“Deathstone Pass,” Ithor Drok said. “Old Red lost four hundred men there. I’d never seen him so furious. He was ready to lead what was left of our army over the boulders and the bodies, if the officers hadn’t refused flat-out.”

“He would have gone on?” Alkath Halan stared incredulously at the old soldier.

Ithor nodded. “He’d never been thwarted in his life, didn’t intend to start then. But no army in the history of Ilgrath has been able to take Westreach.”

“I can see why,” Alkath said. “It wouldn’t take much of a force at all to hold these passes. Ambushes and traps every inch of the way.”

“Oh, for mercy’s sake,” Gedren Ephes said. “We’re only paying a visit, not invading.”

“Do you think the Westreachers be inclined to ally with us?” Alkath wondered aloud. They have no love for the Kathaks, and in effect, we’re proposing to put a Westreacher king on the throne of Hothar.”

“We don’t dare tell them,” Gedren said. “Not yet. We know so little about the king and his leanings, or how strong a Narluki presence there is here.”

“She’s right, boy. Imagine the rightful king of Hothar in the hands of the Premier of Narluk.”

Alkath shuddered, thinking of the stories he’d heard as a child. The Narluki were as human as anyone, but called themselves the Serpent-People. They believed that the higher-born a sacrificial victim, the greater the honor to Nar, their savage god.

“Will we meet any Narluki?”

Ithor laughed. “Hah, the noble’s brat is starting to sweat a bit, is he?”

“We won’t see anyone if we stand about talking all day,” Gedren said pertly. “And I don’t fancy making camp tonight in the middle of Deathstone Pass.”

That was a sentiment to which Alkath could readily agree. A place where hundreds had died in crushed agony beneath the grinding stones would be the perfect site for spirits to wander.

Alkath took the lead while Ithor mounted up on their only horse. He lashed his crutch to the saddle within easy reach. Gedren, leading the pack-beast laden with their belongings, brought up the rear.

They proceeded on, up a hardpacked switchbacked trail whose slope was gradual enough to allow the heavy merchant-wagons to make the climb. The last Plesvar town was now four days behind them.

Up and up they went, the trees giving way to smaller wind-stunted bushes that clung tenaciously to the mountainside. Then even those were gone, and there was only rock. But it was far from drab; the weather had sculpted spires and bridges and formations into stone banded all the colors of the sunset.

Sometimes the trail went winding through narrow shadow-dark canyons that showed only thin slices of blue sky above; other times along a cliff that dropped sheerly away to one side and rose in an impassive face above.

To look down, which Alkath did once and then tried not to do again, was to imagine the fall, the air whistling past one’s ears and rippling at one’s clothes. The fall, and the inevitable landing. To speculate on whether one would live long enough to hear the crunch of bone on rock, and how intense the brief instant of pain would be.

Wide as the trail was, by some mountain-spirit magic it seemed that when they were traversing one of the cliff-sections, it shrank until it was the width of a windowsill.

Ithor was unconcerned, and Gedren seemed to be holding up better than Alkath would have thought possible, so he kept his fears to himself.

“Are there way-houses?” He spoke too loudly and his voice seemed to bounce back at him in a shout.

“Just over the height,” Ithor replied, “if we can reach it by sundown. If not, we look for a cave-shelter. If not that, we hope for a wide spot.”

“Is it safe?” Gedren asked.

Ithor snorted. “Of course not. Might be brigands and other wildlife. Robber-birds have run off with bigger people than you, there are packs of feral dogs, maybe even rock-stingers.”

“What’s a rock-stinger?” Alkath’s hand instinctively dropped to his sword hilt.

“Scorpion.”

“Oh, is that all?”

“The size of a wolf.”

“Oh.” He noticed that Gedren was crowding so close that the pack-beast was flapping its woolly ears in irritation. “Well. We’ll just have to make sure we find the way-house.”

“See that up ahead? That mark carved into the flat stone?”

Ah. Now he saw it. A reddish boulder with one flattish sheared-off side facing the trail. The design was of a wavy line like ripples in a lake.

“What is it?” Gedren asked.

“The black snake of Westreach,” Ithor replied.

“Is it bigger than a rock-stinger?” Alkath asked.

That earned him a scornful look from the old man. “That’s the king’s emblem, boy. They say the valley was the lair of a giant black snake that swallowed the settlers whole, until the king’s ancestor cut it open and set them free.”

“That can’t have gone over well with the Narluki,” Gedren murmured. “Don’t they hold all snakes sacred?”

“I remember now,” Alkath said. “Westreach’s banner is a black snake on a silver field. So this means we’ve entered their territory?”

“We have indeed. Their sentries probably saw us when we were still miles off, but from here on, they could be all around us. Listening to our every word. Close enough to spit on us if they chose.”

