“Wait,” Colin said. He tasted the blood in the back of his throat, swallowed it.
Eraeth paused but didn’t turn. Everyone else hesitated, even Aeren, the lord looking back.
Colin thought about Osserin’s last words as he left the forest. You’ll return.
This was why. He’d taken the Lifeblood with him. He’d felt it every step of the way across the plains, tasted it in the back of his throat after every seizure, yearned for it. Its presence exacerbated the withdrawal symptoms, might even have made them worse. He needed to get rid of it, but he couldn’t. The thought of pouring it out on the ground made his bones ache. And he wasn’t certain he wouldn’t need it eventually. If the Well had claimed him completely, he’d need the Lifeblood to survive. But he needed distance from it. It was too tempting.
“Take it,” he said, the words rough, barely more than a whisper. He held the vial out toward Eraeth, and when the Protector turned but didn’t move, he thrust it toward him and growled, “Take it! Before I change my mind!”
No one moved. Eraeth’s brow furrowed. “Why me?”
“Because you hate me,” Colin spat. “Because you won’t give it back to me if I ask, no matter how much pain I’m in.”
Eraeth’s eyes narrowed, but after a moment he stepped forward and took the vial, staring at it a moment before tucking it into a fold in his shirt near his belt. He looked directly into Colin’s eyes and said, “You are a strange man.”
Before anyone else could speak, one of the Alvritshai guardsmen on watch gave a piercing whistle and cry. He shouted something in Alvritshai, pointing toward the southeast with the tip of his bow.
Eraeth tensed, hand falling to his sword, but Aeren merely sighed.
At Eraeth’s questioning glance-not as harsh as those he’d given his lord the past week-Aeren said, “It’s the dwarren we’ve come here to meet.”
“You should have warned me of whom we were to meet,” Eraeth said tightly in Alvritshai. His hand gripped the hilt of his sword as the dwarren appeared on the flat of the plains below. Dust rose, thrown up by the dwarren’s gaezels, and Eraeth felt sweat break out between his shoulder blades, his lips pressed together. “There are more dwarren than there are of us,” he hissed, his voice low so that the other Alvritshai couldn’t hear. He scanned the hillock where they’d halted and noted how vulnerable it was, and then his eyes flashed over the rest of the Phalanx. Messages were passed in silent hand signals, the others spreading out, clasps on blades loosened. Bows were strung by the few that carried them, but no arrows were drawn. Yet.
Satisfied with the Alvritshai, he caught the look on Colin’s face-a cold and pure hatred, the anger tightening the human’s skin near the eyes. It made the human look… hard and unforgiving. He’d recovered enough from the seizure to join them, his staff angled forward and to one side, feet slightly apart, balanced and ready.
The change startled Eraeth, enough that he took a moment to reevaluate the man Aeren had insisted on bringing along. He’d thought the human was soft and worthless, as well as cursed, but the way he held the staff indicated he knew how to use it. He’d brought down the two assassins in Portstown but had collapsed immediately afterward, so Eraeth had assumed he was weak. Colin’s reliance on the vial of water from the sarenavriell supported that… except that he’d given the vial up, had handed it to Eraeth, not Aeren. And Colin’s presence at the meeting with King Stephan had only antagonized the King. Not that it mattered. The King of the Provinces would never agree to a peace with the Alvritshai, not after the betrayal at the Escarpment and the death of his father.
Eraeth felt a surge of anger and a pang of regret. The Lords of the Evant who had participated in the betrayal that day had deceived more than the humans. They’d defied the will of the Tamaell and the other lords. They’d betrayed the Alvritshai people as a whole.
Yet Tamaell Fedorem had done nothing to punish those Lords. Nothing.
The thought left a bitter taste in Eraeth’s mouth and led to other thoughts that he knew he could not voice, not even to Aeren, even when he could see the same thoughts in Aeren’s eyes. Such as whether or not Fedorem had known of the lords’ intentions before they’d reached the Escarpment. And if he had known, why he’d done nothing to stop them.
