Hunted (Book 3) (6 page)

She stalked off to scout around before darkness and mist obscured her view completely.

“I don’t think she’ll ever like me again.” Geoff said glumly after closing his book and arranging his other implements within his cloak.

“Maewen or Fenna?” the Chalaine inquired softly.

“Fenna.”

“Give her time, Geoff. She was very fond of you before the unfortunate events on the wedding night. Fenna is stubborn and can be petulant when hurt. Be patient. The storm will blow itself out.”

“Thank you, Chalaine. I know it is hard for her losing a man such as Gen. If she loved him, then loving me will not be easy. Gen and I are as different as a peacock and a falcon.”

“True,” the Chalaine agreed. “But honestly, I believe she is better suited to you than him.”

“Do you mean it?”

“I do, and I know her as well as any.”

“Your words bring me comfort,” Geoff said, “but I wish I could do something to speed the storm’s passing. Every day I live with her scorn is a day boiling in agony.”

“Well,” the Chalaine said, squeezing his arm as she turned to go, “you are a bard, and if sweet words—and sincere ones—are a way to a woman’s heart, then you are eminently qualified to negotiate the trail, however thorny it may be at the moment.”

Fenna looked away quickly as the Chalaine returned. A chill washed over the party as breezes blown in from the plain to the north pushed them deeper into their cloaks. Fenna’s eyes flashed angrily as the Chalaine reclined on her bedroll.

“How can you speak with him?” she whispered angrily, trying to keep Dason from overhearing.

“Why shouldn’t I? Has he done something wrong?”

Fenna folded her arms. “An honorable man would have died rather than accept a forced marriage to a woman who doesn’t love him. If Gen and Geoff’s places were reversed, I would not be married now.”

The Chalaine shook her head. “No. You seem to forget that Gen’s life was in the balance. Think, Fenna! By marrying you, Geoff was attempting to save an honorable man, and however you feel about him, his feelings for you are obvious. Why should he die when his life could secure so much good, even amid woe?”

“Well I thought you at least would understand what it is like to be forced to marry someone you don’t love, but I suppose there is one difference between us—you have never really loved anyone else. Your heart has never been uprooted from where it was content and joyful and asked to thrive in a cold, foreign country. When you have felt an attachment as I have, then maybe you will understand what it is like to have it torn away!”

The Chalaine could bear no more, choking back a hundred explanations and chastisements Fenna had no power to understand or profit from. Without a word she rose, strolling slowly around the trees until those majestic views which were said to inspire dreams faded into fog and shadow.

Stirring in the camp snapped the Chalaine out of a blissfully dreamless sleep just before Dason stooped to wake her, and when she woke, she needed no explanation for the hurried movements. Somewhere in the forest behind them the Uyumaak thumped their chests and beat sticks against trunks, familiar sounds introduced to her during the last days of the doomed caravan. The rhythmic pattering struck fear into her heart, and she nearly forgot to collect her bedroll before moving to the horse that Kimdan finished saddling as she approached.

Dawn struggled to make its presence known. Fog clumped thickly about them, blinding their eyes, dampening their cloaks, and matting their hair. Mirelle grabbed her daughter’s hand briefly as she walked by, Cadaen seeing to her horse. Chertanne was already astride his mount, head darting about at every sound. The Chalaine checked the
animon
as she waited for the rest of the company to mount. Gen yet lived. What comfort this brought was short-lived.

“We ride fast,” Maewen informed them, signaling for everyone to come close. “They have our trail and likely know exactly where we are going. It will be easy to get separated in this fog. Keep to the path. If you do lose your way, ride in widening circles until you find the road. Keep the sun and the mountains to your left. The fog should clear by midmorning. Ride hard!”

They started slowly until they were sure everyone was on the trail. After a quick glance over her shoulder, Maewen spurred to a gallop, dark hair streaming behind her. The Chalaine rode just behind the half-elf and Chertanne, the soldiers bringing up the rear. While Maewen had described the fog as a blanket, it was a ragged one, clarity and blinding obscurity alternating in irregular succession. They rode single file down a road as wide as a man is high, pushing the horses to the limit to gain time and distance.

Maewen reined the party in as they ascended a slight rise into a clearing in the fog. She rode around, counting to make sure no one had drifted away. The Chalaine patted her horse as steam shot from its nostrils. The thumping Uyumaak still dogged them, sounding uncomfortably close.

Maewen frowned. “We should have put some distance between us with that run. They have elements out here on this plain. We need to get somewhere high and more defensible. The fog works to their advantage—they can smell us but we can’t see them. Stay close. We will leave the road.”

