They cast around for nearly an hour before they found the road again, and Seregil was glad to find it well traveled. The frozen mud and trampled snow were marked with hundreds of other hoof prints; even Micum would have trouble tracking them here. Hopefully if their pursuers had survived, they’d have given up on them by now. Somehow, though, Seregil couldn’t shake off the feeling that someone was right behind them, even when a look over his shoulder across the flat terrain showed that there was no one there.
Rieser came to slowly, aware at first of nothing but the stabbing pain in his head, snow on his face, and the taste of blood at the back of his throat. Someone was shaking him and that only made everything worse. He grabbed for the hand and opened his eyes. Hâzadriën was leaning over him, and the sky beyond was full of sunset color. It had been afternoon when they’d found their prey. And lost them.
“Stop it, my friend. I’m alive.” He sat up and felt blood run down over his lips from his nose. Hâzadriën reached back for something and presented him with a yellow healing flower.
Rieser pressed it to his face gratefully and the bleeding stopped, but the pain in his head did not. Using the tayan’gil’s shoulder to steady himself, he climbed to his feet and looked around for the others.
They lay where they’d fallen, covered with a thin layer of fresh snow. Turmay lay next to him in a crumpled heap, his oo’lu trapped awkwardly under his left shoulder. Two horses remained, pawing in the snow for grass; the others were nowhere to be seen.
Nowen sat up, holding her head in both hands. “What in the name of Aura was that?”
“I don’t know,” Rieser told her. “Help me check the others.”
She appeared to be in as bad shape as Rieser, and they moved like invalids as they slowly went from one to another, shaking them awake.
All of them were hurt to some degree. Rieser came last to young Thiren lying facedown in the snow. When he didn’t stir, Rieser rolled him over and found the boy’s eyes fixed and his face dark with settled blood. His bow lay broken beside him.
Nowen came to Rieser and rested a hand on his shoulder. Her voice was thick with grief and pain as she whispered hoarsely, “Why didn’t the witch know, if his ‘Mother’ is so—”
“Mind your tongue,” Rieser cautioned, covering her mittened hand with his own.
Rane staggered over and sank to his knees beside his dead brother, blood trickling from both ears, and began the death keen.
“Not here, Rane,” Rieser said, wrapping an arm around the boy’s shaking shoulders. “There’ll be time later to mourn, when we’ve found some safe place for the night.”
Rane wiped the tears from his face with his sleeve.
Rieser found his eyes stinging, too. He had lost riders before, but Thiren was his mentor’s son. He was glad Syall í Konthus wasn’t alive to know this.
Turmay was on his feet now, white and unsteady. He hands shook as he tried to warm himself in his frozen clothing.
“You didn’t know that one of them was a wizard?” Rieser demanded.
“Because none of them are,” Turmay replied, sinking down beside him, looking very green and ill. “I—I would have seen such a one. That was not magic; it was—power. This must have come from their tayan’gil.”
“That’s impossible. They don’t kill.”
Turmay gestured weakly back at the dead boy, and at the other riders staggering around holding heads and stomachs. Several were vomiting into the snow. “This one can. And your own tayan’gil was the only one of us not stricken by its power.”
“A lucky thing for us,” said Rieser, watching Hâzadriën minister to the others. “Sona, Taegil, go look for the other horses. Turmay, you come with me. Nowen and Hâzadriën, you take care of the others here.”
Mounted on the two remaining horses, he and the witch set off to see what direction the ya’shel and his tayan’gil had gone. Three distinct lines of shallow hoof marks dimpled the fresh snow, heading southeast. The horses had been running at a gallop. They were probably miles away by now, but he kept going.
“What was that sound?” Rieser asked as they rode along, not really expecting an answer.
“I think that must be the power of the tayan’gil.”
“I still say they don’t have such an ability.”
Turmay frowned at him from the depths of his fur-lined hood. “Even so, I tell you this one does. Remember that it was made from a half-breed’s blood. Who knows what that would do?”
Rieser snorted softly. “That should make it weaker, not stronger. One of the others must be a wizard. They exist among the Tír in the north, so why not here?”
Turmay shrugged. “Then perhaps it was that.”
They followed the trail for nearly a mile before it ended; the snow was less deep on the ground here. The wind had swept away all trace of them.
With a muttered curse, Rieser turned back and kicked his horse into a gallop, retracing his steps with Turmay beside him. The chase would have to wait for as long as it took for his riders to recover.
And what then, he could not say.
CHAPTER 18
A Wizard’s Touch
SEREGIL and the others were relieved to finally see the glow of firelight through windows in the distance. They urged their tired horses into one last gallop and reached the inn a few minutes later.
He and Micum knew the Bell and Bridle well; they’d sometimes stayed here when they were out working for Nysander, and Seregil had sung for their supper by the broad hearth a time or two. It was a large, friendly establishment frequented by traders and travelers of all sorts, with a comfortable, smoky taproom on the ground floor and rooms of passable cleanliness above.
There was a sizable crowd tonight, mostly traders and drovers, with a handful of soldiers mixed in. Few of them gave the newcomers a second look, focused as they were on the pretty young woman plucking a harp by the fire. That suited Seregil just fine, together with the fact that he didn’t recognize the woman giving orders from behind the polished bar. Better not to leave a trail of acquaintances if someone might be tracking you.
He looked around for Thero as he made his way through the crowd to the bar, but didn’t see any sign of him. “Have you any rooms for the night, Mistress?”
She gave him a pretty smile. “Have you the silver to pay for it, sir?”
Knowing he didn’t look much like a sir, much less Lord Seregil of Rhíminee after so many weeks on the road, he gave her a wink and slid two silver sesters across the bar. “Will that do for a private room and a hot bath?”
She scooped up the coin. “Just right. You can have the small room at the top of the house. The bathhouse is behind the kitchen. I’ll have the cook put some cans of water by the fire while you carry up your gear.”
Their room looked out over a chicken yard in the back but had a broad, clean, vermin-free bed and no holes in the roof, which was about all Seregil required of a place like this. An oil lamp stood on a small table. A washstand and a single chair stood by the window.
“Much better than last night, aside from the smell of the chickens,” Alec said.
Micum sat down on the edge of the bed to test the mattress. “I’ll take that over fleas any day.”
They stowed their gear and went back downstairs to take turns in the cramped wooden tub, then sat down to a piping-hot rabbit pie, thick with onions and turnips.
“This was worth the ride,” Alec said around a mouthful, digging in with his spoon for another bite. With his bangs cut long over his eyes, Sebrahn attracted little attention.
Seregil nodded absently, glancing around at the crowd. There was still no sign of Thero, upstairs or down.
They stayed, listening to the harper until she stopped for the night, then returned to their room.
“Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to get some sleep,” Micum said, stretching out on the bed with a happy groan. “Seregil, you can have the first watch, and don’t the two of you get up to any mischief.”