The obvious answer-that Fedorem had planned the betrayal all along-nauseated Eraeth with shame.
The dwarren drums rumbled across the distance, and Eraeth tore his gaze away from Colin to see the large contingent of dwarren and gaezels pulling to a halt over a hundred paces distant. The dwarren in the lead glared at them from his position, then motioned to the others beside him, not taking his eyes off Aeren. The rest of the dwarren scattered, a group of warriors spreading out in a thin line. Eraeth watched as scouts slipped from their mounts and took off at a run, vanishing in the grasses in the space of a breath. Another group behind began unloading bundles and packs from an array of baggage animals. Sheets of blue-green cloth were unfolded, and poles were erected, the wood looking freshly cut. There must be a copse or thicket nearby, probably in another area where the water breached the surface. The dwarren knew the plains better than the Alvritshai.
A moment later, Aeren released a pent up breath in a slow, careful sigh. “Look,” he said, nodding toward where the poles had been positioned. The unfurled sheets of cloth were being wound around them in an intricate pattern, numerous lengths folded and woven in and out as the dwarren walked back and forth around the central poles, almost like a dance. “It’s to be a formal meeting. We’ll have to give them time to set up the tent and arrange the interior. Once they’re satisfied, they’ll come to us.”
“How many of the Alvritshai will they allow inside the tent?”
Aeren turned to consider the size of the tent. “Four, no more.”
“I assume you’ll insist that the human join us.” Eraeth tried to keep the derision out of his voice, knew he hadn’t succeeded.
Aeren smiled. “No. Colin will remain in the camp. I’ll want you there, of course, and two others. Dharel, perhaps. And Auvant. They can bring the cattan blades, but no other weapons. And they are not to draw except on my order.”
Eraeth stiffened at his lord’s tone, but nodded.
Aeren must have seen the disagreement in Eraeth’s face. He turned his full attention on him. “After what happened in Corsair, I want nothing to interfere with the possibility of an agreement with the dwarren here. Nothing.”
Eraeth heard the same intensity in Aeren’s voice as in the audience chamber in Corsair, the same driving force. His lord’s voice throbbed with it.
“Very well,” he said, nodding again, without the stiffness of disapproval, without even a trace of it in his voice.
Aeren relaxed imperceptibly, his attention returning to the industrious dwarren. They were tying off the last lengths of the tent, the edges trailing outward from the central spire. After a moment, Eraeth realized it was set up like a reverse whirlpool, the center of the tent the vortex. And like a whirlpool, he felt a sense of power surrounding it, a density of motion, of force.
“Have the others set up a more permanent camp here, near the stream,” Aeren continued. “And set sentries to keep watch.”
“And then what?”
Aeren turned toward him. “And then we wait.”
The dwarren came for them at dusk, the bright orange of the clouds fading when the sentries called out in harsh warning. The rest of the Phalanx came instantly alert, after the tension of the dwarren arrival had eased through hours of boredom. They’d caught glimpses of the dwarren scouts at a distance, but other than that there had been no movement or activity.
Toward evening, Eraeth had watched Colin wander out to where the occumaen had drifted by earlier; the human had knelt down in the grass to inspect it, lifting his head to gaze off into the distance.
When he’d returned, Eraeth had asked, “What did you find?”
Colin had shrugged. “Crushed grass. But the stalks in the center of the path had been sliced off, as if cut with a scythe. I couldn’t find the heads of the grain anywhere.”
Eraeth hadn’t responded.
Now Aeren rose, and Eraeth motioned Dharel and Auvant forward. At the top of the hillock, the sentry stepped back as two dwarren appeared on foot, both at least a foot shorter than Colin, one carrying a ceremonial spear, strings of feathers and beads trailing down from the head. The spear carrier wore the leather armor the dwarren had used before the humans introduced metal armor. Symbols and letters were burned into the armor,
