“Certainly not back to the castle. There will be another ambush waiting for us there, even if the ship behind us was just a merchant vessel and not my foster-father and your father.”
Karin bit her lip. “I must have distressed my father terribly. He so recently lost his oldest son to shipwreck, and now he will think he has lost me as well.”
“The two kings will doubtless be confused when they hear the seamen’s story and learn that it was you, not me, who commandeered the ship. That was a good ploy, I thought, to prove you had not been kidnapped, even though I would have tried to talk you out of it if you could hear me! But Gizor’s story-if he survives your attack-will leave Hadros uninterested in anything but revenge.”
They walked in silence for a moment, then Roric squeezed her hand again and asked, “How did you know just where to put your blade to penetrate his mail shirt?”
“You forget,” she said with a toss of her head. “I am mistress of Hadros’s castle. I have seen that mail shirt hanging in the hall, with the slit at the shoulder unrepaired, every day for years.”
And then she added suddenly, “I know where we can go, for some food and a safe place to sleep. We will go to the faeys!”
The faeys’ tunnels were behind them now, closer to the castle. Karin took the lead, hurrying through the deepening night. Roric, coming after her, listened for the troll or for armed men.
The faeys had brought their green lanterns out into the dell. When she gave the triple whistle they ran around distractedly as always, calling to each other in their high voices, before they spotted Karin and Roric.
“There is voima about you, Karin,” Roric commented. “I had never seen the faeys before I stumbled into the back of their burrows. You, of all the king’s court, are the only mortal who can find beings who seem so incapable of defending or hiding themselves.”
And then the faeys were all around them, jumping up and down and laughing. “Karin! Karin! Are you a queen yet! She’s dressed like a queen! And she has Roric with her! Is he a king now? But he has blood on him! And I didn’t like the way he came into our tunnels!”
But in their delight to see Karin the faeys quickly forgot their objections to Roric. Soon the two were sitting eating berries in the green light of the dell. The faeys, in some distaste, brought Roric a basin of water, and he washed off his hands and arms.
“Even if they use the dogs to hunt us,” said Karin, “I do not think they will find us here.” Close to the castle but sheltered from it by night and by voima, they felt temporary peace settle around them.
Roric slowly and carefully cleaned his sword, then leaned his forehead on his fists.
“I keep seeing their faces, Karin,” he said quietly. “I knew Rolf and Warulf well, slept next to them, ate and drank next to them, and now they are in Hel because of me. Not a very glorious end to their stories.”
“It also would not have been a very glorious end to yours. ”
“And a very short and pointless story mine has been so far. I am not a hero out of legend, Karin. I would never have overcome three men had they fought as desperately as I was fighting, and if I had not had you.”
“You stopped them in their mail and helmets, when you did not even have a shield,” she said warmly, putting her shoulder against his. “You are enough of a hero for me, Roric. But do you think,” looking toward him sharply in the green light, “you might have come back from the Wanderers’ realm as a man whom steel will not bite?”
“It will bite me all right.” He showed her the cut on his hand. “I was saved by fate, not any voima of my own.”
They were both silent for a moment. “How many men is it,” Roric asked then, “that Hadros boasts he had killed before reaching Valmar’s age?”
“Three, I think.”
“And they were enemies he killed in battle, not men he knew. I wonder if even he could be proud of killing his friends.” Again there was silence for a moment.
“The warriors-including Gizor-were Hadros’s sworn men,” Roric went on. “I will have to pay him compensation or be his blood enemy, even more than I am already, and yet I have nothing with which to pay him that he himself did not give me.”
“Then we will win something in the Hot-River Mountains.”
Roric lifted his head. “A kingdom, perhaps? I thought of it too. In fact-it was Hadros’s idea. I wonder if he will appreciate that I am following his suggestion while I flee for my life from him.” He tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “Yes, that is exactly what I will do, a single warrior, capture myself a kingdom.” He put an arm around her. “You will be the rest of my army, Karin.”
After a few minutes, he added, “As you plan this trip for us, have you thought how we will get to these mountains? Even if Hadros is not immediately on our trail, Gizor will be-if he lives.”
“I know that,” she said distantly.
“The ships will all be guarded against us, so we will have to go on foot unless we can steal horses somewhere. And it is a long journey. Did you have any other jewelry on you besides the ring you gave the Mirror- seer?”
“This necklace,” she said, pulling out a thin chain from inside her dress. “It might buy us food, but not horses.”
“If the Witch of the Western Cliffs is anything like a Weaver or Seer, we should save it for her. These creatures of voima seem strangely fond of mortal jewelry.”
Roric stretched, then lay down and put his head in her lap. “You and your friends the faeys can plan something. There may be two dozen men surrounding this dell in the morning, and I need to sleep before I fight them.”
2
The faeys woke them shortly before dawn. “Come with us, Karin. Wake up, make her wake up. She has to come with us! It’s not safe to stay here. There are dogs in the woods. Sunlight is dangerous!”
She and Roric allowed themselves to be squeezed into the tunnels before the faeys pulled the stone into position. With both of them inside, the space seemed even more closed-in than usual. She took deep breaths of the stale air and tried to remind herself of the alternative to being here.
“Maybe we should just stay here all day,” suggested Roric. “By nightfall, we should be fully rested-we will have to be if we’re going all that way on foot. And they should have called off the hunt in these woods by then.”
“You can stay here with us as long as you want, Karin,” said one of the faeys, giving Roric a sideways look as though not entirely sure whether to include him in the offer.
“And where are you going on foot?” another asked. “Are you not happy here?”
“There are mountains far to the north of here,” Karin said, “mountains that conceal an entrance to the Wanderers’ realm. We have to go there to rescue someone.”
“Where does she get these ideas? It must be from Roric! She said she wants to marry him. But he just escaped from the Wanderers! Why would he want to go back? Maybe he should go back by himself and she can stay here!”
“Wherever Roric goes, I go,” she said loudly, over their high voices.
Roric grabbed her arm abruptly, surprise and joy on his face. “I hear a horse.”
Karin, startled, listened. “I hear it too.”
Echoing down the tunnels came the faint sound of a whinny, a thud as of hooves. The faeys were seized with consternation. “A horse? A horse! There can’t be a horse in our tunnels! Why is a horse here? It’s all Roric’s fault!”
“Could it be the way is open again to the Wanderers’ realm?” he asked in delight. He started to jump to his feet, banged his head, and crawled instead, Karin right behind him. “This would certainly be easier than trying to find some way hidden in the Hot-River Mountains,” he called back over his shoulder.
The way quickly became dark, and the stone floor and walls were cold to her hand. “It is!” cried Roric. “It’s Goldmane!”
Karin wondered briefly to herself if he had been this pleased and excited when he reached her father’s
