"Think so—" Thero shifted uneasily, wiping at his damp beard. "Not 'ertain. So much confused, nightmares, voices! "don't dare, A'ek, I don't dare!"
"You mean you haven't even tried?" Alec grasped
Thero's arms, bringing the bands in front of his face.
"You've got to try something, anything. For all we know these may just be a trick, something to cloud your mind."
Thero shrank back, shaking his head desperately.
"You have to," Alec insisted, feeling his own desperation creeping back. "We've got to get away from Mardus. There's a lot you don't know, but believe me, Nysander would want you to help me. If you want to make things right, then you've got to at least try!"
"'ander?" Thero's chest heaved as he looked distractedly around the cabin, as if he expected to find Nysander there. " 'ander?"
Sensing a chink in whatever madness held Thero, Alec nodded encouragingly. "Yes, Thero, Nysander. Concentrate on him, his kindness, Thero, all the years you spent with him in the east tower. For the sake of the faith he placed in you, you've got to at least try. Please."
Thero twisted the edge of the blanket in his fists as tears rolled from his mad eyes. "P'rhaps," he whispered faintly, "p'rhaps—"
"Just something very small," Alec urged. "One of those little spells. What are they called?"
Thero nodded slowly, still twisting the blanket. " 'an'rips."
"That's right. Cantrips! Just a simple one, a tiny little cantrip."
Trembling visibly, Thero half closed his eyes in preparation for the spell but suddenly looked up again. "You 'aid there's some'ing I 'on't know," he asked with a sudden flash of his customary sharpness. "What? I's his 'sistant; why didn't he tell me?"
"I don't know," Alec confessed, getting the gist of Thero's question. "He told us—told me so little I'm not even sure what it's all about. But he swore me to secrecy. I shouldn't have said anything at all, I guess. Maybe later, when we're out of this—"
Alec trailed off, suddenly wary. Thero was watching him intently, hanging on every word. "We'll talk about it later, all right? Please, try the spell now."
"'ell me first! Could 'elp!" Thero insisted, and this time there was no mistaking the feral intelligence in his eyes.
"No," Alec said, slowly moving away, though there was nowhere to go. "I can't tell you."
He tensed for some attack, but instead Thero slumped over sideways on the bunk like a discarded puppet.
The cabin door opened behind him and Alec felt a wave of terrible coldness roll into the room.
Whirling in alarm, he confronted a walking horror.
It took a moment to see that the wizened husk had once been a woman. Lively blue eyes regarded him slyly from the masklike ruin of her face.
"That is most ungrateful of you, boy," she rasped, the cracked remnants of her lips curling back to reveal uneven yellow teeth, "but I think that you will tell me."
37
Stretched prone on the crest of the hill, Beka and Sergeant Braknil shielded their eyes from the drizzle and surveyed the little village below. There were large granaries and warehouses there, the walls of which still had the pale gleam of new wood.
Empty wagons of all descriptions stood near a sizable corral. All this, coupled with the cavalry troop billeted just outside the wooden palisade, added up to one thing: a supply depot.
"Looks like you were right, Lieutenant!" Braknil whispered, grinning wolfishly through his beard.
Satisfied with their reconnaissance, they made their way cautiously back to the oak grove where the rest of the turma was waiting.
"What's the word?" asked Rhylin.
"We found Commander Klia's adders," Braknil told him.
"A good nest of them, too," said Beka. "But only one nest, and it took us four days to do it. From the looks of it, I'd say it's just one link in a supply chain."
"You think we should look farther before we go back?" asked Corporal Kallas. He was still mourning his brother and had the look of a man who'd welcome a fight.
Beka looked around at their dirty, hopeful faces. The depot was an important emplacement, enough of a find to go back with now that their food was running low and the weather had turned foul.
Her leg ached dully as she shifted her weight.
The gash in her thigh had festered just enough to kindle a fever. Though it broke her sleep at night with confused dreams, it seemed to sharpen her wits during the day, as fevers sometimes did.
"We'll circle wide and see if we can learn where the wagons are coming from," she said at last.
For two days they followed the supply route as it wound south into the steeper country above the head of the Plenimaran isthmus. Beka kept her riders well up in the wooded hills, sending scouts ahead and behind as they went. They spotted two separate wagon trains heading west, but both were too heavily guarded to attack.
Their seventh day out dawned cold and foggy. Reining her horse to the side of the steep track, Beka watched as the remains of her turma rode past; the fog made it difficult to see more than thirty feet in any direction and she couldn't afford to lose any stragglers. The uncertain light and muffling effect of the mist lent the riders a ghostly, insubstantial look.
They all rode with growling bellies. Their food was nearly gone and game was scarce. With the rain and the plentiful mountain springs they had water enough, but hunger soon took the edge off a soldier's strength. It would probably be wisest to turn back today.
Just as she was about to call a halt, however, Braknil materialized out of the fog and cantered over to her.
"The scouts found a way station ahead, Lieutenant. They report four big wagons unhitched there and only a handful of guards," he informed Beka quietly, then added with a knowing wink, "Quite a manageable gathering, I'd say. Especially in this weather, if you take my meaning."
"I believe I do, Sergeant."
Leaving Rhylin in command, she followed Braknil to a stone outcropping where Mirn was waiting with several horses.
"You can see it from just around the next bend in the trail," he told them, his face flushed and eager beneath his shock of pale hair. Mirn had always reminded Beka a bit of Alec, though a taller, more muscular version.
Proceeding on foot, they found Steb keeping watch.
"You can see better now," he told them, pointing down a gap. "This breeze that's coming up should clear it off before long."
From where they stood, Beka could see a road winding through the narrow cleft of a pass. There was a way station there, an old tumble-down log building, but the stable and large corral next to it were sturdy and new.
Rocky slopes rose steeply on both sides of the road, making it the only passable route of attack or escape.
"I've been watching the place," Steb told them. "I'd say there's no more than two dozen soldiers and a few wagoneers down there. Nobody's ridden in or out since we found the place an hour ago."
Judging by the activity in the yard, Beka guessed the wagoneers were getting ready to move out, though neither they nor their military escort seemed in any particular hurry. Many still lounged around the station door with trenchers and mugs. The breeze coming up the pass carried the tantalizing aroma of breakfast fires.
She studied the fog still shrouding the road leading up to the station. "If we move fast, we might get within two hundred yards of the enemy before they catch a good look at us."
"And if we circle by this trail and come in on the road from the east, chances are they'll think we're friendly forces anyway," whispered Braknil.
"Good idea. The Plenimaran cavalry columns travel at a canter in ranks of four. We'll line up in the same formation. Put anyone who's riding with Plenimaran tack in front in case they recognize the jingle of the harness."