tall and covered with white fur, who were known to kill all who entered their country and eat them. 'Frost Giants,' is it now?' Maram exclaimed as he shuddered. 'Oh, too much, too much.'
I felt my own insides churning as I looked at the war-torn landscape to the east and tried to make out the great White Mountains beyond. In the haze of the burning distances, I saw a golden room whose great iron door was slowly closing like that of a vault. We had to enter the room safely and get out again before we were trapped inside.
'Val,' Maram said to me, 'I don't have a very good feeling about this land. Perhaps we should turn back before it's too late.'
I looked at him then, and the fire in my eyes told him that I wasn't about to come within inches of fulfilling the quest simply to turn back. This same fire blazed inside Kane and Atara, and in Liljana, Alphanderry and Master Juwain. It smoldered, too, beneath the damp leaves of Maram's fear, even if he didn't know it.
'All right, all right, don't look at me like that,' Maram said to me. 'if we must go on, we must. But let's go soon, okay?'
And with that, we finished our little meal and thanked the goatherd for his hospitality.
Then Rinald helped us finally decide our route: we would cut through Karkut and Madhvam toward the northeast along the line of the Nashbrum River. And then turn southeast through Virad's canyon lands, coming eventually to a little spur running down from the White Mountains that separated Virad and Inyam from Khaisham.
There we would find a pass called the Kul Joram, and beyond that, Khaisham.
'I wish you well,' Rinald said to us as he mounted his horse. 'I'll remind Lord Nicolaym to keep a few rooms empty for your return.'
We watched him ride off toward the rocks above us and the castle that we couldn't see. And then we turned to mount our horses as well.
All that hot afternoon we rode along the line that Rinald had advised. We found the Nashbrum, a smallish river that ran down from the mountains and seemed to narrow and lose substance to the burning earth as it flowed toward the Nashthalan.
Cottonwood trees grew along its course, and we kept their shimmering leaves in sight as we paralleled it almost all the way to Madhvam. We were lucky to come across none of the traitorous lords or knights who had gone over to the Kallimun.
We made camp along the Nashbrum's sandy banks, keeping a careful watch.
But the night passed peacefully enough; only the howling of some wolves pointing their snouts toward the moon reminded us that we were not alone in this desolate country. When morning came, dear and blue and hinting of a sweltering heat later in the day, we set out early and rode quickly through what coolness we could find. It was good, I thought, that we kept close to the river; the sweating horses made free with its water and so did we. By the time the sun crested the sky, we decided to break for our midday meal beneath the shade of a great, gnarled cottonwood. No one was hungry enough to eat but at least we had some cover from the blistering sun.
But soon enough, we had to set out again. Toward mid-afternoon, some big clouds formed up and let loose a quick burst of thunder and rain. It lasted only long enough to wet the ursage and dried grasses and the sharp rocks that tore at our horses' hooves. It was a measure of our desire to reach Khaisham that we still made a good distance that day. By the time the sun had left its fierceness behind it in the waves of heat radiating off the glowing land we found ourselves in the domain of Virad. To the north of us, and to the east, too, the knifelike peaks of the White Mountains caught the red fire of the setting sun.
'Well, that was a day,' Maram said. He wiped the sweat from his dripping brown curls and dismounted to look for some wood for the night's fire. 'I'm hot, I'm thirsty, I'm tired. And what's worse,' he said, pressing his nose to his armpit, 'I stink. This heat is much worse than the rain in the Crescent Mountains.'
'Hmmph,' Atara said to him, 'it's only worse because you're suffering from it now.
Just wait until our return.'
'If we do return,' he muttered. He scratched at some beads of sweat in the thick beard along his neck as he looked about. 'Val, are you sure this is Virad?'
I pointed along the river where it abruptly turned north about five miles across the rocky ground ahead of us. I said, 'Rinald told us to look for that turning. There, we're to set our course to the southeast and so come to the pass after another forty miles.'
Directly to the east of us, I saw, was a large swelling of black rock impossible to cross on horses. And so, at the river's turning, we would ride up and around it.
'Well, then, we must have ridden nearly forty miles today.'
'Too far,' Kane said, coming over to us and studying the terrain around us. 'We pressed the horses too hard. Tomorrow we'll have to satisfy ourselves with half that distanced.'
'I don't like the look of this country,' Maram said. 'I don't want to remain here any longer than we have to.'
'If we cripple the horses, we'll be here even longer,' Kane told him. 'Do you want to walk to Khaisham?'
That night, we fortified our camp with some of the logs and branches we found down by the river. The moon, when it rose over the black hills, was clearly waning though still nearly full. It set the wolves farther out on the plain to howling: a high-pitched, plaintive sound that had always unnerved Maram – and Liljana and Master Juwain, as well. To soothe them, Alphanderry plucked the strings of his mandolet and sang of ages past and brighter times to come when the Galadin and Elijin would walk the earth again. His clear voice rang out across the river, echoing from the ominous-looking rocks. It brought cheer to all, though it also touched Kane with deep dread I felt pulling at his insides like the teeth of something much worse than wolves.
'Too loud,' Kane muttered at Alphanderry. 'This isn't Alonia, eh? Nor even Surrapam.'
After that Alphanderry sang more quietly, and the golden tones pouring from his throat seemed to harmonize with the wolves' howls, softening them and rendering them less haunting. But then, above his beautiful voice and those of the wolves, from the north of us where the river turned into some low hills, came a distant keening sound that was terrible to hear.
'Shhh,' Maram said, tapping Alphanderry's knee, 'what was that?'
Alphanderry now put down his mandolet and listened with the rest of us. Again came the far-off keening, and then an answering sound, much closer, from the hills to the east. It was like the shrieking of a cat and the scream of a wounded horse and the cries of the damned all bound up into a single, piercing howl.
'That's no wolf!' Maram called out. 'What is it?'
Again came the howl, closer, and this time it had something of a crow's cawing and a bear's growl about it: OWRRRUULLL!
Kane jumped to his feet and drew his sword. It seemed to point of its own toward the terrible sound.
'Do you know what that is?' Maram asked him, also drawing his sword.
OWRRULLLLL!
Now all of us, except Master Juwain, took up weapons and stood staring at the moonlit rocks across the river.
'Ah, for the love of woman, Kane, please tell us if you know what we're facing!'
But Kane remained silent, staring off into the dark. The cry came again, but it seemed to be moving away from us. After a while, it faded and then vanished into the night.
'This is too too much,' Maram said. He turned toward Kane accusingly as if it was he who had called forth the hideous voices. 'Wolves don't howl like that.'
'No,' Kane muttered, 'but the Blues do.'
'The Blues!' Maram said. 'Who or what are the Blues?'
But it was Master Juwain who answered him. He knelt by the fire, reading from his book as he quoted from the Visions: ''Then came the blue men, the half-dead whose cries will wake the dead. They are the heralds of the Red Dragon, and the ghosts of battle follow them to war.''
He closed his book and said, 'I've always wondered what those lines meant.'
'They mean this,' Kane said. 'None of us will sleep tonight.'
He told us then what he knew of the Blues. He said that they were a short, immensely squat and powerful people, a race of warriors bred by Morjin during the Age of Swords. It was their gift – or curse – to have few nerves in their bodies and so to feel little pain. This gift was deepened by their eating the berries of the kirque plant, which
