when he appeared ten feet off the ground. He waved his arms desperately, striking a tree, which overbalanced him. He landed on his heels going back, and his butt took a lot of the force before his spine slapped into the pine needles and the all-too-solid earth they covered.
He kept his wind, and almost felt like laughing. Had Vile dropped them on purpose? Or was the daedra prince even weaker than he let on, and not in good control of his powers?
Sul would know.
Attrebus stood up and brushed off, then looked around for his companion, but didn’t see him in the immediate vicinity. What he did see was a large stone statue of Clavicus Vile with a dog at his side, albeit a much larger animal than the one they’d just encountered. A clearing surrounded the statue, but gave way to forest pretty quickly in every direction.
He had heard rumors that there was a shrine to Vile somewhere west of the Imperial City, not far from the Ring Road. If this was it-and that made a certain amount of sense-then they didn’t have too far to go.
He looked around again, this time more carefully. Dark things were supposed to happen at places like this, and even though the daedra himself had sent them here, that didn’t mean they were safe from his followers.
Closer inspection didn’t reveal anyone else, but he did notice Sul’s boot sticking out from behind the shrine.
“Sul?” he cried, running across the clearing.
Sul was breathing, but his eyes were closed and he was bleeding from a nasty gash in his head. He must have fallen, too, but hadn’t been as lucky as Attrebus.
“Hey, Sul!” Attrebus patted him on the cheek, but that didn’t draw a response. He poured some water from his skin and washed the wound. He couldn’t see any bone, and the skull didn’t seem dented. He stripped off the heavy coat he wore and cut strips of the lining, then tied the bandage around Sul’s head. Through all of that, the Dunmer showed no signs of waking up.
Attrebus sat there for a moment, trying to decide what to do. He felt very alone, and it began to sink in exactly how much he relied on the old man for strength, knowledge-even occasional encouragement. What if the wound was more serious than it looked? What if Sul was dying? Would he have any chance of finishing this? A chance, maybe, but a much bleaker one than if he had the sorcerer at his side.
He couldn’t just sit here, could he? But on the other hand, sometimes those who were injured ought not to be moved. Maybe he should go for help.
But the nearest village could be hours away-even if he knew which way to go-and that would give wild animals far too much time to find a fine, easy meal.
He cut up more of the horker hide coat and chopped off some willow branches, which he then spent an hour or so fashioning into a travois. A few moments later he was dragging Sul through the forest, worried, but feeling a sense of accomplishment. He was pretty sure he knew which direction the Ring Road was, and from there he could find almost anything.
It was slow going in the woods, and he had to stop frequently to reposition the makeshift harness or to rest. He was sure there was a better way to design a travois, but he’d never had occasion to build one before, and although he had seen them, he hadn’t studied their structure.
He dithered a bit about where he ought to go. If they were west, the Imperial City was close, but so was his hunting lodge in Ione. Should he go there first, get Sul tended to, acquire some guards? Or go straight for the Imperial City?
Attrebus reached the road more quickly than he thought he would, an hour or so before sundown. Lake Rumare was the most beautiful thing he had seen in a long time, its familiar waters turning coral as the evening deepened. The familiar cries of curlews and coots were music to him. And then there was the Imperial City itself, standing proud and strong on its island, the White-Gold Tower at its center like a pillar holding up the heavens-as some claimed it actually did.
For Attrebus, however, it was proof that his quest had been worth it, that he wasn’t too late. His father would listen to him now. With or without Sul, they would invade Umbriel somehow and return Umbra to his sword.
It still wasn’t dark when he saw a small fishing settlement, built on an old stonework that probably dated back to Ayleid times. He was vacillating about checking to see if they had any sort of healer when he thought he heard something odd behind him. Turning, he saw them.
For an instant his heart took wing at the sight of a military formation; to run into a patrol at this point would be excellent luck. But he’d apparently had his allotment of that today, because a few seconds of watching them approach resolved the truth. They wore no uniforms and carried a motley assortment of weapons. These were Umbriel’s unholy warriors.
He turned off the road, picking up his pace, dragging Sul toward the village. It seemed like a long way, but frequent glances back didn’t show pursuit, so maybe they hadn’t seen him.
Hiding behind a house built of driftwood, he watched the hideous procession pass, reckoning their number at about twenty.
The sun was gone by then, but Masser stood bright in the sky as he searched the village. It had been abandoned, he couldn’t tell how long ago.
At the little floating dock, however, he found a small boat, complete with oars.
He glanced at the silhouette of the Imperial City.
He hadn’t seen Umbriel in the sky; he thought he should if it were here. That meant the walking corpses could go far from their city, which surprised him a bit, although given what Annaig had told him, there wasn’t any reason why they shouldn’t be able to do that.
He didn’t have any idea how many were here, but it was a good bet that if they were moving freely on the Ring Road, there were a lot of them. Possibly the city was under siege.
Either way, the boat looked better than the road at the moment. Sul needed help sooner rather than later, he was starving, and he didn’t think there would be food or medicine in the abandoned village.
So without further deliberation, he got Sul off his traveling frame and into the boat, then began rowing toward the distant lights of the Waterfront District.
THREE
Around midnight Sul began to moan in his sleep. His arms jerked and fingers twitched, and Attrebus hoped he wasn’t trying to conjure something or set fire to an imaginary foe.
He took it as a good sign, although he knew that didn’t come from any medical knowledge, but rather from the feeling that when it came to a man who was unconscious, it seemed better if he was doing something rather than nothing. It suggested his soul was still bound up with his heart.
That there was no obvious pursuit he did not take as any sign at all, although it gave him plenty to think about. He knew from experience that Umbriel’s creatures didn’t need boats or anything of the sort; he’d seen them emerge from the boiling waters that surrounded the shattered remnants of Vivec City. If any of them were following him, he wouldn’t see them. Still, those on the road seemed not to have spotted him, or at least not to have cared if they did. That didn’t fit his previous experience with them or Annaig’s testimony. Their pattern was to kill everything they came across-or at least everything with a soul of the sort Umbriel preferred, which seemed to be those of sentient beings. But then again, Annaig had said that the souls of the dead were drawn up into the city by crystalline threads, and so only those killed directly beneath the city fed it. The ones he’d just seen weren’t beneath Vuhon’s city, and by the way they marched, he imagined they were on task-either looking for Imperial patrols to slaughter or, more likely, heading to the causeway to put it under siege, or to join one already in progress. In that case they well might ignore the stray traveler.
Another thing occurred to him as well: The last time he had met these creatures, they had somehow known who he-or at least Sul-was. Would they know him if they saw him here? Or was he even making the right assumption? After all, Vuhon might have ordered them to capture anyone at the site where the sword was supposed to be and only recognized Sul later.
Maybe Annaig would know more, and since his arms felt like they were about to fall off from rowing, he
