The Fall of Neskaya (7 page)

Coryn gulped and nodded, thinking of his own formless distrust of Rumail.

The party proceeded to the yard, where Rumail’s horse and pack animal stood waiting, alongside Coryn’s dun Dancer, and a
chervine
laden with everything a young man entering a Tower might want, from down-stuffed quilt to soothing winterberry lotion, tins of candied figs and rock sugar, even a set of reed pipes to while away the long winter nights.

Coryn’s escort, a livestock handler named One-eyed Rafe, waited beside his own mount. No one knew how he’d lost one eye, although the other looked as pale as if all color had been burned out by gazing too long at the sun. Coryn didn’t know the man well, had barely exchanged a few sentences with him. Castle gossip had it that Rafe had been a mercenary soldier in his youth and he looked capable of single-handedly fighting off a small army. The long-knife strapped to his thigh in a well-worn leather sheath had done ample service.

As the final round of well wishes and good-byes drew to a close, Rumail bent to speak to Coryn. “If I alarmed you with my frank talk, it was to prevent you from taking serious symptoms too lightly.”

Rumail’s nearness sent prickles up Coryn’s spine. With relief, he turned to accept one last hug from Margarida. Then he moved toward Dancer, gathering up the reins in preparation for mounting.

Rumail restrained him with a single feather-light touch on the back of the wrist. “You are feeling better
now
, I can see that. The
kirian
sometimes has a lasting beneficial effect. But travel, for even a few days, can upset that fragile balance.”

He gestured to Rafe. “If the young master should experience any recurrence of threshold sickness, you must make sure he eats well and is kept warm. If he becomes disoriented—doesn’t know where he is, doesn’t recognize you, seems confused, or cannot eat—then you must give him this.” Rumail held out a small glass vial half-filled with colorless liquid. He placed it in a pouch of wool-lined leather and handed it to Rafe. “Only a spoonful at a time. If he can still ride, make all speed to the Tower. Under no circumstances must you leave him. Do you understand?”

Rafe placed the wrapped vial in his saddlebags without a word, his expression as blank as ever. Clearly, he needed no foreign wizard to teach him his duty.

Kristlin threw herself into Coryn’s arms. For once, he had no words of easy reassurance for her. Just as he was beginning to squirm, she drew back. Rumail reached out to stroke her head, but she shied away.

“You are not to touch me.” Kristlin lifted her chin, her eyes flashing. “It is not
you
who is my promised husband, but Prince Belisar, he who will be King.”

“Nevertheless, you must speak politely to
Dom
Rumail, who will be your kinsman,” Tessa, who had been following behind, said primly. “And a Queen must be courteous to everyone, especially a
laranzu
of great power.”

“When Coryn comes back from the Tower, we’ll have
him
and then we won’t need anyone else!”

Tessa flushed, stammering out an apology for her younger sister’s behavior. Rumail waved her words away, saying, “She is but a child, already missing her big brother. I leave her to your care and tutelage,
damisela
.”

Coryn swung up on Dancer’s back and took a last leave of his father. As he rode out of the yard, with Rafe in the lead, Kristlin darted after him. She clung to his stirrup.

“I would take you with me if I could,
chiya,
” he said.

Her lower lip trembled, but she shook her head. “I don’t want to go to a Tower, not even with you. I want to stay here forever.”

On impulse, he said, “At the bottom of my chest is a carved soapwood box. Will you keep it for me? Then, whenever you are missing me, you can hold it and know I am thinking of you.”

She brightened, nodded, and released his stirrup. His hand went to the inner pocket of his vest, where his mother’s handkerchief lay safely tucked. As long as it was safe, so was he.

By the time Rafe called a halt for the midday meal, sun and fresh air combined with the exercise of riding to dispel the queasiness from the over-rich breakfast. They were still riding through Verdanta lands, but as the hours wore on, the shape of the hills grew less and less familiar. The trail wound past rock formations pocked with caves, through meadows of sun-parched grass, and down valleys lush with ferns and brambleberries. They stopped to let the horses drink and rest beside a stream.

Coryn sat on a fallen log, picking at the yellow-flecked shelf fungus growing along its length and nibbling the last of his nutbread and cheese. Once this narrow stretch of forest had been wide and deep, and trailmen were said to have roamed it, but the river had become a mere stream and no one had seen the elusive creatures in living memory. Maybe he’d come back some day and look for them. He wouldn’t be staying at the Tower forever . . . would he? He sighed, stretched, and went to get another apple from his saddlebags.

“You’ve a good enough appetite,” Rafe said.

“Yes, I’m fine.” Coryn took a bite from the apple. It was last fall’s harvesting and had lost its crispness. He’d been searching for the right time to speak all morning. “Rafe . . . you’re my father’s man, are you not, and not
Dom
Rumail’s?”

The old soldier’s mouth tightened at the corners. Coryn had guessed right, that he didn’t like being given orders by a foreign
laranzu.
He’d handled the wrapped vial of
kirian
as if it were tainted with wizard’s magic.

“And we both know I don’t need a nursemaid,” Coryn went on. “I think . . . I think it would be less insulting to both of us if I took the
kirian
, the vial he gave you, and used it when I need to. Instead of you having to watch over me and the trail at the same time.”

He half-expected Rafe to protest, but the man nodded, fetched the leather pouch from his saddlebag, and handed it over.

