thousand animals in all, the army stretched out nigh some three leagues from front to rear as through the Autumnwood they travelled.
Nigh sunset two days later, they came to the starwise border, and the silver needle yet pointed steadily a bit dawnwise.
Emile turned to Vardon, armsmaster of the Castle of the Seasons, and said, “Let us hope we do not pass back into Le Coeur, else all this march has been a waste.”
While Michelle and the Wolfpack and Galion waited-Michelle with her bow strung and an arrow nocked; Galion with his mace in hand; and all those behind bearing arms as well-
Peti and Trit flew through the bound. In but moments they came flying back. “It’s a grassy prairie,” said Trit, “with nothing in sight but rolling plains.” Michelle looked left and right and noted a laden cherry tree and an apple tree dangling fruit. She pointed them out to Trit and said, “Fly back and inform the vanguard precisely where to cross, then catch up.”
“Oui, Princess.”
As Trit shot away and Peti settled on the tricorn, Michelle gave a short bark, and the Wolves got to their feet and loped through, Michelle and Galion following. Into the twilight they went, the way growing darker and then ebon and then lighter, and, when they emerged, Michelle glanced at the setting sun, for more oft than not bearings shift ’round when passing through a marge, sometimes greatly, other times less, and once in a while not at all. On this occasion, although they had angled into the shadowlight heading a bit to dawn of starwise, they emerged heading due duskwise. Michelle flipped open the top of the arcane compass and saw the needle now pointed due duskwise as well.
They camped that eve on the broad plains, and for the next two days, both filled with drenching rain, they crossed the sea of grass, where antlered herds of shaggy yet deerlike animals fled before them.
Midmorn of the following sunny day, they passed into a mountain vale, with swift, icy streams leaping and cascading down stony slopes from snowy heights, where wild goats and large-horned sheep watched from among rocky crags as the army passed below.
And in this land of steep slopes, they acquired three hundred more fighters, swelling their ranks to three thousand three hundred.
One more day saw them crossing long, rolling dunes while a cold wind blew and filled the air with fine grit, and nought else moved across the land.
The next day they slogged through marshy lowlands, tall reeds swish-swashing as they went and blocking any line of sight for all but the Sprites, and then only when they were airborne. Gnats and biting flies and mosquitoes swarmed about them, and leeches feasted upon the unprotected legs of the horses and mules and asses, while red-winged ebonbodied birds cawed and hurtled through the air just above the tops of the reeds, feasting upon the insects stirred up by the passage.
And thus did the army progress, where at every twilight marge they came to Trit and Peti would cross first to scout the way and make certain that no visible calamity awaited the march on the opposite side. And always would Chelle take a new bearing and follow the line of the needle.
The morning of the tenth day of the march, with their numbers now nigh four thousand, found them trekking through a realm of nought but blue flowers and flights of small yellow butterflies. And as Chelle opened the lid of the compass to take another bearing, she discovered the needle inching across the dial: leftward it gradually swung, starwise. She watched as it continued to edge along, and finally she raised a hand to call a halt. And she and Galion waited for Roel and the vanguard to catch up.
Roel spurred his horse forward and came alongside. “Is ought amiss?”
“The needle, it creeps,” said Chelle, passing the compass to him.
Roel peered at the arcane device, then he looked at Chelle and said, “I deem the witch is on the move.”
“As do I,” said Chelle, nodding. “Think you Orbane’s throngs are on the march as well?”
Roel shrugged and again peered at the contrivance. Peti flew down from the prow of Michelle’s tricorn and perched on Roel’s wrist and watched the needle’s gradual progress. Finally she said, “Last night was the dark of the moon, an ill omen at best. Perhaps it was what Orbane was waiting for, there in the swamp, wherever it might be.”
Again Roel shrugged, but of a sudden said, “Whoa!” and Peti gasped.
“What?” asked Michelle.
“The needle: it just whipped from northeast to south-er, starwise of dawnwise to sunwise.” He handed the compass back to her, and Peti again took up her perch beside Trit in the prow of the tricorn.
Chelle looked at the needle and frowned. “Mayhap she just crossed a border.”
“Ah,” said Roel, nodding, “that must be it.”
“It continues to gradually swing,” said Chelle, “only now it creeps opposite.”
By this time, Sieur Emile and Blaise rode up.
“Why are we stopped?” asked Emile.
“The witch is on the move,” said Michelle, gesturing at the device.
“On the move?”
“Oui. And mayhap Orbane’s army as well.” Michelle handed the compass to Blaise, who glanced at it and then passed it on across to Emile, the latter taking it gingerly, as if it were a poisonous snake.
Emile watched as the needle crawled from sunwise toward duskwise. “Merde! I
“Non, Papa,” said Blaise. “The needle shows us the most direct route to the witch, and so, no matter what, we are closer to Orbane than we would have been had we gone the other way.”
“But only if the witch is with the wizard,” said Roel.
“I for one believe she is,” said Michelle.
“So does Luc,” said Blaise, glancing back along the line of horses and mules and asses to see the prince galloping toward them, Laurent farther back also riding this way.
Emile took another look at the pointer and sighed. “We’ll simply have to wait until the needle stops ere we take up the trek again.”
“But what if Hradian has gone away from Orbane?” asked Laurent.
“She could just as easily be going to him,” said Blaise.
“What if she has gone away for a day or two or three or more to do some foul deed or other, then plans on going back?” countered Laurent.
“If so,” replied Blaise glumly, “then we’ll be chasing a wild goose o’er all of Faery.”
“Merde! Merde, merde, merde!” spat Emile, glaring down at the device.
“Sieur,” said Michelle softly, “I deem you had the right of it the first time: we simply must wait.”
. .
The army came to a complete stop, and all day Michelle and the others kept track of the needle as, at a snail’s pace, it gradually inched ’round the dial, and time after time it instantly jerked across the face to take up a new bearing and then began to creep again.
Emile paced and ground his teeth and cursed the decision to follow that cowardly mage’s thing, a thing perhaps somehow gone awry.
Roel and Blaise and Laurent and Luc occasionally rode along the line of warriors and spoke with the warband leaders and the men, for nothing is so unsettling to an army as to be kept in the dark.
Trit and Peti played tag with the butterflies, while Slate and the Wolves slept, all but Trot, who stood on watch.
And Michelle kept an eye on the inconstant needle and prayed to Mithras that by using the compass they had not made a dreadful mistake.
Dark of the Moon
Flying all silk, the single-masted scout ship