“Let’s hope they don’t,” Gedren remarked.

* *

Their lives were in Idasha’s hands.

A single action, and she could send a thunderous rain of boulders down on them. When the dust settled, there’d be nothing left but a heaped cairn.

“They look harmless enough,” Cadmun said.

“Not merchants, though. I think I’ll go down and see what they’re about.” Idasha rose from a crouch and patted dust from her leather trousers. “The king is always on the listen for news.”

He grunted indifferent assent and settled back in the shade.

For most, sentry duty at the passes was an assignment greeted with dismay. For Cadmun, it was a spirit-send. Idasha knew he’d happily sit up there through snowfall and summer’s heat, so long as his supply of chew-root held out.

Her first few days sharing his watch had been interesting enough, learning the hiding-spots and ambush-sites and trap-triggers. But after that, it had grown quickly dull. Even in the height of the trading season, when pack-beast caravans came from both Hothar and Narluk, long days could go by with nothing moving except the occasional animal.

As sure-footed as a climb-goat, she descended and joined the trail well in advance of them, choosing a red-veined boulder to stand upon. Here she was high enough to be out of reach and able to drop quickly down behind if they had bows.

A lanky but handsome blond man about her own age came into view first. Although he was scanning the terrain alertly, he was only looking at his eye-height.

“No Westreacher would ever attack on a level,” she called. “We strike from above, like hunting-hawks!”

He jumped a clear foot in the air, gawky as a newborn robber-bird. But as he came down he drew a sword, and the lines and angles of his body turned from awkwardness to readiness.

“Brigand or sentry?” he demanded boldly.

“Sentry. My name’s Idasha. And you?”

“A traveler.” He looked at her then, really saw her. His eyes -- a pretty blue with darker striations -- twinkled in a way she’d become familiar with ever since she first budded then ripened. “I’m Alkath.”

“Three travelers,” the woman corrected as she and the old man caught up. “I take it this means we’ve arrived?”

“That depends on where you’re going,” Idasha said.

“We’re hoping to find a way-house before dark,” Alkath told her.

“Then you’re almost there. Welcome to Westreach.”

She backed up a few steps and gestured with her arm, and they came forward to view the scene that opened up before them.

The valley stretched for miles, an elongated oval spreading out from Six Rivers Lake at the bottom. Despite the name, more than ten rivers and a dozen smaller streams fed into the shimmering blue water, all of them sparkling ribbons against the landscape of patchwork farmlands and meadows. The many stands of trees resembled puffs of deep green clouds fallen to earth.

The cradle of the mountains, towering to snow-capped and fog-shrouded peaks, provided all the defense that Westreach needed. The towns and villages were unwalled, homes clustered together more for social than security reasons.

Near the center of the valley the land rose again, where a rocky outcrop jutted on a slant from the earth. Atop it was the royal city-castle. That structure did not lack for walls or defenses; should the impossible happen and enemies breach the passes, the entire population of the valley could crowd within the gates. Or so Idasha had always been told, with no reason to doubt.

“I’ll be boiled,” the old man finally said, with rue and chagrin in his voice. “Here I’d thought it was a single, small township. A barony with delusions of grandeur.”

The woman sighed and patted the shoulder of the pack-beast. “How are we to find one among thousands?”

“I may be able to help,” Idasha offered. “Who do you seek?”

“My nephew,” the old man said. “He and his wife settled here some twenty years ago.” He blew a rattling breath between pursed lips. “Only he didn’t tell me where he lived. Just that it was where the moon shadows fall, which is poetic as all get-out but none too helpful.”

Idasha laughed. “You are unfamiliar with our land! Where-the-Moon-Shadows-Fall is the name of a village.”

“What kind of name is that?” Alkath asked.

“It’s Narluki,” she explained. “Many of our towns are like that. Where-the-Green-Reeds-Sing, Where-the-Lady’s-Veil-Grows, and so on.”

“Well, then.” The old man nodded brusquely. “You’ve done us a service, girl. Now be a help and do us another, tell us the way to the village. Girls for sentries? Hardly proper women’s work.”

“Ithor,” the woman scolded, and smiled at Idasha. “It has been a long way from Hothar and our manners are as worn thin as the soles of our shoes. I am Gedren. We’re grateful to you for the greeting.”

“And more grateful if you could tell us the way,” Alkath added. “Or guide us, if it wouldn’t take you from your duties.”

Ithor made a rude noise. “Think with your brain, boy! We’re probably ringed by men and covered by a dozen crossbows even now. Make a single wrong remark and you’ll be a pincushion. Guide us? Go off alone with us, with you? Pah!”

“I can take care of myself,” Idasha said, planting her hands on her hips so that one rested by the hilt of her long knife and the other by her sling and pouch of stones. The handle of a lhote, a small sharp double-edged pick balanced for both swinging and throwing, stuck up over her shoulder.

