The Dagger of Adendigaeth (A Pattern of Shadow & Light) (86 page)

In holding the man’s gaze—even from the shadows of his hood—Işak became acutely aware of the scar that marred his features and did not want Trell to look upon it. He was glad for the deep cowl of his cloak to collect and contain the concealing darkness.

Trell looked at him with serious, wolf-grey eyes, his brow furrowed as his gaze took in Işak’s hooded face, his form. He paused when he noted Işak’s left hand, half-concealed by the long fall of his cloak, working its string into silent knots, and his frown deepened. After a moment of consideration, Trell lifted eyes to stare up at him again.

“Why do you serve such men as Radov abin Hadorin and the Prophet Bethamin? You’re not like them.”

“You know nothing of me,” Işak murmured. He felt scalded by the prince’s perceptions and confusingly wished they could be true. 

“No,” Trell agreed, frowning slightly. “I don’t, do I…and yet…”

Işak hung painfully upon that pause.

“…I feel as if I should.”

Stricken by the words, Işak turned away from him, feeling unbalanced. He noticed that his hands were shaking again and cursed his own foolishness, for the truth was…he felt the same way
about Trell.

Işak left the prince in haste then, walking purposefully through the camp to disguise the ill feelings that haunted him. But he wondered,
Why did a god spare your life, Trell val Lorian? What made you so special?
And behind these thoughts, so faint as to be nearly nonexistent, repeated another whispering plea,
Why did He not see fit to spare me as well?

A part of Işak wished he could take the prince back to Tal’Shira, but he knew the compulsion patterns laid upon him would never let him diverg
e from his assigned task, and a passing interest in a northern prince was not worth the incapacitating infirmity that resulted from attempts to fight Dore’s will.

Still…

It was full daylight before Joss returned, and his expression and lack of a seventh member to their retinue did not bode well for his success. He jumped from his horse and stalked over to the prince. “You!” he snarled, kicking at Trell. He yanked him to his knees by his hair and shouted, “Where’s your cousin?”

The commotion drew Işak from his own pursuits, and he closed upon the scene as Trell sat staring up at Joss, his storm-grey gaze unyielding. Işak saw great strength in the prince for all he could hardly be twenty and three. “Your man put three darts into m
y cousin,” Trell told him coolly. “That’s the last I saw of him.”

Joss spun to Işak as he neared. “Make him tell the truth!”

“I believe he just did,” Işak replied. “The problem seems to be your dull-witted questioning.”

While Joss glowered, Işak inquired f
rom safely within the shadows of his hood, “And after Sharpe damaged your cousin? Then what? Did you help him in some way?”  He made sure his compulsion-pattern was fully upon the prince before he finished this question.

Trell cast him a defiant look, and
Işak could see him fighting it—amazingly, it took the entire force of his own will to hold the pattern upon him!—but in the end, Trell gasped out through gritted teeth, “
Fled
—with—a Healer.”

“Ah yes, the
Healer
.” Işak had forgotten about her—they all had—so focused they’d been on gaining the prince’s cousin. But the Guild Master in Rethynnea had reported to the Karakurt that a Healer would also be traveling with Fynnlar val Lorian.

“Shite!” Joss snarled. He slung Trell back down and set to stomping and cursing. That’s when Raliax finally joined them, looking ill-humored and unusually unkempt, as if the harlot Sleep had been both teasing and denying him all night. “A bloody Healer took Fynnlar val Lorian away!” Joss shouted to Raliax by way of explanation for
his tantrum.

Işak meanwhile looked to Trell in disbelief as the prince pushed back to his knees. “So
you,
heir
to the Eagle Throne…
you
stayed with your men to divert us that your wounded cousin and a simple Healer might escape? How terribly…noble.”

Raliax spouted a stream of curses. “We’ll never find them now! Should’ve been after them last night!” and he cast Işak a glare full of venomous accusation.

“Yes, no doubt last night in the pitch dark you and your men would’ve proven more effective at eliminating your quarry than you have in the past,” Işak returned, turning to pin the man with his shadowed gaze. “And tell me, how many other princes have you slain who will soon be coming back to life?”

Though it was a simple slight, Raliax recoiled at the words.

“We’ll just tell Ean val Lorian we have him anyway,” Joss offered hastily.

“If we say we have the cousin when we do not,” Işak replied, “and by some good fortune, or perhaps the Healer’s skill, the cousin survives Sharpe’s darts and turns up elsewhere, thi
s will call into question the validity of our hand.”

“Afraid of a lie?” Raliax sneered. “Worried it will sully that ego of yours?”

Işak looked to him curiously. His strange barbs seemed better aimed at another man. Something deeper than a wounded ego had to be bothering him—indeed, Işak sensed a simmering resentment that seemed to have come from nowhere, yet must’ve been building for years.

“A lie, when wielded properly, can find its mark truer than any blade,” Işak replied to Raliax, “but when used improp
erly is about as useful as a spoon in a swordfight.”

Raliax rounded on him again, coming nose to nose. “You think you’re so high and mighty,” he hissed, his breath foul and reeking of drink. “But when it comes down to the end of things, you’re no better than me.”

“No, I am far worse,” Işak agreed, his bitter tone betraying but a hint of the tragedy that was his life.

Raliax growled in frustration. “Do what you like,” he snarled then, waving a brusque hand. “Ean val Lorian is your problem now.” He looked to the asse
mbled men who were going with him. “Bring a horse for our remarkable Prince Trell, back from the dead—and make ready! We head for Tal’Shira.”

“And us for Saldaria,” Işak told Joss. “Get the other prisoners. We’ll leave the cousin to Fate.”

As the men were dispersing, Trell lifted his gaze back to Işak. Even dirtied and bound, he displayed a grave dignity. “Why do you hide your face from me?” he asked quietly, the slightest tightening of his grey-eyed gaze the only hint that the question troubled him.

