Hertasi did their best to keep all the little pockets of hot, bubbling water free of fallen leaves and other debris, but they had too many other duties to attend to. This particular spring had not been attended to in some time and ran sluggishly, the surface covered with fallen vegetation.
Darkwind tossed a half dozen huge leaves out to the side, and scooped out quite a bit of debris at the bottom before the spring bubbled up freely again.
Then he relaxed back into the smooth stone of the seats built into the sides, created by magically sculpting the rock before the water had been called here.
As the warm water soaked away his aches and bruises and relaxed too-taut muscles, he closed his eyes and, for once, tried to remember back to those dark and chaotic days immediately following the catastrophe.
Did we know then how bad the area was outside our own borders? He didn't think so; it seemed to him that no one had paid any attention to the lands outside the purview of the Clan, and to be fair, they had their hands full with the territory they had undertaken to cleanse.
We definitely had enough to do-and whatever was out there tended to leave us alone while we were strong. there was no reason to think that it was any worse than our own lands.
It was only after they had cleaned up their own areas, and were preparing to move, that they realized that the blight they faced on their southern border was at least as pervasive as the one they had just dealt with. And was, perhaps, more dangerous than the area to the west that they had chosen as the new Vale-site.
Why hadn't they seen the blight? Well, it might have been because there had been a clear zone between the two, a zone that disguised the true nature of what lay beyond. It was only after the disaster, when creatures from across that clear zone swarmed over the wreckage of the Vale, that anyone realized just how tainted that area was.
Now, of course, they could not deal with it, could not clean it out, and could not eliminate it.
There's at least one Adept in there, Darkwind thought, clenching his jaw involuntarily. It was his constant 'attentions' after the accident that forced us to pull back our borders in the first place.
And now that there were no more offers of help from the other Clans, they could not ask for one of the others to lend aid. They could not even push the unseen enemies back, not without help.
I'd try to contact the other Clans myself, but I would have to do so by magic means. I don't know where the other territories are, and Father isn't about to give me a map.
And using magic would only have attracted more unwelcome attentions.
He had seen all too often how blatant use of magics brought a wave of attackers from the Outside. The one mage who had been willing to work with the scouts had fallen victim, he suspected, to just that.
He was certainly overwhelmed before we could reach him. And I know there were not that many Misborn there before.
He suspected that the Adept watched for magic-use, and turned his creatures loose when he saw it. So long as k'sheyna confined themselves and their magic to their Vale, he seemed content to pursue his own plans, only pressing them occasionally, rather than sending an army against them.
There may be more than one Adept out there, but somehow I don't think so. Dark Adepts don't share power willingly.
So far, they had been able to beat all attempts to penetrate the new boundaries. So far, they had not lost more than a handful of scouts, and a mage or two.
And right now, we seem to be operating under an uneasy truce, as if he had decided we were too weak to threaten him, but too strong to be worth moving against. At least nothing major has come out of there for about a year.
And there haven't been any attacks from Outlanders that I can prove originated from there.
Nothing had made any attempt at the creatures k'sheyna protected, either. So far the hertasi enclaves remained untouched, the dyheli herds had not been preyed upon. The firebirds had fled the area though-and that bothered him.
And there were no human villages within k'sheyna territory anymore.
Crops had failed, wells dried up, traders ceased to come; only a handful of hunters and a religious hermit or two stayed behind.
No overt attacks for a year. But who knows what that means, he thought pesimistically. We have a weak and unstable Clan facing a nebulous enemy, and our options grow fewer with every passing day.
