Whitecap's hoofprints returned to where we had been ambushed the day before. I noted, in passing, that the Piebald had retrieved his bow. Then they had ridden back toward the road. Whitecap's tracks were still pushed deep in the damp soil. They had gone on together, then.
Theirs were not the only fresh tracks under the tree. Two other horses had come and gone there since the night's rain. Their tracks overcut those of the heavily burdened Whitecap. I frowned over that. These were not the tracks of the pursuers from the village. They had not come this far; at least not yet. I decided to hope that the deaths of their friends and the horrid weather had turned them back. These fresh tracks came from the northwest, then turned, and went back that way. I pondered for a time, then the obvious hammered me: “Of course. The archer had no horse. The Piebalds sent someone back for their sentry. ” I grinned ruefully. “At least they've left us a clear trail to follow. ”
I glanced over but the Fool's face was still. He did not share my elation. “What's wrong?”
He gave a sickly smile. “I was imagining how we would feel now if you had killed that boy last night, beating their destination out of him. ”
I did not want to follow that thought. I said nothing and concentrated on the tracks in the earth. Nighteyes and I led, and the Fool followed. The horses were hungry, and Myblack in particular fractious because of it. She snatched at yellowveined willow leaves and clumps of dry grass whenever she could, and I felt too much sympathy to correct her. Had I been able to satisfy my belly that way, I would have snatched a handful of leaves myself.
As we pushed on, I saw signs of the rider's haste as he raced back to warn his party that their sentry had been taken. The tracks followed the obvious routes now, the easiest way up a hill, the clearest path through a tongue of woods. The day was still young when we found the remnants of a camp under the spread of an oak grove.
“They must have had a wet, wild night of it,” the Fool guessed, and I nodded. The fire spot showed the remains of charred logs extinguished by the downpour and never rekindled. A woven blanket had left its imprint on the sodden ground; whoever had slept there had slept wet. The ground was churned with tracks. Had other Piebalds awaited them here? The departing tracks overcut one another. There was no point in wasting time trying to puzzle it out.
“If we had pressed on yesterday after we encountered the archer, we would have caught them up here,” I said remorsefully. “I should have guessed that. They put him in place, knowing that they would not go much farther. He had no horse. It's so obvious now. Damn, Fool, the Prince was within our grasp yesterday. ”
“Then likely he is today, also. This is better, Fitz. Fate has played into our hands. Today we go unencumbered, and we yet may hope to surprise them. ”
I frowned as I studied the tracks. “There is no sign that Laurel and the ambusher came this way. So a man was sent back to pick up their sentry and returned alone, with the news that he'd been taken. What they will make of that is hard to say, but they definitely left in a hurry, without their archer. We should assume they'll be on their guard now. ”
I took a breath. “They will fight us when we try to take the Prince. ” I bit my lip, then added, “We'd best assume that the Prince will fight us, also. Even if he doesn't, he's going to be of little help to us. He was so vague last night . . . ” I shook my head and discarded my concerns.
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“So our plan is?”
“Surprise them if we can, hit them hard, take what we want, and get out fast. And ride for Buckkeep as swiftly as we can, because we won't be safe until we are there. ”
He followed the thought further than I had been willing to. “Myblack is swift and strong. You may have to leave Malta and me behind once you have the Prince. Don't hesitate. ”
And me .
The Fool glanced at Nighteyes as if he had heard him.
“I don't think I can do that,” I said carefully.
Don't fear. I'll protect him for you.
I felt a terrible sinking in my heart. I kept severely to myself the worry, But who will protect you? I would not let it come to that, I promised myself. I would not leave either of them. “I'm hungry,” the Fool noted. It was not a complaint, merely an observation, but I wished he had not said it. Some things are easier to ignore than acknowledge.
