He had no way of knowing, but the very question left him deeply troubled. And as they took off again that afternoon, he could not shake the apprehension that he had become the unwitting tool of the enemy.
They ran for nearly an hour, across a broad expanse of plains. Fallion glanced back, could see the trail they’d left, the bent stubble pointing the way like an arrow, and it filled him with worry.
At the end of an hour, they saw a line of trees and imagined that it foretold another brook, but when they reached it the ground dropped suddenly, and there was a broad canyon more than two miles across.
Within it ran a raging torrent, brown water churning and foaming, while huge trees torn and uprooted swirled in the flood. It was as if a dam had broken, and the whole world seemed to be washing away. In Fallion’s own world, no river like this had existed. But here, the mountains were taller, and the range that had been called the Alcairs bulged into a different formation. Now it seemed that with the changes in the land, the river was washing away trees that had stood for centuries. Most disconcerting of all to Fallion was that the water was flowing west, when it should have been going east. He could only imagine that the river snaked back in the proper direction at some point.
“Damn,” Talon swore. “This is the River Dyll-Tandor. I had hoped that it was farther north.”
“Is it always this treacherous?” Rhianna asked.
Talon shook her head. “Not in the summer. There were some vast lakes in the mountains. With the change, it looks as if they are emptying.”
“Can we swim it?” Rhianna asked.
Everyone turned and looked at Rhianna as if she were daft. Fallion’s legs were already shaking from weariness.
“I’m not up to it,” Jaz said. “But how about if you swim it, and we’ll all climb on top and ride you, like you was a boat?”
Fallion could not escape the feeling that this flood was his fault. “There has to be another way across.”
At that, Talon bit her lip uncertainly. “There is-a bridge, downstream, at the city of Cantular. But it will be guarded.”
“How many guards?” Fallion asked, wondering at the odds. There were four of them, and though he had never seen a wyrmling, he was up to the challenge of fighting a few, if he had to. Fallion was good with a sword. And in the full light of day, he still had his flameweaving skills to draw upon.
“Dozens, maybe hundreds,” Talon said. “There was a vast fortress there at one time, and the bridge has always been a strategic point. The wyrmlings will have it well garrisoned.” She eyed Fallion critically. “Wyrmling archers are good,” she said. “They use bows made of bone.”
He understood what she was saying. Fallion had skill as a wizard, but a flameweaver could die from an arrow wound as easily as any other man.
“Then we will have to take great care,” he said.
THE CHASE
It is said that the Knights Eternal never die. But some would argue that they never have lived, for the Knights Eternal are recruited from stillborn babes.
In the cool morning air, Vulgnash and the Knights Eternal raced through a glen, their long legs carrying them swiftly. They had fed well during the night. Fourteen strong men they killed, draining the life from them. They were sweet, these small humans of the otherworld, filled to bursting with hopes and desires that humans on this world seemed to have forgotten.
Vulgnash could not recall when he had last tasted souls so sweet, like fat woodworms. Other humans that he had taken lately were empty, like the husks of dead beetles.
There had been other small humans at the fortress besides the men-women and children. Vulgnash and his cohorts had left them. Perhaps the Knights Eternal would go back to feed upon them at another time.
Now, he was sated, full of hope himself. He hoped to catch the wizard soon.
Already, the morning sun was coming, slanting in from the trees to the south. Kryssidia looked toward it mournfully, as if begging that they stop and find a cave in which to hole up for the day.
“Patience,” Vulgnash growled. “We may catch them yet.”
The humans had left a trail that was easy to follow. Even without Thul’s infallible sense of smell, Vulgnash could have followed the scuff marks among the pine needles, the broken twigs and bent grass.
Vulgnash used his powers to draw shadows around them, so that they traveled through a lingering haze. Had anyone spotted them there, they would have only seen an indistinguishable mass of black, loping through the gloom.
Finally, they reached a grotto, a place where the rocky crown of a hill thrust up, with a cliff face that rose some eighty feet on three sides. A few gnarled old pines cast a deep shadow in the cavern.
“The scent of humans is strong here,” Thul growled. “The scent of death is strong on them. They bedded here for the night.”
It was a good place to bed down, Vulgnash saw. It had hidden the humans from prying eyes during the night, from his prying eyes, and its shadows would hide him from the burning sunlight.
“They can’t have gotten far,” Vulgnash said. The sun had not yet cracked the horizon. “They might only be a few hundred yards on their way.”
Kryssidia hissed in protest, but Vulgnash went racing down the hill, heading west, using all of his skill to run silently over the forest floor, sometimes leaping into the air and taking wing when the brush grew thick or rocks covered the ground.
Thul raced ahead, loping along, stooping every dozen feet to test the ground for a scent. They glided down a long slope, into a forest of oaks that opened up, inviting more light.
Slanting rays of morning sunlight beat through the trees, cutting Vulgnash’s flesh like a lash. He drew his cowl tightly over his face and bent the light to his will, surrounding himself in shadows.
All too soon, they stopped at the edge of a wood. Before them lay a broad expanse of golden field, the morning sun shining full upon it in the distance, so that a line of light cut hard across his vision.
Kryssidia hissed and turned away, but Vulgnash squinted, even though the light pierced his eyes like nails.
There in the distance, perhaps only a quarter of a mile away, he could see four figures racing through the endless open fields of summer straw. Bright yellow flowers grew tall in the field, with dark centers. They bobbed in the soft morning breeze.
So close, he thought. So close.
The humans could not have known that he was on their trail. Vulgnash and his men had moved as softly as shadows. And though the humans were running, they were not running in their speed. Instead they jogged, conserving their strength as if for a longer race.
Vulgnash peered at the bent grass they left in their wake. In the starlight, the trail would look as dark as a road.
“Tonight,” he said, “we will take our hunt on the wing. Though they run all day, we will be upon them within an hour.”
CANTULAR
See to it that no enemy ever crosses the River Dyll-Tandor without paying a toll in blood.
The sun was riding low in the sky, drifting down into a yellow haze by the time that Fallion’s group reached the ruins of Cantular.
They had followed the river for miles, keeping to the edge of the woods, where deer trails and rabbit trails would hide their track, and suddenly they rounded a bend, and saw the city sprawling there in its ruin. A vast stone fortress made up the bulk of it, hundreds of feet long and a full forty feet tall.
Whether it had been deserted for five years or five thousand, Fallion thought that it would look much the same. The massive sandstone slabs that made up the walls of the city were monolithic, and looked as if they might stand for eternity. Here, holes had been dug, and the slabs had been made to sand up like pillars. Then enormous stone slabs were laid atop them, forming massive roofs.