“Is Chukku’s Stones a bad throw?” Simon asked.
“It is a cursing word,” Binabik informed him. “I was using it because I have never been seeing this pattern of bones.” He leaned closer to the pile of yellowed objects. “A little like Wingless Bird,” he said. “But not.” He lifted one of the bones, which was delicately perched on two of its fellows, then took a deep breath. “Could this be Mountains Dancing?” He looked up at Simon, eyes bright, but not in a way Simon liked. “I have never been seeing it, and have not known anyone who was seeing it. But I think I was hearing of it once, when Ookekuk my master talked to a wise old woman from Chugik Mountain.”
Simon shrugged helplessly. “What does it mean?”
“Changing. Things changing. Large things.” Binabik sighed. “If it is indeed Mountains Dancing. If I had my scrolls, I could perhaps be discovering with sureness.” He swept up the bones and dropped them back into their pouch; he seemed more than a little frightened. “It is a throw that has only been appearing a few times ever since the Singing Men of Yiqanuc have written their lives and learning on hides.”
“And what happened?”
Binabik put the pouch away. “Let me wait before more talking, Simon. I must be thinking on this.”
Simon had never taken the troll’s bone oracles too seriously—they had always seemed as general and unhelpful as a fortune-reader from a traveling fair—but he was shaken now by Binabik’s obvious uneasiness.
Before he could press the troll for more information, Miriamele returned to the fire and sat down. “I’m not going back,” she said without preamble. Binabik, like Simon, was taken by surprise.
“I am not understanding your meaning, Princess Miriamele.”
“Yes, you do. My uncle sent you to bring me back. I’m not going.” Her face was as hard and determined as Simon had ever seen it. Now he understood her preoccupation. He also felt more than a little anger. Why was she always so stubborn, so cross? It almost seemed she enjoyed pushing people away from her with words.
Binabik spread his palms in the air. “I could not make you do anything that was not your wanting, Miriamele—and I would not try such doing.” His brown eyes were full of concern. “But, yes, your uncle and many others worry for you. They worry about your safeness, and they worry about what you plan. I will ask you to be coming back … but making I cannot do.”
Miriamele looked slightly relieved, but her jaw was still set. “I’m sorry, Binabik, if you have traveled so far for nothing, but I am not returning. I have something to do.”
“She wants to tell her father that this whole war is a mistake,” Simon muttered sullenly.
Miriamele gave him a look of disgust. “That’s not why I’m going, Simon. I told you the reason.” She haltingly explained to Binabik her ideas about what might have led Elias to the clutches of the Storm King.
“I am thinking you may indeed have discovered his mistake,” Binabik said when she had finished. “It is close to some of my own supposing—but that does not mean that there is any likeliness you will be succeeding.” He frowned. “If your father has been brought close to the Storm King’s power, whether by the trickiness of Pryrates or something else, he may be like a man who drinks too much kangkang—telling him that his family is starving and his sheep are wandering away may not be heard.” He laid a hand on Miriamele’s arm. She flinched, but did not pull away. “Also—and this is a hard thing for my heart to be saying—it is perhaps true that your father the king cannot anymore survive without the Storm King. The sword Sorrow is a thing of great power, a strong, strong thing. Perhaps if it is taken from him, he will go sliding into madness.”
Miriamele’s eyes welled with tears, but her expression remained grim. “I am not trying to take the sword from him, Binabik. Only to tell him that things have gone too far. My father—my real father—would not have wanted so much harm to come from his love for my mother. Everything that has happened since must be the work of others.”
Binabik raised his hands again, this time in resignation. “If you have guessed the reasons for his madness, for this war, for his pact with the Storm King. And if he can be hearing you. But as I told you, I cannot stop your journey. I can only accompany you to help keep you from harm.”
“You’re going to come with us?” Simon asked. He was very pleased and strangely relieved to think that someone else would share what felt like a heavy burden.
