and the Hammer-blazed ever brighter. Dart’s eyes ached at the glare, but she could not turn away. It was their destination.
At long last, the line of jungle swelled, and the rock under foot cooled as they left behind the deeper flows near the river’s center. They stumbled gratefully off the rock and into the welcoming embrace of shade and green leaf.
“The way is steeper from here,” Harp warned. “But it’s not much farther. If you look to that cliff, you can see one of our watchtowers, where we can watch the burn and spy for any trespass against us.”
Dart squinted. Half-blinded by the heat and glare, all she was able to discern atop the indicated cliff was a shroud of trees. She bit back a groan. They might not have far to go, but it was high.
For Tylar, it was both too far and too high.
He suddenly sank to a fallen log, half-collapsing. His black hair was slicked to his scalp with his own sweat. His face shone with exhaustion and was etched with deep lines by pain. Near the end of their fording of the black river, he had leaned heavily on the giant. His bad leg seemed to have twisted under him, bowing, turning his heel. He cradled his arm with the bandaged hand to his chest. His fingers poking from the wrapping looked as if they had already healed, but crookedly.
Master Sheershym approached and knelt beside him. “You’ll not make it to the camp. We’ll have to cut a litter for you.”
Tylar just hung his head. “If I rest…” he said weakly.
Rogger joined the master. “You can sleep the year away, and you’d still not be able to climb that far.”
Harp already had his boys cutting and weaving another litter. They did it with a practiced speed. He also waved to two boys to run ahead and alert the camp of their pending arrival.
“This weakness,” Sheershym said. “It is more than mere tired limb. I may not be the best healer of Saysh Mal, but even I can tell that what ails you goes deeper than broken bone.”
He took Tylar’s hand and deftly unwrapped it. The broken finger had indeed healed crooked, evident when Tylar tried to clench and pull away. But in his exhaustion, he could not break even the elderly grip of Sheershym. Worse still, the two neighboring fingers, unbroken before, had also curled into calloused knots, and it appeared his wrist had locked up as much as his knee. It was as if the damage had spread, wicking outward into healthy flesh like some poison from a wound.
Even Tylar gaped at the sight, surprised what the wrap had hid. His other hand rubbed his knee. His leg was plainly more twisted.
“It’s like you’re going back,” Rogger mumbled.
“Back where?” Sheershym asked.
Rogger shook his head.
The master sat on his heels and glanced between Tylar and Rogger. “Silence will not serve you here. Whatever is at work had best be attended with full knowledge.” This voice took on a tone of a master at the front of his students.
Tylar nodded. “You know my story,” he said weakly. “A broken knight, healed by Meeryn of the Summering Isles as she lay dying. How she instilled her naethryn undergod into me, curing me at the same time.”
“Who doesn’t know that tale by now?”
“What many don’t know is that when I loose the naethryn, my body returns to its broken form.” Tylar lifted his gnarled hand. “When the naethryn returns again to my body, so does my hale form. But now…”
Rogger finished. “He failed to loose the naethryn with the Huntress. And his body continues to slowly break and twist again, driving him back toward his crippled form.”
“It started slow. An unhealed break. But it spreads ever faster. I don’t know why it’s happening, nor what it portends.”
Sheershym asked a few more questions about what was broken in the past and now. By the time he was done, Harp had a litter ready. “Let’s get you up to the camp,” the master said, standing again. “I’d like to study this puzzle in more detail. ‘It is often the smallest thread that reveals the greater pattern.’”
“Tyrrian Balk,” Roger said.
Sheershym glanced to him. “You’ve read the work of the Arithromatic. You must someday tell me where you performed your studies.”
They hurriedly got Tylar stretched out and continued skyward along a steep and winding path. It looked little more than a deer track, and probably was. Switchbacks climbed the side of a promontory of rock that jutted from the peak called the Anvil.
As they climbed, Brant had begun to revive, mumbling and attempting to sit up on his litter.
Lorr pressed his shoulder back down. “Stay put,” the tracker ordered.
“Where…?”
Dart kept to his other side. She found his hand and took it. “We’re heading up into the forest. Rest now. We’ll explain more when we stop.”
He nodded, eyes rolling slightly. His fingers found the strength to squeeze hers, an intimacy that warmed through Dart and made the path seem less steep. Then he relaxed back into slumber.
After several more turns, views opened and revealed how high they’d already climbed. The black river stretched below, winding back to the great mountain to the south. On the far side, the spread of green forest filled the lower valleys. But much remained hidden behind mists, including the Huntress’s castillion.
Then the views vanished again under heavy canopy. A few shouts reached them from ahead. One last push, and they topped the rise and found a small glade where a crude camp had been set up. It was nothing more than sprawls of tented canvas across low limbs and netted hammocks hanging higher. Children and elders gathered, though some hung close to the forest edge, looking ready to bolt-especially when Malthumalbaen trudged into view. One of the youngest began to cry and buried his face in the skirt of an older woman leaning on a cane.
“He won’t eat you,” the woman promised.
“Dral might have,” the giant mumbled under his breath as he passed. “’Course after that climb, I’m not about to be that particular either.”
Harp guided them forward and found a corner for them to rest and catch their wind. Water was brought in leather flasks. It tasted sour, but to Dart it was still the sweetest wine.
Tylar settled to the forest floor.
Sheershym appeared with a book tucked under one arm. “I would like to sketch a map of your injuries. Where they are now, where they were before. See what pattern, if any, might reveal itself.”
Tylar groaned and shifted up into a seated position. “I feel stronger already.”
“Because your arse was hauled up here,” Rogger said. “That’s why.”
“And rest will not straighten a crooked bone.” Sheershym added. He waved Tylar back down. “First I’d like to inspect the mark Meeryn placed upon you. It is through there that the naethryn enters and leaves this world. Yes?”
Tylar grimaced, but that was the extent of his further objections. With Rogger’s help, he slipped his shadowcloak over his shoulders, then unhooked the shirt beneath. It had been soaked through with his sweat.
Rogger accepted the garment as Tylar shed it. The thief pinched it up with a sour expression. “If Delia saw this waste of humour, she’d burn you with her tongue for days.” He wrung out the garment, squeezing the sweat into a small fire ringed by stones. It sizzled and popped, destroying any residual Grace.
Bare-chested, Tylar leaned back to the litter, plainly exerted by even this small effort. Still, a bit of color had filled his cheeks again after the rest.
Sheershym leaned to study the black palm print centered on Tylar’s chest, the mark of Meeryn. He reached a hand toward it. “May I?”
Tylar had his eyes closed and waved a few fingers of his good hand. “Do what you must.”
Sheershym traced the black edges with a finger, then tested the flesh within the mark.
Dart winced as she stood to the side, arms crossed over her chest. It was the first time she had seen Tylar’s hidden mark since back in Chrismferry. It made her uneasy to look upon it. It looked to her like a well of dark water shaped like a palm. She feared the master’s hand would pass into Tylar’s chest.
But his fingers only discovered skin over bone.
“I don’t feel anything amiss,” he said, straightening. “Let’s check the rest of your injuries. For the knee, we’ll need those leggings off.”