Coryn waited until Rafe had gone off into the ferny undergrowth to relieve himself. Crouching beside the stream, he unstoppered the vial. A faint lemony smell rose from within. He dumped out the contents, rinsed the vial twice and refilled it with fresh water. Except for a bit of dampness, no one could tell by looking that anything had changed. He tucked the wrapped vial inside his vest, next to the folded handkerchief.

Mounting up once more, Coryn felt as if a great weight had been lifted. He’d broken free of Rumail’s hold. He was going to a Tower, to be trained in
laran
, to learn to fly a glider with his starstone and maybe learn the secrets of talking to other Towers at a distance or making
clingfire
. He sang and made jokes as the day drew on. Although Rafe wasn’t much for conversation, he smiled now and again.

Late into the fourth day, Coryn and Rafe left the forested slopes for barren, rock-strewn hillsides. Haze covered the sky. The air turned icy, with a metallic taste. Thunder rumbled, soft and blurred. The horses jittered on the narrow path and the usually placid pack
chervine
shook its antlered head nervously.

Coryn pulled his horse to a halt at Rafe’s signal. The old soldier lifted his head, turned to the north. “From up Aldaran way, I reckon. Ages ago, they worked weather-magic there. Mayhap they still do. We’d best find shelter.”

Dancer whinnied and pawed the trail, pulling at the bit. Coryn nudged him on. Clearly, this was no ordinary storm—the taste of the rising wind, the sudden chill, the prickly feeling along the back of his neck—all bespoke some kind of
laran
at work. He’d never heard of weather-magic, and Aldaran, though fearsome, had always seemed far away.

They urged the horses around the curve of the hill. Hooves clattered on loose rock, sending a rain of chips downslope. The thunder took on a sharper tone.

Coryn lifted his eyes to the featureless white sky, but saw no lightning. “Rafe—”

But the older man, in the lead, wrestled his mount to a halt. The horse pranced and swished its tail. In an instant, Coryn’s heart fell. The entire hillside lay covered beneath a rockfall. Instead of a narrow trail bounded on either side with barren soil pocked with boulders and scrub brush, steep but passable, they faced a pile of jagged boulders, many of them chest-high to the horses. Upward, the entire cliff face had fractured and fallen away. In the V-shaped crevice at the bottom of the hill, a small copse of brush and a few straggly trees still stood.

Lightning flashed across the sky and thunder cracked again. Clouds, gray and swollen, billowed out from the north, building visibly from one moment to the next. The wind, even colder now, whipped across Coryn’s face.

“Which way?” he called to Rafe, raising his voice above the wind.

The old mercenary’s mouth twisted as he brought his horse to face downhill. The horse squealed, refusing for a moment until Rafe reined him in a tight circle and clapped his heels into the animal’s sides.

The horses stumbled down the rise, following the rockfall. Even the surefooted pack
chervine
lost its footing once. After a few minutes, Rafe signaled for them to dismount and lead their animals.

Dark, angry-looking clouds now stretched from one horizon to the other. Lightning kindled the sky, followed almost instantly by ear-splitting thunder. Dancer whinnied and pulled back, ears pinned flat against his neck. Coryn patted him and urged him on. The horse moved forward, reluctance in every tense line of his body.

Wetness spattered Coryn’s face: huge, icy drops. Within moments, the rain increased to a downpour. He pawed through the
chervine’s
packs for his hooded cloak. By the time he managed to pull it out, his shirt and vest were soaked through.

Coryn shouted to Rafe, who’d wasted no time in donning his own cloak. “We’ve got to get out of this!” Through the downpour, he could see the copse at the valley floor. It wouldn’t offer much shelter, but it was more than they had here.

Then he saw—
sensed
—an invisible river tumbling down the V-cleft, gaining power with each passing moment, carrying away everything in its path—men and horses as well as straggly trees.

“Flash flood!” Coryn cried.

Rafe already had brought his horse and pack animal to face upslope. Dancer and the
chervine
turned eagerly, as if they realized the danger also.

Climbing back up was harder than Coryn imagined possible. His boots slipped on the loose rock, now slick with rain. A stone tipped and slid away as he stepped on it. Pain shot up the outside of his ankle.

A few minutes later, Dancer lost his footing and slid backward in a hail of stones. The horse’s forehooves pawed the slope frantically. From below, Rafe cursed; one of the stones must have struck him. Coryn dropped the reins rather than risk them snapping. He watched, his heart pounding, as the dun horse slid another few feet and came to a stop, hindquarters bunched. White ringed its eyes.

Coryn clambered down to Dancer and gathered up the reins. “Easy, easy,” he murmured, stroking the horse’s hide. The horse quivered under his touch. He felt the animal’s fear as a battering wave. The more he reassured the horse, the more calm he himself felt.

Rain came down in a torrent, making it impossible to see more than a few feet. Wind blew steadily, driving the droplets deeper into the folds of Coryn’s cloak. Step by agonizing step, Coryn led the horse up the slope to where his pack
chervine
stood, shaking its antlered head to send sprays of water in all directions.

“No point in going on,” Rafe said as he brought his own two animals level with Coryn. “Stop now, wait it out.”

Rafe was right. It would take hours to work their way to the top of the rockfall and find some way across. Even then, they might find themselves in exactly the same situation without adequate shelter, only wetter and more exhausted.

Rafe, not waiting for a reply, moved toward the rocky barrier. This close, the barrier gave a slight but perceptible shelter from the wind.