“You’re not going any farther, no matter what you do,” the man shouted to them.
“You know what will happen if you attack us,” Seregil retorted, jerking a thumb at Sebrahn, who was now peering out from behind Alec. Or that’s where he thought he was. Instead, Sebrahn had darted out in front of him and was hurrying back toward their pursuers.
“Sebrahn, no! Come here,” Alec shouted. Micum caught him by the arm as he started after him. The strange rhekaro came out to meet Sebrahn and hoisted him up in his arms.
“No!” Alec cried. He pulled loose from Micum, only to be grabbed and held by Seregil.
“You see?” the man in the wolf mask called to them. “The call of his own kind is too strong. So long as we don’t directly attack you, we are as safe with him as you are.”
“That leaves us at a bit of a stalemate,” Seregil shouted back. The sun was coming up, and now he could clearly make out a number of people on the rocks above them. At least one had a long horn. Turmay and the other witch were with the masked riders, both with oo’lus in hand.
“Bilairy’s Balls,” he muttered, then, to the man in the mask, “What now? Are you going to stay there until we starve?”
“That was not my plan. Give us the ya’shel and you and the other ones can go.”
Seregil tightened his grip on Alec’s arm. “You know we’re not going to do that.”
“And we can’t let you go, Aurënfaie. Not with him.”
Seregil folded his arms and gave the man a crooked grin. “Then I guess we all stand here and starve.”
The masked man turned to the archers and said something. They lowered their bows. “That won’t suit any of us. Will you parley?”
Seregil looked at the others. “Anyone have a better idea?”
“We’ve got no weapons and no food, and someone up there is taking aim at us where we stand,” said Micum.
“I just want Sebrahn back!” whispered Alec, his dark eyes burning with anger and betrayal. “Why did he go to them like that?”
Seregil squeezed his arm apologetically. “I’m sorry, Alec. I think he’s been trying to all along. Stay here.”
“No! He’s my—”
“I said stay!” Seregil ordered, then, more softly, “I don’t want you within arm’s reach of any of them. If they get you, then Micum and I are as good as dead.”
Alec quickly stepped back.
“Thank you. Stay close to Micum.” With that, Seregil walked halfway up the trail toward the others and stood waiting.
After a moment the man in the wolf mask came to meet him. Drawing his sword, he leveled it at Seregil’s heart.
“If we’re going to talk, then we should probably exchange names,” said Seregil. “Mine is Seregil í Korit Solun Meringil.”
“I am Rieser í Stellen Andus Orgil. You wear no sen’gai.”
“And I don’t recognize yours. Blue and white?”
“We are the North Star people. Do you have a clan?”
“Bôkthersa.”
“My grandmother was a Bôkthersan.”
Seregil grinned. “That makes us kin. Can’t kill me now, can you?”
“Don’t presume too much.”
“I won’t, I assure you. So, what do we do now?”
“Do you know why we’ve tracked you down, Bôkthersa?”
Seregil pointed to the two rhekaro, watching placidly from a small distance. “I assume it has something to do with them.”
“And with your talímenios. If you have a tayan’gil, then you must understand already.”
“That it takes Hâzadriëlfaie blood to make them? Yes, and I’ve also heard it said that your people hunt down half-breeds and kill them. I’m afraid I just can’t allow that. Look, could you take off that mask now? I feel ridiculous talking to a wolf.”
Rieser gave him a humorless smirk and lifted the mask from his face. It was a grim visage, to be sure, but now that Seregil could look him properly in the eye, Rieser struck him as a man who might be reasoned with. “So, what shall we do?”
“You say you are going to stop more tayan’gils from being made. How do you intend to do that?”
Seregil saw no point in lying. “The dark witch who made Sebrahn used a book, some sort of alchemy magic text.”
“You mean to destroy this book?”
“Certainly.” It was one option, though probably not the one Thero would prefer.
“How will you get it?”
“The usual way you get something someone else doesn’t want you to have.”
“Steal it?”
“Yes.”
“You are thieves?”
Seregil grinned. “Something like that, and we’re very good at it.”
“As you are at escaping. Two of my riders are nursing sore heads.”
“I could just as easily have killed them,” Seregil replied, and he could tell the man believed him.
“Why didn’t you?”
“You may be strangers, and damn troublesome ones, too, but you’re still ’faie. Is that why my friends and I are still alive?”
“No.”
“Let me ask you something, then, before you try to kill me again. Why aren’t you all dead? Our rhekaro—tayan’gil, that is—sang. People usually die when he does that.”
“Sang? Is that what you call it? One of my young riders did die, so you have that blood on your hands. It made me and the others very sick, but we share the same blood as the tayan’gil, so it does not affect us the way it would the Tír or other ’faie.”
“You got off easy, then.” He masked his concern as he looked back at Sebrahn in the other rhekaro’s arms. He looked perfectly content, the little traitor!
“They’re like that,” said Rieser. “Yours is different than the others, but alike enough to feel the bond.”
Seregil raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Others? How many others?”
“That’s no concern of yours, Bôkthersa.”
“So you make them, too? How are you any better than the ‘dark witches’?”
“We don’t make them! We gather in those that are made and keep them safe. This little one can never be safe in your world. You must know that by now.”
Seregil nodded slightly, glad Alec wasn’t hearing all this. “They can kill and heal.”
“Tayan’gil do not kill, or sing, for that matter. They have no voice at all. Except for this one of yours. I think it must be because of the tainted blood it was made with.”
Seregil let the insult pass, thinking back to what Tyrus and his dragon had told them; somehow, Alec’s blood had made a stronger rhekaro, the only one of its kind—unless another alchemist got hold of Alec and the book. “But it also heals people, and very well, too. I imagine that makes some people rather greedy to own one. We’ve been trying to protect him, too. Alec—the ya’shel—considers him his child. He had a prophecy about a ‘child of no woman’ and Sebrahn appears to be just that.”
“It is no child,” warned Rieser. “The witch says that this one of yours can raise the dead. Is this true?”
“Why would he think that?” Seregil didn’t like where this was heading.
“He sees what he sees, more deeply than you or I. He told me that your ya’shel has two lives.”
“Really?” Seregil returned dryly, sidestepping the question of Alec’s death. “So, here we are. You can’t attack us, and we can’t get away. What shall we do?”
Rieser considered this for a moment, then lowered his sword slightly. “I will make you a bargain.”
“I’m listening.”
“I will let you all live if you will give me the book, the tayan’gil, and the ya’shel.”
“We don’t have the book, Alec will have something to say about you taking Sebrahn away, and you can’t have Alec.”
“As long as the ya’shel walks in this world, he is a danger.”
“As I said, the dark witch—who is actually called an alchemist, by the way—who made Sebrahn is dead. He won’t be making any more tayan’gil out of anyone, and if I can get those books, neither will anyone else. You’re welcome to them. Take them off to your valley and guard them all you like. But Alec stays with me. That’s not on the table. And if you kill him, then you’d better make certain I’m dead, too. Otherwise I’ll hunt you to the ends of the earth and leave your meat for the crows. Then again, Sebrahn will probably do the job for me. You may have survived wounding Alec, but if you kill him, the results will be dire.”