“I warrant you can, at that,” Alkath said, shifting his gaze to her arms. She knew that in her sleeveless jerkin, they showed tanned and strong.

Gedren daintily cleared her throat as Alkath’s eyes journeyed elsewhere on Idasha. “Could you tell us the way to Where-the-Moon-Shadows-Fall? We don’t need a guide, only directions. We can pay you for the information.”

“News from Hothar would be payment enough,” she said. “For that, I’ll lead you to the way-house and draw you a map that will help you cross the valley.”

* *

“What a creature!” Alkath sighed, turning to look back.

He waved, and his heart sprang up when Idasha lifted her hand in return. Then she vanished as if she were a mountain-spirit, melting into the rocks.

It didn’t matter that he couldn’t see her. From the burnished-bronze braid escaping her leather cap to her fog-rolling-on-the-sea eyes to the firm curves of her figure, her image was engraved on his memory.

Ithor barked a coarse laugh. “What a creature indeed! More mannish than some men I’ve seen!”

“I thought warrior-women were prized in Kathan,” Gedren said. “Wasn’t Verana --”

“There’s a difference between a warrior-queen, shining in golden armor on the battlefield and inspiring her troops to rally, and the likes of that girl. Probably got put to sentry duty because no one would marry her.”

“I think she’s magnificent!” Alkath declared. “She moves as if she could out-run a deer, or out-fight any man in Hothar with nothing but that lhote.”

“But would you marry such a woman?” Ithor pressed.

“Um ...” Alkath thought of the daughters of Hothar’s nobles and knights. They were perfumed and smooth-skinned ladies, with artfully-placed beauty marks and crushed gemstone powder sparkling on their eyelids and cheekbones. Ladies who went no further than their own gardens unless carried in a coach or sedan chair, who became light-headed after only a few dances.

They went into the way-house, which was much the same as all the others that spanned Ilgrath from sea to sea. Generations ago, during an as-yet-unrivaled time of peace, the leaders of Ilgrath had cooperated to build sturdy shelters along every major road, roughly a day’s journey apart.

Each ruler assumed responsibility for the upkeep of the way-houses. Thus, some might be in crumbling disrepair, while others might have regularly-replenished supplies of wood and foodstuffs. This one had both wood and a water cistern, which was fortunate as there wasn’t much of either to be found nearby.

Soon, they had a cheery fire blazing and Gedren was coaxing miracles from their stores of dried food. She could all but turn the rocks themselves into a pleasing meal, it seemed.

When Alkath slept that night, his dreams were filled with tanned, taut-limbed women, all identical to Idasha.

They ran in packs through the landscape of his mind, hunting beneath the world-belt, surrounding herdbeasts and wild horses, voicing fierce cries as they swung their lhotes. Strangely, the more wildly they carried on, and the more drenched in the blood of their prey they became, the more alluring they seemed.

He was very cross when Ithor wakened him to take his turn on watch.

* *

Where-the-Moon-Shadows-Fall was tucked in the cradling arm of a river curve. Alkath guessed it had gotten its name from the rock formation that soared high in lonely prominence, a tapering pillar ending in a crescent-shaped chunk of stone. When the sun was right, it would cast moon-shaped shadows across the village.

He’d girded himself not to expect too much. Even so ...

He stared from one sod-roofed house to the next, taking in the mud-packed paths, the naked (and also often mud-packed) children, chickens and geese roaming free, a dog giving suck to a litter of pups in the shade of the shrine to the rain-spirits.

“Here?” He fit a world of incredulity into that one word. “We’re to find a king here? A husband for Olinne, here?”

“Hush,” Gedren ordered.

Most of the adults were off in the farm-fields beyond the collection of homes, leaving the aged and the young to look after one another.

Ithor hailed an ancient man who could have passed for his father. “You, there! Do you know Osric, son of Taya?”

“Osric? Osric?” the elder parroted, beaming toothlessly above a white beard.

“D’you mean Osric Hog-Drover?” a skinny girl of perhaps eleven piped up.

“Hog-Drover!” Alkath groaned.

“I may.” Ithor held up a coin. “And a shiny dedek for the clever one who tells me where to find him.”

“The boneyard,” she said matter-of-factly. “He died last fall of drown-cough.”

Gedren pushed her way anxiously forward. “What about his family? His wife?”

“Wife?” The girl’s brow furrowed, causing mud to crack and fall off and leave wavy lines of paler skin beneath. “Oh, her? Lady Toogood?”

“What?” Gedren asked.

“Lady Toogood. That’s what my gran called her.” The child smirked. “For she always went around as if she was the Duchess of Everyplace.”

“Where is she?”

