Shadeborn: A Book of Underrealm (16 page)

“I think I feel the same,” said Annis in a small voice. “I have missed the sea, but then I think of how close we are to my family.”

“And to the Academy,” said Xain. “My face would be most unwelcome there.”

“Where do we go now?” said Gem.
 

Xain turned from the water. “We must find a port. There are many along the coast, although we will not be able to see them until we are closer. There we will find passage on a ship to Dulmun, and then ride to Feldemar.”

“Should we turn north or south?” Loren tried drawing their attention back to the present.

“Neither,” said Xain. “It is best if we make for the coast. It will be faster to ride along the road that snakes along the Great Bay than turning our path now to save time.”

So they rode on, their horses devouring miles. But the Bay was farther than it looked, thanks to its great size, and by the time the sun set they had not closed half the distance. The next day they seemed to ride faster, eager to reach the water, but the coast still seemed a tease against an ever widening horizon.

“How large is it?” asked Gem.

“Larger than you can imagine,” said Xain. “Large enough that you cannot see either side if you were standing on a boat in its center. It would take two days of hard sailing to find a coast from the middle. And ’tis only a fraction of the great ocean beyond.”

But at long last they could finally see the coastline approaching, and had reached it by evening. Loren spied its black and rocky beaches, where waves crashed with thunderous roars. She sat in her saddle, watching, wondering that there could be so much water in the world.

“Come, let us water the horses,” said Chet.

Xain responded sharply. “No! Do not let them drink from the Great Bay, nor should
you
do so. The oceans are filled with salt, and though they hold no poison, drink too much, and they have the same effect. Your thirst will only grow, and you will retch and spill whatever lies in your stomach. ’Tis easy to die of thirst at sea, even surrounded by water.”

Chet eyed the Bay with suspicion.
 

Gem sat up in his saddle. “Is it safe for swimming?”

Xain looked at him, perplexed. “Yes, if you remember not to swallow the water.”

Gem jumped to the ground with a whoop and ran, throwing off his belt, breeches, and tunic until he was naked. He hurled himself into the water with a scream and thrashed about in the waves.
 

Annis looked away and demurely lifted her chin. “At least he will come out cleaner than normal.”

Loren bid them to rest, and eat if they would. She drank from her waterskin. It was odd, resisting the urge to fill it, but she had no wish to taste the water and test Xain’s claim. Gem came running back before long, out of the waters, hugging his arms about himself and scooping up his clothes.

“It is cold! Colder than I thought it would be, anyway. Does the ocean not know it is summer?”

“It cares little for our seasons,” said Xain. “A great current sweeps through the Bay, up from the south and around and then back to the north, where ice keeps it company.”
 

“Gem, for pity’s sake, clothe yourself!” said Annis. Loren smiled despite herself. The merchant’s daughter had had strict ideas about decency ever since Loren had met her. That was one thing, at least, that had not changed in the long months since.

Gem shrugged and pulled on his clothes. “You are right about the salt. I let a little in my mouth on accident, and it nearly made me retch. I had never heard this of the ocean.”

“Urchins of the city streets would have little cause to know it,” said Xain.

Loren looked to Chet and saw him smiling at her. She gave him a small smile back. Then his face froze, his eyes cast over her shoulder, and he hunched forward.
 

Loren looked behind her. “Chet, what is it?”

“I saw something. Something moving—a man, I think.”

She reached for her bow, and Chet for his staff. Xain rose to his feet, though it was a slow and painful process.

“That dune,” said Chet, pointing. “Toward the southern side.”

“Stay here,” said Loren. “Chet and I will look to see what it was. Do as Xain tells you.”

Together, they ran west. Loren meant to run in a wide circle, approaching the dune from the northern side. Before long they had reached it, and they slowed as one. Forward they crept, an inch at a time, muffling their footsteps with long practice. Loren found the going difficult, for the sand shifted underfoot and left her stance uncertain. But the crashing waves helped to mask the noise.

They crept around the dune’s edge one step at a time until Loren saw it: a figure in grey and blue. She froze, ducking back before she could be seen.
 

There was a man, similar to Xain in age and appearance, with long dark hair brushing his shoulders. The seeds of a beard dusted his chin, from neglect it seemed rather than design.

Loren met Chet’s gaze and made two quick motions with her hands. Then she went left, staying behind the thin bushes that clung to the coastline until the man was between her and the dune. Meanwhile, Chet climbed the sandy slope until he stood above the Shade.

The man was looking out, south and west toward where Xain and the children were hiding out of sight. He leaned forward, straining to find them, when Loren charged with a cry.
 

The Shade wheeled, grasping for his sword.
 

Chet attacked, his staff cracking down on the man’s shoulder.
 

The Shade fell in a heap, and when he saw Loren standing above him with an arrow drawn, did not try to rise.

“Mercy!” he cried. “Mercy, I surrender!”

“Fetch the others.” Loren had heard cries of mercy from the Dorsean villagers while they were being slaughtered by the Shades and found her heart unmoved by the man’s pleas.

Soon Chet returned with Xain and the children. The wizard stood looming over the Shade. Loren kept her arrow trained, her draw half-relaxed.

“Where are your companions?” said Xain.

“I have none.”

At once Xain knelt, wrapping his hand around the man’s arm. Flames sprang to white-hot life, and Loren heard the sizzling of skin.
 

The man screamed. In Xain’s other hand appeared a knife, and this he pressed to the man’s throat.

“Where are they?”

“Xain,” said Chet, a warning in his voice.
 

Loren met his eyes and shook her head.

