Fugitive Prince (64 page)

Traithe hooked the strap of his satchel, and stroked the bird’s breast with his knuckle. “My tidings aren’t joyous. I need you to tell me where I might find Earl Jieret s’Valerient, who serves Prince Arithon as
caithdein
of Rathain.”

“Please Ath, not a death!” The female scout fanned off trailing mosquitoes and strode forward. “Or do you bring warning of the Alliance attack we’ve expected for over a fortnight?”

The Sorcerer reached out at once and touched her tense wrist, laced into its bowman’s leather bracer. “Not a death. But I can’t keep that promise without your help and swift action. Is the Earl with your band?”

“He’s four hours north of here, quartered in a hidden glen.” The scout captain extended a hand to assist with the satchel, then deferred as Traithe chose to retain the burden himself. Since a Sorcerer’s ways were no man’s to question, the captain moved on without embarrassment. “Shore’s not altogether safe with Alliance galleys plying the bay on patrol. We’ll send a runner.”

But Traithe shook his head as he fell into stride. “Spare your man.” The play of the breeze riffled his platinum hair, while the hat’s looming brim threw a shadow like ink over his urgent expression. “If you
know the way to this glen that you speak of, describe the terrain. My raven can lead me.”

“The path is straightforward.” The captain’s pinched gaze swung away from his uneasy survey of the offshore horizon. “Best we finish the details out of sight from this beachhead. If your bird can fly under guidance, the camp where Jieret’s quartered keeps horses.”

Traithe’s gratitude showed as a gleam of white teeth in jet shadow. “My raven can summon him, then. If Earl Jieret can manage to be here before daybreak, the land will be served very well.”

“You bring news of the Alliance?” pressed the other scout. Lanky, and just come to early manhood, he kept a swaggering fist on his sword hilt. More than the others, he seemed drawn by the stress of the pending Alliance invasion.

“Nothing so simple.” Traithe no longer smiled, the bracketed lines at the corners of his mouth grooved deep with the wear of hard travel. “In a desperate move to cut off pursuit, Prince Arithon crossed through a grimward.”

“Ath preserve!” the woman scout whispered.

Before her aghast fear, the Sorcerer used what logic he had to feed hope. “Rathain’s prince was well trained by a master at magecraft. He survived the dangerous passage well enough, but his conscience is troubled. He required more than self-discipline to keep his despair in check. Now those defenses have driven him far beyond waking consciousness. He will stay lost between dimensional realities unless Jieret s’Valerient can reach past the veil and find him.”

Surrounded by worried clan faces, and a quiet that bred desperation, the Sorcerer flexed his shoulders in a tight shrug. The raven croaked in complaint, its wings unfolded for balance. “We have no choice. The ties of the blood pact sworn between the
caithdein
and his prince must be enacted to recall the Teir’s’Ffalenn across time and space.” In gentle reminder, Traithe hastened his step toward the sheltering dark of the forest. “Timing is crucial. The opening spells to bridge the connection must be enacted at dawn.”

He did not speak of the dire hurdles to be crossed, nor mention the unconscionable intensity of Arithon’s grief, or the mind-stripping, ingrained misery which might come to thwart his best effort. The prospect of failure was too real, too immediate. Arithon’s downfall might lie at hand despite all his help, and Earl Jieret’s willing duty to be called to shoulder the sacrifice. A Sorcerer left crippled by past conflict with the Mistwraith could do naught but listen, as his bird did the same, head cocked to one side, while the Caithwood captain
gave terse description of the location and landmarks of the camp where Earl Jieret took shelter.

“Go brother,” Traithe murmured. A testy croak answered. The raven flapped silken wings and launched on its errand. Its flight clove the falling, gossamer moonbeams like a silent, obsidian cleaver, then arrowed up through a gap in the foliage.

The Sorcerer stared after his bird’s vanished form, hands knotted over the strap of his satchel. The bird bridged what access he could wring from maimed talent, and until it returned, he was both mortal and blinded. Too aware the comfort of polite hospitality fell short, the scouts pressed close and took charge. “You must be tired. Let us know if you’re hungry.” In soft words and brisk movement, they shared every amenity they could offer under the eaves of the forest.

