She squeezed his hand. “I wish you still didn’t know. I wish I didn’t have to tell you. But you still care about the girl, don’t you? So you need to know what’s happened to her so that you can understand what she’s going through. She’s fragile in ways that you don’t see. She might have mind-sight, but it’s not sufficient protection against the monsters of this world and not enough to make up for the loss of her family. Her father, bad as he was, loved her, and she loved him. He was the support she could fall back on when things were too much for her. Who’s going to offer her that support now?”
“I am,” he said at once.
“Then you can’t tell her you intend to leave her behind.” Khyber’s voice was fierce. “You can’t make her safe that way, Pen. I know taking her is dangerous, but leaving her is worse.”
They stared at each other in silence. In the background, the music and singing of the Troll revelers wafted through the darkness, rising above the firelight, echoing off the rock walls of the cliffs. Pen wanted to cry for what he was feeling, but no tears would come.
“I’ll tell her she can come,” he said finally. “I’ll tell her I was wrong, that we need her.”
She nodded. “Be careful what you say and how you say it. She wouldn’t like it that I’ve told you what happened. She will probably want to tell you herself one day.”
He nodded. “Thank you, Khyber. Thank you for telling me. Thank you for not letting me make a mistake I couldn’t correct.”
She got to her feet and stood looking at him. “I just did what I thought I had to do, Pen, but I have to tell you that it doesn’t make me feel very good to have done it.”
She turned and walked away.
Acting on whispered instructions from Shadea a’Ru, the Gnome Hunters removed the heavy mesh netting and bound and gagged Bek Ohmsford. He could have struggled or used magic to save himself, but he was terrified that if he did so, they would kill Rue. Bitter with disappointment and self-recrimination, he let them take him without a struggle.
“You aren’t half so clever as you believe yourself to be,” she said to him as the Gnomes carried him down into the cellars of the Keep. “I knew of your contact with your son the moment you made it. It was impossible to miss. I knew you were pretending at being ill earlier today, too, and that you would come back to the cold chamber to use the scrye waters again if you were given the chance. So I gave it to you.”
She leaned over and tapped him lightly on the nose, a taunting gesture he couldn’t fail to register. “You couldn’t get a clear reading of where Penderrin was from your first contact; I saw that right away. So I knew you would have to come back and probe the scrye waters again when you thought we weren’t around to see what you were searching for. Somehow, you found us out, didn’t you? It was probably Traunt Rowan who gave us away. He lacks the finesse needed to fool someone as perceptive and experienced as you. Disappointing, if not entirely unexpected. At least I knew enough not to trust that you had been taken in by his explanation. I knew enough to read you the same way you must have read him.”
She was silent for a time, staring straight ahead into the darkness, keeping pace with the guards who bore him. She took big, full strides that radiated power and determination. She looked taller and broader through the shoulders than he remembered, and there was a confidence about her that suggested she was equally comfortable with weapons or words. He did not know what his sister had done to antagonize her, but Shadea a’Ru was a formidable enemy.
“Your son has turned out to be a meddlesome boy, Bek,” she continued after a while, “but no more so than Tagwen or the others who joined him to hunt for your sister. I took steps to put an end to their search, but until now they have managed to elude me. I tracked them all the way from Patch Run to the Elven village of Emberen and from there east to the Lazareen. Then, I lost them. But now, thanks to you, I know exactly where they are.”
She smiled down at him, enjoying the dark look on his face. “Oh, you want to know how I know, since I wasn’t in the cold chamber with you? Anticipating your nocturnal visit, I marked the scrye waters with a little magic of my own before you tampered with them. They will reveal to me exactly what they revealed to you. That should tell me everything I need to know about your son’s whereabouts, I expect. Then I will find him and deal with him.”
Bek listened with growing despair, aware of how completely he had been duped into doing just what Shadea had wanted him to do in the first place. Now he was a prisoner and unable to do anything to help either Pen or his sister. At least they were both alive. He could assume that much from what she had just told him. He could also assume she would try to change that.
They continued down until he smelled the damp and felt the cold of the deep underground. Somewhere not too far away, he heard water running. The heat of the Druid Fire was absent, as if that part of the Keep was far removed from the earth-warmed core.
Finally, they arrived at a corridor lined with heavy doors kept closed by iron bolts thrown through iron rings. His captors opened one of the doors and placed him in the tiny room beyond, a space barely larger than a closet. There was a wooden bed, straw, and a bucket. The floor, ceiling, and walls were rough and uneven and had been hollowed out of the bedrock.
They untied his arms and legs, but left his gag in place.
“Remove the gag when I am gone,” Shadea said. “But first, listen to what I have to say. Behave yourself, and you might come out of this alive. I am locking your beloved wife up separately, in a place far away from you, somewhere you can’t find her easily. I know stone walls and iron doors can’t hold you, but they can hold her. If you try to escape, if your guards even think you are trying to escape, she will be killed at once. Do you understand?”
Bek nodded without speaking.
