Black Jade

Neither Bajorak nor Kashak, nor even Karimah, understood what had transpired between us, for they knew little of the nature of my gift. But they realized that they had witnessed here something extraordinary. Kashak stared at Alkaladur's hilt, with its black jade grip and diamond pommel, and he said to me, 'Your sword — it burned! But didn't burn! How is that possible?'

He made a warding sign with his finger as Bajorak stared at me too. And Bajorak said to me, 'Your face. Valari! It is burnt!'

I held my hand to my forehead; it was painful and hot as if a fever consumed me. Karimah told me that my face was as red as a cherry, as if I had been staked out all day in the fierce summer sun. She produced a leather bag containing an ointment that the fair-skinned Sarni apply as proof against sunburns. Atara took it from her, and dipped her fingers into it. Her touch was cool and gentle against my outraged flesh as she worked the pungent- smelling ointment into my cheek.

'Come,' I said pulling away from her. 'Others have real wounds that need tending.'

So it was with any battle. Bajorak's men had taken arrows through faces, legs or other pans of the body, and Kashak's warriors and the Manslayers had sword cuts to deal with. But these tough Sarni warriors were already busy binding up their wounds. In truth, there was little for me and my friends to do here except stare at the bodies of the dead.

I pointed at the hacked men lying on top of the pretty white flowers called Maiden's Breath, and I said, 'They must be buried.'

'Yes, ours will be,' Bajorak said to me. 'The Manslayers and our warriors, even the Zayak, we shall take out onto the steppe and bury in our way. As for Morjin's men, I care not if they rot here in their armor.'

'Then we,' I said, looking at Maram, 'will dig graves for them here.'

Maram, exhausted and bloody from the battle, looked at me as if I had truly fallen mad.

And Bajorak said to me, 'No, the ground here is too rocky for digging. And there is no time. You must hurry after your friends.'

He pointed up the stream where it disappeared between the two towering Ass's Ears. 'Go now, while you can — ten of my warriors have died that you might go where you must. Honor what they gave here, lord.'

'And you?'

Bajorak nodded at Kashak, and then at his warriors still guarding the ridge above with bows and arrows. And he said, 'We shall remain here in case Morjin returns. But I do not think that he will return.'

I looked up the stream at the many Red Knights that we had killed. They would remain here unburied to rot in the sun. So, then, I thought, that was war. I closed my eyes as I bowed down my head.

'Go,' Bajorak said to me again, pressing his hand against my chest.

'All right,' I said, looking at him. 'Perhaps we'll meet again in a better time and a better place.'

'I doubt it not,' he said to me. He clasped my hand in his. 'Farewell, then, Valari.'

'Farewell, Sarni,' I told him.

Then I put my arm across Atara's shoulders and turned toward the mountains. Somewhere, in the heap of rocks to the west, Master Juwain and Liljana would waiting with the children for us. And Kane, I prayed, would be, too.

Chapter 5

We collected our horses and then made our way up the stream into the gap between the Ass's Ears. We caught up to my grim-faced friend about half a mile into the mountains. He said nothing to me. Neither did he look at me. He rejoined our company with no further complaint, taking his usual post behind us to guard our rear. Kane, I thought, might bear a cold anger at me like a sword stuck through his innards, but he would never desert me.

The way up the stream was rocky and broken, and so we walked our horses and remounts behind us. We had no need to track our friends, for the slopes of the foothills here were so steep and heavily wooded that a deer would have had trouble crossing them, and so there was only one direction Master Juwain and the others could have traveled: along the stream, farther into the mountains. These prominences rose higher and higher before us. Although not as immense as the peaks of the upper Nagarshath to the north, they were great enough to chill the air with a cutting wind that blew down from their snow-covered crests. It was said that men no longer lived in this part of the White Mountains — if indeed they ever had. It was also said that no man knew the way through them. This, I prayed, could not be true, for if Master Juwain could not lead us through the Kul Kavaakurk Gorge and beyond, we would be lost in a vast, frozen wilderness.

For about a mile, as the stream wound ever upward, we saw no sign of this gorge. But then the slopes to either side of us grew deeper and steeper until another mile on they rose up like walls around us. Higher and higher they built, to the right and left, until soon it was clear that we had entered a great gorge. Looking to the west, where this deep deli through the earth cut its way like a twisting snake, we could see no end of it. Surely, I thought we must soon overtake our friends, for there could be no way out of this stone-walled deathtrap except at either end.

'Ah, I don't like this place,' Maram grumbled as he kicked his way along the stone-strewn bank of the stream. He puffed for air as he gazed at the layers of rock on the great walls rising up around us. 'Can you imagine how it would go for us if we were caught here?'

'We won't be caught here,' I told him. 'Bajorak will protect the way into the gorge.'

'Yes, he'll protect that way,' Maram said, pointing behind us. Then he whipped his arm about and pointed ahead. 'But what lies this way?'

'Surely our friends do,' I told him. 'Now let's hurry after them.'

But we could not hurry as I would have liked, not with the ground so rotten — and not with Atara still blind and stumbling over boulders that nearly broke her knees. Even with Maram adding her horses to the string he led along and with me taking her by the hand, it was still a treacherous work to fight our way through the gorge. And a slow one. With the day beginning to wane and no sign of our friends, it seemed that they might be travelling quickly enough to outdistance us.

And then, as we came out of a particularly narrow and deep part of the gorge, we turned into a place where the stream's banks suddenly widened and were covered with trees. And there, behind two great cottonwoods, with a clear line of sight straight toward us, Surya and the other Manslayer stood pointing their drawn arrows at our faces. Their horses, and those of our friends, were tethered nearby.

Then Surya, a high-strung and wiry woman, gave a shout, saying, 'It's all right — it's only Lord Valashu and our Lady!'

Surya eased the tension on her bow and stepped out from behind the tree, and so did the other Manslayer, whose name proved to be Zoreh. And then from behind trees farther up the gorge, Master Juwain, Liljana, Daj and Estrella appeared, and called out to us in relief and gladness.

'The battle has been won!' I called back to them as they hurried along the stream toward us. 'The Red Knights will not pursue us here!'

Daj let loose a whoop of delight as he came running down the stream, dodging or jumping over stones with the agility of a rock goat. A few moments later, Estrella threw her arms around me, and pressed her face against my chest. Liljana came up more slowly She took in the blood on our armor and garments. She gazed at my face and said, 'You are burnt, as from fire.'

Her gaze lowered to fix upon my sheathed sword, and she slowly shook her head.

Because Surya and Zoreh were staring at me, too, I gave them a quick account of the battle. I said nothing, however, of my sword's burning or my failure to kill Morjin.

'We must go, then,' Surya told us. 'Six of our sisters are dead, and we must go.'

She turned to Atara and gazed at her blindfolded face as if trying to understand a puzzle. Then she embraced her, kissing her lips. 'Farewell, my imakla one. We shall all sing to the owls, that your other sight returns soon. But if it does not, who will care for you? Must you go off with these kradaks?'

'Yes, I must,' Atara told her, squeezing my hand in hers.

'Then we shall sing to the wind, as well, that fate,will blow you back to us.'