The troll nodded, but his smile was long gone. “Unless you are to be returning with me to Josua, Simon? That might be reason for not going on.”
“I have to stay with Miriamele,” he pronounced firmly. “I gave my oath as a knight.”
“Even though I didn’t ask for it,” said Miriamele.
Simon felt a moment’s angry pain, but remembered the Canon of Knighthood and mastered himself. “Even though you didn’t ask for it,” he repeated, glowering at her. Despite the terrible times they had shared, she seemed determined to hurt him. “I still have my duty. And,” he said to Binabik, “if Miriamele is going to the Hayholt, I’m going to Swertclif. Bright-Nail is there, and Josua needs it. But I can’t think of any way to get into the castle to get Sorrow,” he added reflectively.
Binabik sat back and let loose a weary sigh. “So Miriamele is going to the Hayholt to plead with her father for stopping the war, and you are going there to be rescuing one of the Great Swords, just your single knightly self?” He leaned forward suddenly and dragged the stirring stick through the mixture simmering in the pot. “Are you hearing how like younglings you sound? I was thinking you were both wiser after your many dangers and almost-dyings than to take such things on yourselves.”
“I’m a knight,” said Simon. “I’m not a child any more, Binabik.”
“That is just meaning that the damage you can be doing is greater,” the troll said, but his tone was almost conciliatory, as though he knew he could not win the argument. “Come, let us be eating. This is still a happy meeting, even if the times are those of unhappiness.”
Simon was relieved to have the argument end. “Yes, let’s eat. And you still haven’t told us how you found us.”
Binabik gave the stew another stir. “That and other news when you have been eating your food,” was all he said.
When the sound of contented chewing had slowed a little, Binabik licked his fingers and took a deep breath. “Now that your stomachs at least are full, and we are safe, there is grim news that needs telling.”
As Simon and Miriamele sat in growing horror, the troll described the Norns’ attack on the camp and its aftermath.
“Geloë dead?” Simon felt as though the earth was eroding beneath him; soon there would be nowhere safe left to stand. “Curse them! They are demons! I should have been there! A knight of the prince …!”
“It is perhaps true you should both have been there,” Binabik said gently, “or at least that you two should not have left. But you could have done nothing, Simon. Everything was happening with great suddenness and silence, and only one target there was.”
Simon shook his head, furious with himself.
“And Leleth.” Miriamele rubbed away tears. “That poor child—she has had nothing but pain.”
After they had sat in mournful silence for a while, Binabik spoke again. “Let me now be speaking of a less sad thing—how I was finding you. In truth, there is not a great deal for telling. Qantaqa it was who did the most of the tracking. She has a cunning nose. My only fear would be that we would fall too far behind—horses are traveling faster than wolves over long distances—and that the smells would grow too old. But our luck held.
“I was following you into the edge of Aldheorte Forest, and there things grew muddled for some time. I had the most worry that we would lose you in that place, since it was slow going, and then it was raining, too. But clever Qantaqa managed to keep your trail.”
“Was it you, then?” Simon asked suddenly. ‘Were you the one who was skulking around our camp in the forest?”
The troll looked puzzled. “I am not thinking it was. When did this thing happen?”
Simon described the mysterious lurker who had approached the camp and then retreated into darkness.
Binabik shook his head. “It was not me. I would not have been talking to myself, although perhaps I might have been saying words to Qantaqa. But I am promising you,” he drew himself up proudly, “Qanuc do not make so much noise. Especially in the forest at night. Very concerned with not becoming a meal for something large, we Qanuc are.” He paused. “And the time is wrong, also. We would have been a day or two days at least behind you then. No, it was doubtless one of the things you were guessing, a bandit or a forest cotsman.” Still, he considered for a few moments before continuing with his tale.
