Snowbuck chuckle softly.
'Skystone,' the youth explained, then pushed on, using the dark brush that grew upslope to pull himself along.
'How in hell's name does the stuff ever get deposited?' Fost grumbled.
'I believe,' answered Erimenes, 'that it is a component of the magma extruded through the crater to become lava. As it flows down the mountain it rises to the top of the flow. Yet it adheres to the heavier stuff of common lava, which holds it down until it cools.' 'Is that true?' 'How should I know?'
The moons poked up into the eastern sky. Both were past full. The light made it easier for any pursuers to see them but also made the going quicker. As they put what Fost's experience told him were miles between them and the Watchers' former village, the courier began to believe they might actually escape.
Then a figure detached itself from a tall, dead tree at the top of a razorback of lava and stood looking down into their surprised faces.
'So,' said Sternbow, 'my own son.' He shook his head. 'I hardly believe it.'
Snowbuck scrambled the rest of the way up the slope to stand beside his father. More figures rose out of the wasteland, drawn bows in hand. Fost groaned. He was already thoroughly sick of this routine. 'I must speak with you, Father,' Snowbuck said. 'As man to man.'
Sternbow looked around. Fost wondered where his faithful shadow was. Sternbow's words told him.
'Fairspeaker became separated from the party as we made our way to wait for you,' he mumbled. 'He should hear this.'
'No!' Snowbuck's voice rang loud and clear above the volcano's growl. 'He should not hear! Or are you no longer capable of listening for yourself, Father?'
Sternbow raised his hand to strike his son. Snowbuck held his ground. The tall forester chieftain let his hand fall to his side and seemed to shrink an inch.
'It may be that I cannot.' His words were barely audible. 'But it is high time I learned once more. Speak.'
'Father, the…' he began but was interrupted by a cry from behind. 'Snowbuck!'
At the sound of Fairspeaker's voice, Snowbuck spun, hand dropping to sword hilt. He was half around when an arrow struck him in the left temple. Snowbuck jerked, then dropped to one knee.
'F-father,' he said. His eyes rolled up into his head and he fell, lifeless.
Sternbow uttered a warning cry of rage and grief and desolation. For a moment, the mountain fell silent as if to mark the enormity of his loss. He raised his eyes to Fairspeaker on a hill fifty feet away, a bow held loosely in his hand.
'I came just in time, great Sternbow.' The young man sounded out of breath. 'Another instant and the faithless young pup would've.. .' Sternbow tore forth his broadsword and flung it at Fairspeaker.
Paralyzed with disbelief, Fairspeaker stood and watched as the blade spun toward him. The whine of split air was loud in the awful silence.
At the last possible instant, Fairspeaker flung himself to the side. He was too late to save himself completely. The sword tip raked his cheek, opening it to the bone. He screamed shrilly and fell from view. As he did, a line of flame crackled from Moriana's fingertips. A bush burst into orange flame where he had stood.
Across the black nightland Nevrymin faced one another across drawn swords and levelled spears. A few Watchers stood with hands high, dazed by the course of events. One by one each turned until all faced Sternbow.
The tall man knelt on the unyielding stone, cradling his son's head in his lap. A thin trickle of blood, black in the moonlight, ran from the wound and stained his breeches. Slowly, he raised his head. He had aged ten years in one tragic minute. 'After him!' he cried. 'Hunt down the traitor Fairspeaker!'
With a roar, the Nevrymin turned from confronting one another and raced off into the night. That was an order most of them had longed to hear for some time. Sternbow rose to face Fost and Moriana.
'Apologies will not suffice for what I've done, so I will not offer them,' he said. He composed himself visibly. 'You are free to go. I wish I could call you friends, but I will not presume. O Snowbuck, you saw far more clearly than I!' His head slumped to his chest and tears flowed down his bearded cheeks, bright silver rivulets in the moonlight.
