They rode hard for about an hour and were now in steep, rocky territory that led into the Eastwall Mountains. Kitiara reckoned they were about an hour from Silverhole, and that the road they could see at intervals, below them to the right, was the main one that took several days to wend around this perimeter range. She had never been this far north, but knew from crude maps that Silverhole was at the foot of the range which became, farther upcountry, all but impassable except at select spots.
After riding for a short time, they entered a maze of gorges and ravines. They maneuvered closer to the main road, and then, up ahead, El-Navar gave a signal. He pointed off to the east, dismounted, tied his horse, and melted into the rocks. Radisson and Droopface rode on, waiting near El-Navar's horse. When Kitiara, too, began to move forward, Ursa grabbed the reins of her horse and pointed up and in back of them, toward a sharp incline.
'Up here,' he said, turning his gray. Kit followed him for several minutes, heading directly up the slope. Ursa kept going to the east, with Kitiara following, until they reached a ledge that jutted out over the area, offering a good view of a place where the main road took a sinuous bend through the rocks. No longer could she see El-Navar or his horse, nor either of her other two comrades.
Ursa gestured for her to be as quiet as possible. He tied his horse and crept to the edge of the overlook. Kitiara followed his lead, advancing slowly on her hands and knees until they were both peering over the side. There was no one in sight below. Ursa gestured for her to follow him back, and she did, until they were near the horses.
'This is the place,' said Ursa in a low voice. 'Here's what you do…'
Quickly Ursa reviewed her part in the plan. Kitiara still had not gotten over the humiliation of the morning, and her face showed resentment as she listened. Though she now knew what her part was in the scheme, no one had bothered to tell her what her share of the take would be when it was all over. Or what the job was all about. El-Navar had told her last night just to do her part and forget about everything else. But she was tired of being left out of all the important decisions.
'What if something goes wrong?' Kit asked Ursa. 'What if I need to… help… or rescue you?'
Ursa's face was taut, more so than ever now that the deed was close at hand. He had been very ironic and amusing when she'd first met him, but there was none of that in his steely look now.
'If something goes wrong,' snapped Ursa, 'you run away. You have a simple job: Do your part and don't get caught. Stay ahead of your pursuers, don't let them get a good look at you. Double back and meet us. That's all you have to do. If you do that much, you'll be doing fine.'
Kit said nothing, her lips pursed.
'If something goes wrong, remember, you don't know us and you were never here.'
He clapped Kit on the arm and mounted his horse. Turning the horse, he looked over his shoulder at her. His expression relaxed and for a moment there was something of the former Ursa in his dark eyes, something genial and warm. 'Luck,' he said to her, waving as he rode off.
Another hour passed. There were few trees up this high to shade Kitiara. The sunlight reflecting off the rocks was blinding, the heat almost palpable. Kitiara heard only the sounds of occasional birds and animals, and she looked down below so long at the spot where the road snaked into a bend, seeing nothing, that her eyes began to swim with dots. She felt as if she was in the middle of a swirling snowstorm, a whiteout of all color. She wanted nothing more than to close her eyes, lie down, and go to sleep, but she remembered what El-Navar and Ursa had said. She had to stay awake and do her part.
Then she heard approaching sounds, and immediately crouched low. Tensely Kit eased forward on her hands and knees, until she could just see over the precipice. Surely they would not be able to spot her, with the unrelenting sun in their eyes. But she took no chances and stayed low.
Kitiara could see a stretch of the pebbly road as it appeared among the jutting rocks. After the road continued for several hundred yards, it disappeared back into the rocks, before once again winding into full view. She watched the first stretch of road carefully, knowing that Ursa and his mercenaries waited behind the wall of rocks that concealed the narrow, second bend.
With no warning, a man on a horse appeared at the head of the road. He was dressed in fine armor that shone like silver in the sun. He was helmeted and carried a short lance with a plume of purple feathers. Obviously wary, he moved slowly into the open area, his horse, a magnificent sorrel, prancing nervously. But the helmeted leader did not break pace, and close behind him followed other men and horses.
By the gods, there were more than a dozen of them, fully armed and armored. Some were dressed in colorful regalia, others plainly. The armored men carried a variety of estimable weaponry, while the others, probably estate workmen, carried spears. They looked like a formidable bunch, and they outdid the four waiting to waylay them in number and arms.
Alarmed, Kitiara wondered if she should somehow signal Ursa and the others. Did they realize how many men they would be up against? Had they plotted all along to overcome such odds?
Kit uttered a low gasp as she spotted a figure riding in the center of the group, on a pale roan which was the most beautiful of the horses. Strapped to his ornamented saddle was a small decorated chest that, Kit guessed, held the object of their mission.
This horse's rider was young, slender, mustachioed, with short-cropped black hair. He carried no weapons. He wore a black gentlemen's vest and white lace blouse, and even from overhead, at a distance of several thousand yards-
She ducked even lower to the ground, and with trepidation saw that the first of the riders had vanished beyond the bend. The rest of the retinue followed, one by one. For what seemed like long minutes-more likely it was long seconds-there was a tension-charged silence. It would take the riders roughly five minutes to emerge from the bend, Kit guessed. Yet the silence went on until Kitiara thought she would scream. It was as if everything, the birds and animals and the wind too, had stopped. Kitiara craned her neck, but could see nothing.
A quick series of loud reports rent the silence, not quite explosions, but terrible noises that jolted Kit's nerves. Following this, there spiraled up from the ground a cloud of dust and smoke. The cloud did not quite reach where she was perched, so she could look down on it from above. It was a strange color, a pearly white that seemed almost transparent in the sunshine, yet small particles of pitch black swirled around within it.
As she gaped, the air in the cloud crackled and each of the small black particles burst apart. From within them, as far as Kitiara could tell, a thousand black crows emerged, cawing and shrieking and flying in a mass so dense and terrifying that Kitiara shut her eyes and thrust her arms in the air to ward them off. Whether they were real or illusory, she did not know, but when she opened her eyes again after several seconds, they had entirely disappeared. When she looked down, she saw that the pearly cloud had disappeared, too.
During the occurrence, Kit was vaguely aware of screams and cursing and the noise of close fighting below. She thought she heard Ursa shout something. She heard groans and the cries of dying men, and hoped that one of them was not El-Navar.
As she looked on, several of the armored men and estate workmen rode from the bend into view, halting in apparent confusion as if something they had been chasing had suddenly vanished. Two or three of them were wounded and bleeding. The young gentleman was conspicuously absent from their midst, and Kitiara quickly gauged that about half of their original number was gone.
How Ursa and his men had escaped, if they had escaped, Kitiara did not know, but this was her cue to act.
'Ho there!' she shouted in as gruff a voice as she could manage. She stood up on the cliff so that she was clearly visible to those below and waved her arms. Kitiara could tell from their upturned faces that they were confused by seeing their lord and master so high up and far away. 'Up here!' she called. 'Hurry!'
Then Kit whirled out of view, jumping onto the waiting Cinnamon. After listening for a moment, she was satisfied to hear a clamor of voices and then the sounds of hooves pounding on the road. She knew it would take them a while to make the climb.
She spurred Cinnamon up a crude, twisting-turning path that wound up the mountainside to still higher ground. Branches whipped Kit across the face. She scraped her legs on the sharp rock outcroppings. Cinnamon stumbled once, and Kitiara had to get off and pull at her bridle to get the mare going again. Small animals darted across Kit's path. A hawk flew upward, shrieking annoyance.
