Part 9 (2/2)
”She doesn't believe I will. Why do you?”
”Because you are meant to. You must sleep now. The road ahead is longer than the road behind.”
The storm raged for hours. It was still dark, still brutal when Kylar awoke. Snow covered him, turning his hair and cloak white, and even the fur did little to fight the canny cold.
He moved silently to his horse. It would take, he knew, minutes only to move far enough from camp that his trail would be lost. In such a h.e.l.lish world, you could stand all but shoulder to shoulder with another and not see him beside you.
The man Dilys would have no choice but to return home when he woke and found himself alone.
But though he walked his horse soundlessly through the deep snow, he'd gone no more than fifty yards when Dilys was once more trudging beside him.
Brave of heart and loyal to the bone, Kylar thought. Deirdre had chosen her man well.
”You have ears like a bat,” Kylar said, resigned now.
Dilys grinned. ”I do.”
Kylar stopped, jumped down from the horse. ”Mount,” he ordered. ”If we're traveling through h.e.l.l together, we'll take turns riding.” When Dilys only stood and stared, Kylar swore. ”Will you argue with me over everything or do as your lady commanded and I now bid?”
”I would not argue, my lord. But I don't know how to mount the horse.”
Kylar stood in the swirling snow, cold to the marrow of his bones, and laughed until he thought he would burst from it.
Chapter 10
On the fourth day of the journey, the wind rose so fierce that they walked in blindness. Hoods, cloaks, even Cathmor's dark hide were white now. Snow coated Dilys's eyebrows and the stubble of his beard, making him look like an old man rather than a youth not yet twenty.
Color, Kylar thought, was a stranger to this terrible world. Warmth was only a dim memory in the Forgotten.
When Dilys rode, Kylar waded through snow that reached his waist. At times he wondered if it would soon simply bury them both.
Fatigue stole through him and with it a driving urge just to lie down, to sleep his way to a quiet death. But each time he stumbled, he pulled himself upright again.
He had given her a pledge, and he would keep it. She had willed him to live, through pain and through magic. So he would live. And he would go back to her.
Walking or riding, he slipped into dreams. In dreams he sat with Deirdre on a jeweled bench in a garden alive with roses, brilliant with sunlight.
Her hands were warm in his.
So they traveled a full week, step by painful step, through ice and wind, through cold and dark.
”Do you have a sweetheart, Dilys?”
”Sir?” ”A sweetheart?” Taking his turn in the saddle, Kylar rode on a tiring Cathmor with his chin on his chest. ”A girl you love.”
”I do. Her name is Wynne. She works in the kitchens. We'll wed when I return.”
Kylar smiled, drifted. The man never lost hope, he thought, nor wavered in his steady faith. ”I will give you a hundred gold coins as a marriage gift.”
”My thanks, my lord. What is gold coins?”
Kylar managed a weak chuckle. ”As useless just now as a bull with teats. And what is a bull, you'd ask,” Kylar continued, antic.i.p.ating his man. ”For surely you've seen a teat in your day.”
”I have, my lord, and a wonder of nature they are to a man. A bull I have heard of. It is a beast, is it not? I read a story once-” Dilys broke off, raising his head sharply at the sound overhead. With a shout, he snagged the horse's reins, dragged at them roughly. Cathmor screamed and stumbled. Only instinct and a spurt of will kept Kylar in the saddle as the great tree fell inches from Cathmor's rearing hooves.
”Ears like a bat,” Kylar said a second time while his heart thundered in his ears. The tree was fully six feet across, more than a hundred in length. One more step in its path and they would have been crushed. ”It is a sign.”
The shock roused Kylar enough to clear his mind. ”It is a dead tree broken by the weight of snow and ice.”
”It is a sign,” Dilys said stubbornly. ”Its branches point there.” He gestured, and still holding the reins, he began to lead the horse to the left.
”You would follow the branches of a dead tree?” Kylar shook his head, shrugged. ”Very well, then. How could it matter?”
He dozed and dreamed for an hour. Walked blind and stiff for another.
But when they stopped for midday rations from their dwindling supply, Dilys held up a hand.
”What is that sound?”
”The b.l.o.o.d.y wind. Is it never silent?”
”No, my lord. Beneath the wind. Listen.” He closed his eyes. ”It is like... music.” ”I hear nothing, and certainly no music.”
”There.”
When Dilys went off at a stumbling run, Kylar shouted after him.
Furious that the man would lose himself without food or horse, he mounted as quickly as he could manage and hurried after.
He found Dilys standing knee-deep in snow, one hand lifted, and trembling. ”What is it? My lord, what is this thing?”
”It's only a stream.” Concerned that the man's mind had snapped, Kylar leaped down from the horse. ”It's just a... a stream,” he whispered as the import raced through him. ”Running water. Not ice, but running water.
The snow.” He turned a quick circle. ”It's not so deep here. And the air.
Is it warmer?”
”It's beautiful.” Dilys was hypnotized by the clear water rus.h.i.+ng and bubbling over rock. ”It sings.”
”Yes, by the blood, it is, and it does. Come. Quick now. We follow the stream.”
The wind still blew, but the snow was thinning. He could see clearly now, the shape of the trees, and tracks from game. He had only to find the strength to draw his bow, and they would have meat.
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