Why do
you know so completely that I do?

“Farewell, prince of Dannym,” Işak said, turning away. He could no longer bear conversing with the man, for the prince’s presence filled him with an uncommon ache. “I do not think we shall meet again.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Trell murmured, and when Işak swung a sharp look over his shoulder, he saw that the prince was smiling.

“Give me wine or give me death—I prefer the wine.”

- The royal cousin Fynnlar va
l Lorian

Alyneri rode
with fear as her closest companion. At first, she and Fynn had made haste to put as much distance between them and their attackers as possible, but once the danger of pursuit was past, they’d adopted a slower pace. All the while, Alyneri rode with one eye over her shoulder, hoping at every new junction, turn, or trail that Trell would be there, hale and smiling, waiting for her.

Gendaia seemed to sense unerringly which direction to take among the frighteningly labyrinthine canyons—indeed, the horse refused to follow any of Alyneri’s commands if they involved changing from her own course. It hardly seemed possible, but over time Alyneri began to trust that the horse actually knew where she was going. It gave her hope that perhaps she would find help…that she hadn’t lost Trell forever. And Alyneri really needed that hope.

Fynnlar hung on by a thread. They stopped frequently during the interminable night so Alyneri could heal what she could of his life pattern and force him to drink some water, but she dared not remove the pronged darts that impaled his flesh.

The clock was ticking, and Alyneri felt an ever-increasing panic. She was Fynn’s only hope. She might be
Trell’s
only hope. Worst of all was that they’d been separated with a rift still between them. 

When dawn finally came, Gendaia tread a high road out of the gorge. All around, the Kutsamak spread, a mottled, forbidding maze of shadowed canyons and stark, jagged ridges, their crumbling edges illuminated in the glaring light of morning. Alyneri had no idea where they were and no idea how long they would have to keep going, and she feared with every breath that Trell would not come.

Between the strain of gnawing fears and pouring everything she had into strengthening Fynn’s pattern, Alyneri could barely keep her eyes open. More disheartening still, it seemed that each new footfall of sunlight across the mountains stole away a second more of Fynn’s life. Only her regular ministrations were keeping his heart beating, but once his blood had fully shed, there would be nothing else she could do.

Alyneri spared another glance at him. He looked bad. Blood made a dark stain of his clothes, soaked down his horse’s flank and left a trail in the dust and the bitter rock.

Pulling gently for Gendaia to halt, Alyneri slipped out of the saddle intending to check on Fynn again, but as her foot touched the earth, a great dizziness cast blackness across her vision and brought a threatening nausea. She daren’t try another healing then, not without food or rest; yet one look at Fynn told her that he wouldn’t live to see another sunrise.

Alyneri gripped her saddle until the world no longer spun dangerously. Then she took her canteen over to Fynn. She hadn’t thought him conscious, but he whispered, “Fine,” as she reached his side.

“You are not fine.”

He murmured, “Just…a scratch.”

Alyneri gave him a sip of water while regarding him with gratitude and admiration. She’d never been more grateful for the levity Fynn could be counted on to provide. “I think all that wine you’ve consumed must be acting as an embalming agent. Anyone else would’ve given up seven canyons ago.”

“Want…see…dragon,” he whispered. He took another sip of water, but pushed her hand away after that.

The sun cleared the mountains in that moment, and the heat came with it. Blinking in the suddenly over-bright morning, Alyneri stripped Fynn of his cloak and sorted through his pack until she found a linen tunic the right size for her needs. With a bit of rope tied in a rose knot—the specific knot used in the traditional Kandori
agal
circlets—she fashioned Fynn a
keffiyeh
to protect his head and neck.

Then she did the same for herself using a long scarf she’d found among Trell’s packs. With nothing else to be done to help Fynn, Alyneri took up her reins. But as she placed her hands on her saddle, the moment became too intense, her fear too acute.  She dropped her chin to her chest and forced a shuddering inhale, trying desperately not to cry. Her hands shook terribly. She was exhausted and frightened, and there seemed no hope of a favorable outcome.

It took a few agonizing minutes to pull herself together—minutes Fynn probably didn’t have and which she berated herself about afterwards—but at last she swallowed enough of her despair to push herself on, set a foot into the stirrup and remounted.

Alyneri shook out her hands as if to disperse the fear that gripped her and took up her reins as she looked grimly to Fynn. “We have to keep going.”

He made the barest of nods in acknowledgment, and they set off again.

It was a very long day.

They rested for a time during the height of the day in the shade of an overhanging rock, and when not resting, Alyneri tried to travel in the shadows as much as possible. But this was the Kutsamak—the ochre walls were naught but shale and crumbling sandstone, and their sheer sides offered little relief from the ruthless sun.

Still, she did what she could. She drank all of her water and ate what she could find among their packs, and she stopped often to make Fynn drink. Whenever she came upon a stream that still flowed, she rested there while the horses drank and tried to put a little life back into Fynn with whatever of her own she could spare. When Fynn started drifting in and out of consciousness, she tied him to his saddle with a combination of rope from their packs and torn strips of cloth and took up his reins herself, looping them about her own pommel. 

And ever she pressed back a continuous thrumming fear, an unvarying wave of grief. The enemy of exhaustion required constant vigilance, but her own mind posed a bigger adversary still. Who were those men? What had they wanted? Had they been coming for Trell or another of their company? And had any of her dear friends lived through it?

She didn’t know how she survived that second night. Perhaps she slept, miraculously staying in her saddle. All she knew was that the hours of darkness blurred together until, with the paling of dawn, she looked up to find Gendaia standing in the shadow of Jar’iman Point.

Abruptly she jerked awake.