Part 23 (1/2)
”Waiting,” Phryne repeated.
They stood where they were for a long time as she peered out at the camp, trying to reason it out. The Trolls had struck their old camp and come here, presumably in preparation for their meeting with the leaders Panterra had promised them would come. But would they just sit there trusting to his word without trying to do more? They might, if they thought that his fear for Prue Liss was strong enough that he would do what they had demanded. But how could they be sure he would be able to persuade anyone to come out to meet with them?
How could they be sure of anything?
Something about all of this was deeply troubling, but she couldn't put her finger on it. Apparently her cousins hadn't had any better success.
”Have you gone down to have a look?” she asked.
”And risk incurring the wrath your father visited on you?” Tenerife asked in mock horror. ”Of course we have.”
”There isn't much to see, even up close,” his brother rumbled, easing back a step, as if his bulk made him more visible than the other two. ”We saw it all from the rise the last time you were up here while we waited for our chance to rescue Panterra and Prue. Nothing's changed but the location. The Trolls and the tents and all the rest look just the same.”
Phryne shook her head. ”I don't understand it. Why aren't they searching for a way in? Why aren't they looking for the pa.s.ses? They know we're in these mountains somewhere.”
Tasha snorted softly. ”We'll know soon enough. The full moon comes in ten days. If no one appears to negotiate, I'm pretty certain they'll stop sitting around.”
”Of course, they could be searching without our realizing it,” Tenerife mused. ”They were pretty good at creeping up on our Tracker friends without them knowing, and not many are able to do that.”
”No,” Tasha said, frowning. ”We would have seen something. We've had eyes trained on the approach from the day we arrived to begin work on the defenses, and no one has come into the mountains.”
”Could they have found another of the pa.s.ses?” Phryne asked. ”Farther south?”
The brothers thought it over for a moment. ”If they knew where we were and how to get to us, why bother with requesting a meeting? No, I don't think they know a way in just yet. I think that's what they're waiting for. I just don't know where they think the information is coming from if they don't search it out.”
They talked it over awhile longer, but when Phryne was satisfied that she had seen all there was to see, they retreated into the pa.s.s. A short time later they had regained the barricades and were observing the progress of the construction once more.
”Will you stay the night?” Tenerife asked as they climbed down from the ladders on the far side.
She nodded. ”I want to look around a bit more.” She paused. ”Did you send anyone to tell my father about the Trolls?”
Tasha shook his head. ”Haren decided not to bother. Nothing to tell, he said. It's not as if it's a surprise that they're here. We knew they were coming. If they do something worth reporting, we'll send word then. You can tell your father yourself when you return to the city.”
She didn't like it that it had been left to her to do something the captain of the Home Guard should have done, but she guessed it was his decision, not hers.
She spent the rest of the day studying the barricades and listening to the builders explain why they believed them strong enough to repel any attack. She was briefed on the defensive positions and the strategy that Haren Crayel intended to employ if the attack came. Afterward, she had dinner with her cousins and the Elves they were closest to, back to telling stories and sharing ale.
It was late when she rolled into her blankets near a fire they had built for her, the mountain air cold and the wind gusting through the pa.s.s. She was tired enough to begin drifting off right away, even though she was still thinking about the reason that the Trolls were making no effort to search for a way through the mountains. Odd, she kept repeating to herself, that they should come so near Aphalion Pa.s.s and then do nothing to find it.
If Arik Sarn were there, perhaps he could explain it. She thought of him sitting in the gardens and drawing flowers, and it made her smile. He was pretty odd himself. He would understand the behavior of the Drouj and Taureq Siq better than any of them.
She had almost fallen asleep when the first hint of the answer she had been searching for came to her as a sharp-edged possibility that until that moment she had never considered. Doing so now, she went cold all the way down to her bones.
Within seconds she was shaking Tasha and Tenerife awake.
TWENTY-FIVE.
TRUE TO HIS WORD, ON REACHING GLENSK WOOD at midday two days earlier, Sider Ament left Panterra behind and continued on alone for Declan Reach. He took time to rea.s.sure the boy that he would do whatever was necessary to recover Prue safely from the Troll camp and would bring her back as quickly as possible. He could read the dissatisfaction and frustration in the boy's face. The boy wanted to go with him and be a part of whatever rescue effort he intended. But Sider had already determined that it would be more dangerous for all three of them if the boy came along and would add nothing to have him there.
”Just do as I asked you,” he repeated. ”Tell Aislinne what has happened and make sure your report reaches Pogue and the other members of the village council. Confirm that the effort to fortify the pa.s.s is under way and if for some reason it isn't, do what you can to change that. Wait for me there if you wish; I'll come through on my return.”
Then he was gone, moving quickly away, fading into the trees and not looking back.
He walked the remainder of the day, ascending the steeper mountain slopes toward Declan Reach. By nightfall, he had reached a place at the upper edges of the thinning woods where he could see the entrance. He considered entering the pa.s.s itself. In the black silence of the night, he could hear the murmur of voices and see the dim flicker of fires burning within the cut. Someone was camped there, presumably those who had been sent to begin work on the fortifications, and he could have joined them. But he was by nature solitary, and he preferred to keep his own company.
So he stayed where he was, finding a spot where he could make his camp and keep watch. He ate his meal cold, did not start a fire, and long before midnight had wrapped himself in his cloak and blanket to ward against the night's chill and was asleep.
His sleep was deep and dreamless, the first time in a long time, and he woke refreshed and rea.s.sured that he was doing the right thing. He hadn't told the boy, but he had a plan. It wasn't fully formed and it depended on the efforts of someone other than himself, but he believed it had a chance to work. Without it, in any case, there was probably little hope for the girl. He had not shared any of this, not wanting to give the boy anything further to think about, hoping his efforts with the fortifications would help take his mind off the matter.
