Chapter 60
A mile down the road, Bolt and Rory were waiting for us. I made to dismount, but Bolt waved at me, telling me not to bother. He and Rory grabbed a couple of spare horses and swung up to join us. With a word to Queen Erendella, we were thundering north at a canter, working to put distance behind us.
“Nothing?” I asked.
He looked more than a little annoyed, the planes of his face harder than usual. “No. Rory and I aren’t gifted trackers, but with no more of a head start than they had, we should have been able to run a couple of them down. It’s like they disappeared.”
“What are the chances that every one of the people who came looking for us last night had been trained in woodcraft?” I asked.
Bolt snorted. “Most of those in Cesla’s army are common men and women who wandered into the forest looking for treasure. I’m guessing few were trained in anything.”
That description might have been apt enough to describe me ten years earlier. “That means someone taught them.”
“Cesla?” Rory asked. “Do they teach you how to track in the Vigil?”
“If they do, nobody’s mentioned it to me,” I said. “But we’re not really fighting Cesla. The fool did the one thing he wasn’t supposed to do. He delved the Darkwater and opened himself to the Fayit imprisoned there.”
“How strong are they?” Gael asked.
“There’s no way to know,” I said. “My conversations with Ealdor never touched on them, except to say that if the prison is breached, the war’s over.” I pulled a breath heavy with mist and the scent of cedar. “I think the Exordium of the liturgy gives us the best clue. After their war, the Fayit divided their gifts, talents, and temperaments among their offspring until they felt they were weak enough. Imagine someone possessing all of them,” I said. “They would be so much more than human.”
“That’s what Laewan meant,” Rory said. “Just before we killed him he said he would show us the depth of our diminishment.”
I tried to imagine fighting someone equipped with every gift, talent, and temperament that Aer had created—and got just far enough in the process to feel sick. “I think I’d rather not find out.” I looked at Bolt. “Can we push the horses hard enough to escape their net?”
He shrugged. “That depends on whether or not the people coming after us can find mounts. If I were them, that’s what I would do.”
“They’re probably still trying to hide,” Rory said. “How can they possibly catch up to us?”
I looked at Bolt. “You tell him.”
“Training a replacement didn’t used to be like this,” he grumbled. “All I had to do before Cesla’s sin was beat my apprentices black and blue until they learned to keep me from doing it.” He turned to Rory. “If they find horses and track us, they’ll run us down long before dawn tomorrow. We’ll have to stop at nightfall. They won’t. So, tell me, apprentice, what should we do?”
Rory’s eyes narrowed in thought. “I’ve never had to deceive someone smarter than me before.”
I laughed. “Modest.”
But Rory didn’t laugh. He just looked at me with that brown-eyed stare that saw everything. “Pretending to be less than I am isn’t modesty. It’s a lie.” He looked at the earth on either of the road. “How well can a gifted tracker follow a trail?”
Bolt’s expression grew sour. “Well enough to make it look like magic, even without the Fayits’ help. I’ve seen men who could look at hoofprints and tell you how heavy the rider was.”
“So you’re saying there’s no way to lose them?” Rory asked.
“Not if they’re that good.”
He sighed. “And since we’ve seen them, they’ve seen us.”
As I watched Rory think through the problem, I willed our mounts to go faster, but a horse can hold a canter for only so long and a full gallop for even less. At a signal from Erendella’s captain, we dropped into a trot.
“We need a village, a river, and supplies,” Rory said.
Bolt caught my eye. “What do you have in mind?”
Rory waved a hand at our company, some twenty strong. “There are too many of us. We can’t help but leave a trail a blind man could follow. If we leave the road, there’s no way they’ll miss it,” he said. “The earth is soft enough to betray us. We need to buy enough horses at the next village to split up without making it look like we have. We can load the horses so that the weight is the same and then divide. We can send the queen’s guards one way while the rest of us head the other. A stream or a river would help cover the deception.”
Bolt nodded in approval. “It’s not perfect, but it’s probably the best we’re going to be able to do.”
Rory looked offended. “It’s a pretty good plan, yah?”
“As far as throwing the trackers off the scent, it’s fine,” Bolt said. “But how are we going to disguise the fact that we bought up most of the village’s horses? That’s pretty hard to miss.”
“Mirren and I can take care of that,” I said, “but it’s still going to be obvious something happened. We’re going to leave a lot of muddled villagers behind us.”
“And we’re leaving the bulk of our protection behind,” Bolt added. “I’m not a big fan of voluntarily putting myself in a weaker position.”
It took me