'What of you?' asked Moriana, reaching out to touch the man's quaking shoulder. He raised his head with effort.
'Fairspeaker was – is – not alone in feeling that our interests and those of the Hissers lie along the same path. But I think the men of my band will be with me. We'll organize the surviving Watchers, wage hit-and-run war against the mines. It's a kind of war my men understand. The Watchers should learn quickly enough.'
He looked down at his son's body. Snowbuck lay partially on his side with one arm crossed over his breast and the fingers of his right hand still grasping the hilt of his half-drawn sword.
'Now I will hunt the murderer of my only son. Or one of them – the real guilt rests on these shoulders!'
There was nothing more to say. Fost and Moriana started away. They hadn't picked a dozen cautious steps across the razorback when Sternbow's voice halted them. He walked to them, moving effortlessly over the uneven ground. 'I have something to give you, and something to ask.' 'Very well,' said Moriana.
'First, I beg you travel to the Tree and tell the King in Nevrym what has befallen Snowbuck. The Forest Maiden alone knows what schemes the People and their sympathizers have set in motion against Grimpeace, for he is known as a foe of the Dark Ones. That was why he agreed to ally with you, Princess, because you offered the best chance of thwarting your sister's aim to return the Realm to the Night Lords. Friendship with the People was not the way of Grimpeace, though I allowed Fairspeaker to convince me otherwise, to my eternal grief.'
'It shall be done, Lord Sternbow,' Moriana promised. 'But I fear we will be a long time reaching the Tree afoot.' Sternbow almost smiled.
'Perhaps not. Don't forget the famed Longstrider accompanies you.' His eyes turned somber once more. 'But what I have to give you may solve that difficulty.' He reached to the broad leather belt circling his waist and removed a heavy bag of sewn doe hide. 'Uncut gems. My share of the pay from the Hissers. They should buy you adequate mounts.'
Moriana's eyes widened. By the pouch's heft, the stone would buy adequate mounts for a squadron of cavalry. 'But we can't take it all!'
'You must.' He slashed his hand through air in a peremptory gesture. 'I couldn't touch those stones again, no matter how precious they are. Accept them or I shall drop them into Omizantrim's mouth.' 'You are gracious, milord.'
He bowed tautly. 'Farewell, milady, Longstrider. We shall not meet again.'
A few days north of the frozen flows sprouting like tentacles from the ancient mountain, they came upon a breeding kennel. The land here in the Marchant Highlands ran to slow rises and wide dales like a gentle ocean swell made solid. The land was green and gravid and exploding with summer. They passed bawling herds of horncattle, lowing sheep and goats and flocks of tame striped antelope that fled at the strangers' approach. The country folk were close-mouthed and grim. The shadow of Omizantrim lay long across their land. And many was the morning in which the beauty of a clear blue sky was marred by silent black flights of rafts, flying south in formations like migratory birds. At first, Fost and Moriana took cover whenever Zr'gsz skyrafts appeared overhead. They soon gave it up as unnecessary. None they had seen showed the slightest interest in what went on below. They did keep alert for any sign of rafts from Omizantrim, or any that searched rather than simply travelled from one place to another.
'What's your pleasure?' The kennel master was a long, lean sort with a face consisting mostly of wrinkles. Faded carroty hair had been trimmed to an alarming scalplock cresting his sunburned pate. A small white clay pipe hung from one lip as if glued there, emitting occasional wisps of blue smoke.
He didn't seem overly suspicious of the trailworn and heavily armoured strangers who had trudged up the side road from the highway. But to read any expression on the face was beyond Fost's ability. 'We seek mounts,' said Moriana.
The man stiffened. Her travels outside the City, often as a hunted fugitive, had rendered her broadminded in her dealings with both commoners and groundlings; the man she loved was both. But sometimes she slipped into the royal hauteur to which she had been raised. Fost saw it had an adverse effect this time. The face remained unreadable, but the man's posture spoke eloquently.