We rode on, the trail much plainer now in the raindampened earth. They had cut their losses and pushed on without the archer, just as they had left one of their own behind to die when they had fled the village. Such cold determination spoke loudly to me of how valuable the Prince was to them. They would be willing to fight to the death. They might even kill the Prince rather than let us take him. The fact that we knew so little of their motives would force me to be totally ruthless. I discarded the idea of attempting to talk to them first. I suspected their answer would be the same greeting that their archer had had for us yesterday.
I thought longingly of a time when I would have sent Nighteyes ahead to spy out the way for us. Now, with the trail so clear, the panting wolf was holding us back. I knew the moment when he realized it, for he abruptly sat down beside the trail. I pulled in Myblack, and the Fool halted also. My brother?
Go on without me. The hunt belongs to the swift and keen. Shall go on without my eyes and nose, then? And without your brain, too, alas. Be on your way, fettle brother, and save your flattery for someone who might believe it. A cat, perhaps. He came to his feet, and despite his weariness, in a few steps he had melted into the surrounding brush in his deceptively effortless way. The Fool looked askance at me.
“We go on without him,” I said quietly. I glanced away from the troubled look in his eyes. I nudged Myblack and we went on, but faster now. We pushed our horses and the tracks before us grew fresher. At a stream, we stopped to let the horses water and to refill our skins. There were late blackberries there, sour and hard, the ones that had turned color but in the shade, without the direct heat of the sun to sweeten them. We ate handfuls of them anyway, glad of anything we could chew and swallow. Reluctantly, we left fruit on the bushes, mounting as soon as the horses had fairly slaked their thirsts. We pushed on.
“I make out six of them,” the Fool observed as we rode.
I nodded. “At least. There were cat tracks near the water. Two different sizes. ”
“We know one rode a warhorse. Should we expect at least one large warrior?”
I shrugged reluctantly. “I think we should expect anything. Including more than six opposing us. They ride toward safety of some kind, Fool. Perhaps an Old Blood settlement, or a Piebald stronghold. And perhaps we are watched even now as we follow. ” I glanced up. I had not noticed any birds paying us undue attention, but that did not mean there weren't any. With the folk we pursued now, a bird in the air or a fox in a bush could be a spy. We could take nothing for granted.
“How long has it been happening to you?” the Fool asked as we rode.
“The shared dreams with the Prince?” I had not the energy to try to dissemble with him. “Oh, for some time. ”
“Even before that night you dreamed he was at Galekeep?”
I answered reluctantly. “I'd had a few odd dreams before then. I didn't realize they were the Prince's. ”
“You hadn't told me of them, only that you'd dreamed of Molly and Burrich and Nettle. ” He cleared his throat and added, “But Chade had mentioned some of his suspicions to me. ”
“Did he?” I was not pleased to hear that. I did not like to think of Chade and the Fool discussing me behind my back.
“Was it always the Prince, or only the Prince? Or are there other dreams?” The Fool tried to conceal the depth of his interest, but I had known him too long.
“Besides the dreams you already know about?” I deferred. I debated swiftly, not whether to lie to him, but how much of the truth I wished to share. Lying to the Fool was wasted effort. He had always known when I lied to him, and managed
to deduce the truth from it. Limiting his knowledge was the better tactic. And I felt no scruples about it, for it was the device he most often employed against me. “You know that I dreamed of you. And, as I told you, once I dreamed clearly of Burrich, clear enough that I nearly went to him. Those, I would say, are the same types of dreams as those I have had about the Prince. ”
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“You do not, then, dream of dragons?”
I thought knew what he meant. “Of VerityasDragon? No. ” I looked away from his keen yellow glance. I mourned my King still. “Even when I touched the stone that had held him, I felt no trace of him. Only that distant Withumming, like a beehive far under the earth. No. Even in my dreams, I do not reach him. ”
“Then you have no dragondreams?” he pressed me.