Their outpost was temporary, a narrow, hidden glen tucked behind the bulrushes of a tidal marsh. Maples and oaks leaned over a brook whose banks were entangled in brambles. The scouts not on watch dozed on piles of bracken, cut fresh to drive off biting insects. They lit no cookfire. Swords were kept within immediate reach, and no one packed belongings beyond skinning knives and a hunting bow. Through the lush season, they foraged fish and game, and smoked food for the trail when hunting would slow their swift progress.

At ease with the untamed fabric of night, Traithe’s form melted into the tangled darkness under the leafed crown of old forest. His tacit awareness tracked the flutter of moths and the rustles of mice in the undergrowth, while someone’s shy boy offered him dried meat and berries, and a chilly dipper of springwater. Weary though he was, he chose not to sleep.

Patient for the return of his raven, he spoke his thanks in a resonant baritone, one knee drawn up and clasped to his chest. If sheer calm could command the elements, his poise could have arrested the fugitive trickle of water over rocks in the streamlet. His ever-present worry lay perfectly masked, while each minute fretted past, and a hunting owl flew, and a late-singing mockingbird caroled a solo through the last hours of darkness.

His vigil did not pass without camaraderie. While the wind stroked through the boughs overhead, and summer stars marked and measured their courses, three wakeful scouts exchanged jibes and desultory small talk. “Not to worry,” assured one, caught napping between topics. “Quiet’s thick enough to suffocate. An inbound horseman is going to draw notice like a drum squad.”

The scarred veteran who wound bowstrings from a coil of dried gut resumed listing the particulars of the Alliance campaign that

savaged the wilds of south Tysan. “No good news, from upstream. We’ve a precious narrow margin, and no hope at all if our seaward horizon doesn’t stay empty. It’s plain once the ships come, we haven’t a prayer.”

The battle-scarred woman raked her whetstone in a vehement pass across the weapon bridged across her bare knees. “Sunwheel troops are riddled through the vales above Mainmere. Person can’t walk to the riverside to piss without being set after by dogs.”

Another scout wearing an otter-claw necklace filled in laconic detail. “They’ve swept the forests as far south as Cainford. Nobody escapes their patrols, it’s that tight. We have families trapped in the mountains who’ve had to hole up past the snow line. They can scarcely brave the open plain to cross Camris. Armed companies can move in too fast off the trade road, and time’s now our bitterest enemy.”

Traithe worked his scarred knuckles to keep the joints supple, unable to deny the assessment. Scarcity of game, or bad weather in autumn would eventually drive the trapped clan fugitives out of hiding. Already, the Alliance net spread over the lowlands to snare them.

“They could survive well enough in the heights,” another scout picked up. “But no one can win past to send them provisions. We’ve bloodied ourselves trying. Too many armed companies with sunwheel banners are camped tight as ticks in the foothills. Gold from the trade guilds keeps them supplied, and their dogs have been cut to run silent.”

“And Lord Maenol?” Traithe asked, carefully neutral lest his deep apprehension burden the troubled scouts further.

The one blacking his features with charcoal in readiness for patrol tossed his used stick into the streamlet, his frustration a whisper of leathers in darkness. “Our
caithdein’s
trapped down in the marshes. Fenlanders shelter him as best they can, but he’s been on the run since the springtime.”

A jagged gap held the dammed-back questions no one dared ask concerning the overdue Alliance ships. For well past a fortnight, the watch on the shoreline had expected armed forces to seal a blockade over the Narrows. The Alliance’s crowning strategy would cut off the last avenue of escape for the clan families driven south, who might claim safe sanctuary under King Eldir in Havish.

Traithe stared at the scarred knuckles laced like braid over the sound knee tucked to his chest. He could give no encouragement. News from the Warden of Althain always ran through his raven, and the latest sending had held only the images of two brigs in convoy at
sea. He had not picked up any visible landmark to guess their proximity to Caithwood.

“I’m sorry. I bear you no news, ill or good.” The Sorcerer chafed, pulled a raw breath, then admitted, “If Earl Jieret can pull Prince Arithon through, the spellbinder Dakar will be with him. Our combined efforts can bridge a clear contact to the Warden at Althain Tower. Sethvir will have the answers you need.”

The earth link would show where the danger lay, and give accurate account of the
Cariadwin’s
fated landfall at Corith.

Despite the gravity of clan woes in Tysan, one sharp-eyed young strategist picked up the unspoken thread. “You imply Rathain’s prince may not be successfully recovered?”

