“Where shall we seek this foul sorcerer?” Allouette asked.
“Why, where you were bound ere they kidnapped you,” Quicksilver answered, “in the mist that spawns monsters! Come, let us find their trail.”
“Where?” Cordelia spread her hands. “We cannot know if they bore Allouette toward those mists, or far from their track.”
“We can,” said Quicksilver, “if we capture one and ask him.” She caressed her sword’s pommel. “Let us track these mountaineers, ladies, and while we journey, think of arguments that might persuade them to yield up what they know.”
Cordelia glanced at the sword hilt with a jaundiced eye. “We shall, if you leave the persuading to us.”
“But stand behind us as we ask,” Allouette said with a vindictive smile. “Our arguments may prove all the more effective for your presence.”
“So that it be our questions that be keen and not her sword,” Cordelia said quickly, then turned to scan the mountainside and point toward a stunted tree. “As memory serves, yonder they went.”
Quicksilver glanced at the ground and the tracks of running feet, and nodded. “Your memory serves you well.” She put fingers to her lips and blew a shrill whistle. A neighing answered them; two horses came trotting out of the trees.
Allouette stared. “How have I robbed you of your mounts during battle?”
“Because surprise was more important than being mounted,” Quicksilver explained, “and our horses would have drawn the mountaineers’ attention. You shall have to ride behind me, lady. Up and after them!”
“I could not impose so.” Allouette wasn’t at all happy about sharing a horse with a woman who had doubts about her, but told herself that surely it must be a good sign for Quicksilver to trust the former spy behind her back. Nonetheless, she frowned in concentration for a moment.
A whinny that was surely filled with relief answered her, then galloping hoofbeats, and her own horse came pounding across the grass to her.
“She lost track of me among the mountaineers’ scents,” Allouette explained, “and I am only now recovered enough to summon her.”
“Besides, you were somewhat distracted,” Quicksilver said drily. “Well, then, damsel, mount and ride.”
They set off uphill, and Allouette noticed with chagrin that the other women were careful to stay beside her, not letting her fall behind. She sighed and hoped it was out of concern for her wound.
After a few minutes, Allouette looked up at the sky with a frown.
“What troubles you?’ Quicksilver demanded.
“That we travel southeast,” Allouette said, “when the trail that I took with Gregory was northwest.”
Quicksilver frowned, musing. “There is sense in that, if the mountaineers came from the place where they ambushed you.”
“It is, is it not?” Allouette sighed. “Well, we must backtrack before we can turn and go forward again. I had hoped they had taken me back to their lair.”
“Perhaps they had,” Cordelia said, “but their lair lies near to where they ambushed you.”
“Then why would they have brought me here?”
The three women were silent, looking at one another and at the scenery around them, trying to puzzle out the question. Then Cordelia hazarded a guess. “Could they have been taking you to meet their master in the mists?”
“Likely enough,” Quicksilver snapped.
Allouette shuddered. “I must thank you even more for your kind rescue, damsels. I had rather not meet this Zonploka—nay, not until I know something more about him.”
“Wise,” Quicksilver acknowledged. “Well, let us follow their trail back to their lair if we must, and seize one who lags behind.”
They set off again.
An hour later they came to a meadow, but one most thoroughly torn up in its center. Allouette looked about her as though scenting the winds. “It was here! It was here they set upon us!”
Quicksilver looked about, nodding. “Close enough to the trees for cover but with open space in which to fight. Their chieftain’s not a complete fool, at least.”
“But where,” Cordelia asked, “are our men?”
The women looked about, puzzling over the matter. Then Quicksilver scowled at the ground and began to prowl the site of the skirmish. “There! ’Tis the mark of Geoffrey’s boot—I would know it anywhere!”
“Gregory’s should be much like it.” Cordelia came to stand beside her. “We have all the same cobbler . . . There!” She pointed. “There stood Gregory, and from the flattened grass he struck well . . .”
“But Geoffrey stepped here behind him,” Quicksilver said, “and struck another villain, like as not. A pox upon it! I can tell almost nothing from this fray!”
“The ground is too much chewed up,” Cordelia agreed.
“Let us seek at its edge, then.” Allouette began to prowl about the perimeter.
“A good thought.” Quicksilver came to join her.
“Here the mountaineers fled.” Cordelia pointed down at the ground. “ ’Tis a trampled mire save two whose prints are deeper, and therefore clear.”
“They must have been the ones who carried me!” Allouette scowled downward. “Smaller feet—here Gregory stood . . . but what mean these ovals in the grass?”
Quicksilver came to look. “Shins, lady. Your fiancé fell to his knees in his grief over your abduction.”
Allouette looked up at her, startled, then down again to keep the glow within her from showing in her face. “Do you truly think so?”
“I doubt it not,” Quicksilver assured her, then went back to prowling the edge of the morass. She stopped, pointing. “The heels are deeper. Cordelia, are these your fiancé’s boots?”
Cordelia came to look and nodded. “Even such does the royal cobbler fashion. But where is he going?”
“Hither and yon, I think,” Quicksilver said, exasperated, “and here are Geoffrey’s prints beside him. Let us trace their path.”
“Gregory rose and came this way.” Allouette stepped toward them, eyes on the ground. “Why, he came to join the others!”
“Now they all wander together,” said Quicksilver, and so did the three women, moving in a triangle toward the trees.
Following the prints, they went in among the leaves. It was harder to follow the trail in the flickering shadows, but they managed, tracing its twists and turns until . . .
“They have come back to the meadow!” Cordelia cried.
“Odd indeed,” Quicksilver said, frowning. “Even more, for they turn and go back in among the leaves.”
They followed the men’s footprints again. This time the winding route was longer, but its end was the same.
“The meadow again!” Quicksilver cried in exasperation. “Can they not keep their minds on one single point?”
Allouette said nothing, but her stomach sank, for the single point the men were presumably following was herself. The three were quiet for a few minutes, Allouette feeling her face set in the immobile mode that had hidden her feelings for so long, Quicksilver still prowling, scanning the ground as though the footprints could reveal the men’s thoughts, Cordelia scowling about her in deep thought. Allouette finally remembered to seek out Gregory’s thoughts, but she must not yet have recovered from the blow on the head, for she could find him nowhere. “Cordelia, would you seek for Gregory? I cannot yet hear with my mind.”
“I have,” Cordelia said, her scowl deepening, “and I find him not. ’Tis most perplexing.”
“But wherefore would he not . . .” Allouette bit off the cry.
“Follow you?” Quicksilver asked. “He would, lady. The lad is so besotted that he is a mooncalf studying to be a lap-pup. Be sure that if he lives, he seeks you.”
Allouette looked down again, but too late to hide her blush, or her smile. “But if he sought me, why did he not find me?”