them at a place called Stedden Keep, but Raybur and Risca both appear to have escaped. Nor do they seem certain how many of the Dwarves they killed.” He arched one eyebrow. “Doesn’t sound like a resounding victory to me.”
Bremen nodded, thinking. “But the Warlock Lord grows restless with the pursuit. He feels no threat from the Dwarves, but fears the Elves. So he turns west.”
“How did you learn all this?” Mareth asked Kinson, obviously perplexed. “How could you have gotten so close? You couldn’t have let them see you.”
“Well, they saw me and they didn’t.” The Borderman smiled. “I was close enough to touch them, but they didn’t get a look at my face. They thought me one of them, you see. In near darkness, cloaked and hooded, hunched down a bit, you can appear as they do because they don’t expect you to be anything else. It’s an old trick, best practiced before you actually try it.” He gave her an appraising look. “You seem to have slept well in my absence.”
“All night,” she admitted ruefully. “Bremen let me do so. He didn’t wake me for my watch.”
“There was no need,” the other said quickly, brushing the matter aside. “But now we have today to worry about. We have come to another crossroads, I’m afraid. We shall have to separate Kinson, I want you to go into the Eastland and look for Risca. Find out the truth of things. If Raybur and the Dwarves are yet a fighting force, bring them west to stand with the Elves. Tell them we have a talisman that will destroy the Warlock Lord, but we will need their help in bringing him to bay.”
Kinson thought the matter over a moment, frowning. “I will do what I can, Bremen. But the Dwarves were relying on the Elves, and it appears that the Elves never came. I wonder how willing the Dwarves will be now to go to the aid of the Elves.”
Bremen gave him a steady look. “It is up to you to persuade them that they must. It is imperative, Kinson. Tell them that the Ballindarrochs were destroyed, and a new king was chosen. Tell them that is why the Elves were delayed. Remind them that the threat is to us all, not to any one.” He glanced briefly at Mareth, seated next to him, then back to the Borderman. “I must go on to the Hadeshorn to speak with the spirits of the dead about the sword. From there, I will travel west to the Elves to find the sword’s wielder. We will meet again there.”
“Where am I to go?” Mareth asked at once.
The old man hesitated. “Kinson may have greater need of you.”
“I don’t need anyone,” the Borderman objected at once. His dark eyes met the girl’s and then quickly lowered.
Mareth looked questioningly at Bremen. “I have done all I can for you,” he said quietly.
She seemed to understand what he was telling her. She smiled bravely and glanced at Kinson. “I would like to come with you, Kinson. Yours will be the longer journey, and maybe it will help if there are two of us to make it. You’re not afraid to have me along, are you?”
Kinson snorted. “Hardly. Just remember what Bremen told you about the staff. Maybe you can keep from setting fire to my backside.”
He regretted the words almost before he finished saying them.
“I didn’t mean that,” he said ruefully. “I’m sorry.”
She shook her head dismissively. “I know what you meant. There is nothing to apologize for. We are friends, Kinson. Friends understand each other.”
She smiled reassuringly, her gaze lingering on him, and he thought in that moment that maybe she was right, that maybe they were friends. But he found himself wondering at the same time if she didn’t mean something more.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Alone now, all those who had come with him from Paranor departed on journeys of their own, Bremen traveled north for the Hadeshorn. He went down onto the Plains of Rabb, easing his way through a midmorning haze as the sun lifted into the cloudless blue sky. He walked his horse slowly, angling east away from the departing Northland army, wary of encountering the scouts they would be dispatching and the stragglers they were sure to leave behind. He could hear the army in the distance, a rumbling of wagons and machines, a creaking of traces and stays, a hum of activity that rose out of the brume, disembodied and directionless. Bremen cloaked himself with his Druid magic so that he would not be seen even by chance, sorted through the maze of sounds to detect what threatened, and kept close watch over what moved in the blanket of mist.
Time slipped away, and the sun began to burn off the haze. The sounds of the departing army receded, moving west, away from where he rode, and Bremen relaxed his vigil. He could see the plains more clearly now, their parched, flat stretches of baked earth and burned-out grasses, their dusty sweep from the forests of the Anar to the Runne, trampled by the Northlanders, left littered and scarred. He rode through the army’s discards and leavings, through the debris that marked its passing, and he pondered on the ugliness and futility of war. He wore Urprox Screl’s sword strapped across his back, the weight of it his to bear now that Kinson was gone. He could feel it pressing against him as he rode, a constant reminder of the challenge he faced. He wondered at his insistence on assuming such responsibility. It would have been so much easier not to have done so. There was no particular reason why he should have taken on this burden. No one had forced him. No one had come to him and said that he must. The choice had been his, and he could not help but wonder this morning, as he rode toward the Dragon’s Teeth and the confrontation that waited, what perverse need had driven him to make it.
He found no water on the plains as midday approached, and so he went on without stopping. He dismounted and walked the horse for a time, hooding himself against the noon heat, the sun a brilliant white orb that burned down with pitiless insistence. He pondered the enormity of the danger that the people of the Four Lands faced. Like the land beneath the sun, they seemed so helpless. So much depended on things unknown—the sword’s magic, the sword’s wielder, the varied quests of the individual members of their little company, and the coming together of all of these at the right time and place. The undertaking was ludicrous when dissected and examined in its separate parts, fraught with the possibility of failure. Yet when considered as a whole, when looked at in terms of need measured against determination, failure was unthinkable.
With night’s fall, he camped on the open plains in a ravine where a small trickle of water and some sparse grass allowed the horse to gain nourishment. Bremen ate a little of the bread he still carried and drank from the aleskin. He watched the night sky offer up its display of stars and saw a quarter-moon on the rise crest the horizon south. He sat with the sword in his lap and pondered anew its use. He ran his fingers over the crest of the Eilt Drain, as if by doing so he might discover the secret of its magic. You will know what is required, the King of the Silver River had said. The hours slipped away as he sat thinking, the night about him still and at peace. The Northland army was too far away now to be heard, its fires too distant to be seen. The Rabb this night belonged to him, and it felt as if he were the only living person in all the world.
He rode on at dawn, making better time this day. The sky clouded across the sun, lessening the force of its heat. Dust rose from his horse’s hooves, small explosions that drifted and scattered in a soft west wind. Ahead, the country began to change, to turn green again where the Mermidon flowed down out of the Runne. Trees lifted from the flats, small stands that warded springs and tributaries of the larger river. By late afternoon, he had crossed at a wide shallows and was moving toward the wall of the Dragon’s Teeth. He could have stopped there and rested, but he chose to go on. Time was a harsh taskmaster and did not allow personal indulgence.