“Those guards will be stationed on each floor leading up, at each door, and they will communicate with each other regularly. If someone fails to answer, that will be the end of your chances of seeing your wife alive again. Behave yourself, and you and your family might still survive this.”
She motioned the Gnome Hunters back into the corridor, followed them out, closed the door with a heavy thud, and threw the bolt.
Standing alone in the darkness and listening to their receding footsteps, Bek Ohmsford was certain of one thing. No matter what Shadea a’Ru said, if he didn’t find a way to get out of there on his own, he wasn’t getting out at all.
FOURTEEN
“I’ve been thinking about what I said to you yesterday,” Pen said, sitting down beside Cinnaminson. It was midday, and he had been searching for her for almost an hour. She kept her gaze directed straight ahead as her fingers worked the threads of the delicate scarf she was weaving on a tiny hand loom. How she could tell one color from the other was a mystery to him, but from the look of the completed portion, she was having no trouble doing so.
“I spoke without sufficient thought for what I was saying,” he continued, watching her face for signs of a response. “You asked if I still cared about you, and I do. That was why I was so quick to tell you that you couldn’t go with us. All I could think about was what it would mean to me if something more happened to you.”
Still, she said nothing. They were seated high up in the bowl of the Gathering Place, the amphitheater used for elections when a Maturen was chosen, for presentations of music and song when there were celebrations and festivals, and for meetings of the entire population when it was necessary to make determinations that might affect the whole of the village. It sat well back against the cliffs and to the south end of the village, ringed by stone walls and hardy spruce, an oasis of calm in the otherwise bustling community.
It was deserted, save for the boy and the girl.
Pen sighed. “I want you to forget about what I said. You saved our lives back on the Lazareen, when the Galaphile was hunting us. You kept us from danger again in the Slags. You proved your value then, and I don’t have any right to start questioning it now. I don’t have any
right to tell you what to do. You can decide for yourself.”
“Have you been talking with Khyber?” she asked quietly.
“I’ve been thinking about what she said,” he answered, avoiding the question. “She was so angry with me. It took me a while to sort it out.” He brushed at his red hair, knotting it in his fingers. “I didn’t know why she was so angry until I had thought about it for a while. I was presuming to speak for you when I didn’t have the right. You asked me because you wanted my support. I should have realized that, and I should have given it.”
She continued her weaving, her fingers moving smoothly and steadily, feeding in the colored threads and pulling them through, using the shuttle to separate and tighten down. He waited, not knowing what else to say, afraid he had already said too much.
“Do I have your support now?” she asked him finally.
“Yes.”
“Do you want me to come with you? You, personally?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Why? Tell me, Penderrin. Why do you want me to come with you?”
He hesitated. “I don’t want this to be about you and me.”
“But it is about you and me. It has been from the first day we met. Don’t you know that?”
He nodded. “I guess I do. I just don’t want to use that as the reason for your coming. But it is the reason. I want you to come because I want you to be with me. I don’t want you anywhere else but with me.”
She went still, her fingers motionless, her entire body frozen. He saw her differently in that instant, as if she had been captured in an indelible image, a portrait of such exquisite beauty and depth that he would never imagine her any other way. It made his heart ache to see her so. It made him want to do anything for her.
Without looking at him, she reached for him with her right hand, laying it feather-light across his own. “Then I will come,” she said.
She went back to her weaving, silent once more, her attention on her work, her hand gone from his. He stared at her for a moment, wanting to say something more, but deciding against it. Just then, things were better left as they were.
He rose. “I think I should see how the Skatelow looks, now that they’ve moved her off the plains. I’ll find you later.”
She nodded, and he went down off the risers to one of the passageways that exited from the amphitheater floor to the ring of stone walls and spruce trees outside. From there, he walked down through the village to the south gates and passed out onto the flats, then worked his way back toward the cliffs until he reached the shallow defile into which the Skatelow had been pulled to conceal her from view. He did that without really being aware of anything but Cinnaminson. Her face, her body, her voice, her words, her smell, the movement of her hands as she wove the delicate scarf.
He was still thinking about her two hours later, happily lost in a mix of dreams and memories that gave him the first real peace he had known in days, when the Troll watch sounded the alarm.
Khyber Elessedil was standing with Tagwen outside Kermadec’s home, listening while the little man held forth on the peculiarities of Troll life, when the horns began to wail and the drums to boom. The sounds were so unexpected and so earth shattering that for a moment she stood staring at the Dwarf, who stood staring back.
“What is that?” she managed finally.
He shook his burly head, his blunt fingers tugging at his beard anxiously as he glanced around. “Don’t know. A warning?”
Trolls had begun running everywhere, all sizes and shapes, men, women, and children, entire families and households, charging out of buildings and down roads and alleyways with a single-mindedness that suggested they understood the sounds perfectly. After a moment, Khyber was able to discern a pattern to their movements that suggested what was happening. The women and children were all retreating back through the village toward the cliffs, the biggest scooping up the smallest in squirming bundles. They took nothing else with them, not one single implement or piece of clothing. They went without the slightest hesitation or thought for what they were doing, moving swiftly without seeming to look rushed.
