Within a few hours we had bidden our farewells to the household. Armed with a greater familiarity with the house, I could better sense now the ebullience of Duchess Joan and the caring warmth of her husband both reflected in their wayfaring son. And so, too, I could sense the shadow of fear, the bitter knowledge of risk and danger that lurked in the corners of Claude’s smile, in the lines on his face. And looming distantly above it all, the great mountain atop the Eastern Range: Magister Akabu Ai.
We were accorded use of one of the sally tunnels, which was cramped, damp, and dark, but overall much preferable to having to dismount my donkey and conduct an exhausting and dangerous climb down the mountainside first thing in the morning. We had plenty of that to look forward to later. The tunnel emerged not far from the castle town, a sleepy, orderly little affair whose four little rows of wooden buildings seemed to smell pleasantly like pine, wood smoke, and bacon day and night.
The road up the pass began at the edge of town. As we tottered away from the town—the last I would see of the Seven Kingdoms for a very long time, perhaps many years—Gena and I explained to Hester our plans for an afternoon detour.
“The site of the battle is given as a pass. The defenders chose to defend an encampment upon the fourth peak from the southern end of the ridge. As so happens to be the peak we will transit in our journey. We were hoping you might be able to identify the site of a likely military encampment. Hoping that the geography has not heaved too much in the intervening centuries,” Gena was saying.
“I know the place,” Hester said. “No need to search.”
“Oh! You do?”
“It’s family history, of course. The Joan è Odyssey traces itself…”
“The… what?”
“The Joan è Odyssey. The… family tree.”
“Genealogy,” I whispered to Gena.
“The origin of our house is in the battle. Sir Griff of Eastshore was among the Forty-Nine, and for his demonstrated skill and loyalty he was given a small realm and a sacred duty on the Eastern Range.”
“Do you think he liked it?” I asked, looking around. In a few hours the cool and pale morning sun would crest the ridge before us, and that would be a beautiful sight indeed. But in the pre-dawn gloom, I saw only jagged grey sandstones and scrub brush. Behind us, a peaceful little town that survived only on grain imported from Orland and livestock exchanged with the Yariagar, a town which existed only to maintain the fortress. An arm to hold up the shield. A life dedicated to the watch.
Hester was eyeing me oddly, generously declining to take offense by the question. “He must have. A blessed thing it is, to be given a sacred duty.”
“Speaking of which,” I said, lurching to the next topic. “We all have one.”
Two odd looks.
“Hester,” I said. I felt the thread of the idea in my mind and pulled at it. “Your father loves you.”
“I know.”
“More than you know. He fears for you. It’s an aching fear.”
“Don’t I know?”
“More than you know.” I shook my head. I kept pulling on the thread. “He has aided Gena and I in the hopes that it will keep you safe. I know… you know. But driven by fear, he joins our quest in this way. Fear born of love. Valor born of fear born of love.”
“Can you say what you mean, Howe?” Hester said.
“He’s delirious.” Gena laughed. “All of that valorous study last night and not enough sleep.”
“I will, then,” I said. “Hester, I am all but certain now. This is a trap. Lady Iltara sent us these visions from the very first. She called you west to the college, and then the three of us east toward her domain. We don’t know why. That is dangerous. This is not fear or cowardice—this is knowledge, which we have gained in the godly pursuit of our duties. Valorous.”
We listened to the crunch of our footfalls (well, their footfalls and my donkey’s hoofbeats) on the rocky path.
Finally, he said, “I do not doubt the valor. But…”
“You did, but now you do not.”
“Fine! I no longer doubt the courage of your faith. Neither do I doubt mine, however. But leave that aside. What would you have me do?”
“Not march into your peril,” I mused. The thoughts swam out of my mouth as fast as they swam through my tired mind. “For your own safety. Your father would appreciate seeing you home safe. Your house depends on you.”
“And then?”
“And then? Bear the shield of the kingdoms, as you should.”
“Stay here? And leave Ae’s knowledge—and her weapon—in the hands of a thief?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“I see.”
“Don’t you?” Hester said. He was smiling. “Come. You, you both, are among the smartest people I have ever met. So surely you understand the good life lived well?”
“Lived long, I should think.”
