Ayrlyn nodded. “You’re getting more honest with yourself, and that’s a start.”
“Great. I now know that everyone else has been determining my destiny. It doesn’t make finding it any easier-on me or you.”
“We share that, Nylan.” She offered a soft smile. “We’ll work it out.”
“Even with Weryl?”
“In some ways, it’s easier. He’s so young.”
The smith moistened his lips, then asked, “How long will it take to get out of the Westhorns? You’ve traveled these roads more than I have.”
“Four or five trips don’t make me an expert. We didn’t exactly have a lot of time to learn about this place, and I was more worried about trading for the things we needed and avoiding the local armsmen.”
“This isn’t the most popular route.” So far as Nylan could tell, the only tracks on the narrow winding road were those of Skiodra’s traders, and those had been nearly weathered away. In places, the tracks of deer, and in one section, a bear, were superimposed over the traces of the traders’ carts. Clearly, not too many locals traveled the Westhorns-not in spring, anyway.
“It will get more popular. Ryba has made sure most of the brigands are dead, or they’ve gone elsewhere.”
“We hope. I’m not exactly convinced they’re all gone.” Nylan glanced ahead, at the narrow valley sloping away, and at the thick green canopy on the left side of the road, probably growing out of marshy ground beside the stream. The greenery was enough to hide anything, including bandits.
“Ryba will take care of any that are left,” Ayrlyn offered.
“In the same way she takes care of everything else,” Nylan added sardonically. “With a sharper blade applied more quickly.” He squinted at the road ahead. The mention of brigands bothered him, though he couldn’t say why.
“You’re bothered.”
The engineer nodded.
“We’ll just have to be careful.”
“I hope that will help.” After a moment, he added, “It would help if Ryba improved some of the stream fords, put in bridges.” Nylan wiped his forehead.
“Still the engineer, I see.” Ayrlyn laughed.
“I probably always will be.” He tried to loosen his jacket all the way, but stopped as Weryl, who had been sleeping, gave a lurch. Ayrlyn still wore her jacket mostly closed. He hoped the lowlands wouldn’t be too hot-there was a difference between being able to survive and surviving in something other than total misery.
“Waaa…” Weryl squirmed in the carrypak, and Nylan could sense his son’s discomfort-again! The odor confirmed Nylan’s senses.
“We need to stop again.” The smith wanted to laugh at the look on Ayrlyn’s face. “You were the one who said he traveled well.”
“I shouldn’t have spoken so soon.”
They had to travel almost a kay before they descended enough into the canyon valley and reached a spot where the approach to the stream was both gentle enough and open enough through the tangled willows-with a shelf of coarse sand-for easy access to the water.
Nylan extracted Weryl from the carrypak again, hanging it over a low willow branch, followed by Weryl’s loose trousers. The pants were dry, thank darkness, but the cloth beneath was anything but.
Nylan took a deep breath and stepped toward the stream.
At the first touch of the cold water, Weryl began to howl.
“I’m sorry, little fellow,” Nylan said, “but you don’t like being a mess, and I don’t like smelling it.”
The cries were interspersed with sobs, which drifted into sobs alone by the time Nylan had his son back in dry clothes.
“Can you hold him while I wash out what he was wearing?” Nylan asked Ayrlyn.
“I would have helped, but you seemed to have everything under control. You will attack changing him like an engineering problem, though.”
“I suppose so. It is a waste disposal problem.”
“He’s your son, not a waste disposal problem.”
“He may be my son, but being my son isn’t going to make him less smelly or more comfortable.” Nylan handed Weryl to Ayrlyn, who lifted him to her shoulder and patted his back, rocking as she did so.
Nylan’s hands were red from the cold water of the stream by the time he had the cloth squares clean. “I’ll have to fasten them over the bags or something so that they’ll dry.”
“He’s hungry, I think,” suggested Ayrlyn.
“We’ll try the biscuit things, with water.” After draping the cloth squares over the saddlebags, the engineer opened Weryl’s food pack.
There had been no such things as baby bottles on Westwind, not when all the milk was breast milk, but in the food pack was a crude wooden cup with a carved cover that had a small spout. Nylan had breathed one sigh of relief when he had seen that.
“Let me sense the water,” Ayrlyn offered. After a moment, she added, “It’s safe enough. They don’t have river rodents here-not that we’ve seen. Sometimes, they foul the water.”
Nylan filled the cup and capped it. He still worried about getting the boy to eat enough of whatever was necessary for a proper dietary balance, but Weryl happily gummed his way through a biscuit and half-sucked, half-drank some of the stream water.
After that, the engineer eased him into the carrypak again and remounted. “How long before we have to stop again?”
“We don’t have a timetable, you know,” Ayrlyn pointed out.
“I know. But I feel as though there’s something we’ll have to do and that time’s running out.”
“You always feel that way.”
“Maybe.” But Nylan didn’t think so. His eyes took a last look at Freyja as the track carried them around a wide curve formed by the stream, and the ice needle vanished behind a wall of gray rock covered with scattered evergreens.
XXI
“How far to the wards?” asked Themphi.
The headman, who bounced in the saddle of a swaybacked roan that had the look of a carthorse, offered an expression that could be a shrug. “How far, honored wizard? That would be hard to say.”
“Why?” asked the wizard, his tone resigned.
“Because…the wards, they are no more, and the wall has been covered with shoots and creepers.”
The dark-haired wizard wanted to sigh, but did not. “What happened to them?”
“We do not know. The forest covered them. Since before my grandsire’s grandsire’s grandsire the forest has been there, and the walls have been there, and neither has changed. I can remember walking the walls all day and not even reaching the north corner. It is more than fifteen kays from Geliendra, ser wizard. When I was young, I kept a whole kay of the wall myself. I trimmed, and I pruned. Once I even climbed over the wall, but I climbed back-quickly. There was the largest forest cat I ever saw. Now…we cannot even see the white of the walls.”
“And you did not send anyone to check the wards?”
“We did. My sister’s son Byudur. He was the village wizard. He did not return. Nor did the wizard from Forestnorth.” The headman peered toward Themphi. “So we sent our petition to His Mightiness. Surely, the Lord of Cyador would know. And you, the wizard of wizards, are here.”
Behind them, from the mounted lancer officers, came a chuckle. Themphi ignored it. “I am here, and I am sorry to hear of your sister’s son. Did anyone find any trace?”
“The Accursed Forest leaves no traces.”
Themphi did sigh, but under his breath. Worse and worse, and Lephi had no real idea of what went on in Cyador, not with his dreams of rebuilding past glories.
The wizard frowned as he caught sight of the wall of green that stretched across the horizon, above the fields through which the packed clay road passed. Ahead the road ended at a wooden gate in a low wooden fence. The gate to the field was ajar, and there were hoof prints in the damp soil.
“There! You see. Even since yesterday, the Accursed Forest has grown.”