“There is that grim chance.” Traithe looked up, his coffee eyes bleak with an honesty that admitted no shame for his weakness. “The Fellowship Sorcerers are beleaguered with troubles. At this time, I was the only one able to come here. Ath grant us the grace that Jieret’s courage and my services will be enough to bring Prince Arithon through.”

After that, there was indeed little to say, and nothing to do but wait out the night in defined, silent tension.

Ink against darkness, a shape rode the air in the stilled, murky hour before dawn. The scout captain started, hand closed on his sword until a touch from the Sorcerer calmed him. “Peace. No harm’s come.”

The raven fluttered down and settled with a boisterous croak on its master’s black-clad shoulder. The rider it had summoned cantered in a moment later and dismounted at the head of the glen. Unasked, the younger scout rose to take the reins and care for the horse. The arrival himself made almost no sound as he strode into the encampment. Jieret s’Valerient was clad in laced deer hide with fringes that accentuated his firm breadth of shoulder. He smelled of bruised greenery and overheated horse, underlain with the tang of oil from the well-kept weapons at his waist. Adverse to language where actions would serve, he raked a glance over the seated forms of the scouts, then fixed on the Fellowship Sorcerer.

No hesitation marked his greeting as he sank before Traithe on bent knee.

His clan braid had been freshly bound, a reflection of his quiet pride and sure bearing, though his straight posture gave clear enough indication that he sensed the gravity of this meeting. “What do you ask for the realm?”

“Caithdein,
Steward of Rathain,” Traithe intoned. He arose in formality, while around him, Caithwood’s scouts backed off to grant a
respectful privacy. “I ask by your oath to your kingdom, that you risk life and limb for your prince.”

Jieret’s reply was clipped iron. “By my ancestor’s promise to the Fellowship, my consent lies in your hands already.”

Traithe shifted his weight, unable to find surcease from the pull of old scars. More than bodily pain plagued him as he reached and caught Jieret’s wrists and raised the younger man before him.

The clan chieftain loomed a handspan taller. His leonine head bent to the Sorcerer’s regard, Jieret said, “You’re distressed. Why? Do you fear that I carry the weal of the realm as an unwanted burden?”

“You should fear.” The Sorcerer released his clasp in trepidation. “What you face could become far more than a burden. I invoke free consent because the need you must answer lies outside the world you understand. I come to beg your willing heart to let your spirit ride the winds.” A pause, while the impact of that statement sank in. “If your prince is to be safely recalled to Athera, that’s the last way left to draw him.”

Jieret shivered despite his most firm resolve. “Where did you send him?” he demanded, the first dangerous edge to a trust already granted without question.

Traithe did not rebuke, nor distress his set loyalties, but met challenge with a sincerity that could have breached the interlocked matrix of diamond. “To escape certain death at the hands of the Alliance, Asandir allowed your crown prince to pass through a grimward.”

Jieret flinched. Force of will held him steady for a running string of heartbeats. Then his hands clamped, and he tipped back his face. “How my father would weep.” Eyes shut in agony, he swore until he ran out of breath.

“That’s scarcely the evil fate you imagine.” Traithe drew him aside where the whisper of foliage could settle and ease his cranked tension. “Your prince sealed off his mind, that his poisonous guilt for Caolle’s death would not ruin him. There’s the problem, you see. Arithon’s trained barriers are unimaginably strong. He’s locked his mind behind a protective unconsciousness few things alive could break through. That kept him safe from the grimward’s dire influence. Only now, he has sealed his awareness too deep. Even Sethvir cannot cross his defenses to reach him.”

Jieret reached out and braced against the rough bole of an oak. His profile shone pale in the waning moonlight, and his stance stayed wide set, as if earth itself threatened his balance. “Ath guard my prince.” He managed to stay the biting unease from his final reply to the Sorcerer. “My consent is yours, freely. Now, what do you need?”

“Your trust, first of all.” Traithe’s unbroken calm remained steadying despite the discomfort to his lamed leg. “I will give you every advantage I can, believe it. Prepare yourself. Such a passage is best started in the gray hour of twilight.”

Saddened for the strain behind Jieret’s set face, he added, “You won’t like the method. I’m sorry. My powers are not whole, and because of that damage, we’re going to have to use blood magic.”