I sighed. “Probably no more than you do. Or anyone who lived through that summer and watched them fly through the skies over the Six Duchies. What man could have seen that sight, and never dream of it again?” And what Skilladdicted bastard could have watched Verity carve his dragon and enter into it, and not have dreamed of ending that way himself? Flowing into the stone, and taking it on as flesh, and rising into the sky to soar over the world. Of course, dreamed sometimes of being a dragon. suspected, nay, I knew, that when old age found me, I would make a futile trek into the Mountains and back to that quarry. But like Verity, I would have no coterie to assist me in the carving of my dragon. Somehow it did not matter that I knew I could not succeed. I could imagine no other death than one devoted to the attempt to carve a dragon.
I rode on, distracted, and tried to ignore the odd looks the Fool cast my way from time to time. I did not deserve the next bolt of luck that struck me, but I was glad of it all the same. As we came to the lip of a small valley, a trick of the terrain provided me with a single glimpse of those we pursued. The narrow valley was forested, but divided by a noisy watercourse swollen by last night's storm. Those we followed were in the midst of fording it. They would have had to turn in their saddles and look up to see us. I reined in, motioning the Fool to do likewise, and silently watched the party below. Seven horses, one riderless. There were two women and three men, one on an immense horse. There were three cats, not two, though in fairness to my tracking skills, two were similar in size. All three cats rode behind their owners' saddles. The smallest cat rode behind a boy, dark haired in a voluminous cloak of Buckkeep blue. The Prince. Dutiful.
His cat's distaste for the water they crossed was evident in her tense posture and the set of her claws. I saw them for but an instant, and felt an odd giddiness at the sight. Then tree branches cloaked them. As I watched, the final rider and her mount lurched from the rocky streambed and up the slick clay bank beyond it. As she vanished into the forest, I wondered if she was the Prince's ladylove.
“That was a big man on the big horse,” the Fool observed reluctantly.
“Yes. And they will fight as one. They were bonded, those two. ”
“How could you tell?” he demanded curiously. “I don't know,” I replied honestly. “It is the same as seeing an old mamed couple in. the market. No one has to tell you. You can just see it, in how they move together and how they speak to one another. ”
“A horse. Well, that may present some challenges I hadn't expected. ” It was my turn to give him a puzzled look, but he glanced away from it.
We followed, but more cautiously. We wanted to catch glimpses of them without being seen ourselves. As we did not know where they were going, we could not race ahead to intercept them, even if the rough and wild terrain had offered us that possibility. “Our best option may be to wait until they've settled for the night, and then go in after the Prince,” the Fool suggested.
“Two flaws,” I replied. “By nightfall, we may reach wherever it is they're going. If we do, we may find them in a fortified location, or with many more companions. The second is that if they camp again, they will post sentries, just as they did before. We'd have to get past them first. ”
“So your plan is?”
“Wait until they camp tonight,” I admitted gloomily. “Unless we see a better opportunity before then. ”
My premonition of disaster grew as the afternoon passed. The trail we followed showed signs of use by more than deer and rabbits. Other people used this path; it led to somewhere, a town or village, or at the least, a meeting place. I dared not wait for nightfall and their camp.
.
We ghosted closer than we had before. The unevenness of the terrain we crossed favored us, for as soon as they began their descent of the ridge, we could venture closer, Several times we had to leave the trodden path to keep hidden below the ridgeline, but those we followed seemed confident that they were now in safer territory. They did not often look back. I studied their marching order as trees hid and then revealed them. The man on the big horse led the way, followed by the two women. The second woman led the riderless horse. Our Prince came fourth, with his cat behind him on the saddle. Following him were the two other men and their cats. They rode like folk determined to cover ground before nightfall.
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“He looks like you did as a boy,” the Fool observed as we once more watched them wend out of sight.
“He looks like Verity to me,” I disagreed. It was true.
