'Then we've got to get ahead of them if we're going to do any good,' Hanrald realized.
That prospect was daunting, at the very least. On their sturdy but short legs the dwarves had difficulty maintaining a speedy march. Now they faced the prospect of not only matching the monsters' pace, but also moving quickly enough to get ahead of them and then making a glorious, but quite probably doomed, attempt to block the pestilential advance.
'We're going to pick up the pace,' Finellen announced loudly. The doughty warriors uttered not a single word of complaint, Hanrald noticed, impressed. Instead, they followed the cadence of their leader's commands, forming into their file and following steadily behind Finellen, Brigit, and Hanrald, the latter pair leading their trail-weary war-horses.
'We'll cut a line to the northeast,' the dwarf explained. 'That should put us nearly parallel to their advance, but gradually drawing closer to the coast. I hope they won't know we're here, but we'll have to take precautions.'
'I'll ride on the point,' Brigit offered. 'That should give you fair warning. If I'm spotted, they still won't know there's a company of dwarves in the woods.'
'Makes sense,' agreed Finellen.
'It's too dangerous,' Hanrald objected. 'At least let me ride with you!'
Brigit glared at him, her almond eyes flashing. 'I don't need you to tell me what's 'too dangerous'! And the chance of us both being spotted is far greater than I alone. After all, my mare has been raised as a woods runner.'
Hanrald bit back a blunt reply. He knew that the proud sister knight was right. She'd been waging war, riding on campaign, for years before his birth. Yet a protective part of his nature worried about the thought of allowing her to ride into such danger.
'Besides,' Finellen added, her tone surprisingly soft as she addressed Hanrald, 'you're the only other rider among us. I was hoping you'd take the outrider position on our left flank. Just to make sure they don't try to get around us … you understand?'
'You're right,' agreed the Earl of Fairheight. Indeed, he and Brigit had the only two horses in the whole force. What had he been thinking, to waste that speed and mobility by trailing along with Brigit? 'But I still don't see how you intend to catch them when they can make such good time.'
'Simple,' replied Finellen with a casual shrug. 'We'll just have to march all night.'
A growing sense of urgency propelled the High King of Moonshae. Shallot thundered along at an easy lope, his broad hooves pounding the soft earth in steady cadence. Tristan and Newt had emerged from Myrloch Vale sometime during the previous day, and now they rode through Winterglen at a steady, mile-crunching pace.
'How come we can't stop and look around a little bit?' pouted the faerie dragon, still perched on the high pommel before the king. 'I know there's waterfalls on the Codsrun, and some of them have great trout pools, too. Don't you like to eat anymore?'
'It's a good thing I don't like it as much as you remember,' Tristan retorted cheerfully. 'You've put a pretty good dent in my rations!'
'Oh, posh! Though that cheese is every bit as good as I used to think it was. Say, do you think there's another little bit you could do without?'
'Not now! I told you, I'm not opening up these saddlebags until we stop for the night!'
Their course took them very near Codsrun Creek. Since his meeting with the faerie dragon, Tristan's concentration had remained uninterrupted and intense. Yet as the hours and then the days had passed, he grew increasingly perplexed by the confusion which had overtaken him.
Coupled with this mystery were the facts that he still didn't know: How many days had he been riding? How far off his track had he ventured? And what had caused his disturbing lapse in reason?
Always as he rode, he scanned the surrounding brush, studied each neighboring hilltop and tor, searching for sign of a gray body. But the wolves had disappeared, as far as he could tell, from all the world. At night, he listened carefully, but no more did their song rise to the stars.
'Hey! What's that?' wondered the spritely dragon, raising his narrow snout to sniff the air. 'I smell a swamp!'
In another moment, Shallot's gait faltered, and Tristan saw that the ground before them grew tangled and thick with vines, enclosing brambles, and dense, thorny underbrush. The war-horse slowed to a walk, then finally halted altogether, unable to proceed through the thicket.
'It is a swamp!' declared Newt, rather unnecessarily. The air had become fetid and dank. Flies rose around them, buzzing through the humid air, coming to rest on human and horse alike.
For a moment, Tristan was puzzled. He'd had a mental picture of the Codsrun flowing all the way to the sea, and now the stream itself slowed to a brackish backwater, meandering among reeds and lilies, apparently stopping in its bed. But then he remembered: He'd sailed through the Strait of Oman many times and had never seen the mouth of that splashing stream. He did remember a stretch of marsh, however-a dank fen, actually-that covered much of the shoreline near Codscove. The stream, he deduced, must spread out and form the marsh.
But was the fen to the west or the east of that coastal town? This was the crucial fact now, and the king wasn't at all sure of the answer. Still, a sense of motivation propelled him, and he didn't want to allow this terrain to slow him down.
Which way was it? He tried to remember, all but gritting his teeth from the force of his cogitation. Finally the best he could do was to guess, his mind teased by a variety of memories, none of them certain enough to give him any degree of confidence.
'We'll go east,' he announced, his voice more firm than his mind. 'In another day, we'll get to Codscove.'
'What do you want to go there for?' Newt whined. 'It's a town, isn't, it? There's just a bunch of people there. No meadows or trees or fun stuff like that.'
'A fishing town,' Tristan said calmly, knowing that, besides cheese, the bounty of the seas and streams was Newt's favorite repast. 'Why, I wouldn't be surprised if there were whole racks of cod and salmon drying in the sun … outdoors, where everyone can see them.'
'Say, that's right, isn't it?' Newt agreed, perking up. 'You don't suppose they'd mind if one or two-No, of course they wouldn't! I don't eat that much! How long did you say it would take to get there?'
Tristan chuckled silently, suspecting that the faerie dragon, if he was truly hungry, would pose a serious threat to the season's catch. The inducement worked well, however, as Newt clambered up on the pommel, eagerly looking around Shallot's broad head, tiny nostrils quivering for any advance warning of the destination.
They rode easily, skirting the fringe of the swampland and passing along the same type of open forest that had surrounded them for so much of the ride through the vale and Winterglen. A light breeze wafted through the woods, and the scents of flowers and ferns filled the air, overpowering any lingering stench of the swamp.
In the end, Tristan's estimate proved remarkably accurate, a fact which he found considerably reassuring. They passed several small farmsteads on the very fringe of the marshlands, all of them abandoned-at least, no one responded when the king rode Shallot up to the porch and called out a greeting.
These were rude dwellings, for the most part, the shacks of hunters and trappers or the small cottages of poor homesteaders. None of the places showed any sign of damage, but the absence of the residents was eerie and disturbing.
The king and the faerie dragon finally reached a larger house, several spacious rooms encircled by well-built wooden walls. A neat barn stood nearby, and Tristan heard the sounds of lowing cattle. The beasts sounded hungry, but not desperately so. Several lush grainfields and pastures were visible among the stands of oak and maple.
Here Tristan dismounted and climbed the steps, knocking heavily against the door. He was astounded when the portal swung easily open beneath his fist.
'Hello! Is anyone here?' he shouted. No answer reached his ears.
'Let's get going!' Newt urged, curled up in the saddle now that the king had left it vacant. 'I'm hungry for fish.'
'Why don't you throw those cows some hay while I go look around?' the king suggested. 'It sounds like they're as hungry as you are.'
