Aurian did not wait for the boats to bring her ashore. Plunging from the bows of the ship with a joyous cry, she swam ashore with powerful strokes and engulfed Vannor in a hard—and very wet—embrace. Then, laying a gentle hand on the merchant’s arm, she looked down steadily at the mangled stump, and then back up into his eyes. “We’ll make them pay for that, you and I,” she said softly. “No matter how much they try to hurt us, they can never beat us down.”
In her demeanor there was no trace of the pity that the merchant had so dreaded: only a depth of sympathy and a steely determination to set the matter right in whatever way she could. Vannor suddenly thought of the night that Forral had been slain, and remembered what Parric had told him of Miathan’s curse upon the Mage’s son. Aurian’s understanding of his plight went far beyond any useless pity. Vannor swallowed the lump in his throat, and hugged her again. “Too bloody right, they can’t!” he muttered.
The next few days were busy ones for Aurian. Now that she had returned, she wanted to put her search for the Sword in motion, and she had no time to waste. Thanks to the generosity of the Nightrunners and Remana’s careful and efficient organization of supplies, she quickly arranged for the provisioning of her little band during the crossing of the moors. With Vannor, however, she had less success. He insisted on joining her, and would not be dissuaded. “I’m fine now,” he argued. “Getting my strength back by the day, and Parric is teaching me to fight left-handed. I wouldn’t be a burden to you.” From the tacit plea in his voice, she knew that was his greatest fear, now that he had lost his hand.
As Anvar—who had been spending a good deal of time improving his acquaintance with the older man, much to their mutual pleasure—pointed out to the Mage, there was more at stake than Vannor’s safety. He needed desperately to prove himself.
“He’s more upset about Wolf, too, than he’ll ever let you know,” Anvar added quietly. “And not just because Miathan’s curse has caused you so much heartache. Vannor wants to strike a blow at the Archmage, for what he did to Forral’s son.”
Sighing, Aurian gave in. She had always put up a brave front when it came to the matter of her child—only Anvar, of all her companions, knew what it had cost her to abandon him to the care of the wolves, who were so much better fitted to be his parents while he took this nonhuman form. Vannor had been far more perceptive than she had realized—who was she to deny him his chance at revenge? She only prayed that she had made the right decision, though Parric consoled her greatly by promising never to leave the merchant’s side. After that, of course, Zanna wanted to come, too—but this time the Mage put her foot down firmly, as did the girl’s father. “What?” Aurian teased Vannor afterward. “You want to stop her from being as big a fool as yourself?”
Though Yanis, Tarnal, and a dozen other smugglers volunteered to join her, Aurian reasoned that if the Sword was truly in the Vale, her success in finding it would not depend on numbers. Her Xandim were enough for her—and, besides, if things should go wrong, it was vital that some of Miathan’s opponents should survive. Besides, she particularly wanted Tarnal to stay behind, as he was clearly the best person to console Zanna, and to forestall any brave but foolish notions on her part of following her father into danger, as she had done before.
Parric and Sangra, with their greater military experience, were anxious to know what the next stage of the campaign would be, once Aurian had claimed the Sword of Flame, but the Mage was unable to answer their repeated queries. “Until I actually have the Sword, I can’t gauge the extent of its powers,” she told them. “I would guess that we’ll unite with the rebels in the Vale, and then come up with some kind of plan for marching on Nexis.”
“Will your rebels consent to fight with us, once they have learned the secret of the Xandim?” Schiannath asked. “Or will fear and suspicion prevent them? So far, we have kept our true natures hidden from these Nightrunners—but how much longer will we be able to do that?”
“Parric and the Mages will convince them—surely.” Chiamh put in hopefully. “At least, in these lands, the folk are no strangers to magic.”
“Schiannath could be right, though.” Anvar frowned. “They may be familiar with magic, but under the Archmage’s rule, they have no reason to love it.”
“If you let me take a force of Nightrunners to sail ,upriver, we can break into the city from the sewers,” Parric volunteered. “That way, while you attack the outer walls, we can already have men—Mortal fighters—inside the city.”
“I had hoped to avoid that kind of battle,” Aurian sighed.
“You may be right, though. If the Sword is so powerful that Anvar and I can’t overcome the Archmage without incurring the appalling magical destruction that took place during the Cataclysm, then we may be reduced to the efforts of our Mortal friends.”
Vannor, always an important and respected contributor to these discussions, looked at her long and hard. “It’s their world, too, Aurian,” he said quietly.
Aurian nodded her acceptance of his rebuke. For the moment, she was too ashamed to speak. She could only thank the gods that she had these good companions, who would always prevent her from falling into the arrogance and error that had been the curse of her forebears. She held out her hand to him in mute apology, and he grasped it with a smile.
“I know, lass—you didn’t mean it the way it came out,” he reassured her.
Though she was comforted by her old friend’s words, Aurian didn’t cease to worry. With so many uncertainties before her, and so much potentially lethal power at her disposal, how could she not?
At last—after what seemed an endless round of discussion, preparation, and fruitless debate—Aurian and her band were ready to leave the Nightrunners. The Mage said a reluctant farewell to her son, for Wolf and his foster parents were staying behind in safety, though the wolves were clearly not at home in the crowded caverns of strange humans. Remana, though somewhat taken aback by the notion of having a family of wolves under her care, had promised to try to find them a quieter place, and to keep an eye on them.
Then, at last, it was time to go.
As she rode out across the cold, dark moors, Aurian felt incredibly relieved to be moving at last. She would have been far less happy some hours later, if she could have looked back to the Nightrunner haven. In the silent hour before dawn, two gray wolves, one of them carrying a cub, emerged stealthily from the hidden entrance to the ponies’ cavern. After casting around for a time to find the scent, they loped off across the bleak expanse of heathland, following the Mage’s trail.
But other eyes, hostile eyes, saw Aurian set forth toward the Valley.
In the Mages’ Tower in Nexis, Eliseth clasped her crystal in hands that were gloved, to hide the blistered burns that had been the result of her efforts to tame the Caldron. Time and again, as she had striven to master it, the Artifact had defied her, flaring out at her in a blaze of searing magical energy that had defied all her attempts at shielding and had blackened and scarred her questing fingers. With Miathan out of the way, however, time and determination had been the allies of the Weather-Mage. Following Aurian’s deadly attack on the Archmage so long ago, that had resulted in the destruction of his eyes, Miathan’s will had been gradually weakened, worn down not only by constant pain, but by the ever-present awareness of the hatred and contempt in which she held him for encompassing Forral’s death and cursing her son. It had been Aurian’s loathing and defiance that had undermined his hold upon the one Artifact that he possessed, to the extent of making Eliseth’s task so much easier.