The boy did look like Verity, but he looked even more likemy father's portrait. I could not say if he looked like me atthat age. I had had little to do with looking glasses then. Hehad dark, thick hair, as unruly as Verity's and mine. I wondered, briefly, if my father had ever struggled to get a combthrough his. His portrait was my only image of him, and inthat he was faultlessly groomed. Like my father, the youngPrince was long of limb, rangier than stocky Verity, but hemight fill out as he got older. He sat his horse well. And justas I had noted with the man on the large horse, I could seehis bond with the cat that rode behind him. Dutiful heldhis head tipped back, as if to be aware always of the catbehind him. The cat was smallest of the three, yet largerthan I had expected her to be. She was long legged andtawny, with a rippling pattern of pale and darker stripes.
Sitting on her saddle cushion, her claws well dug in, the topof her head came to the nape of the Prince's neck. Her headturned from side to side as they rode, taking in all that theypassed. Her posture said that she was weary of riding, thatshe would have preferred to cross this ground on her own.
Getting rid of her might be the trickiest part of thewhole “rescue. ” Yet not for an instant did I consider taking her back to Buckkeep with the Prince. For his own good, he would have to be separated from his bondbeast, just as Burrich had once forced Nosey and I to part.
“It just isn't a sound bond. It feels not so much that he has bonded as that he has been captured. Or captivated, I suppose. The cat dominates him. Yet . . . it is not the cat. One of those women is involved in this, perhaps a Witmentor as Black Rolf was to me, encouraging him to plunge into his Witbond with an unnatural intensity. And the Prince is so infatuated that he has suspended all his own judgment. That is what worries me. ”
I looked at the Fool. I had spoken the thought aloud, with no preamble, but as often seemed with us, his mind had followed the same track. “So. Will it be easier to unseat the cat and take both Prince and horse, or snatch the Prince and hold him on Myblack with you?”
I shook my head. “I'll let you know after we've done it. ”
It was agonizing to shadow after them, hoping for an opportunity that might not come. I was tired and hungry, and my headache from the night before had never completely abated. I hoped that Nighteyes had managed to catch some food for himself and was resting. I longed to reach out to him, but dared not, lest I make the Piebalds aware of me.
Our route had taken us up into the rugged foothills. The gentle plain of the Buck River was far behind us now. As the late afternoon stole the strength of the sun from the day, I saw what might be our only chance. The Piebald part
y rode silhouetted against a ridgeline. Their trail led to a precipitous path that slashed steeply down and across the face of a sheer and rocky hill. Standing in my stirrups and staring through the thickening light, I decided the horses would have to go in single file. I pointed this out to the Fool.
“We need to catch them up before the Prince begins the descent,” I told him. It would be close. We had let them get almost too far ahead of us in an effort to remain hidden from them. Now I put my heels to Myblack, and she sprang forward, with little Malta right behind us.
Some horses are fleet only on a level, straight stretchMyblack proved herself as able on broken terrain. Th Piebalds had taken the easiest route, following the ridgelines. A steepsided gorge, thick with brush and trees, slicecbetween them and us. We could cut off a huge loop of traiby plunging down the slope to reach the next ascending jogin the trail. I kneed Myblack and she crashed down throughthe brushy slope, splashed through the creek at the bottom, and then fought her way up the other side through mossyturf that gave way under her hooves. I did not look back tosee how Malta and the Fool were faring. Instead, I rode lowto her back, avoiding the branches that would have sweptme from the saddle.
They heard us coming. Doubtless we sounded more like a herd of elk or a whole troop of guardsmen than a single horseman bent on catching up with them. In response to the sound of our pursuit, they fled. We caught them at the last possible moment. Three of their party had already ventured out onto the steep, narrow trail across the hill face. The lead horse had just begun the descent. The three horses remaining carried cats as well as riders. The last one wheeled to meet my charge with a shout, while the secondtolast chivied the Prince along as if to hurry him out onto the escarpment.
I crashed into the one who had turned to confront us, more by accident than by any battle plan. The footing on the mountainous path was treacherous with small rolling stones. As Myblack slammed shoulder to shoulder with the smaller horse, the cat leapt from its cushion yowling a threat, landed downhill from us, and slid and scrabbled away from the plunging hooves of the struggling horses.