“Same’s her husband, except she went the year before him so he built her a tomb all like a little house. As if being in the plain ground wasn’t good enough.” She snatched for the dedek that Ithor was still holding, but he lifted it out of her reach.

“What about their son?” he asked.

“Jerin? His house is there, and he’s at the wallow. I know because he just came to collect the leavings from our midden-pile.”

“You’re a wellspring of news, little girl.” Ithor flipped the coin at her. The child seized it from the air and defended it vigorously from the other children.

“Poor Meryve,” Gedren whispered. “Such a life, such a death!”

If Ithor was bothered by news of his nephew, he kept it sealed inside. “At least the boy’s still alive. Let’s go and see what we came all this way to find.”

Alkath stifled a sigh. And it had all sounded so splendid and heroic when first presented! What would his father say? What about Olinne? She was prepared to be dutiful and biddable, but she was expecting a king!

Ithor dismounted and balanced on his crutch. Gedren took a deep breath as if to steel herself, and followed him around the side of the house the girl had indicated.

Around the house, toward the most awful snorting-grunting-snuffling noise ...

Alkath lingered a moment, shaking his head like one awakening from an unhappy dream, then went after them.

A scrubby hillside sloped down toward a trickle of water too small to be properly called a stream. Two boars, several sows, and an untold number of piglets wallowed in a morass of dark mud, pushing each other aside to get at the rinds and cores that a man was dumping from a bucket.

He was standing knee-deep in it, wearing nothing but a pair of short-pants and a kerchief. He had a broad back and powerful arms, the solid build of a worker.

“Jerin?” Ithor said.

The man turned so fast he ended up on his rear in the hog-wallow. His landing made a colossal wet smack and sent up gobbets of mud. He roared indignantly as a huge sow plowed over him in an effort to get at the bucket.

“Oh, my,” Gedren murmured, and she sounded how Alkath felt, torn between laughter and tears.

* *

The evening wind-spirit blew her cool breath over Jerin’s scrubbed-to-tingling skin as he emerged from the river. Overhead, the world-belt spanned the sky in a band of pale and mottled orbs.

Handsful of sand had scoured off the grime, and the swift current had rinsed it away. Already, he felt alive and renewed, as if he had shed an old skin.

He quickly donned his for-best, a pair of deep green woolen trousers and a shirt that had started out in yellow but was now aged to a mellow shade of cream. A twig served to pull the worst of the snarls from his hair. He tied it into a horsetail at the nape of his neck, where it hung like a damp rope.

They’d startled him, that much was true. Startled and embarrassed, so that when he’d surged up from the hog-wallow he had stormily demanded of them just who by the blight-spirits they were, ready to give each of them a clout and never mind if one was a lame old man and the other a woman whose head didn’t even come up to his collarbone.

If the old man hadn’t revealed that he was Osric’s uncle and they had come from Hothar, Jerin might have done it.

But he’d gained control of his temper and invited them into his home, then made himself presentable, because he knew in his gut that his mother’s oft-stated promise was about to come true.

Such delicious odors coming from the house that his stomach rolled in anticipation. The larger room was well-lit and almost too warm; they had thrown most of his month’s supply of wood on the fire.

“Well, well,” Gedren said, looking up from the pot she was stirring. “You do clean up rather nicely at that.”

Ithor, in the chair that had once been Osric’s, gave Jerin a very critical once-over and nodded. “It’ll do, I think.”

The watery vegetable-and-grain pottage he’d had simmering over the coals for the past several days was nearly unrecognizable. Now it was thick with chunks of meat, the broth turned to gravy, all of it seasoned with herbs.

They had brought bread as well, not the dark and heavy loaves that Jerin was used to but white flatbread that broke apart in crispy pieces. And cheese, hard and chewy, strong in flavor.

He put aside his questions and ate ravenously, washing down the meal with mead. Ithor matched him flagon for flagon and belch for belch, and Jerin eventually realized that with each such duet, Alkath seemed to lose more of his appetite and Gedren’s polite smile became more strained.

“All right, then,” he said when he’d finished. “You’ve fed me a fine meal and I’m cleaner than I’ve been since before my mother died. What is it you want from me?”

Ithor gestured to Gedren, as if handing it all over to her, and leaned back in the chair with another contented burp. Alkath stood by the window with his back to them but his body tense, listening intently.

“Does ... does the name Jherion mean anything to you?” Gedren asked.

He hesitated suspiciously. “No one but my mother ever called me that.”

“I have something to tell you, Jerin, that you will hear with difficulty. Perhaps with disbelief. But please listen to me. Osric, Ithor’s nephew --”

“Wasn’t my real father. I know that.”

“You do?” she breathed. “What else do you know?”