They have practiced this often, Khyber thought.
The men, meanwhile, were all moving in the other direction, down toward the front walls of the village, to the gates and ramparts that served as protection and fortification. Some wore chain mail and plate armor. All carried weapons. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was happening.
Khyber rushed back inside the house for her short sword. When she came out again, Kermadec was standing with Tagwen, huge and forbidding in a towering iron helmet and a chain-mail chest and shoulder guard.
“We’re under attack,” he advised, his words clipped and hard. She had not heard him sound like that before. All of the heartiness and openness was gone; his voice had gone tight and rough with anger and menace. “Airships fly in from the south bearing Druid insignia. We can assume the reason for their visit.”
Khyber buckled on her sword, then felt for the reassuring presence of the Elfstones in her tunic pocket. She had no idea if she would be required to use them, but she intended to be ready. She glanced at Tagwen, who carried no weapons, then back at Kermadec. “How did they find us?”
The Rock Troll shook his big head. “No idea. The Druids have ways of finding anyone, if they put their minds to it. I don’t think they followed you. If they had done so, they would have been here sooner. I think they found you some other way.”
He turned away from them to yell instructions to a squad of Troll warriors passing by, gesturing toward the south wall, separating out one and sending him in another direction. The village was alive with movement; swarming with Trolls. It felt like controlled chaos.
“We’re preparing a welcome for our uninvited guests,” he said, turning back to them, changing once more to the Dwarf language. “We won’t attack them until we hear what they have to say. We’ll let them talk first.”
“Perhaps they’re friends,” Khyber suggested hopefully, cringing at the loud snort Tagwen gave in response.
“Too many ships for that,” Kermadec advised. “If they were friends, they would come in one ship, not in a dozen. They would send a representative ahead to announce their intentions. No, this is an assault force, come for a specific purpose.” He glanced around. “Where are young Penderrin and the girl?”
Khyber stared at Tagwen. The Dwarf shook his head. Neither one had a clue.
Kermadec glanced skyward. “Too late to search for them now. Come with me! Hurry!”
At the sound of the battle horns and drums, Pen dropped off the Skatelow’s decks to the ground and began to run. He needed no time to consider what he was doing or where he was going. He had left Cinnaminson inside the Gathering Place. She might still be there, alone and unprotected. She would not know what was happening. She would not know where to run.
He went through the south gates just as they were closing, bursting through the knot of Troll warriors bunched at the opening, huge armored shoulders and wide backs straining against the ironbound barriers and massive locks. Trolls were running everywhere, and the passageways of the village were all but completely blocked by Trolls hurrying toward the walls. Pen dodged past them, heading for the amphitheater and Cinnaminson. Shouts and cries rose all around him, their intensity and tone confirming what he already instinctively knew—the village was under attack. He would have liked to find Khyber and Tagwen to know more, but he would have to track them down later. First he had to reach Cinnaminson.
He gained a side street that was mostly deserted and led straight to his destination. He was running hard now, flushed with the heat of his efforts, a frantic warning sounding in his mind. Don’t lose her! Don’t let anything happen to her!
Ahead, the walls of the amphitheater loomed darkly through the ring of trees that surrounded the interior bowl. There was no movement at the entrance, no sign of life. Perhaps she had already gotten out. Perhaps one of the others had come to find her.
He glanced over his shoulder at the village walls, where Trolls were taking up positions all along the ramparts and at the gates. The central point of defense seemed to be the gates he had just passed through, the ones facing south down the broad corridor between the Razor Mountains west and the Charnals east. The reason for this became immediately apparent when he glanced skyward. A dozen black warships filled the horizon, flying down the gap directly toward Taupo Rough.
Shades!
He breathed the word in a whisper of fear as he burst into the tunnel leading into the amphitheater and nearly collided with Cinnaminson, who was trying to make her way out from the other end. She was careening from wall to wall, her hands clutching her ears to block out the sounds of the horns and drums.
“Cinnaminson!” he shouted as he reached her, grabbing her shoulders and pulling her against him.
“Pen!” she gasped in reply, burying her head in his shoulder. Her weaving materials and loom were gone, and he could feel her heart pounding. “I couldn’t find my way out. The sounds disrupt my mind-sight. It was too much for me.”
“It’s all right,” he said, stroking her hair. Her breath was coming in quick, frantic bursts. “I’ll get you back to the others. They must have gone into the mountains to hide. The sky is full of Druid warships, right outside the walls. We have to go. Can you walk?”
She nodded into his shoulder, then lifted her face to his. “I knew you would come for me.”
He kissed her impulsively. “I’ll always come for you. Always. Come on. Run!”
They hurried back through the tunnel to the streets outside. But as they reached the far end, Pen drew up short and pulled her back against the passageway wall, keeping hidden in the shadows.
One of the Druid airships was hovering just outside the village wall and across from their hiding place. Any attempt at escape would require them to cross open ground, where they would quickly be seen.