Down a Lost Road (35 page)

“
Amoin, Brother of birds –
and scouts.”

They were with us sooner than I expected.
Amoin reminded me of Mykyl, but he wasn’t nearly as formidable.
There was a shimmering translucence to him, as if he had just been
gathered from the scattering winds. He spoke directly to Yatol.

“
They are safe, Farseer.
They bore the battle until you had gone, and before you came to the
Branhau
they escaped before the face of the enemy.” He
turned his eyes on me – they were like prisms. “Your brother called
me to their defense, for they stayed long to let the others return
safely. I bore them away, then he bade me bring word to
you.”

“
They’re safe!”

“
He can see you, then?”
Yatol asked. Then, in realization, “You rescued us
before.”

“
It was I. As to him seeing
us – vaguely, yes. More than the young scholar can. More even than
Tyhlaur.”

Yatol closed his eyes. “They’re safe.”

“
You took them to Alcalon?”
I asked.

“
Ah, no! He would tolerate
no such voyage. They went back to the camp. But the army is moving,
and perhaps against its will retreating toward the
city.”

A moment of silence passed. I could feel
tangibly that Akhmar was communicating with Amoin, wordless, with
unreadable gazes. I glanced helplessly at Yatol and found him
watching them intently, his face mirroring my confusion. Akhmar
turned suddenly back to us.

“
Come,” he said. “The
Citadel is still half a world away.”

I turned to Amoin. “Will you watch over
them?”

“
I would not let them out
of my sight,” he said, holding my gaze.

Somehow, looking into the unfathomable
depths of his eyes, I couldn’t imagine anything being lost to his
sight.

He didn’t smile, or offer any words of
blessing or farewell – but I felt them. Then he was gone. Yatol
already sat on Akhmar’s back, and as soon as I joined him
everything melted back into grey gloom.

“
Yatol,” I said when we
were underway. He turned his head a little, so I went on, “You said
you know this land here. What is it like? How far does the
Branhau
reach?”

“
It curves part way around
the
Perstaun
, and I believe it stretches down nearly a
week’s journeying – for someone on foot, anyway. After that we know
there are some low hills. They extend down to the Laoth, the sea. I
don’t know how big the Laoth is. None of my people have ever
crossed its full breadth, or reported their discoveries if they
did.”

My blood went cold, and I instinctively
thought of my father.

“
Do you think we’ll find
him there?”

“
Your father?” Yatol said.
“I don’t know. But I believe so.”

Akhmar hadn’t spoken a word through our
conversation, but now he slowed and turned his fire-hued eyes to
us.

“
Are you hungry?” he asked.
I nodded meekly, and Yatol, stolid for a moment, agreed. “I will be
back shortly.”

Yatol slid down. As my feet touched the
ground I sucked in my breath, feeling like I had been punched in
the stomach with an icy fist. Yatol gripped my arm to steady
me.

“
Merelin?”

I watched Akhmar vanish into the trees, then
turned to gaze back the way we had come. The forest was grey and
silent. Not empty.

“
I can’t get it out of my
head,” I said at last. “It’s been in my thoughts since we
returned.”

“
Here, to the
Branhau
?”

“
No, to Arah
Byen.”

Some breath of wind stirred the treetops,
but it startled me with more than just surprise. My face must have
showed my terror, because Yatol spun around to survey the
forest.

“
What do you
sense?”

“
Someone following us,” I
said, miserable. “I felt it first when Khymranna came, then again
in the Ungulion camp. I didn’t feel it again until we came back to
the
Branhau
, when you went to find food.”

His gaze shifted over the trees, wary, then
back at me with deep concern.

“
Is it at all like that
night in the
Perstaun
?”

A strange calmness crept over me. I shrugged
indifferently and said, “I guess it was nothing. I was just being
silly. Besides, what could possibly follow us when we’re with
Akhmar?”

He didn’t seem convinced. And when the brush
behind him broke and rustled, he grabbed the knife from my belt and
spun around.