Probably that wouldn't happen, he acknowledged. Probably there was no diminis.h.i.+ng the pain of what he was going through.
He departed at sunrise for the pa.s.s, gratified to discover that a sizable workforce was in the process of constructing the needed fortifications, a mix of Trackers and builders under the command of Trow Ravenlock. He stopped long enough to make a quick report to the Tracker leader and to rea.s.sure himself that Skeal Eile was not doing anything to interfere with his efforts at summoning help from the other communities, and then he moved on. Ravenlock wanted to know where he was going, but he said only that he was going out to scout the movements of the Troll army and left things at that.
He traversed the length of the pa.s.s and emerged into the outside world without incident. The landscape he remembered was unchanged, still a mix of barren rock and empty flats spreading away toward distant mountains west and patches of forest that mingled trees both fresh with new growth and withered with death's approach, all beneath skies that were clear and bright and sun-filled. He stood at the opening for a time, just studying the sweep of the terrain, watchful for anything that looked odd or threatening. He saw neither, and even though he knew there would be hidden dangers he felt he was better prepared for them this time.
But he would still need help with the girl.
He reached into the pocket sewn on the inside of his belt and withdrew the tracking device given him by Deladion Inch. Just press the b.u.t.ton until the red light comes on and I will know to come find you, Inch had told him. Sider had not thought he would ever have need of summoning the big man, but he had kept the device safe anyway.
He pressed the b.u.t.ton now, waited for the red light to come on, tucked the device back in his belt pocket when it did, and set out.
What he had remembered even before he recalled the tracking device was Inch's claim to familiarity with the Troll tribes and their movements. If nothing else, he would be able to tell Sider the best way to go about getting into the camp and finding the girl. He would likely know how they set watch and where a prisoner might be kept. Perhaps there were insignia on the tents that identified their usage. If Sider was very lucky indeed, the big man might even agree to help him get inside the camp by going with him. But he wouldn't ask; that would be presuming on a friends.h.i.+p he wasn't sure even existed.
Admittedly, it wasn't much of a plan. But it would give him a better chance than anyone else, including the boy, of managing a rescue. Still, he had to act quickly. Only six days remained before the appointed meeting with Taureq Siq. Sider didn't think the Troll Maturen would show much patience with his prisoner after that deadline expired.
He shook his head at himself. There were so many things that needed doing: rallying the defenders at Aphalion and Declan Reach, speaking with the different Races-he hadn't gone to the Lizards or Spiders at all, leaving that to the Elves ... But here I am, doing this instead. All because I promised Panterra Qu I would not abandon the girl, and if I am to have any chance of winning his friends.h.i.+p and trust, any chance of persuading him that he should become the next bearer of the staff, I must first prove that I can keep my word when I make a promise.
He walked on through the midday light, staying out in the open where he could see anything that approached and hopefully avoid the sort of ambush he had encountered the last time out, all the while moving in the general direction of Deladion Inch's fortress keep. The terrain about him remained pretty much the same-bleak and ruined, stripped of gra.s.ses and trees, the earth still toxic from the Great Wars, stark and unwelcoming. Once, far off in the distance, he caught sight of a flat blue glimmer of water, a slender thread wending its way through the countryside, angling off into the haze west. But he couldn't tell the condition of the water or its source. Here and there, clumps of trees grew as fresh and clean as they all must have grown at one time. But they were small islands amid an ocean of devastation, and the bulk of what the Gray Man saw showed little promise.
Once, not so far distant, he saw something much larger than himself shambling through a series of deep ravines, appearing and then disappearing like a mirage. But it was moving away from him, and after a while it was gone entirely.
He found himself wondering how the people of the valley would ever be able to acclimate and survive in this hostile environment. How could they adapt to what they would encounter when they had spent five hundred years closed away in a country where everything was naturally available and almost nothing threatened? He tried to envision how it would happen and failed. It would take new skills and hard-won experience to allow them to make the change. It would take a degree of cooperation and respect that was presently lacking. All the petty jealousies and rifts and differences would have to be bridged and healed.
He didn't know if that was possible. Yet a way would have to be found if those brought out of the carnage of the Great Wars by the boy Hawk were to survive.
The hours slipped away, the afternoon crawling toward twilight, the bright orb of the sun advancing west in a sky that grew increasingly cloudy. Another storm was approaching, coming down out of the north. Sider checked the tracking device, worried that it might have failed. But the red light glowed steadily, so he kept moving ahead. He recognized almost nothing of the land he was traversing, but he carried a compa.s.s and his general sense of direction added to its readings told him he was still maintaining his intended course. He just hoped he would get to shelter before sunset or rainfall.
He needn't have worried. He was climbing out of a series of deep ravines toward a line of dead trees and scrub when Deladion Inch appeared above him, clad in the familiar black leathers and metal trappings, the equally familiar Tyson Flechette strapped across one shoulder.
”Sider Ament!” the big man called out in greeting. ”Come on up!”
He stood where he was, hands resting on his hips and a bemused expression on his bluff face, watching as Sider finished his climb up the rise and joined him.
”h.e.l.lo, again,” Sider greeted him in turn.
The big man looked him up and down. ”Didn't expect to see you again quite so soon. Not that I'm complaining, you understand. I can always use the company of a fellow mercenary. Oh, wait-you don't like it when I call you that. A fellow pract.i.tioner of the art of war? Is that better? Well, whatever, I'm glad you came. My tracking device works pretty well, doesn't it? Got your signal on my receiver, and it brought me right to you.”