THE DOOR INTO SHADOW
"I know," Herewiss replied. "My decision was not made lightly. If you hadn't been strong enough. . yes, you would have died. And I would have laken responsibility for it."
She looked at him, pitying and loving him, both at once. "'Thanks," she said.
*'I didn't do much of anything," he said, half-bowing gra-ciously. "You seem to have found your own solutions."
He looked past Segnbora with great interest. Turning, she was just as interested to see the long-necked, long-bodied, short-legged Dracon shadow that lay behind her. It was posi-tioned as if the creature that cast it were standing on her hind legs. Experimentally she pointed a finger, and saw the shadow of the forewing barb cock outward.
"Is it true," Herewiss asked with a gentle simile, "what they say about Dragons and maidens?"
She turned back and shrugged slightly. '"You'll have to ask someone who'd know," she said. "I'm not a maiden any-more, ./* She started back toward camp to saddle Steelsheen and hummed a chord.
Fourteen
… the Goddess could not spend all Her time persuading the Kings and Queens of the world of the idiocy of war. Therefore She invented tacticians..
(source unknown)
As they topped the crest of yet another line of foothills they paused, silent in the dusk, and looked down upon ancient history. Forest patches lay on the wrinkled fells and hollows of the land below. Although it was just two nights before Midsummer, the wind ran chill over the land, rustling trees and grass so that the earth seemed to shudder like the flank of a troubled beast.
South of their position the foothills became rougher, their bare stones turning brown, red, and hot gray in the fading light. Farther south still rose the Highpeaks. Off into the crimson distance they marched, mountain after mountain. At their forefront, frozen like a white wave of stone about to break, stood Mount Ndniion, which overshadowed Bluepeak.
"The weather's changing," Freelorn said. He was looking uneasily at the filmy banner of windblown snow that stretched southward over the Peaks from N6mion's major summit. It had a distinct downward curve to it that indicated it was a south wind fighting to get past the moun-tains and slide under the wanner northland air.
"Storm tomorrow, loved. Can't you do something?'' Herewiss's eyes were elsewhere — searching the country west of them for any sign of the Darthenes. Eftgan's last message had said that she and her troops would bivouac a league-and-a-half west of the mouth of Bluepeak valley two nights before Midsummer, well out of the sight of the Reavers encamped in Britfell fields around the town. But the land beneath them had a trampled look, and was empty. "I could," Herewiss said, reaching over his shoulder for Khavrinen to better sense what had been happening there. "It
would be unwise, though. Eftgan may already have done something."
"Or Someone else might have," Segnbora said. She was as troubled as Lorn, for different reasons. Her undersenses clearly brought her a feeling of haste and disruption from the land below, as if plans had gone awry and many minds down there had recently been in turmoil. Worse were Hasai's memories, and those of some of the mdeihei who knew this area well. Something dark and threatening lurked under this land, and was ready to rise up in menace.
She shuddered, as did the mdeihei inside her. Herewiss was sitting still with Khavrinen flaming in his lap, its Fire subdued. "Someone else has been meddling, I think,"he said, glanc-ing over at Freelorn. "There's will behind this weather, and I'd sooner not probe it more closely than that, since I'd be leaving myself open to be probed back. Better to stay low for the moment." He looked down at the Bluepeak highlands. "Eftgan came at this site from the north a day and a half ago—"
"Were they driven back by Arlenes?" Freelorn said, anx-ious. Cillmod had been raiding across the Arlene-Darthene border for nearly a year now, in violation of the Oath. It was unlikely that he would allow a Darthene incursion into his territory to go unchallenged. "No. Reavers — and they were here first. Eftgan had a skir-mish with them and went north again. The Reavers went west. No sign of Arlenes; they must not have received word that Eftgan's in the vicinity."
Dritt looked confused. "Eftgan's a Rodmistress, though. Shouldn't she have been able to sense that the Reavers were here, and avoid them?" Herewiss nodded.
There was uneasy shifting among Freelorn's followers. Lorn himself was bewildered. "How can a Rodmistress's scry-ing go wrong?1 "' Herewiss swung down from Sunspark and began loosening the girths of its saddle. "The same way mine can, I imagine," he said. Segnbora could feel the great effort he was making lo conceal the trouble in his mind. "1 can't feel where she is