“They found our trail,” Kian growled. His dark, square face furrowed as he sank down next to the Highlander and mopped his brow. “They’re coming.”
He would not look at Quentin. No one would these days. No one wanted to see what was in his eyes. Not since they found him in the ruins of Castledown. Not since they heard what became of Ard Patrinell.
Quentin understood. He did not feel right about himself anymore either. Everything seemed out of joint.
He handed the Elven Hunter what was left of his bread and cheese and stared down in frustration. They were sitting on a rugged slope that had the look of a hunched-over Koden, all bristle-backed with conifers and jagged rocks. Forty-eight hours of running had brought them here—frantic hours spent trying to throw off their pursuers. Nothing had worked, and now, finally, they had been run to earth.
From the beginning, when Quentin, Panax, Kian, Obat, and a dozen Rindge had remained behind to slow down the hunt for the tribe, things had gone wrong. As a group, they possessed a lifetime of knowledge of hunting and tracking in wilderness terrain, and each knew a dozen tricks that would slow or stop anyone trying to follow them. They had employed them all. They had started with simple devices intended to create dozens of false trails that would take a hunting dog hours to unravel. But the beasts the rets were using to track them were far superior to dogs, and they separated the real trail from the false with uncanny quickness, coming after Quentin’s group almost before they could make their escape. The Rindge next used extracts from plants to create strong scents that would throw off the creatures. That didn’t work either. Kian and Panax led them into streams and even one river, using the water to hide their passage, but the tracking beasts found them again anyway.
In desperation, Obat lured them into a narrow ravine and set fire to the whole of the woods leading up, a strong wind blowing the fire right back down into the faces of the rets. The fire was intended not only to drive their pursuers back, but to obliterate their tracks and scent, as well. That bought them several hours, but in the end the rets and their beasts found them anyway.
Finally, in desperation, Quentin and his companions set an ambush, thinking to kill or disable the tracking beasts. The ambush caught the rets by surprise, and a handful were killed by bows and arrows and blowguns before the remainder had a chance to take cover. The tracking beasts were struck, too, but the projectiles seemed to have almost no effect on them. They shrugged off the barbs as if they were nothing more than bee stings and came after their attackers with astonishing fury. Loosed from their chains, they turned into a pack of savage killers. Quentin had been involved in many hunts over the years, but he had never seen anything like this. The tracking beasts, at least eight of them, had charged through the scrub and over the rocks like maddened wolves, voiceless monsters that vaguely resembled humans evolved into something bigger and more terrible than the gray wolves that hunted the Black Oaks east of Leah.
Having no other choice, Quentin and his companions stood their ground and fought back. But before anyone could prevent it, three of the Rindge were dead, the beasts covered in their blood. They might have all been killed but for the Sword of Leah, which lit up like a torch, the magic surging down its length in a streak of blue fire. That was when Quentin realized that these beasts had been created out of magic, and that it would take magic to stop them. He killed two of them in a flurry of shrieks and severed limbs before the rest fell back, not defeated or cowed, but wary now of the power of the sword and uncertain whether or not they were meant to continue.
Their hesitation allowed Quentin and his companions to escape, but use of the sword marked them, as well; it alerted their hunters that at least one among the pursued possessed magic, and that hardened their determination to continue the pursuit. Airships appeared in the skies overhead, and fresh units of Mwellrets and trackers were lowered to the ground to join those already gathered. Quentin couldn’t tell how many there were, but it was more than enough to overpower him should he choose to stand and fight again. He couldn’t be certain whom the rets thought they were tracking, but it was clear that they were serious about finding out.
The chase wore on through that first day and all through the second, with the Rindge working their way deeper into the Aleuthra Ark, higher into the rugged peaks, following a trail they knew would eventually take them over the mountains and into the broader grasslands beyond. Quentin was beginning to wonder what good that would do. If their pursuers were this determined, they would be caught sooner or later whether they fled over the mountains or not. If they were to escape, a more permanent solution had to be found, and it had to be found quickly because the women and children that comprised the bulk of the fugitives were tiring.
Quentin was tiring, as well, not so much physically as emotionally. He had lost something in his battle with the Ard Patrinell wronk—something of the fire that had driven him earlier, something of heart and purpose—so that now he felt more a shell than a whole person. With so many of the company dead and all the rest scattered and lost, his focus had become blurred. He was helping the Rindge because they needed it and because he didn’t know what else to do. It gave him direction, but not passion. He had lost too much to find that again without a dramatic shift in his fortunes.
He didn’t think Panax and Kian were much better off, although they seemed more hardened than he was, more accustomed to the idea of going on alone. Quentin was too young yet, unprepared to have experienced the kind of losses he had just endured, and the losses were affecting him more dramatically. At times, he collapsed inside completely. He saw Tamis again, covered in blood and dying. He saw Ard Patrinell’s head, encased in metal and glass, an instant before he smashed it apart. He saw Bek, the way he remembered him in the Highlands, such a long time ago.
He was haunted and worn and disillusioned, and he could feel himself slipping notch by notch. He cried because he couldn’t help himself, trying to mask his tears, to hide his weakness. Chills racked him in bright sunshine. Dark dreams haunted his sleep—dreams of what hunted him, of what awaited him, of fate and prophecy. He awoke shaking and afraid and went back to sleep cold and empty.
But he was also the best chance the others had of staying alive, and he was painfully aware of the fact. Without the magic of the Sword of Leah, they had no answer for the magic of the things that pursued them. Quentin might be slipping off the edge, but he could not afford to let go.
“How much time do we have?” he asked Kian after a moment.
The Elf shrugged. “The Rindge will try to slow them down, but won’t succeed. So, maybe an hour, a little more.”
Quentin closed his eyes. They needed help. They needed a miracle. He didn’t think he could give it to them. He didn’t know who could.
Kian finished the bread and cheese, took a drink from his water skin, and stood. He was coated with dust and debris, and his clothes were torn and streaked with blood. He was a mirror image of Quentin. They were refugees in need of a bath and some real sleep, and they were unlikely to get either anytime soon.
“We’d better get them up and moving,” Kian said.
They went back up the trail to where the Rindge waited. Using gestures and the few Rindge words they had picked up, they got the tribe back on its feet and trudging ahead once more. The Rindge were a dispirited group, not so much because of their weariness as because nothing the men had tried had worked and time was running out. Still, they kept on without complaint, the very young and old, the women and children, all helping one another where help was needed, a people dispossessed from their home of centuries, driven out by forces over which they had no control. They were demonstrating a resolve that Quentin found surprising and heartening, and he took what strength he could from them.