“In any manner, Qantaqa and I followed you. We were forced to make our hunting secret—I had no wish for riding Qantaqa into a large town like Stanshire—so I could only have hope that you were coming out of these places again. We wandered about on the outskirts of the large settlements trying to find your track. Several times I thought that I had made it too difficult for Qantaqa’s scenting, but always she found you again.” He scratched his head, contemplating. “I suppose that if you had not emerged, I would have then been forced to go searching for you. I am glad I did not need to do that thing—I would have had to leave Qantaqa out in the wildlands, and I would have myself been an easy target for Fire Dancers or frightened villagers who had never been seeing a troll.” He smiled slyly. “The people of Stanshire and Falshire have still not seen a troll.”
“When did you find us?”
“If you think on it, Simon, you will be guessing very easily. I had no reason to hide from you, so I would have been greeting you as soon as I came upon you—unless some reason there was not to.”
Simon considered. “Because we were with someone you didn’t know?”
The troll nodded, satisfied. “Exactly. A young man and woman may be traveling in Erkynland and speaking to strangers without too much attention. A troll may not.”
“So it must have been when we were with that man and woman—the Fire Dancers. We met other people, but we were alone each time afterward.”
“Yes. I came upon you here in Hasu Vale—I had been making camp in this very cave the night before—and followed you and that pair up into the hills. Qantaqa and I were watching all from the trees. We saw the Fire Dancers.” He frowned. “They have become numerous and unafraid—by spying on other travelers along the road and listening to their gossip I was learning that. So I saw what these Fire Dancers did, and when they were taking you to the hilltop, I freed your horses and followed.” He grinned, pleased with his own cleverness.
“Thank you, Binabik,” Miriamele said. Some of her earlier frosty manner had disappeared. “I haven’t said that yet.”
He smiled and shrugged. “We all are doing what we can when we are able. As I was once before telling Simon, we three have saved each other’s lives enough times that the tallying is no longer important.” As he picked up a hank of moss and began to scrub his bowl, Qantaqa strode silently into the cavern. Her fur was wet; she shook herself, sending a fine spray of droplets everywhere.
“Ah.” Binabik placed the bowl on the floor before the wolf. “You may be performing this task, then.” As Qantaqa’s pink tongue scoured out the last bits of stew, the troll stood up. “So, that is the telling. Now, if we are going carefully, I think we can leave this place today. We will stay away from the road until Hasu Vale is being safely behind.”
“And the Fire Dancers won’t find us?” Miriamele asked.
“After the last night’s doings, I am doubting that there are many left, or that they are wishing to do much of anything but hide. I am thinking that the Storm King’s servant gave them as much fright as it gave to you.” He bent to begin picking up. “And now their chieftain is dead.”
“That was one of your black-tipped darts,” Simon said, remembering Maefwaru’s puzzled expression as he clutched at his throat.
“It was.”
“I’m not sorry.” Simon went to tie up his bedroll. “Not sorry at all. So you’re really going to come with us.”
Binabik thumped his chest with the heel of his hand. “I am not believing what you do is wise or good. But I cannot be letting you go off when I might be able to help you survive.” He frowned, pondering. “I wish there was some way for sending a message back to the others.”
Simon remembered the trolls in Josua’s camp, and especially Sisqi, the loved one Binabik must have left behind to come here. The magnitude of the little man’s sacrifice struck him and he was suddenly ashamed. Binabik was right: Simon and Miriamele were behaving like wayward children. But one look at the princess convinced him that she could no more be talked out of this than the waves could be argued out of crashing onto the beach—and he could not imagine himself leaving her to face her fate alone. Like Binabik, he was trapped. He sighed and picked up the bedroll.
Either Binabik was a good guide or the Fire Dancers had, in fact, given up looking for them. They saw nothing living during their afternoon’s journey through the damp, thick-forested hills of Hasu Vale except for a few jays and a single black squirrel. The woods were densely crowded with trees and ground plants, and every trunk was blanketed in spongy moss, but the land still seemed strangely inactive, as though everything that lived there slept or waited silently for the intruders to pass.