Again they streaked forward, pounding hard down the stone path before them, the sun breaking above the horizon to their right, casting diffuse light through the mist. The Chalaine’s heart pounded, wetness matting her veil to her face and hampering her vision as she struggled to keep Maewen in view. A sinking dread took hold of her.

We’re not going to get off this shard.

Thumping behind her and to the right startled her by its nearness.

“They are a hundred yards behind us!” Maewen yelled. “Break left now!” As one, the horses plunged off of the road, mud and grass flipping off their swift hooves. The Chalaine hung onto the reins as they ascended a steep hill she hadn’t seen, the riders in front of her fading in and out of the fog. Abruptly they emerged into the weak morning sunshine, cresting a hill with a narrow top of knee-high, thick-bladed grass just starting to brown. Before her stretched a sea of misty white interrupted by islands of hilltops jutting up into the clear.

“Look!” Dason yelled, pointing below them. Eddies swirled in the fog below as Uyumaak, practically invisible save for the disturbance in the mist, raced toward the hill.

“Everyone that can fight dismount and put the horses in a tight group behind us,” Maewen ordered.

“Wouldn’t we be at an advantage, mounted?” Dason asked.

“We need to protect the horses. Uyumaak are not noble. The horses give us an advantage and they will kill them before they kill you. Do it.”

“Jaron!” Mirelle yelled. “You stay with my daughter.” Jaron nodded, moving his horse to the Chalaine’s side and taking the reins from her.

“Uyumaak can spook horses,” he explained.

The Chalaine trembled. Her mother, Geoff, and Fenna joined her as the fighters jumped from their horses and pushed them back. The soldiers, Maewen in the middle, formed a line at the edge of the hill. The half-elf drew her bow, pulling an arrow to her cheek. Chertanne rode away from the line, heading for the Chalaine’s tightly knotted group before Athan intercepted him.

“Your Grace,” he pleaded, “we need your magic!”

Chertanne, already pale, turned an even whiter hue. “I . . . I am not. . .”

“Chertanne!” the Chalaine yelled, anger welling up within her. “Get in the fight, for all of our sakes! This is what you were born for!”

“The moon is not full!” he yelled defensively. “My magic is yet weak! I will be of no use!”

Athan appeared ready to present some argument, but Maewen’s bow singing and a yell from the men at the line prompted him to abandon his entreaty and rush forward to help with his own magic. Chertanne sidled up to Geoff, not meeting anyone’s eye for fear of what he would find there.

The soldiers shifted their weight and gripped and regripped their swords. Maewen shot three times before shouldering her bow and drawing her knives. The defenders stepped back as a band of Uyumaak Hunters slammed into the line as one. Long limbed and lanky, they soundlessly pressed the attack, their many eyes darting among several targets. The Chalaine startled at their long claws and frightening speed. The men fought off lightning slashes and chopped at the bony arms, holding the charge at bay. Sharp Uyumaak nails shrieked along plated armor and tore clothing and flesh.

Athan, riding behind the battle, incanted. One of the Uyumaak turned from its human opponent and attacked the other Hunters. The confusion afforded the advantage to a nearby Dark Guard who quickly finished off the creatures and gave aid to the Aughmerian soldiers. Sharp swords hacked away arms and impaled the bodies of the silent enemy. Two of the attackers finally broke and ran, Maewen finishing them with her bow.

“How many?” Athan asked, after the battle was over.
  “Eighteen,” Maewen calculated, grabbing her horse. “If there are two companies out there, they should have numbered twenty-two. We are missing four, though they may have returned to give news of our position. It is time to be a little unpredictable. Let’s check the wounded and get moving.”

What wounds there were received a hasty, rough bandaging of shredded cloak, and in short order Maewen led them off the hill and back into the fog, veering west toward the mountains. She kept the pace even, saving the strength of the horses against the need to flee.

As the half-elf had said, the rising sun coaxed away the fog by midmorning and added greatly to the relief of the party. The land spread green about them, rolling and inviting, as pleasant a morning as any traveler could ask to favor her for a journey. The Far Reach Mountains rose a hazy gray-green before them, steep, grassy foothills gashed with gullies crouching at their base.

They rode in silence until midday, crossing several gurgling streams as Maewen gradually turned north to avoid the uneven terrain of the foothills. As they halted for lunch, Maewen explained that she hoped she would find more animals nearer the mountains, for as yet the mighty herds she had described the night before had not materialized.

She said, “The gullies and washes also provide us a quick way into the mountains and more defensible places where we can find better concealment. With the Hunters mostly destroyed, we should be able to stay ahead of the main body of Uyumaak . . . unless there are more in front of us.”