I didn’t move, or scream like I thought I
might. I just froze, raw terror seizing me with infuriating
strength. Then the vines parted and two men ducked through, both
holding ready weapons and one carrying a flaming torch. They stared
at us, and us at them, then suddenly Yatol tucked the knife in his
belt and raised his hands.

“
Ingaea!”

“
Yatol!” cried the taller
one.

He lowered his spear at once, his grey eyes
lighting up with joy, and he embraced Yatol fiercely. The older man
still stood with his short sword bared, apparently in no hurry to
sheath it. Some strange hostility burned in his eyes, but he didn’t
say a word.

“
Royin, it’s Yatol!” Ingaea
cried. “Has it been so long since you saw him?”

“
Aye,” the other man said
acidly.

Yatol suddenly recognized him and he
recoiled looking stricken, like a condemned man. This meeting had
rubbed some old wound raw, and I winced as if it were my own. I
went to stand beside Yatol – an angry sparrow in the midst of
hawks. Royin ignored me. He still had his gaze fixed on Yatol, eyes
like splinters of ice. If his face had been any blanker, it
couldn’t have been more expressive. There was no set to his jaw, no
frown, no furrowing of his brow. He just stared with deep hatred at
Yatol, and Yatol would not meet his gaze.

“
What divides you?” Ingaea
asked, bewildered. “In what conflict did you part?” His gaze
strayed over me, a quick disinterested glance as he turned back to
Royin. “Have you harbored this hate for four years?”

“
Four years,” Royin
repeated, his voice like sluggish venom. A deliberate pause, then
he concluded, “Aye.”

“
What—” Ingaea
began.

“
He knows.”

Yatol stood straight and still, but the pain
in his eyes tore at my heart. I couldn’t understand that grief, or
the hatred that rankled Royin’s mind. I glared at him and took
Yatol’s arm. I don’t know why I did it, but Yatol glanced down at
me with a faint smile of surprise.

“
Can’t you let the past
die?” Ingaea asked.

“
Rebuke him, not me,” Royin
said. “He was willing to let our future die.”

And suddenly I remembered what Yatol had
told me about my father’s last return to Arah Byen, and I knew
exactly what he was talking about. I felt all the blood seep from
my face, then rush back with burning heat.

“
How dare you?” I shrieked,
clenching my hands in fists. Yatol grasped my shoulders, but I
wrenched away from him. “How dare you? Who are you to accuse
him?”

Royin gave a thin, empty laugh. “And who are
you to defend him, little sister? I was there.”

“
You’re a liar!”

Yatol drew me back with his arms around my
shoulders, and I clung to them, shaking with rage and grief.

“
What has Yatol done to
merit this?” Ingaea snapped, then added, low, “The most honorable
man I know.”

“
You know nothing of what
happened. A foolish deserter, that’s all Yatol amounts to. Where do
you suppose he’s off to now, if not to escape the battle ahead?”
Royin had spoken with sudden quickness, harsh and jarring, but then
his eyes narrowed and he said in that slow venomous hiss, “It was
always like him to abandon his duty.”

I felt the muscles in Yatol’s arms tense,
then suddenly he released me. He grabbed Royin by the shoulders and
flung him against a tree. His face was dark with wrath, and his
eyes burned.
Don’t kill him, Yatol. Don’t kill him.

“
And where were you?” he
gritted, holding his forearm against Royin’s throat. “Where were
you when he needed you?”

“
It was you who abandoned
the portal!”

Yatol’s arm tightened against his neck. “He
was dying! He was dying and you did nothing! Whose cowardice was
it, Royin? He gave everything and you stood by to watch.”

“
I did not fail
my
duty…”

Yatol released him abruptly, drawing back
his arm as if to strike him. But then his gaze went cold and
impassive, and he lowered his hand.

“
Do you have any idea what
duty is?” he asked, voice low with scorn.

“
You are still a coward,
then!” Royin called after him, rubbing his throat. “And a
fool.”

“
But it was him my father
trusted, not you!” I cried. “Whatever duty you think he abandoned,
he is still sacrificing himself to fulfill!”

“
Merelin,” Yatol
murmured.

