‘You’ll miss her terribly.’
‘Yes, I will. Let’s just find Denser fast.’ She looked across. Ren’erei wasn’t looking at her but she was nodding as she gazed down at the sea.
‘It will be a pleasure to meet him,’ said Ren’erei. ‘The father of Lyanna and the keeper of your heart.’
Erienne blushed and was glad for the elf’s studying of the Ocean Elm’s load line.
‘Don’t get too excited. He’s Xeteskian first and my husband second, I think.’
‘Then his priorities are askew.’
‘Not really. I am a mother first and a wife second. We both have tasks to fulfil before our lives together can really start. I think it’s best we’re honest in the interim.’
Ren’erei contemplated Erienne’s words. She could see the elf raise her eyebrows as she thought, and suck in her lips. Erienne felt very safe in her company. She was solid and dependable and her thoughts ran deep. And her naïveté was endearing. Ren wasn’t streetwise like anyone with a normal education in the ways of Balaia but she harboured great strength of feeling and inside the elf there was the confidence to kill. The Raven could have done with her a few years ago.
‘How will you find him?’
‘Communion. When we arrive in Arlen, I think I have the range to reach Xetesk. I’m sure he’ll still be there. Or possibly Dordover. Either way I can contact him. Then we wait.’
‘And The Raven?’
‘He’ll bring them. If I know Denser, he’s already contacted them.’
‘You sound very sure.’
Erienne shrugged. ‘They’re all such different people but when one is troubled, they all do the same thing.’ She smiled, a little surprised by another surge of longing. Not for Lyanna but for them. The Raven. To stand among them once again. Should that happen, she knew they’d be all right. After all, The Raven never lost. Erienne suppressed a laugh at her own ludicrous arrogance and looked back to the beautiful blue sea.
Chapter 10
Hirad’s meeting with Denser was never going to be warm but the devastation he saw at Thornewood and then Greythorne took much of the venom from the barbarian’s mood. Ilkar had watched him brood ever since they’d left the Balan Mountains, unwilling even to entertain the thought of cordial relations with the Xeteskian. He had grumbled about leaving the Kaan who were all but shovelling him from the Choul and his temper had remained frail for the entirety of the three-day ride.
But Thornewood had changed him. The three original members of The Raven’s first ride, almost fifteen years before, had seen signs of wind damage while they were over a day from the forest. Flattened grassland, bushes uprooted and drifts of broken twigs, leaves and dirt, all told of a powerful gale.
But nothing could prepare them for Thornewood itself. It was gone. Just a tangled mass of twisted and shattered trunks, scattered debris and piles of foliage covered in dirt. It was as if some giant claw had gouged across the forest, scooped it up, crushed it and then let it fall once again. Where once a stunning landscape had been, there was now just a smear on the face of Balaia.
‘I can’t even see where the farms might have stood,’ whispered Ilkar. ‘There are no borders to the wood. Nothing at all.’
The Unknown pointed north and east. ‘There’s the trail though it’s mostly hidden now. We should see if there’s anything we can do.’
But close to, it was clear that what little could be done, had been done. A few foundation poles from one of the farmsteads that had lived off the forest could be seen snapped off low to the ground and, here and there, a piece of treated hide was wedged in a shallow crack in the earth. All other signs of life had been swept away.
Hirad stared into the havoc that had been visited on Thornewood and voiced the fear they all felt.
‘Thraun?’
‘We just have to pray he escaped,’ said The Unknown quietly. ‘But even he would have been hard pressed to survive a falling tree.’
‘And as for the pack . . .’ Ilkar left his words hanging. Though he was a wolf, Thraun would always retain vestiges of humanity in his mind. It was the way of all shapechangers, even those lost to their human form, and Thraun had already experienced more sadness than most of his fragile kind could bear. The Gods only knew what he would do if he lost the pack.
‘What caused this?’ The Unknown shook his head.
‘I’m scared to even think about it,’ said Ilkar.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Hirad.
‘Let’s get to Greythorne,’ said Ilkar by way of reply. ‘Find Denser.’
They rode on, expectations of finding the town undamaged dismissed. But as they travelled the decimated lowlands surrounding the wrecked forest, it became clear that their worst fears were liable to be realised.
It was like a journey through a foreign landscape though they all knew the land well. So many landmarks and waypoints had gone. Trail posts, cairns, copses and spinneys, all had been scratched from the face of Balaia. Any remote homestead had been destroyed, timbers scattered wide and even the topsoil had been ripped away on the exposed slopes, bringing rock to the surface for the first time in centuries.
The wind, if such it was, had been utterly indiscriminate and totally ruinous.
They were under a day’s ride from Greythorne with the morning all but over when The Unknown turned in his saddle for the third time in as many miles. He dropped back slowly before shifting in his seat and pulling up.
‘Hey!’ he called, dismounting and scrutinising the girth buckle and strap. ‘Wait up.’
Hirad and Ilkar wheeled their horses and trotted towards him, slipping off as they approached.
‘Girth slipping?’ asked Hirad.
The Unknown nodded. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Don’t look up. We’re being followed. Tell you what, get out your waterskin and let’s have a break, all right?’
Hirad shrugged. ‘Sure.’
The Unknown unbuckled the strap and tugged it back to the same position before joining his friends sitting at the side of the trail. The horses grazed a few feet away.
‘How many?’ asked Hirad, handing him the waterskin.
‘Impossible to say.’ He took a swig and rinsed his dry mouth, handing the skin back. ‘I’ve seen metal glint and shapes moving against the background.’
‘Distance?’ Ilkar pushed a hand through his hair and lay out on his back.
‘Three miles, maybe a little more. Certainly horse-borne. I think they’ve been trailing us since the Balan Mountains.’
‘But you didn’t want to worry us, eh?’ Hirad’s tone was only half joking. The Unknown’s lips thinned.
‘No, Hirad, I just wasn’t sure. You know how it is,’ he said. ‘It’s of no importance anyway. They haven’t attacked us so we have to assume they’re just trailing us for information. That also means they’ll probably have a mage to communicate with whoever.’
‘Dordover,’ said Ilkar.
‘Most likely,’ agreed The Unknown. ‘And suffice to say, we can’t let them find out any more than they can already guess.’
‘So where do we take them? The forest?’ Hirad nodded at the wrecked woodland. They had been skirting it to the south having ignored the north-east trail through the farmsteads as they headed for Greythorne.
‘Yes. At the rock.’
Whatever the state of the forest, the crag at its centre would still be intact until the earth opened up to swallow it.
‘Assuming we can persuade them to follow us in there.’
Thornewood was a mess, just a shamble of dying vegetation and twisted wood. The birds had returned and their song could be heard above the wind that was gusting stronger again, clouds bubbling across the fast greying sky.
‘I don’t think they have any choice,’ said The Unknown. ‘They can’t simply watch the hunter trails because there are none, not any more. We can pick our way in and out anywhere. And they can’t go on to Greythorne and risk us not stopping there.’