“I lost them,” said the Shade, gritting his teeth as he spoke. “A summer storm struck the coast, and its thunder frightened my horse. By the time I regained control after he bolted, I could not find them.”

“Where are you bound, and for what purpose?”

“North, to find them again.”

“And us?”

The man did not answer. Flames licked him again. Sweat beaded Xain’s face, and she knew it did not come from the fire. This must be taking a terrible toll on his strength.
 

The Shade screamed again, and this time he had an answer.

“We were searching for you! We sought a girl with green eyes, a wizard, and two children besides. I saw you from afar and knew you matched the description.”

“What were you to do when you found us?” Flames died in Xain’s hand, but Loren could still smell the cooked flesh and burnt cloth beneath.

“Stop that,” said Chet.

“Chet, take the children away from here,” said Loren.

“What?” He looked at Loren in disbelief.

“Take them,” she said. “Quickly.”

He looked a moment longer and then ushered the children away. He returned just moments later, while the Shade was still answering Xain.

“We were not to engage you in battle. We were to send two messengers at once if we saw you—one west, to find our captain, and another south, to the Seat.”

“The Seat?” said Xain. “Who is your master there?”

“I do not know.” He saw the baleful look in Xain’s eye, and his arm flinched. “I do not know! I swear it! Our sergeant knew, but she never told me. Only the messengers would have the name, and only if they were sent.”

It sounded like the truth, and just the sort of cunning Loren would have expected from Rogan. Xain studied the man, and it seemed that he thought the same.

“I believe you,” he said, and then he plunged his dagger into the man’s neck.

“No!” Chet rushed forward. Loren stepped into his path, stopping him with her hands on his chest.

“It is done. You can do nothing.”

“He surrendered. That was murder!”

Xain looked up at them, eyes dark. “Mayhap. Or justice. Have you forgotten the screams we left behind? I have not.”

The man’s fingers grasped at his throat, trying to close the gaping hole. An ugly crimson seeped between them, staining the already-dark sand beneath him. Loren wanted to look away but could not move her eyes. She wanted to join Chet in admonishing Xain but had no place. What had the Elves said?
The Nightblade. The one who walks with death.
She thought they had meant she carried doom with her, but mayhap they meant Xain.

“I have forgotten nothing, wizard. But your sort of justice is the kind that brings war and death to all the nine lands in the end.” Chet looked at Loren, eyes filled with fury, silently urging her to join him.

“He had no choice,” she said. “We could not have let him go south to tell his brethren where we were.”

Loren loathed his expression: the shock and disappointment. Most of all, she hated the sadness and sorrow. Loren was almost as surprised as Chet to hear the words leaving her lips. Had she not once spoken the same? Did she not believe as he did? She once had. But now she was no longer certain.

“We had best move on,” Loren said, turning away from them. “Let us return to the horses. Quickly, for the night will not be long in coming.”

nineteen

They finally stopped to see the glowing fires of a town far ahead. Loren guessed they could reach that horizon with a few more hours’ ride.

“Let us stop here, and reach the town tomorrow,” she said.

“We could ride after the moons rise and get there tonight,” suggested Xain.

“And then what? We could not find a ship at night. And if the Shades have come this way they might have gone to the town and then could hear of our presence before we managed to leave.”
 

He nodded, saying nothing more, and they found a spot near the shore to camp. Loren would not let them start a fire, for finding the Shade that day had made their pursuers seem altogether too near.

She took first watch and sat it atop a dune overlooking the water. Staring down, she could see the forms of her friends sleeping in the silver moonslight reflected off the water. One of the shapes moved then rose and climbed the dune toward her. Her heart sank, seeing Chet. She did not wish to face him now. But as he neared, she scooted to let him sit on the sandy slope beside her.

He sat silently at first, and she avoided his eyes. Instead, Loren relished the cool breeze wafting in off the water, for the summer was much hotter here in the north. But she held no illusion that preferred their silence. She could see it in the nervous twitching of his hands, the way he often turned his head toward her then away when she was not looking.

At last she found herself growing impatient. “Out with it, Chet.”

He folded his hands over each other. “That man today. The one that Xain killed.”

“Yes. I was there.”

“I do not blame you. Neither of us could have stopped it. But I did not expect you to speak against me.”

“Did I speak against you? With the deed done, there was nothing to be said. We had to carry on.”

“You did not only urge haste, Loren. You said the wizard had no choice. Those were never words I thought to hear from you. What he did was wrong. The man was our prisoner, and was half-dead from lack of food and water besides. He was no threat.”

Loren stayed silent. In truth, she did not know how to answer.
 

Chet turned toward her, edging closer.
 

“I know you agree with me. Yet you spoke in Xain’s defense. You cannot tell me you have grown as bloodthirsty as the rest of them.”

“It is no thirst for violence. It is wisdom. We cannot leave enemies all about us, aware of our plans and intent on our harm. I have done that ever since leaving the forest, and it has brought only tragedy to my friends. And myself.”

“You would never have said that in the Birchwood.”

She looked at her hands, fidgeting in her lap, fingers twisting about her thumbs. “Perhaps not. I used to think as you do. Always I would chastise the others when I saw them as violent, when they would kill or urge me to take a life. Still, I will not do it with my own hands.”

“That is not enough, and you know it. I think you were right before.”

“But I am responsible now—for them, for the fate of both Mystics and Shades.” She looked at him, his light brown hair glistening in the moonslight. “For you as well. Those who hunt us will kill without a second thought. You saw that yourself. I may not approve, but neither can I stop to slap the wrists of those who would embrace violence to answer mayhem.”