“Weren’t you going to tell me?” He ran a hand through his hair in frustration, remembering too late that he’d tied it back. The cord came loose and sun-yellow strands fell around his face. “All my life, she told I had some glorious destiny, that she’d explain when I was of age. Made me learn to read, insisted on baths thrice weekly, even in the winter. All my life. Mind your manners, Jerin. Remember your destiny, Jerin. Don’t go walking with that girl, Jerin, she’s not good enough. No girl in town was good enough! And she wasn’t shy about telling them so, until it got so none of them would give me a second look. Then, when I came of age, she died before she could tell me a thing!”

Gedren lightly touched his hand. “I am so sorry.”

“Then tell me! Who was my father? What did she expect me to do?”

She told him.

She told him all of it.

He felt as if he’d been struck in the belly with a club.

His mother -- a princess spirited away from the massacre of her husband’s family just two days after her wedding. His true father -- a royal prince of Hothar. And himself -- raised in a faraway land under the heavy cloak of secrecy, his life not worth a dry leaf if the Kathaks found out that he existed.

Then they told him what they wanted from him.

Jerin shot to his feet. “What? You want me, me, to reclaim my ancestral kingdom? You want me to be king of Hothar?”

“We understand you have every reason to refuse,” Gedren said. “You have a life here, a home here. You have your safety.”

“Whereas if you’re found out, Davore would have your head and all of ours,” Ithor put in grimly.

“It is a dangerous path,” Alkath said, “but you’d have allies willing to teach you, help you, fight by your side.”

“The greatest difficulty might not even be Davore,” Gedren added, “but becoming a king. You’d be giving up your freedom, for a king’s every word and deed is scrutinized by his court.”

“And you’d have to get married,” Ithor said with a mean smile. “A king can’t choose his own woman but has to take the best one for the realm. Yours has already been picked out and is probably being fitted for a gown even now.”

“Ithor!” Alkath cried angrily. “That’s not certain yet!”

“Wait, wait!” Jerin shouted. “What do you mean, married?”

Gedren sighed and explained to him how vulnerable kings were without heirs. “And the price of Baron Halan’s support is that his grandchild be the next heir of Hothar.”

“It is my father’s wish that you marry my sister,” Alkath said, wrenching the words out as if they were thorns caught in him. “Her name is Olinne. If you do this. If you become king, and survive.”

“Please consider it,” Gedren said. “It was your mother’s wish, and Hothar is in need. I know how daunting it must be to face such a drastic change --”

He gaped at her, then at each of them in turn. “But I’d be king! King! Look around you and tell me I’d be happier here than in a castle! That I’d rather eat pottage than roasts of meat! That I’d sooner save up what I earn from selling piglets than have a royal treasury and a jeweled crown! For that, I’d fight a hundred Davores! I’d let the nobles watch me in the privy if they’d a mind to! And I’d marry anyone you said, even if she were an old crone with a nose like a robber-bird’s beak!”

Gedren blinked, nonplused. “Do you mean you’ll do it?”

“In a rabbit’s heartbeat I’ll do it!”

* *

He sat on a rock, watching the sun sink behind the peaks on the far side of the valley and turn their snowy caps to molten fire.

The wind carried irregular spates of rough yet hearty laughter to him. It seemed that Ithor had finally found an appreciative audience for a seemingly inexhaustible supply of crass jokes and stories.

Alkath had no idea where Gedren had fled. Taking the pack-beast for a walk, she’d said, as if the animal hadn’t been walking up the trail all day. Once she’d gone, Alkath had found to his astonishment that Ithor had been holding back out of vestigial courtesy for the lady.

“And this is the example we’re setting for our king,” he muttered.

What had he been thinking, to offer to help teach Jerin how to behave as suited a nobleman? Why had he thought that their closeness in age would matter?

If anything, it counted against him, for Jerin wasn’t about to be instructed by the likes of Alkath Halan. He made it plain that in his estimation, Alkath might be older by the calendar but was younger in all other ways.

Gedren was right that Jerin cleaned up well. He wasn’t overly tall, but he would cut an imposing figure once properly outfitted. He had a square jaw and direct brown eyes, and with his hair trimmed to a more flattering length would be reasonably handsome if a bit on the rugged side as far as Hotharan fashion was concerned.

At least he could read! And at least his mother had made efforts to instill decent manners in him! They wouldn’t be beginning with a completely unformed lump of clay.

And he was willing. That, Alkath knew, had been his father’s and the court magician’s worst fear -- that they would find him and have to convince, cajole, or outright browbeat him into accepting the responsibility that birth had forced upon him.

Stones clicked and rattled. With thoughts of rock-stingers foremost, Alkath sprang from his perch.

It was one, and it was right behind him!

The tail jabbed down and skidded across the spot where he’d been sitting, leaving a smear of venom. If he’d been a bit slower ...

He backed off slowly, drawing his sword.

