“Stop that!” he ordered. “It’s a filthy Tír vice. Have some tea.”
Allia tossed the pipe away down the hill, and the pouch after it, then went to join the others, who were examining their captives’ weapons and the rest of the contents of their packs. Judging by their clothing and boots, these were men of substance, even the Tír. And the man’s sword had seen much use, Rieser acknowledged grudgingly. The other two swords were new, finely made by some expert smith but with little sign of use. The Tírfaie is probably their protector, he thought with a sneer.
Rane was still pacing angrily, saying nothing to anyone since his outburst. He would have to wait to avenge his brother until Rieser was satisfied he’d gotten all the information from these strangers that he could.
Naba had found them a good site for the night; a few of the stone huts of this deserted village still offered some shelter. Naba’s people had once lived close to the trail; it had been theirs. Then the Skalan Tír came, and at some point the Retha’noi people had moved farther up into the mountains to avoid them.
Turmay came out of the ruined hut at last.
“What is it? Did you learn something from them?”
“The boy,” Turmay said slowly. “I sensed something strange about him, and now I know. He died, and now he is alive again.” He turned and said something to Naba, who took up his own oo’lu and went in to the captives.
“How is that possible?” asked Rieser as Naba began to play.
“It should not be. The Mother gives life and the Mother takes it away,” Turmay said, rubbing a hand over his oo’lu. “It must be the tayan’gil’s doing.”
Naba emerged a moment later, looking perplexed as he spoke with Turmay.
“My brother says the same,” Turmay told Rieser. “This is a great evil!”
“Are you saying their tayan’gil somehow restored him to life?” asked Nowen in disbelief.
“I don’t know how, but that is what we saw in this Alec.”
“The small tayan’gil can take life. Why not the reverse?” said Rieser.
“Is the boy an unnatural creature now?” asked Sorengil, making a sign against evil.
The witch nodded as he dipped up a cup of tea. “He is alive when he should be dead.”
“So this little tayan’gil kills and gives life,” Rieser murmured, astonished. “Thank you. I’ll deal with them.”
When he reached the darkened hut, however, he found it empty except for three hanks of rope lying where his captives had been.
“They’ve gotten loose!” he snarled, striding back out to the others. “Find them. Now!”
Whoever had tied Seregil up had been either considerate or careless enough not to tie his hands too tightly. He’d almost gotten caught undoing his other hand when the second witch came in and played his horn at them, but fortunately the man had been focused on Alec, rather than the two of them sitting across the hut in the shadows. As soon as the witch was gone, Seregil had gone back to work on the ropes.
Once he had both hands loose, it was a simple matter to get himself and the others untied. Alec picked up Sebrahn as Seregil carefully peered over a low place in the broken wall at the back of the hut.
Just as he’d expected, there was a masked guard posted there. The man’s sword was in its scabbard and he was chaffing his arms against the cold. Seregil bent down and felt along the ground inside the wall until he found a couple of palm-sized stones. He was a better shot with a rock than with a bow; Alec often joked about making him throw arrows rather than shoot them. Even in the dark, he hit the guard in the head on the first try. The man dropped without a cry.
Seregil led the way over the broken wall and caught Sebrahn as Alec passed him over. Micum came next, then Alec.
They could hear the Hâzadriëlfaie on the other side of the hut, talking and moving about. Keeping just inside the edge of the forest that ringed the ruined village, they hurried down to the picketed horses and found only one man on guard. Their horses were tethered among the others. That was good. Seregil had owned Cynril for years, and Alec would be heartbroken to lose Patch or Windrunner, who’d been a gift from Micum’s family.
Stripped of his sword and knife, Seregil made do with another rock. Sneaking up behind the guard, he gave him a good knock on the head. The man went down with a pained grunt. Praying none of the horses would shy, Seregil and the others untied the whole string and led them away into the trees, moving downhill, hoping the trail was that way. They had no weapons, no food or water, and no way of making a fire, but at least they were free.
They struck the trail at last and untied the horses, leaving the Hâzadriëlfaie’s to wander off on their own. Seregil held Sebrahn while Alec mounted Patch and handed him up to him, then jumped lightly up on Cynril’s back and set off after Micum with Star trailing after him on a lead rein. He could hear shouting from the camp now.
“Go!” he hissed to the others, and they kicked their mounts into a gallop.
The ya’shel and his companions had been clever enough to steal all the horses. It took some time to whistle in enough of them to give chase.
The moon was on the rise by the time they did. The snow was sparse on the ground and the mud was frozen, but Rieser managed to determine which way they’d gone after a little casting around. He cursed himself for a fool for leaving the small tayan’gil with them. There was more to these strangers than he’d given them credit for. Either the crippled Tír was craftier than he looked, or the other ones weren’t quite as helpless as their shiny new swords suggested.
Seregil and the others rode hard through the remains of the night, expecting at any moment to get an arrow in the back. They left the trail when they could to confuse the chase, wending up wooded hillsides and riding down ice-rimmed streams, spelling the horses as long as they dared, which wasn’t long. The way grew steadily steeper, forcing them back to the open trail. They stopped to change horses when the moon set.
“Do you hear that?” asked Alec, looking back over his shoulder.
Then they all heard it, the distant sound of the horn the witch had called an oo’lu. But this time it was more than just one, and seemed to be coming from different directions.
The sound of them sent a nasty shiver up Seregil’s spine. “Come on, let’s go.”
He took Sebrahn to give Alec’s arm a rest and they set off again. As they rode, Seregil hoped it was just a trick of the wind that made it seem like the oo’lu sound was coming from in front of them now.
Just before dawn, they entered a narrow divide—only to find their way blocked by several huge trees across the trail.
“They didn’t just fall,” said Micum, reining his horse in close to the nearest. “They’ve been cut down with an axe.” He reached down to touch one of them. “The sap is still running.”
Behind them they could hear the sound of hooves on stone, and the jingle of harness as their pursuers came on at a gallop.
“If they’re behind us, then who the hell did this?” Alec wondered.
“Most likely whoever was playing those horns,” Seregil muttered, looking around frantically.
There was no question of riding around the obstruction; steep stone faces penned them in on both sides.
When Seregil dismounted to look for a way over, an arrow whistled close to his ear and embedded itself in one of the massive trunks. It was short and crudely fletched; not ’faie work, that was certain. Taking cover behind Star, he stared up into the shadows above them and thought he could see someone moving about at the top of the rock face. The sound of the horns was getting louder, too.
“Here they come,” Micum said, looking grim.
Unarmed and trapped, there was nothing they could do but wait under the brightening sky.
The man in the wolf mask was in the lead. As soon as he saw Seregil and the others, he signaled a halt and dismounted, holding his hands wide to show that he wasn’t armed. Behind him, however, Seregil saw several archers with arrows ready.