“Damn you, you stubborn old fool—why did you have to go and get yourself killed?” Dulsina muttered. “If I’m not around to take care of you, you can’t do anything right!” Then, chiding herself for standing around moping when she was needed, she shook herself, wiped her eyes on her sleeve, and went to take care of her rebels. Despite her best efforts to shut him out, however, Vannor went with her in her thoughts.
Vannor heard the shouted orders in the distance as he hurried through the trees at the head of his Xandim warriors. “Why, I know that voice,” he exclaimed. “It’s—”
“It’s Hargorn!” Parric yelled delightedly, attempting to spur his mount to greater speed before remembering, belatedly, that he was riding one of the Xandim. “Sorry,” he apologized hastily. The horse whinnied and shook its head in irritation, but obligingly picked up its pace.
When they reached the edge of the trees, they found that the clearing of the rebel encampment was filled with a mass of panic-stricken folk who were running, lifting, shoving, tripping, and generally trying to do everything at once. It seemed impossible that he could pick one figure out of the seething mass—but Vannor’s eyes went unerringly to the tall, dark-haired figure of Dulsina.
“Dulsina!” he bellowed, his face breaking into a grin. “I’m back!”
The result was not what he had expected. Utter silence descended on the clearing as everyone turned to stare at him, openmouthed. And Dulsina—his brave, levelheaded, sensible housekeeper—whirled to look at him, her face stark white and blank with shock. “Vannor!” she whispered—and crumpled to the ground in a dead faint.
“Don’t just stand there!” Vannor roared. “Somebody help her!” Leaping down from his horse, he ran to her side, with Parric close behind him. When he reached her, she was already opening her eyes, with Hargorn helping her struggle into a sitting position. But the veteran was looking not at Dulsina, but at Vannor, and his eyes were suspiciously bright. “They told us you were dead,” he gasped. “Bern said that the Magefolk had killed you.”
“You thoughtless, boneheaded idiot,” Dulsina interrupted furiously, her eyes sparkling with her anger. “Did you ever find Zanna? Where in all perdition have you been these last few months? Didn’t you care about the anguish you were putting us through?”
Abruptly, Vannor decided to forgo the tongue-lashing after all. Throwing his arms around Dulsina, he hugged her tightly until she squeaked in protest. “Yes, I found the lass,” he told her, “or she found me, at any rate. She’s safe with your sister now.”
Letting go of her reluctantly, he turned to the waiting rebels. “Come on,” he told them. “Explanations will have to wait—we’ve got to get to the lake as quickly as possible. Just take all the weapons you can come by and leave the rest of this stuff where it is. Fetch the horses—those who don’t have mounts will ride double with the rest of us. Don’t stand there gaping—move!”
As they scurried to obey him, something that Hargorn had said nudged its way into Vannor’s memory. He grabbed the veteran by the arm, detaining him. “Hargorn—who the blazes is this Bern who told you I was dead?”
Hargorn shrugged. “Just some fugitive from Nexis who came to us a while ago. He said you’d sent him with a message—but before he could escape, they had killed you…” His brows knitted in a scowl as he realized how badly the rebels had been duped.
“Come to think of it,” Dulsina added, her voice sharp with anger, “I haven’t seen him since the fire started.”
“It’s not surprising,” Vannor replied—but he had an uneasy feeling that whoever this Bern might be, they hadn’t seen the last of him.
Beside the bridge the unicorn waited. For those with eyes to see her, she shone more brightly than the evenstar itself, in the shadowed murk of the beleaguered Vale. But no one could see her beauty save D’arvan, and she sensed that he was far away, though returning to her swiftly. But still more swiftly came another—the One with whose fate she was so closely entwined. The unicorn pricked up her ears and turned her lovely head toward the east with a toss of her silver mane. In the distance, far around the lakeside, she could see a group of riders emerging from the trees. Two figures rode together at their head, both blazing bright with power. Maya would have recognized them, but the unicorn saw them only as invaders, trespassing on forbidden ground that she must defend. But—and she pawed at the ground in puzzlement, scattering sunbursts from her gleaming hooves—there shouldn’t be two powers. Which of them was the One who, in claiming the Sword, could set her free at last—or send her to her death? Until she could find out, she would have to fight them both.
Aurian’s heart twisted within her as she emerged from the forest onto the open turf of the lakeside and saw that the island was bare now of the tower where she had spent her early years with her mother and Forral. She turned to Anvar, who was riding by her side. “The tower!” she cried. “It’s gone! Why didn’t Chiamh warn me when he performed his seeing?” She knew she was being irrational, but felt as though someone had wrenched her childhood away from her. Though she had rarely visited the tower in recent years, she had always felt secure in the knowledge that it was there.
Anvar glanced back at the Windeye, who was in his human form and was riding Iscalda, who had refused to be parted from her brother. “How could he have warned you, when he didn’t know there was a tower here in the first place?” he asked her reasonably. “Hellorin told me, but I forgot,” he added in apology. “It was destroyed when Davorshan came here to kill your mother. The Lady Eilin knows about it,” he added, trying to comfort her. “She didn’t seem upset.”
Aurian made no reply. She was still looking—staring, in fact—at the little isle, denuded of its dwelling. “I don’t see any sign of the Sword,” she muttered worriedly. As they rode closer, however, her eyes widened, her gaze becoming intense. “Anvar,” she whispered, her voice rising with excitement. “It is there… Chiamh was right—the Sword is on the island! Can’t you feel it?”
“I can’t feel anything,” Anvar answered, frowning. “Perhaps only you can sense its presence, because you’re the One for whom it was created.”
While they had talked, they had rounded the lakeshore, and at last the slender wooden bridge came into sight. “I’m glad the bridge survived, at any rate,” Aurian said, suddenly practical again. “We’d have had problems getting across without it—the lake is very deep there…”
Her words were drowned in a thunder of approaching hoofbeats, but—and she looked around wildly—there was no one there! But the hoofbeats kept coming, growing louder and louder… “Ware!” Aurian shouted, pulling the Staff of Earth from her belt—but it was too late. Suddenly Schiannath stumbled, as though pushed aside by some unseen force. Aurian threw her weight back to help him regain his footing—and as he recovered, she heard the sound of screaming: a horse in mortal torment. Esselnath, the Xandim who had carried Anvar, was rolling in agony on the ground, his gleaming chestnut coat dyed with the deeper red of his blood, the loops of his gut bulging out of a long wound in his belly that looked as though it had been ripped open by a sword.
Anvar, who had rolled clear of the thrashing mount, was just picking himself up as the sound of the hoofbeats bore down on them again. “Schiannath!” Aurian screamed, and the great horse wheeled and sped toward her soulmate. She grabbed Anvar’s wrist and yanked him up behind her as some unseen thing whistled past them, blowing her hair back with the wind of its speed.
Aurian glanced over her shoulder, hardly daring to look, but Anvar was safe on Schiannath’s back behind her, gaping at the ragged rent that had appeared in his sleeve. “Gods!” he cried. “What is it?”