The rock-stinger was a small one, more the size of a dog than a wolf. Its mandibles and pincers scissored eagerly as it advanced. Its body was covered with a dusty brown carapace that nearly blended with the terrain. The tail swayed in slow arcs.

He was preparing to leap forward and sever it with a swing when he heard movement behind him.

Another one!

Its stinger pierced the loose cloth of his trousers as he dodged to the side. He could feel the hard alien rasp of its tail against his skin.

Before it could get free, he brought his sword down and sheared through the tail. The rock-stinger, this one smaller and darker in hue, with a red starburst-shape on its back, clenched all its legs and the leaking stub of its tail into a compact lump.

He had no time to enjoy his victory. The first one was racing at him.

Alkath lunged, meaning to spit it on the tip of his sword. It seized the blade in its mandibles, wrenching the weapon from his grasp.

Weaponless, he lashed out with a kick that flipped the rock-stinger onto its back. As it was struggling to right itself, he went for his fallen sword.

Pain ripped up his arm. The smaller one had him in its pincers, the serrated edges shredding cloth and flesh. He stomped on it and felt a crack and then a hideous give. His foot plunged to the ankle in its hot, fluid innards. The stench that boiled up was unbelievable.

The other one had recovered, and went straight up the sheer half of a broken boulder, driving the pointed spines on the ends of its legs into the solid stone as easily as a man might poke the tines of a fork into a cheese.

Alkath shook the dead one off his foot, gagging at the sound and the stink. His right arm throbbed and burned.

The rock-stinger dropped at him. He raised the blade overhead and skewered it as it came down. Its body socked up against the hilt. Its tail convulsed but came nowhere near him.

Dead.

He let it fall to the earth and stood over it, gasping for breath through his mouth in hopes of avoiding the worst of the smell.

“Alkath!”

She ran to him, and for a confused but flattering moment he thought she was going to throw herself into his arms, so impressed at his prowess and valor that she couldn’t contain herself.

“Idasha!”

The last light of the sun made her bronze hair seem to glow. Her clothing was different but still serviceable -- rust-colored trousers that laced up the outside of her long legs, a loose goatskin tunic cinched with a wide belt, a fleece-lined cape because night’s cold came quickly to the passes.

The lhote was no longer strapped to her back, but that was because it was in her hand, held in a ready grip.

“Come on! Quickly!”

“It’s all right,” he said. “I’ve slain them.”

“I know, and so does she!”

Something very large moved among the stones. A shape slowly but grandly unfolded itself from a crevice, the jointed tail rising in a smooth curve.

“What?” Alkath was rooted to the spot. “What is it?”

“The mother.”

“Ithor said they were the size of wolves!” he blurted, and then it came to him -- he’d been thinking of the wolves of eastern Hothar, but Ithor was Kathani, and Kathani timberwolves were so large that some of the more savage tribes could and did ride them into battle.

The rock-stinger stood with half of her legs braced on either side of the crevice where she’d been hiding. Her eyes shone like twin lamps. Her dun-colored carapace looked thick as platemail, marred in many places with old scars.

She began to quiver with fury, then launched herself at them.

Alkath threw himself flat. A pincer clacked loudly above him.

He saw Idasha roll and come up in a tense crouch. She swung the lhote with both hands. Ichor gushed.

The rock-stinger uttered a high-pitched chittering scream and swung the claw, catching Idasha a back-handed blow that sent her tumbling over the rocky soil.

Alkath hacked at the rock-stinger’s nearest leg. The striking tail missed him, the breeze of its passage chilling his sweat.

A second chop of the sword cleaved through the leg, but the rock-stinger had plenty and was hardly hampered by the loss of one. He parried the next attempt of the tail, but forgot about the pincer, and was suddenly caught in it.

His feet left the ground. He was suspended mid-air, the edges digging into his sides. Raising his sword, he reversed it and drove it down hard as he could. It scraped along hard chitin and wedged itself in the hinge of the joint.

Impasse! The rock-stinger couldn’t close her pincer to cut him in two, but that left him trapped and unable to use his sword.

No, not an impasse ... she still had her tail!

Alkath let go of the hilt and made a desperate grab as the stinger came down. To his amazement, he caught it before it could drill into his chest.

He heard a hollow thunk, looked down and saw the haft of the thrown lhote stuck and quivering in the bonelike plate of the rock-stinger’s head.

In his own struggle, he’d all but forgotten Idasha! She was battered and abraded from her fall, but a wild gleam was in her eyes and her long knife grew from her fist like a shining silver claw.

The rock-stinger was stunned but too well-protected by its carapace for the blow to have been fatal.

Idasha vaulted as if she were mounting a horse and ended up seated facing Alkath, straddling the rock-stinger’s limb. “Hold it steady!”