An hour after sunset they made camp beneath a rocky overhang, but the accommodations were far less pleasant than the dry and secret cave. When the rains came and water ran streaming down the hillside, Simon and the others were forced to huddle as far back under the overhang as they could. The horses, appearing none too pleased, were tethered at the front where they were intermittently lashed by rain. Simon hoped that since horses often stood in fields during bad weather, they would not suffer too badly, but he felt obscurely guilty. Surely Homefinder, a knight’s companion, deserved better treatment?
After she hunted, Qantaqa came and curled herself against all three of them as they huddled in a row, making up with the warmth she provided for the strong smell of damp wolf that filled the shelter. They fell asleep at last, then awakened at dawn, stiff and sore. Binabik did not want to light a fire in such an exposed place, so they ate a little dried meat and some berries the troll gathered, then set out again.
It was a difficult day’s traveling, the hillsides and dales slippery with mud and wet moss, the rain blowing up in sudden squalls that lashed them with water and slapped branches into their faces; when the rain ceased, the mist crept back in, hiding treacherous pitfalls. Their progress was achingly slow. Still, Simon was impressed that his trollish friend could find a way at all with no sun visible and the road far away and out of sight.
Sometime after noon Binabik led them along the hillside past the outskirts of the town of Hasu Vale itself. It was difficult to make out much more through the close-knit trees than the shapes of some rough houses, and—when the mist was momentarily cleared by a stiff wind—the snaking course of the road, a dark streak some furlongs away. But the town seemed just as muted and lifeless as the forest: nothing but gray mists rose around the smoke holes of the cottages, and there was no sign of people or animals.
“Where has everyone gone?” Miriamele asked. “I have been here. It was a lively place.”
“Those Fire Dancers,” Simon said grimly. “They’ve scared everyone away.”
“Or perhaps it is the things with which the Fire Dancers have been making celebration on the hilltops at night,” Binabik pointed out. “It is not necessary, I am thinking, to see those things, as you two were seeing, to know that something is wrong. It is a feeling in the air.”
Simon nodded. Binabik was right. This entire area felt much like Thisterborg, the haunted hill between the forest and Erchester, the place where the Anger Stones stood … the place where the Norns had given Sorrow to King Elias. …
He did not like thinking about that horrible night, but
for some reason the memory suddenly seemed important. Something was pulling at him, scattered thoughts that wanted to be fit together. The Norns. The Red Hand. Thisterborg. …
“What’s that?” Miriamele cried in alarm. Simon jumped. Homefinder startled beneath him and slipped a little in the mud before finding her footing.
A dark shape had appeared in the mist before them, gesticulating wildly. Binabik leaned forward against Qantaqa’s neck and squinted. After a long, tense moment, he smiled. “It is nothing. A rag caught by the wind. Someone’s lost shirt, I am thinking.”
Simon squinted, too. The troll was correct. It was a tattered bit of clothing wrapped around a tree, the sleeves fluttering in the wind like pennants.
Miriamele made the sign of the Tree, relieved.
They rode on. The town vanished into the thick greenery behind them as quickly and completely as if the wet, silent woods had swallowed it.
They camped that evening in a sheltered gully at the base of the valley’s western slope. Binabik seemed preoccupied; Simon and Miriamele were both quiet. They ate an unsatisfying meal and made some small talk, then everyone took refuge in the darkness and the need to sleep.
Simon again felt the awkward distance that existed now between himself and Miriamele. He still did not quite know what to feel about the things she had told him. She was no maiden, and it was by her own choice. That was painful enough, but the way she had told him, the manner in which she had lashed out at him as though to punish, was even more infuriatingly confusing. Why was she so kind to him sometimes, so hateful at others? He would have liked to believe that she was playing the come-hither, go-away games that young court women were taught to play with men, but he knew her too well: Miriamele was not one for that kind of frippery. The only solution that he could find to this puzzle was that she truly wanted him for a friend, but was afraid that Simon wanted more.