He could almost hear Hesseth’s soft indrawn hiss behind him. He didn’t turn to her, but met the Hunter’s pale gaze head on. “We think it would be too dangerous.”
Seconds passed, silent and leaden. At last the Hunter turned away. “Your expedition,” he said quietly. “Your decision.”
Be glad for me, Hunter. Without me you would march right into the enemy’s hands, without even knowing why.
“All right, then,” Damien muttered. “Let’s get going.”
They set off southward, canteens and water skins sloshing against their packs. Damien had purchased a dozen of the latter in Esperanova and last night they had filled them all, in anticipation of the long dry march ahead of them. This time Tarrant made no offer to shoulder the extra burden. Perhaps he meant to drive home the fact that mere human thirst was no longer of any concern to him.
But he must be weakening, Damien thought suddenly. There can’t be prey in these lands for him, not enough to keep him at full strength. What can he find within an hour’s flight of here—a hunter maybe, a lone forager, a handful of travelers at best. More likely he’s gone hungry quite a few times, and that bodes ill for all of us.
Or was he feeding on Jenseny’s fear? That would be quite a feast. He looked sharply at the girl, trying to sense any linkage between them, any trace of the Hunter’s aura clinging to her own. But no, Tarrant feared her wild power too much to attempt such a thing. For better or worse, he would leave the girl alone.
The night was clear and all three moons were out when they regained their vantage point at the edge of the Wasting, but still the land itself was dark. Damien tried not to look at it as he half-climbed, half-slid down the crumbling ridge. The girl slipped once, but Tarrant caught her—and no, he saw nothing in the man’s manner that would indicate a deeper, more predatory relationship. He felt something loosen up within his gut, to see that she was safe.
From him, anyway.
Carefully, warily, they entered the Prince’s dark domain. The hard earth felt strange beneath their feet, and it took concentration not to stumble on the seemingly chaotic convolutions. Despite Tarrant’s assurances regarding sorcery, Damien’s every nerve was on edge, and it took all he had not to Work his sight and See the truth for himself. But the night was dark and the ground was unpredictable and it took all his concentration just to stay on his feet; he couldn’t have Worked if he’d wanted to.
Half a mile into the wasteland they came to the first of the trees. Tarrant paused to examine it, running a pale finger lightly along its bark. Damien brought the lantern close so that he and Hesseth might get a closer look; the girl stayed back, shivering, unwilling to approach the things her father had described so vividly.
“Is it alive?” Hesseth asked.
Tarrant nodded. “Unquestionably. Its life processes are slow, mostly dormant . . . but it is alive.”
“It shouldn’t be,” Damien muttered.
“No. Or rather, if it is alive, then other things should be. Land like this is fertile; once its hard surface begins to break down, many plant forms should take root. The fact that they haven’t—”
“Nothing lives here but the trees,” the girl said from behind them. “And one animal that eats them. That’s what he told me.”
“Immune,” Tarrant mused, “to whatever force the Prince created to safeguard this land. If we understood why those two species lived, perhaps we would know how to safeguard ourselves.” He caressed the tree’s smooth bark slowly, as if searching for something, but at last with a soft curse turned away. Obviously he could uncover no clue in the tree itself.
They resumed walking. Deeper and deeper into the Wasting, until the darkness swallowed up the hills behind them and they were left walking on a blackened stone sea without any land in sight. Cold sione ripples passed beneath their boots, frozen wavelets, rigid whirlpools. The hard ground made their ankles ache and the constant need to study it as they walked—lest some crack or crevice surprise them—made Damien’s head pound.
Then the texture of the earth beneath their feet changed, from the smooth flow of its southern border to a more broken, scrambled ground. After some discussion they decided to cross it rather than turn aside. But the footing was bad and the rocks were sharp and when they stumbled—which they did often—the rock fragments cut their knees and their hands, scoring deep into clothing and flesh alike. When they were finally on the other side of the broken region, they had to stop to clean and bind up their various wounds, and Hesseth brought out her healing ointment for all of them to use. It was bad enough that Damien thought perhaps he should dare a Healing, but when he looked up to get Tarrant’s opinion on the matter, he saw the man staring toward the west, brow furrowed, as if he feared that some tendril of the Prince’s power might be reaching out to them and was struggling to turn it aside. So with a shiver he simply rose up and shouldered his pack anew, aware that the aches and pains of their recent trial would be small enough suffering compared to what their enemy would put them through, if one careless Healing should draw his attention.
Two hours. Three. They stopped often, favoring Jenseny’s young legs, but though her face was white and strained and a red trickle seeped from under the bandage on her knees, she never complained. Afraid that they would leave her behind, Damien thought. Afraid that if she became a burden they would no longer want her with them. To see a child live in fear like that tore at his heart, and more than once he reached out a comforting hand to pat her shoulder or stroke her hair or offer her a steadying arm as they climbed up the slope of a cracked black wavelet.
And then they saw the bones.
They didn’t recognize them at first. The ghostly white trees were so ubiquitous that at first they thought the small white things on the ground were related to them; seedlings, perhaps, or root ends, or maybe random branches that had broken off and fallen. But as they drew closer, they could make out the edge of a rib cage etched in moonlight, fine white needles that had once been fingers, the staring sockets of an empty skull.
Bones. Animal bones. A whole skeleton, nearly undamaged. Damien knelt down by it and carefully tilted its jaw. Scavenger, he judged. No doubt it had wandered into this land in search of carrion, then had fallen prey to . . . what? He looked up at Tarrant.
“No sign of sorcery,” the adept whispered. He, too, knelt down by the small tiny skeleton and studied it. “Nor any sign of violent death,” he said at last. He passed a hand over it, eyes shut, and breathed in deeply. “Nor the scent of fear, or even its memory.”
Damien breathed in sharply. “That’s not good news.”
The Hunter’s eyes opened. “No,” he agreed.
“Can you Know it?”
“Of course.” The pale eyes glittered. “The question is, is it worth the risk?”
Damien looked over at Hesseth. She nodded ever so slightly; her expression was strained. “Go ahead,” he told Tarrant. Feeling his hand rise involuntarily to his sword grip as he voiced the words, an instinctive acknowledgment of the danger involved.
The Hunter closed his hand about the small skull, as if its texture might communicate some special message. For a moment he shut his eyes to close out distractions, then opened them again. His eyes were black.
“It came in search of food,” he told them, “because it had found none in the surrounding lands. It wandered a long time on the black plain, searching for a promising scent. It found none. Nor was there any overt danger,” he added. “At last, exhausted, it lay down to sleep. And died.”
“Just that?” Damien demanded.
The pale eyes met his. “Just that.”