He did, though already the monstrosity was shaking off its stupor.

Idasha sawed at the tail, splattering both of them with ichor. That brought the rock-stinger the rest of the way back to full, raving awareness.

Rather that try to squeeze her pincer, the rock-stinger abruptly opened it. Alkath fell out the bottom, but had the wits to maintain his hold on the tail. Idasha let go of her knife and grabbed his sword as if they’d planned it just that way, pulling the stuck blade out.

The rock-stinger reacted on instinct and slammed it closed again, on the length of tail that had followed Alkath down. A full yard of tail ended up in the dirt, coiling in spastic jerks.

Idasha threw him his sword and jumped down squarely in front of the rock-stinger’s head. She ignored the clasping mandibles as she wrestled with her lhote. It came free with an abruptness that sent her sprawling on her backside.

A pincer went for her but Alkath parried it, feeling the impact all the way to his shoulders. Idasha got up and they were side-by-side as the rock-stinger reared up, looming. The lambent eyes fixed on them and they returned the stare fearlessly.

Ever-so-slowly, the rock-stinger backed away. Her movements were wary, cautious, deliberate as she retreated toward the tumbled boulders that hid her lair.

They let her go by unspoken agreement, neither of them terribly willing to tangle with her again even without the threat of the deadly tail. The rock-stinger didn’t turn away from them as she climbed backwards up the pile. She folded herself into the crevice and vanished.

Only then did Alkath let himself take a deep, relieved breath. Beside him, Idasha did the same.

Idasha gestured with her head toward the trail. “Before she changes her mind.”

Alkath agreed. They made their way quietly, with frequent glances over behind them, and finally eased their sore bodies down on a flattish plate of stone jutting from an embankment near the way-house.

Now that he was no longer in immediate danger of being diced to bits, Alkath became urgently aware of the bleeding misery that was his right forearm. What little was left of his sleeve came away in tatters.

A Hotharan lady would have swooned dead away, but Idasha took one look and ordered him out of his shirt so she could tear it into bandage-strips. He complied, shivering in the chill air. Night had fallen during their fight, leaving them with only the pale shine of the world-belt for light.

“What was troubling you, Alkath?” Idasha asked as she dressed his injury, pulling the bandage so tight that he had to stifle a pained hiss.

“What makes you think that?”

“Who goes out to sit by himself away from the laughter and fire, to be eaten by rock-stingers, but a man with troubles on his mind?”

He uttered a sound half-chuckle, half-sigh. “I suppose that’s true, isn’t it? Lucky for me that you happened by. I’m in your debt.”

“I didn’t happen by. I saw the four of you before you were halfway up the trail. Your friend found his nephew, I take it.”

“After a fashion,” he said carefully. “Our fourth is the nephew’s stepson. His parents had died. With no other family, he decided to come back to Hothar and live with Ithor.”

She nodded, but he had the clear impression she knew he was withholding much of the story.

To change the subject, and to keep his mind off the pain as she moved to cleaning the gouges that the rock-stinger’s pincers had left in his side, he asked, “Is being a sentry always so eventful?”

“If it was, Cadmun would never do it,” she said wryly. “No, most of it’s sitting and watching. I’m ill-suited for it, I think, but I wanted to learn all about Westreach. Every aspect of the kingdom. So I volunteered to be assigned here for a while.”

“And your family agreed? To send you out here alone and undefended? Why, if you were my sister ... no, you’re nothing like either of my sisters. Undefended? What am I saying? You’re nothing like any woman in Hothar, I’d warrant.”

“If it’s any comfort, I’m not like most women of Westreach either,” she laughed. “Both of my brothers have wives, soft-spoken and sweet-tempered ladies. I horrify them.”

Alkath imagined a meeting between his mother and Idasha, and concluded that ‘horrify’ was most likely the best word. “Why? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“Why am I not like them?” She shrugged. “I never had to be. I grew up with two elder brothers and the knowledge that I’d never be married off for reasons of state. I wanted to learn the things they were doing. Hunting, riding, fighting ... that all seemed much more agreeable than girlish pursuits. There; you won’t bleed to death now.”

His gaze narrowed speculatively. “You’re wellborn?”

“Not as such,” she hastily confessed. “My mother was a servant, and when she died birthing me, the lady of the house took me in to raise as her own. But as I wasn’t a true daughter, I wasn’t a tempting prize.”

“Unlike my sister.” He grimaced. “I want the best for Olinne, I earnestly do. I understand my father’s point. I just don’t know if ... if this is the right match for her.”

“What does she think?”

“She’ll do as Father wishes, what’s necessary. As will we all, for the greater good of Hothar. That’s what I keep telling myself. And it works ... mostly ... until I envision them together. Olinne is so young and sheltered, so gentle! Horrible as it was to lose Arayse the way we did, I can’t help but wonder if it’s worse what we’re doing to Olinne! Promising her sight-unseen to an unschooled stranger, for the rest of her life!”

