Duty and fear tore at him. Geth bit his lip. 'Grandmother Wolf, forgive what I do.'
Three trails came together, part of the web of paths that laced the forest around Bull Hollow. His feet slid as he changed direction and charged down one of the other trails. Moments later, the trees opened up into the clearing around the cabin.
The door of the cabin stood open, spilling light into the yard.
Geth slid to a stop. Even if Adolan had left in a hurry, he would have closed the door. Breek was nowhere to be seen. Geth approached the cabin cautiously. 'Ado?' he called. 'Ado?' He flattened himself against the outer wall and darted his head through the cabin's door.
The stink of scorched leather and singed hair stung his nostrils even before he caught the soft groan as Adolan stirred on the floor inside the door. Geth sucked in a sharp breath and bounded to his side. It took no more than a glance to see that the kalashtar woman was gone. He grabbed Adolan's hand and hauled him to his feet.
'What did she do to you?' he growled.
'A burst of fire,' said Adolan. He rubbed a hand across his forehead and winced at his own touch. The skin of his face was reddened, but no worse. 'The heat was so intense it took my breath away, but it doesn't seem like it did much real damage.'
Another bellow rolled on the air. Adolan gasped and pulled away. 'Ring of Siberys! The Bull Hole! How could I…' He darted around the cabin, snatching up a satchel stitched with strange symbols, his spear, and a jerkin of stiff, heavy hide.
Geth stood still, watching him with a heavy heart. After a moment, the druid realized that he wasn't moving and paused. 'Geth, what's wrong?' His face tightened. 'Where's Breek? I sent him to fetch you.'
'Then he's still looking for me,' Geth said. His gut twisted. 'Ado, House Deneith has found me. One of the Frostbrand-one of Robrand's lieutenants. Singe. He was in Sandar's.' Geth drew a shuddering breath. 'I have to leave.'
Silence fell heavily as Adolan stared. 'Now?' asked the druid, his voice thin and disbelieving.
Yet another bellow punctuated the question. Geth spread his hands helplessly. 'I told you Deneith might come looking for me.'
'I know what you told me.' Adolan ground his teeth together. He leaned his spear against the nearest wall and wrenched the hide jerkin over his head. When his face emerged, his eyes were angry. 'But I can't believe that you'd leave now or ever. Are you just going to keep running? Bull Hollow needs you!'
'Bull Hollow isn't going to want me around when they find out the truth.'
Adolan glared at him. 'So you'll abandon your friends in the face of danger?' He paused for half a heartbeat and added, 'Like you did at Narath.'
The druid's word stung like salt rubbed into a wound. A growl tore itself out of Geth's throat. 'It's not the same!' he snapped.
'Isn't it?' Adolan asked. He settled the satchel over his shoulders and picked up his spear again. He looked up and his eyes softened. 'Geth, fight! Forget the Frostbrand. Forget Singe. He's in as much danger tonight as any of us. Tomorrow I'll either stand with you in front of the Hollow or we'll leave together.'
He held out his hand.
Geth stared at it as the bellow rolled over Bull Hollow once more-then he bared his teeth and slapped his hand down to grasp the druid's forearm. Adolan's hand closed tight on his forearm in return.
'You have Grandmother Wolf's own honor,' he said.
'I have Cousin Boar's own stupidity,' Geth grunted.
He released Adolan's arm and turned to the chest against the wall. Digging down into its depths, he came up with a large, blanket-wrapped bundle that clanked as he set it on the cabin floor. Adolan stared at him in amazement. Geth responded with a glower, daring him to say anything.
Something lurked in the trees overhead, peering down out of the darkness. Singe prayed that it wasn't Geth. Half blind from the light that shone from his rapier, he could see little enough, but in the course of more than a decade of serving with the Blademarks, he had learned to recognize the feeling of being watched. He continued along the path that he had finally stumbled onto a short while earlier. The strange bellows still rolled out across the valley from somewhere ahead. If whatever was in the trees made any sound, the bellow drowned it out.
Singe kept his eyes on the ground or on the shadows ahead, anywhere but up. With every step, awareness of the thing in the trees prickled across the back of his neck. He forced himself to remain calm, to stay relaxed as he moved closer to the thing. It didn't seem to move, but he could feel it still watching him. Closer…
Directly underneath it, he stopped sharply, glanced up, and, flinging an arm over his eyes, snapped out a brittle word.
Up among the leaves, light burst in dazzling flash. There was a harsh croak and something crashed through the branches toward a clear patch of sky. Even with his eyes shaded against the flare, Singe only caught a glimpse of a big, ungainly bird flapping away. Scraggly legs trailed through the air behind it and a long neck curved back on itself. Singe's eyes widened slightly.
A heron, he thought. Twelve moons, what's a heron doing in the forest?
There was a soft rustle behind him.
Singe's heart leaped into his throat as he whirled around, sword outstretched, another spell smoldering on his lips and at his fingertips.
At the edge of the path, as if emerging from a hiding place, a woman crouched in a virtually identical pose. Her right hand held a short, pale spear at the ready. Her left was pointed at him in a gesture very much like a wizard prepared to unleash a spell. Her feet, he realized, didn't touch the ground. Instead, she hovered with no apparent effort.
For a long moment, neither of them moved. Singe studied the woman-he was certain she was doing the same to him-without moving his eyes. To judge by her sharp features and exotic clothing, she was a kalashtar.
And a kalashtar deep in the Eldeen was even stranger than a heron in the forest.
Very slowly, the woman uncoiled. Spear and hand both remained pointing at him as she drifted out onto the path and slid the length of a pace along it in the same direction Singe had been heading. He turned with her, keeping her boxed between the edge of his rapier and his own waiting spell. The woman slid another pace, spear and hand still rock steady-
The tension between them shattered as a lean figure leaped screaming out of the darkness. Singe didn't understand a word that it uttered, if they were words, and caught only a glimpse of the crude axe that it swung. He simply snapped around and spat the word of his spell.
The kalashtar woman's pointing fingers shifted at the same moment. A droning chorus of sound beat against Singe's ears, the sound of her race's weird power.
Twin blasts of churning energy caught the screaming figure and wrapped it in flame-red-orange from Singe's hand, white from the woman's. Its battle cry changed into a shriek of pain, then broke sharply as the figure spun around and fell to the ground. For a moment, the only sound in the forest was the soft crackle of fire.
Singe edged closer and peered through the burning brilliance. Their attacker had been a man dressed in rough, worn clothing, his hair strung with beads, his ears and his nose pierced through with lengths of wood and bone. The wizard turned to look at the kalashtar with respect.
'Singe,' he said simply.
'Dandra,' she replied. Her voice was rich like spices, but strained. 'There will be more of them. We have to run.'
The dull rhythm of feet pounding on dry earth pulled on Singe's ears. 'Too late!' he hissed, and took two fast steps backward to stand at Dandra's side.
They appeared from the shadows at a run-three more men and a hard, thin woman whose head had been shaved and marked with tattoos. They didn't even glance at the flaming corpse of the first attacker, but at the sight of Singe and Dandra, they broke into the same weird war cry the dead man had uttered. If it was meant to frighten their victims, Singe thought, it was very effective. His hand clenched on the hilt of his rapier. 'You strike left!' he gasped to Dandra.
He hoped that she understood, but didn't wait to see. He spoke a new word of magic and the fingers of his free hand flicked a trio of bright sparks at one of the men on the right. The man's war cry broke and he staggered-
