“You know,” Jerimas said, “maybe the reavers have more than one objective.”
Gaborn suspected a plot. Tens of thousands of people in Carris were still in danger. He reached out with his Earth senses, touching them—and immediately noticed something odd. Those people weren’t in Carris anymore!
Instead, most had already fled the city, bearing southeast so that now they were just forty miles east and a little north of him. Others of his Chosen were heading west or northward from the city, but Gaborn sensed no trouble around them or those that stayed in Carris—it was only the people traveling southeast. And not even all of those were in danger.
None of the roads in that direction were any good. Most travelers moving southeast took boats on the river Donnestgree to the large cities downstream.
With a sinking heart, he recalled the wounded he had evacuated from Carris. There had been legions of sick and dying—more than ten Binnesmans could have handled. Now they spread for miles along the river. Were they heading into an ambush? The danger was rising. By this time tomorrow it would be upon them. It could be anything—reavers, a flash flood, or an attack by Lowicker’s troops.
Gaborn turned to Skalbairn. “While you’re sending out scouts, have a dozen men head downstream along the Donnestgree.”
“Yes, milord,” Skalbairn said. He nodded toward his captain.
“You know,” Skalbairn offered in a dangerous tone, “if these reavers do want to warn their master about you, you’ll have to stop them.”
“Perhaps my best chance would be to ambush the One True Master,” Gaborn said, “before she hears the news.”
But he had no idea how to reach her in the Underworld. The only person who might decipher the reavers’ trails was Averan, and she’d need the Waymaker’s knowledge to do it.
She hadn’t agreed to lead him. He hadn’t even dared to ask her. He didn’t want to sacrifice her.
A dozen lords had gathered round. Gaborn asked, “Gentlemen, may we have some privacy?”
He took Averan by the shoulder and led her away from the knot of warriors. Only Iome and Gaborn’s Days dared follow.
“Averan,” Gaborn said. His stomach knotted. “I have an enormous favor to beg.”
“What?” Averan asked in a small voice. She was trembling. She looked very timid, though she tried to be brave.
“I’m going to the Underworld, to look for the Place of Bones and the One True Master. Can you lead me to her?” He’d known that he would have to ask this of her, yet asking was hard.
Averan swallowed and began to tremble harder.
“You can’t ask that of a child,” Iome said.
“I have to,” Gaborn replied. “We’re running out of time.”
“Perhaps the wylde can do it?” Iome said.
“I thought of that,” Gaborn said. “But it doesn’t speak well enough yet. I doubt it could understand our questions, much less give us answers.”
“But she’s just a little girl. Even if she said yes, she doesn’t understand the question.”
“Yes I do,” Averan told Iome fiercely. “I know what it means better than he does.” She jabbed a finger in Gaborn’s direction. “He’s the one who doesn’t know what he’s asking. The path is long and dangerous. The reavers crawled through the Underworld for days to get here.”
“How many days?” Gaborn asked.
Averan shook her head. “I don’t know. Reavers don’t measure time like we do.”
“Averan,” Gaborn said, “this is important. I feel danger approaching. I feel a great danger to every man, woman, and child I’ve chosen. We have to leave soon. We don’t have days to waste looking for the path. Is there any other way that you know of?”
Averan shook her head emphatically.
Gaborn wasn’t sure that he believed her. “The reavers left a groove in the ground on the way here. Can’t we just follow it?”
“Probably much of the way,” Averan admitted. “But we’ll have to go to the deepest nesting grounds, where the sorceresses lay their eggs. All of the tunnels have well-beaten paths, and the sentinels keep watch.”
Gaborn sighed, rubbed his temple, trying to relieve the tight muscles.
“If you want me to lead you,” Averan offered, “then you must get the Waymaker off that rock!” She pointed toward the monolith on the horizon.
“I will,” Gaborn said. “And before we go, you’ll need to take endowments. We have to make the journey swiftly, and I cannot afford to have you lag. You’ll need brawn, grace, stamina, and metabolism. Most of all, you’ll need endowments of scent so that you can smell the reavers’ markings.”
“Averan—” Iome began to say. But Averan cut her off.
“It’s all right,” Averan said. “Everyone dies. All my friends are gone. He wants to know if I’ll die down there with him.”
“That’s right,” Gaborn said. “It could come to that.”
Iome bit her lip, shot Averan a mournful look. Yet she had to know that Gaborn could not ask this lightly.
Averan took Iome’s hand, squeezed it. “I know what I’m doing. It’s better for one person to die, than a whole world. Don’t you think?”
Gaborn was not surprised at the tears that filled Iome’s eyes. She had always loved her people, but he felt overwhelmed by the way she grabbed Averan, and hugged her fiercely. “I could never be good at that kind of math.”
Gaborn knelt, wrapped his arms around them both.
“Iome,” he whispered into his wife’s ear. “I want you to go someplace safe. I can’t think of any place safer than the Courts of Tide. I need you to carry a letter for me to an old friend. He’ll know where we can get the endowments we need.”
“It will take days for the dogs to bond with her,” Iome objected.
“We’ll have the dog handlers take the endowments,” Gaborn said. “That way it can be done in hours. Then we’ll give them to the girl as vectors.”
Iome nodded her consent. Gaborn quickly penned his missive. As he did, his mind turned to other matters.
He knew the value of stepping outside himself, of learning to think like his enemy. He’d discovered it when he was Averan’s age, and for a moment he was lost in a memory.
When Gaborn was nine, he’d gone on an autumn hunt with his father and some Runelords near the headwaters of the river Dweedum.
On the hunt, the lords found a few salmon running weeks before expected. Gaborn’s father set up camp, and mentioned that he wanted fish for dinner.
The lords couldn’t let such a challenge lie. Catching the salmon suddenly loomed large.
It was one of those cool dawns in autumn when the sun barely filters into the canyons, and the morning mists spend half the day trying to climb up the ridges to make their escape into the sky. The larks and finches had been hopping in the pines, and the spores on the ferns along the hillside were so thick that the whole of the forest carried their scent, so that a tang like iron mingled with the pine needles and a carpet of moss.
With the river running low, the riverbed held more round gray boulders than water.
The lords rode their horses up through the shallows of the river, driving the salmon up to Wildman Falls. The falls soared a hundred and seventy feet. The water tumbled like silver hair, leaving a cold spray in the air that misted Gaborn’s shoulders. No salmon could leap those falls, so the basin beneath was a good place to hem the salmon in. The tumbling water had carved a nice little pond, cool and deep. A few strategically placed boulders all but blocked the shallow exit downstream, and that could be easily guarded.
There weren’t many salmon. Gaborn had only spotted three or four on the ride up, and saw only one swim into the deep waters, making it all that much more desirable.
The older lords thrust a spear into Gaborn’s hands and told him to stand in the shallows and “try” to bag any fish that headed downstream.
Meanwhile, the lords all rode their horses out into the deeper pool, till the water reached their mounts’ bellies. Then they launched themselves at fish with spears that were meant for boars.