Brisbois wasn’t the only surly malcontent. When they had checked in, Jo asked the innkeeper about sending a message back to Penhaligon and was answered with a stupid stare. The man was irritable enough, having been awakened after midnight, and that request sent him over the top. He’d even charged them for four separate rooms. Brisbois, of course, took full advantage, demanding a room for himself. Too tired to quibble, Karleah and Dayin, Braddoc, and Johauna each took the other rooms. The waste of gold irked Jo to no end, but, clearly, they would acquire no other accommodations tonight.
There was a shattering of glass, a man’s scream, and a pounding thump from the room above Jo—Brisbois’s room. As she leaped up from her bed, Jo heard Braddoc rise in the room next door, heard the rattle of his axe being lifted from the doorknob, where he had hung it. Jo’s hand reached for Wyrmblight but drew back: the sword’s great length would make it useless in the mans room. She slipped a shift over her shoulders and, grabbing her belt, slung it around her waist. She tore open the door and bolted up the stairs. As she checked to make sure her dagger was in its sheath, Jo heard Braddoc’s solid footfalls on the steps behind her.
Jo reached the head of the stairs, rushed for Brisbois’s door, and threw it open. In the wan light of an oil lamp, she saw Brisbois standing, stunned, beside a broken window. Shattered glass lay in glittering triangles across the floor, blood showing on a few of the edges. Then she noticed that the dishonored knight’s arm was bleeding.
“What happened in here?” Braddoc demanded, appearing in the doorway behind Jo and hefting his axe.
Brisbois gave a dismissing gesture and winced from the pain in his arm. “Nothing,” he slurred. “An owl or something was looking in the window at me.”
“Looking in the window?” Jo asked, glaring at the man. “You’re drunk, aren’t you?”
“No,” spat Brisbois. He suddenly straightened and, blinking, tried to look Jo straight in the eyes. “It was looking at me,” he insisted, his voice still thick with liquor. “I think it was Verdilith, the Great Green.”
With an expression of disgust, Braddoc turned to leave. “Yeah, Verdilith, the Great Green Owl. You’d better do something about that arm.” He disappeared from the doorway.
“So you thought you’d punch the window out to let this owl come in?” Jo asked sarcastically. She walked over to the window and peered outside, her heart pounding with excitement.
“No, my mistress,” Brisbois said with a mocking bow. “I tried to stab it with my sword.” He gestured toward the bloody blade, leaning in the corner of the room.
He’s a fool, a drunken fool, and nothing more, whispered a voice inside Johauna’s head. She felt the warmth of the abelaat stone in her belt pouch. Yes, Flinn, she thought, I know he’s a fool. She looked out the window toward the ground below. “Where’s this owl’s body?”
“I thought it fell,” Brisbois said, leaning over her shoulder to see out the window.
By the odd smell of Brisbois’s breath, Jo was sure he was drunk. She pulled away from him and snarled, “There wasn’t any owl, Brisbois, except in your drunken imagination. You didn’t stab Verdilith. You stabbed yourself. And you’ll pay for that window out of your own pocket, come morning.”
Brisbois whirled on her, some stinging retort on his lips, but when his eyes met hers, he averted his gaze and fell silent. Shuffling to a hook on the wall, he gingerly opened his pack and removed a small box. He flipped the lip back, revealing a bolt of gauze, a few sharp-edged knives and needles, and a small bottle. Uncorking the bottle, he took a swig, then spattered his wounded arm with the rest. Tearing away a piece of the gauzy bolt with his teeth, the man began to wrap the wound. Jo watched from across the gloom as he attended himself.
Brisbois paused long enough to glare at the young squire. “If you’re not going to help, get out.”
Jo felt an involuntary sneer cross her face. “I wish I could say the same to you,” she muttered under her breath. She stalked out of the room, leaving the door ajar.
The dishonored knight kicked the door shut with his boot and continued to bandage the wound. He smiled.
A poisonous tendril of gas rose from his nose.
Spring had only newly come to the Black Peak Mountains as Jo and her companions rode through the range. Jo set a north-by-northwesterly route, seeking the tiny village of Armstead, somewhere in the wilderness ahead. Although the path she chose wound through the mountains, her sense of direction was true. Unfortunately, the mountain paths were too treacherous to chance fast travel.
Lost in thoughts of the abaton, Jo didn’t notice when the mountains’ heights changed the climate from one of spring to one of winter. Patches of ice and unexpectedly deep snow lined the ravines and passages between the Black Peaks. Much of the rock was obsidian, which lent the range its name, as did the sheets of ice, black from the underlying obsidian, lingering along some sides of the mountains.
The trail was rugged, little better than forging across country. In fact, when the path turned east, the group abandoned it, preferring instead to continue to head north by northwest. At one point, Brisbois said he saw hoof prints whose horseshoes bore the emblem of the castle, but none of the others could spot them in the trampled ground.
At midday Jo held up her hand and halted the group. She patted Carsig’s neck and watched the horse’s white breath curl lazily away. The big gelding was holding his own. Jo blew on her hands and rubbed them to warm them; she pulled her woolen cape closer. She hadn’t really believed Sir Graybow when he had said she would need such a warm garment for the mountains, but she was glad now that the man had insisted.
Johauna looked up at the sheer rock and ice surfaces of the mountains surrounding her. “And I thought the Wulfholdes were rugged,” she murmured to herself. She had never seen mountains before. She let Carsig have his head so that he could snuffle the ground for something edible, and Jo jumped off to stretch her legs.
The few harsh grasses that could survive this arid land had not yet turned green with spring growth. Carsig and the other animals contented themselves with the dried blades, snorting puffs of frosty air as they nibbled the mountain grass. Every now and then a horse or mule would find a tasty, succulent snow crocus or other early blooming flower.
Jo joined her comrades. Braddoc was smiling to himself, and Jo realized the dwarf felt at home in these mountains. Karleah snorted and sat on a nearby, flat rock. She drank from her waterskin, oblivious to the walls of ice and rock surrounding her. Only Dayin’s expression remained one of wonder and disbelief as he stared at the cliff faces.
“Have you seen any more sign of the guards’ passage?” Karleah asked testily. The crone clutched the tattered remnant of a gray silk shawl around her bony shoulders. Dayin came and stood next to her.
Both Jo and Braddoc shook their heads. Braddoc said, “Not since this morning, Karleah. Johauna stopped us at a good point. There re two ravines ahead that could be the paths the guards took. I’ll scout ahead and see if I can find any more tracks.”
“It’s hard with all the rock and ice,” Jo said. “But maybe they’ll have gone through a snowdrift or two, and we’ll get lucky.” Johauna went to Fernlover and pulled out a loaf of bread and a chunk of dried venison. She returned to her friends and, using her knife, began slicing and handing out the food.