“Or not, as called. Howe, my friend, maybe life is not so complicated as you think? It is as my mother and father both taught me. Do right, and little else matters. What do I care what suffering comes to me? What do I care what others may say about me? Call me fool? Question my rightness? I have no reason to. As long as my legs carry me and my hands serve me, I do what is right with them, and what comes of it back to me… either rewards that I use only for further justice, or reprisals that I can endure. Must endure. Or I cannot, and I perish nobly and in Ae’s service.”
I sighed and returned the smile. “Yes. They taught you well. It is very noble. I just hope you’ll forgive me for my stubborn belief that what is right to do might be more complicated than you imagine.”
“I shall forgive you with all the grace due from a lord heir to his dear friend.” That elicited a snort from Gena.
We spent most of the morning on a well-marked but little-used trail climbing toward the peak. We went over our plan. We would spend this afternoon near the summit to learn what we could of the ancient battle and if it might give us a window into Ae’s realm. The descent into the valley would be both tortuous and torturous, and where a single strong climber might only need a day (Hester had done it himself once), we had allotted three days to our band of two capable travelers and one less-than-capable-traveler atop a docile, friendly, and less-than-brisk pack animal.
Once we reached the scrublands of the western valley, we would make for the nearest settlement and pray for a friendly reception. Being able to receive guidance, exchange favors, and buy provisions on the journey into Iltara’s domain would be critical. If we couldn’t do these things, we were doomed to a short, confused wandering, leading either to a swift retreat or a slow death in the harsh elements of the arid lowlands.
I was rather hoping Hester would be less philosophical about the nature of a suicide mission if the suicide was by dehydration rather than combat.
Of course, being as sleep-deprived and punchy as I was, I couldn’t help but vocalize this fact.
The sun hung high above us, and even in the thin spring air it fell warmly upon our heads and shoulders. A short cliff loomed over us to our left; to the right ws a dry stream bed full of pebbles and a gentle, smooth slope that crested some ambiguous distance away and above.
Hester was squinting ahead, looking for a particular marker in the trail that would show us to be near to our first destination: the ancient encampment that Ae’s cavalry had approached.
“Oh, it won’t be so bad, Howe,” he said, replying to my remarks about being lost in the desert without help. “The people of the valley are good folk. Near the range, anyway. Haven’t been as far as out as the river itself; I hear the harshness of the law there makes men dour. And as for Iltara…”
“You mean to tell me you don’t think she’ll be a formidable adversary?” Gena said.
“Oh no. Formidable, sure. But to call it suicide?”
“Hester,” I said, unable to stop a thought from snaking through my heart and head. “I’m worried. The more I read. A lady who dares defy a god and a goddess, who has sought out a weapon wielded by one, who inhabits realms of thought as readily as this one. Suppose she is…”
Hester shot his left palm up. His right found the pommel of his blade. “We’re not alone.”
We weren’t. There was the faint crunching of rock on rock in the air, the kind of grinding complaint that small pebbles and stones give only when forced down by the weight of boots and the bodies that wear them.
“Take them,” a voice boomed above us in Yaria. Then, a dozen men sprang over the cliff side, all wearing expressions of violent greed, all wearing the traditional nomad’s furs in bold crimsons, copper greens, and bone whites, and all brandishing weapons of war.
Hester was at the first of them in a flash of steel, and the man, who had the misfortune to be wielding a spear, had it severed in his hands and was driven back clutching a badly mangled arm. But three more were behind and beside him, and Hester found himself fighting, for perhaps the first time I had ever seen, a retreating battle.
Hester’s gallantry stirred similar action in Gena and myself. Gena held her walking staff as a sword and swung, making contact with the side of a broad-jawed face. I gripped the reins of my donkey and urged it forward, trying to shield their backs with its bulk, but the donkey, for all its patience and loyalty, had never been particularly agile, and soon I was surrounded and being pulled from the saddle.
The world spun about me, and I caught one last glimpse of it as I hurtled down. A dozen red-green-and-white clad bodies swarmed the three of us. Less one: Gena had knocked one of them straight to the ground. But one had seized her staff and two more had her about the shoulders. Hester kept four more at bay with his longsword, but even the deadly threat could not keep all of them out forever. My back hit the ground, and I stared up at two men, one of whom was about to kill me with his saber.
Darkness came.