‘Two hours to advance a hundred feet,’ he said.
They were nearing the third peak when something odd happened to Pazel. For no reason he could think of he felt briefly, intensely unhappy, as though he had just thought of something dismal that for a time he had managed to forget. He looked down the ridge on his left, miles and miles, to lesser slopes dark with forest. The thought or feeling had something to do with that land.
His listened, and thought he heard a faint rumble echoing through the mountains. The feeling returned, stronger than before. Pazel shielded his eyes, but his eyes caught nothing unusual in the landscape. Then Ramachni appeared at his side.
‘You heard it, did you not?’ asked the mage.
‘I thought I heard something,’ said Pazel. ‘What was it? Thunder?’
‘No,’ said Ramachni, ‘it is the eguar, Sitroth.’
Pazel jumped. ‘How do you know?’
‘The same way you know a brig from a barquentine when you see one on the horizon, Pazel. Because it is your business to know. So it is with mages and magic, except that we feel better than we see. An eguar’s magic is unlike any other sort in Alifros. Sitroth is down among those pines, somewhere, trying to commune with others of its kind. There was a time when all the eguars in this world, North and South, could link minds and share their knowledge. But this linkage was a collective effort, and as the eguars’ numbers dwindled it became much harder. After the massacres Lord Arim spoke of, I would not be surprised if Sitroth is struggling to reach even the nearest of his seventeen remaining kin.’
‘What do you suppose he wants to say?’
‘My lad, how should I know? Perhaps he hopes one of them can offer him refuge, or tell him where best to hide from Macadra. Perhaps he is still venting whatever fury led to his betrayal. Perhaps he is asking advice.’
‘I’ve seen two of them,’ said Pazel, ‘and both of them killed before my eyes. I hope I never see another. But it’s horrible what’s happened to them, all the same. Ramachni, do you know why Sitroth wanted to kill Prince Olik?’
The mage looked over his shoulder at the prince. ‘No,’ he said, ‘but I think His Highness does.’
The second night was even colder than the first, but they faced no tunnelling, and were still dry when they took shelter. This time there was no roof above them, merely rough cold stone, the foundation of some long-ago ruined castle or keep. The travellers pressed tight into the chilly corner. Pazel fell asleep sitting up, back to back with the prince.
For the next two days the road was utterly abandoned. Of the eguar there was no further sign, and only once did they spot the enemy: a plume of dust revealed itself to be some twenty dlomic riders, galloping along a distant track, and vanished almost as soon as seen. They were alone here in these heights, in this wreckage of a perished kingdom.
On the sixth day the character of the road changed again. The Royal Highway turned north to begin its descent to the ruins of Isima, city of the Mountain Kings; but the travellers kept to the Nine Peaks Road, west by southwest, even as the Road dwindled to a narrow, death-defying trail. Gone was the solid spine of the mountains. Everything became jagged and steep, and far more treacherous than the worst moments of the previous days. The path hugged spires that rose like crooked tombstones. It leaped between them on bridges as astonishing to look at as they were terrible to cross: ancient stone bridges, where the wind sighed through top-to-bottom cracks; hunchbacked bridges of impossible workmanship; bridges squeezed into canyons or wedged between eroding cliffs; bridges the Gods might have lowered from the sky. And when had the party climbed to such altitudes? There were clouds drifting eight and nine hundred feet below them, and entire ranges that reached away like fingers into the distance, their highest peaks a mile or more below the travellers’ feet.
The path twisted and meandered so greatly that they scarcely seemed to be advancing. Thaulinin swore that it was by far the quickest way through the mountains, however, and promised that they would be out of the maze by the next afternoon.
As if to spite him, a savage wind chose that moment to blow up from the south. Minutes later a driving sleet began. The treacherous path became quickly, obviously deadly. Stung by the downpour, the party huddled to confer.
Thaulinin had hoped that they would camp that night on Mount Urakan. ‘It cannot be much further — two hours at the most. There are hidden caves on its eastern face, where the selk keep firewood and other stores. Nolcindar’s troop may have passed that way, with Valgrif’s sons, and left us some word. But to reach Urakan one must cross the bridge over the Parsua Gorge, and that is not a thing to be attempted in bad weather. The Gorge is a terrible abyss, and that bridge is wind-plagued at the best of times.’
‘Let us choose quickly, ere we are soaked through again,’ said the prince. ‘Dry clothes are not a luxury here: they are the difference between life and death.’
To this everyone was agreed, and it was swiftly decided that they would retreat to the last structure they had passed, just a few minutes back along the trail. Pazel had taken it for a kind of stone silo, but this did not prove to be the case. Stepping through the doorway, they found the floor several feet below ground level, and when they dropped upon it they found themselves on smooth, solid ice.
‘A cistern,’ said Thaulinin. ‘Of course: there are ruined waterworks all about the summit of Urakan. Well, it must do. At least the roof is sound.’
Bolutu stamped his heel against the ice and laughed. ‘A hard bed’s nicer than no bed at all. Let us go no further today.’
‘That I cannot promise,’ said Thaulinin. ‘Dusk is still hours away. If the sleet relents we should press on, at least to the old customs-house at the foot of the bridge.’
‘What, go on up that mad path today?’ said Big Skip, appalled. ‘We’ll end up at the bottom of a cliff!’
‘If we don’t hurry,’ said Thasha, ‘we’ll end up in Macadra’s hands.’
‘That’s better than dead, Missy.’
‘No, Skip, it is not,’ said Ramachni, ‘but there is still hope of avoiding either fate. In any event we cannot cross the Parsua in sleet
To Pazel’s surprise, sleeping on the ice was not unpleasant. It was flat and smooth, and the cold did not penetrate their bedrolls, which were made of the same marvellous wool as their coats. As he nodded off, Pazel gazed at the sleet lancing past the doorway and hoped, selfishly, that it would last until dark.
For better or worse, it did not: an hour before nightfall the sleet ended and the sun peeked out. Cautiously they ventured outside — and Corporal Mandric fell flat on his back.
‘Pitfire! The mucking trail’s a sheet of ice!’
It was no exaggeration: Pazel too had to struggle at every step. ‘We selk can walk this path,’ said Thaulinin, ‘and I dare say Hercol and the
Valgrif padded confidently forward. ‘I was
Thaulinin nodded. ‘Go a little distance,’ he said, ‘but do
Valgrif bowed his head, then turned and looked at Myett. ‘Will you come with me, little sister? Your gaze is even sharper than my own.’ Myett agreed at once, taking her familiar place on Valgrif’s shoulders, and with careful steps the wolf moved down the trail.
For the others there was nothing to do but wait. They had no dry wood to burn, but in the shelter of the cistern’s wall the late sun warmed them a little. Thaulinin told them further stories of the Mountain Kings, and of the terrible overthrow of Isima by ogres from the south. But Ramachni said one should not make too much of the invasion.
‘The city was doomed before the first foe lumbered from the Thrandaal,’ he said. ‘King Urakan’s people starved themselves. They cut the forests that slowed the spring meltwater, and their croplands vanished in floods. They drained the marshes downriver that fed the game birds, and dragged nets across the lakes with such efficiency that not a fish remained to be caught. They were weakened; their unpaid army devolved into gangs; their