The rest of the afternoon saw nothing of animals, Uyumaak, or conversation. The territory simultaneously fascinated and worried them. As travelers, their eyes and hearts anticipated what views awaited just behind the next rise, around the next bend, or just behind a jut of rock; as prey, they feared the same. Once evening approached, the haze and fog returned to accumulate in the low places as Maewen searched the high ones for a defensible place to encamp.

As the sky turned a deep purple and the fog threatened to overtake them, the Chalaine noticed a grin cross Maewen’s face. “This way,” the tracker yelled before turning her horse and galloping up a hill.

As they approached, a ruined wall of loose river rock crowning the hill appeared to her veiled vision, the party passing inside through a narrow breach. While the wall barely rose to the level of her waist, Maewen was clearly pleased with her find.

After Captain Tolbrook helped the Chalaine from her saddle, Maewen approached and led her to the other side of the animal where they could converse in private. The half-elf lifted the three stone necklaces from off her neck and assisted the Chalaine in donning them again. The Chalaine regarded her in the warm evening light, finding a brightened, even lively, cast to Maewen’s eyes.

“I cannot thank you enough, Chalaine, for lending me these. While in such a camp as this, I do not feel at liberty to tell you a very private tale, but you should know that Samian is my father. This is, indeed, a wise gift to you from Gen, and if you see him again, you should give him your gratitude. But you had best do it before I see him, for I will most likely kill him for keeping this a secret from me.”

The Chalaine asked, “What do the stones do?" the Chalaine asked. "What am I to do with your father when I dream? I cannot even understand him! I’m sure he will tire of me soon.”

“I do not know all, but the stones will lend you breath, strengthen your frame, and help you heal. As for my father, he is a warrior but a gentle man. He could return to the sleep of Erelinda, but after I communicated to him our circumstances, he is anxious to help you. Some teaching can be done without words.”

Geoff ended their conversation, approaching tentatively, book in hand. “There you are, Maewen.”

“I suppose you are in search of information about this wall.”

“Yes. I know that a wall might be a bit dull, but if it is the residue of some lost civilization, then it may be worthy of note.”

“Lost is certainly an appropriate word in this case. I will tell anyone who is interested more when I return. I want to scout around before full dark and full fog.”

Maewen sped away after asking Kimdan to care for her horse, and after the horses were properly unburdened, brushed, and staked out, they dined on a meager meal of bread and dried meat whose flavor had long since bored the tongue into apathy. To their delight, the fog did not rise to envelop them, allowing a hazy view of the moons. Stars and shards gradually bloomed into view as the sun loosened its bright grip upon sky, cooling a gentle zephyr as refreshing and clear as a mountain pool.

Maewen returned shortly, Geoff dogging her, and the Chalaine crossed quickly to them along with others she had informed of Maewen’s promise of information. Before ten words were out, the entire camp had gathered around her save Jaron and Tolbrook, who kept vigil at the wall.

“The place we have stumbled upon is nothing more than a corral for animals used by the dwarves long ago. They trained dogs to harry sheep, goats, and even elk into these hilltop enclosures, shearing or slaughtering them at need.”

“Would the dwarves come this far out of their mountain strongholds?” Geoff asked. “I thought they lived mostly on wild mountain game.”

“They preferred the mountains, but they loved meat. There simply wasn’t enough game to be had to satisfy their appetite for it. They were poor hunters due to their general lack of stealth or general tendency toward boisterous behavior, however you wish to view it. They were a thunder in the mountains, and the animals learned to run at the sound of them. Hence, they built these hilltop corrals, defensible and above the fog.

“The mountains nearby housed several different but related clans, the Ghozan, the Shaek-Khur, and Jhorak-Khur, to name a few. The dwarven kings lived several days north of here in a mighty mountain they named Khore-Thaka-Tnahk. We will see it if we are given the luxury of following our present course.”

“Were all the dwarves killed in the Shattering?” Mirelle inquired during a pause.

“The dwarves disappeared at some undetermined point before the Shattering. As the time called Middle Peace drew to a close, the intrigues of Mikkik undermined the strength of the kingdoms of man, war and civil war ripening Ki’Hal for destruction. Elves and dwarves, on account of their long lives and deeper wisdom, did not fall victim as easily to Mikkik’s schemes, but they were few in number. They needed the race of man to beat Mikkik back as they had done before. Both elves and dwarves sent ambassadors, advisers, and embassies to try to piece together a unity among the human kingdoms, but the schisms were too deep and too bitter to remortar.