But Royin straightened, curiosity getting
the better of him. “Your father?”

“
Yes. Davhur – my
father.”

And Royin laughed. Thin, cold laughter.

“
Your father was Davhur,”
he crowed. “And you travel with this man? Did he ever tell you what
he did? Or did he hide it in his shame?”

“
I know what happened,” I
said coldly, face burning. “I know what you failed to do. Of the
two of you, I would think
you
would be the one hiding things
in shame.
That’s
cowardly, to use someone else’s actions to
hide your own guilt. And if you think I’d let my judgments be
swayed by yours, you’re a fool as well as a coward.”

I turned away, seething with contempt,
adrenaline and anger hammering in my veins. I didn’t hear Royin say
anything else, but after a moment of stifling silence the
undergrowth rustled and I canted my head just enough to see him
stride off. I only felt sorry that he had taken the torch, leaving
us in dim uncertainty. Ingaea stayed with us, but for some time
neither he nor Yatol spoke. Their faces seemed ghostly in the faint
half-light.

“
He never forgave himself
for that day,” Ingaea said finally.

“
Neither did I,” Yatol
growled.

Forgive who?
I wondered.

“
There’s an outpost nearby
that Royin and I just left. They have food and beds, and weapons if
you need any. I can take you there if you like.”

Yatol hesitated.

“
Please do,” I said
quickly.

I could feel Yatol’s questioning gaze, but I
didn’t return it. Those few moments of silence had renewed my
earlier rush of fear, and now I stood in the terror that whoever or
whatever had been tracking us had nearly reached us.

“
We’d like to go,” I said,
desperate. “Where is it?”

And suddenly a flock of birds exploded from
the trees deeper in the forest, swirling into the murky sky and
shrieking a chaos of retorts. I jumped.

“
Yatol…”

“
Take us,” he said to
Ingaea.

Ingaea nodded and took a brand from his
pack, lighting it with a flint before heading into the trees.

“
No need to be alarmed,”
Ingaea said. “I’m sure the kirgahl were just startled by Royin.
That was our direction. We’re heading toward Alcalon. The runners
called us out…not sure if we’ll make it to the lines before the
Ungulion surround them, but we’re going to try.”

He was rambling on, trying to ease my fears,
when a terrible scream cut through the forest. It hit us like raw
tortured anguish. We all froze, but the scream wouldn’t stop. It
carried on in waves of greater and greater pain, then suddenly
something came crashing through the brambles.

None of us knew him, that first moment he
appeared, still sobbing in torment. I couldn’t make out his
features, if he had any left. A shriek tore from my throat, and I
lifted my hands. Ingaea grabbed me. Everything blurred. Everything
except Royin’s tattered face. I couldn’t tear my gaze from it.
Shredded hands reached out to grab Yatol’s shoulders, bloodied eyes
stared up at him. All his broken weight sagged toward the earth.
Yatol gripped his arms and staggered to support him.

“
He is looking for you!”
The words dragged from his throat. “He has been following
you!”

His knees buckled, but Yatol managed to hold
him up.

“
What, Royin? Who? How
many?”

“
The Lord of K’hama! He
himself!” Royin gasped. “A score of Ungulion with him. Forgive me,
Yatol. This time I didn’t fail…” He sucked in air and his hands
spasmed on Yatol’s shoulders. “He questioned me…I said nothing.
Nothing! Go…flee…you have time…” His eyes widened. “Forgive
me.”

His head sagged down, and Yatol lowered him
carefully to the earth. He stood gazing down at him, hands open at
his sides. They were red, hands and arms and shirt, all streaked
and damp with the crimson blood from Royin’s broken body. I thought
he had more wounds than flesh, and Yatol’s arms blurred into the
same tortured form. I clung to Ingaea. I felt nothing. I stared at
Royin’s empty, featureless face, even when Yatol came toward
us.

Yatol took me from Ingaea’s grasp, reaching
to take my head in his hands. Blood. Bloody hands. Torn, bloody
hands. Royin’s hands, stretching out to grab me.