He snatched up a rock and flung it down the hill at the way-house. It fell far short and didn’t even bring a pause to the two-man festivities within. Neither had the battle, which didn’t say much for Ithor’s warrior-reflexes. Or maybe they just hadn’t heard over the noise of their own boorish revelry.

“Care to borrow my sling?” Idasha offered. “Or my lhote? Seat it in the skull of your sister’s intended and all your worries would end.”

“I can’t do that!”

“Well, you have to do something.”

“It’s not up to me.”

“If you care for your sister, then it is.”

“You don’t understand. There is far more at stake.” He exhaled in a long slow gust. “Since I can’t change what must happen, the best I can hope for is to encourage him to be the sort of man Olinne deserves.”

“A lhote to the head would be easier.” She unhooked it and held it out to him. “Our first king used one to slay the black snake and it’s been the traditional weapon of Westreach ever since. Not that many use it nowadays. Swords are cheaper, and don’t take so long to master.”

“And are you a master of the lhote?”

She gave him a look. “I wouldn’t carry it unless I was.”

“I won’t put you to the test,” he said, grinning and handing it back to her. “I wouldn’t want your fellow sentries to mistakenly think I was your enemy. That’s the last thing I want to be.”

“If you were my enemy, it’s the last thing you would be.” She grinned in return. “Excepting a corpse, that is.”

“I might surprise you. But as I said, I don’t want to be your enemy.”

Her gaze met his forthrightly. “Oh? And what do you want from me? I have seen how you look at me and I know what it means.”

“If I’ve offended --”

“You won’t be back to Westreach. We’ll probably never meet again. So you may as well speak plainly.”

“Idasha ... you are as beautiful and frightening and fascinating as flames racing across a field of grain.”

“This is how men of Hothar speak plainly?” She addressed her question to the sky and the surrounding rocks. “You could have just said you wanted to make love.”

Alkath tried to exclaim and draw breath at the same time and wound up coughing so strenuously that a rib twinged. Through it all, Idasha sat watching him, a merry smile curving her lips and crinkling the corners of her eyes.

“I see men of Hothar are also struck speechless. A shame.” She leaned over and pressed a quick kiss on his lips before he could move. “Battle always leaves my blood running high. But it’s not as if we had time for it, anyway. You’re about to be summoned for supper.”

“Alkath!” Gedren’s voice called from the direction of the way-house.

“Bother supper!” he gasped, clutching her wrist as she rose. “I’m not hungry!”

* *

“No more!” Jerin said sharply. “You can’t expect me to learn a lifetime’s worth in a few days!”

To his surprise, Alkath shrugged acquiescence instead of arguing. He’d been in a remarkably amiable mood since the way-house; getting attacked by a rock-stinger seemed a cure for noble arrogance. Maybe he’d implement such a policy when he was king ...

They walked along in silence for a while. Behind them on the horse, Ithor was dozing in the saddle and Gedren was lagging back as she paused to strip the leaves from the bristly stalks of a tall plant.

Jerin looked around hungrily. “Is all of this mine?”

“This is western Plesvar, my father’s land. Though, as the Halans are vassals to the king, in a way the answer would be yes.”

It was pretty country. Low rolling hills waved with high summer-green grass, and the trees were shedding their blossoms in exchange for tender bulbs that would soon become fruit. Strange to have the mountains at his back, instead of ever-present surrounding horizon. The land seemed to go on and on, and this was only the beginning of it.

“How much further to your estate?”

“We should arrive day after tomorrow. And then, Jerin, your training will begin in earnest. I’ve seen how well you fight with fists or stave, but you’ll need to master the blade before you’ll stand a hope of besting Davore.”

Jerin grumbled under his breath, then tried to sound nonchalant. “And your sister will be there?”

“Yes,” Alkath said with a hint of nervousness. “Olinne will be there.”

“What’s she like?”

“I thought you said it didn’t matter, that you’d marry a crone with a nose like a robber-bird’s if it would gain you your throne.”

“I would, but someone a little more comely wouldn’t disappoint me.”

“Olinne won’t disappoint in that regard. She has hair like dusky velvet, skin soft as a petal, and the eyes of a doe. She is a gentle spirit, certainly nothing like Idasha.” This last was added to himself in a low tone, but Jerin heard it anyway.

“Idasha?”

“Someone I met along the road.”

“You met the princess?”

Alkath went two more steps before coming to a jarring halt. He turned and looked at Jerin, his brow knitting in consternation. “What did you say?”

“Idasha of Westreach. The king’s sister.”

“The ... king’s sister ...”

* *

Continued in Vol. III -- Eagle Ascendant.

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